#writing is hard but its become really cathartic

[03jyh23]

🌊⌇such a lonely heart┆kim hongjoong

married, hongjoong x gn!reader

│synopsis: if you can't find another reason to stay, then i know i'm gonna always have a lonely heart

│genre: hurt no comfort, angst

│trigger warnings: emotional distress, heartbreak, relationship conflict

│words: 4.1 k

│reminder: what you’re about to read is purely fiction, so let’s keep it separate from reality.

!minors do not interact!

— hi there my lovely people! it feels like forever since i last posted, and oh god, i’m so happy to be back! my hiatus ended up lasting much longer than i intended, and coming back after such a long time is honestly nerve-wracking. this piece of writing took me a long time to complete, but i’m really proud of it. once again, it’s a hongjoong angst with a personal touch, and i think hongjoong will always have that cathartic role in my stories. i hope you guys can feel the emotions i’ve woven into it. thank you for sticking with me—i can’t wait to hear what you think.

love, mon ♡

It was late Thursday night. You were curled up on your bed, blanket wrapped tightly around you, staring blankly at the wall. It was unbearable. Was your mind numb, or was it so full of thoughts that they all clashed together, making you feel overwhelmed and empty simultaneously? You let yourself break again, letting the flood of thoughts and feelings consume you whole. You were drowning, unable to stop the spiral of despair that clawed at you. 

Eighteen times. 

Hongjoong ignored your calls eighteen times tonight. 

And that was your breaking point.

You felt the weight of each ignored call like a stone in your chest, pressing down, making breathing hard. The silence from his end was deafening, drowning out even the sound of your own heartbeat. You wondered, with a bitter taste in your mouth, if this was what it felt like to be truly alone. It wasn't anything new, you spent your nights alone, most of them sleepless as the lack of warmth in your husband's body made it impossible to get some rest. After tossing and turning, you would eventually catch a few hours of sleep, only to wake up in an empty bed. The routine had become painfully familiar. The cold sheets on his side of the bed were a constant reminder of his absence. You'd reach out, hoping against hope, but your fingers would only meet the cool fabric, untouched and undisturbed. 

Anyone would have thought you'd get used to it by now - Hongjoong leaving early for his office and coming back too late to spend time with you. But he would always text that he was doing extra hours or going out for a beer with friends. Tonight, however, was different. There was only radio silence. And nothing hurt more than the quiet. The absence of his usual messages left an ache in your chest that you couldn't ignore. You found yourself checking your phone obsessively, hoping for any sign of communication. But the screen remained stubbornly blank, a stark reminder of the growing distance between you. 

As the hours ticked by, your mind raced with possibilities, each one more unsettling than the last. Was he okay? Had something happened? Or was this simply the new normal - a silence that spoke volumes about the state of your relationship? 

The sound of the door creaking open finally pulled you from your thoughts. Through the narrow gap between the door and its frame, you saw a thin line of light, and then your eyes drifted up to see your husband. Hongjoong stepped into your shared apartment, his ginger hair damp from the rain. He ran his hand through it, pushing the wet strands away from his face, before peeling off his soaked beige coat and slipping off his shoes. You swallowed the lump rising in your throat at the sight of him, tears prickling your eyes again. You blinked rapidly, trying to push them back, gripping the blanket tighter as if it could shield you from the wave of emotions crashing inside you. The fabric pulled up to your chin, a flimsy barrier between you and the ache that had settled deep in your chest. 

The light went out as Hongjoong moved further into the apartment, past the door of your bedroom without a word. He didn’t even glance in your direction. What was wrong? Or was he simply trying to avoid waking you, assuming you should be asleep instead of quietly falling apart? One way or another, it was far too late for him to walk back in like nothing had happened. The silence that followed felt colder than before, sinking into your already worn-out body. 

You could hear him in the living room, the soft rustle of the wardrobe doors opening. Was he planning to sleep on the couch again tonight? You untangled yourself from the blanket, standing quietly before slipping out of the bedroom. The weight of exhaustion and frustration clung to you as you made your way to the kitchenette. You didn’t want to fight. Not tonight. You poured yourself a glass of cold water, grabbed the bottle of painkillers from one of the drawers, and swallowed a couple of pills, hoping they’d dull the throbbing in your head. You glanced at Hongjoong as you set the glass down. He had stopped mid-motion, his hands frozen on the pillow he was arranging on the sofa. Your eyes met briefly, the silence between you thick with unspoken words. As you had guessed, he was indeed preparing to sleep on the couch tonight. The realization sent a fresh wave of pain through your chest. You averted your gaze, unable to bear the weight of his silent stare any longer. The distance between you felt insurmountable, even though you were just a few feet apart in the same room. 

You stood in the dim light of the kitchen, hands gripping the edge of the counter as you tried to steady your breathing. Then, the words you’d been holding back for too long slipped out before you could stop them. "Where were you tonight?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. The question hung in the air, heavy with the weight of all the unanswered calls and unread messages. 

You took a deep breath, steadying yourself before continuing. "I called you eighteen times, Hongjoong. Eighteen. And not once did you pick up or call back. What's going on?" Your eyes met his again, searching for any sign of explanation or remorse. "Are we... are we okay?" The last question came out softer, more vulnerable, betraying the fear that had been gnawing at you all night. The words felt like they had a life of their own, carrying the weight of nights spent alone, of unanswered calls, and of the slow unraveling of something you once thought was unbreakable. You didn’t dare turn around, didn’t want to see the look on his face. Whether it was guilt, anger, or indifference, you couldn’t handle any of it. 

The silence stretched longer, and every second that ticked by only made your heart sink deeper. 

Finally, you heard him shift behind you, his footsteps hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure how to approach the fragile moment. The tension in the room felt suffocating, but you stood your ground, gripping the counter tighter, waiting for him to say something—anything—to break the silence. 

But nothing came. 

Tired. You were both tired—of the silence, of the distance, of pretending everything was fine when it clearly wasn’t. You weren’t sure how much longer you could keep this up, but at that moment, you didn’t have the strength to do anything more than stand there, waiting for an answer that might never come. 

