#which in itself is a fascinating concept. i dont know .

[wrenkos]

extremely vivid dream i had of venti and furina running down a hall being chased by this "heavenly being" or something ? hard to explain but i wanted to draw it

[katabay]

original thief series basso & garrett :)

ngl, it's about quality over quantity for me. an npc can have a total of three minutes of screen time, but if they have a cool name, they can live rent free in my head and I'll spend several hours trying to decipher drawable features from a blurry screenshot of pixels

there is a vague hint of a story here, and that's because every time I try to play thi4f, I get incredibly frustrated with how Not Fun the game play is. like, is the story good? well. but it has a PLAGUE. that should've given it instant 'I'll replay this once a year' status in my heart, but the game play sucks so bad that I've never finished it. I can't believe Not Fun gameplay beat out my obsession with narrative plagues.

anyway, the idea is basically if the original era had a game with a plague centric narrative and some other stuff I liked out of thi4f thrown into a narrative blender, with a heavy dash of horror thrown in because some parts of the thief games were scarier to me than entire dedicated horror genre games.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app

[bogkeep]

VINDICATION

ok this is 100% an inconsequencial pet peeve this is not an indicator of the downfall of civilization. i could avoid a lot of annoyance by not listening to podcasts or essays that discuss the movie midsommar. and i will never judge anyone for saying swedish words wrong. i live in sweden and don't even Try. it would be largely hypocritical of me to demand perfect swedish pronounciation of people who do not speak the language.

but oh my GOD every time i hear people pronounce midsommar like midsomaaaahr i lose it a little. maybe i missed a memo. maybe it's a quirk of the swedish language i've been unaware of. maybe they pronounce it that way in the movie? i am never going to watch it. maybe im wrong. maybe it is pronounced that way. i thought it's pronounced almost exactly as the word midsummer in english with a slight difference in the vowels. because the swedish language is fairly similar to english in many ways. i don't think you need to drag the A out. it's a short A. i don't think swedish grammar is so different from norwegian grammar that it would be dragged out. am i losing my mind?

[yellowymellon]

I BROUGHT YALL ANOTHER CRAZY THEORY

not mine actually it's from tieba, ppl are theorizing that sunday is possibly going to get recruited by elio. fascinating yet crazy right? LEMME LAY EVERYTHING DOWN

okay so sunday's design is very much inspired of ena, both his old one and the new one. it has many eyes, the halo, the golden accents. not to mention his personality that resonates with her path.

this will not make sense if u dont pay attention to elio's concept art (most likely will change by the time he appears but) here it is :

notice the amount of eyes, the sun and the similar patterns, a picture of ena for reference :

they also said that ena seems to be holding a puppet string and it could be related to "destiny's slave", i dont completely agree but it's A COOL THEORY!!

i've always assumed elio to be an omen vanguard of terminus the aeon of finality. since he has blessing/curse of seeing the future unlike finality followers i believed he might be our first finality emenator BUT! emenators could follow a different path, it's so interesting to think he could be a finality emenator but an order follower, and it makes sense! who would greatly seek to stop nanook and restore balance? well hooh too but ena would very much dedicate themselves in stopping nanook. now ena is debatably dead but paths don't disappear. but keep in mind we actually don't know which aeon gives the stellaron hunters powers.

so far we don't know what the stellaron in penacony does, it doesnt seem to be the threat itself but the one who obtains it might be dangerous. that's why elio wants the nameless to go after the stellaron. but that doesnt make THAT much sense either, why wouldn't the stellaron hunters themsleves do the job? they're already capable. if u ask me penacony feels the best place for kafka/SW instead, it might be easier for us to obtain it if we help the family but anyways- we can go on forever abt why it's not right so lets force this theory to make sense tehee~

i talked abt how sunday might learn a truth after his "death", gallagher's voice line abt him is "He reminds me of the "Odes of Harmony," but I caught a whiff of something behind the facade he puts on... something real." the odes of harmony is basically a song praising xipe, he means sunday being a reserved religious saint like person, is a facade and gallagher saw something real. based on my post where i discovered that i'm a follower of nous after all (i'm not-) https://www.tumblr.com/yellowymellon/746431759854551040/you-know-it-would-be-funny-if-the-actual-villain?source=share

gallagher might've caught on it earlier and targeted sunday from all the family heads, if he was going to kill in any case he needed the best victims that could give him the break through he needed, robin might've been just the stepping stone to kill the oak family head (important) who conveniently might be the one to side with him (YALL IM COOKING AND IT'S BURNING)

sunday is described as perfect on the outside but secretly a freak, he shows no mercy to what he thinks is wrong and doesn't compromise. but i don't trust him with what he thinks is wrong. he might be shrewd and manipulative fitting for a head, but still young and emotional to make absolutes (judgements). see, the family is a perpetrator to many MANY evil stuff that shouldn't be in his book (literally lol)

u see where i'm going? me neither elio could potentially need to ally with sunday if his stance changes after learning the whole, purest truth

[destinysbounty]

Huh. I just dug up an old fan-theory i came up with back when i was like 15. And while its definitely way too weak to hold up against any real scrutiny, it at the very least makes for some mildly interesting fanfic fodder so i thought id share it with the greater fandom hivemind.

