#its a big commitment

[the-switch-conspiracy]

[Prev]

Intermission: The Perils Of Not Reading the User Manual!

[User 0001 has a new tutorial mission available. Would you like to access it? ^(@w@)^]

Shang Qinghua’s hand stilled from where it was shoved in his bowl of sunflower seeds. He’d been in the midst of a 3-hour paperwork binge, sorting requisitions that should have been handed in weeks ago - But noooo, prove you can do your job well, and what do you get rewarded with? More work! - When the system message flashed in front of him. Rather than its usual white text on cool blue, the letters were pulsing a soft warm yellow, and the screen seemed almost more teal… System did you update?! And what’s this about tutorial missions!

“What do you mean a new tutorial mission? You’ve never given me a tutorial mission before!” The seed shells crack in his grasp, tutorial missions? Ha! As if his system would give him something so helpful! B-points, plot adherence, what else is there?! Besides he literally grew up here, what more was there to learn!

[User 0001 is incorrect. This SYSTEM informed User at transmigration of pending tutorial missions. User responded -ahhhhgrawwahhhaaaah- and quite vigorously hit this SYSTEM’S mute button (o///o)]

BS! Not fair! This transmigrator was a baby! How could this one be expected to accept in that state?

[Further more, this SYSTEM has assigned multiple additional tutorial missions on review of User 0001’s activity. Due to User muting tutorial messages, this SYSTEM helpfully made them accessible through the System User Manual! (>OuO)>]

!!!! @$%* !!!! “A system user manual? And what is in said manual?” Shang Qinghua was sure his current face would even give the scum villain Shen Qingqiu pause. Grit teeth was an understatement, and Mu Qingfang would no doubt have much to say about the current clench of his jaw. Pulling all-nighters wasn’t easy, and the system playing him for a fool only made the no doubt impending migraine worse! He’s already been distracted from his signing of… what was it, ah yes more training swords for the Bai Zhan disciples! Of course it was Bai Zhan! Liu Shidi control your brats! Though he was sure he’d filled out this exact form hours ago! How many did you send??

[User could access:]

A secondary window popped up next to the first. It was a dull grey contrasting the bright teal of the first, its letters uniform and blocky, it’s text to speech voice less refined in its intonation. Unsurprisingly, it gave Shang Qinghua the creeps. It was the Windows 2000, to the system’s usual Windows XP!

{Information about preventing plot inconsistency! Information about disabling OOC lock! Information about unlocking the skill tree! Information about Author Permissions of the World State in Current P̷̧͆͋̌Ĩ̵̩͖̜̱̮̓̍̏̾̃͐̚Ḑ̷̩͔͕̑̏̽̔̐̓̎̅̇̓͆͝͝Ẅ̴̗̙̝͙̣̺̼̭̫́̉͑̄̓͆̅ ̸̧̼̞͔̼̳̖̮͙͍̳̥̩̜̇̿͗̏̽̇̽̀͘͜Ḯ̴͕̲̗̫̩̩͍̙̠͕̌̐̉͆́͒̂̚͜͝͝͝͝͝Ṋ̸̡̡̢̡̦̮̀̀̿͛͒̆͗S̷̨̧̛̞̞̹͒̋̒̃T̴̢̫͇̗̜̦̟̎̂̍̇̀̀̄̑͆̽͜A̵̢̡̢͖̤̩̯̗̟͇̝̹̦̓̀͛̃͋̑̇͘N̴̹̺͐̐̃͊́̋̄̅̆͑̀̃̃͋C̴̡̨̧͈̠͓̜͍͕̺͖͈̬̄̎̎͋̏̈́͗͜͝͠É̶̞͓͒͊͌̉ ̵̡̘͖̱̺̫̤̤̬̮͈̈́́̀̿͗̈́̎̍͜ͅS̸̢̫̳͕̱̰̹̲̪̠͕͉͔̓̅̓̅́̆̈́̌̔̑̕͜͝V̷̢̡̫̣̠̩̣̮̮̼̙̝̺̑͑̏̀͋��̾̂͗͊͆̓͛͜͝͠S̴̳̣̭̐̀S̴̢͖̼̱͕͍̣͈͓̝̬̟��̃̊̀̏̏̔̒͊̌̓̕ͅŜ̶̳͎̣̯̼́͑͂́͒͛́͠ ̵̞̱̜̫̻̘̩̜̓̐͌͜ͅ0̸̻̦̬̲̞̣̯̈́̋̑͗͊͗̈̉͋̿͑̚͘͜͝͠.̶̛̰͕̠̫͚͓̱̦̊̍̿͝2̴̨̡͙̙̲̫̺̹͎̱̣̟̓́̏͌̅̾͌̐̄̚!} A loud buzzing, crackling emanated from the screen, the final words so badly distorted they were unreadable to him. A peculiar sense of dread engulfed him, like he’d looked upon something not meant for human eyes. The window popped shut with a static hum.

