#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?

[kindred-spirit-93]

ulysses dies at dawn

good god this was quite the ride. thoughts!!

i walked in knowing nothing except its cyberpunk setting and gfdsdfgfdasdfsdf mind successfully blown

i love the narration so much. idk its refreshing to me at least in music. very creative and effective way to present info. big fan :D

i am very musically illiterate lol so apologies in advance, but the genre at first listen to me instantly made me think of bluegrass.

listen theres a violin and a banjo esque intrument (sounds like a shamisen to me lol) its close enough

anyway absolutely brilliant music, i like the juxtaposition of a futuristic premise & a somewhat older more grounded music style (i want to say country but i also dont want to be hunted down lol)

favourite songs are broken hahse horse and sunrise lol

my jaw dropped when the horse was scanned for everyhting including hidden soldiers (i wont spoil too much pls go listen) but there was a thing and it made everyone do things and *combusts*

interesting choice of characters! heracles orpheus ariadne and oedipus. i need art of them in 3 piece pinstripe suits nowwwww

took me a minute to get the mf joke lmao. nearly choked

orpheus my poor boi omg all he wants is his girl back :')

fuck u theseus. i feel bad for ariadne honestly. i wonder if in another reality she and dio also had something?

hades! being the villain isnt my favourite thing bc im biased as hell, but i do love the idea of him orchestrating shit for his amusement

the worldbuilding itself is amazing btw, the concept of acheron is quite fascinating and very sinister.

zeus is the worst omg eugh. the olympians are a mafia family lol

i love calypso having a bar idk why its such a funny concept to me. in my mind she and antinous own the place lol (epic crackship crossover no one can stop meeeee)

penelope my beloved. the end hit me like a truck. it was pretty fast like i barely had time to register the events as the story progressed (also i was studying so half my brain was elsewhere lol)

sunrise is the best song ever my ears have been blessed. the melody is ethereal i can literally hear the leaves rustling and feel the faint sunlight

according to the wiki the tree is an oak and ngl idve preferred olive but ig u cant have everything in life lol

the imagery is on another level. i never wished i could draw & animate so much in my life. i want to draw ulysses' last moments, crawling to the roots of the tree under which her remains rest

united once more in death as they were in life :')))))))

trying really hard to stay sane u guys and its getting harder augh

[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

[okthatsgreat]

can i ask what your beef is with the dear evan hansen text?? like i agree with you i just wanna know lol

ohhhhh anon you are getting an essay from me LMFAOOO. for a bit of context: im a HUGE musical theatre fan and i was a massive fan during the 2016-2017 period of broadway where a HUGE influx of younger fans were getting drawn in so of course i listened to the soundtrack a ton. but after a bit i looked back at it and sort of understood a lot of its flaws in the base script/lyrics, and upon watching the australian dear evan hansen it became superrrr clear again imo!

ill put my long winding essay down below just because its pretty negative :) and, of course, long and winding

so there are some veryyyyyy distinct issues with the text of dear evan hansen, which i will TRY to pull apart into seperate categories just to make this a bit easier LMFAO.

TONE: tonally, this show is a MESS. it wants to both be a comedy musical while also having very heartfelt discussions around topics of mental health and suicide. in my opinion, while TRICKY, this CAN be done successfully, but was not handled well here. the switch between tone is far too jarring-- in one scene you'll have cynthia mourning her son who just committed suicide, desperate for any information that could connect her to her late child, reaching out to cling onto evan once she sees the cast that connor had signed before his passing. and then it IMMEDIATELY cuts to jared making a sex joke like im not kidding. these moments of grief and seriousness dont get time to breathe before they bring jared in or make connors ghost sing a funny song about not being gay

i know that an argument can be made that this show is supposed to be a "dark comedy"-- even if it was it wasnt done well, but as a whole it's actually not supposed to be a dark comedy. the suicide of connor murphy, evan hansens debilitating anxiety, and the mental wellbeing of these characters are placed in the centre of this show as its primary message. this is a show that marketed itself as being THE mental health show, that brought these issues to light and brings a powerful message about "not being alone". the writers of this show want you to take it very seriously. there are some very well written moments within this text (in my opinion a lot of the arguments the murphys have are well paced, good dialogue, especially towards the end before words fail) but it loses so much of its impact because its shoved in between these scenes of forced levity. so so much of that is the fault of jared as a character but thats a whole other essay

it's an extremely indecisive show over all, and you are going to see that throughout this essay: this show doesnt want to fully commit to one thing, but rather dabble in tinier, vague concepts and never truly go all the way.