(Dont come at me about the holes in this theory btw, i was practically a baby when i came up with this and it was one of my first attempts at theory-crafting. Trust me, ive come a long way since then)

Anyway, the theory goes like this:

While in the lighthouse, Dr. Julien builds a replica of his son. But try as he might to get it to turn on, it never actually works. Whatever special spark brought the first Zane to life is inexplicably absent from this one. So he locks it away in his basement, and never gives it the light of day again. This is the reason Dr. Julien never told Zane about Echo, or brought him with them - because at the time, Echo wasnt even functional. Wouldnt even turn on. Was nothing more than a lifeless shell collecting rust in the basement.

So how, then, did Echo become sentient by season 6? Great question! But uhh heres where the theory kinda starts to go off the rails. So buckle up, folks.

Basically the theory goes that when Zane died at the end of s3, his soul still lingered in Ninjago. And his disembodied spirit eventually found itself drawn to a vessel that was similar to the one he'd lost - one his father had built yet long abandoned. But his new body lacked the memory storage contained within his old one, and his resurrection effectively gave him almost complete amnesia. All he could remember was his name and his purpose (to protect those who cannot protect themselves).

Meanwhile, when Titanium Zane says hes a replica, hes actually completely right about that. Some fragments of his code left behind from his visit to the Digiverse gained sentience and inherited Zane's elemental power, creating the Zane we know and love today.

But the original Zane, the one that died fighting the Overlord, actually ended up becoming Echo Zane. Which then would have explained why Zane had so many holes in his memories after being resurrected, and why his sixth sense became much less active as well - he was only made from fragments of the real Zane's code, after all.

Now, as the big smart grownup i am today, i can look back at this theory my baby self had crafted and poke about a million holes into it. But...idk, i always feel nostalgic about this theory in spite of all that. Not just bc it was one of my first fan theories ever, but also bc it would have such fascinating narrative implications if true.

Like, the idea of Mr. E being Echo? Well, if we apply that to the concept of Echo being the Original Zane, then his hatred for Current Zane takes on a whole new dimension. It also gives me a lot of emotions about the whole Ice Emperor situation, as well as Zane's apparent discomfort towards his own statue.

And what kind of position does that put the rest of the gang in? If they had to choose between saving one or the other - the Zane who died for you, or the Zane who lives for you - which one would they choose? Could they choose? How long do you have to love a replica before it starts to feel more authentic than the original? And in that case, who becomes the 'real' zane? The one you love, or the one you lost?

Again. This theory has more holes in it than the Titanic. Cut me some slack, i was an idiot child and also a novice at making theories. But giving credit where its due, i do think it at least raises some interesting concepts. And Ive always casually wondered what would happen if it turned out to be true.

Like i said. Fanfic fodder.

[beesmygod]

REVERSE ENGINEERING THE PURPOSE OF THE CROWN OF ILLUSIONS

just hear me out. then you can tell me if im insane.

in bloodborne, there is a unique piece of head wear called "the crown of illusions". it serves a single purpose: to open an illusory wall revealing the location of an otherwise entirely hidden NPC, annalise, queen of the vilebloods.

the crown is dropped after a boss battle and you are intended to put it on immediately after the fight so that the fake wall can be revealed in a cut scene. they did NOT want you to miss this mechanic. otherwise, why not simply have the throne room blocked by a fog gate? its fine for other bosses, right?

this mechanic is never used again. this is insanely weird because 1. there are other illusory walls in the game specifically in the chalice dungeons (twice, i believe, in the lowest possible levels). however, they function like standard fromsoft illusory walls and are revealed by hitting them with a weapon. the crown does nothing. and 2. there is otherwise no satisfactory explanation for this mechanic at all.

i have often expressed my frustration that when things dont "line up" in fromsoft games its chalked up to dev error or some flavor of "its all dreams/made up" which i refuse to entertain unless its the last possible explanation barring literally all others. this stupid crown has been bothering me for years because of how seemingly inexplicable it is. this has been doubled by the fact that the crown is not unique; alfred leaves a crown of his own (and must have had it to enter the queen's chambers) at the end of his quest and the titular sages of the "sage's hair" item are depicted as wearing crowns.

visually, the sage items are based off the real life concept of catacomb saints (and, in fact, i think "saint" would have been a better translation over "sage" considering this, but thats neither here nor there), hence the gems and jewels and crowns and shit. that part makes sense to me just fine. but where else would this illusion mechanic have been used?

ill tell you where: in the secret 4th layers of the "canon" (non-root) chalice dungeons!

canonically, there is only one chalice dungeon with a 4th layer, otherwise they all end at layer 3. this also intrigued me bc of its irregularity in a system of "dungeons" that are almost entirely copy-pasted rooms; why choose a completely random chalice in the middle of the sequence have an extra layer?

i came up with my own explanation for this that works a treat: the chalice in question, lower pthumeru, has rom the vacuous spider as its THIRD LAYER boss. rom is a boss you would have first encountered outside of the dungeons who has a unique ability: to block rituals and secrets from sight. the rom you fight in the main story is hiding a secret ritual and killing her reveals the ritual to the world. the rom you fight in the dungeons is hiding a secret layer of the labyrinth wherein the hunter will find a truly terrible secret: the source of the beast blood.

