#i think it's s special interest?

[tortoise-teapot]

i swear i listen to other genres but i'm just going to keep making high brow looking playlists with electronic music until ppl start to take it seriously

[turtleblogatlast]

Thinking about how Leo says he uses his jokes to cope and y’know, thinking harder on it I think it may very well be because of what else uses one-liners and puns and that type of humor.

Specifically, 80’s action movies and campy sci-fi. Even more specifically, the protagonists of these.

So I can imagine why, exactly, Leo leans toward this brand of humor. It’s directly linked to things he loves! But even more than that is why I think it’s used as a coping mechanism.

In these genres, these quips tend to be said by the winner - or, if not a winner, then someone who will stay alive. So there’s a confidence behind them, an assurance, almost, that even if things go wrong, things aren’t ever too serious. There’s no bad endings here! It’s all good fun, even if the stakes seem high.

Leo canonically has been known to steer his brothers away from the more brutal villains and toward more fun, lighthearted activities and not-so-dangerous criminals. So for Leo, these jokes definitely make things less heavy, make the situations they find themselves in less intense.

It’s kinda not just coping, but also can be seen as a form of escapism. A safety blanket. A way for Leo to defuse the tension of knowing just how dangerous their lives are and replace that with a levity which implies that things will be okay.

Unfortunately, levity alone does not alter reality.

[waitineedaname]

hiiii lily what is this ‘orv’ i have been seeing…..

HIIII MIKE. SMILES. orv is Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint! it's a webnovel with an ongoing webtoon adaption and it is making me Fucking Crazy. basically the premise there's this really unpopular really long webnovel called Three Ways to Survive an Apocalypse, and for years, Kim Dokja has been the only reader. when the novel finally ends, the author sends him an email with the txt file of the whole novel, and then suddenly the novel is wiped from the internet and in that instant, the events of the novel begin taking place in Kim Dokja's world. the apocalypse begins and humanity is subjected to cruel scenarios and challenges livestreamed for the entertainment of these powerful entities called constellations, and as the only one who read the story to its end, Kim Dokja is the only one fully equipped with knowledge of how this story goes (or at least, how it originally went)

it is SO good. it lures you in like "ooh this is a normal reverse isekai" and then ends up being CRAZY. it deals with questions about the boundary between characters and Real People and whether that distinction really matters, and it's one of those stories that looks the audience dead in the eye and dares you to look away first. literary devices are made Real (oh fourth wall we're really in it now...) and it plays with narrative voice and pov and unreliable narration in such fun ways. it is ultimately about the value of stories and the value of being a reader and the choice to wrestle with the story that's been written for you in favor of the story you really want to tell. it's also about Kim Dokja having something Deeply Wrong With Him skdlfjlksdjf the journey i went on with him was "okay he's a reader insert who reads novels as escapism, i get it" -> "oh actually he has something wrong with him" -> "oh he has something Wrong With Him" -> "WHAT. WHAT THE FUCK. HELLO. WHAT WAS THAT." I'm obsessed with him.

I read the webtoon first which I think is a pretty effective onboarding point! some of the art had my jaw on the FLOOR it's so cool. the webtoon has adapted roughly the first third of the whole novel so far, and if you want to read the novel just dm me and I'll hit you up with the epub file lol (not just mike but anyone who is interested!)

[sleebiebear]

this is my bi-monthly 'i miss arcane' post hi. i miss arcane. i am not ready for the person ill revert back into when s2 drops

[autisticlee]

that feeling of wanting to talk about hyperfixations/special interests to someone but not knowing how to put it into words anymore after a lifetime of being told "shut up no one cares stop talking about the things you like" By literally everyone in your life and learning to completely suppress that part of yourself into numbness

[kissingarthurclaus]

TW bug mention

Uggh I just saw a cute clip from some nature special about a type of beetle from Costa Rica and the way the narrator talks about it IS SO CUTE HE SOUNDS SO ENAMORED WITH THIS LITTLE BUG AND TBH...utoniumcore 🥺🥺👉👈

[bizzyboyfriends]

I want to apologize in advance if I get dragged back into my re.dv.sbl.ue

I really love the show ( I acknowledge that uh. It's very problematic here and there. Specially in the older seasons but given how the internet was back then,,, ) and adore lots of the characters. You'll probably see me adding some sillies onto my lists. Lots of friendshapes in that show heheh

(˶Red.Vs.Blue˶) .ᐟ.ᐟ <- Tag so block if you don't wanna see it!!!