You didn’t turn around as you felt his presence behind you, the warmth of his body radiating in the small space between you. You held your breath, waiting for him to say something, to explain, to apologize—anything to break the suffocating silence that had enveloped you both. One of your hands traveled to your temple, trying to massage away the pounding headache that wouldn’t relent, as if easing the physical pain might somehow dull the ache in your heart too. 

The silence dragged on, and you could feel him standing there, just out of reach, but still not saying a word. It was suffocating, the space between you filled with unspoken thoughts, unresolved arguments, and the growing distance that neither of you seemed able to close. 

"I kept waiting. Waiting for you to call back, to walk through the door, to say something—anything." you continued, voice trembling as you let your hand fall from your temple, now gripping the edge of the counter again.

Hongjoong let out a breath behind you, but it was small, almost inaudible. You could sense his guilt, but guilt alone wasn’t enough to bridge the gap. "I didn’t know what to say," he admitted softly, his voice barely above a whisper, and you could hear the weight of his own struggle in it. 

"You didn’t know what to say?" You turned around slowly, finally meeting his eyes. Your own were burning, a mixture of exhaustion, anger, and desperation swirling together. "Do you think that makes it any better? That just... ignoring me was the right thing to do?" 

He looked down, running a hand through his damp hair again. His hesitation was killing you. You needed him to fight for this, to fight for you. 

The silence stretched between you, thick and heavy. Hongjoong's eyes finally met yours, a storm of emotions swirling in their depths. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. 

"Are you giving up on us?" The words tumbled out of your mouth, raw and vulnerable. Your eyes searched his face, desperate for any sign that he still cared, that there was still something worth fighting for. 

Hongjoong's eyes snapped up to meet yours, a flicker of pain crossing his features. For a moment, he looked as lost and scared as you felt. The silence stretched between you, heavy with unspoken fears and fading hopes. "I..." he started; his voice barely audible. He swallowed hard, struggling to find the right words. "I want a divorce, Y/N," Hongjoong finally said, his voice cracking slightly as he forced the words out. 

The world seemed to stop spinning for a moment. You felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving you gasping. Your eyes widened in disbelief, searching his face for any sign that this was some cruel joke. But all you saw was a mixture of pain, guilt, and resignation in his eyes. 

"What?" you whispered, barely able to form the word. Your hands gripped the counter behind you, needing something solid to hold onto as your world crumbled around you. 

Hongjoong took a deep breath, his shoulders sagging as if the weight of his words was physically pulling him down. 

You felt tears welling up in your eyes, a lump forming in your throat. All those ignored calls, the nights spent alone, the growing distance - it all suddenly made sense in the worst possible way. The realization hit you like a tidal wave, leaving you struggling to stay afloat in the sea of emotions threatening to drown you. 

"A divorce?" The word felt foreign on your tongue, heavy and bitter. You shook your head, tears now flowing freely down your cheeks. "How... how long have you been thinking about this?" Your voice was barely above a whisper, trembling with the weight of your shattered world. 

Hongjoong's eyes flickered with a mix of guilt and sadness as he answered, his voice low and strained. "For a while now... I've been trying to find the right moment, but there never seemed to be one." He paused, running a hand through his hair, a gesture that once seemed endearing but now felt like a painful reminder of what you were losing. 

The words hit you like a physical blow, and suddenly, all the pain and frustration you'd been holding back came rushing to the surface. Your eyes flashed with anger as you stepped towards him. 

"Empty promises," you spat, your voice quivering with emotion. "Is that what our vows meant to you? Because I meant every single word, I said on our wedding day!" Hongjoong flinched at the intensity of your words, but you couldn't stop. The floodgates had opened. "I said I wanted to spend forever with you, Hongjoong. Forever! And I meant it with every fiber of my being. But for you? Were they just pretty words to say in front of our families and friends?" Your voice cracked, tears streaming down your face. "I promised you my life, my love, my everything. And you're throwing it all away like it meant nothing. Was any of it real for you?" 

The silence that followed was deafening, heavy with the weight of broken promises and shattered dreams. 

Hongjoong's shoulders slumped, his eyes cast downward as if he couldn't bear to meet your gaze. The weight of your words hung in the air between you, a tangible reminder of the promises made and now broken. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper, filled with a mixture of regret and resignation. "It was real," he said, his voice barely audible. "But sometimes... sometimes love isn't enough." He paused, swallowing hard before continuing. "We've grown apart, Y/N. We're not the same people we were when we made those vows." 

"Don't bullshit me now, Hongjoong! It was two years ago! Two years!" Your voice rose, trembling with a mixture of anger and disbelief. "Why did you even bother to fucking marry me if you were going to give up so easily?" Your words echoed in the small space between you, raw with emotion. Your hands were clenched at your sides, your whole body shaking with the force of your outburst. The tears that had been threatening to fall now streamed freely down your face. You searched Hongjoong's face, desperate for any sign that this was all a mistake, that he didn't really mean what he was saying. But all you saw was a mixture of guilt and resignation in his eyes, and it only fueled your anger and hurt more. 

Hongjoong took a deep breath, his eyes meeting yours with a mix of sadness and determination. "I'm sorry, Y/N. I truly am. I didn't marry you with the intention of giving up. I thought... I thought we could make it work. But we've changed, grown apart. The passion, the connection we once had... it's not there anymore." He paused, running a hand through his hair. "I've tried, we've both tried, but it feels like we're just going through the motions. Don't you feel it too? The distance between us, even when we're in the same room?" His voice softened, a hint of vulnerability seeping through. "I didn't want to hurt you, but I realized that staying in a marriage that's lost its spark would hurt us both more in the long run. You deserve someone who can love you fully, completely. And I... I'm not that person anymore." Hongjoong's eyes glistened with unshed tears as he continued, "I know it's not fair. Two years isn't a long time, but it's been long enough for me to realize that we're not making each other happy anymore. And isn't that what marriage should be about? Happiness, growth, mutual support?" He took a shaky breath. "I'm sorry I couldn't be the person you needed me to be. I'm sorry I couldn't keep the promises I made. But I think... I think we both deserve a chance at real happiness, even if it means not being together." 