we now know this fourth layer IS narratively intended to be a secret layer...because EVERY story-related chalice dungeon had a secret 4th layer! they are "fully functional" if not a bit odd/broken (but not NEARLY not to the point of other hacked dungeons) but with bosses that either fucking suck or are placeholders (...or im coping lol). but look at this: ive timestamped this video at the point where the 4th layer elevator "reveals" itself!

other boss room exits are simply blocked by a fog wall (or, if you're on the last layer, it dead ends and you use the lamp to warp out). this "fade in" effect is the illusory reveal effect! as the linked post from the eternally fascinating hard work from r/tombprospectors reveals, there is some weird ass shit in these layers. enough that i started a red string wall of madness to try to keep track of it all. its not even weird stuff in a game dev way, i mean weird in a plot and lore way. its awesome lol.

the 4th layers were only discovered within the last 2 years. i am confident now about the mechanics of how this was intended to work, but still shaky on the ~lore implications~. what were kings and saints only permitted to see and access? what were they privy to that the rest of the populace of the dead civilization was not?

LORE THEORY: THE ORIGINAL PURPOSE AND USE OF THE CROWN OF ILLUSIONS WAS TO REVEAL SECRET 4TH LAYERS OF THE CHALICE DUNGEONS, AS EVIDENCED BY THEIR EXISTENCE IN THE GAME CODE AND MEANS OF ACCESS. THEY CHOPPED IT OUT DUE TO THE USUAL FROMSOFT DEV CYCLE INCLUDING A PART WHERE THEY SPILL EVERYTHING ON THE FLOOR MINUTES BEFORE LAUNCH AND HAVE TO PUT EVERYTHING BACK TOGETHER QUICKLY

[sixsamefacez]

things i really hate because im a # hater...

i HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATEEEEEEEE when people draw REGULAR MATSUNO BOYS looking like their f6 counterparts.

like, idm f6 as a concept, I think that it brings interesting things to the table-- but the entire point of f6 is that. canonically the matsuno brothers look like potatoes. they are not super models in the slightest. they're not shredded, they're average and unconventional in appearance. and f6 is "what if they WERE super models" but a little more reasoning to that.

which is why i find f6 so fascinating from a narrative perspective. i know the popular opinion is largely that they're hated by the fanbase ( and for good reason! ) but i dont mind them because of the things they say about the sextuplets themselves. About the kind of person they want to present as, what they believe their traits boil down to -- all of that stuff. That in and of itself could be it's own analysis, but I'll save it for another post.

the fact that the F6 forms are canonically strenuous for the boys to uphold and parade around as is really interesting; it's harmful to them as characters, and it stresses their body out greatly! They are not skinny attractive tall muscular twinks, they're the most average bitches you'll ever meet and that's the charm!!!!!

F6 has to rely on badly done cheap narrative tropes and flanderization of the self to the highest degree to have people fall in love with them because they have no personality or real sense of self, they're just trying to be what others want them to be and what they think they would appeal to. They are badly done tropes, puddle deep with nothing to back up their pretty faces because they think trading off their personalities would make for more fans.

later, atsushi takes their role when they drop the f6 act as what the 'ideal matsuno' would look like. This is why he looks so similar to the sextuplets with few variations to his looks; but again, another post for another time.

so, with all that in mind ... the amount of regular fanart i see of them looking like this is deeply upsetting to me bc like. THE WHOLE F6 AU IS A CRITIQUE OF THE PEOPLE WHO EXPECT EVERY CHARACTER TO LOOK UNCHARACTERISTICALLY CONVENTIONALLY HOT AND CUTE ALL THE TIME!!

F6 is conventionally attractive, generic as hell, the personality traits of the brothers are flattened extensively, and they're all supposed to be muscular, too. They're supposed to be 'peak' hotness, which is why everyone fawns over them.

and where the critique of their existence comes in, made clear from EPISODE 1 OF THE SHOW, is this.

if the matsuno sextuplets looked like this, then everyone would love the brothers based on looks alone, but the trade off is that if they were anything like f6 they would have no personality cause they're mega sanitized for a 'modern' palate and only care about selling merch / looking hot for the sake of being hot.

Many people in the fandom DEEEPLY miss the POINT by drawing them bishie like this -- or even making them super skinny and conventionally attractive when in reality, the matsuno sextuplets are painfully average in weight or even fat ( with choro having said to have Love handles and not be in shape, even if the crew dont tend draw much diversity ) and not super mega conventionally attractive. it's their personalities that draw you in not their looks!

If you can't admit you're attracted to this and draw them like F6 levels of hot anime twinks or prefer to see them that way rather than what they actually are... YOU ARE THE KIND OF PERSON F6 IS CRITIQUING.

