#this isn't an original thought or a new phenomenon

[denimdepression]

whats even the point of making the movie trailer at this point??? a full 2 minutes is a lot of time to fill if you don't wanna give anything away, I just saw a trailer that caught my interest for like a good 30 seconds, and then it basically just laid out the entire rest of the plot! I've seen it now! why does anyone think we need 2 minute trailers?? I'm so tired

[olderthannetfic]

Sending this to you specifically because I feel like you're the only normal brained person about this series.

I read Captive Prince a couple of years ago and liked it fine, as someone who doesn't have a strong preference for or against m/m and therefore isn't well-versed enough in its clichés to notice whether it reads like something full of cliché fanfic tropes. I really liked the use of language, some of the historical/political stuff, some of the ways that the characters are made complicated or unreliable.

The problem is, I've since coincidentally read most of the books that were Pacat's inspiration and. Well. Like 80-90% of the stuff in there has direct parallels in one of those. I'm not sure if there are more than three original thoughts in there.

I am not joking, if you read 1. The Lymond Chronicles and House of Niccolò by Dorothy Dunnett; 2. The Nightrunner series by Lynn Flewelling and 3. The Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice, you will find that some of the scenes were ripped off beat for beat, many jokes were taken and just lazily reworded, a lot of the character beats and arcs are at best a mashup of 2 or maximum 3 things from those books with the serial numbers filed off really poorly. There's a scene where some characters discover a suicide victim whose structure and descriptions are completely ripped off from another series, except Pacat fails to see what made the original scene so impactful. A lot of the pretty use of language is also directly copied from those, including some really really specific descriptors. It's so blatant!

And I don't see how people are okay with this! I know people who are fans of several of these works and they're totally cool with it! And honestly if it were some rando's unpublished original project I'd be cool with it too, but as a published beloved worldwide phenomenon with rabid fans? C'mon.

And another thing is, all of the other series mentioned above are balls to the wall insane. She just... she just made it bland. She took off most of the edge and reshuffled the elements into a fairly straightforward MLM love story with some light kink thrown in. It's not a BAD series, but I feel like I'm disappointed that someone read all my favourite books and THAT was their takeaway?

--

I started reading, got to the name of the series and burst out laughing.

And, wow, you brought up something totally new that I hadn't thought about! I'm impressed. Genuinely. Usually, I rant about all the reasons I hate the series while debunking the standard anti talking points.

--

I've read the Vampire Chronicles, but that was in the 90s and I read Captive Prince in like 2016 or after. I had zero recollection of common points. I haven't read The Lymond Chronicles despite years of hurt/comfort fans bugging me to do so, and I think I got like a chapter into the Nightrunner series before getting distracted...

The reason I found Captive Prince annoying and derivative is that it also reads exactly like the original m/m that was available when it was first being written, most notably the work of P.L. Nunn who was extremely famous for horny fan art but who also wrote some original m/m fantasy novels. The scene where they finally bone reminds me heavily of the one from... uh... what's the P.L. Nunn one where the prince creeps on that archer dude and he gets raped because of course and then the prince has to be ~patient~ and it's peak boring 2000s rape recovery tropes?

The rape backstory is not only lifted from Fushigi Yuugi (the author's fandom at the time) but is shared with basically 100% of original m/m from that era. It's sometimes the uncle, sometimes the stepfather. One single time that I can think of, it was the foster brother, but mostly it's that "funny uncle" type. Unless it's gang rape from a bad Gundam Wing fic. That was also everywhere.

Once somebody told me the author had previously shipped Tamahome/Nakago, I realized that they'd taken what would be a kind of unusual anime ship and made it a thousand times more boring by dumbing down the scary, tall general with the tragic backstory into an uke-appropriate waif.

So I guess what I'm saying is that there may be some inspiration you aren't familiar with, but it's the same story as what you said above: this is the blander remix.

--

As for why people are okay with this... honestly, most of the people who really adore the series whom I've talked to point to how it encapsulates the exact tropes and tone they loved in anime fic circa 2000.

As a fellow weeb, I loathed the tone of said anime fic circa 2000 and could not wait for tastes to change, so Captive Prince is a hideous blast from an unlamented past for me.

I think most people who love the series aren't familiar with its inspirations. Those that are may have consumed them quite a while ago and don't realize quite how direct the parallels are. Or, for the inspirations that aren't overtly canon m/m, the lure of it being Exactly Right may overshadow other things.

(They also mostly haven't read 90s fantasy doorstops that actually contain political intrigue, tactics and strategy. Captive Prince is a piss poor entry into this genre and should be recced for m/m, not this other stuff people constantly think is in there. None of these characters can reason their way out of a paper bag.)

More than any of that, there's a lot of love left over from when the series was a serialized original story on Livejournal in an era when we had vanishingly few original m/m works, especially long ones in a fantasy alternate world.

I think that is what gets it a pass when a new m/m novel presented as "m/m romance" or posted on one of the webnovel sites would be mocked for unoriginality. Many Captive Prince fans aren't (or weren't when they read it) all that familiar with the smorgasbord of original m/m available today. Many are unfamiliar with anime fanfic circa 2000, so this feels adjacent to the fic they've read but a little fresher... instead of like the week-old sardine tin I found it to be.

[clairedaring]

Okay, so the original post you wrote has been a while and I saw it by ghost-reading (this is when I read someone's blog without signing into Tumblr. I'm only signed in on a specific browser on my laptop to prevent mindless scrolling).

If I recall correctly, you mentioned being ready to protect a Thai actor because he's some BL actor but is married to a wife (or has a girlfriend). That reminded me of an incident my best friend told me while we were chatting.

She said there was this time when two pairs of BL actors (she coded them as Pair A + B, and Pai C +D since I don't know them and their names weren't the point) got massively flacked by fans because B kissed C on camera when the four friends were hanging out. Fans apparently saw it as a betrayal of the "BL pairing," even though all four of them were just vlogging their activities not as characters they play.

I wanna know more about this phenomenon out of curiosity!

Is it as common as my best friend put it? Or is she just unlucky enough to be caught in such a storm?

Why do fans think this way, when these are just actors and not the real characters? Is it similar to the issue of fans of Kpop, Jpop, or even Cpop artists who cannot accept their idols marrying or dating anyone?

What do the companies hiring or signing these actors do to mitigate such an issue/protect their actors?

Or... Do the companies cash in on this sort of fanatic fervor, such that they encourage fans to believe this illusion, or mandate their actors to uphold such an illusion even when they are being themselves outside of acting?

How does an incident like this usually get resolved?

What are the major stances of Thai BL fans on this issue? Not all of them support this sort of fervor, right?

Lastly: what do you think, personally, is central to this sort of incident?

Sorry if it sounds like some college assignment, but I really wanna know what you think! I'm so curious as an outsider to all of this...

Thanks!!!

Hiiiii Lyn \(￣︶￣*\))

You have no idea how happy I am to receive this ask because I've been wanting to talk about that couple incident that you're referring to since forever but I've never gotten the chance to properly collect my thoughts about it. Thank you for allowing this opportunity to ramble about this and for your very introspective questions.

So firstly to give some context to it, I think it's a bit more important to cover some background information of the two pairings that you're talking about.

OffGun and TayNew are some of the oldest pairings in GMMTV. They are known to all be good friends with each other (if not to say they're each other best friends). They've all done non-BL works with different actors but in terms of promotions, OffGun and TayNew have always been regarded to be the 'pillars' of GMMTV (their company) branded pairings.

Even though the four people are close with each other, Tay is particularly close with Gun (and this is public fact known by everyone who follows them), often teasingly calls each other pet/master and have some hangouts/vacations with just them two.

