#i'm just talking

[greeknerdsblog]

People sleep on Bulgarian literature is all I'm going to say

[coolguyalert69420]

when will it be time for me to yap about the similarities between the monkees and big time rush SIGH

[gyokutoll]

these are the ramblings of a madwoman before i do my workout so i have no idea if i'm cooking. this won't be coherent and it'll be pretentiously high concept and i'm sorry.

i need to preface this with saying i am fascinated by the way humans interact with gender and the theories of gender as a performance and what that means in media. i've always found gender as performance one of the more interesting understandings of how people "do" gender and what it means to be a certain gender. i should preface this further by saying that hotaru is a cis gay man, but i write him in a way with places him in the roles of women in media.

hotaru was specifically written to be a victim and a damsel the way women are in media. a lot of horror involving the experiences of women tend to have to do with the loss of bodily autonomy, namely through SA. Silent Hill with Heather having to give birth to god, and being reluctant to. Literally all of Haunting Ground. The thing about women in horror is that the part which is meant to frighten the reader and motivate men is the loss of their bodily autonomy, the way that the villain is reinforced by the way that it can claim the body of a woman, as well as themes of forced birth. Bloodborne follows similar through lines.

Hotaru's horror is based off of what I am calling "feminine horror." This is very likely not the proper academic term, but for the sake of our analysis, it'll do without me having to cite twelve essays by media analysts. The fact that Hotaru does not have dominion over his own body, that he cannot die because another man said that he could not, that Hotaru is very specifically a victim to a man, is all extremely intentional. I'm not saying each death that Hotaru experiences is SA. In fact, none of them are, but we need to understand symbolism. Not every death is meant to be SA, but some of them do follow this narrative current as being against his will, at this indignity which he is forced to suffer over and over again as his body is taken from by yokai for sustenance. That Hotaru, by his very definition, is something to be consumed.

Hotaru is an object in the way that women are objectified in horror. Hotaru is an object when he clocks into work and has to give his time to clients, and Hotaru is an object to yokai when he is consumed. The way that women are reduced to objects, these things to be taken from and possessed is exactly Hotaru's condition. He is meant to explore the issues that women face in the horror genre while being removed from the condition of being a woman. This is not to say that his masculinity has no bearing on his character either. The bullying he received in high school was due to the fact that it was known that he was gay. Hotaru forfeited his masculinity the moment in which it became known that he was homosexual, that this fundamental emasculation lowers the social class of the individual that whatever benefits they might have received from patriarchy have been considerably lessened.

This is not to say that Hotaru is not a man, but this is to say that patriarchy upholds itself not only through the oppression of women, but through the othering of men. That a man needs to stand on the body of another in order to be raised higher.

Hotaru actually has a narrative counterpart which clarifies his themes more through the lens of Tsugumi Mochida (mentioned on his carrd). I can't go into her too much because it would just be too long, but she is the narrative counterpart of "what if a woman was a man" in the same way of "what if Hotaru is a man who was a woman", where their themeing is precisely built around the markers and behaviors which would have indicated the narrative roles of the opposite gender in classic horror media. This is again, not to say that this is a perfect analog to real life. It is as much rooted in contemporary society as it is in the unique bubble that fiction occupies with the pieces in which they build their narratives.

It should be understood that Hotaru is The Damsel archetype. He is simultaneously The Bimbo through his hosting work, making the ways in which he is murdered feel "deserved" to a conservative audience due to the seediness of his given profession. Hotaru's sexual activity, or lack thereof, does not matter in a society which values the image of purity rather than its execution, necessarily. It does not matter that Hotaru does not have sex, but the impression that he might is enough to incur retribution, as if the case with women. It does not matter that a woman does not open her legs, but the supposition that she might or that she exhibits behaviors which could "earn" a murder, are enough to justify that murder.

Hotaru is also The Final Girl, the survivor who has witnessed horrors untold, but a vital component of The Final Girl, is that she is still pursued by the horrors she escapes. That yes, she might have a scene comfortable at home, but there might be a bloody hand on her door knob, or a strange figure at her workplace that she can't quite see. The fact Hotaru keeps returning to life keeps paradoxically making him a survivor each time he's killed, and thus haunted like The Final Girl.

