#literally just posting this video for an audience of me only

[blckbarbiedoll]

Is Somebody Gonna Match My Freak? (Wade Wilson x f!black!reader)

CONTAINS NSFW CONTENT (mentions of oral sex, p in v sex, swearing, Wade in general) probably ooc, cheesy nicknames, wrote this in the middle of the night 😭🙏🏾

based on this post by @megantheestallion-ismypresident

word count: 1.2k

Never in a million years did you expect to be dating a mercenary. More specifically, Deadpool himself. And never in a million years did you expect to find a boyfriend that matched your freak (and stamina).

When Wade learned what you did for a living, he didn’t turn away like past lovers. Instead, he embraced your sexual freeness. Encouraged it even.

“That’s fucking awesome.”

“Really? It doesn’t bother you?”

You both laid under the covers in his bed, a thin layer of sweat on your bodies. He passed a freshly lit blunt to you after taking a puff for himself.

“Baby, I literally crack skulls for a living. I’m not in a position to judge anyone’s occupation here.”

“Guys usually run for the hills when I tell them.”

“Girls usually run for the hills when they find out what I do. Not to mention when I take the mask off. And yet, here you are.” He took the blunt from in between your fingers. “So either you really like me, or you’re just as fucked up as I am, peanut.”

“Both?”

“Both sounds about right.” You both chuckled and kissed each other softly, basking in the afterglow of your pleasure.

Although most of the time you would film alone (which you didn’t mind), Wade would join on occasion. And it seemed that whenever he did, your views skyrocketed. Usually, only his fingers or his dick would make an appearance on your channel. Not only was he a mercenary with too many people out looking for him, but he was convinced that his face wouldn’t appeal to your audience.

“Trust me, babe, this ugly mug is the last thing people wanna see when they’re rubbing one out.”

“Really? ‘Cause your face is the first thing that comes to my mind.”

“You and the readers both.”

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

You and Wade had returned from your weekly date night, which also happened to be one of your filming days. He was about to follow the routine of leaving you to it and going into the living room to wait for you. That was until you called him.

“Wade?”

“Yes, sugar bear?” He stuck his head in the doorway.

“Don’t you wanna join me?” You slowly slipped off the dress that hugged your curves, letting it drop to the floor. The absence of the dress revealed a matching red lace set. “I bought this for you.”

His mouth fell slightly agape at the sight of you. If this was a cartoon, he’d have big heart eyes. “Fuck.” Was all he could say in response.

“Is that a yes?”

“That’s a big fuck yes!” He kicked the door shut as he walked closer to you, lifting his t-shirt off in one swift motion.

“Hold on.” You grabbed your camera and tripod, making sure to set it at the right angle. After checking the video and sound quality, you grabbed Wade’s hand and led him over to the bed.

“Camera’s a little high there. Don’t wanna accidentally catch a glimpse of my face. It’ll crack the lens.”

“Would you stop? You are so fucking hot.”

“Well, that makes one person who thinks so.”

“Babe, I’m serious. I wanna record us for real. And not just one part of you. I wanna be able to look back on a video of us. All of us.”

”It’s that important to you?”

“Yes. And if you really don’t like it, I won’t post it. It’ll be just for us.” You looked up at him with your big brown eyes, practically begging him.

He sighed and scratched the back of his head. “You know I can’t say no to you, chocolate drop.”

“I know.”

“Alright, fine. But you better get my good side.”

And that’s how you found yourself in this position (literally and figuratively). Wade had already eaten you out twice with a blowjob in the middle of each of them. But now, he had you on your back, hips in the air as he ruthlessly thrusted into you.

Almost a hour into recording, you both were in a trance. His large hands held your hips up so he could fuck into you easily. Your leg was thrown over his shoulder, allowing him to hit all the right spots. You gripped onto his toned arms for support, feeling the divets in his skin under your fingers. “So good, baby.” You barely breathed out. He was fucking your brain to mush and he knew it.

“Yeah? You like this dick inside you?” He harshly grunted, not taking his eyes off of you for a second. “You like when I fuck you like this for everyone to see?”

Your nails dug into his skin as you threw your head back against the mattress. “Yes.” It was barely even a whisper, but it was all you could say given your current state.

He moved one of his hands up your leg that was rested against his shoulder. He gripped your ankle and pressed soft kisses against it. “You’re so fucking gorgeous. Gonna make me cum just looking at you.”

"Oh my god." You gasped, feeling your orgasm build with each thrust.

He looked between you and the camera before turning your head to look straight at the lens. "Show everyone how good you can take me."

“Wade.” You whined. “Please.”

“Please what, pretty girl? Tell me what you want.”

“Make me cum. Please?”

There goes those eyes again. The ones that could make Wade do anything and everything you wanted. How could he deny his pretty baby?

"Is that it?" He reached down to circle your aching clit with his thumb. "You wanna cum on my dick?"

"Fuck!" You gasped at the feeling. "Yes!"

He lifted your other leg onto his shoulder and bent down to kiss you. He had you folded like a fucking pretzel and you were loving every second of it.

"Holy shit, baby." He groaned. "I'm fucking close."

"Inside me."

"Yeah? You sure?"

"Please? I wanna feel you fill me up."

"Motherfucker." His grip on your hips was getting tighter, and his thrusts got sloppy. "You're close, aren't you?"

"Mhm."

"I know. I can feel you fucking squeezing me."

"Oh, god." You felt your pleasure building in your lower stomach. Wade continued his movements until you finally finished. "Fuck, Wade!"

"That't it, baby. Cum all around my dick."

His breath hitched in his throat as you felt his hot release fill you up. He waited a few moments before gently sliding out of you and falling down onto the mattress.

"Fuck." You sighed. "That was..."

"Really fucking good."

"Yeah. Really fucking good." You leaned over to grab the camera, pausing the recording. "Ready to see?"

"I guess."

He sat up as you played the video. His face went from a grimace to complete awe. Once he saw the both of you and how your bodies moved together, he was done for.

"So?"

"Can you send that to me?"

You laughed and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Of course."

"You should peg me."

"I have pegged you."

"On camera."

"Really?"

"Hell yeah."

"The viewers would love that."

"So would the readers."

"What are you talking about?"

"Don't worry about it. Go get the strap."

[miwiheroes]

Full Airport Scene Analysis

I've seen like, a lot of people do analyses of the airport scene, but they often do it in parts when I just want to fully hone in on the whole ass scene and give it a full run-down. So, get ready for this post to be extremely long.

So, the camera pans across from Argyle and Jonathan looking super bored and tired to both Will and El, and I think this is actually very clever. Before this scene, you're not really sure who Will is in love with or who he made the painting for. The fact that the audience may remember El saying 'i think there is someone he likes' and then see how Will is holding the painting so proudly means that they subconsciously realise, oh the painting is for Mike meaning -- Will has feelings for Mike. Note how the juxtaposition between Argyle and Jonathan's demeanour and Will and El's demeanour further showcases how they feel the same way about him (supposedly).

Also this is random, but watching this scene over and over again made me realise that Will's is literally shaking so much in this scene. (WATCH HIS HAND WHEN EL IS LOOKING FOR MIKE)

Now let's talk about Mike's outfit (yes this isn't just talking about how ass it is)

So in the amazing GQ video on youtube, the costume designer talks about how Mike probably bought this outfit at the airport. He's dressing up how he thinks he should in California -- the double meaning being that he is trying to 'be more normal' as Finn Wolfhard says in another interview.

In this scene we know that Mike's trying really hard to push down his feelings about Will, he's trying to seem like he fits in, and in the GQ video, Amy Parris talks about how 'it's bright, it's not a colour Mike normally wears'. Orange and purple? Mike usually wears blue..... and yellow........... i mean what

I guess you could say that in a more surface-y way, he's trying to fit in by wearing something less edgy than he would normally wear, but if you look deeper into the colour coding of byler, he's trying to disconnect himself from Will because of him trying to deny his feelings. Will is wearing blue in this scene, but Mike's wearing orange, showing the disconnect between them in the scenes with these outfits on. I know a lot of people say he's wearing yellow, but nah, it's orange and that's actually more proof that he's trying to hide his feelings for Will.

Also this is another quote from Parris: 'he's worn teal before, so it felt like orange was the best colour that was different from his closet that felt like he was trying to make it work in california.'

And it's not like they just forgot the colour coding for byler. I mean, there's blue and yellow in this shot of Mike when we first see his outfit.

Can you spot it?

Okay moving on

In the first and last Milkvan kissing scene, it is important to note that the directors of the show are very intentional with the extras and where they move to during the scenes. During the shot of them kissing, the camera is focused on them, yes, but it is very busy. Watch the shippers try to edit this scene, the duffers really said.

Firstly, Mike is wearing a visor, he's holding a bag so he can barely hug her, he's also wearing sunglasses inside?? You can't see his facial expression, further showing this season is not in his pov. Not only that, but people are moving in front of the camera, it's very very busy. It's supposed to be a little overwhelming. I could barely take a screenshot without someone walking in front of the camera... like that is not a coincidence, they aren't filming in an actual busy airport. So so many extras walk in front of them during the whole scene, not just the kiss, but while they are speaking as well.

When El goes to hug him, as soon as she does, he makes a little noise of protest or something and is like 'careful, careful' almost like he put the flowers in front of them on purpose so there's like an excuse for them to stop hugging? They then stop hugging and he finally takes off his glasses so we can see his face.

He is wearing sunglasses only in the parts where he's being slightly intimate with his girlfriend -- eyes are windows into the soul, no? Without them being seen, you wouldn't be able to tell what he is thinking, and he needs these in these intimate moments especially, in case anyone notices something's wrong.

Okay now we go onto the flower theory thing, and there are many things to unpack here, and stuff that I personally don't believe, and some theories that I do.

What is super clear to me is that these flowers are the exact same dead flowers that El picks up at the end of season 4 to signify that her relationship with Mike is.... dead (sorry if that's kind of on the nose). However, it is also key to note that Mike says that he 'handpicked' them for her in Hawkins, which on the surface makes it seem like he made more effort, but really this actually sets up the fact that they are the same flowers that can be found on the field. If he bought them in the shop, they may not be the exact same flowers in the last scene.

So Mike says 'I know you like yellow, but now I'm realising it's too much yellow'. The writers of the show did not have to put that in, let's just think about that for a moment. What was the reason for putting this line in? And the '70-30' split line is also very very specific.

Will's colour in the byler colour coding is yellow, it has been subconsciously put into our minds ever since they started colour coding them, for example the s3 netflix icons, the shirt he wears for the majority of s4 and the lights over his head in Rink-o-mania.

Personally, I think this might be a bit of a reach, but could Mike just simply mean that he was thinking too much about Will, in his opinion? Like subconsciously he kind of added lots of yellow because he was thinking of Will when he was thinking of El.

As for the 'So I sort of did a 70-30 split thing' line, I'm not really sure what this means. It could mean that he's putting in 30% of the relationship because he also added 30% purple flowers which symbolises what he's putting into the relationship. Meanwhile, El's favourite colour of flower has a 70% weight in the bouquet, meaning she's putting more into the relationship.

It's also worthy to see that El looks at the note which has 'From, Mike' on it right as he's saying all this stuff about the yellow flowers, and the music dies down from this joyful tone to a sombre one, kind of showing how the yellow flowers are a symbol for something.

Now, before this ^^, the only problem that we think is going on in Mike and El's relationship is the fact that El's lying to him about having friends and not being bullied. But now we have a possible reason. She is insecure about their relationship and how real it is. Her face says everything, she notices it, she then tries to ignore it and tells herself everything is fine.

The audience notices this, obviously, and is like??? wait what's going on? Why does it say 'from Mike'?

They get the answer real quick.

Because right after this, is when Will bounds over.

They shot it so that he's kind of in between them, subconsciously placing a thought or idea in the audience's head about what the problem is between Mike and El, even though it's very implicit at this point. The audience should also have the slight idea in this scene that Will has feelings for Mike, and they get reminded of this fact when they see Will in the background. They're then like.... oh so that's why they having problems? Damn....

Before El even stops speaking, Mike sees Will. We can tell from the way that he literally takes his eyes off El and goes 'oh,' before doing the second 'oh!'. I bet if this was shot so you could see his face, this would be way more obvious, but they shot it so that we could see Will's initial happiness at seeing Mike instead.

Awkward bro hug... um yeah so this is one of the biggest byler proofs to me. I mean, why would you need to hug your best friend like that? When you are perfectly fine at hugging your other male friends? (He hugged Dustin in the first episode btw).

Given everything that we know so far, that Will has feelings for Mike because he made him the painting that El said is for someone he likes; that there must be problems going on in the Milkvan relationship; that Mike is hiding his face and dressing unlike normal.... yeah he's trying to repress something. He won't let himself hug his best friend. Will is acting normal, they could have made him the one not to hug Mike because he is in love with him, but they didn't.

Also, unlike the Milkvan reunion, his face and his reaction can be very easily seen here. They literally zoom in on both their reactions to seeing each other because it is more important than Mike and El's reunion. This is what the scene is about!! It's main focus is on the development of byler and the breakdown of Milkvan. There are like very little extras passing across the camera because the directors want you to focus on their reactions here and how Will and Mike are feeling.

Obviously, Will is dejected but Mike's reaction is more telling. On the right gif, he looks down. Maybe he sees Will's painting and remembers what El told him, which was that it was for someone that Will likes. In my opinion, Mike does not know that it is for him. In Finn's words: 'I don't think he knows'.

After seeing that painting, he instantly looks to other people for their reactions to the hug, maybe being like, hey guys was that normal enough? Did anyone see that? Showing how he cares about the opinions of those around him or maybe that he doesn't want to look at Will for much longer idk.

After that...

Okay so now he's ready to ask about the painting. There's a beat, then he asks 'Uh, what's that' in this kind of breathy, panicky voice. It's not a casual tone at all, it's very tense, and the audience can tell, because this makes the audience tense too. When I first watched it I was like AHHH because oh shit. He asks it like he knows something is up with it, he knows that Will made it and it's significant.

The next shot is a slide-up from the painting to Will's face. This could be in Mike's pov to show that he was looking Will up and down, and this shot is inherently kind of romantic in that way. Either that or it's simply just to focus on the painting before showing what Will's going to say so that the audience know he's talking about the painting.

You can kind of see the cogs working in Will's head in the very little time between 'um' and 'it's nothing', as he realises that he probably shouldn't show Mike the painting based on how Mike didn't hug him.

Also notice how in the gif, an extra walks by the camera as soon as Will is not entirely truthful, so why would this not be done with El and Mike's reunion scene??

Now, this further pushes the agenda that Mike didn't hug Will because of his feelings for him. The audience already knows that this painting is supposed to be a gift for someone that Will 'likes' based on El's letter to Mike at the beginning. The fact that Will no longer feels comfortable with sharing that painting means that he is more unsure of Mike's feelings now that he's seen him irl.

However, the way that Mike goes cool is supposed to be weird. It's supposed to show the audience that he's pretending. I honestly don't know whether it's bias or the directors or the writers or the actors somehow made it this way but the speed at which Mike says 'cool' kind of just implies that he was not ready for that kind of confrontation. He was not ready to confront his feelings or enter into an interaction with Will about the painting. Because it means he can't deny the fact that he's jealous of Will having a crush on some girl. So he quickly shut it down.

He doesn't want to feel the disappointment that Will just basically confirmed the painting isn't for him.

In season 3, he is very interested in knowing who Suzie is, Dustin's girlfriend, but when he knows that Will has made a painting for a girl he likes, he doesn't bother asking at all what it is or who the girl is. He doesn't want to acknowledge it.

Also, the fact he wasn't ready to feel like this and is so focused on Will is shown by how startled he is by other people breaking the moment.