“So uh, picked up any malware lately?” It was said with the all the dread that only a man facing his imminent demise could scrounge up! Completely ignoring him, the system continued.

[Tutorial Missions Available:

(Completed) Transmigrated and All I Got was Anxiety! Reward: Mellowdust Prescription, User Name Change.

(Tutorial) Welcome to your Authorial Debut! Reward: 500 B-points.

(Main) The Frozen North. Reward: Always Warm Socks.

Two of a Kind! Reward: System Chat. (Currently Unavailable)

(Tutorial) What is a Self Saving System? Reward: Disabled OOC Lock. (Alternative Route Chosen)

(Tutorial) System Archival Update Tutorial. Reward: A Cool Cape, ARCHIVAL Glasses.

NEW QUEST! (Main) The Archivist Assistant! Reward: Access to the ARCHIVIST, Access to the ARCHIVES.

NEW QUEST! (Main) A bug is a bug i̷̪̩̕š̸̢̳̜̣̻͓̖͚͕͕͉̜̖̼̄͗͛͑̋̓̀̉̀͝ ̸̢̱̥̬̙̞̭̞̹̫͜͝ã̸̡̻͊̇̄̍̆͑̔̏̇ ̷̨̳̱̼̹̙̺̙͙̖̞̫̥͍̄́͗̄̃̕b̸̤͇̼̘̭̉̆̈́̃̀̒̈́͛u̸̻̥͍͎̦̅̈̐̀̈̋͐̈́́̿͝g̶̦̹̬̞͍̗͉̀ͅ. Reward: 10 000 F-points.]

“What the hell are these rewards, and what the hell are F-points?” Shang Qinghua has lived most of his new life in fear, it truly is an old friend in that one regard. Ever present; the fear of being found out a traitor, the fear of dying to Mobei-Jun, the fear of not having enough B-points and simply boop, gone, back to a carcass. It’s exhausting, it’s constant, every win and point and eked out bit of happiness danced tumultuously on a wire, hanging thousands of feet above the clouds. One beat out of tune, one misstep, the sudden slack of the wire… no Shang Qinghua.

Now a new fear made manifest; the system is acting strange. The system that arbitrarily decides whether he’s here or not, isn’t behaving the way it should. Archives? F Points! Tutorials? It felt wrong, out of place, like looking at one of those ‘guess the difference’ puzzle games, and realising the picture is of your childhood room taken from the closet door. Or something like that. Maybe he should go back more towards ‘heaving flesh more pebbled than the path they trekked to get there’ type metaphors..? Or perhaps back to filling in the requisitions for… Thousand Night Honey for Qian Cao Peak, Mu Shidi that stuff isn’t so easily bought! Hmm, wasn’t this form…?

[F-points are a new reward point type for specific missions! Like B-points for being a bad-ass, Satisfaction points for helping others, F-points are Fix-Points. They can be used to bring stability to plot changes and purchase helpful items you can’t get from the B-point shop! As for the rewards, well User 0001 only needs to complete the mission to find out! (>///<)]

Stability to plot changes? So, he can change things… But why now? Was it the update, or something else? This bad feeling inside… the more he thinks about it, it only grows stronger. His eyes flick to the corner of the room, the shadows on the wall. A perfect copy cast from the potted plant in front of it, only slightly hazy at the edges. His eyes flick again, to the light coming through the window. It’s morning, the sun having only risen four hours before, yet the dawn casts gentle rays through the gauze. Dust moats float silver in the soft gold.

[Shang Qinghua has one more mission available. Would you like to access it?]

That window faces the west.

[NEW QUEST! (Main) Save the World!]