MENTAL HEALTH: i am not going to deny that in 2016-2017 when this show was immensely popular, it DID start some sort of discussion. this show did have a very positive impact, specifically on a young demographic, because it did open up avenues for them to discuss issues such as this. at the time there were hardly any musicals targeted towards that demographic, and hardly any musicals that discussed mental health at all (besides shows like next to normal, but they were never that huge with the younger generation). for a young person, or anybody really, to resonate with a show concerning topics of anxiety and suicide is a great thing, and i am not trying to diminish the impact of this show at the time.

but the message of mental health is a very shallow one upon rewatch, unfortunately. as mentioned before, they are SO CLOSE to delving into interesting topics but never want to fully commit to anything. zoe and her opinion of her late brother is a FASCINATING topic that gets swept up in evans lie. we hardly hear much discussion about connors anger issues or mental health topics that are deemed less "palatable"-- in fact, very rarely does this show discuss the elements of mental health that can be seen as less palatable to a wider audience. it NEARLY does, it VERGES on those specific discussions, but never wants to linger too much. or it is fully treated as a joke (connor smokes pot, which can very easily be read as a form of self-medication as the murphys were struggling to stick to a single form of help for him. him smoking is ALWAYS a joke however. this is NOT explicit in the text).

not to mention, its clear that some topics were not well researched or even well examined within the text. i really really loved how the australian alana (carmel rodrigues) portrayed her (i very personally think she played alana as being autistic or at least neurodivergent) however she has a single throwaway line about how she felt invisible and then never mentions this again. this needed to be built up to a LOT better. evan STOPS TAKING HIS MEDICATION during act 2, claiming he "doesnt need them", and it is NEVER mentioned whether or not he starts taking them again. and while medication is a varied topic from person to person, and not everybody has or even wants to take them, the show has framed evan not taking his meds as a personal triumph, in which his life has finally "gotten better" to the point he doesnt need to take them anymore. for many many people this is not the case, especially with anxiety.

the core message of the show, "you are not alone", is also rather hollow. it's a good marketing point and its a great hashtag for the dear evan hansen team to spread on social media but it isn't extremely nuanced. dont get me wrong, sometimes a show doesnt HAVE to be extremely nuanced in a way a show like next to normal is, but to frame your show as THE mental health show with the aim to discuss these topics of suicide and depression seriously (rather than unseriously, like heathers), then it needs to be treated wayyy more carefully. saying "oh if youre sad then just reach out for help", while an okay message for a young audience, isnt very groundbreaking and in fact can come off as a little corny upon rewatch ("you will be found" felt verrrry very cheesy when i watched it live)

THE ANTI-HERO: evan is a teenager who severely fucks up. TREMENDOUSLY. and even though the marketing of this show i think has actually let evan down a little bit in regards to his personality, it isnt JUST due to the fact he has social anxiety. sure, this greatly impacts him and his decisions, but there are many moments within the show where he explicitly states his motives for why he did what he did. he is an awkward, LONELY teenager. while his anxiety not to speak up may have landed him in his situation in the first place, ultimately it is evans desperate need for human connection and family that compels him to keep this lie going.

and in a rather traditional narrative, his schemes would be framed as properly sinister. while he doesnt necessarily have MALICIOUS intentions, he still acts very selfishly and with little foresight. the lies keep piling on and piling on and he feels as though he can not reveal himself, but also he doesnt WANT to. he doesnt want to let everything go, even if he is very VERY in the wrong. this is selfish. and a character can BE selfish!

but while the narrative clearly paints evan as being in the wrong, he is NEVER supposed to be the "villain". nothing he does is truly conveyed as sinisterly as it actually is, and it gets SINISTER. ultimately we are supposed to be ROOTING for evan, as he is meant to represent the core themes of this show: mental health. even if he gets found out we are NEVER shown "true" consequences besides the murphy family getting kind of upset at him and asking him to leave during his song "words fail" where he tells them he used to be so sad and lonely before all of this and thats why he did what he did. it then cuts to him and his mom, where the discussion mostly revolves around HIS mental health and his suicide attempt rather than what he had just done to the murphys. finally after that scene we go to the finale many months later, where the consequences are hardly implied, and its even stated that evan got off LIGHTLY for what he did as the murphys never revealed who wrote connors note. yknow, the note that the entire internet was using as means to harass and dox that grieving family not too long ago

he is never treated as if he is completely in the wrong, and always given that core theme of mental health to hide behind. and because they dont want to discuss the more "unappealing" elements of mental health, or theyre too scared to imply that his anxiety is "making him the villain", evans actions ultimately are forgiven by the narrative.