Now this next part is so funny given what we have already been presented with. We already know that Mike is self-conscious about hugging his supposed best friend, and that he does not want to confront his feelings about the painting. He is trying to be someone else because he is wearing unusual clothes for him, trying to seem like a normal person in California. He didn't want to hug his best friend because he wants to seem normal. He's out of character.

"Oh no, no. It's a shitty knockoff."

Laughing my whole ass off.

This ties the whole scene together. It makes the audience go OHHH right he's just been pretending this whole time (if they have any sense). It's genius writing. Without Argyle saying this, we might never really have full confirmation on whether he is really out of character or whether this is just how he has always been. NO, he is lying to himself. He is pretending.

They did not have to make Argyle say this. Ever heard of double meanings folks?

And Mike's reaction?

This reaction has always kind of been interesting to me. How would you assume how Mike would react to someone insulting him? Usually he would scowl or look annoyed but here he doesn't, he almost looks worried. Like oh no he's just been found out lmao

After this there's an awkward moment spurred on by Argyle Mike's like 'yeah this is so awkward'.

Now, since I'm literally Mike and he is me, I know what he's doing here by saying this.

I've done it before, it's where you kind of say that it's really awkward in order to make it seem like you're not the one making it awkward, like you're blaming other people (which he always does).

But Michael, it's kind of your fault?? Like, you didn't have to do the bro tap, you also didn't have to act that way around Argyle.

BRO WE ARE HALFWAY THROUGH NOW LMAOOOO THIS IS SUCH A LONG POST

Now onto the next part, where El is talking about Rink-o-mania and she starts lying again. I have watched this scene over and over and literally Mike barely looks at her once, while he glances at Will multiple times. I feel like audience members don't catch this explicitly, but subconsciously, they can sense that there is tension between the two because of the way that Will is placed during this scene…

I counted them up in this video and Mike glances at Will..

6 Times

Just want to say before we talk about each glance, this scene is extremely telling. It tells you exactly, through subtext, what the atmosphere between Will, Mike and El is going to be like throughout the season/ the beginning of the season. It's textbook foreshadowing.

Will is standing off to the side while Mike has his arm like really tightly around El. They could have had this scene be a cute scene between Milkvan because of how close they are, but instead this scene is about Will's sadness, about how he was ignored by Mike. He's still holding the painting, so the audience are still aware of its existence and what it could imply for Mike and El's relationship.

This scene is also about El lying! Not about how 'cute' Mike and El are.

Okay so here is me talking about every single glance <3

"Wha- Really?" -- Could Mike make it clearer if he tried? I think this is the most obvious one that the audience could easily catch, if they are watching without distraction. Which is important, because it is the first one. He stutters over his words when he realises that Will is looking back at him. Sound familiar? In a much more obvious scene, he does this with the triple take in the desert... It's also kind of clear that they looked at each other because Mike and Will look down/ away straight after Mike goes 'wha-'

"Trust me" "No I trust you" -- So this one's a little more subtle and maybe to the audience it could seem like Mike's looking at El, but then the camera turns to focus directly on Will and him looking at Mike with disappointment. I don't think he's upset about Mike completely ignoring him, but he's upset about this weird little awkward dance they're doing. The reaction from Will is because of the uncertainty. The fact they focus on Will with a single shot at all instantly makes this scene about his emotions primarily. This becomes a pattern.

"Rink-o-mania..." -- This one's also super subtle. I'm not even sure why Mike looked at Will here, but it is clear that he's not looking at El, if you want to slow it down then you ig. Maybe he sensed that Will was staring at him just a few seconds prior.

"Are your friends gonna meet us there?" -- Even though he is speaking to El, he looks at Will. This kind of shows that even when he is supposedly thinking about El and what they are going to do together, subconsciously, his mind is still on Will. This can then be seen in the Rink-o-mania argument when it is revealed that he has been focusing on Will's reactions all day when the audience believes originally that he was ignoring him: "You were! You were rolling your eyes, you were moping, you were barely talking, you basically sabotaged the whole day!" Mike, Mike, Mike. Your girlfriend being bullied didn't ruin the day, Will being pissy to you did? ANYWAYS THIS ISNT ABOUT RINKOMANIA JHDGASJHDG

"Friends what friends?" -- So this fifth one is kind of ambiguous because he has his visor on, hiding his expression and where his eyes are looking. But you can see with the way his head turned, that he was looking at Will because of the way he said "Friends what friends?" This is probably just Mike being confused on what's going on, then. BUT it is another thing that makes this whole scene not about 'uwu mike and el awww' but about Will's feelings or the fact that El's lying and the unstableness of their relationship.

"Angela?" -- This one is very notable. Firstly, here is what we know: Mike knows about the fact that Will has probably done the painting for a 'girl he likes'. Mike thinks that this 'girl' isn't him because Will says 'it's nothing'. Mike maybe thinks that El's friends are also Will's friends. AND Mike does not want to ask Will about the girl he likes because he doesn't want to know about Will liking someone else/ he does not want to confront his own feelings. So, The way that Mike looks at Will with that kind of dead expression, (and he actually does a little double take) is super duper telling. You don't know what he's thinking but if you read into it, he could be thinking that Will was feeling hopeful that Angela would come and is kind of nervous for it.

Finally, El says "I want this day to be about me and you!" which is meant to be ironic. The showrunners would not have put this little line in if it wasn't supposed to be funny tbh..... like this whole scene was about how El was lying and she's suddenly saying it's just about them.

Because of what she says as well, Will rolls his eyes and crushes his painting a bit. (HEARTBREAKING)... The fact that he rolls his eyes is probably just him being annoyed about what she said, because it further makes him feel like the third wheel. The scene ends with his eye roll, emphasising how this whole scene was about how Will is feeling, not the "Main Couple Of The Show tm??" But alsoooo, he crushes the painting :(((( meaning he was also feeling heartbroken a little by the fact that they are acting very coupley and Mike doesn't seem to care about him oops, since the painting is for him.

OKAY IM DONE LMAOOOO

In conclusion, this scene is about byler in the first half, and the flaws of Milkvan and Will's feelings in the second half. This scene is meant to foreshadow the arc between Will, El and Mike which transpires in the rest of the season. The bro tap is the gayest thing I've ever seen, and did not have to be included in this scene. It could have been Will that was awkward. It shows that Mike has changed. He has changed ever since Will moved away and he had that realisation. In season 3, Mike seems confused, unaware of his feelings. But now, in this scene, in only 2 minutes, we know for sure that Mike is in denial. He knows.

Anyways

Byler Endgame.

[vanteguccir]

── ୨୧ !　𝗚𝗔𝗟𝗔𝗫𝗬 𝗚𝗜𝗥𝗟

　　　　　　　　　　𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒕 𝒔𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒐𝒍𝒐 x reader

SUMMARY: Where Matt has a crush on Y/N, an influencer extremely well-known in the USA, but when she goes to the Zach Sang Show, Matt discovers that she also has a crush on him. When the two meet at a party, how will Matt react?

REQUESTED?: Yes, from anon.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

　　　༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

"Hi beautiful people! I'm Zach, and that is Dan, and welcome to the studio for the first time after many requests, Y/N!" Zach began with his standard intro, the camera moving away from him and onto Y/N, who was sitting comfortably on the couch facing her microphone.

"Hii, wow... I've lost count of how many nights I've spent hours watching your show, Zach, so being here is an honor! Thank you so much for having me." Y/N spoke with a smile on her face, her eyes shining with excitement.

"It's amazing to have you here too. Believe me, the honor is ours." Zach replied, smiling just as much. "But tell me, how is life? Crazy, I imagine." He asked with a smile, taking in Y/N's features.

"Don't remind me, literally crazy! As I have Instagram, Tiktok, and YouTube to manage and post content every day, at least in one, I haven't had time to stop much, you know?" Y/N spoke while gesturing with her hands. "But it's been incredible. Over the past five years, I've loved every moment of it."

"I can only imagine, especially since you have a knack for fashion too, right? I see you a lot at events." Zach commented, taking a sip of his water.

"Yes, exactly. My content is a little bit of everything: humor, fashion, relationships, makeup, Q&A, day-to-day life, etc. I like this really mixed stuff." The girl let out a laugh when she finished.

"Yes, I think that's what attracts so many audiences to you too, right? You have subjects that cover all audiences." Zach commented, receiving a nod from the influencer. "And tell me a little about how it all started, from the beginning."

"Well, I've always been a person who loved to talk, my friends at school joked that if I sat next to an unknown person for ten minutes, within the first minute I would come up with a random topic and start a conversation." Y/N smiled when she heard Zach comment that that was something super interesting and traits of an extroverted person. "Plus, I've always liked having an audience and social media. I had Musical.ly many years ago, where I posted short makeup and hair videos."

"Wow, Musical.ly, I completely forgot it existed." Dan commented, laughing along with the other two.

"Yes, it looks like it was a crazy dream." Zach nodded, glancing briefly at Dan before returning his gaze to Y/N. "I saw some videos from that time. You once mentioned that you took makeup courses, right?"

"Yes, I took makeup courses at Make-up Forever Academy while I was at school. It's always been my favorite hobby." Y/N said, as she stirred her Starbucks coffee cup, her drink still warm. "And on Musical.ly, I only posted that, but over time, the app lost popularity, and people started looking for me on Instagram. At the time, my Instagram was pretty empty, I didn't post almost anything there, just some also makeup things. But then, I needed to change that since Instagram gave me a lot more tools to create more expansive content. It was the moment that I completely lost my shyness with cameras, you know? That's when I started talking about other things besides makeup and hair, and the audience grew. Famous people started following me as well, I remember I panicked about that." She paused, laughing, accompanied by Zach, who was listening intently.

"And my followers started asking for a YouTube channel, where I could make longer videos and each one about something specific. I thought a lot about it, but I took courage and created my channel, and it totally exploded, almost all of my followers from Instagram started to follow me there, but on YouTube the number of people doubled."

"It caught the attention of the public who only used YouTube, right?" Zach commented, nodding in understanding.

"Exactly! And I was just with this two social medias for a few years, until I discovered Tiktok, that's when I discovered that it was like an improved Musical.ly, and that a lot of people made content just on it. I remember thinking: why not? I was already fully on the Internet, and it wouldn't hurt to have another social network. The audience continued to grow, and there were shares all the time, likes, and comments, and with that, we reached 16 million subscribers on YouTube and 6 million followers on Tiktok and Instagram." Y/N finished, her face showing a smile as she momentarily remembered her long journey there.

"Your history with the Internet is truly incredible, you are one of the biggest influencers in the United States and well known all over the world, having started at 15 years old and fighting to grow and gain your own space." Zach praised, clapping playfully as Y/N waved her hand like it was nothing, her face turning red in embarrassment. "But you mentioned a subject I wanted to bring up: celebrities." He said, laughing when he saw the girl take on a fearful look.

"Jesus, what are you going to say?" Y/N asked with a smile on her face, she had already opened up her life and tastes so much to her audience, that she knew she would definitely have said something about celebrities that she didn't remember at that moment, but that Zach would bring up.

"There was a video on Tiktok where you were answering a question from a fan, who had asked what your favorite YouTube channel and your celebrity crush were." Zach began, approaching the microphone to his face. Y/N widened her eyes, taking a sip of her drink to hide her expression, vaguely remembering the video in question. "And you answered that your favorite channel was the Sturniolo Triplets and that your celebrity crush was Matt Sturniolo, is that correct?"

"Oh my God." Y/N muttered, hiding her red cheeks in her hands. "Yes, it is." She let out a nervous laugh. "The triplets are super funny, I just love their content! I'm not going to lie, I've never missed a video of them. I saw that Chris came here this year, right? I think their journey with YouTube is incredible." She said, Zach nodding as he confirmed that Chris had been on the show recently.

"They really are incredible people. Their content is gold. But, is Matt still your crush?" He asked again, looking at her with a smile on his face.

"You're not going to let this go, are you?" Y/N asked as she smiled sheepishly. "Yes, he's still my crush. I mean, have you seen that man? He's hot, has an incredible sense of humor, and is kind! Just perfect, just no more than Harry Styles." She counted the characteristics mentioned with the fingers of her right hand, laughing when she mentioned the British singer, trying to take all attention away from her admission about her crush.

"Yeah, guys, it seems like if you're not Matt, or Harry, you don't enter Y/N's list." Zach joked, looking at the camera, receiving laughs from the other two there.

　　　　　༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

The triplets were lying on the sofa in their home, each in a corner of the space, while using their phones. Sounds of tiktoks and reels echoed through the walls.

Nick was on his tiktok, browsing his For You, watching the millions of edits that his fans made for them, some videos of other subjects appearing from time to time. The boy let out a laugh when he saw an edit of himself with clips taken from the last car video, double-clicking on the screen to give it a like before scrolling his thumb up, Y/N's voice suddenly sounding from his phone.

Nick took his thumb away from the screen momentarily, paying attention to what one of his favorite influencers was saying, smiling as he heard her tell a little about her history with social media.

His smile was replaced by wide eyes seconds later when the girl's comment about his channel with his brothers and about Matt sounded.

"What?" He asked loudly, catching the attention of Matt and Chris, who had confused looks on their faces.

"What what?" Chris asked, locking the screen of his phone and tossing it to the side.

Matt only looked up from his own phone screen momentarily, returning his attention to his Instagram feed.

"You know Y/N?" Nick asked, his eyes darting from Matt to Chris quickly.

"That super famous influencer that Matt has had a crush on for years? Yes." Chris agreed, nodding his head as he adjusted himself in his seat, receiving a slap on the arm from his brother, who lowered his cell the moment the girl's name left Nick's lips.

"She knows who we are, and not only that, she talked about us on Zach's show." The redhead said with wide eyes.

"Zach Sang?" Matt asked, receiving a nod from Nick, who got up and walked closer to his brothers, sitting between the two and raising his phone, increasing the screen brightness and volume before hitting play on the tiktok again.

The video was a compilation of the show's favorite moments with the influencer. The triplets watched in silence until they got to the part where Y/N talked about her channel, also confirming her crush on Matt. Chris quickly turned his face to Matt with his mouth open in shock.

"Matt, THE Y/N has a crush on you." Nick reinforced, pausing the video and turning to his brother, who had wide eyes as he looked at the phone that had Y/N's face on the screen, a disbelief look on his own face.

"That's crazy." He muttered, shaking his head in denial. "It's not possible that my longtime crush has a crush on me, too. That only happens in movies. Right?" Nick rolled his eyes at the comment.

"It might be crazy, but it's not a lie. She wouldn't talk about our channel and reveal her crush on you if it was a lie or a joke." Chris commented as he fixed the hood of his sweatshirt, earning a nod from Nick.

"Next week, there will be that huge and super chic party for the biggest influencers and YouTubers in the United States here in LA, and we received an invitation. I'm absolutely sure she will be there. It would be a great opportunity to make contact with other YouTubers and get to know her, maybe even ask her to participate in a video with us." Nick reminded his brothers of the invitation, locking his phone screen and looking at the two.

"Are you sure about that?" Matt asked, an expression of uncertainty on his face. Out of the three, he was the least fond of parties, although none of them were very fond of it either.

"It would be great for the channel, Matt." Chris reinforced, shrugging. "It wouldn't hurt to try. If we don't like it, we can leave right away. But meeting Y/N seems amazing to me right now, and it would be a great opportunity for you."

"Okay."

　　　　　༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

"Are you guys sure about this?" Matt asked after turning off the key in the ignition, keeping his hands on the wheel as he looked ahead, his ears picking up the loud sound coming from the party.

"Matt, it's just going to be a test, okay? It's interesting for us to make more contacts." Nick responded from the backseat, resting his hands on the sides of the front seats as he looked in the rearview mirror, waiting for Matt to look back.

Matt looked up, focusing on Nick through the mirror, who had a neutral expression. The boy shifted his gaze to Chris beside him, who was already looking at him.

Chris offered a reassuring smile, taking his left hand to Matt's right shoulder, squeezing the area.