[calder]

I'm most of the way through my first real playthrough of New Vegas, and I've had posts of yours in the back of my mind the whole way through. How'd you get started amassing all this knowledge? I want to Know Things like you do

im sitting on a few asks to this effect so i'll try to go into detail

i spent years arguing about the fallout setting (dont do this) until i became encyclopedic in the rhetoric, mythos, and iconography which constitutes its functional legacy among nerds. i turned over my understanding of the premise so regularly that it became a revolving door. i found that a holistic literalist interpretation--as in biblical studies--simply wasn't a functional engagement of the text, but it remains the dominant level of engagement with the fiction

fallout discussion circles are plagued by rampant projection, pretense, and condescension, and i grew to be morbidly fascinated with this in itself. thematic assessment is routinely drowned in stupid trivia. fallout lore is wielded to defeat valuable creativity and analysis. any lore that makes people uncomfortable is cast as surely unintentional, or a joke, or otherwise not real fallout. i wanted to developed a way of engaging deeply with the fiction, by approaching it as a flawed legend, defined by the myths and stories and coincidences it leaves in its wake.

fallout canon, as a concept, is a formless shadow. it does not mean the same thing to any two people, but everyone takes their own unique perspective on it very seriously. it's not unlike the dull stagnation of biblical canon, and the insight to be found in learning the apocrypha it corresponds to. these themes grew loud for me after listening to the radio play of "a canticle for liebowitz", a direct and clear influence on wasteland and fallout in its own right.

these games are also my outlet for occult thought in general. i am fascinated by conspiracy theory and the paranormal, but those things are not toys. this blog is a game-fiction-hobby context where i can indulge in "baking" "signs from god" without it being, yknow, intrinsically extremely dangerous and irresponsible. it gives me a place to try to understand that sort of thought without constantly exposing myself to real propaganda. does that make sense?

my approach was also influenced by taking an interest in george miller as a thinker and filmmaker. his work has always been inspired by the nature of legend and religion. just for instance, he made fury road contradict previous mad max lore from its first scene as a statement, to bounce people who would approach these stories through the sterile, fake-intellectual lens of grand fictional consistency

[understandableparadox]

Shamlessly posting all my ramblings from twitter on here.

I actully like this show, not enough to break the boycott but enough to pirate it. anyways lets go through the quick list as this show has a range of good points and bad points!

1. Designs. I fucking love monsters, monsters are my Bread, my Butter, My reason for getting up in the morning, yet consistently i found myself disappointed in each of the characters and what they were supposed to be, for instance alastor and vox

these two are supposed to media manifest, alastor is the Radio demon, yet his apperance is more around overtly edgy homestuck troll with horns i couldnt draw yet and vox is giving pyrocynical avatar. their designs are muddied because the concepts are muddied. alastor is not only the radio demon, he is the "voodoo man", the circus, the entertainer, the deal maker, the shadow weaver, the puppet on strings, and a myriad of other resume stuffers that are not needed. there is more then enough. every layer fights each other for attention, the only thing left on him that even remotly represents the radio is his staff that modulates his voice to have a radio static filter and without it he becomes a normal deer esque demon. i do not thing its good design if i can remove one aspect of a charecter and ruin it. this goes for vox as well, though i give them more of a pass because fuck me, he really do be haveing a Television as a head. but once again if i removed that aspect, what else tells me he is the television demon? his tie has a singal symbol on it, he has kinda robotic hands? but not really because he has the exact same hands as alastor leading me to belive he is wearing fingerless gloves or gloves with color blocked fingers which is a werid additon.this is ontop of the annoynce i feel at knowing that one is a recolor of the other minus the heads.

2. the pace.

the story itself moves either way to fucking quickly, i do belive that it was good to end the story itself on a redemption but we dont get enough of pentious being an actul sinner and evil guy to feel as though he deserves the redemption. show us the worst traits of our guests so that we can see the progress they are makeing through out the season so that when they do finally do something heroic and selfless and make it to heaven, we the viewing audiance can also enjoy that unilateral feeling of satisfaction of seeing our fav be vindicated as a Good Guy. im not trying to woobify pentious, exact oppisate, i want pentious to have agency to be evil and i want him to have agency to be good. we get this Somewhat with angel dust as they start makeing concious decisions to better themselves, to extract themselves from things, as well as make awful fucking choices and do Bad Things because again, these are Sinners And Demons who are reaching for redemption and salvation, I do not think we should have seen heaven at all, the embassy? yes, maybe a court of angels in hell to consider charlies plan? sure, but we should have never seen heaven until a sinner could see it.

i think i just had those two but im Bad At Being Concise... anyways viv is better at writing gay people then she is at lesbians which fascinates me to no end.

[youngpettyqueen]

RE: MASH: I keep hearing about The Hauntolgy and the Time Loop Theory, and I wanna torture myself a little by reading more but I can’t seem to find any tags or anything on the blogs I’m following, and we all know search is broken.

Any ideas? I know these are pretty popular AUs/concepts.

oooo yea these are both pretty big within the fandom here. ill be the first to admit I havent looked at a ton of the time loop theory stuff, but I do think its a fascinating concept. my personal favourites are the ones that involve Henry being the one who's conscious of the time loop, or the ones with it being Radar