You were at a loss for words, the reality of the situation sinking in. Finally, you managed to speak, your voice barely above a whisper, trembling with emotion. "No, I don't feel it too. What I feel is the desperate longing for you when you're not here. I love you, it never changed." You realized, with a crushing finality, that you would never hear him say he loves you again.

Swallowing hard, fighting back a fresh wave of tears, you spoke again, your voice hollow. "I'm going to pack my bags." 

As you turned to leave, you felt a hand grasp your arm gently. Hongjoong's touch, once so familiar and comforting, now sent a jolt of pain through your heart. "Y/N, please..." His voice was barely above a whisper, filled with a mixture of desperation and regret. You froze, your back still to him. For a moment, you allowed yourself to feel the warmth of his hand, to remember all the times that touch had brought you comfort. But the pain of his words, the finality of his decision, was too fresh. 

With a sharp intake of breath, you pulled your arm away, stepping out of his reach. You couldn't bear to look at him, afraid that if you did, you might crumble completely. "Don't," you managed to say, your voice trembling. "Just... don't." Without turning back, you spoke, your voice barely above a whisper but filled with cold finality, "You can tell your lawyer to bring the papers to my parents." 

The words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of your shattered dreams and the future that would never be. You didn't wait for a response, couldn't bear to hear whatever Hongjoong might say. Instead, you walked away, each step feeling like it was taking you further from the life you had once imagined, towards an uncertain and lonely future. 

You packed your bags in a hurry, the silence broken only by the rustling of clothes and the soft thud of items being hastily tossed into your suitcase. Your hands trembled as you gathered the necessities, your mind a whirlwind of emotions. 

As you made your way to the door, you paused, your hand resting on the cool metal of the doorknob. Despite the pain coursing through you, you couldn't help but turn for one last look at the man you loved—still love. Hongjoong sat on the sofa, his head buried in his hands, eyes fixed on the floor. The sight of him, so defeated and lost, sent a fresh wave of anguish through your heart. For a moment, you stood there, memorizing every detail of this final scene, knowing it would be etched in your memory forever. 

With a deep breath, you reached into your pocket and pulled out your keys. The metal felt cold against your skin, a stark reminder of the life you were leaving behind. You walked over to the drawer near the entrance, your steps echoing in the heavy silence. As you placed the keys on the drawer, they made a sharp, metallic cling that seemed to reverberate through the apartment. The sound was jarring in the stillness, causing Hongjoong to snap his head up, his eyes meeting yours for a brief, intense moment. 

That single sound seemed to encapsulate everything - the end of your shared life, the finality of his decision, the irreversible nature of what was happening. It was as if that small noise had shattered the last remnants of the world, you once shared. 

Hongjoong's voice broke through the silence, barely above a whisper, but filled with a mixture of regret and desperation. "Y/N, wait..."He stood up, his eyes pleading. "I... I never meant for it to end like this. Please, don't leave this way—you don't have to go." His words were mumbled out quickly, a desperate need in them that you couldn't quite understand. The sudden shift in his tone caught you off guard, making you pause at the door. You turned slightly, not fully facing him, but enough to show you were listening. 

You felt a mix of emotions wash over you - anger, hurt, confusion. Part of you wanted to turn and run, to escape this painful situation. But another part of you needed answers, needed to understand how things had fallen apart so quickly. With a deep breath, you steadied yourself and turned to face Hongjoong fully. "What do you mean, don't leave this way?" you asked, your voice barely above a whisper. "You just told me you want a divorce. What other way is there to leave?" 

Hongjoong got up from the sofa and took a few quick steps in your direction. His expression faltered, a mix of guilt and uncertainty crossing his features. He took a hesitant step towards you, his hand reaching out but stopping short of touching you. "I... I don't know," he admitted, his voice barely audible. "I just... I can't bear the thought of you walking out that door, even though I know I'm the one who caused this." His words hung in the air, heavy with contradiction. You felt a surge of anger mixed with confusion, your emotions threatening to spill over. Taking a deep breath, you steadied yourself, your grip tightening on your suitcase handle. 

"Hongjoong," you began, your voice low and controlled, "you can't have it both ways. You can't ask for a divorce and then expect me to stay." You felt your resolve waver slightly at the vulnerability in his voice, but you steeled yourself, knowing you had to stay strong. 

"It's just hard to see you walk away in silence like we're strangers," Hongjoong said, his voice barely above a whisper, filled with a mixture of regret and longing. 

His words hit you like a physical blow, and you felt tears prick at the corners of your eyes. You took a deep, shaky breath before responding. "And it's hard for me to stay and pretend everything's okay when you've just shattered my world," you replied, your voice quivering. "We're not strangers, Hongjoong. We're two people who once vowed forever to each other, and now we're crumbling that promise." The silence that followed was heavy, filled with unspoken words and painful realizations. You both stood there, caught in a moment that felt both eternal and fleeting, the weight of your shared history and uncertain future hanging between you. 

Hongjoong's eyes met yours, a mixture of pain and regret swirling in their depths. You could see the conflict within him, the struggle between what he thought he wanted and the reality of losing you.

Suddenly, without warning, Hongjoong closed the distance between you. His hands cupped your face, and before you could react, his lips crashed against yours. The kiss was desperate, filled with a mixture of passion, regret, and longing. It caught you off guard, your body tensing at first before instinctively melting into the familiar warmth of his embrace. For a moment, the world around you faded away. There was only Hongjoong, the taste of his lips, the feel of his hands on your skin. It was as if all the love, all the memories, all the pain of your relationship was poured into this one, final kiss. 

But as quickly as it began, reality came crashing back. You pulled away, breathless and confused, your mind reeling from the sudden turn of events. Tears welled up in your eyes as you looked at Hongjoong, seeing the same turmoil reflected in his gaze. 

"Why?" you whispered, your voice barely audible, trembling with emotion. "Why now, when you've already decided to let me go?" 