Matt exhaled deeply as he mentally prepared himself. It had been years since he had attended such a big party.

It didn't take long for the triplets to get out of the vehicle. Matt locked the doors before they started their walk to the mansion where the loud sound of pop music was coming from.

Nick quickly pulled from the pocket of his jeans the invitation he had received in the mail that stated his and his brothers' names on expensive-looking paper and beautiful writing, holding it ready to present to the security guards at the front.

After being granted entry, the three entered the house, stopping for a few seconds at the beginning of the living room while their eyes traveled over the people there, recognizing some of their social media.

The mansion was extremely chic, decorated with golden tones and diamond chandeliers, long marsala red curtains covered the huge windows and columns that resembled those of Greek temples were spread throughout the space, along with two staircases in each hemisphere of the room with wooden handrails and a red carpet that led upstairs.

Youtubers, influencers, and celebrities filled the space, talking or dancing, some drinking, dressed in extravagant and expensive clothes.

Chris surreptitiously pointed to a specific point, making his brothers look there.

"That's Y/N, right?" He asked, earning a nod from Nick.

To Matt, the earth seemed to have stopped spinning, and the world seemed to have become static. The celebrities in the room suddenly stopped, the sound became muffled, and the smell of drinks and perfume disappeared. His breathing seemed to catch, and his throat felt dry.

Y/N looked perfect, having opted for an all-silver outfit: a mid-length skirt with a thigh-high slit from Diesel draped in synthetic silver along with a white crop top also from Diesel adorned her body. A pair of thin silver high heels decorated her feet, complemented by a silver Diesel bag and jewelry in the same color.

She looked like she came out of one of those galaxy movies, but much prettier than its characters.

Matt could have watched her from afar for seconds or minutes, just admiring her beauty and every detail of herself, but it still seemed to be too quick for his liking. Nick woke him from his hypnosis with a weak slap to his chest, getting his attention.

"You definitely don't know how to disguise it." He commented, rolling his eyes.

"Shut up, Nick." Matt responded quickly, frowning and briefly looking at Y/N again, before turning to his brothers. "I'm going to get something to drink, are you coming?" He asked, needing a cold soda at that moment.

Chris nodded, answering for himself and Nick, following his middle brother to the bar that was in the separation between the kitchen and the living room.

The space was extremely chic, a circle-shaped bar with a gold colored counter decorated with details in yellow and navy blue tiles, giving an air of wealth. At the front there were stools with synthetic gold upholstery and at the back, after the space where the bartender circulated, there was a large circular and high table filled with all types of drinks, including the most expensive ones.

Matt leaned his hips against the counter, choosing not to sit down, and glanced briefly at the bartender.

Nick sat on the stool next to him and Chris sat next to Nick, the two starting a conversation about a subject that Matt didn't pay attention to, his attention focused on the people around him, or rather, on one specific person.

His blue eyes went back and forth to Y/N's silhouette, admiring her from afar as he wished to be by her side, accompanying her and being the person she was talking to.

The girl next to Y/N and who had been talking to her since the moment Matt entered the room walked away, saying something while blowing an air kiss to the influencer, who smiled in response and turned around, facing where Matt was, but not looking directly at him, running her eyes around the people while taking sips of her drink, probably alcoholic.

Matt took a deep breath as he gathered his courage, straightening up and starting to take long steps towards the girl, crossing the room and passing among the famous people there.

"Matt, what do you want to- Matt?" Nick began, turning to where Matt was and stopping mid-sentence when he saw that his brother was no longer there.

"He's on his way to get his pot of gold." Chris commented, poking Nick with the index finger of his left hand and pointing at Matt, who was already approaching Y/N.

The brunette stopped next to Y/N, turning so that he was also facing the people around and shoulder to shoulder with her, a few centimeters between them. His hands were in the front pockets of his jeans as he breathed slowly, trying to calm his nerves.

And then her voice sounded like it was the easiest thing she'd done all day. Her voice was silky in person, so inducing that it sent goosebumps across Matt's skin.

"You were working up the courage to say hi..." She lifts the glass, taking another sip, her lips shiny with gloss and bright red lipstick, her tongue escaping her mouth momentarily, licking the residue of the drink there. "Or would you just stare at me all night?" She turned around, facing him.

Matt almost choked on his own saliva as he heard Y/N confirm that not only had she noticed he was there, but she had also noticed that he had been looking at her this entire time. A weight settled in his chest. Perhaps it was shame or lust due to the way she said that without reservation.

"I didn't mean to disturb you. You seemed quite engaged in your conversation." He made up an excuse, knowing full well that he could have gone to the girl from the moment he arrived, but his fear of what would happen held him back.

"Engaged? In a conversation about who here has the most money and fame?" Y/N threw back, furrowing her eyebrows.

Matt looked around them, stopping his eyes briefly on the girl who had previously spoken to Y/N and who was now watching the people with a gaze torn between judgment and desire. A loud laugh escaped his lips as he shook his head in denial, the pettiness of some people impressed him.

"For what it's worth, you're the only famous person here that interests me." Matt commented, his blue eyes focusing on Y/N's face, analyzing her closely. An expression of satisfaction came over his face as he saw a red color take over her cheeks.

"You flatter me, Matt." Y/N looks back at him, their eyes meeting for a few long seconds, before hers travel across Matt's face, mentally taking note of every detail she could notice in the few seconds.

The boy smiled arrogantly when he saw her eyes on him, receiving an eye roll in response.

"Do you like what you see?" He asked, his voice taking a deeper tone and his pupil dilating as his lips stretched into a smirk.

"Don't let it go to your head." Y/N responded as she scoffed playfully, allowing the beginning of a smirk to emerge on the right corner of her lip.

At that moment, Matt felt like he could do something, anything, that would make her smile like that again or smile a bigger smile. He thought of a million possibilities of what he could say to cause that reaction in her, longing to feel the butterflies in his stomach again.

"You look beautiful tonight." Matt praised, his blue eyes traveling over Y/N's body momentarily, returning to her eyes. "Not that you just look beautiful tonight. You always look beautiful. But today you..." The boy tried to justify, getting caught on his words. "Look perfect."

A sigh escaped his lips, an apologetic look taking over his eyes as his right hand scratched the back of his neck lightly, feeling like a complete idiot for getting tangled up in front of the girl he has a crush on.

"I'm sorry, this isn't how I pictured myself meeting you." He groaned, looking at the ground in shame, hoping something would surge and save him.

"So you imagined meeting me?" Y/N smiled, feeling arrogant. She bit her bottom lip, feeling smug as she watched Matt blush and his eyes widen. "I'm kidding. You look beautiful tonight, too." Y/N let out a low laugh, returning the previous compliment, running her tongue between her lips, wetting them as her eyes traveled over Matt, pausing lingeringly on his exposed collarbone with the tank top he was wearing, the necklaces that decorated his neck made her mouth water.

Before Matt could even open his mouth to answer her, the sound of footsteps approached, catching both their attention. Y/N tore her eyes away from Matt's blue ones and looked ahead, seeing the same girl from before approaching again, holding herself back from instantly rolling her eyes.

The boy realized that the conversation would change direction and that, perhaps, he would no longer be included in it. A subtle sigh escaped his lips, and he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans again, looking at Y/N briefly, realizing that she was already looking back.

"I'm sorry." She asked, pressing her painted lips into a thin line before a beautiful, wide smile replaced it. "Text me on Instagram. You will be my priority to respond." Y/N spoke before being gently pulled away by her "friend", turning her face back quickly and sending the brunette a wink before looking forward again.

Matt watched her from behind as her high-heeled legs took long, quick steps away from him, a goofy smile taking over his features. He would definitely send that text.

[eetherealgoddess]

Hey, I just had a really good idea for u to write. A yandere bonten and a singer/ famous reader. I really love your writing style, and I get sooo excited when I see u post something 🫶🤭

Thank youu!! I get excited for good requests :)

ꨄMelodic Ruinꨄ

Oneshot - Yandere Bonten/Famous Singer Au

❦You’re an artist who caught Bonten’s attention❦

Sano Manjiro, Hanemiya Kazutora, Sanzu Haruchiyo, & Haitani Brothers x Reader

(Mostly Mikey but you’ll see what I mean)

❣︎I know in real life the manager doesn’t “own” the singer, but in this story, the reader will have signed all of their artistic rights to the manager so that the plot will make sense❣︎

Not fully proofread

Japanese language is red

MY TR FANDOM WORKS ARE ONLY ON TUMBLR, AO3, AND WATTPAD UNDER EETHEREALGODDESS! REPORT IF YOU SEE IT POSTED UNDER ANYONE ELSE BUT ME!!!

I apologize if I get any Japanese etiquette or culture wrong, I literally have to research the culture for some of my fandom stories so if anything is wrong, please excuse my ignorance.

Notice:

✩Y/n is 18+. I picture her as a black female but you can see her however.

✩Some parts of the story may not be realistic or factual. After all, this is a work of fiction.

✩Although it's a dark 'romance,' I do not condone any of the behavior displayed.

✩Dark content such as: gore, violence, triggering topics, graphic scenes, vulgar language, explicit sexual content, etc.

✩There may be scenes that involve non con and/ or dubcon so don’t read if that makes you uncomfortable

✩That being said, this story is for 18+ only.

Enjoy!

Melodic Ruin

Claps could be heard echoing throughout the concert hall as you stood on the surface with a sweet smile, thanking the audience before walking off the stage, the lights shutting off behind you as the crowd began to make their leave. The long dress you wore hugging your figure as the train of the fabric followed behind. You had just completed the last performance for your concert, your hands rubbing along your sides as you released a breath of relief. Of course you don’t get as much anxiety as you did when you first started singing in front of thousands of people, you just really cared about your craft. A perfectionist you could say. This particular performance was important as well considering the extra onlookers your manager warned you about, you having noticed a few of the “important” people in the VIP seats when you were on the stage.

You are ranked as a famous singer in your country, not having been worldwide just yet besides the few videos of you singing at home or in the studio that went viral, as well as your first album that was released recently. You’re a new industry baby, but you’re still trying to keep your own personality in your work without getting controlled by any record deal which is why you’re an independent artist. You take pride in your art, creative by heart and ambitious by nature. It took you quite a few years of releasing singles and singing social media videos to finally get noticed for your talent. You’re proud of yourself which is something that doesn’t happen often enough. You’re not exactly at the top yet but you’re not mad with where you’re at.

“Good job, Y/n! You’ve caught quite the attention!” Your manager greets you just as you made it backstage, offering you the business card in her hand. You look down and take the paper on your own, eyeing the print. Your eyes widened.

“I got invited to perform in JAPAN?!” You exclaim. Never have you ever gotten an opportunity to go out of the country, only touring around local concerts although still popular by demand.

“A private, high classed lounge owned by club owners Haitani Ran and Haitani Rin! Isn’t this great news?” She beams as she holds her hands up. You look at her with your eyes glistening, a wide smile on your face as you feel so grateful for the opportunity. And to be personally invited to perform at this specific lounge is a huge deal for you. You’ll have more of a chance at getting acquainted with bigger connections. It’s intimidating, yet you couldn’t help the excitement that your hard work is finally paying off even bigger than it has.

“We’re leaving first thing tomorrow so get your bags packed because it’s gonna be a long trip!” Your manager says before giving your arms a tight squeeze. “You deserve this, Y/n. Bask in it now because before you know it, you’ll be attracting even bigger opportunities.” She walks off, leaving you with the business card as you read the print once more.

You immediately change before packing your bags when you make it home, excitement making it hard to fall asleep although eager for the next day to come. It was early in the morning when you and your manager met at the airport holding your private jet. Checking your consistent notifications as well as scrolling through social media. Sitting on the plane was full of thought while you listened to the music blasting from your headphones, thinking about the venue you’d be performing at. How intimate it’ll be to sing amongst all of those people who will be judging you, observing your creativity to see if it’s worth the profit.

An empty estate was offered to you and your manager, coming upon a penthouse once your driver dropped you off. Your manager basked in the luxury as she unpacked, talking your ear off as if she’s more excited than you. You chuckle at the thought before heading to your own bedroom to unpack, an eyebrow raising at the name tagged on the door. When you opened the door, you were met with a modernized luxury bedroom. The body sized window gives you a beautiful view of the city from above. You stood there a moment before turning around to get your outfit ready for the night, already having notified your manager to not call the stylist since you already had an idea of what you were going to wear.

When evening finally struck you had just climbed into the vehicle, your driver helping you in before shutting the door behind you, along with your two security guards who traveled with you. Your manager sat in the passenger seat, the black suv moving along as you eye through the tinted window. Your nerves are struck, having never performed in a country other than your own. Especially with the presence of numerous important individuals, you couldn’t afford to make any rookie mistakes.

When you arrived, you were helped out of the car, different locals being held back by guards already posted for the lounge, keeping the crowd behind the ropes as you walked along the red carpet. You waved and smiled as people screamed your name and song lyrics, cameras flashing as well as paparazzi ready for the next best shot. Finally making it inside, you were greeted with a beautiful melody, red covering the walls with a marble floor. Gold decor plastered along as well as the large chandelier hanging from the middle of the room.

A red rug sat in the middle of the floor along with cushioned chairs and glass tables, a bar across from the stage as well as many people conversing with champagne and other alcoholic beverages. A woman holds a microphone on the stage, entertaining the audience with beautiful harmony. Everyone wears all black formal attire, causing you to look down at your shimmery, golden gown with a grimace. You turn to your manager as you both walk down the hall in the opposite direction, heading for the dressing room.

“I thought I was supposed to wear gold.” You say softly. She smirks.

“You are. Don’t forget, Y/n. This is your special night.”

My special night, right.

You take a deep breath before one of your security guards opens the dressing room.

Your eyes perk at the man standing inside. He turns his head back before walking towards you with a smile. You eye his purple orbs before examining the suit accenting his broad figure. His neck tattoo displays a symbol you’ve never seen before, though it fit him well. Fingers run through his short, dyed hair as he gets closer.

“Welcome, Y/n. Haitani, Ran.” He states, holding a hand out. You smile politely, ignoring your anxiety as you shake his hand. You couldn’t help but notice how soft his skin felt against yours.

“Hello, Mr. Haitani. Thank you so much for this opportunity.” You beam, subconsciously rubbing your palms against the fabric of your dress, refraining from picking at the dress.

“Please, call me Ran. The pleasure is all mine. We are grateful to have you here.” He says, before connecting his lips with the back of your hand, gaze still holding yours. You felt your face warm, having never been handled so gently by a man considering the type of males that live in your hometown. Your manager walks up, both of them greeting each other, though her body is slightly tense when she gives him a tight smile. You fail to notice the display of tension, too focused on the tingling sensation lingering from the contact with your hand.

“I see that gold fits you very well. Best choice I’ve ever made.” He chuckled. So he recommended it to your manager?

That brings you comfort knowing you hadn’t made a mistake, after all it never felt good to be the odd one out because of misinformation.

“Indeed it is. Y/n, let’s get you ready to perform!” Your manager eased her arm around your shoulder before pulling you off, Ran waving bye as he exited the room while you shifted your gaze at her with confusion.

“What was that about?” You question her as she fixes her own makeup in the mirror.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“The way you just interr…”

“Y/n.” She breathes out. “Let’s focus on your music, yeah?” She says as she touches up your face. You nod your head right before an employee comes in to queue you. You exhale before heading down the hall behind the stage.

“Please give a warm welcome to Ms. Y/n!”

Straightening your back, you stepped onto the stage, revealing yourself to the audience who claps and cheers, giving you the welcome you deserve. You gaze at the beautiful view of the crowd, noticing a familiar suit sitting with eight other interesting looking men. You greet the crowd right before the music begins, beginning your performance as everyone quiets down, along with the light over the audience dimming.