Henry's is really just a beautiful and painful tragedy with the idea of him trying to escape his death but he cant. the idea of him trying to go home so many different ways but it always ends the same, and when he wakes up right back where he started. @thebreakfastgenie has a post about it thats great, I know ive reblogged it at least once so ill see if I cant find it quick and reblog it for ya anon

in terms of Radar's I dont remember any specific post but I think its an interesting take on his more clairvoyant-like moments. being able to predict what people are saying, apparently being able to read minds to some extent, etc. its a fun gag in the show, but putting him in a time loop setting and having it be that he seems to have clairvoyant abilities because he's already done all of this before... its a fun take and also it hurts <3 im not sure what id have Radar's time loop be centred around, what he would be trying to escape or change, but its definitely interesting to think about

then there's the haunting which I have looked at quite a bit more and have talked about here a couple times, though thats usually in tags. there's a lot I could say about hauntings and MASH because the show itself is just... haunted. everybody's haunted by something, the entire narrative is haunted. the ghosts of the deceased, ghosts of the loved ones they left behind, ghosts of the ones who left, ghosts of their failures, etc. my personal favourite way to look at it is through how each character's loved ones back home float around them, influence them, haunt them in their waking moments and in their dreams. theyre not dead, but theyre not there. they exist only in pictures and letters, maybe the very rare phone call just so you can remember the sound of their voice

I remember there was a post listing the best haunted episodes of MASH with like, explanations as to why each episode was haunted and by what. I dont remember who OP was unfortunately- it might have been @variousqueerthings but I could be mistaken. I think Follies of the Living is my favourite episode for this, the episode's take on ghosts is fantastic, and that last shot just really stuck with me. its one of my favourite episodes in general tbh, this desperation and then this quiet sadness of a ghost hanging around camp, watching but unseen, listening but unheard. makes me wonder how many other ghosts sometimes hang around

[sirenofthegreenbanks]

2 + 3 + 12 + 33!!!!

had to fish around to find that ask game again!!!!! also hiiiii better late than never :))) :}}}}} <3 i need to tell u smth abt kleo i have Thoughts (not big thoughts this sounds as if its big it isnt i just reconsidered my initial statement that u might not like iiiiit)

2. anything that you'd like to write but feel that youre unable to??

oh yes!!! so much!!!!! even the things im writing bring me constantly into a situation of hair-tearing-out crying-clawing-screaming hitting-head-against-the-wall. i flip-flop between thinking i cant even write what im writing and thinking that im kinda decent. hhhhh. anyway!!!!!

i want to write a solid longfic with extensive worldbuilding. it doesnt matter the genre, just solid and rich worldbuilding where the writing stays consistent and steady until the end is already good. but if i could specifiy, i yearn for it to be a canon compliant/canon divergence/canon era fic with a unique take on canon. i want to write canon era fics in general, but im always hesitant to. i know what happens when i fall into a research hole, it fires up my anxiety. and i want to write scifi or a cool space opera. and i want to be able to write novel fic (of tyk) and not want to die during the process. all these things feel impossible to me :]]]]]]]]

3. how would u describe ur writing style?

i had to think about this for a bit!!!! because my writing style is unfortunately directly connected to my mental stability which is not always. stable. huehe. hmmmm i think my style (given that im doing good!) leans very hard into economical but evocative storytelling; like, i mean the rhythm of oral storytelling. stream of consciousness. prose poetry. poetry slam. i want the words to explode in your mouth and i want it to paint a very clear image in your head. i want people to hear me telling the story! even if the reader (or listener!) cant be there to experience it for themselves, at least i can tell them about it! thats probably because my first experience with story as a concept comes from audio dramas and generally someone reading something to me. thats honestly still the medium i prefer, tbh.

12. if you write in more than one language, whats the difference?

TvvvvvvT

currently i dont write in more than one language, if u dont count non-fictional handwriting bc i write all my notes in my native language. but i still remember how it used to be to write creatively in german. like im always whining about how difficult it is to cast the same image in english as in german; i just dont have that fine motor control over english as i have over german. i can easily switch between gears in german but english still ,, befuddles me pfft. its most noticable when im mucking around drafting and spend more time thinking about fun stuff like correct grammar and correct sentence structure and which word means what in english, than about the story and the characters. it takes so much energy and effort to think about and of all of this, there is barely any space left for the story that im trying to tell. which is def a major drawback for me and one of the reasons that ive been considering to start writing in german again. even though i have uh some baggage there that i dont really want to face. language is so connected to identity and culture. and thats another reason why english is difficult; i know english, aside from school, mostly from usamerican books or from online interactions with usamericans or people talking usamerican. so that has ofc heavily influenced my own english. like, i set all my stories in germany for reasons, but its stupidly hard to draw up the cultural markers because the language itself that im using is already coming with cultural influences from another country. its really strange and confusing, and i would find it fascinating and interesting if it wasnt so frustrating. sometimes it feels like there is a veil between me and what im trying to say, and also as if my thought patterns dont work as they would because the language that should just be a tool to tell a story is already so dominant. thats def smth i hope to change in the future

33. give your writing a compliment!

hmmm. its very earnest. reading my own stuff, even old stuff, i can tell what sort of struggles made it hard to get smth specific onto the page. and sometimes what ends up on the page is not what was supposed to be there in the first place. but its earnest and i can see that. its always the best i can do in that moment, and its always a piece of me because i give so much of myself during the process. thats not always a good thing but its how i am. im glad the earnestness, the sincerity, the love, the faith, the hope, is so visible to the bare eye.

