#who is a Terrible Person

[five-and-dimes]

If I told my elder sister that after being hurt I was feeling sad, lost, and angry… And her response was “you shouldn’t be”…. I would immediately become sad, lost, angry, and ashamed. Not… better.

[spyres]

[ofswordsandpens]

percy, mentally ill: I feel like I deserve to die. It's a punishment because im a horrible person. Does that sound crazy?

jason, also mentally ill: No that tracks bro samesies

[angry-kid-with-no-money]

"Nora doesn't know anything about the things she writes about" "aftg is terrible queer rep" "the queer characters in aftg are so problematic"

Idk guys maybe the book series abt problematic ppl set in 2006 and written in the mid 2010s shouldn't be expected to hold up against scrutiny of what we consider to be moral and correct now, in 2024

Idk tho, idk

[corpsentry]

pick your battles

[collieii]

someone probably said this already but in spiderverse i think it's interesting how when pavitr was first introduced everyone thought something bad was gonna happen to him bc of how confident and optimistic he was. and then in the actual movie we see that something bad was supposed to happen to him (police chief dying!) but it doesn't! miles stops it! and miguel berates miles for this, says it's going to cause the universe to collapse or whatever.

there's this idea that tragedy is inherent to spidermans growth, and while it's true that some spiderpeople learn important lessons through loss, no one stops to ask, is it really necessary? yeah, maybe the chief was supposed to die. but why does spiderman have to be formed through tragedy? why do we (as heroes) have to let people die? pavitr didn't lose anyone, and he's still a good spiderman! maybe, if he doesn't suffer, he'll end up better off for it!

so while miguel is arguing for all this big picture stuff about saving the multiverse he's lost sight of what it really means to be a spiderman, he's not looking out for the real individual people. yeah it's just one person who would die, but that one person means something to someone. shrugging and saying "stuff just sucks sometimes, we can't do anything about it" is the opposite of what superheroes do. pretty obviously, miles arc is also a reflection of the struggles people face in real life, working within unequal systems, where it's easy to shrug and say "that's just the way it is" and not ask "but why does it need be this way? can't we do something about it?"

miguel is arguing that you can't have your cake and eat it too. presumably, miles and co. are going to find a way to get around that and change things for the better (and maybe that's why miles has that line about two cakes in the advisors office!)

[infernal-lamb]

some rushed doodles of our new goat darling........I have so many plans for them

[heartorbit]

make a wish! 🍃

happy 1st anniversary, in stars and time 🤍

[fisherrprince]

some of what’s up with this guy

edit: can you pretend I wrote “after” instead of “before” THANX

[dragonskulls]

done with the requests, really had fun with the httyd ones specially, thank you all!

tagging the users that requested

@aposterous @avianreptiles @sapphofinch @helsingvania @morp @crypticcrab @bi-pan-whiteout @kratt09 @lynxfrost13 @icecreamsodaaaaa

[bixels]

The Ryoko Kui interview's reception is such a disaster over a pretty normal (yet still flawed) interview between a non-Japanese fan and Japanese artistic. This is discourse for discourse's sake, and it's no surprise that almost every Twitter user I've looked at who's using this interview to parade Kui around as a goated mangaka standing strong against Western ideology is anti-trans.

Like, I do think the interview was kinda wonky with its focus on fandom culture, which Kui clearly didn't have much interest in. But sometimes that happens. Sometimes interactions between two people, especially a fan and a creator, two people who view and interact with a piece of media in completely opposite perspectives, don't click. Does this really need to get blown up into a "West vs. East culture war" issue.

Anyways, Kui saying "I don't consider my audience's interpretations when writing. I leave it to their imaginations, but I have my own read on things too" is the healthiest, most normal thing an artist/writer who wants a non-parasocial audience could say. Artists and writers use this line all the time. If Kui didn't enjoy autistic Laius or Farcille headcanons, she would have probably voiced/signalled her discomfort, like she did on the topic of Senshi fanservice. Overall, Kui handled the interview really well. Props to her to sticking to her guns and keeping a healthy disconnect from the fandom. While I think the interviewer could've/should've been more tactful and restrained, the flaws in their questions is not a symptom of the woke mind virus trying to wriggle its way into the pure Japanese psyche. It's the sign of an over-eager fan who sees a piece of fiction differently than its creator.

[raepliica]

Take to the skies

...and fly free

[littlebigmouse]

"Reigen was extorting free labor from Mob", "Mob working at spirits and such is child labor"

I mean yes kinda but also that is so not the point.

Reigen and Mob first met when Mob was ten. Mob asked if he could come back. Mob needed companionship and life advice and a safe space to hang out, all of which Reigen provided. Mob gets paid in pocket change and food and snacks at the office. In return, Reigen gets to not die a horrible and gruesome death once a week.

It's a mentoring relationship. They're friends.

Mob doesn't need money. Mob isn't at the office to get money. If Mob genuinely needed and wanted a part time job, then yeah, 300 yen an hour is bullshit and he should book it out of there. But the two just needed an excuse for Mob to hang out and Mob meeting spirits and going to excorcisms was probably helping a lot with feeling in control of his powers in the first place.

Is it always the healthiest friendship? Absolutely not. It's explicitly adressed that Reigen has come to rely on Mob a little too much sometimes and increasingly doesn't respect his boundaries. That's also what made Mob bail in five seconds flat and he only came back when Reigen apologized. Not because Mob wanted the 300 yen give or take a bowl of ramen and some plant seeds back. But because these were friends having a conflict and they talked it out and wanted to hang out again.