evan and his family friend dance around the room, creating fake emails for a kid who killed himself in order to fool his mourning parents into believing the two of them were friends. evan stands in front of the school and gives a speech about how much him and connor were friends (even when they werent), and then spearheads a mental health campaign in connors name, all under the pretense that he KNEW and CARED for connor. he, a STRANGER, frequently goes over to the murphys house and allows them to treat him like a pseudo-son, nearly to the point where he accepts a college trust fund from them, which was meant for connor. he LIES to connors sister-- who was having very complicated opinions about connor due to his abuse towards her-- and convinces her that connor actually cared about her the entire time, practically forcing her to view her abusive brother as a better person than he was. and then evan DATES HER.

which brings me to my next and final point--

ZOE: god zoe. she makes me so unbelievably sad. WHY did evan have to have a love interest.

zoe could have been such a fascinating and intriguing character if she was handled with far more care than she had been. connor murphy was very explicitly stated to have been verbally abusive to her and likely physical as well, and at the beginning of the show she is rightly upset with him. she doesnt mourn him for his good parts because to her she doesnt KNOW any good parts. she tells evan that "the last time she can remember connor being nice to her was in his suicide note", which EVAN wrote. zoe was by no means obligated to mourn her brother, but was frequently encouraged (especially by cynthia) to do so, to find the good parts of him to remember. this complicated relationship with grief is fascinating

but evan has a crush on her, and thats when everything starts going downhill. he starts lying to her about what connor had told her ("if i could tell her" is a very creepy song coming from a brother but thats yet again a whole other post HGJKF) and plants false memories of him inside her head. that is FUCKED UP!! he is giving this poor girl, who is battling with her conflicted feelings towards her late abusive brother, false reasons to think fondly of him and invalidating every reason she had to feel anger towards him. because this show wants so desperately for the message to be that "nobody deserves to be forgotten", without any sort of nuance whatsoever, even if the person that died had been terrible to you.

and then they start dating. they start dating, all based on the lies evan had told zoe. before they kiss zoe says "you gave me my brother back", which is a HEARTBREAKING thing to hear from her given what we as the audience know, but this is NOT conveyed NEARLY as sinister as it is actually is. we witness evan be extremely, EXTREMELY selfish, and for the first time this can not be blamed on his anxiety like most other events in act 1 could. this was evan wanting to get with zoe, and it seemingly fell into his lap after he conned this family into believing he knew their estranged, late son. that is horrifying! zoe does not get NEARLY mad enough at him once he tells the murphys the truth! zoe doesnt get any time at all to shine in act 2!!

how absolutely mortifying would it be to realise that the person you were dating is a complete and utter stranger to you! he had been impersonating somebody and staying in your house, sleeping over, DATING you, all under entirely false pretences. and how absolutely mortifying would it be to realise that everything you thought you had finally learned about your brother was a lie? you had finally come to terms with accepting your late brother for his good parts only to realise that all of those alleged "good parts" werent actually true at all?? zoe would practically have to grieve ALL OVER AGAIN. the murphys would have to grieve their son TWICE. this is NEVER touched on. evan does not experience the consequences for this nearly as much as he should, and zoe is not given this resolution or nuance.

if this was done with a little more care this could have been GOOD. this was a terrible, terrible thing evan did. their romance should have always been framed as such. "only us" should not have been written as this charming cute romantic love song. given what the audience knows it is impossible to view this relationship as pure, which is what the writers had intended, and we are all sitting in our seats waiting for the ball to finally drop and this poor girl to finally realise who she is dating. its horrifying! and it doesnt get treated as such!

because ultimately evan is the hero and evan is the person you are supposed to be rooting for, regardless of his actions. ive seen a few arguments saying that this is intentional, that songs like "you will be found" are SUPPOSED to be sinister and hollow because evan is "tricking all of them", but the truth is that was never the writers intention. they wouldnt have made that song their entire marketing campaign if it was supposed to be seen as malicious. the writers were never willing to fully commit to anything, making this show as a whole underbaked and tonally inconsistent.