In the case of TayGun, I think their playful kiss being caught unexpectedly on livestream caused so much reactions was because it's a private moment between them. BL fans are too used with using private moments (re:clips of casual skinship between actors during work events and non-work livestream) to prove the existence of their closeness or togetherness -> so when New accidentally turned his camera to show Gun playfully kissing Tay during livestream, I think many (outraged) fans falsely equated that TayGun kissing in private like that means they're romantically involved to a certain degree.

Even though Tay has come out to explain that it isn't the case and that Gun was just playfully teasing him, there were still so much flacks thrown his way. Even with clarifications from both sides, you can basically see from the comments section of these Tiktoks (1, 2, 3, 4) that there is a considerable portion of OffGun and TayNew upset and disappointed (even though there is no reason to). I'll just translate some of the Vietnamese ones because those are the comments that show up first for me.

For those who follow [OffGun], you'll already know that Gun has been avoiding skinship from Off since 2022, fans used to think that he was shy but now we get it 🥲

10 years is just a number =)))))) (t/n: OP is insinuating that OffGun has been fooling their fans for 10 years)

What kind of 'friends' kiss each other on the lips?!

Now I can't watch OffGun series anymore 😇 Can they please give us a TayGun series 😌

Have I been blind all this time because how can everything has been so clear yet I still don't know it 🥲🥲🥲

Is it as common as my best friend put it? Or is she just unlucky enough to be caught in such a storm?

I think it's both common and not. So 'common' is in the sense that whenever one half of a branded pairing or 'koojin' is close and intimate with another person or displaying any possibilities of them being involved with said person in real life, it always trigger these reactions from shipper fans to immediately deny that possibilities or to attack the actors in the branded pairing as if they have 'deceived' their fans.

This has infinitely lessened in recent years with actors actively taking a stance against their fans harrassing their colleagues over ships but in general we still see it now and then with popular/rising/active ships or inactive ships but with astronomically huge fandoms (see: reactions of brightwin fans to bright's dating news).

I'm also saying it's uncommon for 'two halfs of two different popular BL pairings to get rumored to be together' but in 2024, it has already happened twice so who knows what's real really 😅 Aside from the case of TayNew/OffGun, there's also the case of actors Mew and Tul (who were both parts of ships with HUGE fandoms MaxTul and MewGulf) confirming their in real life relationship but their news was more well received internationally as neither of their old ships have been active in having series together for a while (i still see flacks for both of them here and there but that's because i'm vietnamese and vietnamese negative reactions are always the ones i see first to any dating news of one half of a BL pairing).

Why do fans think this way, when these are just actors and not the real characters? Is it similar to the issue of fans of Kpop, Jpop, or even Cpop artists who cannot accept their idols marrying or dating anyone?

I think there are several reasons like actors and companies contributing to the delusions of shipper fans and fans not being able to separate real life actors from the characters they play on screen, which have been extensively discussed in these Reddit threads (1, 2) so I won't delve into them. I'll just focus on a common reason i've seen from vietnamese fans being the combination of emotional and financial investment in these ships.

Similar to Kpop, Jpop or even Cpop idols as you've mentioned, there's a large degree of parasocial relationship involved between a CP/idol and their fans. Rather than the Kpop idol feeding fans the delusion of them being an attractive yet attainable, relatable, single person, these 'koojins' offer CP fans the image of a beautiful friendship/'will they/won't they'/'ambiguous more than friends, less than lovers' relationship -> so once there is a strong emotional attachment to the actors who are part of a pairing, fans will inevitably have strong feelings about their romantic life aka whether the CP is really together or not.

Even though branded pairings or 'love teams' have been an age old phenomenon since the dawn of television (not just in Southeast Asia but in Hollywood as well), I think this phenomenon has flourished particularly in Southeast Asia with many successful stories of actors having on-screen to off-screen real life romances (see: KathNiel in the Philippines, NadechYaya in Thailand...)

What do the companies hiring or signing these actors do to mitigate such an issue/protect their actors? and How does an incident like this usually get resolved?

I think one of the most interesting things about Thailand entertainment industry is that it's so easy for celebrities to sue people for online defamation. So rather than making any statements to 'save' their branded pairings or to resolve any confusion, the company doesn't do anything (which I understand because the artists are already clarifying themselves to the nosy press about any 'possible scandals that happened'). In the case that online commenters are getting too toxic, the artists can just screenshot the toxic tweets/posts, send them to the company's legal department and those defamation cases get resolved by the police.

But even then, that hasn't really stopped fandoms that are too large in size, too delusional in mind to do the crazy things they do even after a branded pairing has stopped working together, such as showing up at the fanmeeting of one actor, wearing masks of the other actor in that inactive ship. In this case, the company can't do anything since... well those people paid to attend the fanmeeting and get a photo with their idol. The most a company could do is probably to 'officially announce the ending of the ship' but... their comments section are still full of obsessed fans til this day so i doubt that announcement made any difference to the fully obsessed and delusional cp fans.

Or... Do the companies cash in on this sort of fanatic fervor, such that they encourage fans to believe this illusion, or mandate their actors to uphold such an illusion even when they are being themselves outside of acting?

Companies have always generated as much revenue from brand endorsement, brand promotions fanmeetings, concerts, selling merchs of these pairisings as they do from producing and airing these series if not more, so I've also felt a sense of these companies capitalizing upon their branded pairings and the volatileness of delusional fans.

If you're interested here and here are two interviews with P'Tha, the CEO of GMMTV company which TayNew and OffGun are under, I think his sharings in these interviews are very insightful into how the companies view these branded pairings (the main source of income for these companies basically).

I wouldn't say that the companies mandate or force their actors to act a certain to create an illusion of an ambiguous/are they aren't they ship for any branded pairings, but i DO think that being in an environment where two people (who are part of a branded pairing) are constantly being shipped or teased by co-workers and sometimes even the ceo himself... that does make shipper fans more delusional than they normally would. it's like as if you were in a class and everyone around you start shipping two people or pushing two people to be together, you'd be questioning what the others know about those two that you don't... it's 'sus' as the cp fans will say 😂

What are the major stances of Thai BL fans on this issue? Not all of them support this sort of fervor, right?

I think there's all sorts of opinions that pops up whenever there's news of someone dating surfaces, there are no consensus on it because the feelings of the fans rely largely on how emotionally invested they are in the actors/real people. There are fans who will take the news harder (feeling tricked, deceived, all that jazz) and there are also fans who will feel like 'oh that's normal' or they would rejoice in the happiness of their favorite actor having an in real life parner. Also it's probably important to note that the stance of Thai BL fans do not necessarily align with the stance of general Thai audience, for example when Thai actor Bright revealed his girlfriend Nene, basically the entire Thai netizen is supportive of him whereas his previous branded pairing fans are divided between supporting him and feeling 'betrayed' by this reveal.

Lastly: what do you think, personally, is central to this sort of incident?

Personally, I think it's fans' expectations. Similar to what Monk Dol told Dear about not holding on to things too tightly, I think fans often hold on to the romantic stories portrayed on screen more strongly than they do with non-romantic stories. Therefore, the reality of an actor having a real life partner often dispels this illusion of a 'screen-to-life' romance stories that fans may have concocted in their mind for any pairings not limited to whether they are in queer love or straight love stories.

I feel like it's just much easier for fans of straight pairings to move on since they don't get paired repeatedly as leads together every 1-2 years and they often don't have couples' work (like promoting brands togethers...) long after the ending of their series together, contrasting with branded pairings in BL/GL series who still get brands work together after the ending of their series -> allowing their "ship" fanbase to grow and the fans to have even larger expectations of the actors to have future works together.