[Next]

[daisybell-on-a-carousel]

My batfam Twitter au idea is that Jason made an official hero account in his robin days for Robin. Obviously it went inactive during his death and for quite a bit later. But one day he just casually replied or retweeted something about him with no explanation, and just kept popping up randomly and semi-rarely

He never makes a red hood account. He just keeps using the 2nd Robin one. He hasn't even changed the icon or title or anything

[grandwretch]

i do think peak comedy is a steve who is absolutely aware of the effect he has on people, but has never felt that way towards anyone else-- the closest he got was with nancy and robin, because he loved them both in different ways, and sometimes he felt like he was going to go insane if he didn't talk to them or touch them right now, but it was never like he had seen other people act about him. robin and nancy made him a better person. they didn't drive him to ridiculous levels of violence and obsession. maybe people in hawkins were just fucking weird.

and then he meets eddie, falls in love with eddie, and he's like... yeah, okay. alright. no, i get it. if anything happened to this guy i would steal the nuclear launch codes.

[b4kuch1n]

siren

[bread-wizards]

Love Laudna wanting Orym to be the one to cut her down if need be because she feels he can make hard choices, and Travis like "uh hello? What about Chetney? You want to put Orym through that anguish? I am right here" like damn, he right tho

[c-kiddo]

was worried parts of cr2 would not hold up on rewatch (especially seeing people hate the aeor arc so much) but ngl so far its either been good and fun as hell (travellercon, pirate arc) or just straight up banger after banger. like the xhorhas to angel of irons through to refjorged arc and then the cathedral.................. unrelenting slay

[antianakin]

Happy fix-it AU where Padme leaves Anakin anyway because she realizes how bad he is for her, and she ends up retiring because she REALLY doesn't want to be a Senator anymore (it was also maybe encouraged by her Queen after her secret marriage to a Jedi was discovered) and she goes back to Naboo to be with her family. She's left behind her responsibilities but she doesn't know what to do now, she's just... adrift, sort-of in limbo and mourning her relationship with Anakin. She has to keep convincing herself not to go back to him because she KNOWS she doesn't want that anymore, she KNOWS she doesn't want to be the person she was with him again, but the thrill of the secret marriage to someone who was so passionate about being with her is also sort-of like a drug.

Her parents both offer to let her come help them in their respective jobs, but she doesn't really have the energy for that right now. She DOES like helping Sola with her nieces because their energy and innocence seems to be a balm for her heart. One day, Sola asks if Padme can take the kids to a local festival in Theed one day while she and her husband go do something else, and Padme agrees. The girls are old enough and Theed is safe enough that they can wander off on their own away from Padme as long as they know not to go TOO far and come back to her after a little while. As she peruses the different artwork on her own, one artist's work stands to her more than anyone else's, it just hits at the core of her and she's not even sure why. She stands in front of a painting of a bird in flight for what seems like hours, though it can't be more than a minute or two, before the artist himself comes over to speak to her.

He addresses her as Senator Amidala, and she quickly tells him that she's not a Senator anymore and she doesn't really want to go by the name Amidala either, she prefers just Padme these days. He agrees, and something about him, maybe his eyes, seems familiar but she can't quite put her finger on it. They talk about his art for a while and everything he says about his inspiration feels like it's speaking directly to her. Eventually, Pooja and Ryoo come up to her and start pulling at her hands, demanding that she come see something with them. Before she leaves, she finally realizes she didn't even know his name and asks him.

It's Palo. The first boy she'd ever loved. The last time she'd seen him she'd been twelve in the Legislative Youth Program. She knew he'd left politics to become an artist instead, but she'd never actually seen any of his art before or ever tried to get back in contact with him. Now she wishes she had. Pooja and Ryoo are still pulling her away so she doesn't have time to really get over her shock at this revelation before she has to leave him behind and someone else comes up to ask him a question in her place.

He shows up at her parents' door the next day with the painting of the bird she'd so adored, and offers it to her as a gift. He refuses to accept any payment for it no matter how much she insists, but asks if she'd be willing to take a walk with him instead. She agrees. They end up spending the whole day together, just talking. For the first time, Padme doesn't feel like she's drowning in her own feelings or floating with no direction. She feels a lot like she's finally come home.

[beatcroc]

what kind of frivolity would you engage in, mecha?

<

---

[cipheramnesia]

The "movie about a movie that kills you" is a surprisingly robust genre of horror. There's a wide range of approaches, but one key factor is the question of how good the deadly film in a film is, on its own. Some approaches are keeping the faux film entirely unseen, use brief clips, or make it real short.

Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made goes in for a high risk approach and delivers a complete finished film, ostensibly made in the 70s and never released, framed by brief opening and closing info bites to set the stage of it.

Somehow this thing was completely off my radar, which means I was taken fully off guard as an ominous warning about the content in white text on black appeared on screen, giving a thirty second count down to leave if I wanted.

Wonderful showmanship and canny filmmaking that got me right in the mood to enjoy what followed. While I wouldn't call it a scary movie, I found it almost delightful in the atmospheric dread and devotion to its aesthetic of low budget 70s films. Nothing in it feels like a curse on its own, but it does feel like the sort of movie that could easily prompt psychological distress for anyone under psychotropic influences, pre-existing emotional vulnerability, or prone to delusional states. Not through anything supernatural, more because it works hard to keep the viewer in constant doubt over what is and is not real for the characters in the film. Combined with the framing device of it being a movie somehow able to influence the real world of the viewer, and the use of fractionally visible flashes of occult symbols on the screen, it generates an intense feeling of unreality which for me was an almost drug-like high and an immersive pleasure.

The premise of Antrum is simply a brother and sister decide to dig a hole to hell, and the movie plays out around this event by surrounding it with disturbing sounds and imagery, as well as real world dangers that weave the protagonists between the supernatural and mundane while keeping them in a state of terror and madness that grows until it becomes unrelenting.

In a certain sense it also feels cursed, like the kind of film where there are elements that feel very transgressive - in particular the opening scene which to my mind evoked Un Chien Andalou - not the infamous eyeball slicing scene, but the use of rotting animals. The few and very basic visual effects remind me as well of the early Survival Research Laboratory devices engineered by Mark Pauline.

However, the core question for me is also always what is the movie about besides the plot. If I had to identify some rough themes, I would say it's trying to explore the idea of understanding death and violence through the eyes of children who do not yet have the psychological tools for processing such matters, but who have been left on their own to do so regardless.

Many of the unusual elements in the movie can relate to death rituals poorly understood, starting from the very premise of digging a hole into the earth. And the same act is surrounded by strange rituals unclear in their origin, ideas which might be logical drawn from watching words recited over a grave without having a connection of purpose. Their encounters with other people are fully without possibility of communication as none of them speak the same language, and these mundane threats feel at times akin to a satanic Alice in Wonderland, rituals and violence whose meaning cannot be understood by the protagonists.

Likewise the supernatural is full of unprocessed images of death. Demons with black skin who look like mummified corpses. River crossings and empty chains dragging through leaves. It's as if death itself has manifested through the ambient world, surrounding the two children and refusing to let them leave its circle.

In combination with the intriguing use of sigils inscribed throughout, it creates a movie that is for me a joy to watch. An absolutely perfect Halloween spook for next year, but your mileage may vary between finding it full of pretentious nonsense or maybe the scariest film you'll ever watch. It can really come off either way, and I'm honestly not quite sure why my reaction was actual joy in the watching. Not to undercut the severity of the subject matter, but I just can't stop thinking about how happy I was to watch the movie at work mechanically, to enjoy the well oiled pieces fitting together, and then all topped off with the delicious extra treat of the framing device. Surely worth 90 minutes of your life.

[ratatatastic]

½ of the Sunrise Welcome Committee found pushing erod around... more news at 11

[waitingforgodotyaoi]

Mushishi episode 1 - The Green Throne

[yellowocaballero]

So fucking glad to see someone talk about SSS Class revival hunter 😭 I lived it so much and I feel like no one ever mentions it against more popular titles like ORV or even The Lout of the counts family, so I'm so glad to come here and see your amazing takes :>

Thank you for the ask which lets me talk about SSSCRH (the version I read was titled 'Suicide Hunter', which tbh I like more - no beating around the bush).

It's hard to draw an accurate comparison since I'm going off just the webtoon for SSSCRH, while I'm going off both the webtoon and the webnovel for ORV. And I love ORV, ORV is my media blorbo right now, it hydraulic presses my brain, I am writing ORV fanfic - it's, like, funner to enjoy. But SSSRH is just better. In the vast majority of ways it is is better. It's better than the holy trinity by a wide margin. TW talk of suicide obviously.