The conceit of Hotaru is that he is designed to be vulnerable and good and complicated and haunted and killed. That his strained relationship with strict masculinity and being othered results in a condition which is not the same as womanhood, but might be similar to it in some of its vulnerabilities. Bodies are a resource and a commodity and Hotaru isn't a war story which we might see men shoved into a meat grinder. He is, ultimately, an entertainer and a performer and fair and lovely and because of that, he has more in common with the women in horror movies, than the men who might have died valiantly or due to their own stupidity. In a horror movie, being a woman is enough to be murdered.

And in Hotaru's case, it's enough to be a beautiful man breaking away from traditional masculinity to be murdered. I focus heavily on the roles that gender plays in these presentations because queerness adds an entirely different dimension to it. But i've always been really fascinated by tropes in the media and how they're portrayed in horror media, specifically, that Hotaru is based around a lot of that. I'm losing steam and realize this is deranged but yes. Hello.

I guess the conclusion is that Hotaru is an exploration of horror in which autonomy is lost to his body so thoroughly that he cannot die, and the indignity therein. I realize this is all very depressing, but I do want to clarify that past all of the blood and gore and horrible things, he slowly finds things to live for whether that be photography or his chinchilla or his friends. I think trauma porn is disgusting and I don't take any voyeuristic enjoyment from it, but Hotaru is like... the culmination of my academic interests.

Hotaru explores this idea that survival is through community and through the forging of connection and alliance, that survival is predicated on the capacity to love and to be loved sincerely, that the world's depravity might be present, but it cannot ultimately supersede the earnest love and hope of the human condition, that mankind retains this remarkable resilience to continue living even despite disproportionate suffering, that there is a reason the band kept playing even while the Titanic was sinking.

[radiohahas]

has anyone done any of these hxh fic crossovers

⇾ neon genesis evangelion x hxh

gon as shinji, combine a bunch of eva pilots for killua, bisky as misato, etc? obvs could keep gon's sunnier disposition but the abandonment trauma and general spiraling would basically stay the same (T.T)

⇾ banana fish x hxh

i think this one writes itself ... killua as ash, gon as eiji, probably ikalgo as shorter, kurapika and leorio as the "chaperones" ... make the gay subtext just text ofc ... but like yknow without all the [spoilers that i will not list - especially the end one], maybe change up some canon bf trauma stuff for killua (or not). the zoldycks could be swapped for dino, blah blah blah

--

i think i had one more floating around in my head but cannot recall. anyway, obvs these would be killugon. do you see my vision?

i do not have it in me to write either of these atm if they don't already exist (way too tired. have got other fics waiting patiently on the wings, etc. though, who knows the future, maybe one day i could get around to it) but i thought i'd just share bc they're fun to consider

[josie-marks]

In my teenage years I really avoided taking pictures and I also didn't have a phone to take them, also I always thought I didn't look very good in those most of the time, when I became an adult at 18 years old my brother changed his phone so I get to keep his old one so I would take a thousand of pictures with a cute animal filter or something like that on. I would take a lot of pics of my pets as well and this phone was like an archive of my early adult life (which was me spending the whole day on my bedroom because I was too depressed btw) and I lost everything that's so fucking sad for real because the phone broke. Then I got my sister's old phone and took a great ton of pics and then I changed my phone for my first new phone and it was fine because I get to keep the ssd with my pics but my sister lost it forever so I lost everything again omg. But now I take a o lot of pictures still and I'm always trying to find the perfect film camera filter because I'm obsessed with how these film cameras makes pictures look, but I have no money to buy a film camera because they're too fucking expensive.

But what I was trying to say with this post is that I really enjoy taking pictures.

[missmitchieg]

I said it in the tags on some other post, but I'm gonna say it again. I know Elle Greenaway had to leave the team because Lola Gaudini wasn't happy in LA and wanted off the show, but her leaving literally did not have to be written like that. It was done purely for drama & angst but there wasn't thought put into it.

[centaurivee]

50 HITS ON DESIGNER HEART COMMON BLOOD AAA I HOPE PPL WENT :) FOR A LITTLE BIT WHEN THEY READ IT

[hottu-doggie]

You better keep your doors locked twice tonight.