Gonna also start filtering my fandom stuff like thsi too!! just so people can identify sources easier!!

Also very long ramble in the tags!!!!

[trans-leek-cookie]

I just saw your tags on the unreliable narrator post and I really want to know what character you’re talking about now

Geto Suguru from JJK. I came for the hot Asian guy with long hair and a cool outfit stayed bc I'm interested in how cults and eugenics hurt ppl irl and also how they're explored in fiction. But between heaven and earth I alone am trying to find a fic that actually treats him being a cult leader as the problem it is and also gets fucking Nanako and Mimiko out of their. Uhhh fuck idk if u know JJK so spoilery ranting under the read more that assumes familiarity (so not like. Explaining specific plot shit bc my brain will explode)

so basically ppl have called out the eugenics shit with like "kill everyone who isn't a sorcerer" and generally they're like yeah that sucks but whatever not important lol. And I've seen like 0 shit actually about how he's a cult leader + how cults are Abusive. And some ppl are like "actually he has a point bc blah blah blah" like okay. If sorcerers were a stand in/comparable to real life marginalized groups. WE DONT NEED MORE "MARGINALIZED EUGENICIST" PLOTS. But even within the story they don't seem marginalized? Like, there are Marginalized Sorcerers, but being a Sorcerer isn't something that's consistently oppressed? The closest thing is either misdirected ableism/sanism ("they see things that aren't there and are assumed to be psychotic" which is its own can of worms) or like accusations of witchcraft which... I guess that's sorcerery based on this universe but irl those were usually used either along with or as cover for other shit (racism, misogyny, land grabs, etc). So hes not necessarily marginalized on that level- tho growing up in a family without other sorcerers mightve caused problems for him that's a LOT different from systemic oppression. And, also? In a lot of cases it seems like sorcerers are relatively privileged with a lot of economic, social and maybe political power? Like the big three families are obv examples bc they're fucking Rich and control the sorcery world so. Y'know. Also it's stated at one point sorcerers receive some like exceptions to the law but aren't allowed to hurt ppl who aren't sorcerers so. Yeag

anyways going more in depth on eugenics- okay real quick terms: negative and positive eugenics. That's not in reference to the quality, "positive" doesn't mean "good" But Rather in reference to wether the action is meant to Reduce "bad genes" or Increase "good genes". And obv negative eugenics includes shit like forced sterilization and murder which I don't want to downplay, but positive eugenics is also coercive and fucked up. For example, forcing ppl to have children they don't want. Which isn't Discussed in the series, but the fact is sorcerers a SMALL minority of the population, and they're already having trouble with curses, so. Theoretically sorcerers would be coerced to have more children to bring the population numbers up. Personally I think that's Not Something Suguru Believes In (I'll get into that but main thing is his eugenics isn't an actual strategy but rather lashing out and ego) but like. There's abuse on both sides of the equation no matter what. Eugenics isn't fucking redeemable.

Now onto the cult shit. It's not super expanded on besides needing money and curses to like. Kill ppl or whatever. But my interpretation of Suguru is that he started a cult, and believes in eugenics, because his ego was damaged. Like the trauma impacted him and influenced his actions ofc bc trauma Does That but also I straight up think his ego was bruised and he wants revenge.

Like first of all, the wider context- he's a kid who is alienated from his parents and probably most of the ppl he interacted with due to his abilities, which is understandably damaging esp at a young age.