Hongjoong's expression crumbled, he took a shaky breath, his hands falling to his sides as he struggled to find the words. "I... I don't know," he finally admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for everything." 

You choked on a sob, the finality of it all settled, and you found yourself struggling to breathe. With trembling hands, you reached for the door handle, your vision blurring with unshed tears. "Goodbye, Hongjoong," you managed to whisper, your voice barely audible and thick with emotion. The words hung in the air, heavy with the weight of everything you had shared and everything you were now losing. 

Without looking back, you stepped through the doorway, the soft click of the door closing behind you echoing in your ears like a death knell. As you made your way down the hallway, each step felt like it was taking you further from the life you had known, from the love you had cherished, and into an uncertain, lonely future. 

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│ it has come to my attention that a lot of ageless/blank blogs have started to interact with my fics. while i appreciate your interest in my writing, i want to remind everyone that my blog is for adults only. it only takes a moment to personalize your blog and add your age. please take a moment to do so. this way, it will be easier for everyone and will save me from having to go through all my notifications to block blank/ageless blogs.│

[yellowocaballero]

Reading 'Solo Leveling' (a webtoon/webnovel about a guy who uses a game-like interface to level up and fight monsters and become ridiculously OP and the coolest and hottest guy in the whole wide world) really proves something to me that I've thought about.

The goal of a story is to achieve what it wants to achieve. Different genres have different certain marks the story should achieve. If it doesn't hit those marks, it's not a good example of the genre. In a lot of was it's not even a good story - it doesn't entertain the audience in the way that they want to be entertained. A romance novel isn't a bad story because it doesn't feature great action scenes, but neither is it a bad story because it doesn't delve deep into the sociopolitical implications of neocolonialism. Does it make the reader feel happy? Is it cathartic? Is there a happy ending? Then it's a good romance story - even if you think stories shouldn't need happy endings.

The 'satisfaction' of stories like Solo Leveling is the fact that is very entertaining to watch a guy be super powerful and mow down bad guys and have everybody around him go "WHOAH that's a cool guy". Maybe it's cool because you're projecting, or maybe you like great action scenes, or because you like 'underdog gets powerful' stories. It's a power fantasy. That is the goal of Solo Leveling, and so long as I'm going "WHOAH COOL", then it's a good story. And Solo Leveling is the example of the power fantasy video game dungeon OP protag. It does those elements, it executes them competently, it's a good story.

This is the third of these types of stories I've read more than 5 chapters of. The first was Omniscent Reader's Viewpoint. And baby. This is no ORV.

ORV a big reaction to Solo Levelling in a lot of ways, since Solo Levelling was very genre defining and influential, and it's hard to write these OP stories without having a relationship to Solo Leveling. It's like the most popular webtoon out there. The OP hero, the gaming interface and rules, the gods fucking you up, power fantasy - they're all checked off by ORV. It doesn't subvert them much. You watch kdj pull one over on a shmuck and you're like HEY YA BABY and you watch him utterly decimate some schmuck and you're like WHOAH COOL. You like ORV, basically, for the same reasons you like Solo Leveling. They're the same genre and in a lot of ways the same story.

But ORV has driven me nuts and after a while Solo Leveling has gotten boring. Because ORV has a fantastic supporting cast that puts the MC's OPness in relative perspective. Because there's cool action scenes with different teams, of different dynamics, giving freshness to each chapter. Because you get to see kdj slowly implement some nuts gambit of the course of the entire arc and when we finally hit the end point where it all comes together it's FUCK YEAH. I'm leaving out the actual depth here. But ORV and Solo Leveling do the same thing, except ORV has a great deal of other story elements that build into the main 'point' and escalate the satisfaction, joy, and intensity of those points. You don't read these OP hero novels for the supporting cast. You read it to watch a dude be cool. But ORV's supporting cast - and, like, the fact that they're actual characters, even the women - gives us a lot of other smaller 'hey yeah!' moments, gives it buildup, makes the OP moments meaningful, and gives a grand climax and huge satisfaction when kdj does what the SL guy did by himself. And the supporting cast is only one example of this. A story is a good story if it accomplishes its point, but a story like SL will never really deliver its promises nearly as well as ORV could. Not because ORV is deep and has """themes""" or fucked up shit like that. The 'WHOAH COOL's are just better. Because ORV knows why stories are good and what makes a good story.

Anyway I'm fucking begging you I have tears in my eyes this is why your fic needs more than the hot ship of the day I promise it won't detract from the ship it will make the ship BETTER but you have to get WHY you like these homosexuals so much and it's NOT just because they're CUTE sometimes there's OTHER REASONS THAT ARE IMPORTANT LIKE THE WOMAN YOU'VE BOOTED AND -

[linkspooky]

Hi there, I was rereading your Maki Zenin fanfic (Tyler Durden and the Culling Game piece). I must say when I read it the first time reading it, the way you depict her mentality, emotion, and actions. It was so emotionally draining and at the same time cathartic as it reminded me of myself back then and now still (well minus mass murdering all lotta people). But also surprised me, cause I have never this depiction of her after Shibuya Incident. But over time as I look at your analysis on various characters and paid attention to her upbringing by rereading the manga chapters focused on her, I realized the way she behaves in the Culling Games after what happen to her throughout her life. She is kind of stable??? Regardless, even though she is already my all-time favorite character. Your depictions of her makes me love her character even more as I actually relate to her more and felt those similar feelings. But I'm glad she is alive and is doing ok near the end of the manga, so I wanna ask. What do you think about her character now since JJK is VERY close to its end? And how do you feel about where she is right now as of Chapter 269. Sorry for the long ramble, I might ask more lol.

Thank you so much for your ask! That reminds me I need to start updating my culling games fic again sometime soon. For anyone curious the ask is about THIS YUTAMAKI FIC HERE.

Maki's kind of a hard character to talk about because even though Maki is clearly one of my favorite characters to explore in fic, and I love to dive deep into her motivations and inner struggles in the fanfics I write every time I criticize her writing in canon a little bit her fans jump me.