Cuz i might appear next on your bedroom...

And give you goodnight kisses... or ever worse...

A nighty night huggies...!!!! 😱💥

[wenumsmol]

I'm a little rough around the edges because life's been rough around my edges. Ya feel me?

Do you still like me though?

[hazyerrors]

While I'm ranting.

Can I point out this very specific ask CQ answered?

And then these from Fresh origin comic.

Those little ghost looking things are Souls from a bunch of universes, Fresh is made out of many Souls.

So that Ask about Fresh Jumping from body to body being unable to develop emotionally, hear me out, what if Fresh whole being is kinda like pieces of all those Souls put together, that Fresh is so lost in the chaos of their own being, that's why staying with one body/host they start to reconnect to 'humanity' because they're supposed to have a full Soul, but were given sections of the other Souls instead. 

So if they stick to one body/host/Soul, because the segments Souls are still less than the Host's full Soul, they might start to feel more whole like they should've been, because it’s as if the host Soul is his.

So The host becomes Fresh when the parasite possess them, but in a way, Fresh becomes their host as time goes on. not like the host takes back control, but Fresh becomes more like they were with emotion and even empathy, before Fresh took over their body.

[dragongirltongue]

My main pro6lem with incorrect quote 6logs is like, they all pull from the same small pile of funny dialogue vines/tiktoks/sitcoms. the humor of it drains super quick I think.

[autistic--daniil--dankovsky]

as soon as we get nitro back i'm making us stickers to use when words get too hard/difficult

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[radiohahas]

just watched the hxh films for the first time ...

phantom rouge wasn't bad - thought there was a lot to like - the killugon and core four emotional beats, the animation, and other stuff - but last mission? what ... what was that? i almost want to watch it again just to not feel like i'm judging it too harshly but i can't seem to convince myself to do it again lol. especially since i accidentally watch last mission first, then phantom rouge, which was a good high note to end on between the two

also the way hisoka kept popping up in both really made me wonder what he gets up to in his free time. doesn't he have other places to sew ruin and chaos? does he not have errands to run? i need like a one panel comic of hisoka doing mundane things like using a vending machine or doing his laundry or picking up his dry cleaning or smthg. like the man definitely has to maintain That Look. what an awkward helicopter parent/plot-forwarding/exposition device he makes

[namedforvalor]

Sometimes I think that just the being alive might kill me. Sometimes I worry that I might just let it. Let it put me in the ground because I'm too tired to fight it, too apathetic to care. I feel the twinges and the aches and I take a deep breath and keep walking. My therapist says that's good, that's healthy, I'm supposed to take a deep breath and keep walking, but I don't know how to tell her that some tiny part of me, some sick, twisted part of me might be ignoring it because I don't want to fix it.

Maybe on my tombstone they'll write "she was sad her entire life" as if that's some kind of accomplishment, as if I'm some kind of martyr. The thought used to make me feel warm but these days I'm just tired. Tired of being a martyr. Tired of being sad. When I ask my mom for a hug, she begrudgingly gives it to me, always pulls away too quickly, never has a softness to her body, to her eyes, and she tells me I'm strong, that I've always been strong, and, gesturing vaguely with her hands, that this will only make me stronger. And I don't know how to tell her that I don't want to be stronger- I just want to be happy.

Maybe happy is too ambitious. Tupac once said that god had cursed him with the knowledge of what this life was supposed to be. Maybe he cursed me, too. Maybe happiness is out of reach for me. I want to be content at the very least. But I never saw myself getting past eighteen and every year since then has been a fever dream, a kicking and screaming fight, a barely keeping my head above water gurgling sound, an ER visit at three am. It's never been happy. It never was happy. How do you tell someone the sadness was there when you were five, seven, ten, thirteen? How do you tell someone that it's sat like a weight in your stomach for as long as you can remember? How do you tell someone you born with it? And how do you tell someone that you've tried everything from therapy to digging it out with a rusted blade to get rid of it, but you never got deep enough to actually touch it, to actually grab it, to actually rip it out and see it for what it was? Maybe it would be too soaked through with blood to even make it out.

[missmitchieg]

I just think stop trying to fix him. Pull an Elizabeth Bennet and make him want to fix himself.