He is then scouted and labeled as a special grade- he is one of three in Japan and I believe the world, if I'm not misremembering. He is on par with Gojo Satoru (category wise) who. Literally "Gojo Satoru's birth changed the world" like that's a NUTS ego boost to get

Anyway Gojo called the two of them "the strongest" literally pairing them up and positioning them as equals so like. Whoo boy. Also special grade sorcerer is defined as "a sorcerer who could single-handedly take down a nation" which okay! Labeling children as essentially weapons of mass destruction. Normal behavior

Then Toji happens and this random fucking guy beats you up. He kills your best friend and the girl you were escorting. But he doesn't kill you- because of your cursed technique being risky to deal with, but also. Obvious subtext of "you aren't important enough to kill"

Then your friend comes back from the fucking dead. Kills the man who tried to kill him. Discovers entirely me abilities and becomes even more powerful. And you are stagnating, with a technique you fucking hate. Your entire power is the power of Other Things.

So like. Understandly, thought maybe not justifiably, your ego is fucked.

So you start creating a new dichotomy: sorcerers and everyone else. If everyone else is lesser, you still have worth because you're Better than them by virtue of existing.

And then you discover 2 children being abused for the thing you have a victim complex over (<- this is also it's own thing I'll talk about) and you murder a bunch of ppl about it (okay this is a little questionable of My Opinions maybe but I could. Not forgive but understand the mass murder bc there's a lot of shit building up and clearly if 2 young girls being badly abused in a small village that implies the majority of people were either okay with it or unwilling to try and help at all. Anyway it's still Bad but like. Understandble mental breakdown trauma kinda bad for me? Also bc most ppl irl recognize murder as being Bad but are Weirdly Forgiving of bigotry yknow)

Anyway you take over the cult that was doing some other shit and my personal interpretation of this is also an ego thing. Bc lots of cult leaders do it for the money, but a lot of them also do it bc they like the feeling of controlling ppl. And there's essentially 2 levels of the cult- everyday people and the people he considers Family (which includes Mimiko and Nanako, the 2 children from the paragraph above).

On the "everyday people" level, there's a feeling of being a revered religious leader, knowing something they don't (curses exist), and the satisfaction of taking advantage of the people you don't like.

On the Family level, you position yourself as a savior and as The Only One Brave Enough To Do What Must Be Done (eugenics genocide) so even if you aren't the strongest you're still Special.

So that's my main analysis of why he became a cult leader, and now I'm gonna make more comments about why I think his shit is "Ego" rather than a (fucked up) desire to actually help ppl

If you wanted to help sorcerers survive: THE CLANS ARE A MASSIVE FUCKING PROBLEM. They hoard techniques tools and knowledge and the Zen'in clan literally cast out Toji who could've been a fuckin BEAST at dealing with curses. The clans reliance of tradition also generally hinders sorcerers ability to grow and improve in ways that aren't Traditional

When he dies the cult falls apart (which: good) but also the members have different ideals like some of them wanna keep doing eugenics, some of them just wanted Suguru to be powerful, and two of them were basically his adopted kids. If you actually had good intentions: CREATE A PLAN FOR WHEN YOU DIE SO YOUR FOLLOWERS CAN ACTUALLY CARRY OUT YOUR WILL AND HELP PEOPLE INSTEAD OF LETTING THEM INFIGHT

And idk if this is totally Ego or starting to move into a separate thing so I just decided to split it up: even when he was "righteous" his beliefs kinda Sucked

Like "the strong must protect the weak". There are inherent sort of... values being placed there, because weak is negative, not neutral. It's relatively minor, but I think it's important to note with how his beliefs evolve.

It's not like "we need to protect the people who can't protect themselves" it's really reductive. There's weak people and strong people and basically Noblisse Oblige but for strength or whatever which isn't really actual kindness or equality but rather pretty much. Pity.