So instead I'm going to share one recent Maki scene I really liked, and one little tweak I think would have made both Yuta and Maki's character endings perfect.

You're right, for a lifelong abuse victim who just murdered her family Maki seems oddly stable all throughout the culling games. I no longer think this is a Maki specific problem, but rather a Jujutsu Kaisen problem. Basically, post Shibuya most of the character conflicts in between characters are dropped so everyone can work seamlessly together as a part of one big team.

This is a storytelling choice on Gege's so he could eventually set up for the Shinjuku Showdown fight, it'd be impossible for everyone to keep jumping in and out of the fight if people kept stopping to argue and have interpersonal conflicts in the middle of it.

If your name wasn't Megumi or Yuji, then basically all your personal hangups, your self-reflection, all got dropped. Which now it kind of makes sense why the audience was yelling at Megumi for not being able to immediately get over his sister's death, like in comparison none of the other characters spend any time at all dwelling on personal issues because Gege needs them to move to the next fight.

I'm not complaining, I'm just saying this is how Gege chose to write his characters post Shibuya, most personal conflicts got dropped for story reasons.

However, there was one moment that made me really get on board with Maki's writing again, and it was a... you guessed it moment of personal conflict.

This moment where Yuta is bringing up the idea of body swapping with Gojo before the group, and Maki despite being firmly against it is unable to do or say anything substantive to stop Yuta.

It's the first time I've seen that yeah, Maki is still in fact reeling from the loss of Mai. It doesn't really show most of the time on the surface, but Maki's always been like that - like an island able to stand strong without the support of anyone else. It is her strength, and also her greatest weakness.

Remember, the last time someone she loved walked away from her and decided to sacrifice their body and autonomy so they could become a weapon for the greater good Maki wasn't able to say or do anything to convince Mai to stay with her and stay by her side too.

There's the parallel with Maki and Sukuna, that Sukuna chose to devour his own twin in the womb in order to survive and therefore gained a body perfect for sorcerery. When Mai died, Maki gained a body just like Toji's.

Maki carved everything away in order to become a true void, but unlike Sukuna she didn't do it by choice.

We know she wouldn't willingly sacrifice Mai. She begged Mai to stay. Yet, she kind of did choose to sacrifice Mai with every choice she made before that. Maki chose being a Jujutsu Sorcerer over Mai every single time, to the point where when it counted she couldn't do anything to convince Mai to stay.

Maki consumed her twin and became a monster like Sukuna, a true void. She didn't choose to do it per se, but every choice she made leading up to that point indicated to Mai that Maki would rather be strong on her own then weak together with Mai. That Maki is someone like Gojo, and like Sukuna meant to stand strong all alone. Maki is an island and that is her greatest strength and her greatest flaw.

As when it happens again and someone she loves is about to become a monster, she can't find the words to convince Yuta to stay with her on the beach instead of walking into the ocean the same way she couldn't find the words to stop Mai. After all, Maki is someone who chose to become a monster like Toji after losing everything else, what right does she have to stop Yuta from becoming a monster too?

How could she possibly stop him from walking the path she walked? I think it's telling to thde depths of her love that Maki who values being a sorcerer above everything else, would have rather had both Mai and Yuta stay human and stay with her, but also telling of her complete inability to express that love.

It's "You're too important to us" because the words "You're too important to me," doesn't occur to Maki in both cases with Yuta and Mai, because Maki is an island. She can keep going on even after Mai and Yuta are gone even if she doesn't want to.

So here is the one change I would make the Maki's endgame to make her and Yuta's character arcs perfect. I would just have Yuta not be able to come back from Gojo's body. Otherwise, Yuta being magically fixed after the fact makes that whole plot twist kind of inconsequential and as much as I love Yuta in Gojo's body it kind of just seems to exist for shock-value now considering how easily it was resolved.

Yuta not coming back would provide a consequence for Yuta defiling Gojo's body, and also in general give the perfect bittersweet ending to both him and Maki's arcs. They both chose to become monsters in the end to defeat Sukuna, and as a result Maki is standing alone at the strongest. It would also provide the perfect parallel to this scene with Geto and Gojo. You could even have Maki musing on how she was left behind again. There's a pretty big parallel to Maki and Gojo both being people who seemingly don't need anyone because they're so strong and self-sufficient and yet they crumble at the idea of the one person they've always been relying on walking away from them.

It would also parallel Megumi and Itadori as well, because the reason that itadori is eventually able to reach Megumi is specifically because unlike everyone else he refused to give up his humanity to defeat Sukuna.

You could have a really heartbreaking parallel of three generations of friendships broken apart by the Jujutsu World. Satosugu, and YutaMaki aren't able to reach each other and stay together, but finally by never giving up on reaching out towards one another Megumi and Itadori are both able to find each other again after the world and Sukuna pulled them apart.

I do enjoy this scene a lot - especially the parts where Maki seems borderline arrogant by insisting she could have done things all on her own and if they went with her plan instead of Yuta's then they would have suffered far less losses. Especially since Maki's not genuinely trying to chew Yuta out here, she just knows no other way to express her worry over him besides being hyper aggressive and confrontational.

It still shows that Maki's personality problems are all still there, she loves people a lot but she loves people from afar and can't admit to needing them but like I'm just saying we could have had THE UTLIMATE DOOMED LOVERS ending for YutaMaki.

[evansbby]

GIRLIE GIRLIE GIRLIE LISTEN LISTEN LISTEN. I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A REQUEST.

[Its also 03:57AM and I’m crying my eyes out, so I might regret this when I woke up lolllll]

Hear me out, hear me out, hear me out. See the visionnnnn. So, this is my request:

Sugar daddy!Ari AU. This is a little after the reader becomes his girlfriend. The reader hasn’t really gotten it into her head that she’s not just his sugar baby, but she’s his love, so she tends to hide her feelings and pain and raw emotions from him because she wants to sort of keep up the image of her being his sexy personal nymphomaniac because she thinks he’ll leave if she’s real with him.

