#just letting yourself enjoy the thing?

[polysucks]

Wanna make my own discord server full of the asoiaf girlies (gender neutral) who love asoiaf but hate the fandom and like. Don’t police opinions or ships and just embrace open-minded discussion about all the adaptations and the books equally and just. Engage with the content without fuck ass weirdos being fuck ass weirdos. A place where people’s opinions can be nuanced and we and just. Hang out. But I won’t. Because I ain’t got time and effort for all that. Also that’s a pipe dream and it will never happen bc fandom culture is so toxic.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Kiss Kiss Fallen Tree!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[bacchuschucklefuck]

we let the ocean drown out our voices/enjoying the bitterness/in the chaotic light, I close my eyes and see

[shayminlucario07]

I hate that there's such a stigma against like. "Edgy" shit, and like. "Things that teenagers think are cool."

Because if we're being honest and not cynical, teenagers have great taste and that shit is in fact very cool. Like I will never again act like Shadow the Hedgehog isn't the coolest motherfucker in history. Making OCs/characters who're the child of a super powerful demon or a fallen angel or something like that? Banger, I love Devil May Cry, I'm in on that shit every time. Character with blood magic that can explode your rib cage out of your chest? I fucking love The Locked Tomb, give me ALL OF THAT. It's just cool.

That shit is fantastic, so let's start acting like it.

[rockethorse]

The basegame wedding dress has a pregnancy morph??

[wardensantoineandevka]

you're really annoying but in, like, a refreshing way?

I'm sincerely flattered, anon. I worked very hard to become really annoying. 💞✌️

[thedreadblog]

You don't need to announce to the room that you're leaving.

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

I think I've gotten to the point where I'm just gonna not interact with or even block blogs that post v/3 fan art while aggressively and needlessly harping on it in the caption

[siapom]

Okay, people. I need to soapbox for a hot minute.

My favorite fandom worlds are imploding on their own people, and it’s fucking ridiculous.

1) Lockwood and Co.

I hate to point this out, but I’m gonna anyway. There is no Locklyle WRITTEN ship in the books. There is an implied ship. The author confirmed that it was intentionally implied. But it wasn’t written. So you know what? There is NO canon ship.

You know what that means? People can ship whomever the fuck they want without “breaking canon”. If you write Locklyle, fine. But that makes you no better than people who are enjoying other ships. And even then, it’s a fandom. It’s imaginary shit. The way to keep the fandom alive and thrive is to NOT PUBLICALLY CASTIGATE AND PUT DOWN other shippers and their ideas, works, or conversations. If you do that, it’s YOU who is poisoning the fandom.

2) Stray Kids

Holy fuck, people! Can’t we all just be adults?

a) Do not attack people who interact with our boys in a professional capacity. It’s not helpful to the group to give them a reputation for having an out of control fanbase. It could cause their opportunities become limited just because others are scared that Stay may get offended by something.

b) If you don’t want to support the new song, don’t. Don’t buy it. Don’t stream it. Don’t get it off of a secondary site just because you can listen without supporting the collaboration.

DO keep your choices to yourself. Your choices are not supposed to apply to other Stay. We can make our own decisions. Other Stay are not lesser, wrong, unethical, Zionists, pro-genecide or any other thing you want to call them. They are simply supporting SKZ their own chosen way.

In closing, this is simple. Do what you want for yourself. Stop thinking your decision has any bearing on other people. Your ego is showing. You aren’t that fucking special. Check yourself.

Thank you.

*steps down*

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

s4 episode 4 thoughts

woohoo!! it feels, again, like our separation has been so long, but it has been about… 3 whole days. oh, how i miss the earlier months in which i had time to post episode thoughts every day… 

this episode sounds interesting!!! no idea how someone’s thoughts could be captured on film, but we do a lot of disbelief suspension around these parts, with varying levels of success.

wait. hold on. i just saw the description for the episode after this one. what the hell is mulder getting himself into with that. do we need more mulder ex lore? i don’t need that. it doesn’t make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. 

putting aside my many questions on that matter to focus on what is here in front of us.

(author’s note post-episode: …. woaghhh. scully…)

in all honesty, having processed my thoughts, i think this one was just a LITTLE bit too intense for me. which i recognize is okay, and to each their own. but i need to speak my Truth.

liveblogging commences below 

we begin with this sketchy looking dude, who is being rude as hell to a woman putting on lipstick before getting a passport photo taken. god forbid a woman want to serve… then he says to act natural while not acting natural himself. HYPOCRITE!

she goes in for a passport photo and…. she left her money in the car! she must return to this unfortunate man and go get it. but someone is following her…. 

he did something to her… and she gets back to the car to “billy”, but someone did something to him, too!! he appears to be dead and bleeding from the ear!! then she falls to the ground and tries to crawl to safety, but the mystery man in the yellow rain jacket comes back for her…. 

and the man in the photo store looks at the passport photos, but despite taking just a standard headshot, he sees the woman’s dying face in the images!!

oh. that is an unpleasant day on the job for such a nice seeming man.

this intro always makes me laugh... i’m sorrrrryyy the ufo pictures just remind me that this show is fundamentally unserious 

scully and mulder are rolling up to a town in michigan, while he asks her for any thoughts on the case. it appears this woman was abducted three days ago. and billy was punctured in the brain. yuck.

okay, so her name is mary. and this poor pharmacist…. he has to take people’s pictures, and give them drugs, AND deal with this nonsense 

they are at the pharmacy where the “druggist” (they keep using that term which i have never heard before) is showing them his camera, which he keeps under lock and key, and i notice he has some fun candy in the background. but i assume things are not fun at this time for him. 