During your performance, you allow yourself to get lost in the music. Closing your eyes as your hand moves along, flowing with the melody as your beautiful voice harmonizes well with the piano. Your head tilts as you release a stronger note that comes from the base of your voice, tightening your grip on the microphone as you walk along the stage. The slit of your gown opens slightly, exposing your thigh as you move across the stage. Your gaze shifts to different sides of the lounge, making eye contact with a few of the audience members as some of them sway their upper bodies with your song.

The frequency of your voice brings a sense of calmness to the crowd, some with their palm holding their cheek up as they wear a smile, pleasantly losing themselves with you as they seem to be in a trance that locks them in to only you. Some lean into your presence as they gaze at your figure, nodding their heads occasionally to the flow as well as admiring your overall appearance.

Your manager stands behind the stage, out of the sight of everyone as she chews her nails, shifting her gaze to the eight males that sit upstairs with the best view of the stage. Her eyebrows furrow while her arms tremble slightly, unable to focus on anything else but the intimidating gazes stuck on you. The platform of her shoe taps against the ground as she exhales.

The music goes out just as your voice lingers the last note, eyes fluttering back open as a grin grows on your expression, all the while one of your arms lie out to the side. You set the microphone back on the stand after you bow with a “thank you,” as everyone claps. You accidentally catch Ran’s gaze as well as the other men just as you wave ‘goodbye’ to the audience. You meet your manager behind the stage as she gives you a smile and pulls you into a hug.

“Great job, Y/n! Now let’s celebrate.”

The night was spent drinking as well as having conversations with various people, discussing their businesses and hobbies as well as asking you numerous facts about yourself. Your manager seemed to have disappeared a while ago, leaving you to sit by yourself on a lounge chair, the dress hugging your legs as if you were a mermaid. You eye your phone’s screen while taking a sip of your champagne, eyeing the recent post of your own performance until the shadow of a person steals your attention.

“We need to go, now!” Your manager says before snatching your wrist, pulling you along as drops of liquid splash out of the glass.

“M/n? What the hell?” You gasp as you’re caught off guard, almost tripping over your own dress while she forces you to rush to the dressing room.

You yank your arm out of her grip before glaring at her.

“M/n! What is going on? Why have you been so on edge tonight?” She quickly gathers all of your stuff as you stare at her with disbelief. She pauses, failing to look at you.

“L-look. I’ll explain everything later. We just need to get out of Japan right now.”

“Wait a minute. I thought we were staying for a few days.” Your tone shifted to concern. “What’s wrong, M/n? Did something happen?” She drops the makeup supplies before turning to you and gripping your arms.

“I told you, Y/n! I will explain everything later, but right now we don’t have much time! We need to leave, now!” You gaze at her with shock along with fear as you become nervous by her own look of terror. Sweat sliding along the lining of her forehead along with her eyeliner slightly smeared with red eyes.

What the fuck is going on?

“Oh? What’s the rush? The party was just getting started.” A smooth voice says with amusement behind you. You watch as your manager’s eyes widened before you turned to meet your gaze with three men. Your eyes met a familiar purple though the rest of the features were slightly different, the purple mullet being the most prominent as well as the matching tattoo you saw on the male earlier. You guessed this man to be the other owner of the club, Haitani Rin.

Standing to his right is a man with golden eyes, blonde strands falling over his face along with his black hair pulled into a neat ponytail. His expression was light, holding a smile that you could mistake for politeness. He placed his hands in his pockets after shutting the door behind them. To the Haitani’s left is a man with narrowed blue eyes that seem to pierce into your soul, his pink mullet shaped perfectly around his beautiful features. Your gaze shifts to the scars placed at the corners of his mouth, furrowing your brows before you take in the situation at hand.

“What’s going on, M/n?” You side eye her as you watch her eyes widen. Her lips slightly apart as she tries to think of something to say.

“That was a beautiful performance, Y/n. Fitting for such a gorgeous woman.” The blonde says as he approaches, holding a hand out. The tiger in black ink on his neck added to the intimidating aura that contrasts with the expression on his face. He mimics Ran, bringing your limp hand to his lips while gazing into your eyes. A look of such intensity that you had to look away.

“Thank you…” You pause in expectance.

“Kazutora.” You nod with a polite smile before shifting your gaze to the others.

The tension in the room has yet to disappear. You couldn’t really focus on anything else but how scared your manager looks right now.

“M/n. It’d be in your best interest to follow us. The King wants to speak to you.” The pink haired one says, a look of satisfaction crossed his face when he states ‘the King,’ which causes you a little confusion by the title.

Kazutora takes the opportunity to wrap an arm around your shoulder, pulling you along as you look behind to glance at your manager with a questioning look. You all walk out of the dressing room and through the hall. The only sounds being your heels clicking and their speech, nothing you could decipher because of the differing language.

“Surprised she’d be Mikey’s type.” Rin says to the other men.

“No kidding. Who knew a famous babe from Y/c would catch his eye?” Kazutora says while glancing at you.

“There’s a lot you two don’t know about Mikey.” The pink haired man replies.

“Hm, I guess you’re right Sanzu. Wonder how long it’ll take before blood sheds tonight.” Kazutora rubs his chin.

“Can’t wait to find out.” Sanzu smirks.

You turn back to glance at your manager who looks as though the color on her face has disappeared.

I hope I find out what’s going on with her.

You all arrive upstairs, walking down a hall before being met with an office. When you walked in, you noticed the other men who sat on the balcony with Ran, standing around the desk facing the entrance. Ran also in position though sitting in a chair next to the desk in the spacious room. A man with pale hair sits behind the desk with a sweater hanging off of his shoulders, dark eyes gazing into yours as Kazutora removes his arm and leads you to your seat. Your manager sits beside you on another chair, along with Rin standing by her side and Kazutora standing by yours, everyone facing the platinum haired male. Sanzu takes position beside the short man, standing by his chair with his hand holding the other.

You felt on edge, seven pairs of eyes focused on you, all the while silence filled the room. You turn in your seat to look at the blocked entrance, some other broad men blocking the door. Your eyebrows furrowed as the room seemed to get colder, turning back in your seat as you faced the mystery man.

“Speak.” His narrowed eyes meet your manager’s.

She hesitates as you watch her shift uncomfortably in her seat. Her chest rises as she takes a shaky breath in before exhaling.

“U-um, I…” She stammers, fingers trembling against the arm of the chair. You stay quiet, concerned with her behavior as your own body glistens with sweat from stress. You shift in your seat, straightening your back as you cross your ankles, your legs fidgeting as you feel the butterflies in your stomach.

“You tried to leave? And so soon?” He questions, his expression stoic as his eyes bore into your manager’s. Her hands move to her lap as her foot taps against the ground.

“U-uh, no. No I didn’t.” She breathes out.

“I think you did. Didn’t she?” They all responded with “Yes Boss.” Before silence falls once more.

“Why?” M/n’s mouth shuts as she tries to think of something. You could only guess that she was nervous because of whatever business title the men hold so you decide to speak up for her.

“We’re grateful for the opportunity, really. It’s just been a long night.” You explain, only causing some of the men to chuckle at the naivety. Your eyebrows furrow in irritation. “Okay, what the hell is really going on?”

M/n looks at you with wide eyes before holding her hands up and shaking her head.

“Y-Y/n, I’ll explain later, just give me some ti…”

“No, tell me right now why everyone is acting so weird. Stop wasting time.” You growl, sick of the antics and the vague conversations.

The man looks at you for a moment before nodding to Rin. To your surprise he pulls out a gun just as M/n hops out of her seat causing the chair to fall backwards. She runs to the entrance only for him to hold the weapon up, shooting the gun. The bullet penetrates her back, causing her to fall over, a shriek leaving her lips as the throbbing pain fills her senses. You jump out of your seat in shock, eyes staring at the blood staining her attire while she lays her head on the floor.

“What the fuck?” You exclaim, heading to the bleeding girl only to get pulled against a chest, arms wrapped around your waist, pulling your feet off the ground.

“You said to stop wasting time!” Kazutora laughs as the rest look on in amusement to the woman losing consciousness.

“Y/n! I-I’m sorry! I’m so fucking sorry! I had no choice! I had no choice!” She weeps, hand smacking against the floor as she covers her head with her arm. “I’m so sorry.” She whimpers.

“What are you talking…! Let me fucking go! She needs to go to the hospital!” You yell, beating Kazutora’s arms as you try to pry them off, kicking your feet.

Sanzu walks to the woman lying on the ground. Setting a foot to the wound before pressing down, causing a strangled gasp to come out of her mouth. You struggle harder as you watch him point a gun to her head from above.

“Explain yourself.” He growls, smiling wide with crazed eyes.

“I-I sold you! I s-sold… you! It’s… *gasp* all in their…*pant* hands!” She weeps, “I h-ha… *grunt* had no choice!” Her own nails pierce her palms as she turns her hands to fists, squeezing in pain as he continues to press his weight down.

You could only stare in silence as you paused your struggling.

“T-they’re a… a gang! A *pant* criminal….organization! Th-they…*grunt* threaten…!” She screams out in agony once Sanzu pulls his leg up and slams his foot down on her wound. You wince as you begin to struggle again.

“Let her go!” You were angry with her, yes. However, if the truth is that they threatened her, you couldn’t help but empathize despite your lingering resentment. Your only focus was to get both of you out of here alive. You wondered where your guards were.

“Yes, ma’am.” Sanzu smiles before moving his foot off of her and cocking the gun, pulling the trigger. The bullet blasts half of her skull open. The sickening sound of blood splattering the floor causes you to gasp before you yell out, tears falling out of your eyes at the traumatic display.

“Hey, save those vocals for the bedroom, yeah?” Ran jokes before lighting a cigarette, some of the other men chuckling at his response.

“Let me go! Let me go, goddamnit!” You growl angrily, crying as Kazutora forces you to sit down.

He cocks his gun, bringing the barrel to your head while putting a finger over his lips. You eye him with a look of horror.

“Shh.” He starts. “Boss isn’t done talking.”

You pant as you hold your chest, staring back at their ‘boss’ who eyes you quietly. The room calms down once more as everyone takes their original positions, a gun still pressed to your head. He slides a form over for you to read. You lean in your seat and look over the sheet that confirmed your manager’s signature, signing you over to Bonten, a criminal organization residing in Japan.

“The contract doesn’t lie. During this term and all others, you are now the property of Bonten.”

You shook your head while whispering, “No.”

“I own you, Y/n. You can either fall in line willingly or by force. I don’t care. You’re mine.” He says before standing from his seat.

“Mikey.” He says to you before shifting his attention to the others. “Take her to Bonten’s headquarters.”

Kazutora hides his gun and grabs your arm as you struggle against his hold. Just as Mikey and Sanzu, along with some of the other men, head to the doorway, he says, “Knock her out if you have to.”

A breathy laugh is released from Kazutora before he pulls back a fist.

“Sorry, doll.”

Darkness immediately engulfs your vision.

[uweinei-02]

what they're like if you're in concert band (HEADCANONS) ft. akaashi keiji and oikawa tooru

AUTHORS NOTE: my concert band days are over because i graduated high school </3 the university i'm going to only lets people in by audition (i don't want to audition), so i thought of this!

˗ˏˋ꒰ 🍒 ꒱

AKAASHI KEIJI (赤葦 京治)

keiji lets you PRACTICE whenever you guys spend time in your room or his, he'll find it entertaining to listen to your part and he'll applaud every once in a while even if you mess up. it might not seem like he's listening but he is!

when he sees you in your CONCERT BLACK, he'll blush and tell you that you look amazing. he'll run his hands on your back, following your spine and would 100% kiss you a lot (can you blame him? poor guy just thinks you're ethereal). formal blacks are a die-hard for him and he absolutely adores them on you!

PRE-CONCERT, if you're stressed then he'll give you plenty of reassurance, hugs, and kisses. he'll tell you how you worked so hard for this moment and that he knows that you'll do amazing. he also reminds you that if you mess up once, it wouldn't be heard because there's so many other parts other than yours.

DURING THE CONCERT, expect him to be videoing you only. additionally, practicing your part with him made him become attentive and he somehow manages to hear your part. definitely cheers for you, you can hear it in the video he takes with it being solely focused on you! oh and don't get me started on his ability to record with such stable hands!

POST-CONCERT, he'll treat you to dinner, he definitely took photos of you playing and with you in your blacks and dressed formal for the occasion. if you don't feel like eating dinner then he'l definitely take you out to a cafe! he'll treat you because of how well you did and how you worked so hard for this moment!!!!

OIKAWA TOORU (及川 徹)

tooru knows that you PRACTICING is like him practicing volleyball. whenever he spends time with you while you practice he always offers you words of encouragement and tells you how amazing you're doing. if he finds you struggling at a measure for more than an hour, he'll tell you to take a break because he doesn't want you to overwork yourself.

when he sees you in your CONCERT BLACKS he's going to tell you how hot you look, maybe he'll even go into detail about what makes you look so hot with your blacks (he's a very smooth talker). might get handsy HAHA, he will 100% put his hands on your waist and tell you how fucking hot you look (100% his words, and would tell you that right in front of a mirror so you can see him too).

PRE-CONCERT, he'll tell you that you'll do amazing and makes sure that you're well-relaxed. in fact, he'll give you a massage before you leave home! even on your phone, he's bombarding you with "you'll do great today!!!" the guy is literally rooting for you (and only you)!

DURING THE CONCERT, his eyes are only looking at you, he's 100% listening intently and genuinely enjoys the pieces you preform (mainly because you contributed to it, but honestly that's besides the point). he'll applaud after each piece is completed and would give you reassuring smiles if you ever look to him in the audience.

POST-CONCERT, he's 100% taking photos of you with your instrument before you have to put it away. once you're free, he'll give you a bouquet of flowers that he bought before the concert that he hid from you. then he's taking you out to a nearby cafe so you can relax and enjoy yourself after your concert, he'll likely also take you on a walk to see the sunset on a hill with something hot to drink in hand from a cafe!

[shantechni]

Related to your post about Mikey "accidentally delivering low blows when stressed" (Aug 2023) would you hc that it's related to his emotional awareness of his family? Like when he blamed Splinter for letting them go up to the surface, he would know Splinter was already questioning his decision to let them do that, or he calls Splinter out on not being affected by his mutated appearance (when Splinter looks uncomfortable being seen by humans/Shredder)? Basically, what are your further thoughts on it? Has he done this elsewhere?

The post in question for the curious cats

This compilation video as well because my big brain remembered me doing that and it's related to this topic and I meant to do a part 2

Oh, that behavior is 100% related to Mikey's emotional awareness. I'd hardly even call it a headcanon, it's just canon lol.

After not only botching their first fight above ground but failing to stop two kidnappings on their watch, the boys immediately start playing the blame game by pointing out each other's rash decisions and dumb mistakes that led to such an outcome. Obviously, the idea of Splinter's decision being yet another mistake of the sorts was hanging somewhere in the air waiting to be grabbed at, but no one readily went for it as something that needed to be acknowledged as mistake. That's why it's so fascinating to see the writers establish Mikey right out of the gate as someone who isn't afraid to comment on Splinter's decisions and his emotional state when he's making those decisions.

He was certainly aware of their father's doubts concerning them going above ground for the first time because a comment like that doesn't just come out of nowhere.

Granted, this instance was him speaking his mind in the heat of the moment and only realizing how much his words would sting after the fact (especially since they're the ones who convinced Splinter to send them off with their begging), but this becoming a continuous trend of his throughout the series further proves the fact of him being more aware of things than a lot of people pegged him to be.

In Mikey Gets Shellacne, his remark about Splinter telling him not to fret about his appearance when he could hardly bring himself to do the same can be interpreted as a more apparent example of him knowing more than he lets on. It's made rather obvious from the start of the series that Splinter wasn't keen on roaming the streets looking like a giant rat, but that's more of a show and tell deal where both the audience and the characters are left on their own to pick up on such an important yet minor detail. Splinter never tells anyone about his insecurity, nor does anyone in the series talk about it amongst each other, so a moment like this can be a bit jarring when it's framed as Mikey calling out Splinter's opinion on his own appearance.

