#soup rant

[robynator]

obsessed with how daud canonically chooses to forgive billie when she gives him the choice between killing her and showing her mercy after she betrays him

obsessed with how just a few months later, daud does the same, placing his life in the hands of a man whose life he completely ruined, asking to be spared and, against all odds, walking away from that encounter alive

obsessed with the alternatives you're given to those options as well

how, if you choose to kill billie in low chaos she helps you guide the blade. how she looks up at you and smiles as you stab her. how you hold her hand as she dies and don't let go even after she's gone

how, in high chaos, you just don't get that choice. her death is brutal, just like all the other deaths at your hand. like she said, what's one more body? but she's not just one more body. she's your second in command, your confidant, the closest thing you have to a daughter. you don't kill her with the same detachment you do for everyone else. you don't simply pull her onto your blade, you grab her by the throat as you stab her. it's brutal and it's personal, and that makes it so much worse

how, if you end brigmore witches with high chaos, corvo will kill you because you are not true to your word. you say that you feel remorse over jessamine's murder and yet your actions speak otherwise. you are not sincere in your words and while corvo may not know that, the game does. and it's telling you that that's the only way it could end. that if daud goes down that path he will not ever better his ways, nor will he be given the chance to. the only way daud can live is if he is actually committed to change

but despite all those options, in canon, daud gives billie the chance to leave and make a new life for herself. and corvo does the same for daud. and that is a parallel i think a lot about

[soupthatistohot]

BSD: An Absurdist Analysis - Ch. 114

My thoughts on "Crime and Punishment"

[BSD Absurdism Masterpost]

Okay, so! Fyodor probably isn't dead.

And my theory for what his ability is would tie into Asagiri's absurdist storytelling thus far.

In Sigma's flashback, we see Fyodor get impaled in a manner that is eerily similar to how he dies in the helicopter, a way that pratically guarantees his death. Yet, as Sigma observes, he must have escaped the execution in order for him to still be alive.

My theory, put simply, is that when someone successfully kills Fyodor, he takes their place.

His ability is called Crime and Punishment, right? And if the ultimate crime (sin) is murder, then the punishment would be death. So, then, perhaps when someone is able to kill Fyodor, it causes their death, and somehow Fyodor takes on their lifeforce (for lack of a better term) and is able to keep living.

This would also explain why he has been able to live for such a long time. If he keeps getting killed by people whose lifeforce he assumes, then he can theoretically live forever as long as people keep attempting to murder him.

This would explain the end of the chapter where the body is shown to clearly not be Fyodor's. The helicopter pilot would have paid the consequence for Fyodor's murder, and thus been the one to die. For whatever reason, I suppose this means he and Fyodor switched likenesses? This is further supported by the panel in the flashback/memory where something seems to be happening to the man who impaled Fyodor after he does so. This part I cannot explain as well, but I think y'all can understand what I'm getting at with this.

Additionally, this theory of Crime and Punishment explains the purpose of the prison-break game, he's been trying to goad Dazai into killing him all along so he can die in turn, and finally be rid of his rival.

(Edit: the above point is likely rendered invalid because No Longer Human would very likely protect Dazai from death by Fyodor’s ability. That being said, it further explains why Fyodor is so determined to kill Dazai — not only is he his match in wits, but he might be the only one capable of killing him for good.)

Further, it could possibly explain Nikolai's desire to kill Fyodor. Perhaps Nikolai knows the nature of Fyodor's ability, and is the only one who does, which is why he considers them to be so close. He idolizes Fyodor, and so he desires to one day kill him, because he knows it will kill him in turn and Fyodor will get to continue living on. This one's a bit of a reach, but I do think it's a potential explanation if my theory about Crime and Punishment is correct.

And now for how this all fits into absurdism!

Fyodor has been the main antagonist for a really long time, basically for half of the manga's run. Up until this point we've had little to no clues about the nature of his ability and if my theory turns out to be correct, wouldn't that just be the greatest absurdity of all time? A villain that literally cannot die because when someone kills him, they actually die instead of him? How do you even defeat such a person?