scully wants to see the camera, and mulder takes a step back to let her pass. it kinda looks like he does that thing where he touches her back, but it’s hard to tell. and once again for all readers, that thing where men touch your back is only attractive when it’s mulder to scully and not between some randos!

scully notices something on the pharmacist’s foot, and also that the film is out of date. she is always noticing things. one of her many lovely qualities. 

mulder calls the pharmacist “bruno hauptman” and i don’t get that reference so i do what i do best: go to wikipedia. oh! bruno is the guy that was executed for kidnapping the lindbergh baby. i don’t know why i thought that mystery was unsolved. i guess it’s because the article is saying it was a heavily criticized and debated case. huh, a mystery for another time.

anyway, mulder is saying this all tauntingly with his stupid beautiful mulder smile, but scully is saying yeah, this nice old pharmacist doesn’t look like a usual suspect.

but she does point out that the film has heat damage, and a heater is right there… “so you think that would make it look like she posed screaming for a passport photo?” <- LMAO MAN LET HER FINISH

BAHAHA she is onto nothing 🔥🔥 

“plus, the film is two years out of date” “oh” the- the photographic chemistry could have changed” (mulder nodding) “uh-huh” “the- the dyes fade… they… alright, what’s your theory?” <- BAHAHA love that… you have to admit when you don’t know wtf is going on! i had full confidence she would pull something out of her science-y brain, but sometimes you just don’t know!

(this stupid scene had me giggling, as did her face of resignation)

mulder seems to ALSO have no idea wtf is going on, but as they discuss this, a police officer walks in and says they might have wasted the agents’ time…. what does that mean? did they figure it out that quick?

back at the house of the victims, they meet a postal inspector. okay!!! that’s fun and different. and i pause to write this down, and scully is SO beautiful, i actually might blow up. a full on explosion where once stood me is liable to go down. oh my gooooood.

okay: postal inspector is investigating a mail theft. mary had been working at the postal office, stealing people’s credit cards, and her boyfriend was signing them! oh! very illegal. inspector seems to think she faked her disappearance, but mulder points out that would not explain the stabbing of the boyfriend. also, they have this creepy ass broccoli magnet on their fridge which. bleugh. it did not spark joy.

mulder wants a camera from their house, and he finds one! did he just. take a picture of scully…? oh my god. he said “stand back, scully, it’s loaded” and took one… he didn’t even let her pose or anything… that's so cute... even if it's a little weird to use a dead person's camera from a crime scene... he wanted to take her picture

no, i am all wrong, for it appears he is just… taking random photos. because someone in the 60’s once claimed that he could concentrate really hard on undeveloped film and show his thoughts. uh. press f to doubt.

(man, i want to live in that very brief and exciting moment where i thought he was taking a cute little candid of her again… it was so blissful there)

wait. what da hell. he just clicked the camera a bunch of times and it comes up with the screaming mary photo again and again.

oh… he thinks that someone was stalking mary, and the stalker’s psychic energy altered the film by him coming in its proximity. i didn't realize that was how psychic powers worked but i am listening and learning

scully says that these images had to be doctored, which is, again, a reasonable conclusion, but he asks her to “what if” the situation and just think about it!!! just imagine!!!

cutscene to… someone crawling on the side of the road. it’s mary!!! she’s bleeding from her eyes (?) and not responding at all to the police car arriving behind her.

now she is in a stretcher at the hospital that our agents are helping to steer. they are kind like that. she had a “painkiller cocktail” in her system, but that wouldn’t account for her condition. scully orders a PET scan for her, a term i have never heard before. i love when she uses terms i have never heard before.

they’re putting mary in what looks like an MRI sort of thing to look at her brain. whatever it is, it is clearly very bad, as told by scully’s visible reaction and audible declaration of “oh my god”, while mulder looks at her and asks “what is it”? 

(and while i appreciate that this is a sensitive moment for our story, mulder not knowing wtf is going on with these medical things always is a favorite trope of mine, 1. because me too, and 2. he is usually such an insufferable know-it-all i love watching him admit when he knows nothing. humility!)

oh my god… “she has been given what’s called a transorbital lobotomy” <- oh that does NOT sound good… it used to be known as an ice pick lobotomy!!! oh my gosh i’ve heard of that one!! ice pick… eye sockets… i can feel myself growing faint…

but whoever did it, did it wrong… who would do a lobotomy without knowing how to do it the right way???

in the machine, mary is mumbling!! she is saying “unruhe” according to the closed captioning, but it just sounds like faint groaning to me. however, given that this phrase is the title of the episode, i venture to guess that it IS in fact relevant.

a policeman bursts in and says there has been a second abduction, and our agents look deeply sorrowful at this news, seeming to know what will happen next if they cannot crack the case.

oh! now we are seeing the new victim, and whoever took her is in fact saying “unruhe”, and other stuff in german! NO! he pulls out a pick…. fade to black. 

WHO in this small seeming town speaks german and has a psychic effect on cameras… ?? i hope this can be narrowed down to a slim pool of candidates!!

scully is going into the next crime scene, where mulder reports that a man has been murdered, and his secretary alice taken. this is not good.

mulder has been looking into what that word alice was mumbling means- first in a phone book, but then as a translation, i guess, because it means “trouble” in german.

WOAH, WHAT?

! SCULLY LORE REVEAL ! she took german in college!!! and knows that the word is more accurately translated as “unrest”! 