Though the intent of his comment was to simply call Splinter old, the underlying insult is there and Mikey regrets saying something like that to their father of all people.

Other than letting his frustrations get the better of him and unintentionally plucking at Splinter's insecurities, Mikey is greatly in tuned with the emotions of those around him and will usually pick up on any changes rather quickly. Take these two moments with, funnily enough, him and Splinter near the start of Serpent Hunt.

I previously posted the first clip as a funny little observation, but the scene is more intriguing than my jestful sentence made it out to be. Mikey's attention is split between hanging his goofy pieces of artwork on the wooden boards and listening to April as she announces how the restaurant is starting to look like a makeshift home. It's not until he turns around to joke with her about his drawings that he finally has Splinter in his sights, and his attention evidently begins to drift to Splinter as April is responding to his question (you can literally see his head following Splinter's movements while April is speaking to him😭). And just look at how taken aback he is by Splinter's melancholic expression being on full display:

While Splinter answers Mikey by stating that he's concerned for Casey, Leo and Raph because they've been gone for a while, it's pretty obvious that's not all he's bothered by, and him not being subtle about his troubled mind like usual had enough flags raising in Mikey's mind for him to hop up from his spot. Once the scene transitions to the second clip, Mikey lingers with Splinter in the front of the restaurant while April ventures to the back in search of Donnie to check on his progress with the retro-mutagen, as well as to see if the others made it back yet. Mikey and Splinter decide to follow April as soon as Donnie utters Karai's name, and Mikey is visibly bracing himself for another look of heartbreak on their father's visage:

Splinter moments aside, Mikey recognizes when something is up with his brothers and friends, as well as whether or not he should step in. Of course the prominent moments of him demonstrating his ability to calm Leatherhead and Raph down count among the times when he steps in, but the times when he chooses not to step in shouldn't be understated either.

Take the pre-intro scene in The Cosmic Ocean for example, when April breaks the silence and questions where Leo ran off to. We understand where Raph is coming from when he says that it can't be healthy for Leo to confide in a simulated version of Splinter since it could just make him miss their father more than ever, but Mikey suddenly pops from his laid back position off-screen and joins the conversation:

He's knows as well as Raph that speaking with a simulation of their father isn't exactly ideal, but he also knows that Leo is used to coming home to confide in Splinter for advice whenever he feels his confidence as a leader beginning to waver. The whole gang knows all of this, but once again, Mikey's the only one to verbalize it. Sometimes people need to hear something so obvious outloud to really understand or remember its importance, and Mikey seems to know that best.

I don't really need to mention how his emotional awareness extends far beyond simply knowing when someone is down, or when he is or isn't in a position to help them, but it makes for a decent epilogue to this analysis so-

Him being the least (read: least) temperamental of his brothers automatically puts him in the position of a mediator when there's tension in the group, and it's common knowledge that he'd often go out of his way to ease that tension in his own ways. He sometimes makes jokes, both corny and intelligent, just to get everyone's minds off of the heaviness of a situation, even if that moment of reprieve only lasts for a minute. He attempts to break up fights before they get too far, which sometimes doesn't work because they're a stubborn bunch of turtles (literally the entire first five minutes of New Girl in Town lol), but his efforts are commendable and genuine.

He's exceptionally conscious of changes in the atmosphere and a swing in someone's mood, which could go hand in hand with his sixth sense for weird Kraang stuff if you think about it. But all of this comes together to paint an undeniably clear image of Mikey having a great amount of emotional awareness, and just all around being one of the most emotionally intelligent characters of the series.

[douwatahima]

sorry to invoke james somerton again but i just watched his "apology" video and the way he addresses the criticism to his utena video has been scratching at my brain. for this who don't want to watch (which is so so fair), here's what he says:

"we ended up making a lot of videos we didn't want to make because people were asking for them and so there were a lot of videos we made that we didn't want to make and i think those videos are very clear on which ones those were. one of them never got officially released, it was released to patrons. some patrons have shared it to other people before all the videos went private and a lot of people hate the analysis nick and i did on it and so maybe it's good that that never got properly released because maybe it would have hurt people and i don't want that."

so, not directly saying he's talking about the utena video…but he's talking about the utena video lol. the thing that really gets me is like…look. full disclosure. i used to be subscribed to james somerton long before this whole thing blew up. i wasn't necessarily a big fan of his video style, but he talked about a lot of media i enjoy and i liked his analysis (that wasn't really his, but i didn't know that at the time) so i followed him.

the thing about him was he was always asking his followers for shows he should do videos on, especially anime, and then not long after making those posts he would post videos of "things to come" including like…every anime people suggested. not all of these shows ended getting videos made, but the point is james really set himself up as the queer anime video essayist; constantly promising videos about every show people told him they wanted.

and a lot of people loved that about him! a lot of the big names talking about anime on youtube are people doing season by season breakdowns or people talking about big shonen titles, and here was someone consistently pushing out long form analyses on less talked about shows! great! but to find out that not only was a lot of what he said plagiarized, but also that a lot videos were just shat out to appeal to his audience without any care or passion? just to get more views and more money on patreon? that's literally crazy when you're talking about something usually as involved as video essays.

on top of that i'm about 95% certain him doing an utena essay was a patreon tier goal (hence why that video was released there first). he literally heard queer anime fans asking him en masse for a video about one of the best queer anime of all time, decided to set it as a patreon goal, and then literally boxed himself into doing a video on an anime he didn't care about because he promised it to the people who payed him to be the "queer anime guy".

and the thing is he 100% didn't need to do that. he didn't need to "make a lot of videos he didn't want to make because people were asking for them". i follow a ton of video essayists who get requests for videos all the time! that doesn't mean they have to, or even should, make them if they're not passionate about the topic! video essays, when actually done well and with integrity, are hard work. that's why most good video essayists take a lot of time between videos! to think that this guy just took every possible suggestion, dangled them like carrots in front of his audience, that made a bunch of passionless, mediocre videos to solidify his station as the queer video essayist to watch is just…upsetting and disheartening tbh.

anyway if you want some actually good analysis of revolutionary girl utena, my favourites are "is revolutionary girl utena still relevant?" and "why revolutionary girl utena still slaps" by stushi, and "the shadow play gays" podcast (note: this podcast is run on the same feed as another podcast called "bitter jurors". you may have to scroll back a bit to find "shadow play gays", it started in 2021 if that helps, but i promise you it's worth it).

[ot3]

pretty long meandering post here just talking through some thoughts about the late game arizona progressive endorsement for kamala

i find it really fascinatingly racist the way certain people took the letter from local arab/muslim leaders in arizona endorsing kamala's campaign and decided that mean they now had 'palestinians want you to vote for kamala' as a hammer they could deploy in a world full of nails. to be clear i don't think this endorsement was meaningless at all and the opinions of these people are certainly worth considering. especially for swing state voters, who were the target audience here.

but i saw people responding to fucking bisan's on-the-ground video of people in gaza saying the election results made no difference to them with sentiment along the lines of 'don't believe this video,, its disinformation, palestinians want you to vote for harris' and i can only assume it's because none of them actually read the letter. they just saw headlines like this one and decided that absolved them of any need to own their own decisionmaking at this time

now clearly the palestinian people are not a monolith, and palestinians currently living in gaza and suffering through a genocide vs those living in the US in a swing state are going to have different priorities vis a vis this election. i don't think acknowledging that in any way diminishes the validity of either group's opinion, and it's absolutely not my place to critique the way these various communities are choosing to respond to kamala's stance on israel. so it really disgusts me to watch mainly white liberals act like this specific group of people discussing the specific political context they currently exist in represents the complete and collective will of the palestinian people, just because doing so happens to support their political goals. i don't know man i think the second you start talking about an entire nationality of people as if they have the same political opinions you've already lost!

the reason i say i don't think most of these people read the letter, beyond the fact that i've yet to see anyone discuss the specifics of it, is because the letter does go out of its way to acknowledge potential strategic benefits of 3rd party votes in the 43 other states that aren't going to be the deciding factor. i know this is not sentiment that the average voteblue liberal agrees with.

anyway. there's not really a conclusion to be had here other than i think we're going to see a lot of vitriol directed towards third party votes in the immediate future. we saw similar sentiment after the 2016 election; people were INCREDIBLY quick to say that the reason donald trump won was because not enough people showed up for hillary. people are still saying that, as a matter of fact.

as i and many other people have been pointing out for the past eight years, hillary won the popular vote by a margin of several million, and still lost. at that scale you simply can not blame things on voter turnout. i don't really know what to say at that point. trump's 2016 victory really just pitch perfectly illustrated in a way too blatant to ignore that the US presidential election does not represent the will of the public. but people will do literally anything to keep viewing the state of US politics as a result of people Voting Wrong and Being Too Stupid To Understand What's At Stake

as always, we are not allowed to hold the democrats accountable for delivering nothing to their constituents, but we can hold the constituents responsible for not showing up like loyal dogs to beg for whatever table scraps harris's campaign vaguely pretended to offer us. surely this strategy will work in 2028! see you all then.

[sergle]

(re: sssniperwolf and jacksfilms) It's laughable that she escalated it that hard. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure stalking him like that is illegal and it's terrifying regardless, but Jack said in a stream (can't remember which one) that he wasn't about bringing up past controversies of hers or cancelling. And now she shows up outside his house (wtf!!!). Like he was willing to only call her out for stealing and freebooting but she's gone and stalked him and Jack doesn't seem like the type of guy to take that shit. Actual WTF moment from her part. wild

omg long post below bc apparently I have opinions: YES!! THAT'S WHAT'S SO INCREDIBLE ABOUT THIS... Jack has been genuinely diligent about keeping things on-topic in his streams, and hasn't brought up any of her other Stuff, or anything Personal. Despite the fact that she kickstarted the whole thing by making it INCREDIBLY personal and attacking his physical appearance... His goal has been to call out and bring attention to content theft, and he's stuck with it. Dude's also cared about this for years, and she's not the first content thief he's criticized. He just hates the way that freebooting has become so accepted-- to the point where youtube praised her for "coming up with such creative video ideas"? Hey! Ew! Dude wasn't trying to get her cancelled though, there was no smear campaign of her character. He's been rallying to get her to CREDIT the creators that she relies on for all of her content. It would set a precedent for all other "react" channels on the platform for one of the biggest channels on youtube to actually give credit where credit is due. Or, god forbid, get permission first? It's not hard. It's already done the job of making some other people who do "react content" self-analyze whether or not their content is transformative, and to maybe care about crediting the creators they rely on for their genre to work. There is a way to make this kind of video that isn't so slimy. And making fun of her lackluster-at-best reactions is so far from even being a big deal. Bc she literally does just sit there and say nothing. Plus, his goal has a clear End built into it: if she started shouting out the creators she takes content from, and put links directly to their pages in her video descriptions, the job would be done! That's what he's asking her to do. Real bare minimum stuff. It legit would have been easy to steer away from the content theft and to also talk about her history of lying to her audience! her ghosting a dying kid with cancer who was a big fan of hers! the fact that she's been arrested for armed robbery! her history of transphobia! He would also get more clicks that way, which is what she claims is his sole goal- to get more clicks. I'll bring it up though! She's been a terrible person the whole time, and has kept a steady course of manipulating her audience of young children and/or, let's be completely honest, simps- into thinking that she's a Wholesome creator. (And now, into thinking she's an innocent victim.) All of the actual effort put in by her has gone toward optics, not the content she puts out. A carefully constructed online persona, for one, but also literal appearances. Jack totally can't say this, bc she already went off the handle and said the only reason he doesn't like her is bc he Hates To See A Woman Be Successful. But I can! That was a cheap shot for her to use that argument when, for once, it's not applicable! Much the opposite, even! Dudes online wouldn't go to bat for her if she didn't look the way she does. And it weakens any case she'd have against him by making baseless claims like that. She banks hugely on being an attractive woman to get her clicks/following. A massive amount of effort is put into her appearance. The makeup, the lip fillers, putting her hair in little pigtails, the chokers and tube tops, the big non-prescription Nerd Glasses, the thumbnails where she has her mouth open in That Expression?

I don't even have to say anything. But making a weird facial expression and putting your hair in pigtails aren't moral failings. Showing up at someone's real life home (whose address you shouldn't even have access to), filming the front of their house at night, doxxing them to your audience of millions of people? Because you were mad at them online? That is fully scary! Yeah girl I'm pretty sure that Jack can press charges! There is absolutely no way to take the moral highground now that she's literally stalked him, and doxxed his home. She tried to goad him and Erin (Jack's wife) out of the house, also, which creeps me out even more-- because what was she planning to do? The fact that she's been arrested for violent crime before does pop into my mind! lmao! Jack was streaming a game at the time that she was outside his home, and these clips of him, his friends, and Erin reacting in real time to what is genuinely a scary situation have been taken down in case he needs to use them in legal action. Shit is legitimately serious!

[centrally-unplanned]

Got linked to these very good videos recently on all the fake branding around "No CGI" and "Practical effects" in big budget movies today - as is no shock to anyone virtually every single claim of "no CGI" in a movie today is just a complete lie (Oppenheimer is the only debatable exception). Jonas is a very good presenter, he respects your intelligence and has a breadth of cinema knowledge that makes this series more than its headline.

Something that I thought was interesting that he alluded to was a cool industry shift that has occurred around the ease of special effects meaning that people involved don't even know they are happening. If you were an actor in a movie in ~2010, and a shot was a "VFX" shot, you would see greenscreens/bluescreens, you would see rigging equipment, you would maybe wear a mocap suit or tracers or something. You yourself had VFX skills, you were part of the project. And audiences learned that too, they learned to expect to see bluescreens or behind-the-scenes footage of those things.

But that is increasingly outdated now - still used for ease or specific shots, sure, but its not necessary. You can completely redo the backgrounds, build rig models for actors, clone objects from the frame, and so on just from the native footage, the tech is that good. So you will sometimes shoot a scene and it will look normal to you, and then be changed in post, you don't even know. At one point he tangents to discuss how marketers will lie about the actors "doing their own stunts", which seems credible to audiences because they know that for stunts you do things like hiding the actor's face or having specific cuts to mask the actor switch. But they don't have to do that anymore! You can just composite the actor's face onto the body of the stunt double, and you don't notice. That old "trick" you had to tell isn't functional, and being used *against* you.

It really reminds me of Dan Olsen's idea of "Bakshi's Vision", where the distinction between an animated film and a live action film becomes too blurry even bother with. Obviously that won't become literally true, but you can see the shape of it more and more.

[linkspooky]

The Death of Kenjaku

So I was planning to write this meta the week that Kenjaku died, but decided to delay until we got full confirmation of his death. Something I didn't believe in even after Kenjaku passed the merger onto Sukuna. However, watching this video about death in Jujutsu Kaisen inspired me to finish this post. Not because I disagree with anything the YouTuber is saying, but because they can speculate on the meaning of so many deaths in Jujutsu Kaisen but can't find the meaning in Kenjaku's sudden death. This has led me to speculate why Gege made the choice to kill Kenjaku in the way that he did. What meaning is there in Kenjaku's abrupt and unsatisfying death?

Who is Kenjaku?

The first step in understanding Kenjaku's death is of course understanding how he lived. We actually know incredibly little about Kenjaku's character by design. Despite the fact he's literally in Geto's body, he's not meant to have sympathetic or human motivations to his actions (though hold onto that "human motivation" in your head for a moment). No flashback sequence shows the audience why this guy is the way he is, no single event seems to have driven him to do what he did.