yet another writing ask

[red-dyed-sarumane]

people who think the only series songs are the ones directly tied to aru sekai shoushitsu by title are so funny. theres 11 songs and the same major motif is in all but 3 of them. but they dont have a certain kanji in the title so they must not be related right. "marshall maximizer & kanon are their own side thing" "kugutsu ashura isnt a series song" fascinated by this world view. kugutsu ashura is the outlier here so i'll get to that in a second but

aru sekai shoushitsu is the starting point & the reason we can pick out its a series & theorize about where its going. most people can pick out that kyuuyaku hankagai, shuuen touhikou, & oumen mokushiroku are series songs based on the fact their titles start with the same kanji that are emphasized in lines in aru sekai shoushitsu. which is true and great.

we also have the "nami no ne no yume wo miyou ame hodo no uruoi wo" melody that appears in most major & side songs & ultimately serves to distinguish which characters maintain a self of self and get to live and try again and which dont (those that lack the melody in their respective song.) it initially shows up as a repeated line in aru sekai shoushitsu & basically describes that whole concept of getting to continue or "being reborn" that it symbolizes. and then its in kyuuyaku hankagai at 4:51 mixed into the instrumental behind the vocals and more notably at 5:16, shuuen touhikou during the chorus at 1:20 2:34 & 2:47, oumen mokushiroku which is also the Only song where its sung & not apart of the instrumental aside from aru sekai shoushitsu itself at 2:30 & 2:51, unplanned apoptosis at 0:46 (very hard to make out because of the vocals if u listen to the instrumental only u can pick it out easier) & in the chorus at 0:57 1:07 2:17 & 2:26, marshall maximizer at 2:23, kanon at 2:19, and kannagi at 3:31 & 5:45.

that's of course not the only melody to denote a connection between songs there's also rute furute woa which is used exclusively in songs that happen in the past. it's in kyuuyaku hankagai behind the fractal wa kurikaeshita lines at 2:24 4:33 & 5:01 and more notably at 5:30, shuuen touhikou at the whole most of the song when theres not singing& also in behind the chorus at 1:06 2:13 & 2:22, kannagi as a lyric at 1:30 3:00 4:31 & 5:01, POSSIBLY oumen mokushiroku at 1:42 and POSSIBLY kugutsu ashura at 2:47 as the melody for the initial parts of those lines* *saying these two are possible because i know these parts sound like a series motif but its just different enough to keep me guessing. i'm continuing my research as we speak rest assured

and then there's not so much a melodic motif but the inclusion of a singular glass breaking noise thats a bit of a niche thing to notice & it creates a timeline for everything that happens after oumen mokushiroku, with the exception of unplanned apoptosis. marshall maximizer has it at 1:41, kanon at 0:22, laboratory at 2:42, and yamete kudasai at 0:00. oumen does not have this sound effect at its that song's events that break the glass (as told in kanon) and unplanned apoptosis does not have it bc the art implies it to being happening after the glass has already broken.

which leads us to only kugutsu ashura which lacks any immediately obvious motifs and yet is still a series song. it does not have the nami no ne no motif because thats reserved for characters who live or in series terms are "reborn with the next world" and she as both ashura and a puppet lacks her own "self" and her actions are not for her own gain or purposes. i do not believe its intended to be a future/present/modern song & is otherwise a bit estranged from the group that has the glass breaking noise in their songs so it makes sense that wouldnt be in the song. the only remaining thing would be the past motif & due to other details (how the lyrics are written, strong ties to shuuen touhikou & kyuuyaku hankagai, a few other minor things) it does seem to be intended to be a past song but the only place the motif could possibly be is in the last lyrics particularly the ugate ine sono rensa/ yagate mitsu sono koe wa/ mukae rinne sono mei wa/ ata e urufu sono sei wa parts sound a bit like a fragment of the rute furute woa melody. and in the event thats just me making things up because i have listened to every single one of these songs several thousand times without exaggeration, ignoring literally everything else the very last line in the song is mata ibuku you ni literally "so we may breathe again" which is a direct parallel to part of the lyrics in the nami no ne no part in aru sekai shoushitsu "umareyou mou ichido nakusedomo nai keredo/hodo ni" or "let's be born once more though there's no way to lose life/as though life can't be lost" which is a strong enough point to claim its a series song on its own. not to mention if u actually want to go digging into the wall of text that kugutsu ashura is (i dont. i did i once and keep putting off going thru it again even though i really need to) there're more connections to be made to other songs.

this isnt to say every hiiragi magnetite song is a series song because thats also not true. a lot of what makes series songs series songs is the wording; they have a lot more precise words to describe things & usually end up sounding odd if youre thinking of them as stand alone songs. compare to uni for example that, yeah sure it does talk about the rain which is also a series staple & major symbol, but its not a series song. its just a fun little song with comparatively simple lyrics that happens to take place when its raining.

[the-bjd-community-confess]

Not quite (https://at.tumblr.com/the-bjd-community-confess/people-saying-recasts-dont-affect-the-market-are/g3r6wncjzakd) it’s not like recasts don’t affect the market but if we are truly speaking on microeconomics then it would be more correct to say recasts are a product of the legit BJD market itself and the second hand market being non competitive is the reason it is so slow/unhealthy.