(oh my gosh, i need to get back into compiling lore reveals at the end of each season like i did for s1…. good thing i take such detailed notes so i can go back and do them for s2 and s3)

((we didn’t get a ton in the last 2 seasons, so i thought of doing one post for both seasons- but the organization freak in me wants to do 1 per season, so i’ll go through them again and see what i can find when i get bored someday))

scully hands him a photo from the first crime scene, but mulder says the criminal wasn’t there, because if he was, he would have altered the photos. scully seems annoyed that he’s looking for psychic photos and not crime scene evidence, but he explains that whoever did this has to be very good, and photos may be their only lead since he doesn’t seem to know he is doing it. but then scully sees something and her eyes go SUPER wide… and she says she wants to show him something. 

oh! they find a construction company’s logo at both sites. so maybe the criminal worked at places under construction and was able to kidnap the women…? this theory is brought to you by scully.

he says she might be right, but he is going back to DC to get analysis on the photo. she still is skeptical, but he says that since the woman’s time is running out, that’s all the more reason to analyze the one piece of hard evidence they do have, and that he’ll be in touch. 

he must have really cared if he said he’ll be in touch, because usually he just runs off to god knows where to do god knows what. 

(and how much time would they even HAVE if he has to drive all the way back??? that isn’t a quick trip, is it???)

the same criminal dude from before is now saying stuff in german and taping alice’s mouth shut, while mulder is back in the photo lab sitting practically on top of this nerdy yet attractive fellow, asking for the blurriness in the image to be reduced. and it reveals very scary looking demon things! 

mulder sees someone in the back of the photo… and they get a more enhanced image on the face, but it isn’t clear to me who it is. i felt like i was supposed to know who it was, but luckily i wasn't!

scully is ordering people out to canvas and investigate the employees who may have been working at both construction sites. i like when she does that.

mulder and the lab guy figure out that there is a shadow in the background of the photo from the kidnapper. “he’s standing over her, he means to pass judgement on her, like a god” <- an unsettling thing to say, mr. spooky

scully rolls up to one of the construction sites and i’m thinking, oh please, do not get kidnapped, please please, it’s not something we need today. she’s yelling “hello” and no one is answering... but she hears something….. 

it’s a… guy on stilts? it’s the foreman named gerry. oh… could he have made the big shadow in the picture his stilts? but he doesn’t sound german…

mulder calls and says the kidnapper’s legs are unusual, either he’s very tall or he wants to be. stilts man?!?! is it you?!

instead of playing it chill upon hearing this news, she hangs up on mulder, and turns to gerry and says “unruhe”, pulling out her gun. but he uses his stilts to jump across the building! only to collapse and fall. his getaway is thwarted as scully tells him to stop or she’ll shoot, and to prove her seriousness, she does so. but i’m not buying he’s the guy!! sorry my queen!!

NO!! I WAS FOOLED, WASN’T I??? she reaches into his pocket and pricks her finger!!! NOOO! it’s a huge pick in there! like we saw before at the kidnapping!!

is she gonna be drugged from that….

(thankfully, the pick itself did not contain the drugs)

they’re interrogating the dude, and he denies everything. i mean, i guess a lot of people could have stilts and a pick at construction sites. maybe they didn't grab the right fellow.

he says that tool is used to start keyholes in the sheetrock and all fixtures. a good excuse…

but he really does seem confused. 

however, mulder brings up that gerry was arrested before, for attacking his father with an axe handle until he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. OH! this is not promising.

gerry says that he was institutionalized, which mulder reveals was for a schizophrenic disorder. gerry claims that since his release, he had been taking care of his father 24/7, until he passed away in january. well i’m not entirely sure if that makes amends, but i guess it’s better than nothing?

“and how did you feel about that?” asks mulder about gerry's father's death, sounding very much like the psychology expert i sometimes forget that he is. then he reveals that the same year gerry attacked his father, gerry’s sister passed. connected….?

gerry is staring intently back at scully, saying that she looks troubled. oh! do not talk to her that way.

then mulder comes in with the enhanced photo from earlier, and asks if it shows gerry’s father. he seems taken aback, like it really is his father, and then further taken aback when he pulls out the full photo and asks if those demons figures are what he sees when he closes his eyes. this finally gets gerry to crack and say that he knows where alice is, and that she is safe, “from the howlers”. HUH? 

(is it bad my thoughts went straight to a howler monkey when he said that? i was thinking man, monkeys do not look like that at all. you and i have seen some different monkeys, gerry. but no, he does not refer to those types of howlers)

a ton of cop cars are arriving in the woods, to find alice, who is bleeding from the eyes, which can only mean one thing in this context. oh noooo. scully seems horrified and as if she is blaming herself 

oh, we get a very charged exchange here. she says it doesn’t matter what is in the photos, or if it shows gerry’s dreams or nightmares, because it’s over, and they couldn’t save alice. she starts the engine, and when i think she’s gonna drive off without mulder, he hops in. i bet that guilt that doctors feel when that cannot save a patient is even worse in her than in usual doctors, because she also has to deal with trying to rescue people from crime. :(

gerry is being taken in and photographed by the cops. but instead of a mugshot, when we see the picture, it’s the guy who was taking him in with a bullet hole in his head. oh! so that seems to confirm earlier suspicions on behalf of mulder. 