So let’s say, something happened. Maybe an argument with her terrible family or her shitty friends gossip about her or she’s burnt out from taking care of others or someone shames her for something, idk, you’re the author, you decide what happens, but anyways.

Something happens that made her extremely sad and miserable, but she’s trying to hide her feelings from Ari, she pretends everything is fine (it’s not lol), she’s acting a little weird cos she’s trying to keep up appearances so that he won’t dismiss and discard her, etc. But Ari, being her daddy and the smart motherfucker he is, knows that something is wrong with his precious girl.

So basically, shit goes down with her and Ari and he soft doms her (maybe a little hard dom too) and comforts her and reassures her that she’s his girl and not just a plaything and all that lovey dovey shit. Oh, and aftercare lol! Only if you want to.

This probably could’ve been said in fewer words, but I’m crying my eyes out and it’s a little cathartic to type this out lol, sorryyyy. Thank youuuu! Love your writing!

Oh I would love to read this 😭😭😭

But you see I’m insane so I need to make it more sad so if I were to write this…

I’d make it so that reader is very insecure and she thinks she’s not good enough to be Ari’s girlfriend (kind of along the lines of what you said) and she thinks she’s only good enough for sex bc she has zero feelings of self worth 🤧🤧🤧 and no matter what Ari says or does to reassure her and uplift her, she just doesn’t believe him😔😔

And she keeps pushing herself away from him, bc she thinks he deserves better bc he’s such a nice guy and it’s not a normal sugar daddy relationship bc Ari doesn’t even expect sex from her (although they do have great amazing perfect sex) but Ari just loves talking to her all night, getting to know her interests, buying her special gifts that match her interests… And reader is overwhelmed bc she’s sooo insecure and she thinks she doesn’t deserve this happiness. She’s scared of letting herself be happy in case Ari “wakes up” one day and realises he can do better and leaves her🥲 (he wouldn’t but she thinks he will).

So then one day she gets so overwhelmed that she breaks up with him impulsively. But we all know what a strong mature wise perfect daddy Ari is, so he’d be like “let’s talk this out” and she bursts into tears and tells him that he deserves better and that she’s broken and she needs to go away so he can start living his life instead of always worrying about her 🥲🥲🥲 and Ari tells her that he’s in love with her and he couldn’t live without her and then they have sex 🥺🥺🥺 where Ari is being a soft dom and sooo perfect and sexy and reader needed this bc she needs him to tell her what to do so she can relax and stop worrying. Her mind never turns off during the day and she’s wracked with insecurities and fear, but with Ari… he lets her mind go blank so she doesn’t need to think, and she feels okay.

But then she’s up all night and Ari is asleep and she watches him and all her insecurities come back and she thinks that he deserves better and he can’t spend his whole life with her as a burden just bc she’s so insecure all the time 🥲🥲

So she leaves… without a note or a phone call or anything. In fact, she moves far away to live with a distant relative and deletes her social media. Ari calls her and texts her every single day, begging her to pick up or come back etc and she changes her phone number 🥲🥲🥲 some of her friends tell her that Ari is miserable and he’s still looking for her and waiting for her but she hopes he will move on soon.

Anyways then reader starts working on herself, she gets a job in an industry she likes and she makes some new friends. She starts seeing a therapist and slowly, bit by bit, her confidence starts to grow. She realises she deserves love as much as anyone else does. And she misses Ari so much bc he really was the love of her life 🥹🥹 it’s been a whole year now and one day she decides she wants to see him again. She wants to try again and hopefully he’d be open to getting back together with her.

She shows up at his door with Chinese takeaway (their favourite meal they’d have together) and Ari answers the door and he’s shocked to see her. And she says she thinks she’s all whole again, she thinks she’s fixed and she’d like to give it a try with him once more. And she got food 🍲

But then she looks beyond his shoulder and sees another girl. And Chinese takeaway already on the table. He’s moved on. She’s heartbroken. But she smiles and tells him she’s happy for him. He tries to stop her but she leaves.

THE END 😭😭😭😭

[madstronaut]

This post by @void-my-warranty gave me much food for thought because first of all, omg activating my 'is the sun some tumblr anon bothering you my queen' mode (tbh it's always latently activated on this hellsite when i see my beloved moots/writers bothered) upon noting voidy's reaction - I've also read that post in question re: "all smut is writers fucking all their readers" and I will agree to disagree with that premise; sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, but it's definitely more than that imho?

The interesting thing about the meaning of stories is that oft times you start with an author's intention, but when combined with the lens through which a reader chooses to consume it (their heart, their mind, their mood, their past, their joys, their sorrows, what happened to them that day, or last year, or as a child, etc.) something quite curious occurs and the story can alchemize into something new and altogether surprisingly meaningful and wonderfully and cathartically important to both the reader and the writer in a way that wasn't anticipated when the fic was written/posted.

Drawing from personal experience as well as chats with IRL/tumblr moots here - I see smut as a way to explore and express sexuality in a safe space and by extension, fanfic/writing itself is a way to explore and express the entire spectrum of being human and all its crests and troughs. I find it hard to properly express sometimes how I feel about fanfic (cough or do I) and the impact it has had on me but poet Lemn Sissay's answers here in his interview with Natasha Lunn on love summed it up in such a poignant and beautiful way. Apt because well, he's an award-winning poet lol

🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿🌿

text: Another way of feeling our shared humanity, I've found, is through stories.

Although there are fairy-tale narratives I could blame for my fantasies in relationships, there are also stories that have brought a real form of love into my life. I'm not referring to books or novels about love, specifically, but rather passages of writing that have the power to make you feel a little more alive.

The paragraph that gives you a tingle of recognition. The lines that feel as if they are directly written for a deep, secret part of you, that you weren't necessarily even aware of until it was woken up by words.

Reading such a passage is, I think, a form of love. Like any relationship, that intrinsic recognition is a way of understanding and being understood, of seeing and being seen. The psychiatrist Gordon Livingston said that 'the fundamental requirement for any satisfying relationship is a reciprocal ability to see the world as others see it, to be able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes.'

