#matter what I do which also just fucking sucks

[oshinohoshi]

Oshi no Ko chapter 166 thoughts - the end of all things

So uh... the only positive thing I can say here besides the beautiful Ai art is that I felt sad reading the page where Miyako was hugging Ruby. Everything else left me completely empty

This chapter is either:

A) A self-aware ending meant to show that life is suffering and the idol industry will suck out your soul if you let it

B) Outsourced to someone who skimmed OnK for 30 seconds on Wikipedia before putting pen to paper

It has to be A, right? You can't tell me that the same author wrote both of these pages without the right being ironic

But I don't think so because big brained Akane is the one clumsily narrating this crappy montage masquerading as a real ending

Aqua died for nothing. His sister is now a soulless cog in the idol machine

Ruby is mimicking Ai's speech - "Lies are an outstanding kind of love... We pile on the lies and no matter how hard things get, we sing and act happy onstage. It's a fun job!" But she forgot the rest of it: "Only, I'd like the 'being happy' part to be real. Nobody notices, but we have hearts and lives of our own. Happiness as a mother. Happiness as an idol. Normally you'd have to pick one, but I want both. Ai Hoshino is a greedy girl"

Ai wasn't only a misunderstood girl who worked hard to please her fans. That was a big part of her story but she also broke the rules to create her own family, her own happiness

Ruby, on the other hand, seems to have no real desires anymore, she's just following a path she believes her mother and Aqua paved for her. Never mind that Aqua only wanted it in the end because she wanted it and Ai just wanted her kids to be happy

You can tell that Akasaka is patting himself on the back for making a cyclical narrative where Ruby becomes Ai 2.0 by being commodified, scrutinized, and idolized like Ai was

But it's such a flimsy parallel when it comes to the theme of lies because lying to hide your grief =/= "lies are love" which was the only way Ai knew how to frame her genuine desire to love

And Ai's "I love you" to her kids was true whereas Ruby has swallowed her own lie that being an idol is fun even when you're just doing it to outrun your pain

What this chapter showed us is that the meaning of Ruby's life is to be Ruby of B Komachi and she was put on Earth to sing pop songs. Because that's what Ai did, right? If I remember correctly, her final words were "I'm so glad I got to be an idol #blessed"

My God was the Dome concert soulless. Miyako and Ichigo crying happy tears is a punch to the gut. Doesn't Miyako know her daughter is still hurting?

The last scene is so fucking depressing

Ruby, are you okay? Blink twice if you still remember your life outside the idol industry!

The last two pages work really well as horror. She has a brilliant smile but you can tell that she's dead inside. She's got more merch on her table than photos. Why doesn't she have a corkboard of family photos? Although I more or less have this Ai plushie and it's pretty cute so I'll give this a pass because it's hilarious

I guess the takeaway here is to live for others and life is painful so just grin and bear it. Oh yeah, and inspire other young women to join an industry where they get to act happy and lose their humanity. Cool

I mean I get that it's supposed to be about moving on with your life even while grieving and that's a good message, sure, but Aka's insistence on using the word "lies" multiple times as if saying it makes it make sense ruins the whole thing

The most insane part is that this chapter is a wholehearted endorsement of the lies sold by the entertainment/idol industry

I haven't even said anything about anyone besides Ruby because what's the point? Aka didn't have time to do justice to any of the characters I grew to love

It's clear something went wrong with the timeline of wrapping up OnK. No artist wants to execute a final chapter like this. I'm convinced the film reel edges are Aka and Mengo's way of telling the reader, "we know this is a shitty clips show so don't @ us on Twitter about it"

But it's so much worse than that. Aka really decided to tear to shreds everything he worked so hard on for 4 years. Damn

This is my favorite manga and I'll always love that it gave me Ai, my most beloved character of all time, but this leaves an extremely bitter aftertaste. It's really hard to believe that the same person who wrote vol 1 wrote this.

OnK has been pretty important to me. Reading weekly, chatting with fans, and reaching dangerous levels of Ai brain rot has actually been a helpful distraction. TBH I've been a little too invested in it but sometimes you need escapism. So it's crazy that I'm kind of glad it's over.

But this is why fanfic, fanart, and your own headcanons exist. In another universe, this manga wrapped up beautifully and I was depressed for weeks because I couldn't look forward to it anymore. In this universe, at least we're all suffering together here at the end of all things.

And at least the little Hoshino family is still adorable. Too bad Ai is dead, Aqua is dead, and Ruby desperately needs grief counseling. But NEVER MIND. Look at Ai's smile and the twins' faces. This was the Oshi no Ko I really loved.

[yuribalisms]

And like !!!! The thing is with the gender stuff…. If I’m this wary about ever medically transitioning, even if I did come to the conclusion I’m a guy, I’m not sure I’d ever do it. It makes life hard, and if I’m not a hundred percent like “yes I want this it will make me happy” then I’m probably not gonna do it. It would also mean cutting off my mom’s side of the family for good (and while I don’t rlly mind never talking to my mom specifically again, there are quite a few ppl it would upset me to lose that way, all things considered). So Like…. What would be the point in “being out” as a trans guy? Sure my friends would listen but like the world in general? No!!! I might as well just keep saying I’m a lesbian and like ugh. Ugh. I like being a lesbian and I just don’t understand any of this but also am I just clinging so hard to lesbianism because it’s “safer” to me? Like what is the point in any of this my thoughts are just going in circles

[moonkhao]

hi.