OH NO!! gerry reaches out and grabs the gun from the cop! NOOO! 

mulder points out that the image from that interaction showed the man shot in the head, but in reality, he was shot in his throat. so i guess it’s not based on reality as much as his intentions? sure, why not. and scully says there was a robbery at the pharmacy back where the very first photo was taken. no! our druggist friend!

gerry took all of the film in the store and a ton of drugs for more “twilight sleep”, which is a bad sign. i think i’ve seen this film before…

scully thinks that perhaps he was stalking his next victim at the construction site, and i’m thinking, girl i think he picked out his victim alright, but i don’t think she’s in the apartments.

mulder wants to wait a bit for his photo to come out. so he sends her to pull the car around and i’m screaming NO, NO, DON’T SEPARATE, NOT WITH A GUY ON THE LOOSE WHO LOOKED AT HER AND SAID “YOU LOOK TROUBLED” AFTER DOING 2 DIY LOBOTOMIES ON OTHER WOMEN AND KILLING 2 OTHER MEN! JUST WAIT A MINUTE AND WALK TO THE CAR TOGETHER!!!

but she cannot hear me….

NO! as she unlocks the car, a hand from beneath reaches out and pierces her foot with a needle NOOOO… and it’s gerry and she’s going down and NOOOOOO!!!!

AND MULDER PULLS THE PHOTO OUT TO FIND GERRY WAS THINKING OF SCULLY WHEN IT WAS TAKEN!

he is RUNNING after that car. despite his best efforts, even trackstar mulder is not as fast as a car, yet he follows her and screams her name regardless. until he realizes he will not win this race.

back at the police office, mulder is STARING at that photograph, the one showing scully being taken by these horrific creatures known as “the howlers”. he’s asking for any leads, including “does he have a summer house? a winter house?” which could be seen as desperation for answers or mulder being out of touch with how many people grew up with summer houses, take your pick.

OH! in gerry���s wallet was his father’s obituary. and his father was a dentist… and the name sounds german… 

so they go to his old dentist’s office, where they did an ad for the pain medicine cocktail he’s been cooking up. and mulder finds a footprint and a missing dentist’s chair. 

NO!! scully is in the dentist’s chair at some undisclosed location. waking up to find her arms and legs bound with a pick on the table and gerry in the distance. she’s watching him…. and she says to let her go. 

he begins his german ranting that has happened before the other lobotomies, and she… RESPONDS???? in clumsy german??? she says she has no unrest and doesn’t need saving, but he insists she does??? WHAT!!!

good on her for remembering some words after all those years :,)

he says everyone has some unrest, but especially her. she thinks she must remind him of his sister, and they talk about “the howlers”, who live inside your head, and make you say and do things you don’t mean.

so she turns the tables on this, and says maybe there are no such thing as howlers, and maybe he made them up to justify what his father did to his sister, which sets him off further. OH… so she thinks gerry attacking his father and his sister’s death were related. damn… that’s heavy

she tries to convince him that the “howlers” are just in HIS head, and no one else’s, as he approaches with a camera to try and prove they do exist. because cameras cannot lie!!

back at the dentist’s office, mulder appears to be losing it. mumbling about the 6 fingers the howler had in the photos, and yelling “WHY are there 6?” to no one in particular, as if he can find an answer through sheer willpower. one of the cops is asking him what to do while he looks at the obituary and counts five headstones…. and the father makes 6? sure, if that makes sense to you king!

they’re off to the graveyard while scully is still in a mystery location, with tears in her eyes as gerry shows her the photos he took. he takes the photos to mean he doesn’t have much time left, and tapes her mouth… and oh my gosh, i think of what would go down here if i knew she wasn’t gonna pull through… until gerry hears a tapping and MULDER IS LOOKING IN!! YES!!!

gerry is doing this in a camper van! by the graveyard!!! mulder is peeking in, sees a tooth keychain, and realizes she’s in there!!!! he’s yelling her name, and she’s yelling that she’s in here, while gerry tries to hold her down!!!

mulder’s BEATING on the window of the camper with his hands, and when that doesn’t work, he finds a giant metal pipe and SLAMS it into the window, goes in, and shoots gerry. this escalated quickly, but it was almost not quick enough.

mulder asks if she’s hurt, and neither of them say anything as she walks out, with mulder kneeling down to see that the last photos gerry had taken were of himself dead on the floor. it’s a terribly thick tension that reminds me of the ending to irresistible, but without the tension bursting like it did in that episode with her finally revealing her fear to him. i wish that she did it again this time. 

scully is doing the episode wrap up, sounding terribly solemn. she is reporting that gerry had written a diary intended as a letter for his father, including the list of the women he hoped to “save”. and her name is the last entry. she has no explanation for the photographs. but she empathized with him, which her survival depended upon.

“i see now the value of such insight. for truly to pursue monsters, we must understand them. we must venture into their minds. only in doing so, do we risk letting them venture into ours?” (said while there are tears in her eyes, as she looks at the photograph of her being pulled by the howlers)

WHAT THE HELL.

okay, so chris carter… you and i need to have some words. 

i have a lot of thoughts. perhaps number one: what if mulder had been 5 minutes later… can you imagine him never being able to cope with that….? oh my gosh. oh my gosh. no, i shan’t imagine. but i’m sure they both were imagining it. and that is probably why she couldn’t say anything as she walked out of the camper van. it was too horrific.

second. this was a dark one. i was giggling at first and then it got really dark. lobotomies… are a hard subject.

third. when the writers make the bad guy have a mental illness, i do feel it to be insulting, because we don’t often get a character where a guy with schizophrenia is just a guy doing normal things like working at the store or going to get his oil changed. no, he’s gotta be up to something nefarious. i wish that wasn’t the case and that these episodes didn’t use mental illness in that way, and i understand that things were kind of Like That in the 90’s and arguably still are in media, but it has been observed with distaste. 