This is what we know about Kenjaku in brief. He is a sorcerer who is over a thousand years old who was around in Sukuna's day. He once had a friendship with Tengen, but found her original self boring and unambitious. He also contrasts heavily with Tengen, who lives outside of humanity, because he has lived among humanity for 1,000 years. One of those lifetimes was Noritoshi Kamo who violated a woman and conducted heinous experiments. He produced ten children in his one thousand years, the nine death painting siblings and Yuji Itadori. He considers the first children boring, because human and curse hybrids turned out too normal.

He also partially blames himself for how boring they are, because he can't create anything that will exceed his expectations, the only thing that can exceed his expectations is born in chaos. He spent a thousand years organizing the culling games, and wants to use the games to create a merger, because he thinks creating a merger between Tengen and Humanity will create something entirely new and interesting. He also believes the way towards the future lies in further optimizing cursed energy, not in breaking away from it the way Yuki Tsukumo tried to do and Maki has.

The only people whose word we have on Kenjaku's motivations are Kenjaku himself, and Tengen's word and Tengen themselves who claims to not know what goes on in the human heart.

From all of the above Kenjaku seems to be a shallow character who's motivations can be summed up as "because I can" and "I want to see what happens." This shallowness is intentional however, as Gege who once praised the minimalist storytelling of Nasu and Evangelion likes to pick and choose what crumbs of backstory he gives out for his characters. We've never gotten any exposition on the Gojo clan, but we have an entire chapter about Takaba's failed career as a stand-up comic. This isn't a judgement of good or bad writing, this is just how Gege writes as minimalist as possible. This is in line with how Gege writes the ancient sorcerers as well, they are all much more shallow driven by instinct or Freudian Id (I desire) rather than the higher reasoning of modern-day sorcerers. Takaba uses comedy as a means of communication and bridging the gaps between people, Higuruma's backstory is the critique of the modern day justice system. Ishigori apparently lived a satisfying life where he was succesful and had good women, but that wasn't enough so he wants to get into a fight with Yuta to satisfy his hunger and feel like he's eaten desert.

It sounds shallow when I summarize it in text, but in the context of the fight with Yuta, it's a challenge for Yuta who for the most part only cares about his loved ones and sees the world through his love goggles to be more selfish and fight for his own desires. It's also reflective of a more basic and instinctual kind of thinking, as opposed to the higher reasoning and logic that modern-day sorcerers apply.

I'm keeping most of this first part to text for this reason, like go back and read the fight with Ishigori and Yuta. If I summarize Ishigori's character reasoning out of context it sounds stupid, but read the fight and it works because it's ID (I Desire) vs. Yuta's superego in not only having to collect points to help rescue Tsumiki, find a way to protect all the innocent people in the Culling Games, and also collect enough points to take on Kenjaku himself so Gojo won't have to. Meanwhile Ishigori's just fighting to get some of that sweet desert, the shallow works in contrast to the more layered motivations of our heroes.

Kenjaku is a shallow archetype fighting to satisfy his baser impulses (in his case curiosity) in comparison to the main characters who are fighting for more complicated reasons and often people besides themselves.

The question then becomes what archetype is Kenjaku. In that case answering who Kenjaku is is quite simple.

Kenjaku is a clown.

It might be more accurate to say that Kenjaku embodies what's commonly known as the "trickster archetype" but I'mma go with clown.

The most obvious example of a clown villain is what most consider the joker to be, that is a silly little clown man who challenges the straight faced and grim batman and sews chaos where Batman attempts to establish law and order in Gotham and make the city into a better place.

From the book Batman and Psychology:

More than any other villains, the Joker and Two-face reflect Batman himself as funhouse distortions, converses of who and what he is. The laughing, jesting, brightly colored Joker contrasts with grim, dark Batman. The Joker is the Joker. No alter ego. The film's opening bank robbery shows him wearing a clown mask over clown makeup, Under the surface there's only more Joker. He gives no history except inconsistent lies. When he finally considers the impact of his demand Batman unmask, he retracts the threat and demands that Batman's identity remain undisclosed. He wants a batman who has no other self, a Dark Knight whose only deeper layer is further darkness.

Is there a better descriptor for Kenjaku then these words?

Kenjaku is Kenjaku. No alter ego. A clown mask over clown makeup., Under the surface there's only more Kenjaku.

In other words, what you see is what you get.

Kenjaku even mirrors Joker's opinion of Batman, he thinks people should be more like him, not the other way around. He's not the outlier, he's being true to humanity's basic impulses of curiousity and discovery.

A more apt comparison as a clown though would probably be Loki, one of the most classic examples of clowning in the shared mythology of humanity. The character who challenges the common wisdom of gods like Odin who suspended themselves from the world tree for eleven days in order to gain wisdom. Loki, who through his trickery manages to bring about the events of Ragnarok for no deeper reason than because he can. Everyone swore not to harm Balder and Loki goes to find something that can harm him because BET.

Mythological Loki doesn't need a deeper motivation because what he represents in the mythology is someone who challenges authority and brings about a change, because in Norse Mythology nothing lasts forever and no era is permanent. Jujutsu Kaisen is also a story about how things should not in fact stay the same and tradition is bad sometimes.

When Kenjaku finds Tengen's true body he's curled up in a tree root in the fetal position, and he killed what is basically the all-knowing, all-seeing supposedly immortal sorcerer that maintains the status quo of japan, it's not exactly subtle.

Kenjaku is a clown, and clown's gotta clown. We don't need any more explanation that, it's more about what he does for the story. However, what he represents, the deep intellectual curiosity, and also a drive to disrupt the status quo in an attempt to see something more interesting can also be analyzed more deeply because they are human emotions that motivate us as well. The same way that Mahito is an inhuman monster, but he's created and motivated by the fear of other humans, something all of us have. '

Before moving onto his death though, I wanna hammer in how Kenjaku really is just motivated by these two things, a desire to see something interesting, and intellectual curiosity by comparing him to other characters.

The Clown in Fiction

I've already compared Kenjaku to Loki and the Joker, but when it comes to someone who wants to disrupt the entire order of the world simply because they're bored we've got to go to the original girlboss.

So there are plenty of villains who go "I'm evil because I'm bored" but they usually tend to be pretty shallow, either shallowly written for the lulz evil characters who just exist for shock value or just kinda dull. No one has ever done it as good as Junko Enoshima and no one ever will again.

For those who need context DanganRonpa is a death game series where the main villain basically has caused the apocalypse, wiped out most of humanity, and then induces survivors in a bunker to kill each other in a death game, where if someone commits a succesful murder they can escape the bunker, but if they're caught in a trial they're executed. Also, if they're not convicted in the trial everyone else is killed, motivating the jury to find and execute the guilty murderer.

Junko Enoshima the main villain and orchestrator of this death game ended the world because despair. She wants to inflict despair on everyone because despair. Because hope sucks and despair is where it's at.

It sounds shallow and it is and Kodaka has said in interview he wrote Junko to be a villain character with zero redeeming character traits, and no sympathetic backstory to describe why she is the way she is, but there is still something motivating her.

If you go a bit deeper into the lore and read Dangan Ronpa Zero, there is an entire book which explains the lengths which Junko goes to feel normal human emotions. The thing is much like Kenjaku Junko is too smart for her own good, everything is predictable and therefore everything bores her. Once in an attempt to live normally, she literally lobotomizes herself, makes it so that she can't remember anything and has continual amnesia constantly forgetting what just happened to her, because that's the only way she can live without knowing everything that's going to happen and constantly predicting everyone's actions.

Junko has whatever her universe's version of the six-eyes is, but instead of lording it over other people like Gojo and basking in her superiority she wants to feel normal, and connected to the world. If she can't have that she tries to make the world as unpredictable place as possible so she can experience it the same way that everyone else does.

Hope is harmony. A just heart, moving toward the light. That is all. Despair is hope's polar opposite. It is messy and confusing. It swallows up love, hatred, and everything else. Because not knowing where you will end up is despair. Despair is even what you cannot predict. Only despair's unpredictability can save you from a boring future.

I'm still not describing it properly because I don't want to go into a Danganronpa essay in this post about Jujutsu Kaisen, but one example I always use is two characters from American Dragon Jake Long. They're a pair of twins who see the future, one always sees happy things, and one always sees sad things. The one who has happy visions is a goth who's very depressed and the one who sees disaster is an incredibly peppy girl.

Jake is so confused as to why the twin who always sees good visions is so depressed, and she basically tells him to imagine having every good thing, every small little surprise, every pleasure taken out of life.

Kara: When you only see good things, nothing's special anymore. All the pleasant surprises are taken out of life. Sara: But, when you only see bad stuff, even the smallest bit of good news makes you happy!

All of this to say what Junko feels isn't just boredom, or a desire to commit evil for evil's sake, but also a full on existential crisis where she's simply too smart so she doesn't feel any connection to other people or the world around her. In order to feel that connection, that connection that everyone else has, to feel like she is actually a participant in her life not an observer she's willing to go to extremes to make the world a more interesting place, to therefore make her own life feel satisfying.

Kenjaku vs. The World (Kenjaku Pilgrim's sad little life)

To connect all this back to Kenjaku imagine the profound existential despair of a person who's lived for a thousand years, and felt bored all that time. Sukuna is at least a hedonist, he gets his fun by getting into fights, humans might be bugs to him but they're tasty bugs.

Kenjaku goes to similiar motivations and has similiar extremes, he's uninvested in the world around him, he's lived a thousand years but has no attachment to the world, to life, to the people around him. I said that Junko wants to be a participant in life not an all seeing observer and that was purposeful language because to bring back an old post. I rambled on this post about Gojo that part of Gojo's problem is that he only experiences observer-to-object relationships or I to it.

Ich and Du, translated as I and Thou is a book by philosopher Martin Buber. His two main porositions is that we may address existence in two ways:

The attitude of the “I” towards “it” towards an object that is separate in itself, which we either use or experience.

The attitude of “I” towards “Thou” in a relationship in which the other is not separated by discrete bounds.

In Buber's terms, those who only experience the first type of relationships are only observing the world around them not relating to them. Kenjaku doesn't relate to other human beings because they are objects, he only experiences subject -> object relationships and never subject -> subject.

Buber also goes on to theorize that meaning in our lives comes from subject -> subject relationships we form with other people.

Kenjaku jokingly says that to be his friend you have to never bore him and be his equal, but there's no one considers his equal because he's the subject and everyone else are just objects.

He regrets he can't sit down and talk theories with Tsukumo Yuki because she's one of the few people who think like him.

Kenjaku is a paradox of an incredibly brilliant man who is also shallow as a puddle that you can stand in and not get your socks wet. However, he tragically can't really form a more complex identity because our identities are formed by our relationships to other people and Kenjaku doesn't relate to anybody.

That's basically the theme of the whole Choso and Kenjaku fight, Choso is a weird aborted fetus of a curse who still has a strong identity and is able to feel unconditional love for Yuji because of the connection of family and the ideas of brotherhood that binds the two. Kenjaku is a bad father who abandoned Choso because they were "boring" but also never really gave them a chance to grow up or be interesting, he just dismissed them offhand and moved on to the next weird science project.

However, his reason for dismissing Choso isn't Choso's fault but rather a case of Psychological projection. It's not Choso who is boring, but rather Kenjaku himself, he said so earlier.

"What I can create, does not exceed the bounds of my own potential. The answer is always flickering darkly in chaos."

Kenjaku cannot look within to find anything satisfying abput his life because there's nothing inside of him. He doesn't have a fully formed identiy he's just ID, and because he tramples all over other people to form his desires he also cannot ever form a full ego. Just like Sukuna and most of the ancient sorcerers he's a paradox of being all ego, and yet having an underdeveloped ego with shallow motivators.

Kenjaku cannot look within because he's a boring person, and he cannot look for other people to find worth in his life because they're just objects, so instead he looks into the void, he tries to change the world around him by spreading more chaos hoping that it will make something unpredictable happen in front of his eyes - and that will give him the meaning and investment in his life he's deprived himself of because he refuses to form relationships with other people.

It's the Gojo problem. It's the Kashimo problem. It's not the Sukuna problem, because Sukuna admits he doesn't care about and rejects things like love and meaning.

If Kenjaku makes the world around him a more interesting place, he will be able to live in it. It's the same as Gojo trying to raise people up to his level by creating stronger students.

So after going to great length to demonstrate how powerful and all-consuming Kenjaku's boredom is, and how cut off he is from his own humanity, here's the part where I sort of defend his death.

Wouldn't it be funny if the joke character killed the main villain?

Let's be honest it was Takaba's kill here, Yuta just camped and killstole. I think part of the problem with people not understanding the meaning behind Kenjaku's sudden and unexpected death is attributing the death to Yuta cutting his head off out of nowhere, and not Takaba's thematic victory over Kenjaku.

Takaba represents a blindspot for Kenjaku which is why the main characters use him as a weapon against him, and he also calls out in a fashion Kenjaku's hypocrisy. First and foremost, Kenjaku presents himself as an agent of change, but he actually has no interest in many of the modern sorcerers and holds a bias towards the heian era as the peak of sorcery. He even says that he's going to bring back the Heian Golden Age to Sukuna at the end of Shibuya arc.

Because that's what Chaos is Kenjaku, things being the same as they were 1,000 years ago. Kenjaku is an agent of change and chaos and somehow his definition of change is... resetting things back to the past because the sorcerers of the past were so much better than today.

Kenjaku goes out of his way to awaken hundreds of modern day sorcerers, and then dismisses literally off of them except for Hiromi because they don't have enough potential for him compared to ancient sorcerers. He essentially did the same with the Death Painting Bros, he went through all of the trouble to create them, then dismissed them as not having enough potential BEFORE THEY EVEN GOT THE CHANCE TO GROW UP.

Kenjaku has a habit of just going BORED NOW and leaving before he even gives things the time to impress him. He does the same with the Culling Game, he set up the death game to push sorcerers to fight each other and bring out their powers, but he never actually intended to watch the sorcerers evolve. He just wanted to slaughter everyone inside to start the merger.

He goes through a lot of potential to set up these situations and then abandons them before they have the chance to even evolve, because they do not have enough "potential" in his opinion, but like his opinion is often shown to be wrong. Takaba represents that blindspot because he was one of the modern sorcerers that Kenjaku underestimated and dismissed offhand as boring without giving him a chance to shine.

That is the joke that Takaba introduces himself with "Wouldn't it be funny if a random comic relief side character suddenly defeated the big bad?"

He's immediately pointing out a blindspot, because Kenjaku automatically believes himself to be an important character, he underestimates Takaba because he's a side character, one of the people Kenjaku has dismissed as boring and uninteresting (before they even had a chance to evolve into something else). Like that's the other thing Kenjaku wants things to evolve but he doesn't... let them. He abandoned Choso and the rest before they even grew up, they were literally fetuses and he threw them away. Kenjaku is the protagonist of reality, and Takaba is a side character, and therefore Takaba couldn't possibly harm him because Kenjaku and his boundless curiosity are the center of the world.

It's not just about subverting the audience's expectations to have the main villain die in such an anti-climactic way before the final act even starts, but it's pointing out how narrow Kenjaku's viewpoints really were all along. He wants everything to be surprised but he never lets anything surprise him, because either he gets bored right away, or he looks down on others before giving them the chance to evolve, or the third thing he just straight up has to control everything. He can't let the culling game evolve naturally he's going to slaughter all the players by hand so he can move onto the next part.

It's the contradiction between a schemer who needs to control everything and everyone to bring about his intended result and everything needs to be a part of his big plans, to someone who wants to be surprised by others and have things go off the rails. You can't have both of these things at once, Kenjaku cannot have things surprise him if he rigs everything to go his way with his overly elaborate schemes and his tight-fisted control of everyone in the story.

Like, in comparison to Kenjaku the joker just blows things up and sprays people with laughing gas. They're both playing the same game but the joker is having fun and Kenjaku isn't.

Kenjaku wants an unexpected future, but he doesn't care about any of the modern sorcerers and has a bias towards the heiean era that he considers the height and wants to reset things to bring back the heian era. He wants to be surprised but won't give up control.