I'm fairly confident about this theory, my only question would be why he would reveal this now? Surely, he knows that Dazai would figure it out, both from Sigma and from the corpse clearly not being him, so what benefit does Fyodor gain from revealing not only that he's survived, but what his ability is?

[lialox]

Writing fics with Kim Dokja's POV

I feel the need to YELL INTO THE VOID with this.

I'm writing a fic where my goal is to get it to feel as 'canon' as possible and to do that I'm studying the way KDJ perceives the world.

And his overall tone is just so tired.

All the time.

He uses a lot of words like 'I knew as well', 'it wasn't strange for _____', 'obviously.....'.

Reading the novel the second time around and imagining the narrator as some guy who's been sitting in a subway for a while makes so. much. sense.

He's also pretty self deprecating, but in a way where its not obvious. Like he'll compare himself to his companions and be like 'this person is so amazing, but instead, I'm _______'. and its phrased in such a way where the reader is like !! Wow yes this person is so cool! But when reading it again, I'm like... wow you hate yourself, huh??

I opened up the novel and in almost every chapter he says at least ONE bad thing about himself. Try it. It's like playing where's waldo.

" I lived so far to make my lies a reality." - 359

"However.... to think, they willingly spent an item on me that they could’ve used on themselves. For some reason, I felt guilty about it." -433 (At this point its like past scenario 90 and he STILL feels bad about his companions using an item on him like whAT you have known each other for literal YEARS)

ALSO!! The fourth wall doesn't just offset shock.

IT OFFSETS HAPPINESS TOO.

⸢Kim Dok-Ja watched all these happen with a quiet smile.⸥

[‘The 4th Wall’ is gradually getting thicker.]

⸢As if, he was looking at a spectacle happening in the distance.⸥

(Chapter 433 ^^)

TURN OFF YOUR SKILL KIM DOKJA AAAAAAAAA

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE SOMEONE WHO TRIES TO FEEL NOTHING.

I THRIVE OFF EMOTIONAL WRITING BUT I HAVE TO PLAY BY THIS GUY'S RULES

WHY U SO BLAND KDJ WHY

WHYYYYY

*banging head on laptop*

[boredsoup]

I think “Canceling the bar-mitzvah” does an amazing job at showing Mendel’s character growth. We actually see him acting like a mature father figure for Jason and admitting that he cannot always fix things. This really pays off because: No matter how silly and sweet people portray Mendel. In Act one he is just as flawed as Marvin and Whizzer. In the first act he doesn’t actually care about Jason or Trina’s well being only caring to use his position to get into a relationship with Trina, even hoping Jason acts out more even though that would worsen Trina’s mental state. He also even states that he thinks that Trina’s issues and strife are all a priori (unreasonable) even thinking that she is easily fixable. “Just five sessions on my couch she’ll be like new” so once in Act two when Whizzer gets sick he must realize that he cannot help or control the situation. He is forced to register that he has to take himself down from his own pedestal and understand that the advice of feeling all right for the rest of your life, will not work. So as he matures and gets out of falsettoland him understanding that the best he can do is be there for others and help where he can. That he is not always the solution but can just help aid to assist and comfort the others around him really pays off. This all leads him to the growth we see in “Canceling the bar-mitzvah” and further on in “Falsettoland reprise” when he embraces the others in the new tight-nit family.

[add1ctedt0you]

What a plot twist you were. [x]

[tsubomisno1fan]

“Kiyotaka would let his friends/partner break the rules cause they’re close!” THE KIYOTAKA ISHIMARU? THE MOTHERFUCKER WHO HAS “ultimate moral compass” AS A TITLE??? THE ONE WHO LITERALLY SAID HE DESERVED TO BE PUNISHED OVER A SMALL MISDEMEANOR?