Again it might be a lot of me to ask that these dedicated fans not to have expectations (which may eventually lead to their own suffering) because logically these fans do pour in not just emotional investment but also like HUGE financial investment so having expectations are really inevitable ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ perhaps they should watch สาธุ and learn to let go of having any expectations for a ship or an idol which will benefit all parties involved 😅

Anyhow before I end this, please let me ramble and promote my beloved actor, JJ Krissanapoom whom you've mentioned first in your ask.

JJ Krissanapoom is a prolific Thai actor whose works I've followed really early on in my journey of Thai media consumation. He's starred in works of different genres and he's had queer love-adjacent projects before like Diary of Tootsies (with Paopetch aka Monk Ekkachai in สาธุ) and Great Men Academy (with James Teeradon aka Win in สาธุ).

But JJ has been in a highly publicized long term relationship with his girlfriend Thanaerng for seven years now, so I have no fears/worries about the reception of Thai fans to his upcoming queer love work Spare Me Your Mercy.

That being said, I'm still very worried about any negative reactions from delusional shippers because even if the actors have nothing to insinuate that they're together or even if they're both actors with in real life partners, the delusional fans always have the following comment templates to bash the drama/actors

I can't see the chemistry between the actors, probably because they both have girlfriends.

Why is the actor posting pictures with his girlfriend instead of promoting his own series?!!?

Why does the actor have an event with his girlfriend rather than an event with his co-star??!?!?!?

things like these... i'm already expecting.... and praying they won't happen... also if they do... i wouldn't be very surprised... and i'm actually very parasocially attached to jj and thanaerng's irl relationship so i feel like i'm even extra protective of their relationship than i already do.

and i'm definitely going off track here... but yes i'm very much looking forward to having jj krissanapoom on my screen again, in this BL series about a cop solving a series of murders of dying patients, to which his doctor boyfriend is the no.1 suspect of.

and here's a cute recent clip of all three people jaylerr, gun and tay to end my lengthy incoherent ramble

[blissfulfandomingmess]

Bridgerton Season 3 Is Completely Out - Here's My Thoughts (Not Spoiler Free!)

I never expected myself to become a sucker for Bridgerton yet here we are. It started after promotion for Season 3 began earlier this year. They began to drop the snippets, specifically the infamous "your eyes are the most remarkable shade of blue" scene. So, as soon as these scenes dropped, I felt some appeal. However, Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton really PULLED me into the trap. The PR and their genuine friendship brought me so much comfort and idealization. I still feel like an imposter in this fandom as I haven't watched the show from beginning to end. I'm hesitant to start it. I've already found myself being emotionally attached to these characters and their actors. It's formed a hyperfixation so that's a great new addition to my shelf of many fixations. But with that comes, a lot of dread to start a series in fear of me disliking their characters in previous seasons or feeling no appeal to other characters. I don't want to be that person.

Yet I still watched Season 3. I may not know every character and have a basic rundown of what's happened in previous seasons but I've enjoyed what I've seen. The first part of Season 3 focused on establishing the friends-to-lovers phenomenon between Colin and Penelope. Some aspects felt rushed but to me, it was pretty well done. However, when it comes to covering a book, there should definitely be more aspects of the book included. Many things were excluded, some for completely valid reasonings and others that didn't make sense. As many of the dearest gentle readers watched the second half of the season, many have echoed the same disappointment. Where was his declaration of love from the books? Why was there more anger than happy scenes? Why did they seem to skip many events from the book adaption?

Before we delve into this deeper, if you haven't read the original book (Romancing Mister Bridgerton: Penelope & Colin's Story by Julia Quinn), this is what we as a fandom are referring to:

“I love you,” he said, his voice low and fervent. “I love you with everything I am, everything I've been, and everything I hope to be.” “I love you with my past, and I love you for my future.” He bent forward and kissed her, once, softly, on the lips.

In many ways, we technically got something similar to this towards the end of Episode 8 but most longtime readers and watchers were looking forward to this moment. Not only that but the almost reversed sequence of events. However, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, this is a live-action adaption of the novelization. The novelization will forever reign superior.

Stlll, Luke and Nicola brought these characters to life with their blood, sweat, and tears. You can see through their art how serious and important these characters are to them. I think it's fair to say that I cannot wait to see them in future seasons, even though, they will no longer be the leads. I think that's another reason I dreaded the end of this season. I've enjoyed all the press, interviews, photoshoots, and friends made along the way.

To finish this off, I would like to applaud Nicola Coughlan and Luke Newton. Not only did they provide us with happiness and joy but they showed their close friendship, highlighting their immense respect for each other. You don't see things like this in this business often. Of course, they played into some aspects of the PR but their friendship was never PR despite sites like DeuxMoi wanting to claim.

And with that dearest gentle readers, this is where we part. Not literally but this season has been an amazing journey for us all. I can't wait to see what the future has in store. I hope and pray that Nicola and Luke remain friends through all hate and rumors, as well. This won't be the last you hear of my Bridgerton ranting and rambling as I hope to actually start from beginning to end. I hope you all enjoyed this season as much as I have, even with some of the hurdles with the second half.

[tetsunabouquet]

When Eyes Meet (Murasakibara Atsushi)

A/N: Here I decided to make a Murasakibara version of an Aomine fic I wrote. The Soulmate concept belongs to the American comic series, ElfQuest. Aomine - Kise - Kagami - Kuroko - Akashi - Midorima

You already had gathered the small excess pile of candy, and was waiting for Murasakibara. Because of health conditions, you were often dealing with fatique and dizziness. As a result, your mom had began packing your bag with a bag of candy every day. "You're always low on energy, so it would be good for you to eat a few whenever you get your dizzy spells, sweetheart!" Your mom had chirped when you spotted her doing that. She had a point. But the bag she always bought, contained various flavors. You liked most of them, but the strawberry one was so sweet you felt like you would vomit pure sugar. Your mother agreed. So now, you were left habitually with strawberry leftovers. Thankfully, one of the wealthiest kids in school had a gigantic sweet tooth, and a roommate that would limit his amount of times to the local grocery store. His name was Murasakibara, and with Himuro around, it pretty much drove Murasakibara to your pile of strawberry sweets like an ant that had gotten a whiff of sugar. He bought your excess strawberry candy, and he paid the original bag price. You had thought of just asking for half the price of the bag, considering the strawberry ones made up like 25% of the bag at best and still have profit, but Murasakibara always paid the full price. When you asked him about it, he said he did it so you would keep selling them to him only. To make up for his kindness, you always gave him any of the leftovers of the flavors you did like too. And so, he basically funded your sugar rush. Both the two of you were pretty grateful to Murasakibara, it was a somewhat expensive fix, buying candy for your dizzy spells every day. You felt yourself perk as you saw his large figure approach you, and you waved. "Murasakibara-san." You greeted, as the purplette stood still in front of you. "What's up y/n-chin?" He asked lazily, but not at all disinterested. "Pretty good, today wasn't bad. I have a few lemon left too." You turnt around to the pile, scopping them up into your hands. Murasakibara's eyes glittered like a child's when the candies slipped into his hands, and if you didn't think he was worried about dropping one then it would almost appear as if Murasakibara withdrew his hands from yours a little too slowly. You walked with him, side by side. It was peaceful, as it usually was. Whenever you were walking side by side with Murasakibara, it felt calming. Like his presence sent a wave of comfort down your spine. You often wondered if he considered you a casual friend, like you saw him. He often left you guessing, and whilst it annoyed you, somehow you felt way too nervous to actually ask him if you were friends. Why you did not know, or perhaps you did but you just rather didn't want to really face it.