Kenjaku's boast is that unlike Tengen he's spent a thousand years living on the ground instead of lording up on them from above like some deity, but is that true? Has Kenjaku lived? Has he engaged with the world? Formed relationships with people? Or does he just sit in the corner rubbing his hands together menacingly and scheming his schemes.

Takaba unironically gives Kenjaku what he wants, something he's never seen before in a thousand years, and it's from a place Kenjaku never expected. Some random guy, who he dismissed as one of the boring modern sorcerers with no potential like Higuruma.

Takaba not only exists in Kenjaku's blindspot, he almost immediately points out Kenjaku's second hypocrisy. If he's willing to resort to mass murder just to feel entertained, then if he found something else to entertain him there'd be no reason to get violent and scheme his schemes.

In other words Kenjaku hasn't really gone looking for other places to try to find what makes life worth living, or at least enertaining, he hasn't really tried any alternatives to finding joy in life because Jujutsu is all he cares about. Takaba says that if he found something else even more entertaining than the merger there'd be no need to go through with the merger, and he turns out to be right. Kenjaku could have found meaning and entertainment with the world someplace else, he was just too narrow minded and never looked anywhere else.

As I said from the beginning Kenjaku's existential crisis comes from his inability to relate to other people and viewing them all as objects, but in Kenjaku's mind of course he can't relate to others they're too boring, so therefore it's the world's fault, and the fault of others and not himself.

However, right away one of those boring people starts relating to Kenjaku.

I joked about how we know nothing about the Gojo clan but Takaba gets an entire backstory chapter about his failed comedy career, but this chapter is plot important because jokes are the way that Takaba relates to and forms relationships with other people. Takaba makes jokes to relate to others but has a fallout with a comedy partner and has never been able to form a lasting relationship with a comedic partner because comedy doesn't mean the same to them as it does to him - because to Takaba comedy is about forming relationships with people. Which is why he thinks he's failed if he's failed to make everyone in the audience laugh because he wants to make comedy that will make other people relate to him and understand him.

However, he almost gives up on comedy because he's afraid that he might fail on that endeavor. He gives up on striving to make everybody in the audience laugh, because of self-affirmation and a desire to protect himself. He didn't want to fail so he started distancing himself from the audience under the excuse "Well, I can't make everyone laugh so it's okay if not everyone understands me."

Takaba at some point gave up on trying to use comedy as a means of understanding and relating to others, because of his fear of failure and at that point he nearly lost - but he rallies himself by saying that he won't give up on making someone like Kenjaku laugh. If his comedy is about connecting to others, about understanding others and having others understand him then he can't just give up on Kenjaku and say it's Kenjaku's fault that Kenjaku can't relate to his sense of humor. He's got to try even harder to make Kenjaku laugh.

This is also pretty much the opposite of Kenjaku's point of view. For Kenjaku it's everyone else's fault for being so boring that's why he can't relate to them. Wheras, Takaba takes personal responsibility, he wasn't funny enough, he has to try harder, he's the one who's going to make Kenjaku laugh by improving himself. Takaba looks inward, and Kenjaku looks outwards because there's nothing inside Kenjaku.

This is a parallel to this.

The difference however, is that Sukuna did not betray his ideology. Sukuna lives for the kicks that battle provides him and wants to face strong opponents so he can eventually devoured them and be momentarily entertained.

Like Sukuna is not bored the way Kenjaku is. The world is his playground. He may refer to living as just killing time until you die, but he also says that there's an infinite variety of humans to entertain yourself with. The world is Sukuna's toybox and he's satisfied with just that. In fact he doesn't even care about the merger, until his frustration with Yuji makes him think a little deeper about himself.

Kenjaku is not the Sukuna in this scene, he's the Gojo. He believed he was above others, only to be reminded suddenly that he was just the same as everyone else and brought back down to humanity. I mean, they even die off panel the same anticlimactic way. Gojo's infinity meant nothing in the face of one surprise attack a world-cleaving slash Gojo didn't see coming. All of Kenjaku's backup plans meant nothing in the face of Yuta camping and kill-stealing.

Kenjaku didn't lose because Yuta's plan of camping and killstealing was simply too brilliant for him to prepare for however, we're given the exact reason kenjaku lost - because he was having too much fun with Takaba.

Which meant what Takaba said earlier was true, if Kenjaku found something funnier, something other than the merger that could make him laugh there'd be no need to go through with the merger to begin with.

Kenjaku loses because all along he could have related to people, formed meaningful relationships with others, looked for meaning in life outside of Jujutsu but just chose not to. Which is also a parallel to this.

Sukuna says that Kashimo and Gojo both lost because they were greedy. They already received love in a way, they had the love of everyone who regarded them as the strongest, they had people who earnestly wanted to challenge them and respected them - which Sukuna sees as a form of love, and yet they still wanted more.

They were the ones who put themselves up on that pedestal and decided to stand above all of humanity, they don't get to whine about being lonely on top of that.

To add my interpretation to Sukuna's speech, what he's outlining is a general conflict in Jujutsu Kaisen, you can choose to be all ego to put personal development above everything else but it comes at the cost of not being able to form relationships. Maki's as powerful as Toji now, but the sister she always wanted to protect is dead and basically committed suicide. Meanwhile Noritoshi Kamo didn't participate in the final battle, but he reconnected with his mother and half-brother.

There are plenty of characters who die and suffer in jujutsu kaisen because they chose to value other people above themselves, because Jujutsu Kaisen rewards selfishness and punishes selflessness / having an underdeveloped sense of self.

I'll pick Mechamaru as my biggest example, he lived to protect Miwa, and not only does he die an unsatisfying death, he also breaks her heart.

However, at least Mechamaru experienced love. His desire to protect Miwa is granted, because Miwa is also out of the final conflict. Mechamaru is one of the most miserable characters in the manga, and yet he experienced love in his life for someone else that made his brief life meaningful. The characters who choose love, and other people over strength tend to get stepped on, but they at least had that love in their life to begin with.

It's a having your cake and eating it too situation. Kashimo chose strength over love, and he got to be so strong he was unbeatable and lived to old age, but not only is he unfulfilled but he whines about being unable to relate to the people around him - you're the one who chose to step on everyone like bugs.

Characters in Jujutsu Kaisen don't just experience death when they try to be selfless however, like yeah there's a disproportionate amont of selfless minor characters who die, but like Yuji is the most selfless character in the manga and he's continually punished for it and yet he's the one referred to as a person with an unbreakable will.

Rather instead of Jujutsu Kiasen preferring the selfish side on the scale of selfishness / selflessness, the kind of messy, deaths that get handed out to people like Mechamaru happen when you betray the ideals you were living for. Whether they were selfish or selfless.

It goes back to Toji's internal monologue. You lose when you lose sight of yourself - like there's some deaths that don't fit the mould but for the most part, Gojo, Kashimo, Toji's and then Kenjaku's deaths all follow this pattern. By coincidence they also all take place offscreen for the most part (I suppose we see Yuta cut off Kenjaku's head but it's quick and unsatisfying compared to all the rest).

Kenjaku died because he betrayed what he was living for and he temporarily lost sight of himself. As I said Kenjaku's airtight principles were that everyone was boring and people weren't worth relating too so the only way to find enertainment in life is to cause chaos - but he found himself relating to some nobody he wrote off as a minor character Takaba and having fun with him. Which meant the belief he was false, he could have tried relating to other people all along he just didn't.

He warped his sense of self to reaffirm his identity. Takaba almost did that too, he tried to blame other people for not finding him funny to protect himself, but he moved past that and redoubled his efforts to make Kenjaku laugh.

There's also the added layer of irony that Kenjaku's sudden death brings about, the person who spent a thousand years trying to make the merger happen doesn't get to see it.

However, here's my assertion on why Kenjaku's death before the merger always had to happen.

Because, even if Kenjaku had seen the merger he still would have been bored.

Literally everything about Kenjaku's character and previous actions shows that even if he made his big scheme come true, he would have gone "meh" and moved onto the next scheme because that's how he always reacts.

He got bored of the death painting siblings, he presumably got bored of Yuji, he got bored of all the ancient sorcerers and new sorcerers he made for the culling game, he worked with the disaster curses and got bored of them and dismissed them as inferior primitive curses, he goes out of the way to engineer these chaotic situations and then never feels any satisfaction from them so why would the Merger be any different?

Not only did Kenjaku die before he saw the merger, he was basically doomed to never see the merger, because it would not have fixed whatever is wrong inside of him.

Because it's not the world that's boring, it's Kenjaku himself.

He gets a brief glimpse of what he could have done in life, that he could have tried to forge connections with the people around him and related to them on a personal level - and then he dies the way he lived, in a kind of boring and unsatisfying way.

It's the narrative punishing him in a way, the same way it punished Gojo, and Kashimo, by not letting him see the big explosion after he went to all the trouble rigging the bombs. It's punishing him for the same reason too - by deviating from his true self and showing what he thought were his reasons were shallow all along. Gojo could have always related to people he just chose to stand on his pedestal alone, and Kenjaku could have always found the world to be more enertaining he was the one dismissing other people as boring without giving them a chance to grow.

Takaba confronted his beliefs and then stayed true to his ideology of making everyone, 100% of the people in the crowd laugh. Kenjaku didn't confront his beliefs, he strayed from them because he didn't have the strength of character to evaluate himself the way Takaba did.

Hence, he's finished off by one of those boring people who used their power in a way he never expected. The main villain is defeated by the comic relief character and it's hilarious.

[carolinagirl80]

I honestly don’t understand the whole “it’s just a joke”, “that’s how guys talk” like no?

First of all that’s a lame fucking excuse for his behavior. Just because you’re a fan doesn’t mean you have to protect every fucked up thing he says.

Let’s be honest non of us know them personally, we see what’s online and hear what’s said. So pretending like you know them, saying “he’s a good guy” and defending him like you do is embarrassing.

I use to be a fan of Misha. Well, more like I use to respect him as an actor and I enjoyed him in SPN. This year I had the privilege to meet him at a con. I say privilege because I know that many can’t afford to or haven’t had the opportunity.

It was so awkward, he clearly didn’t want to be there. Everything he said during his q&a catered to the audience. It was over all very fake, I still can’t understand how people feed into the stuff he says.

It really put a bad taste in my mouth. I’ve never been his biggest fan, just thought that it would be fun to meet someone, from the tv show the show I’ve loved for years. That being said if I could go back, I’d save my money instead of wasting it.

I’m not saying he wasn’t nice to me, I did have a longer interaction than others that had been in line. But as someone who hasn’t ever been an obsessive fan, I think it might have been easier not feeding into all the crap he says.

People forget that he gets paid to do this stuff. The reason why he’s a fan favorite is because of destiel. So ofc he’s going to milk it, since that’s the only thing he has to talk about.

All the questions were destiel related, he has nothing else to say about the show. Honestly I don’t think he remembers anything that happened in the show, except from all of the scenes where he can confirm that destiel is canon.

Anyway after that con I watched a few videos of other panels online, because Jensen and Jared didn’t attend the one I went to. And I have to say I agree with a lot of the things you’ve posted.

It’s clear that he tries hard to push Jared out of the picture, he forces this idea of being besties with Jensen at cons. It’s always so awkward watching them together. Most of the time Jensen just goes along with stuff Misha says, so he doesn’t have to answer the same questions about destiel being canon or not.

Jensen obviously takes his acting seriously, he played Dean for 15 years. So I don’t get when he says over and over again, that destiel isn’t a thing. That people can’t accept it and move on. I love Dean, but I’m not going to pretend I know him better than Jensen. He WAS Dean. He knows him inside and out.

Then we have Misha that eggs the fans on during these panels. It’s like Jensen tries to answer the question seriously. Then Misha swoops in makes a small joke out of it, like Jensen has no idea what he’s talking about and proceeds to talk over him. Giving them the answer they want to hear.

It even feels like he’s making fun of the fans at times, knowing that they feed into this crap and thinking it’s funny that they do.

Gives me the same vibes of Regina George saying “I love that bracelet where did you get it”. Then going back to the green room and making fun of it.

I mean he’s made fun of the show and fans before, there are literally videos or posts online.

ALSO!!! The whole thing Jensen said about it not being subtext it was clear text, has been so fucking twisted.

This has turned into more of a rant, sorry. But what I mean to say is I agree with a lot of the things you’ve said. I just don’t understand how people can’t see it? It’s so frustrating.

I don’t hate Misha, it just really really fucking bugs me, that people don’t see what he’s doing. I just don’t get that you, like others who point it out get attacked.

People go on and on about how hateful others are, then proceed to bully people online for pointing shit out? Make that make sense.

Hi Anon! Saw your other message, and yeah, I don't blame you there, but you are good, so here we go. Thank you for the message btw. Very refreshing after my last few that's for sure.

I will start by saying that I have never seen a group of people so willing to turn a blind eye to the numerous inappropriate things their fave does/says as the hellers/Misha Stans. Their mantra in life is "oh, it was just a joke". I mean, they have to say it constantly because Misha can't stop being inappropriate. He kinda has to though doesn't he? Otherwise, he couldn't keep them entertained and he'd float on off into obscurity.

Unfortunately, that requires the use of Jared and Jensen's names.

I'll start with Jensen just because I happen to already have a link ready.

So, with Jensen, he's going to play that Destiel/Cockles card as much as he possibly can. Always has, always will. Jensen has always said that Destiel doesn't exist. (Thanks to @Sammyiscat on X for posting this today, just when I needed it!)

Once upon a time, Jensen did do a little fan service and lean into it slightly during JenMish panels. However, he always made it as clear as possible how he really feels. Then the hellers called him homophobic for it. So earlier this year, as you mentioned, he called it "clear text" not subtext. He tried to be as diplomatic as possible. The unfortunate part of being diplomatic is that it allowed the hellers to twist themselves into pretzels making it sound like Jensen said the opposite of what he actually was saying.

What I find the most interesting is that in the last few years, Misha is on his best behavior around Jensen. He only runs his mouth off when Jensen isn't around. Usually when he's at a European con alone. I'd LOVE to know how that transpired. Jensen is also usually in a pretty bad mood leading up to a JenMish panel these days as well. He was surprisingly ok in Charlotte (except for that one damn question). However, let's look back on San Francisco. Remember when he ran from Misha trying to hug him?

That is the definition of an unhappy Jensen....Yet hellers, CANNOT SEE IT! How can they not see that? Anyways...I could go on and on here....

So let's move on to Jared...

Sweet silly Jared. How anyone could be mean to him I'll never know. Something has changed there too. There was a lot more joking from Misha where Jared is concerned once up a time. Now, everything Misha says about his sounds bitter and or malicious.

He loves to point out that Jared was discovered just walking down the street, or that he has no training or that he didn't go to college.

Then there was the airplane story from last month in DC. It was partially true, but heavily embellished to make Jared sound bad, and what happens every time that happens? Tons of hate descends onto Jared online. People telling him to kill himself. Just pure bullying and hate. Misha HAS to know that is what would happen.

Just this past weekend he mocked him: (Ignore the person who tweeted this. You don't want to go down that route)

What an asshole. I mean really. I know, I know hellers, "oh, it's just a joke" right? Let's not start the "you and your friends have no sense of humor" crap again.

As far as con experiences go? I've heard people say many times that they have had negative experiences meeting Misha. Unless you are known to him already he couldn't care less. Been there, done that, can confirm. Like I said in another post, glad I already didn't like him because I sure wouldn't now!

Edited to add another link of Jensen denying Destiel.