Kiyotaka may be friendless but he’s not gonna willing break his own morals for someone like that. If his friends/partner broke the rules, he’d still scold them

[drawnfamiliarfaces]

Finja x Chase angst? 👀

oh dude their whole "relationship" is basically messed up angst lol (despite me often portraying it as cracky angst)

I mean, we have some good angst in Chase pursuing First not because he 'loves/cares about' him, but because he selfishly desires him for his power/sees him as a challenge to get into his Fallen Warriors army. And First having to be constantly on alert against Chase, especially when he behaves like a charming honorable warrior, hiding that cunning manipulative side of him behind amused 'harmless' smiles. I would imagine its hard for First to not start to care about Chase (he can be very charming ;) ) to some degree, so there is like this delicious angst in starting to care about someone with whom morally you would never agree with. (very Prof. X vs Magneto vibe imho)

(this also could lead to some interesting spin-off angst opportunity about First being in the Fallen Warriors Army and just...existing in this weird limbo of being a target of Chase's favorable attention, but still essentially being a servant to his Master so thus really unable to trully care about/love this evil man but he still kinda cares after all these years and, like ooooooh baby thats some scrumptious angst possibility)

Or we can have some angst in form of First, being technically 'moved on'/left only in spirit in this world and Chase, still obsessing over him all these centuries, not even realizing that he is basically pining at this point. Showing up to bother current Ninjas, Ninjanomicon and Spirit of First at every opportunity, but not being able to actually be (in any capacity) with First, besides those very brief reunions. And First, throughout the years, while still being very annoyed about Chase's continuoes presence, also feels... incredibly saddened about this man to some degree. But he still can not falter, for his duty and successors still need him and they take priority, so this weird relationship just continues on.

And like OOOOH BABIES this is just scratching the surface of any possible angst, but these are the ones that are currently circling in my mind (i want to make some comics with these scenarious) so yeah! angst! ;D

[drawbauchery]

LMAO I got bus AU jumpscared on TikTok

i never wanna see my art on tiktok ever again this is actually horrifying and upsetting

seriously i'd actually rather my art get stolen on instagram or some shit

kiyo is not "misunderstood" and did not "deserve better", they're only saying that because he's hot. i do not approve of my art being used for whatever nonsense point they're bending over backwards to make. embrace villains or bust.

why the FUCK are they using the post where i made him talk about screwing ryoma. does screwing ryoma make him redeemable

i'm going to burn tiktok to the ground

[ky-the-squiddy]

Every so often I come across people going on about 'queer is a bad word, I'm not a terf but we shouldn't use that word in community/academic/etc settings, don't call me queer' and just

Okay

You're not queer

I won't call you that, no one should call you that, and anyone that does is being an asshole regardless of their identity or minority status. It doesn't matter what reasoning you have behind not wanting to be labelled as queer, what trauma you may or may not have, what you've identified as in the past and present, and whether or not your preference just comes to not liking the vibe of the word for entirely inscrutible reasons. No one has any right to pry.

If you say you're not queer, then you're not queer, and that's okay.

It just also means that if I, a queer person, talk about the queer community, then I'm not referring to you. If an academic refers to queer history and queer texts written by queer people about other queer people, they're also not talking about you. If a corporation starts using 'queer' in their ads then they can eat shit because fuck 'em, they have no fucking right to use our words when they aren't and have never been one of us, but if a well-meaning ally uses 'queer' as a one-syllable shorthand for LGBTQIA+ in a verbal conversation, then there's no reason for you to get any more annoyed at them as you would if they used the word 'gay' instead.

You have every single right to be labelled or not labelled as you like, and I will stand behind you all the way. If someone is trying to shove 'queer' on you when you really don't want it? Then I will happily, metaphorically, deck them in the face for you. We are still family, whatever you choose to call yourself, and it's important that we stick together.

But

If you aren't queer, and you get frustrated when you see queer people talking about the queer community, take a deep breath, and consider:

They aren't talking about you

[soup--champ]

god I love how this episode makes you completely recontextualize everything in both this and the previous one with the reveal of sanitized filter showfall uses, and its all revealed just from that one scene of charlie's dissection. the unanswered questions make it so much more rattling.

it paints such an eerie feeling over the entire rest of stream. any slapstick moment loses a lot of it's comedy because of the implied reality of the scenario. the reactions from those who broke free from the control helped sell it a lot as well.

the shot of sneeg staring in horror at charlie off screen while everything and everyone around him just kind of pauses? brutal.

and the fact that most of the offscreen deaths were never shown, but were often treated with the most sincerity as well. it both works as effective horror and also as a way to work around format limitations.

shoutout the fear of the unknown. it's such a good horror device.