Also he sorts jujutsu sorcerers into "strong" and everyone else into "weak" for the most part so that's... great worldview my guy. Definitely not going to just worsen your alienation from other ppl

so when he goes to "why should the strong protect the weak?" He jumps to "the strong don't owe anything to the weak, and actually the weak should be Punished For Being Weak" instead of. Just doing something else. Just get a fucking job, my guy

Anyway his plan is just garbage top to bottom total mess morally and logistically and he's a traumatized teen who grew into an abuser and like. The trauma influenced that but there were always fucking problems so it isn't "oh he got hurt and is evil :(" it's "he has some worrying beliefs and his trauma is likely making his emotions and ability to reason unstable, and then he finds an excuse to turn that instability into Violence" like. He's not necessarily abusive bc he's mentally ill or traumatized marginalized he's abusive bc he got to a point in his life where he could justify it to himself and it felt Good

And I just remembered this part: for the characters who interact with him I do enjoy that they still like and love him, even though he fucking sucks, because that's very human. You'll love imperfect people, you'll love horrible ppl who hurt you and/or others, and that isn't irredeemable it's just Human because being a Human and Connecting With Humans is complicated like that

I even like it when they excuse his bad behavior! Bc that's a realistic character flaw, to value the person u consider your friend over the people they hurt! It's not ethical, but it's natural and interesting to explore in fiction.

THE PROBLEM. IS WHEN THE AUTHORS DO NOT TREAT OR ACKNOWLEDGE IT AS A PROBLEM.

Like... listen. Love a relationship where one character sucks and the other character forgives them for the ppl they hurt and just wants their loved one back. The problem is when the writers are like "aww this is so sweet/romantic/beautiful" WHATEVER. Because it's not??

Someone defending their fucking abusive partner/friend/family member, especially when they aren't victims themselves, isn't fucking sweet it's scary, either for them or others!!!! And I want either to see the characters grapple with the way they excuse their loved ones' abuses and how that reflects on them and their morals, or, if the characters don't do that, for the author to acknowledge it as A Flaw!!!! I'd that too much to fucking ask

Especially with cult abuse, I don't want to say it's necessarily treated worse than any other type of abuse, but it feels really hard to find things related to fictional cults that actually acknowledge the Real Life Damage and Abuse cults do instead of having the cult be 1. Faceless evil 2. A joke 3. Fetishized/romanticized. And like all forms of abuse are similarly distorted in media + fiction, but I feel like ive almost never seen cult abuse portrayed respectfully/accurately, especially in fan works

Anyways for the wild TL;DR I think Geto Suguru's personality is comparable to an anti-sjw trans guy who is getting scarily close to Actual Fascist beliefs and is hurting all the people around him and his ex mutuals are like "he's not that bad" when he is That Bad and I'm so fucking mad about what happened to Nanako and Mimiko. If I think about their canon treatment I get so upset I start to have a headache

[cactusdying]

yess hatsune miku would love your sopping wet dog of a man 🥰🥰🥰

bonuses under the cut

also this thing (ft ritchy flt and genbu lite)

[cessmaga]

idk I don't really ship sonknux anymore, I think aroace sonic is just better, like I would rather focus on sonic, shadow and silver's sibling dynamic

[kakusu-shipping]

You know when I said I was redesigning my Self Inserts and going in Age Order? Yeah I lied.

Here's a bunch more Redesigned Self Inserts, no longer in any particular order, just who I had the ideas for at the time.

[matchbet-allofthetime]

Y'all ever think about the fact that re2 originally came out in early 1998 and dmc came out in 2001

And that Dante came to be solely because he was the original personality for leon

And both fandoms became huge and have multiple games and they both share most of their fans

And that despite Leon's official personality being an awkward, sarcastic, stoic pretty boy and Dante's personality being the womanizing, pizza-loving, laid-back pretty boy, one gets bitches {highly affectionate} and the other doesn't?