And that's what a truthful piece of writing does: by allowing us to access another person's reality, it shifts our mind into a higher gear of empathy. This deep clicking into place doesn't happen often. But when it does?

Those passages become a source of love for us to reach back for the next time we feel desperate or alone, like a float thrown out when you've lost the energy to carry on swimming.

This is how I have felt reading Elizabeth Strout's books and watching Kenneth Lonergan's films. It's how I feel every time I read - and speak to - the writer Sarah Hepola too. Her words carry me back to a peaceful place inside myself where I know what really matters. - excerpt from Conversations on Love by Natasha Lunn

I'm not even halfway through the book, but I highly recommend it already.

[cherryberg]

Also. This is your sign to introduce an OC. Here and now

hi ardate :] this is a bit late but, since i did it, i might as well introduce her now in this post

for my april fool's day joke, i did a little trick on the find everything discord server where i made a handful of screenshots showing a new (fake) character:

this is Myla Warper, a Whatsit Woods NPC

i don't have much on her at the moment, and i suspect a lot about her lore will become obsolete when 0.3 comes around, but essentially, she's an engineer and the inventor of the Warp, the in-game fast travel system. she spends a lot of time at home, but is getting out a little more, using the Warp and a range of mobility aids

she managed to trick a few folks (which, looking at how the first find everything hoax, wouldn't've been a hard thing to pull off) but, shortly after - though, in retrospect, it could've been left revealed until the end of the day, i revealed the prank with:

anyway, i'll put the fake screenshots under the cut and maybe post Myla concepts in a reblog :] + notes. there'll be notes. i've got notes

i don't remember when exactly i conceptualised Myla, but it might've been between when 0.2 was released and when the developers streamed their 0.2 launch stream a few days later. this is because i had this thought of Myla living in that old abandoned house, working away at her tech (in the early stages, Myla's outfit in my mind would be a the classic tanktop and half-worn jumpsuit where the top half was tied around her waist, you know the look), but obviously had to be just a fun scrapped idea when it was discussed on the stream that Old Man Majig lives there

still, Myla being hidden away in this corner of Whatsit Woods is reminiscent of that idea i guess. it is also just a very good spot for something you could've missed, especially since the community had been combing through save files looking for the second fun value, but it does sort of make her following dialogue a little strange as she's not near any Warp pads

this bit is meant to, like, mirror dialogue from "tutorial NPCs" who casually introduce new concepts to the player. having worked hard on drawing Illie last year for Halloween, i had her a lot in mind, with Illie also being a tutorial NPC. looked over her 5 lines of dialogue a lot to try and get the vibe down right (of course, she wasn't the only one, but she was the main one) .. i can wrap my head around the Find Everything art style, but writing stuff that matches the FE vibe got me stumped so i hope it didnt stand out all that much

originally, those first two lines where different and. stiffer for a long while ("I actually make a few Warp Drives myself!"/"Er… Let's not be humble, maybe more than a few. Maybe all of 'em."), but i think it worked out in the end. the very first bit of dialogue was also changed ("Hey there, blockling! Just on a walk.") to just be combined with the next line but i just really wanted to preserve that "blockling" here. i know it's just the species name of like. the Roblox character, but it also reads as a little endearing term to me

ahh, the reason why i sort of thought up Myla in the first place. see, a big contention in the find everything community is Whatsit Woods being the only major area in the game without a Warp Drive, despite there already being Warp pads by its entrances in two neighbouring areas. the lack of a Whatsit Woods Warp is very likely to be changed with the 0.3 map rework, but i always thought this (and the Construction Zone Warp.. ) discourse was stupid. Myla going "No. Why? I live here." is like. cathartic to me.(??)

but regardless, she and Watcher Macallit are kind of ocs born from asking "why is this the way it is?" why is there no Whatsit Warp Drive? what makes a Thing a Thing? just ocs to play with and sort of expand worldbuilding, and i love doing this

[fuckmeyer]

hoo boyo so i'm the small writing human o/ *waves*

thank you for your response and i just took the time to read through your Jacob black's life matters and how smeyer killed him and i found it super interesting. (also it literally excites me seeing the quotes with the page numbers🤤). -----anyway back on track now. so i've always hd a liking for twilight since i watched the movies when they released (i would have been like 10..?) because i generally like the genre it falls in to. back in feb i watched all the movies again with my mum and she owns all the books so i started to read Twilight and pretty much loved it (i'm easily pleased). it took me like three weeks to get through it which is pretty average for me (attention span..) but then when i picked up New Moon i could barely put it down. i read it in 4 days which is the fastest ive ever read a book by a looong shot. i kind of fell off with reading eclipse... it took me almost 2 whole months to get through which just shows.

i think in hindsight one of the reasons i actually love New Moon (book) more than the rest is that there isnt really a 'set in stone villain' (twilight has james, eclipse has the newborns//victoria, then BD has the volturi. i suppose edward is the only thing that could class as a villan that book but thats not my point i think i enjoyed it more because of the time we get to spend with bella and jacobs characters . . . (quick side note that i watched the movies after finishing the books and new moon has no justice i feel like it washes over the effect jacob had on bringing bella "back to life" so much. so upsetting)

anyhoodles. i think i enjoy Twilight to set up B&E, then New Moon to set up B&J, then as you say in the crit Eclipse just kind of forces you to choose. and it makes sense. after just watching the movies i cant see a way in hell anyone would be team jacob---but having read the books its a whole different story. but then again... smeyer.... yeah.

sorry this has been such a long ask and doesnt really have a question involved, feel free to not post a response as i understand it's long:')

as a last note while i think of it i think that Eclipse for me fell off in that i didnt particularly care about what it was doing. i liked reading about bella and edward in twilight and then bella and jacob in new moon and i just didnt really care for most of eclipse. but maybe thats because i fell in love with bella and jacob from new moon and then had the character sabotaged.. heavy sigh. i think it says a lot that ive had a fan art of bella and jacob walking along the beach as my phone wallpaper since i read new moon so that says it all really.

i apologise once again for the length of this. ---if you wanna see the fan art wallpaper ill find it and reblog it so its at the top of my page.

p(p?)s. i'm glad it's sunny there! it's rained here the last couple days :c

hello tiny writing human! glad to have you back :)

glad you liked the analysis! & the books. New Moon is my favorite too, & i definitely agree with you that part of the appeal is the internal struggle Bella faces. we do get Victoria in the background & the werewolves, but really the whole book is about Bella learning to cope with 1) being a human in a supernatural world 2) her grief of being alone [i.e. without Edward] in this new world. watching her pick up the pieces of her life & build something new & beautiful & imperfect with Jacob was cathartic & relatable - v much a triumph in a series so rooted in the fantastical.