okay, final thoughts? like i’ve said before, i believe in gender equality when it comes to kidnapping and rescuing, and i hope that will be evened out at some point. i understand that gerry had a fixation on women for his own personal reasons, but that’s the doyleist vs watsonian debate thing. and i want a 1:1 ratio on who goes about saving the day. although the ratio was uneven in s2, i’m not recalling the ratio from s3, and we’re 4 episodes into s4 with a 1:1 ratio. so i hope that overall, the entire series ratio evens out eventually. damsel in distress is gender neutral

i was actually really invested in this episode, probably because it let us look into scully deeper, and also because the stakes were high, the pacing fast, and the horror a new kind rather than a standard serial killer we get in a lot of episodes. 

but… while i appreciate that, i’m not sure i can say i enjoyed it, you know? because even a “scully speaks german” lore reveal cannot save me from the feeling of… something adjacent to fear? not horror as in “ahhh i’m so scared” but maybe a sort of horror as in “stop putting her into these fuckass situations, let my girl have a day off” and also a bit of terrible grief in knowing that lobotomies were a very real thing and did untold harm. and to be clear, i’m not saying that fact shouldn’t be explored and discussed, i just think that for me it seems to provoke some intense feelings that make me want some fluff. now. 

deliver it. to my door. as we speak. in fact, here is an incomplete list of things i want to read our agents doing in fanfiction form:

apple picking and apple cider sipping, hiking and sharing weird facts they know about the things they encounter (scully will be all “this type of spider has a unique silk production gland” and he’ll be all “this type of wildflower is used to induce hallucinogenic states” while they look at a pretty view), ice skating (can they ice skate? need to explore that), getting ice cream cones, a visit to the beach, decorating for various holidays, a very serious game night- perhaps uno or some sort of trivia where it turns into a real nerd-off, arguing over unsolved mysteries, more implications of them starting a family together if you feel bold and brave, even, but for those who like it more reserved we can just have an aquarium date, watching a meteor shower, scully attempting to understand his fascination with the various sports of the world by tagging along on an anthropological expedition to a knicks game with him, baking, movie theater trip, etc

well! i have gotten myself so enthused at the idea of them doing silly stuff like handing out halloween candy that i have forgotten all about my initial feelings, which shall surely resurface soon when i go through and edit my notes, but you’re gonna sit there and tell me you don’t want to play dolls in your head of them getting hot chocolate together? 

canon? what is canon? c’mere, kid. let’s daydream about them eloping without ever having the “what are we” conversation and ignore the suffering 

[angelnumber27]

violently forcing myself to have better days

[essektheylyss]

I was personally assaulted (honorific) by this essay on ambition. It's very good.

[momentomori24]

Long-ass fandom rant because I need to scream into the void to find a reason to live let's gooooo

[For context I wrote most of this last friday which I thought was good to mention so the timeline makes a bit more sense. I really held off on this one XD Welp, let's start this trainwreck.]

Ok, I know I have other long posts I should be paying attention to (*cough* Keiji's shady shenanigans rant *cough*) among other probably more important things, but quickly wanna get this off my chest because it's kinda started to bug me and add even more concerns about the yttd fandom than I already have. This is specifically going to be about soushin-- yeah, yeah, I know-- but also bleed into something more... broad. Or broader. Idk, I'm a Tumblr user not a grammar teacher.

While browsing through Twitter I've been noticing a little spike in popularity for yttd with more fans and soushin shippers emerging as well. Which is cool, the game deserves all the praise and popularity it can get. And as someone whose been here for years, I'm glad that the fandom is slowly and steadily grown more accepting of soushin compared to the attitude around it way back when. There's been some genuinely really cool stuff that really does the ship justice from a lot of talented artist and writers that I absolutely love (will link some later), but something I've also been seeing a lot of from fans is what I can only describe as a "sanitisation resurgence" (but not really. kinda). A week or two ago on Twitter I stumbled across some soushin discourse where some people were sharing the sentiment that "if soushin end up being related and/or have a big age gap the ship is ruined". That they can only be two years apart max or else Nankidai has "fumbled them".

And the only response to that I had is "what". Like, how is that a deal breaker to you lot? How did you even get into the ship without accepting that those things could very likely end up being canon? How are you here and not ready to ship them no matter what's revealed about them after everything we've learned about them? Midori and Shin possibly being related was always on the table, and Midori potentially having already been an adult when Shin was in high school was always a very real possibility ever since we learned that he was never actually a student at his school. This is literally what soushin shippers got harassed by antis for years ago. Soushin is "problematic", and that's why people who shipped them where treated so badly in the fandom or just excluded all together. I can't count how many timed I've come across a "soushin shippers dni" or "soushiners are freaks and I hope you all have a bad day" or soushin fanfics/art with "I DON'T ACTUALLY SHIP IT BTW" and "not a ship" and "actual soushin shippers dni" attached to it. I can't recall how many times I had to explain myself with the "I ship but I don't condone it irl" or explain why I shipped them to not be labelled as a freak as if you need an excuse to ship anything fictional to begin with. I still remember soushin artist @uououoon and how they ended up deleting their Twitter account years ago because of the harassment and slanderous comments they were receiving for ships the fandom deemed problematic. When a person was saying their goodbyes to them on reddit and made some goodbye art (which is now deleted), some assholes in the comments were calling them weirdos and pedophiles for how they explored fiction and "glorified abuse" (which are the usual comments to uououoon's art posted on reddit unfortunately). I only caught wind of this one because back when they were still active in the fandom they were my favourite soushin artist and I went through their stuff almost every day and was tipped off when I randomly couldn't find their account anymore. They were such a nice and incredibly talented person too so the fact they essentially got bullied by a flock of stupid western fans seriously irritates me thinking about it again. This is why we cannot have nice things.