You later on wondered outside of the campus, considering Yosen was a boarding school. It was a really nice day, in Akita. You enjoyed the afternoon sun. As you turnt around the corner, you saw Murasakibara resting under a tree, eating chips. "Hey!" You greeted, looking at him. "Hello, y/n-chin." He greeted, as he stuffed his mouth full. You gestured at the spot next to him, and with a small nod, you sat next to him under the tree. "It's a nice day, isn't it?" You asked, and received another nod. You relaxed against the bark, the sweet breeze filling your lungs, playing a bit with your hair. The scent of food and nature filled the air. "Hey, I thought Himuro had limited your chips stack?" You questioned, curiously. "He Recognized last month, he's a lot more busy nowadays." Murasakibara confided to you, and your eyes widened out of surprise. "That's great news! I'm happy for him!" You chirped. Recognition was a natural phenomenon that happened as long as mankind could remember. People had always had two names. One used by everyone, and one more intimate, special. The name of their soul. This was a name one would only share with their parents, perhaps a sibling or a friend as close as a sibling. There was one special instance, where someone knew your name instinctively. Recognition was when two people would lock their eyes, and somehow, they'd know the other's soul name. Recognition usually led to a lifelong romance. It was, as society dubbed it, 'the moment you knew you found your soulmate.' Many people had wondered how Recognition worked. There seemed no pattern, no rule. Some people Recognized upon first glance, others did after already knowing their partner for a while. Some even had known the person they Recognized since childhood. It just happened. Recognized couples looked so happy, it seemed like there was a superior type of romance about it. It made fairy tales with their talk about true love, make a lot more sense. Hearing Himuro found the love of his life was great news, obviously, but there was a little nagging voice at the back of your mind. One that told you to push the topic. Murasakibara just continued to much silently. "But if you can buy snacks again, you don't really need my candy deal, anymore, do you?" You asked, realizing that for the past month, Murasakibara had been buying your candy whilst he had access to his old snacks again. "I don't need it, but I like your candy." You looked at him curiously. "Do I need to remind you that you buy them for the full price? Why do that when I'm at best giving a third of the bag?" "I know. But it tastes better when it comes from you." Murasakibara mumbled, looking even more interested in his chips then usual. Your heart skipped a beat. "Murasakibara-san," you breathed with a small blush, trying to think of what to say. Murasakibara turnt to look at you, his violet eyes staring into your e/c ones. "Huh? I thought I told you I want your candy for myself," his voice sent shivers down your spine. 'Is it my candy, or is it me, Murasakibara, that you want for yourself?' The thought hit you, and you bit your lip. As you tried to take a deep breath and stared into his eyes, wanting to take the leap of confession; the universe gave you a helping hand. "Mahr?" The name came to you, and Murasakibara quickly turnt away. You watched as he stood up, and he looked at you with a surprisingly red face. "I think I need to be alone now. I'd like to talk to you later though, Shiel-chin." Your face broke out in a large grin, and you nodded. Finding the love of your life, was definitely a moment that you'd need to sink in so you watched him go in peace. A happy, serene smile plastered on your face. This was only just the beginning.

[narutouzumakiarchive]

Re-reading Tennov's book on Limerence. There's a lot of misinformation associated with the term stemming from pop psychology websites regurgitating nonsense stated by Albert Wakin who literally made up stuff about the term that was NOT stated by Dorothy (the original creator of the term) herself.

But anyway, most academic researchers who scientifically study love recognize that limerence is basically a type of love that's practically synonymous with passionate love, romantic love, and infatuation..... as distinct from companionate love (also known as attachment, although attachment theory is controversial). Ironically though, Dorothy Tennov tried to draw a distinction between romantic love and limerence but her book was originally published before more scientific studies studies were published.

But that's neither here nor there. I just wanted to point out that I love Cathy and Heathcliff relationship being highlighted as an example of romantic love.

I've noticed there's a divide in how their relationship is recognized externally. "It's not real love." "It's just obsession." "It's not romantic love, it's toxic." And I suppose that way of thinking isn't necessarily wrong BUT that's more of a philosophical qualm that's distinct from how love as a drive is recognized in a biological sense. Here is Helen Fisher's original landmark conception of the different behvioral/cognitive/emotional components of romantic love.

It's a bit outdated (ie. Helen Fisher herself recognized that lust was a distinct brain system from romantic love but includes it in the list of psychophysical properties associated with attraction; newer research has shown that obsessional aspects can be separated from passionate love..) and I prefer the Passionate Love Scale as a measurement of infatuation (although additional research has shown that it also includes properties more tied to companionate love) but Cathy and Heathcliff check the boxes anyway.

And the question of toxicity is less straightforward. It comes down to your personal beliefs about whether love is a moral phenomenon. I believe this argument has especially taken off with the increased popularity of bell hooks "All About Love" in which she argued that love was a verb and it couldn't coincide with abuse. But these arguments have existed long before. I'm of the opinion that love isn't necessarily moral. I like this article on the morality of love and I've shared the snippet that funny enough briefly mentions Heathcliff as an example of a love object that doesn't have moral virtue (though I disagree with this framing). The rest of the article is really elucidating though.

A lot of our social conception of love DOES tie it to morality. A moral love is associated with depth as opposed to the "superficiality" that people link with amorality and this also affects perceptions of Cathy and Heathcliff's love as infatuation as opposed to genuine love (see example comment below of a post, also unrelated but i didn't realize Nelly's status an an unreliable narrator was so disputed bc I thought it was obvious???) despite the academic consensus that romantic love and infatuation are one in the same. Social psychologist Elaine Hatfield actually addresses this phenomenon in her book A New Look at Love.

It's all very fascinating and I find the different opinions on Cathy and Heathcliff exemplify the thesis of this post about shipping, and people's opinions on relationships in general.

(It does seem like it would be obvious that our opinions on fiction would be tied to our values and beliefs but analyzing romantic relationships is sort of seen as trivial and reductive in fandom)

[thesoftboiledegg]

I couldn't find the original post, but a blogger on here wasn't wrong when they said that the first Hulurama episode would probably be about NFTs. It took a season to get there, but Futurama's finally skewering the digital graphics that inexplicably became an online phenomenon.

I'm not against Futurama making fun of topical issues--season four's "Bender Should Not Be Allowed on TV" brilliantly skewered demands for sanitized television, and (unpopular opinion), I thought "Rage Against the Vaccine" was one of Hulurama's best episodes.

However, "The One Amigo" didn't have anything new to say. The writers just rehash what most people are thinking: NFTs are weird and goofy and make no sense. Like "How the West Was 1010001," a thin parody of modern technology is the framing device for a more interesting plot.

But Bender's trip to Mexico isn't anything mindblowing, either. His family interactions are cute, and I love the vibrant, colorful scenery, but the story is pretty basic. Bender thinks he found a group of friends, they betray him, he escapes, and...that's it. The crew's museum heist is another cliche, although I appreciate their concern for Bender.

One of the Comedy Central run's flaws was making the characters cold and uncaring for the sake of unfunny one-off gags. I love how Hulurama's been leaning into the "found family" aspect and making Kif and Amy's kids part of the main cast instead of forgetting that they exist. Fry drawing at the kids' table is adorable, too!

Speaking of Fry: he's increasingly turning into a side character, to the point that it seems like the writers are actively avoiding giving him lines. Billy West is a great actor, but Fry's starting to sound gravely, so I wonder if he can't sustain the voice for very long.

Anyway, "The One Amigo" isn't bad. It's nowhere near the Comedy Central disasters like "Yo Leela Leela," "Neutopia" or "The Butterjunk Effect." The writing is funny, well-paced and has a little heart. You can always count on great art and animation.

But I probably wouldn't watch this if it didn't have Futurama's name attached--and man, after all these years, the theme song still gives me instant nostalgia. I hear it and start thinking about watching episodes from the original run. Still, instead of dwelling on the series' past, I wish I had more optimism about its future.