The creation of recasts or any black market goods/illegal trades/knockoffs will happen when a market has goods that are highly income elastic and have high elastic demand such as BJDs. In a nutshell,highly elastic means the more income someone has the more of that item they will buy (luxury goods) and that economic factors (like recessions) affect the demand of that item to a greater degree. In contrast to highly inelastic goods that you will ultimately buy regardless of price changes or market conditions as there are little to no alternatives (ex a brand name medicine whose patent hasn’t expired yet)

Taking microeconomic theory and applying it to the BJD market is a bit fascinating (at least to a nerd like me). I’ve noticed reading this blog a lot of people have a lot of well intentioned though misguided ideas about the market.

You can explain the behavior of the BJD market such as Recasts (market’s supply and demand along with elasticity); why people who can afford multiple recasts don’t buy legit (budget lines and utility maximization); why a competitive market is just as much a reason for other smaller doll companies going out of business as recasts (substitution elasticity, opportunity costs and economic profit); why companies won’t lower prices even if they can afford it (price optimization and producer surplus) and why so many new/small artists end up as scammers who may start out with good intentions but ultimately cannot deliver on preorders/goods (marginal costs and short vs long run supply costs… lol I’m willing to bet good money M0C did not factor these costs) using economic theories.

I’ve been wanting to speak on this for a while but all the passionate attitudes of anti-recasts and making the hobby “affordable” legit, I haven’t really wanted to waste my time. More people seem to be concerned with arguing things should or shouldn’t be a certain way (pro vs anti recast) more than WHY they are the way they are currently and understanding how it got to be this way.

I don’t want to come off pro-recast and argue morals when I don’t even buy recasts myself because people don’t want to try to understand economics lol. I will say though you personally choosing to buy something or not are based on your morals and preferences is apart of economics too (individual preference, utility and indifference/value of buying one item vs all other goods). This isn’t a good vs bad debate or a case for pro-recast it’s just WHY they exist and will continue to in this market. (I’m sure some of you won’t read this far though and claim I’m pro recast 😭😭)

But I do encourage anyone curious on the “why” to look up those concepts as a very base understanding (LOTS of other factors and considerations not mentioned and some theories I mentioned apply to more than one scenario in different ways). It shouldn’t change your moral/normative stance on how you personally feel but it’s interesting and knowledge is power and all that jazz. I just really had to say something this one time as I was going to rip my hair out if one more person mentioned “the market” again with no real bases in any economic theory/reasoning (no offense anon).

Going back to anon’s original assertion I would make a case that the second-hand market is not a competitive market with barriers to entry, barriers to access and barriers to information which is the main reason its unhealthy/slow and it’s even more apparent now due to the recession. Barriers like: Knowledge of second hand being HEAVILY community based (some will never seek out the community to ever know); some people won’t buy/sell from/to you unless you are established; some won’t sell to you if you won’t pay f&f; conversely some won’t buy if you only accept f&f; some won’t ship internationally or buy internationally; some even with access and language fluency won’t sell outside their country (ex. Asia based collectors who are on IG and DoA will buy from IG or DoA but only sell on Xianyu, Weibo, Naver etc); and the fact majority of the legit second hand market even with the same language are on various social media platforms and forums rather than e-commerce sites like ebay, mecari etc, that are optimized and safe for selling. Even though there are perfectly valid reasonings why people do the above in the market the result is the same, it’s still a great hinderance to maximize trade and transactions. The more trade is hindered, the less competitive and the more slow the market will be.

Although recasts DO impact the second hand market (again substitution elasticity) it’s just not one of the reasons it’s so unhealthy/slow. The second hand market is slow because it’s not a competitive market. It’s been like this since the beginning in certain ways though and it’s definitely not one person or any group of people’s fault.

If you made it this far in, thank you for coming to my Ted Talk… I’m going back to bed 😂

~Anonymous

[strangestcase]

ok genuine question here. as someone who has a special interest on jekyll and hyde (the book) and its social impact as a piece of media: where the hell did the tumblr fandom trend of infantilizing hyde come from.

i know the trend of depicting hyde as the evil alter trope comes from a combination of factors in the pop culture derive of jekyll and hyde adaptations and their social impact

for instance, DID/OSDD being first described and presented to the public (at least in the way we do know them now, since earlier descriptions were less specific) the same month strange case came out, kickstarting a Victorian fascination with dissociative disorders and what their existence means to the paradigm of the christian soul, how those discoveries would shape proto-psychiatry (which strange case was touching upon), a chronic impossibility to accept a fictional character could be as complex and contradictory as jekyll, the hard pill to swallow that the book's themes and morals are, the story being simplified for adaptations, and Stevenson being contacted by the brother of dr Myers (the man who first described DID and OSDD as we know them today, albeit using terminology that is considered outdated and offensive nowadays).