[soupthatistohot]

BSD 109 Spoilers!!!

I will always always ALWAYS come back to this panel when talking about Asagiri’s storytelling.

At its very core, BSD is an absurdist text, Kafka Asagiri having been inspired by many absurdist authors. Franz Kafka, who he took his pseudonym from is one of them. Albert Camus, basically the most well-known absurdist is referenced with the Mersault prison, the name of which comes from a character in his most famous absurdist work, The Stranger. 

Absurdism is the belief that the world around us is irrational and inherently absurd and that explicitly seeking meaning is pointless. In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus explains, that there is value in the act of rebellion, though. Sisyphus, who has been doomed to roll a boulder up a mountain only for the boulder to tumble back down each time he reaches the peak, finds meaning in the act of continuing to push the boulder. Even though he will continue this cycle for all of eternity, he doesn’t just lay down and give up, he rebels against the absurdity of his situation by continuing to push the boulder, despite the seemingly futile nature of the act. 

As I said earlier, BSD is an absurdist text. All of the animanga’s main characters are on a journey of discovering their meaning in life, and their place in the world, and they do this by rebelling against its absurdity — especially Dazai. 

Dazai sees the absurd world for what it is, and when he was in the PM, he hated it. Thus, he sought suicide as a solution. I will note here that absurdists generally view suicide as a failure to rebel against the absurd, just giving up and giving into hopelessness. But ever since Dazai left the PM and took Oda’s advice, he’s been rebelling against this, doing good despite his inherent beliefs about morality and the world, and he’s absolutely gotten better for it. 

Other characters embody this idea of rebelling against the absurd, hell, that’s kinda what this whole arc is about. The world is literally ending, and things seem to be at their absolute worst, but someone like Atsushi still has hope that he can change the minds of the hunting dogs and save reality as we know it. He even has hope that he can get through to a vampiric Akutagawa when the guy is literally brainwashed and attacking him. Aya as the “last hope” right now embodies this, too, deciding that she can’t just sit around and do nothing and then trying to remove the sword from Bram even though the effort appears futile. 

But everything is going wrong right now. Fukuzawa is bleeding out, Dazai has just been shot through the forehead and appears to have died, Atsushi’s had his limbs ripped off and is at Akutagawa’s mercy, and Fukuchi is literally going to end the world! How can we have hope?!

Think about BSD. Think about the story that’s been told so far. Surely Asagiri isn’t killing everyone right now, surely the world isn’t gonna actually end. I’m not entirely convinced Aya’s plan is gonna work— but please consider that the point of absurdist storytelling is that even when everything seems to be at its worst, even when life seems completely meaningless, there is inherent meaning in still continuing to fight against this. 

BSD has never been a story where the villains win, and I don’t think it’s gonna start being one. I think, as usual, Asagiri wants to scare us, to make us feel hopeless about the situation, only for someone to pull through and completely turn the tides.

Dazai laying down and accepting his death at Chuuya’s hands is not going to be the end of his story, because it goes against everything Asagiri seems to stand for. Dazai wouldn’t just give up in his fight against Fyodor, because he needs to prove he’s right about what he says in this panel:

"The ones who actually make the world turn are those who scream within the storm of uncertainty and run with flowing blood."

I think this reflects Asagiri's own beliefs and is also the reason why he is not going to let Dazai die like this, because in a way, that would be proving that Fyodor is right. From a storytelling perspective, it’d be saying “everything I’ve communicated up to this point actually means nothing and life is truly hopeless!” 

Dazai has cheated death before, as has basically everyone else in danger right now. I promise you, something is going to happen and they’re all going to survive, because BSD is not trauma porn, for lack of a better term. It’s a story about how a group of people fight against the absurdity of their reality, even when everything seems completely and utterly hopeless. 