And Leon's awkward ass gets more bitches than dante CANONICALLY ever has (which for dante, is less than zero)

Dante flirts with everyone yet doesn't actually get anyone (primarily by choice it seems, good for him 👍) and leon is awkward as shit and gets kissed by one woman (ada, but correct me if I'm wrong it's been ages for some games/films) and that's still more bitches {highly affectionate} than dante

How the fuck 😂

[hotdyke-hardstyle]

finally started playing hi3 part 2 and my initial impressions are:

the music absolutely slaps, A++ job

the cinematics, the models, the environments look good

I like that the mc has voice acting and, so far (which for me is about 40 mins) she isn't just an empty self-insert

struggling to care for any of the new characters, but it's very very early on

not a fan of the new playstyle

not a fan of the outfit design, the dreamseeker is the least offensive to me but i still don't really like it

don't like that it's seemingly an open-world game

kind of just feels like they're trying to turn honkai impact into star rail

it's very early doors for me though and I think i'll persevere and play out the entire first chapter before giving up completely. I have a lot of difficulty adjusting to change so I think that's a big chunk of why i'm apprehensive about part 2, especially since it's a whole new cast. I also think i'm just ready to be done with hi3 because I was overall satisfied with the ending to part 1 and I would like to be released from the curse of the never-ending gacha stories. even if part 2 is objectively good as a game I think i'm ready to stop playing a game that will probably consume itself in order to keep pumping out content because that's what a gacha does. I was super invested in part 1's cast and story and now that that's concluded i'd be happy with hanging up the hi3 towel, maybe returning on the off-chance that they bring back the main cast. we'll see.

[lessluck]

ooc // there is nothing worse than a hyperfixation that None of my friends want to hear me infodump about

[friendofthecrows]

The thing that gets me about chat gpt is how tempting it is. If everyone was aware of the flaws and willing to do their own research on topics then there isn't really a problem. In that case, it could be like any other chatbot or AI generator that people mess with for fun or out of curiosity to see what it says.

Given that it generates stuff based on all the relevant sources it can get its metaphorical hands on, it's pretty good at seeing what kinds of thing people would talk about for a subject. It's GREAT for analyzing cliches and very typical structures in writing, if you give it vague creative writing prompts (fun exercise: tell it to generate some fiction writing prompts, then give it each of those prompts. get ready for some of the most generic fiction you've ever read.)

For research...I mean. Sometimes it does give a good overview of something but as the topics get more and more niche and there are either fewer papers/articles about it or the ones that exist are behind paywalls, chat gpt becomes less accurate and more of an estimation of what it thinks a paper about this should sound like. (using thinks loosely here). And as I said, so long as people are willing to do their own research, this is fine.

But getting a quick, easy, overview of the facts without having to do potentially hours of research, having a summary of many sources already synthesized rather than going through all of them and trying to mentally compare and contrast what different people say as you go...if it could work, any college student or knowledge/research-based professional can see how tempting it would be. "Wouldn't that be great? Think about all the time and effort saved!" your average person says. But your average person does not work in AI. Your average person does not work in data science either. Nor does your average person work as a librarian, archivist, or related field. Some of them do, but enough of them don't. The average person has already ignored every teacher's advice that there is really, unfortunately, no substitute for looking through as many different reliable sources as you can. We know the AI is mostly for fun, curiosity, or perhaps a jumping-off point, but they think "well it's accurate enough isn't it? The things it says are based on way more sources than I could read in the hour or two I'm willing to spend. So it's better, right? And it's so much easier." My beloved but misguided dude, a Wikipedia article is based on way more sources than you can read in an hour or two. And that at least has a fact-checking/review process! People have to add sources! Chat gpt is an estimated imitation of a Wikipedia article, but without the weirdly dedicated nerds (complementary) who check things for accuracy. And Wikipedia isn't even considered a good source. You'll notice that it's considered...a jumping-off point. *gasp* exactly how you should treat chat gpt if you ever want to use it to actually start researching something. Pls for the love of academic integrity just do further research.

But people are sooo tempted by the easy answers (understandable). And that's why so many people are blindly trusting chat gpt.

[thateclecticbitch]

Having a special interest that is a niche within a niche is hell