Soushin is "problematic". It's toxic and subtly abusive and important to the characters in question, but that didn't stop people from going after people who wanted to explore a dark, canon relationship (romantic, platonic or otherwise). How the actual hell did we go from "soushin has very toxic and problematic elements and you shouldn't be shipping it, you fucking freaks" to "you can ship it but don't make it actually problematic, you fucking freaks" like what is happening right now???? The worst part is that this is coming from other soushin shippers. The fact that there's actually soushiners with "proshippers dni" or "soushin is not for proship" genuinely makes me want to bite someone. Like, you horrible summer child-- not only are you demonstrating that you don't even know what "proship" actually means, but you're also spitting in the face of the people in our community that have CARRIED this ship for us for years. Why throw them under the bus to be one of the “good ones” in the eyes of antis when they hate us all anyway?

This brings us back to the sanitisation point: I feel like soushin is slowly being "sanitised" to fit the sensitive palette of antis by trying to make them as "morally acceptable" as possible. It's a worry I’ve had for a long time that once the fandom grows more accepting of the ship we'll be seeing more people basically scrubbing soushin of everything that made, well, soushin, to justify enjoying it. I've seen a bit of it already with a few people trying to say it's "not abusive" or just erase Shin's very obvious trauma by Midori all together for quite some time. Guess it's starting to happen on a bigger scale sooner rather than later. Maybe. Personally I don't think soushin having a big age gap or being related would ruin the ship. It just adds another layer of fucked up to their already fucked up relationship (I already hc Midori to be significantly older anyway so maybe I'm just biased). It doesn't really matter. I came here for toxic yaoi. I want nuclear waste level toxicity, not nuclear waste level toxicity presented in the most conventional and moral way possible. What would the point even be? It’s like packaging poison in a grape juice box. Like, it might be harmless to look at and more justifiable to think of as delicious, but it’s still poison. You making it look all cute and innocent isn’t going to change that. It's kinda funny and by that I mean not really that people will talk about wanting more "toxic yaoi" but when the yaoi is actually toxic and messy and horrific they will cry about it being "bad" or "ruined". You don't actually want dark dynamics, you want dark dynamics stripped of everything that makes them uncomfortable and dark so it's digestible to your tastes that don't even align with said dynamics in the first place. The worst part of this whole "soushin isn't proship so it's fine" bullshit is that it relies on trying to make the ship more "morally acceptable" or "legal" than other ships. Dawg, we are talking about abuse. You shouldn't be minimising that to say "well it's not [insert other terrible thing] so it's fine!!" That's not the "gotcha" you think it is. It’s one of the reasons why antis being into soushin made me feel weird cuz like you can’t ship it and then turn around to insult someone else, man (I’ve seen so many soushin defenders bash other “proships” to justify theirs like what are you doing--).

Realistically, the simplest and smartest thing to do when I see someone mischaracterise or butcher my faves is to either block or ignore and pretend to not care so I don't act on my sixth sense telling me to off them and myself. Realistically, this shouldn't be a big deal or anything that important, but this attitude is usually weaponized to harm and harass people who don't conform to their purity crisis over fiction. I'm in the unfortunate position of being not only a Your Turn to Die fandom dweller, but a Hazbin Hotel and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley one too. I'm used to being labelled a rapist and incest apologist irl who's delusional and deserves to be harassed and insulted by virtue of the media or ships I like (probably not a good thing). But people who are more active in these fandoms than me have it much worse as they get this shit directly waaaay more often while I mostly get called these things indirectly, which is what motivated me more to make this post.

So a couple days ago someone made some art of Monika from ddlc, Nikole (don't know the game sorry) and Ashley from Tcoaal. A lot of people on Twitter, unsurprisingly, bashed it for including Ashley to the point where some felt the need to clarify that they like her as a character but her actions (for some reason I do not understand like Monika has also done some seriously evil shit why are you not applying that logic to her too?). What struck me the most is that a yttd fan-- a self proclaimed "Midori enthusiast"-- ALSO quoted it to bash having Ashley in it. A freaking Midori fan. I told them to mind their business and start separating fiction and reality and to stop being a hypocrite, and thus ensued the most hilarious and stupidest convo I've had in a while:

You can literally count the seconds it takes for these guys to start throwing predator accusations and slurs at people. So "not exploring fiction correctly" makes me weird, but harming or putting real people on blast for nothing is free game, apparently. They're not the worst, both in this instance and in general, but it just stuck with me. Which is impressive, cuz I normally don't have much emotions to spare aside from general mild irritation for things like this. Maybe it's the Sonic feet.