[thefirstknife]

So I’m listening to a Destiny lore podcast (Destiny 2 - Myths and Ztories) and they’re talking about Cayde-6, his whole life up until his death. They read a lore card from Book: Ghost Stories called A Hero’s Requiem, which is the story of how Cayde was Risen.

I thought I had misheard the podcasters, but Cayde says:

“My brain works, but I don't remember a thing 'cept that I seem to be a functioning life form—I'm human, I'm a man.”

And I’m a bit confused by that. Was Cayde not Risen as an Exo? Or is this just Cayde being Cayde?

He was Risen as an Exo, yes! Cayde was turned into an Exo in the Golden Age, after being basically coerced into it by owing a debt to Clovis. He went through his resets and eventually died as Cayde-6 which is what he was rezed at. It appears he died during the Collapse and had fragmented memories of it happening.

The thing is that Exos are human. An Exo should feel and think of themselves as human; it was a huge part of how they were made. An Exo is a human mind uploaded into a robot body. At first, Clovis wanted to make Exos as far removed from humanity as possible so he didn't make them capable of "humanisms": original Exos didn't breathe or eat or do anything human. Clovis wanted them to be perfect, better than human.

But the problem was that they were still human minds in a robot body and those human minds could not handle having a body that doesn't breathe or eat. They started suffering severe consequences where they would become convinced that they have died. Clovis' logbook details the process of this in the section "-045- Note on D.E.R." Warning for some gruesome medical descriptions. The term "Cotard delusion" mentioned here is a real phenomenon btw (again, warning for medical stuff that might be upsetting).

DER is Dissociative Exomind Rejection. It's a condition that Exos go through where their mind rejects their body and they essentially go mad. It's most easily explained in this old Ghost scan from Mars from back in Warmind; it's explained in a way that isn't gruesome like in Clovis' log. Here it is from him with some extra details. Basically, this is the crux of the problem. The Exos have to feel human and have to be able to do human actions in order to survive.

It was obvious to them that the root of the problem lay in the deficient exobodies I had supplied. Deficient how, I demanded to know. They did not suffer human weakness. They never needed to eat, drink, breathe, sleep, micturate, or dream. Apparently, this was the problem. I had assumed that the need for these irritations would pass since there would be no shortage or accumulation of poisons to trigger them. But evolution's tangled ways cannot be so easily rationalized. I was wrong. Their brains concluded that all of their internal processes failed. No digestion, no breath, no heartbeat, no sense of interoceptive health... all signs of death.

Both of these also mention how resets help to stave off the DER. It's something that helps them acclimate to a new body (this is why they're reset upon upload and why they have no memories of who they were), but also it turned out to be convenient for Clovis so he didn't have to bother helping them in other ways as well as to be able to hide information from them. You can see how this is explained for the public in that scan. Meanwhile here's how Clovis talks about it:

I am much more interested in the surprising success of memory wipes. I became so tired of answering the questions asked by new exos—what had happened to the scanning clinic, how long had it been, would I let them see their families—that I began inducing retrograde amnesia before spin-up. Interestingly, this seems to have improved their resilience against exomind rejection! I theorize the lack of any episodic memories eases the transition into the new body. And the loss of emotional ties prevents grief and stress, which could interfere with healthy function.

Specifically, how he was tired of them asking questions and how the reset basically allows them to circumvent actually providing psychiatric help to people. If they suffer some trauma, you can just reset them to erase it. Cayde is actually a really good case study for all of these issues as he suffered with adjustment to the Exo body and struggled with memories. He had frequent flashbacks to random events from his previous resets and fragmented memories which he tried really hard to put into some logical sense and ended up pretty much inventing a possible life he had. When he talks about his "wife and son," these are fabrications constructed from his fragmented memories of unrelated events. He constructed them in order to feel more human.

The kid. The woman. I do not know them. They are not real. But I wish I did. And I wish they were. They're just the two best cards I could find to keep up my sleeve when the odds were stacked against me. I made them real in my mind and in my heart. I fell in love with the idea of them, and I crafted a truth that allowed me to feel.

So yeah! The way he reacts to being rezed and thinks of himself as "human" is because he is. He had to be, in order to be a successful Exo upload, otherwise he would've just torn himself apart eventually. Exos have to feel human and act human and think of themselves as human. They're still Exo and have clear differences, but at the end of the day, they're humans. It depends on the individual if they would align more with being human or being an Exo; in Cayde's case, he would definitely lean more to seeing himself as primarily human. He was not a fan of the whole Exo thing and had some insight into all the atrocities done by Clovis in order to create the Exos. He was also famously terrified of going through another reset.

[sburbian-sage]

Seeing the recent post about other species playing Sburb, you ponder for a moment if you should toss your own out there. It certainly isn't believable, but the Arbiter, despite their titular skepticism, doesn't seem to particularly mind their blog being in part a collection of curiosities. So you figure, "Eh, what the hell?"

You proceed to write a post informing them of the bizarre fact that carapacians are quite capable of being players of the game, and that you yourself are one.

The product of a successful Sburb session with a working door (perhaps the least believable piece of your story, but you see no way to write around it), your versions of Prospit and Derse were shrunk by the Witch of Space, and brought into the universe they created.

There your kind lived alongside consorts and humans, Prospit and Derse and orbiting the new Earth. And so it was for thousands of years, until at last the final god perished heroically, and tales of the game and the original purpose of your kind and the consorts began to fade into legend.

Until one day, a frog temple was discovered, and it all began again. Your human friends roped you into joining as a player, in an attempt to save you from the meteors, once it became clear that too many sessions were happening for your worlds to survive.

It of course made for an exceptionally strange session. Plagued with glitches of every sort, as the game tried to make allowances for it's own construct. Your people's culture was strange to you, with different prototypings than your own had been shaped by, and their reverence for you, as though you were just as important as the humans... And yet, you didn't need a Heart player to tell that they were a creepily simple people, lesser for never having lived outside the game's direct influence. You made so many promises to them, about how things could be better, how they could come to the universe you would make...

You had thought the broken door was your fault. That you were never meant to play, and the game was punishing you for your hubris. It was a bit of a relief to find this was not the case, though you wonder what was different about the session your own gods came from, that let them escape?

You can't help but resent it now, this game that created your kind. Though your carapace is white, you see nothing of late but flaws and horrors.

You dream in purple. And you're thankful for it, you don't want to spend time on Prospit now. You can't handle your kind's insistence on the nobility of their cause. You relate now, to the sick feeling the black carapacians get when looking at a frog.

Wait, are we writing fanfiction now? Me noting the phenomenon of "sometimes people who are not humans or trolls play SBURB" is an observation of reality, not making up stuff for giggles. It's entirely possible that person didn't actually meet a Plant Person and is just making stuff up, but it's also plausible enough that we can establish a protocol for verification and documentation. But you seem to be implying that you're speaking reality into being by suggesting that I make things true by acknowledging them? Very weird.

In any case, this second-person prose does have a point in that it would be entirely possible for a Carapacian to be a SBURB player. They're bipedal, communicative, form societies, and have access to (and an ability to use) technology, making them fit the "playeroid" template. The issue of course being that Carapacians are native to SBURB sessions, and once a SBURB session ends, everything from that session ceases, with nothing but memories carrying over. If the doors did work (BIG "if"), then I don't see why Carapacians wouldn't be a valid pick for playerdom. So even if this is fanfiction, it's very plausible and well thought-out fanfiction. Especially the bits on how Carapacian culture is so mutable and influenced by prototypings. That might actually result in Carapacians having the most diverse-by-default player species in all of Paradox Space.

While we're on this topic, Consorts could also never be players because they're SBURB natives, but I also don't know if they meet the cognitive "must be this tall enough to ride" line.