I can't believe I'm saying this but you need a basic understanding of Buddhism in order to understand SSSCRH. It's not about Gongja's suicides - he doesn't suicide from depression or lack of self-esteem. SSSCRH is about suffering in the Buddhist sense - dukkha. I don't want to make this an essay, so I might reblog this with more information, but extremely shortly:

The Four Noble Truths of Buddhism is the truth of suffering, the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. You've heard that Buddhists say 'life is suffering'. To put it one way that doesn't require defining a lot of words: the cause of suffering is experiencing the world as we percieve it instead of how it truly is. Suffering isn't just being miserable and in pain, and life isn't suffering because life sucks and global warming exists and people voted for Trump. Life is suffering because we can experience beautiful and joyful moments in this world, but we do not exist in the moment of that happiness or place our ego/'self' between us and that happiness. Living in that moment, accepting the moment as it is unconditionally, is freedom from suffering. The Buddha tries to free people from suffering through teaching Buddhism.

"What does this have to do with the webnovel and manwha about a guy murdering himself thousands of times" it has everything to do with it. Because SSSCRH is about suffering, and it is about using suffering as a tool in order to experience a world unfiltered by ego and break down the artificial boundaries between human beings. Suffering in SSSCRH is not a bad thing. Gongja has the unique capability to (reincarnate.) experience a person's suffering in unity with them, which dissolves the delusion of separation between people and puts us in touch with the reality of oneness.

The Murim arc was fucking insane because Gongja pulls a Big Bodhisattva Move and walks through the suffering of the world in order to achieve full understanding of the human experience. He takes all of the suffering of the world into himself and is liberated. You can tell it's Buddhist because death was not presented as a bad thing - death was an aspect of a happy ending for the Heavenly Demon lady, because she was finishing her life according to her own joy, and because her teachings were passed on she did not truly die.

But the purpose of embracing suffering is to discover the ability to fully embrace life, and that's where Heavenly Demon's teachings were incomplete - as the ghost dude said, Gongja hasn't even experienced his own full life and the infinite capability for his own happiness. You can only feel the depths of sadness when you've felt the depths of happiness. Sadness deserves its place in the world and it can strengthen you, but so does happiness.

Gongja is attention-seeking, envious, and unbelievably petty. When he drills down into his own desires and why he wants the things he wants, you see that he has a very strong sense of justice and right and wrong - he realizes he doesn't want to be famous, he wants to be acknowledged, but on an even deeper level he is desperate for love and to be loved. Everything he does is to experience love, and as such he learns to love others. His love for the Flamey Asshole was purely parasocial and ego-filled, with no concern for who he was as a human. Throughout the manwha, he grows to care for people as they truly are and pierce through any delusions or misleading outward appearances. He has released all attachment to life and death, and as such does not fear death, and as such has taken a step on the road towards becoming a Boddhisatva who frees others from the cycle of samsara, and as a result has learned sick sword techniques and is sooo good at beating people up.

I think the only other thing I want to mention here because otherwise this is an essay: in almost every time loop/regression story, only the final regression matters. In stories with dungeon monsters and NPCs, only the humans matter. The regressor exists in a space where there are no consequences for their actions, so they act terribly and do whatever because none of it matters. In Groundhog Day Bill Murray acts like an asshole because he can. That's not the case here. Everything Gongja does matters. The NPCs are fake, but Gongja never treats them as anything less than real people who deserve life. Once he understands a person's life he never treats them as unimportant. No loop is thrown away and no person or life is disregarded. His choices matter, the way he treats others matters, and Gongja never treats anybody as if they don't matter except for himself.

That was not short. There is a lot more. The female characters are so good and so rich. From a craft perspective it is excellently paced and has a wonderful sense of set-up/payoff and balances tone and maintains a lot of momentum, which is really hard in a time loop story. You have to do a few very specific things to write OP characters well and SSSCRH does it very well. There's more to say from a craft perspective and it's hard to judge accurately from a webtoon but it's good. I was so strangely struck the entire time about how sincere and genuine it was, how it said what it said with no trace of irony of confusion, and I think that's what stuck with me the most.

TL;DR: SSS Class Revival Hunter is good for a lot of very normal reasons, such as excellent pacing and set-up/pay off and characters, but it's also so sincerely and genuinely Buddhist that it blew my tits clean off.