[northern-passage]

i've been thinking a lot about the word "representation" and what it means and how it's changed over the last few years, particularly when it comes to the writing/publishing landscape but also in movies and tv shows… and i really don't like it anymore. to be clear, of course i think it's important to have diversity in your work, i'm not saying i hate the concept of representation. but i do really dislike the way it's used now, and i really just hate the word itself

in a broader sense it's just become a marketing tool. i'm not impressed by any publisher or author who just describes their book by listing all of the minorities/identities the characters represent as if that should be enough. it feels very gross, very exploitative and disingenuous. it also really bothers me because it's always marginalized identities- which i understand Why, but it feels very othering to me (and again. Very exploitative as an advertisement). you would never list out "cishet able-bodied white man" as a character description to pat yourself on the back over. so why do it to everyone else? why insinuate that one is the "default" and the other one is "special"? (and when i say this i'm mainly talking about advertisements/marketing. i understand why people would specify about characters in descriptions with the plot, but i don't like to see an ad that's just "this book has gay people!" with nothing else)

which then leads me to my other point, which is that a lot of people treat "representation" as if it's "too hard." like "oh i don't know enough to write about that, i don't have that experience, etc" which is a fair way to feel! however… it's weird that people only say this about writing trans characters or characters of color. i'm writing a story right now with a character who is really into motorcycles. i personally do not know that much about motorcycles, so i researched what parts are what & what different kinds of models there are & what basic bike care looks like. i guarantee Most people will have to google something at some point in their writing process. so what's the problem? it also, again, feels very othering when authors treat certain groups of people as "impossible" to write, "too hard" to understand. they are just.. people. you write them as a person. and then you figure out the rest later.

and i think part of the refusal or fear to write something outside of your experience is because of the way representation is treated as So Special. these characters are So Special that they aren't allowed to be anything other than "representation." they're Not allowed to be characters with complex emotions and interesting motivations, they have to just be Trans or Gay or Disabled or whatever. they're not allowed to be people. which means, at the end of the day, we loop right back around to where we were at the start….

there is bad representation. there are depictions of certain marginalized people that are harmful and that are damaging, i'm not trying to minimize that or argue against it at all, in fact we should all be mindful of that while writing and reading. but i also think it's possible to swing too far in the opposite direction as well and put certain groups of people on a pedestal and not allow them to do anything at all but be Perfect Representation, if that makes sense.

[dailykugisaki]

Day 347 | id in alt

Kugisaki hasn't been around Gojo enough to gaf about him LMAO.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

hey um not to be parasociall but how did the meeting with your advisor go???? also would it be possible for you to switch advisors/program or something so you can change your research interests if that's the issue? Im a doctoral student as well so I get how tricky that stuff can be depending on your program.... Anyway I hope things better for you xoxo

Lol, ur fine! It went alright

[perenlop]

in general i think im really tired of kirby antagonists that are like “ohhhh this is the main antagonist- actually they’re just being possessed and they’re not actually responsible for their actions at all”

[fancylala4]

“Blah blah blah I want marvelous to change things up little! Blah blah I don’t want them to go back to what it used to be. Blah blah sdv was made by one person and I put in more hours into that game than I did with rune factory 4 and story of seasons ever did!”

Good, go play that game instead of whining about sos/rf games not being like it on the fucking sos/hm/rf forum for the 100th time. Not everyone likes that game (I hated every single thing about sdv) and wants sos/rf to be exactly like that game.

I know I say this many times before but I will say it again. Sos: poot did change everything up and guess what? Everyone in the community hated that game. So much that they are worried that the next game is just like it. The last thing this company needs is to further alienate their audience by taking out and changing things that made them love the franchise.

[vyrantium]

thinking about halsin and his relation to trauma. how he was able to heal from the terrible thing that happened to him, how it doesn't control him, how he can acknowledge it but he doesn't hurt how he used to. how it doesn't consume his every waking thought. it's incredibly healing to be able to see a character who has immense grief and trauma still able to be hopeful, still able to make a change, and be able to interact with the things that hurt him in the first place.

[bedcorpse]

but yeah to piggyback off that post y'all have to understand that if you're not usamerican or got lucky in regards to english teachers, even writers like myself got so sick of being handed boring, surface-level interactions with media and being discouraged from anything else that ofc we hated having to explain why the curtains are blue. because it wasn't a discussion of "okay is this meant to set a tone? tell us something about the character, like is blue their favorite color? or is it meant to symbolize something deeper? what are the different ways we could interpret this?" it was "the curtains are blue because the main character is sad. we don't have time for anything else bc public schools are wildly underfunded and overcrowded depending on the district and i make like 40k a year so any differing opinions will be shrugged off at best and punished at worst."

[freezi-drink]

.

[coridallasmultipass]

I am once again begging online shop payment processing companies to allow me to enter a separate name for shipping and separate name for billing!!

It's the same address, I'm just trans and have not legally changed my personal name, but I still prefer to receive mail as my preferred name! Like it's literally my professional name, I do business as my preferred name.

Annoying as fuck, and I don't want to chance my bank rejecting the payment (though I'm sure someone at my bank has put a note to allow it on my account by now, since I've contacted them a couple times before when I realized too late that the billing section didn't let me input another "address/name" section, and they said the payment was fine in those cases.)

Anyway, legal name changes should be free and non-advertised for everyone. Tbh, you should get a free name change every time you file your taxes on time as an incentive for good citizen behaviour. Once I am elected pres-

[lizeon]

every day i spend on twitter, because that's where most of the starmin are, is a day i wish most of that community would move to tumblr just because the way this site works in comparison would be so much better for it. the ability to tag art and be able to find it later on your own blog no matter how far back it was posted. the way you can add on to each others posts. and also i just like tumblers post format much better. especially for making a vague / simple post and then going into more detail in the tags cuz you don't wanna put all that in the main post but like it's there for anyone that wants to read it. on twitter you gotta put it all in the main body of the post and i. do not want to do that

[bunnihearted]

🍄‍🟫

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[sherlock-is-ace]

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