But it ties into my issue. Midori's an absolute piece of garbage, yet some people will convince themselves that his actions are in some way justifiable to justify their hatred of something else (that is a lot less severe in this case) rather than love and let love. Tcoaal is not an "incest game" and if you describe it like that unironically you are not ready to be on the internet. No, it doesn't condone or glorify incest-- it literally does the opposite. If you need the characters to look into the camera and say "what we're doing is wrong and immoral" before doing something bad, I think you're the problem at that point. For the same reason you liking Midori (probably) doesn't mean you support human experimentation and torture, someone liking Tcoaal doesn't mean they support incest and someone shipping soushin doesn't mean they support abuse. These things are dark and shouldn't be condoned irl, but this is fiction. We can do whatever the hell we want. Being into darker themes and media doesn't have to reflect your real world views, but the inability to grasp that sentiment leads people to make their interests as moral and sanitised as possible and, feeling morally superior, will go after people who don't do that. This person deadass said that "incest is not morally grey and absolutely unjustifiable" (didn't even say that it wasn't btw) as if their blorbo hasn't committed so many atrocities for kicks that I personally find more unjustifiable. That line implies that they think that everything else Ashley has done and everything Midori has done can be justified because it wasn't incest specifically, which I find is a WILD thing to insinuate XD But it really does encapsulate the hoops antis will jump through to defend their likes while attacking yours despite the fact that it's literally the exact same as theirs. Rule of thumb: if someone accuses you of condoning something immoral because you like it in fiction, apply that logic to them, look at what they like and if their wet little meow meow is the Joker, Eren, Killua, Makima, Midori or whatever other morally bankrupt character you can come up with, take that as a confession and run. Cuz half the time these guys are actually nuts. While quote tweeting someone to shit on their art isn't the worst thing, considering how twitter has treated tcoaal artists the fact that they'd potentially open them up to harassment pissed me off, which is probably evident from my tone.

[Hi hi, this is me from the present right now cuz a more recent development came up so I’m using it as an example here too.]

While most of the things listed here have all been happening online, this attitude can come up in the real world as well.

As OP states, a bunch of hellaverse cosplayers were targetted at a french convention by haters of the show trying to ruin their cosplay. This is already completely unacceptable but the thing I can’t for the life of me get over is torching their costume while they’re still wearing it. Literally attempting to set someone on fire. All over a fucking show. It’s baffling how people can justify actions like this because they think your taste in fiction is so disgusting it’s Ok for them to hurt you. Not just online, but outside as well. It’s not the first time a hellaverse cosplayer has been harassed (last time it was a Valentino cosplayer but then again Val fans get shit from all sides all the time), and while I’m pretty sure these will remain as isolated cases it’s still scary to think about. What’s even more scary to think about how people think that their opinion on hazbin hotel has any relevance to the situation. So many of the comments in that post are just “I hate Hazbin Hotel, but—” or “I hate the fandom, but--” or “I hate Vivzie, but—” and I’m literally here ready to start pouncing like SHUT UP. No buts. That is not in any way important here. You not liking the show or the creator should not be important to the situation of cosplayers being actively harmed. You don’t have to signal your allegiances before showing basic human empathy, goddamnit. And what’s even worse is that some people have just turned this into a “b-but the hazbin fandom!!” issue, which is insulting. For example:

The “Hazbin fans do blackface and disrespect black people daily” is a reference to ONE Alastor cosplayer that nobody had defended. Not even fans. At least no one I can find. Yet they are using this one bad apple to generalise the whole fandom as "bad" and down play the amount of bullshit the hatedom does to fans on a regular. It kinda makes me feel sick that someone would look at a situation like this and spin this into a “fandom thing” rather than focusing on the victims. That they don’t deserve to be taken as seriously just because of the fandom their in. Some lunatic in the comments was literally completely minimising this whole thing saying “some red paint (fake blood capsules) isn’t nearly as bad as lynching and what black people have gone through in America” before calling anyone who called out that that’s completely irrelevant racist for liking Hazbin Hotel like are you kidding me. My homies in Christ, someone almost got lit on fire can everyone please stay on the goddamn topic. This is one of the rare moments where I was kinda proud of twitter as the majority of the comments and quotes where calling out their bullshit, but the amount of likes and some of the comments are still disappointing.

So what points am I trying to make here? This was very spontaneous and rushed so apologies if it feels messy cuz it very much is messy. But my main points boil down to this: Purification, sanitation and the “fiction equals reality” and "your fictional tastes reflect on you morality irl" arguments need to die. They just have to. While petting Shin on a daily basis gives me enough serotonin to find the will to live, the only true solace I will find is when people start being normal. People shouldn’t be getting harassed or labelled as freaks for fiction you don’t like both online and real life. People are not less worthy of basic human decency and empathy solely based on their fictional interests. People should be able to explore fiction however the hell they want without worrying about there being made a call out post on them somewhere. I search Tcoaal on twitter and there’ll always be a bunch of posts with over 10k likes calling all fans annoying weirdos or say it’s an “incest game” even tho it literally isn’t. I will try looking for some Valangel art on tumblr and see some loser use the tag to basically shit on everyone who ships it and lying about the treatment these shippers get while defending Charlastor or just shit on the ship in general. I just exist on the twitter side of the HH fandom chilling with other Val fans and literally every single one of them has either received death/rape threats or told to kill themselves, got ratio’d by a bunch of haters, had a call out post saying not to follow dedicated to them, had their art reposted and Val scribbled out, repeatedly accused of ““romantising a rapist””, or all of the fucking above. Valentino’s VA gets asked if he’s actually like the character he plays in real life or a fan being “relieved that he didn’t abuse them like Valentino” when they met (kudos to Joel for being chill about it btw I would be fuming this fandom does not deserve this man). I type in a certain controversial yttd ship to search and most of the latest posts are just people being rude, saying that if Nankidai makes them canon they’ll drop the game, calling the man himself a freak, calling other shippers freaks, shitting on soushin as well and then having soushiners defend their ship while also shitting on said controversial ship. It genuinely feels like fanbases are circuses and we are the clowns 💀

I could list other examples people being weirdos but I can't do that without breaking the momentum of this post even more than I already have. I guess what I wanted to vent about is how these attitudes regarding fiction and the way people police how others engage with it and how people think of you based on what you like can go from just annoying to downright dangerous more often than you’d think. That belief that you are morally superior to someone else based on the fact that you ship or like things the “legal” and “pure” and “healthy” way (which is never actually the case btw) can lead to you being really disrespectful or a complete asshole and not feeling bad about it at all, which does more harm than good. Which is why I thought it was important to bring up more extreme cases to empathise how this obsessive gatekeeping of fiction can and does hurt real people, who should be more important to you than fictional characters.