Do you think Mob has a work contract? Set work hours? Do you think either of them care?

They are friends, your honour, who cares about the pocket change.

[corpsentry]

a glass sun 1/2

[codacheetah]

Tell me your opinions on the stuff. Any stuff.

Grins. Smiles, even

I'm using you as an excuse to infodump my theory about the Island because I've had no in to do that, and my theory is pure opinion. Anyways:

THE ISLAND IS STUCK IN THE FUCKING FUTURE

(SCARE CHORD)

Hi so you might ask me. What the fuck do you mean by that. Well. Let's start with what we know about the Island, the King, and Wish Craft. (long ass post under cut. sorry)

The Island was redacted from the perception of outside world, via Wish Craft.

Wish Craft has the power to enable Time Craft. We see this primarily through Siffrin's timeloops, but also through the King's powers.

One of the King's powers is to show the saviors a "vision of the future."

...And this same attack is deflected back at the King by Mirabelle in ACT 5, in which the King is able to see the Island before being frozen in time.

...So. The King's "vision of the future." We're never told explicitly what this vision is. All we know is that it's apparently powerful enough to wipe the party in one hit, hearing it from a distance hurts your head, and that whatever Siffrin (and Loop) saw, they don't seem to actually be able to describe it. Even the King himself doesn't know what his vision entails.

We don't know whether the party all sees the same thing when struck by the vision, and Adrienne's answer to the question about it in the Reddit AMA is. vague? It's not a "no," and the specific wording makes me think the answer might be yes. But that's me reading into it.

Now. What do we know about the Island's redaction? The Island was affected by the wish recently, as in "like a decade ago" recently. We know that nobody in Vaugarde or the rest of the world is capable of thinking about the Island, anything closely tied to the Island's culture, or people on the Island for very long. When they do recall these things, they slip right out of reach. Particularly, the consequence for trying to think about the Island (or, more specifically, break the wish that forces the Island out of perception) is significant pain, localized in the head.

And that said pain is enough to become lethal, if pressed hard enough.

From here forward I'm running with the assumption that the King's "vision of the future" is not personalized to any individual, and is unchanging throughout the course of the whole story. Now. Remember the end of ACT 5, where the King gets hit with the deflected "vision of the future", and instead of dying, he recalls the Island and gets frozen in time? Very odd, yeah? Why wouldn't the King just die like everyone else does? He even does take 9999 damage when trying to say its name, like Siffrin does, and like the party does when they're hit by the attack.

Well. We know that he has a "true wish" that the ability to freeze Vaugarde in time grants. I don't think it's at all a stretch to guess that the King's "true wish" is to be able to remember the Island. My personal guess is that the King (and Siffrin) brought this "true wish" into effect via the "SAY ITS NAME" sequence- he even tries three times, a significant number in wishing.

The King (and Siffrin's) wish breaks, because it can't be fulfilled in this moment without breaking the wish to prevent the Island from being thought about. However. Consider the conditions at the end of ACT 5- the King sees the vision of the future reflected back to him, and what he sees is the Island. He remembers the Island, fulfilling his own wish, and is frozen in time. I consider this a compromise between his wish and the one binding the Island- the King gets to remember the Island, but nobody alive is able to think about it, because he's frozen in time; it's like the Universe is correcting itself (I WILL GET BACK TO THIS). The wish of all of Vaugarde to defeat the King is fulfilled, since he is no longer a threat, and Siffrin's wish wraps itself up soon after.

MY POINT BEING. The King's attack is a vision of the future. This "future" is of the Island, in some uncorrupted state. The saviors see it when he attacks them, and he sees it when it is deflected back to him.

The logical next question is "okay, so the Island exists in the future, but how do you know time shenanigans are even related to the Island?"

Recall a very odd series of interactions throughout the game, in which you try to interact with a piece of equipment that you already own.

The game rewinds slightly, before the item disappears, as the Universe corrects itself.

This is awfully similar to two particular events: looping back without seeing the death screen, and talking to the Daydreaming One about her sister. The latter is more interesting to me for the purposes of this theory.

In both instances, something is misaligned within the Universe (an item existing in two places, someone remembering something they're not supposed to) and it is corrected through some sort of rewind. Also compare the dialogue above to when you try to give Mirabelle the Stylish Bow when you already own it.

The world glitches, but Siffrin defuses the situation before the Universe has to intervene. Omitted from the screenshot is the fact that Mirabelle's portraits switch to happy from "catastrophically anxious" with no transition after Siffrin shows her where the bow is. Important to note is that when Mirabelle tries to recall receiving the bow, her head hurts, much like how trying to break the Island wish causes a headache.

The Universe leads you away from perception, and you can only follow.

My theory that I keep circling around is that through Wish Craft, the Island has been displaced temporally. The denizens of the Island, as well as the Island itself, still exist, but they are in the future. The Island is still loaded into the world, like how equipment is before you try to interact with it, and the Island cannot leave this quantum state, because it never actually went anywhere. The magnitude of the redaction event is so severe with the Island, because it is so much larger as an entity than a sword or a bow. There are of course things I don't really have pieced together, like why somebody would wish the Island into the future, how far into the future it is, or why equipment behaves this way. But it's the only Island theory I've seen that I have some level of confidence in, so I might as well lay out my cards for it.

[yooboobies]

angel sunshine for an angel sunshine | for @huhfeatjhope