[entanglingbriars]

I know Christianity has traditionally been supercessionist, i.e. the idea is that Jesus brought a new covenant that fully replaces the old covenant God made with the Jewish people and makes that one obsolete. But I don't see how that makes any sense. Aren't God's covenant with the Jews and Jesus' New Covenant doing fundamentally different things? Even Christian sources don't seem to think Jews ever believed the law of Moses saved them from Hell or original sin. So how can one replace the other?

I've wrestled with this for a few hours; there are a lot of ways to approach the question and I'm going to list a few. They should be seem as complementary rather than opposed.

In both Christians' and Jews' traditional understandings of God's covenant with Israel, getting a Messiah is a key component of that covenant. And the synoptic Gospels and Paul are very clear that Jesus is that Messiah. In rejecting Jesus, the Jews rejected their covenant with God. The covenant with Christians didn't necessarily supersede God's covenant with Israel, but in practice it did.

In the traditional reading of Romans (challenged by, among others, Paula Fredericksen), God has grafted gentiles onto the existing covenant with Israel. So it's less that the covenant with Israel has been replaced than that it's been expanded and the Jews have failed to realize this.

Atonement for sins via animal sacrifice is a key component of God's covenant with Israel. In that respect the covenant is about sin and redemption from sin. It also clearly can't apply anymore since the Temple has been destroyed. The destruction of the Temple--a punishment for Jews' rejection of Jesus--ended the possibility of the old covenant being able to redeem people from sin, leaving Jesus as the only option. (Jews have a very different approach to the nature of atonement for sin in the absence of the Temple.)

Supercessionism is overwhelmingly supported by theological tradition and history. If you aren't doing sola scriptura (and in practice, no one is), you can't really reject it on the grounds that a strict reading of the Scriptures doesn't support it unless you want to give serious ground to the antitrinitarians (among others).

While the two covenants confer different responsibilities and obligations on their parties, both firmly establish one group of people as God's Chosen people. Historically neither Christians nor Jews have really thought God could have two different Chosen peoples; it'd be like having two favorite sons: one's gotta be better. (Many modern Jewish theologies of election have moved away from this notion. Choseness to many Jews is not a matter of exclusion or favoritism, but this is not historically how Jews have viewed our election.)

Dual covenant theology is incoherent. By this I don't mean that the notion of two covenants with God is necessarily incoherent, but rather that the specific phenomenon of "dual covenant theology" is incoherent. As you correctly noted, God's covenant with Israel isn't salvation-centric, and dual covenant theology requires that salvation play as central a role in Israel's covenant as it does in Jesus'.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

25 years ago, very close to this day, a storm was brewing in my sleepy little town. A friend with a cool geeky older sister that introduced me to Sailor Moon had tuned me into a cool new Game Boy game last school term. One we played a lot over a Summer he was over at my place a lot. It didn't seem like much in the haze of N64 classics and I don't actually think I knew many people with a Game Boy around that time. When we started Third Grade though...Pokemania was in full bloom. I've been playing a bit lately and it made me nostalgic. Let's have fun with it, especially with the jittery OP schedule.

I love that I've gotten to be here for the full phenomenon. Like I said, the wave reached US shores when I was in 2nd grade but by the end of that year only a few of us knew about it and it seems like most kids discovered the show or the games over the Summer. The card game dropped around this point too, I remember it being around my September birthday. That shit was wild, but I understand why people thought it'd be a passing fad. Because I remember 2nd grade being really big on quickly passing toy fads. The games though. Yeah yeah, the early designs were iconic but the game was clearly unpolished compared to later releases...

That general wisdom is fair. But you know what I like about weird, pieced together with duct tape code of straight Red/Blue? The grit. Pokemon was still originally made in the 90s and it shows here, before it was a childhood mainstay attracting a lot of scrutiny. Because this was just some random Game Boy RPG at the time. So Kanto gets to have a little more edge to it. Not with world-shaking stakes, just because of standards. It never felt weird to have the gambling hall as a spotlight locale, genetic engineering gone wrong plots are one of those things that were big in the 90s but forgotten after. Team Rocket actually feels kinda like a gang, trainer types that don't fly today...also I still can never get over this one explicitly taking place in our world.

That last part is a big one to me. I'm not some old head who hates anything after Kanto. But there was a certain verisimilitude to it that was still there for Johto but just isn't there at all by now. One little thing Kanto does better than others is how there's usually a better logic to why the trainer types you see are on the routes they are. You can really see the Dragon Quest influence if you're a big fan of those like me, later gens primary influence is other Pokemon games. Is it simple today going back? Yeah. If you jumped on later just play the remakes. Fire Red/Leaf Green are great. But like any major series, there were certain elements here that did not continue with it. I'm always fascinated by those, and for Red/Blue to me it's that these games did not have quite the kiddy tone the franchise has a reputation for.

[hawkayeayecaptain]

i think the magnus archives is the first fandom where I often see fics ignoring entire parts (in this case seasons) of the original work. maybe it's because the show has such distinct seasons, and especially the last one is so different to the others, that it sort of welcomes authors to make up AUs. or idk if it is because fanfiction has obviously been a big part of fandoms for the whole duration of the show or what. it's difficult to imagine other fandoms, such as the percy jackson fandom doing something similar (at least with the main series).

silly little thought, would love to hear experiences from other fandoms, as I'm not in that many. I think the MCU fandom kind of does something similar, but that's maybe mostly because new movies keep coming out. also I know this "phenomenon" happens often when authors write for a show or series that isn't complete, but that's not exactly what I'm talking about here

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey it's high-fructose-jay-syrup again. I sent the original question off anon because it's not something I'd feel particularly awkward about anyone connecting to me, but then sent the followup ask on anon because I figured the ask not having gone through had something to do with me sending it off anon lmao (which apparently it did, since you did get the anon ask)

anyhoo. wondering if you have any insight on the line between masochism and self harm? I am realizing that a lot of my prior exploration of that area of kink had more to do with a desire to Feel Something than pure enjoyment of pain (which often resulted in me continuing despite being unsure about my comforts) and I think most of it was not a good idea to be doing and may even have been somewhat traumatizing. so now I'm understandably pretty wary about exploring that field again (I mean I'm wary of sex in general thanks to Trauma TM but yk, someday when that's no longer the case), and wondering if you have any thoughts on how to tell the difference between something that involves pain but is completely safe and enjoyable, and something that is actively damaging and needs to stop, *especially* given the phenomenon of sub drop.

thanke! happy late birthday!

hi not-anon,

this is a very interesting question, and I'm afraid it's not one that I'll be able to offer a very solid answer on. the line between masochism and self-harm that you're seeking is a thin and wavering one, and exactly where it lands varies heavily depending on the individual. there's a pretty excellent book called Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose that I thought of immediately while reading your question; in it, author Leigh Cowart examines their own experiences with ballet, eating disorders, and kink as well as people who partake in pain-seeking activities like eating record-setting amounts of painfully hot peppers, taking part in body-breaking ultramarathons, and flinging themselves into frigid waters on purpose. I think it's very notable that many of the people they talk to discuss former addictions that were much more actively detrimental to their quality of life than their current pain fix; sometimes it's not a matter of "I'm not hurting myself at all," but "hurting myself eating peppers will fuck me up a lot less than hurting myself with alcohol."

if you think about it there are dozens of activities that can simultaneously get a brain pumping dopamine and set off our pain receptions. pulling from just two of my own experiences, I love the pain of a needle when getting a new tattoo, and I love how wrecked my body feels after a couple hours of bouldering - and yes, both of those come with a drop afterwards! does that mean they qualify as self-harm? I don't think so, no, but I can also easily see how either could slip into that, if I were to start pushing my body regularly beyond the threshold of acceptable pain into something more than I can comfortable handle. the problem is that, as I said, that line isn't universal, and sometimes the only way to find out for sure is to push a little too far and see what happens.

it's also worth pointing out that, in terms of sexual masochism specifically, the idea of anything being "completely safe" is a discouraged by a lot of people within the community. this is a large part of RACK, or risk-aware consensual kink; substituting the "safe" in "safe, sane, and consensual" with an acknowledgement that sex involving acts of physical violence, no matter how well-negotiated, cannot ever be 100% perfectly risk free, and that this is a risk that participants must either be willing to accept or not engage with. to my thinking, at least, being risk-aware also means knowing the emotional harm that you would be making yourself vulnerable to by participating, and taking responsibility for that by not seeking out potentially harmful situations.