[motherforthefamicom]

style experimentation stuffffff

[theribbajack]

Just finished G.I. Joe: Renegades for the first time and hoo boy. It's been a long time since I was down this bad for a ship.

Lineart below the cut:

[lollytea]

Huntlow situationship gives me such intense brain termites you don't get it

[bidokja]

I was joking a while back that the actor they have playing KDJ for the orv movie was too handsome for him and a friend who's read orv was like "KDJ is actually secretly attractive!!" And I just felt my soul leave my body right then

SIGHS...

Okay. Buckle in. I'm gonna finally actually address and explain and theorize about this whole...thing.

I'm not gonna cite any exact chapters cause it's like 11:30 and I've got an 8 hour drive in the morning but I'll at least make an approximate reference to where certain things are mentioned. Also, this post is just my personal interpretation for a good bit of it, but it's an interpretation I feel very solid about, so do with that what you will. Moving on to the meat of things:

There is one (1) instance in the web novel that I know of which describes specific features of Kim Dokja (especially ones other people notice). This takes place when members of KimCom are trying to make Kim Dokja presentable to give his speech at the Industrial Complex (after it's been plopped down on Earth). This is when they start really paying attention and focusing on Kim Dokja's appearance since they're putting makeup on him; I still don't think they can interpret his whole face, but they can accurately pick out and retain more features than usual. If I remember correctly they reference him having long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft hair. These features can be viewed as (stereotypically) attractive.

Certain parts of the fandom have taken this scene and run with it at a very surface level, without realizing (or without acknowledging at the very least) that this scene is not about how Kim Dokja looks. This is, in part, due to not realizing or acknowledging why Kim Dokja's face is "censored" in the first place, and what that censoring actually means. I think it's also possible that some people are assuming the censorship works like a physical phenomena rather than an altered perception.

I'll address that last point first. The censorship of Kim Dokja's features is not something as simple as a physical phenomena. It's not a bar or scribble or mosaic over his face. If that were true it'd be very obvious to anyone looking at him that his face is hidden. But his face is not hidden to people. They can look at him and see a face. If they concentrate on his eyes, they can see where he's looking. They know when he's frowning or grinning. They see a face loud and clear. But what face are they seeing? Because it's not really his, whatever they're seeing.

No one quite agrees on what he really looks like. And if they try and think about what he looks like, they can't recall. Or if they do, it's vague, or different each time. We notice these little details throughout the series. Basically, Kim Dokja's face is cognitively obscured. Something - likely the Fourth Wall, though I can't recall if this is ever stated outright - is interfering with everyone's ability to perceive him properly. This culminated in him feeling off to others; and since they don't even realize this is happening, they surmise that he is "ugly."

Moving on to the other point about what the censorship means: To be blunt, the censorship of his face is an allegory for his disconnect from the "story" (aka: real life, and the real people at his side). The lifting - however slight - of this censorship represents him becoming more and more a part of the "story" (aka: less disconnected from the life he is living and the people at his side). The censorship's existence and lifting can represent other things - like dissociation or depersonalization or, if you want to get really meta, the fact that he is all of our faces at once - but that's how I'd sum up the main premise of it. (The Fourth Wall is a larger part of the dissociation allegory, but that's for another post).

So you see, them noticing his individual features isn't about the features. It's not about the features! It doesn't matter at all which features got listed. Because they could describe any features whatsoever and it would not change the entire point of the scene. Because the point isn't what he looks like. The point is that they can truly and clearly see these features. For the first time. They are seeing parts of him for the first time. Re-read that sentence multiple times, literally and metaphorically. What does it mean to see someone as they are?

This is an extremely significant turning point dressed up as a dress-up scene.

---

P.S. / Additionally, I'm of the opinion that Kim Dokja is not handsome, and he is not ugly. He is not pretty, and he is not ghastly. Not attractive, nor unattractive. Kim Dokja isn't any of these things. More importantly, Kim Dokja can't be any of these things. The entire point of Kim Dokja is that you cannot pick him out of a crowd; he is the crowd. He's a reader. He's the reader. Why does he need to be handsome? Why must he be pretty? Why is him being attractive necessary or relevant? He doesn't, he doesn't, it's not. He is someone deeply deeply loved and irreplaceable to those around him, and someone who cannot even begin to recognize or accept that unless it's through a love letter masquerading as a story he can read. He is the crowd, a reader, the reader. He's you, he's me. He's every single one of us.