like all that added itself to the unreliably narrated plot twist to build up, year after year, adaptation after adaptation, a pop culture derive that culminates with 21st century readers assuming strange case depicts the evil alter trope (to the point of systems and their allies being wary of the book!) and modern retellings thinking using the evil alter trope is more accurate, realistic, or edgy, than the classic and more correct -and much less problematic- concept of jekyll literally playing a part and it spiraling into him losing sight of who he really is. ok? ok

but like

while a lot of adaptations have toyed with this concept, and some (fortunately, a minority) have gone full steam with it, i can't think of any adaptations that depict hyde as a "child", be it literally or metaphorically, with the exception of (siiighs) The Glass Scientists (in which Hyde being infantilized by other adults is treated as a joke, everybody laugh now)

but i get the feeling that this wasn't as much as an adaptation starting a trend but as an adaptation cementing it; i've seen my fair share of posts calling hyde "a baby man" or "a baby" or whatever with various degrees of irony (which is weird but funny at first, fucking gross once you become aware of the implications). and i think a fair share of them predate the "official" tgs run (2015 onwards). in fact i would say that fandom trend is what made tgs hyde be as infantilized as he is currently, because he certainly wasnt infantilized in the concept art stage of the comic, in which he was consistently depicted as a dangerous, violent person (if rather childish, silly, and immature; but those traits a child dont make, and i will say, they are also shared by book!hyde, who isnt infantilized at all beyond ironic comparisons to a child wearing adult clothes, and i remind you that those comparisons are played for horror rather than humor)

so like. when did it start, and why? is it because tumblr users can't be fucking normal about a short adult, is it because tumblr users are by nature contrarian and begun to infantilize him as a "response" to hyde being depicted as a sexual predator in most adaptations, or did something else happen?

[seefasters]

Regina spektor anon back at it again. I was wondering about something and it made me also wonder what you thought: ive been thinking about the very fraught dynamic between potter and charles and wanted your thoughts. So like the potter charles dynamic is really rich and it has. Alot of fascinating angles to it, but the crux of that dynamic for me comes down to this: charles is a wealthy, old-money northern urbanite and he is- in career terms at least- in his prime His affect is very contemptuous and aristocratic- hes a member of the elite class in every sense and he knows it. Meanwhile potter is past his prime, a middleamerican/southern dude from what is clearly a rural working class or poor background (i mean i think so. It strikes me as wildly unusual for a wealthy teenager to lie about his age to enlist as a low army grunt, which seems to be what potter did in ww1. Even if potter did come from a stable household economically speaking, he didnt have much in the way of social status- hes a farmboy) All this to say: theres major tension between them. in civilian life charles has absolutely all the power and would never have reason to give potter the slightest bit of regard. Yet this isnt the situation theyre in- charles has been drafted against his will and is at the mercy of potters authority as a commanding officer. Thats not to say that charles doesnt deserve potters ire for being very arrogant and condescending; but you get the sense, especially early in charles's time in mash, that potter gets serious glee out of taking charles down a peg; based on the social dynamic i just mentioned. Which is undeniably satisfying and funny, but its also kind of fucked up too? Like the draft is unjust, charles has been removed from his life to give over his talents to the war machine. He doesnt want to be there. Conditions are terrible. His consent is not relevant. His skills are barely relevant, hes been thrown into a totally unfamiliar mode of medical practice to what he is used to. The show knows all this and for the record i dont think it wrong to mine humor from charles's situation, even though it is wildly unfair and unpleasant and more or less forced labor as is the case for all draftees regardless of background. I was just curious what you thought about potters dynamic with charles or with people in the camp in general (his dynamic with Klinger is similarly fascinating and fucked up though it distinguishes itself from charles because 1. Klinger is not at all on equal or higher standing than potter in civilian life 2. He offers potter respect that charles does not. Which makes potters glee in fucking with klinger less based in class resentment (which colors his dynamic with charles) and more interpersonal (if youre being charitable) or more racist/sexist/classist bullying (if youre being uncharitable). What do u think of potter as an authority figure on mash? what you thought about mash's relationship to the draft as a concept?- service as a moral duty or trying to go AWOL as an immoral or cowardly act versus conceptualizing the draft as an injustice since imo mash seemed to go back and forth about that. Forgive me for the many many words!

hiiiii!!!! i haven't put much thought into the potter and charles dynamic if i'm being fully honest, but i never saw what potter was doing to charles as particularly cruel. charles was already drafted but had managed to secure a fairly comfortable position due to his class (i assume, i don't think the show ever tells us). he also seems to be there in a teacher/lecturer position as opposed to being a doctor who actually treats wounded soldiers. potter needed a capable surgeon to save lives. the morality of being an american army surgeon in a foreign war is a different question though (not that mash hadn't touched on that as well)

if we're not talking about potter keeping charles as a surgeon though, i do imagine potter takes quiet personal glee in fucking with charles because charles is a dickhead lmao

and i don't think potter is ever fucking with klinger? the potter/klinger relationship is pretty straightforward - klinger wants out, potter can't permit that, so klinger comes up with ridiculous schemes to try and convince potter, and the schemes get more and more ridiculous until it becomes a real boy cried wolf situation. everything potter does is (mostly) always in response to whatever klinger is doing

mash is pretty clear on the draft (it should not exist as much as war should not exist) but what happens after is a bit more complicated. i mean, it's never described as a cowardly act - scully went AWOL and hawkeye and BJ shield him, henry remarks that if they all had any sense they would've gone off camp (with the latrine) like hawkeye did, and klinger's schemes are played for laughs but his desire to leave is never painted in s negative light

that being said, none of the commanding officers ever actually let people leave without due reason. and there's the whole shooting yourself in the foot business obviously to which most of the responses are 'we get that war is shit but don't do it again please' (which like, as doctors they're bound to not let people mutilate themselves but you know). people being AWOL is a bit of an awkward topic in mash and i'm not sure if it ever formed a concrete opinion on that