(safe, sane, and consensual has been reevaluated and contested in other ways in recent years; I wrote more about that and its history here for the curious.)

it seems clear that you're aware of which side of that line you've fallen on in the past, and I'm glad it's something you've been able to recognize and change your behavior around, as it sounds like avoiding SM situations entirely is great for you right now. I don't know if you're on a break from sex altogether, but if you are feeling wary about it, then it certainly couldn't hurt. it bears mentioning that even the most vanilla sex on earth can be (and often is) a form of self harm as much as kinky sex; as always, the thing that matters in the context and the experience of the individual involved.

in regards to any kind of sex, my advice is generally pretty blunt: if you're not sure whether or not something will fuck you up, don't do it. why would you take that risk? there are plenty of spaces in our lives where we have to put up with things that suck, but when it comes to your sex life that shit's completely customizable. skip the things that you're unsure about, focus on what you know works for you, whether that's vanilla sex, kinky sex, or no sex at all.

[letsdrawvideogames]

I thought I'd briefly pull the proverbial dusty tarp off this defunct tumblr briefly to address some of the incoming traffic that I expect to see this week now that NCHProductions has publicly credited me for my artwork that their video is based on. I'd like to preface this by saying that we reached an agreement in private and I have accepted NCHProductions' apology, and that I do not condone or tolerate any harassment of NCHProductions on my behalf. This post is not meant to relitigate things or stir up drama. But with what happened, I thought this would be a good opportunity to open the floor to discussion on how the internet treats ownership of fanart and derivative work. I'm just one artist and my opinions are my own, but I've been at it a long time and it's not the first time someone else has used my fanart as a basis for something else. Here are three examples:

In 2018, Jonathan Nesbitt made a coding project as an entry for an informal contest run by the website Standard Code. His entry (properly viewable here) was based on a Metroid piece I had made in 2014 and he credited me in his entry. Although he never reached out to me to my knowledge, I thought this was fine given the time contraints and the fact that no money changed hands (the grand prize was an Amazon Echo someone had lying around). I think Jonathan's piece is very cute and I'm happy to have inspired someone this way. I might not have considered the artistic value of a simple HTML page otherwise.

In 2016, tumblr user @cyriusli messaged me about getting a Bulbasaur I drew in 2015 as a tattoo. He reached out to me directly and asked for permission before doing so and credited me as the artist when he shared a photo of the finished tattoo. Even though an artist in another medium was paid money to recreate my work in this case, I considered this to be entirely above board, and I'm sure the artist who actually inked it was happy to know that their client had explicit permission to use my piece. Knowing that someone has to look at my Bulbasaur every day until they die might be the height of flattery for me. This isn't the only tattoo of my work that's been done, and I'm always happy to see it so long as you ask permission.

Lastly, just a few weeks ago, I had to submit a takedown request on Displate against graphic designer SS Art, who was selling a poster that used a slightly edited version of a Shadow of the Colossus piece I drew in 2013. This is probably the most offended I've ever been as an artist. I doubt this seller made much money off of it and to their credit, Displate took it down very quickly, but it bothers me that it was allowed to go up in the first place. The ease with which merchandising platforms allow their users to publish anything without verifying its origin has made it ironically difficult to support the artists that I love: I've been looking for a new case for my Kindle on Etsy lately and found it extremely difficult to verify whether a seller's art was original or stolen. In one case, I found a seller selling a case with a Keith Haring print on it. I consider Haring's Unfinished Painting to be one of the most moving artworks of the last century, and here was his work being sold by some random Etsy store as "abstract cartoon funny dance pattern." I find this a deeply saddening, troubling phenomenon.

As the internet continues to shrink down to a handful of social platforms, it's been fascinating to see how the concept of fandom has shaped and been shaped by those same platforms. Fanart, memes, remixes, mashups, and other new forms of art that make copyright lawyers heads' ache have emerged as we all pile onto each other online. Overall I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. When I was first online twenty years ago, it's likely that I never would have seen art from many overseas artists on the English-speaking web, but it's been very heartening to see how the explosion of fanart surrounding interpretations like ErinArtista's distinctly Brazilian take on Hatsune Miku or Ayyk92's Bowsette character can bring an audience to artists that many of us wouldn't have known about otherwise. I think there is room for such a thing as fanart of fanart, I just urge artists of all stripes to think critically about how we use other people's ideas. I am not a lawyer, and I cannot tell you where the line is or isn't drawn in regards to work based on copyrighted material, or what your rights as an artist are if you make fanart and aren't the copyright holder. I've definitely made some decisions in the past that I now regret about monetizing derivative work, but I wouldn't feel right about enforcing any standards I might adopt onto others. The internet has, in a way, become one giant game of telephone, and I don't like how difficult it can be to be certain of the origin of something. For now, going forward, I think it would be nice to see more normalization of hunting down sources to the best of a person's ability coupled with acting in good faith when new information comes to light. This tumblr is dead, and I likely won't be responding to any comments directly, but I'm very interested in hearing what you all have to say.

And just for absolute transparency, I ran this by my friend Ixo and borrowed some of his phrasing in the conclusion. He can be found at https://ixo.neocities.org/

[singular-yike]

Fot the character asks, what do we know about Shion Enraku-Houlen (real legal name at this point, presumably)?

Ah it's been a while since the last one! Admittedly I've been avoiding doing one about Shion myself, since they're honestly a very straightforward character with not much to them.

Even so, there's certainly not nothing to talk about. So, here we go:

An Individual Born from the Aggregate — Shion

Name

First thing I can say, is that their name definitely isn't "Shion Enraku-Houlen" haha, it's simply Shion (シオン). This name is taken from the name of their parent-flower, the Harujion (ハルジオン).

Specifically, it's taken from the jion (ジオン) part. Though since the original word is a combination of haru (ハル) and shion (シオン), the rendaku (連濁) phenomenon which alters the voicing of shi to ji is not observed/reversed, hence Shion.

Origin: Last-minute Addition

Indeed one would quickly notice that Shion, unlike many other Len'en characters, seems rather thematically shallow, at least in terms of inspirations and references.

This is because Shion was never planned to be a major character in the first place, but is instead the logical conclusion of the presence of the Harujion in the story.

It's long been known that Fumikado was meant to be the original stage 6 boss of RMI, but was bumped down to stage 5 to make room for Shion.

While that was all we knew for the longest time, Kanae (JynX's Vtuber persona) revealed new information about the creation of Shion when asked about the creation process of Len'en characters. (Go give it a read, it's fascinating even ignoring the new Shion info.)

Kanae explains that the idea of a being born out of the Harujion had always been a character in his plans for RMI, though he never thought much about them other than being suited for stage 4 or 5.

However, as he actually worked on RMI and fleshed out the story, this "Harujion-spawn" got pushed all the way up to stage 6, and that's when the Shion we know and love started getting developed, as what Kanae describes as an "afterthought character".

Of course, that's not to say that they're a throwaway character that serves no importance to the story. JynX is nothing if not meticulous with the characters, and they earnt a spot alongside two of the protagonists of the series after all.