[simplydnp]

idk why this matters to me but in the last few months they've been acknowledging so many things I never ever thought they would. pinof and the touching. the phude multiple times. dapc slime (ok they had merch to sell for that one but still)

no but actually. phil literally said 'i thought we weren't acknowledging it' about the phude and now they just bring it up all the time.

pinof reacts... i still can't believe we're in a post pinof-reacts universe. how did that happen. i was changed permanently--like something shuffled in my dna when i got the notif for pinof reacts 1. this is not a physical reaction but a chemical one that cannot be undone. for something that was so... sacred. and integral. to their existence and history. pinof wasn't generally talked about unless it was pinof time. and even then it was 'it'll be up soon' or 'we just posted it' and then Never talked about outside of that. especially not the first one! we freak out about the We Know You Know in the newsletter but it's Always been like that with pinof 1. so to see them--new (& natural 🥺) hair for them both, in a house they bought and built together, in the first few months of giving the gaming channel a second chance--reflect on how it all began? absolutely devastating. and to lean into moments and discuss them in new ways. in territory previously not breached! the 'they're toUching'?!?!? the '11 hour fuck session'!?!? the '£9000 champagne'?!?!? like hey we're not supposed to talk about that, dan and phil might see!! shhh!! but they're the ones saying it!! absolutely wild.

in a way, it had to happen. especially with where we're at now (them literally selling merch of them holding hands). in order for them to move beyond that... mindset? i guess? that a lot of fans had, they had to defang it. i really see it as one of the biggest walls they've broken down in the way they communicate with us. the 'hey. it's okay. we've seen it. it's not a big deal. we will absolutely make fun of you for it though. but we're good.'

i'm just really curious whose idea it was. (lbr it was probably phil given dans not a react kinda guy. but i'd be lying if i said i didn't want to be in the room where it happened when they talked about actually doing it or not, and what it would mean) (big ad revenue thats for sure 🤣 get it kings)

i will never be able to get phil's 'they touched' out of my head and at this point i wouldn't want to. it's absolutely earned. and i guess it makes me a masochist to enjoy the psychic damage it inflicts on me, but such is life i suppose.

the crafts mention really surprised me! i had contemplated a few different scenarios in how they'd go about it, and i'll be honest i feel like they could've committed to the bit a little more but they're forgiven. like what about glitchy interstitials! cuts to the merch website. found footage inserted between sections! i recognize they don't want to 'scare' their usual audience wirh sudden cuts to intense/graphic content but my immersionnn. absolutely shattered by 'oh we have new merch now btw'. cmon boys you love to lie to us. say theres merch up but you dont know where it came from. just that we should buy it 👀 or idk, something clever. and i recognize i may sound like a spoilt brat bc i just got a 14 minute long masterpiece of an unexpected dapc revival, but my immersion. i mean i already bought the merch before they shilled it anyways so it didn't influence me regardless 🤣

ultimately we really are in a new era. even beyond just the revival. i think they're really finding their stride--not only in their content (evidenced by a semi-regular schedule) but also creatively, in doing what they want to do, how they want to do it, and truly not giving that much of a fuck anymore. and i'm really happy for them. phil talked a bit about this in his 'rating my icons' video, where he's kind of decided he doesn't care what people on twitter think, and how it's been good for him, and i think we're seeing that reflected in not only his content, but also the gaming channel. they play what they want. they say what they want. and it's just fun. dan going on the record to say he's really enjoying it makes me so happy to hear, because literally december 2022 he believed he'd disappear after WAD. and now, instead, he gets to play games and make stupid jokes and smile and laugh multiple times a week, and he's really happy about it. he gets to be silly and goofy and crude without having to Stress about it. i keep saying it but they're so settled now. and as someone who's followed them through big changes and turbulent times, getting to see them happy after everything... it brings a lot of hope. and i know theyre millionaires. but there's something to looking at someone you fell in love with 15 years ago the same then as you do now. but instead of it being something scary, something you have to hide, something that feels like it can consume you and everything you have--it gets to be something beautiful. and regular. and embraced. you've read this far you get to listen to me wax poetic about them.

we've been thoroughly boiled and maybe, just maybe, it's warming our hearts too.

[myfandomrealitea]

I had to check myself recently because I'm so used to being in discord servers with vent channels, that when I ended up joining one *without* a vent channel, I realized Holy shit, where can I go to complain about the day-to-day things that piss me off? And I thought of your post & took a step back, like You know what? I can complain on my own time, on my own blog, or in private to a close friend who offers to listen. I can just let this server be fun.

Anyway, I think people are still furious over your post because (and forgive me if someone's said this before) the availability and reach of the internet has conditioned ppl to believe that it's acceptable/required/encouraged to vent in any space, at any time, to anyone, and that the audience should willingly receive it. It's like a form of brainwashing.

Honestly, the single major response I've gotten is people screaming that I'm an evil racist white bitch oppressing people of color because I'm asking them not to talk about genocide or police brutality in fandom spaces.

There is a huge, huge difference between stopping someone who is actually, actively being racist within a public space and asking people not to force others to constantly engage with and expose themselves to the horrors of the world, especially in spaces where they have retreated specifically to recover from those things.

Its basically like going to a wellness and recovery retreat and forcing everyone there to watch the news and read articles and watch videos about world horrors.

Almost everyone in a Discord server has profiles on other social medias. Everyone on the internet sees, willingly or not, what is happening in the world right now. We all know these things happen. We are not blind. We are not ignoring it.

When I go onto Discord and go into my silly little fandom servers, its after I've spent an hour on Tumblr on my main blog reblogging aid posts. Circulating information. Doing my best to connect people to people who can help them. Its after I've spent my lunch break at work listening to my colleagues talking about the latest knifing or child kidnapping. Its after checking Snapchat only to see headlines like MAN BRUTALLY STABS DOG IN PUBLIC PARK.

When I go into those servers, its because I need to get away from all of that. I need to have that time away where I can recover and recharge or I simply won't go online because I know there is absolutely nowhere online where I can simply enjoy something without other people grabbing me by the head and forcing me to look elsewhere at things that are horrific and upsetting.

And the thing about those spaces is they themselves need protection and moderation in order to remain safe. And you know what that means?

It means preventing racism and homophobia. It means if someone is being unpleasant, they get shut down. If someone is being bigoted, they get removed. Because they are making that space unsafe.

Literally nobody except these idiots screaming about racism are suggesting that we just outright allow racism to keep happening.

[viktorpartner]

✨ THE DAN AND PHIL LORE pt. 3✨

CHECK OUT PART 2: https://www.tumblr.com/ashleyeveerson/760707933651746816?source=share

Phil ALSO comes out! (yeah no i'm not crying what? not them feeling comfortable enough to be themselves yeah). 2019 also brings us the adoption of a fish named Norman (a cutie) AND they also post pictures about their recent trip to Japan [the photo of Phil looking up to Dan behind the camera? yeah i am so normal about it, i swear]. There is hope in the horizon still for a Dan and Phil comeback...

BAM! A certain virus runs wild and forces everyone to stay at home. Phil continues to upload solo videos which distracted so many of us during these dark times. Dan, however is AWOL and the only pic we have of him is a shitty screenshot of him in glasses and a mask helping Phil rescue an injured pigeon (lockdown was WILD).

Also, my boy Dan post a cryptic tweet that leads to the announcement of a self-help book named YOU WILL GET THROUGH THIS NIGHT (because you will <3). Nah but I can't count how many times I've sobbed reading it, just him trying to help out others who have also struggled with mental health... istg i love this man

Hey so THEY BUY THEIR FOREVER PHOUSE TOGETHER they're gonna kill me one day istg. "Dan and Phil just decided to pay a mortgage together", top 10 sentences that would kill a 2016 phan. They are slaying, they are glowing... also rip Norman the fish you will not be forgotten

So during 2014 the fates (aka a random youtuber) foretold that Dan and Phil would be married in 2022. Since that clearly didn't happen the meme PHIVORCE united the phandom once more. ALSO Dan is out there shitting on youtube (as he should) and going on his solo tour WE'RE ALL DOOMED! Which i love with all my heart and also Phil being there for him every step of the way... AHHHHHHHH

Anyways a certain video called Dan and Phil finally tell the truth hits the internet and let's just say GOD DAMN. This also starts a wonderful trend amongst Dan and Phil in which they make fun of their audience (we deserve it ngl) and absolutley SHOCK US with new information about bonkers shit from their past [apparently they were offered a threesome MULTIPLE TIMES???]

It's the end. They've decided to give up their channel "Dan and Phil Games" forever... let's take a moment and silent and mourn with a compilation of Heart eyes Howell

...

SIKE! We're back baby and we're better than ever!!! The goodbye video turned out the be an ANNOUNCEMENT of their comeback. They are back, Dil Howlter is here and Phil confesses to having dyed everything green in the house when Dan went on tour bc he missed him (OH GOD). Also, the Halloween baking video introduced us to the icon that is.... *drumroll please*

SISTER DANIEL, the queen of making everyone reconsider their sexuality... she is the moment, she is an icon and she is serving astronomical levels of cunt at all time [jokes aside, Dan being comfortable enough to do drag in public, fuck they've come so far i'm so proud of them <3].

And here we are in the future, it's present day and they are queerer and happier than ever. THE PICTURES I CAN'T ISTG. Also Dan's Birthday stream is beyond iconic. First of all my unproblematic kings make it a charity stream to donate to the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund (using their public influence for good hell yeah)... And how did they raise the money you ask? WELL BY HITTING IS WHERE WE'RE WEAKEST. Sister Daniel makes a spectacular comeback, FATHER PHIL is introduced and Dan even dyes his hair red to be more Good Omens coded... which timeline are we living in again? like how is any of this real?

Also them drawing the PINOF whiskers on their faces again... they're literally growing old together I'm gonna go sob in a corner. Also the fake apology video bc they have no fashion sense in the Sims 4 is hilarious as fuck. HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY BE SO MUCH HOTTER ON THEIR THIRTIES EXPLAIN??

anyways the phandom is still speculating wether they're erasing "i love you's" at the end of their text when they show them on videos... guess some things never change. Nah but the vibes are COMPLETELY DIFFERENT NOW, they are more open than they've ever been and participate on the phan culture FULLY to the point that they're the ones terrorizing us now.

QUICK DETOUR TO TALK ABOUT PHIL'S FAMOUS BAD LUCK (and then they wonder why he's always dying in the fanfics). Nah but my poor man has had his fair share of medical problems, the most recent being...

OH GOD WHY WOULD YOU ANNOUNCE SOMETHING LIKE THAT THIS WAY?? nah like using humor as a coping mechanism and all but do they wanna gives a heart attack?! iconic i fear however

So yeah the video where they talk about it is WILD (funniest shit about the whole ordeal is that a nurse mistook Dan as Phil's son). Also I saw a tweet speculating about Phil having a hickey like... first of all what is it? 2009? Second of all IT'S MOST LIKELY A POPPED VESSEL FROM LOSING ALL THAT BLOOD YOU KNOW

They still were able to go on their vacation (aka the rodent boy summer) which gifted us with this iconic pics... ALSO they dropped a new Dan and Phil beats for summer go check out the names of the tracks istg they wanna kill their fans.

Nothing is sacred anymore, they've infiltrated twtphan, they're actively reposting memes and writing fanfiction about themselves. It's the wild west, everytime you get a notification is like playing Russian Rulet. Cringe is dead and Dan and Phil ARE COMING NEAR YOUR CITY on a tour named "Terrible Influence" where Phil's spent 300€ on silicone. It's a wonderful time to be a phan.

OKAY SO here's some stuff that didn't make the cut but that i find too hilarious to not mention. In no apparent order: DAN DRESSING UP AS A CATBOY, Dan and Phil playing technicians 1 and 2 on Big Hero 6 and two brothers on the Lion King (wtf was that also they gave the gorilas matching fringes), Dan dressing up as a golden pig (my boy has RANGE) and finally Dan being too embarassed to admit he stalked Phil and telling a reporter he was only asking for "editing tips" if you know what i mean

Also a short compilation of Dan and Phil losing the idgaf war against eachother THEY ARE SO THOUGHTFUL ABOUT EVERYTHING. Special mention to Daniel's 🧡 when Phil praised "We're all doomed!" and Dan's ranch metaphor to describe their relationship (just go watch the mukkbang video OH LORD)

SO, in conclusion... Dan and Phil's refusal to belittle their past and instead embrace it as part of their story while actively moving into the future alongside the phandom YEAH THAT SHIT MEANS SOMETHING. They're simultaneously healing our inner child while embracing us as the adults we've become i have many feelings about them

So what are they?

They're just Dan and Phil.

[franki-lew-yo]

James and the Giant Peach is still (mostly) for young children

Despite a single pre-metoo joke and it's uncanny-ish artstyle that's a serious make-or-break-you factor on if you like it, James and the Giant Peach is aggressively a movie for young children. I personally like it as I never find it a patronizing sit for little kids, like Don Bluth's movies from the 90s so often were, but that really is what I think alienates people; the intended audience may be a bit too scared of the visuals (NOT like how they are with TNBC, which kids go in expecting to be scary) where the adult audience who is here for the 'creepy stop-motion' feel like the movie is lacking for not being Nightmare or Coraline, which is unfair. It absolutely scared me as a little little kid but upon finally facing it at, like ten or whenever it was on Cartoon Network's movie show, I realized there was nothing to fear. And that, in turn, was exhilarating. It's such good symmetry that the film is about facing your fears and standing up for yourself because that's exactly what my relationship with it was. It's such a comfort film for me. My og Bluey. JatGP, Courage the Cowardly Dog, Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Ernest and Celestine = perfect comfort after I watch something serious and/or disturbing.

Half my reason for trying to pied-piper everyone else towards it as it's own merit is I think James and the Giant Peach would hit hard for lovers of weirdcore and dreamcore ala Jack Stauber or @samsketchbook's 'Welcome to Our Dimensional Party'.

That "looks unsettling/potentially disturbing but actually cute or gentle" vibe pairs perfectly with dreamcore aesthetic. We're coming up on it's 30 year anniversary I hope to see a genuine resurgence. If I had it my way and I was Dan Olson I'd make an hour-long look at the movie, the original book and Henry Selick's filmography as a surrealist the way Dan made an hour-lookback at Bakshi's Lord of the Rings. But I'm not. Cause I'm not Dan Olson and I can't build up the nerve to either show my face or figure out how to make videos in two years.

But anyway, about the title of this post (content warning: downer nsfl stuff; mentioning of real life child ab*se cases):

James' life with his aunts hits VERY different when you're an adult and you've watched too much true crime.

It's not intentional on the part of Dahl or Henry Selick. Selick had Mariam and Joanna ham up the screen and they clearly loved every minute of it and Dahl I think was just trying to tell an 'authentic' type fairytale story where the main character has to escape their evil family. Point being- Spiker and Sponge are supposed to be 'evil for the sake of evil' villains who could only exist as hammy caricatures in an already weird story. They aren't supposed to be like the parents in Matilda or the Twits who I'd argue are a little more 'realistic' depiction of awful people...except for the fact that legal guardians like Spiker and Sponge DO actually exist.

There's a heavy implication in the film that no one else in their county even knows James lives with Spiker and Sponge (literally the only people around to recognize James' existence are the bugs when they first meet him!). His aunts seem to make James work out of frustration for having to take him in, like he's a burden and they're making him pay for being one by being their slave. They actively don't feed him except for rotting fish and then shame him for not eating it. The Lane Smith picture book implies that James' parents weren't killed by a rhino but rather it's Spiker and Sponge who put that idea in James' head and use it to control him. And all that BEFORE the beatings which you know are happening off screen.

After the horrifying cases of Ruby Franke, Sylvia Likens and the Turpins, the "every child deserves a parent but not every parent deserves children" reality of it all makes you realize that James probably would have died if he lived with his aunts. Considering how they flip out on him in New York- that boy REALLY needed to escape, giant peach or no.

This is absolutely another reason for why JatGP is a comfort movie for grownups. You have this horrific childhood rescued by loving in-human parents who will kill everyone in the room and then themselves if you touch their human boy. It's like Opal but if Claire found a happier family. Of bugs. None of that was intentional, ftr, but it's what sticks out to me.