All of this is very likely going to sound very aggressive in tone and I want to quickly clarify that this is not meant to be an attack towards anyone in particular. I'm just tired and recalling all this stuff is making my mood sink like a stone lmao. Who knows, maybe I'm just overexaggerating and things won't get worse when the game gets more popular. This is just what I've been witnessing both in and out of my side of the moon. The amount of yttd fans I've seen act like this are a lot tho. No fandom is perfect obviously, and this one is the farthest from it, but with new people coming in and this weird attitude and need to sanitise not only towards soushin, but other "problematic" ships and media as well growing more prominent (mostly on Twitter and Tiktok) my biggest worry is that the hostility in this fandom will just... increase? Roulettefeel made pretty good posts about it-- my favourites being this one, also this one and this one's pretty short and sweet, summarising most of my soushin points a lot better and shorter than my trainwreck of a post so I recommend checking them out. If you like soushin, go check them out. If you don't like soushin, go check them out anyway. They make stuff outside of soushin too. They're pretty cool.

[I also want to add that the whole sanitisation thing in the yttd fandom is nothing new. It’s been a thing for longer than I have been here. I’ve just been seeing it again with soushin, which is was what made me want to do this in the first place. There’s another dynamic the fandom obviously does this for, but uttering it would not only get me flamed but straight up burned at the stake of bad takes so I’m saving that for a rainy day.]

Aaaaannd, I'm done, I think. I didn't have a good conclusion for this in mind. Idk, just be nice? You don't have to like "proships" (or what the fandom has defined as proship cuz that's not the actual definition), but that's what the block buttons for. Don't like, don't read, I say. Fandoms are for everyone and as long as what the person is doing is harmless, let them feel safe being themselves without having to worry about someone coming after them. Real life cops already suck. Let's not bring them into our collective escapism. And something you personally don't like ending up canon doesn't mean the game or ship is "ruined". That doesn't just go for soushin. That goes for other things too. To tie up loose ends, soushin having an age gap or being related has always been on the table and fits with other themes in the narrative. That does not count as "bad" if it makes sense. Soushin is not "Ok to ship" because it's "not an illegal ship" (whatever tf that means) and it's not "bad to ship" because it's "romanticising abuse". It's fine to ship because it's fictional. You don't need a moral justification to ship anything. That goes for all ships. That's why NOTPs exist. And "proship" doesn't and has never meant "shipping problematic pairings". It's a stance on shipping. It means being pro people being allowed to ship whatever they want. That includes being cool with problematic pairings, but is not limited to those. It means not being a fandom cop. Please stop saying otherwise, I cannot keep living this way--

Soooouuu, to end off on a more positive note and finally put this whole thing to bed I'll link some of my fav newer soushin accounts for anyone who's interested:

Hyo (orewagahai on ao3 check that out too): They are an amazing, amazing writer. If you're into dark, abusive co-dependent, complicated soushin with beautiful characterisation I would highly recommend. They just posted another soushin drabble on twitter and it's great.

jinn: They've been putting out banger after banger ever since getting into the game. Their art is absolutely stunning and they upload frequently, so go check 'em out if you can! It's actual medicine for the soul, I promise. They also draw for dead plate, so if you're into that go ahead too.

angel: Also cool. They're soushin art is hilarious and cute. As much of a sucker as I am for toxic, abusive sludge, they give thses two idiots a silliness that I enjoy. Also if you like trans!Shin content they're pretty good.

欣武 (my dumbass forgot to add them the first time sorry): They are INCREDIBLE. Extremely incredible artist. Their art is so, so freaking good. Not checking them out is absolutely your loss, ngl.

Be nice to them. If I catch anyone attempting to annoy them I'm coming after you and your entire family. Let's be better and not chase new comers off this time :3 Thanks for listening to my incoherent venting. This is mostly for me to feel a bit better, but anyone is free to read. If anyone's got an opinion or observation, feel free to offer it. I need coffee. Coffee sounds good.

[sengoku-nadeko]

[yuwuta]

Is this a safe enough space to talk about how often fanfics are very white centered? cause I know it's been talked about before, but really... everything is face flushing and blushing and turning red and ears red too now 🥲

ok yes bc this has always been an issue but i do feel like recently the… lack of sensitivity for—when it comes to physical things like that specifically—nonbrown/nonblack audiences is at an all time high again. and yes, people can write and post “whatever they want” and people who want to see specific tropes or examples could “write their own fics” but i don’t think it’s obscene to say that if you are writing and posting something intended to be x reader, then you have to care about the potential reader lol and i don’t think it’s much of a burden to consider people of darker complexions or different hair textures. and the whole thing sucks so bad if you’re of a darker complexion or non-straight hair texture and have constant reminders that even in your escapism or self-indulgent media, you’re not the intended audience ://