Rather, I think this story just goes so show that characters who were not originally meant to be that central to the story may still suddenly shoot up to prominence when the situation calls for it.

In any case, because of Shion being an "afterthought character", they're not really based on anything from real-life history or mythology, but is rather by-and-large a JynX-original creation. So, in the following parts, we can examine what this is about!

Shion, the Chimera Soul

The most important thing to note with Shion is their existence as a Chimera Soul, a conglomerate of souls that happened to fused together. This combined with the participation of the Harujion in their creation created this rather unique being.

Chimera Souls

First thing to note, is that Shion is in fact not the only chimera soul in Len'en! When the torrent of souls flooded in during RMI, many of them fused and combined to create tiny chimera souls.

This created these little guys:

They're simply called "ghosts" most of the time, cause fusion or not, that is fundamentally what they are. Souls that remain in the world of the living, hence, ghosts.

The Harujion's Participation

Shion is so unique compared to the little fellas because they're composed of many more souls, and that is thanks to the Harujion's participation in their creation.

Being a youkai flower that feeds on the life force around it grow, it also drew in the souls gathered by Fumikado and co. This allowed for a much higher number of souls to fuse together, thus creating a much more powerful being.

Shion's "Miracle of Flesh"

The Harujion's participation also caused a second anomaly, what I like to call the "miracle of flesh". Chimera souls are, by nature of their composite souls, dead, devoid of live.

Yet, thanks to the Harujion's ability to revive the dead, when Shion was created, half of these souls "came back to life" and formed a physical body, while the other half became the body's "spirit".

Good and Evil, Thrown Out of Balance

When this process was taking place, the good souls formed the body, while the bad souls formed the spirit. This should've lead to a balance, a "good" physical body containing and "evil" soul.

However, due to "the nature of the Mugenri Barrier", a majority of the souls could not firmly judge themselves to be "good". The "evil" souls of the spirit overwhelmed the "good" souls of the body, causing them to leak out into the open.

These are the purple, ghostly appendages that we see all over Shion, the torrent of evil souls that their body could not contain, overflowing into the outside world.

Below: Shion's BPoHC portrait as a playable character.

These souls take on different shapes from appearance to appearance, and all represent the myriad of souls that Shion is made up of, from animal to plant to insect to human.

Examples include the cat ear, bunch of grapes, red spider lily and butterfly wings in their original RMI appearance, and the dog ear and dragonfly wings in their BPoHC playable character appearance.

Soul-related Abilities

Shion has a number of soul-related abilities, unsurprising considering their origin, and chief among these is the ability to "absorb one's spirit and self", self here referring to the sense of self, the ego.

This of course refers to how they literally absorb and eat other souls as a form of sustenance. Additionally, they have the ability to see the colour and smell the scent of others souls, which they use to learn about a person's nature.

Shion's Ethical Dilemma

Shion is another one of those characters that are outwardly cheerful and carefree, yet upon closer inspection quite complex.

They are keenly aware of the fact that they are a composite of many souls, and firmly believes that what their souls say accurately reflects the world.

Due to the Mugenri Barrier making the souls unable to judge themselves as "good", and due to many of their voices claiming that the word is filled with malice, Shion came to firmly believe that both the word and they themself are fundamentally evil.

Because of this, and as demonstrated by their actions, it's fairly clear that Shion's moral compass points towards a rather wicked direction. Yet even so, Shion tries to do good, at least, their idea of good.

I always liked how this is demonstrated in their fight against the ??? Team in BPoHC, where the following exchange is had:

Hamee "If I erase you, I think Tsubakura-sama would be at least a little bit sad~." Shion "That's… a really twisted way of expressing love, isn't it." Hamee "Are you interested?" Shion "Shion-chan's quite fond of that way of thinking. Very well, let's fight." Hamee "That's our Shion-chan~! ♪ A cluster of malice! ♪" Shion "I'm not fond of the way you phrased that though…" Hamee "It's fine. Us malicious ones have to get along. ♪" Shion "Shion-chan might be a cluster of malice, but I'm no villain!"

It's a pretty interesting glimpse into their psyche, they relish in what is conventionally considered malicious, since malice is what they are. Yet they are unwilling to actually partake in it, to associate with people who are actively vile, like Hamee.

Admittedly, I have no clear way to reconcile this with Shion showing absolutely no remorse in eating people's souls. So I just have to concede that Shion still has a fundamentally different moral code compared to the average person.

Ending

And that's all I have! Admittedly not as much as one might've hoped, and I didn't touch on every single little thing that there is to examine, like their spell cards.

Often feel like many of us can benefit from taking a step and re-examining Shion's character and their unique existence, as well as what this means to them personally. Hopefully this was a good attempt at that.

Welp, that's the end of the end. Now that I've done this, I'll probably do one for the Harujion itself sometime in the future, so look forward to that~! As usual, I hope you enjoyed~! :)

[trappper-johnathan]

The MASH time loop but it's Don't Hug Me I'm Scared style in that all the characters are stuck in the loop but they take turns being aware of it ((the phrase "passing the consciousness around like a blunt" comes to mind))

Cause there are certain episodes where it seems like some of the characters have more clarity of the situation than others. An example off the top of my head is Trapper in Mail Call with his "it's continuous" comment. Now consider his actions in that episode vs in Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde where he says Hawkeye is turning into a fruitcake cause of his breakdown. If you look at it through my view, his different attitude is because he's not quite aware of the time loop in Dr. Pierce and Mr. Hyde. He also has another big moment of clarity in Cease-Fire, and is the only character in that episode who is aware of the time loop. He doesn't get his hopes up cause the war isn't ending. It will continue on and on and on and they're all gonna remain right where they are.

@thebreakfastgenie has an analysis on Henry Blake knowing he's doomed to die in Abyssinia, Henry, but I also think Radar knows. Obviously he's emotional about Henry leaving, which is why he cries when they salute each other, but that last part of the episode in the OR when he comes in to break the news, it struck me as a little odd. Yes, people show their grief in different ways, but his body language and the tone of his voice kinda stuck me as...disappointment? Or at least an emotion along the lines of disappointment, almost like he was kind of resigned to it. The way his body sags and the way he says it with a sort of bone-tired sadness rather than a fresh wound makes me feel like he knew it was going to happen. Because it's happened before. And maybe that time would have been different, but no. Henry never makes it home, no matter how many times they do this. And he just... He just wishes it didn't have to be that way but it is. And he's gotta be the one who tells the others.

I think it's safe to say that Hawkeye is the one who is conscious of the time loop most often (The Late Captain Pierce is a great Hawkeye Sees It episode), but sometimes it feels like even he doesn't see it. I would say that the episodes in which he's the most out of character are the ones where the veil is thickest.

That's sort of where the DHMIS thing comes in for me, where he (or any character, really) will say/do something that makes the viewer go, "Hang on, that's not quite right." Cause when that happens it almost feels like the character is being puppeted by someone/thing, and so of course they would do something they wouldn't normally do, because it's not actually them. Now that's getting kind of deep into the time loop thing, where it's not just a strange phenomenon occurring, but instead some outside Being manually controlling the story.

You could say that the writers are the ones who keep them trapped in the time loop. You could even say it's the viewers, too! When I watched GFA and I finished crying my eyes out after Hawkeye was flown away at the end, my immediate thought was "I should rewatch the show from the beginning" and my second thought was "If I start back at the beginning, I have continued the loop and Hawkeye never makes it out of Korea." Which made me cry a little more tbh, but it also kind of made me laugh. Here I am, rooting for this tortured man to get back home and get well, and then I'm going to start back at "Korea, 1950. A hundred years ago" and put them right back where they began to suffer over again.

ANYWAY, back to what I was originally saying: they're all stuck in the time loop, and they're all aware of it but at different times and to different degrees.