There’s a lot of theories circulating about how things could work out, especially Dazai’s “death,” and I’m not here to repeat all of them, but I will say that a lot of them have credence, especially because Asagiri isn’t the type of author to make mistakes, every single detail has a distinct reason. 

So even though I don't know how things are going to work out, I have full faith that they will, including Dazai's current situation. None of these characters are done just yet, they've got too much fight left in them to just give up.

[original twt thread]

[imminent-danger-came]

So I'm like, utterly obsessed with MK and Wukong's relationship, because it's like, Wukong has borderline unreasonable faith in MK and MK is willing to put pretty much anything on the line for Wukong (risking the curse being released in 4x02, ready to "meet his fate" FOR him in 4x13), yet MK is also purposefully ignoring SWK's mistakes/flaws and thinking in binaries of "good guy" and "bad guy". And at this point I'm not sure what they wouldn't do for each other, or where is too far to go for each other, and let me tell you girl it's edging on unhealthy.

[thethirdstageofdeath]

We see Hannibal feed Will soup, but I firmly believe that he would never eat it himself, even if he was the one who made it. The sort of trauma he faced when he was a child doesn't go away, and we have already seen that his trauma does, in fact, affect the way he eats. But that also begs consideration to the thought of what Hannibal was thinking when he served Will that chicken soup.

[boredsoup]

Ik I have reblogged a lot of stuff about this but, I will scream this from the roof tops! LET QUEER CHARACTERS BE COMPLEX! All humans are complex including queer people, woah shocker :0. Demonizing or rejecting complex queer characters who do complex things is absolutely insane to me. Let queer characters be messy and bad people who need to grow, we need a balance. Having all queer characters be perfect just makes them feel like a cardboard cut out. Like for example is Hedwig a bad person? yes! That is what the film is about, perpetuated cycles of abuse of power and being taken advantage of. But by the end of the film she grows, and makes a change, even if it’s something is minuscule as giving Yitzak her wig and letting them be themselves. This is after Hedwig previously uses the power they have over Yitzak to stop them from wearing wigs and performing drag, something which Yitzak is passionate about, as an ultimatum for their marriage. She has the ability to after the film, keep growing and stop the cycles. And that’s just one example! Anyway, I know this was long, but in conclusion, let queer characters be complex and messy and make mistakes and be bad people. Not every queer person is perfect. Nobody is so let your characters have room to be messy or a bad person and grow from those experiences and choices.

Some other great examples of complex queer characters of the top of my head:

- really any character from Falsettos

- Frank-n-Furter from Rock Horror

- PJ and Josie from Bottoms

- all of the characters from The Boys in the Band

I could elaborate on each one of them but, then this post would be an essay and ik none of y’all want to read all that.

[iceeericeee]

Panicking

Why?

I’m making dinner tonight, and it’s onion soup.

Is that a bad thing? No, not really.

I just only have one recipe for it.

And I just looked at it, and it’s gonna take 2 1/2 hours to cook, not including the amount of time it takes to prep it 🫠

Dinner is very quickly approaching, and I’m gonna have to work from now until dinner making a fucking soup.

Broskis I just wanted to have onion soup tonight

And I can’t back out because I already told my family (who are onion soup enthusiasts btw) that I was gonna be making it tonight. So yeah

Soup

[tsubomisno1fan]

I don’t trust Minori haters. I get not liking her for the fact that that’s how she would treat Mob if they met before but acting like she now isn’t making a conscious effort to change is insane. She’s a 14 year old girl. 14. I’m solely convinced you missed the whole point of Mob Psycho 100 if you think she’s still a horrible person, cause the point is to go against tropes in shounen, and that would obviously mean making the villains remain villains.

Minori completely had a change of heart and now she’s trying to better herself and acting like she’s still a heartless monster with no remorse is just so stupid. Also it feels like misogyny cause if she was a guy, people would forgive her way more quickly and easily.

I don’t have any proper wording but this is just my two cents so far.