TLDR; the show has a hollow message and wants to be many different things at once but ultimately succeeds in none of it

[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.

[avorbl]

Avor's Watchlist for weeks 48 + 49

We are in advent and the busy pre-christmas weeks dont leave much time for watching dramas. But looking at the list and the release calendars others are posting, there should be some time during holidays to catch up on the things I want to finish this year.

Currently Airing

Love Sick 2024 13/15 Lovesick has established itself as a solid weekly watch where I can just spend an hour of enjoyable television.

Fourever You 10/16 I should really check out the cut version of this because all the episodes have felt to long for the amount of plot they were conveying

Usotoki Rhetoric 8/10 The genre mix of episodic detective drama and fantasy apprenticeship really works. The theme of contrasting objective lies with harmful lies works well. Hopefully we get to know more about the detective’s background in the last episodes Suzuka Ouji’s acting is phenomenal but the character would remain a bit flat especially compared to the policeman.

Light of my Lion 7/11

See Your Love 8/13

Bad to Bed 6/10

Love in the Air Japan 6/10 The two part nature still feels a bit weird but the shorter runtime of each episode makes it more understandable along with the resulting highlight on the characters.

Our Youth / Miseinen 5/11 To see them so clearly needing each other but knowing that it wont last and the beautiful cinemaphotography really keep me enganged.

Fragrance you inherit 4/8 There is somthing explosive about this one. They are all so kind and thoughtful of each other but I cannot help to dread Kanae’ father.

Caged Again 5/10 Oh my sweet earbest children trying.

Your Sky 4/12 Oh my sweet earbest children trying.

The Heart Killers 3/12

Winter Is Not the Death of Summer but the Birth of Spring 10/21 So far this prison can proudly stand next to all the all boys school as the most BL setting ever created.

Seoul Blues: Spin-off 2/4 Seoul Blues needed a continuation but this is so different again that its probably better appreciated as a separate work. And then the second episode has us in full Battle of the Writers territory. It is really just them doing concepts is seems.

Spare Me Your Mercy 3/8 As long as we accept Tew being thoroughly charmed and fascinated by Kan from the first meeting this series works well enough

What I am catching up on

Unstoppable High Kick 29/167

The Princess Royal 27/40

Word of Honor 24/36

Playboyy 4/14

Still on my watch list

Fight for My Way 10/16

Tengu no Daidokoro Season 2 2/10

Polyethylene terephthalate 2: Even if it's just a dream that I'll forget when I wake up 5/8

Stealing from My CEO 16/61

Buddy Boy 5/?

Kiss x Kiss x Kiss: Love ii Shower 1/?

Secret Love 12/81

Finished in the last two weeks

Jack & Joker: U Steal My Heart! 25.11.24 6,5/10 Went out in a whimper. Too much of the resolution was put on a action packed finale which made the human and social endings feel rushed and like an afterthought .

The Nipple Talk 28.11.24 9/10 Queer community and three love stories. About choices we make to be happy. A celebration.

Latex 28.11.24 8,5/10 I am not sure how far I am supposed to interpret the central metaphor. But I am thankful that Matchbox still puts out these decidely queer stories.

Everyone Is a Stupid 30.11.24 8/10 Short film about the negative impact school has on (queer) youth an institution. In the form of two childhood friends finding back together and thereby finding confidence.

Blue Canvas of Youthful Days 01.12.24 9/10 This is probably the series I made the most notes for. Ultimately it fails at its success in getting released. For a series that so meticulously proceeds from one point to the next the happy ending time skip felt out of place and undermines the the cautionary message it means to convey.

Love is Like a Poison 03.12.24 8,5/10 Liked the colour story in the end. The actual ending felt too forced. Making it so personal strechted the believability too far.

Blue Complex 07.12.24 8/10 It builds up the relationship to the other two well. Their mental states are believable and well portrayed but it falls in the trap of the one saving moment. While tha might work for a mental block preventing you from swimming its ridiculous in the face of a suicidal depression the camaderie and saving moment have to be followed up by professional help to not ring hollow.

Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru: More Please! 07.12.24 10/10 The perfect slice of life about the importance of staying true to yourself . With strong colours. A wholesome story to pick you up.

[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.

[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?