& it's hard to watch Eclipse become this struggle between two boys. because really, it's not about Edward or Jacob. Bella's choice is about whether she wants to give up everything for this cold, "perfect," monstrous, immortal life; or, whether she wants to stick around & build something warm & human & imperfect & finite with Jacob.

by twisting Jacob's character from the symbols of sunshine & values of humanity he represents into a bad-boy supernatural love interest competing with Edward for Bella's affection, it erases some of the characterization that we have come to expect & love in Jacob. because when Meyer positions him as a love interest, he's not embodying the traits as a friend; he's embodying the traits of what Meyer thinks is formidable love interest and rival to Edward: confident, cocky, aggressive, persistent... Jacob becomes nothing more than a 2000s-era (& before) trope of how men in our society "should" act towards women. so, everything we came to knew about Jacob was morphed into this friend/lover hybrid that just didn't work for who he was. he is Jacob...but he is not our Jacob.

(& the movies did him even worse because the "slice of life" B/J scenes we get were mostly cut.)

anyway, thanks for coming back & letting me rant about one of my favorite characters & my fave book :)

[infolane]

ARC V MONTH DAY 14 - Halfway to Heartland Tower

@arcvmonth​

The star of today’s how is no other than Kurosaki Ruri! So let’s talk a little about her.

At first, I wasn’t sure how to characterize her in roleplays and fanfiction, which was a huge problem because I did want to give her a more protagonistic role in writing! There is so little about her... barely any presence in the anime... so I started to pick up the shards where I could, focusing on neutral and negative qualities to balance things out.

I started with the idea of her wanting to understand the war and the uprooting of her life. From there, more and more bits became clear to me. She wants to step out of Shun’s shadow. She loves her friends, but feels like they don’t understand her her anymore. A metamorphosis, an egg, a bird hatching to finally see the sun-

The turning point was when I decided to base the way she speaks and interacts with the world on Good Sky, Vocal Marole and Petscop. Suddenly, she was a fundamentally strange person with many good intentions, but some odd ways to go about it. And that was that for Kurosaki Ruri!

Of course, different AUs call for different outfits. Pictured above is her, as found in @cathartes-ruri​ (which... we really need to get back to writing. Oops)

Now, for something different- a piece of fanfiction! Same AU as in the comics for other days. Has that become an overarching theme for this event? :o

It is two in the morning and he still hasn’t come back to his room. Ruri is glad she brought something to read in the meantime- just an old book of folklore. Tongue twisters, rhymes, monsters, stories, riddles, all compiled neatly in a book missing its cover and with chunks of pages missing.

She doesn’t mind it, really. If anything, she’s glad to see people have been reading it. A pristine book in a facility like this would also be the least liked one. The kind only Kaito would care about.

The door creaks open and Ruri perks up.

Sora has arrived.

It’s breathtakingly pitiful. Hair down, wearing that ratty nightgown from forever ago, eyes dead, expression perfectly neutral...

“...Did you wait for me?”, he asks, closing the door behind himself.

“If it wasn’t me it would be Rin.”

He grimaces. It’s not that he dislikes Rin, not in the slightest- Evibell is living proof of it. No- he just hates the worried face she makes every time. The difficult conversation had without words about their partnership.

The way she can’t even bring herself to call him a friend.

Well, Ruri isn’t her. Being much more shameless, she calls him a friend. At least that’s how Rin says it. That painful point of contention, of friction.

“If you are going to lounge around at least pay attention to me instead of spacing out~”, he says, light hearted as he picks out proper pajamas and enters the bathroom.

A personal bathroom...the kind of thing available for one room in each wing of the facility- though this, the north wing, has one extra room like that, reserved for Yuya and the other three.

Ruri wonders how Sora must have worked hard for this room. It’s a small thing, really, but giving him a place of his to retreat must be helpful.

Not like that year.

He’d come back from the woods drowning in satisfaction, smelling like cotton candy, eyes hazy, distant, having left a dismal world again.

When Serena came to talk, she shared what she knew- the source the smell is being altered by the nameless girl we saw. Someone is dead.

At that point, Ruri asked for her to stop. No need for details, for explanations. Let the rain take it away before the next time we escape into the woods to exercise our nonhuman parts.

The sound of running water.

Yes, it isn’t bothersome at all. He has a role to play, and so he does. You can envy that much... When the trial by fire comes, that figure will have mismatched eyes. He’ll be at center of the world, opening the door to that day you all became cursed.

If you look out the window, the nameless girl is once again a grand spire throbbing and pulsing skyward. This is proof Yuya is asleep, closed eyes sharing her shape with you.

The bathroom door opens and out he steps, already dressed, hair wrapped in a towel.

“Looking at her?”, he asks, coming closer. Ruri smiles.

“Don’t you think she’s beautiful?“

“You need a better taste, Ruri! And that’s coming from me.“

“I just appreciate the commitment to looking bad to see! It’s a step up from normal ghosts, isn’t it?“

“You think it’s a ghost?”

“Yeah. Or something like that- what do you think, Sora?“

He seems lost in thought for a moment before sighing.

“I dunno. I think it’s less of a thing and more of an spectacle. Sometimes there’s that thing outside, sometimes there’s the birds-“

“Those are my favorite.”

“Course it would be~“ He snickers. “But you get it, right? The stuff on the walls, the eyes, the iterations... it’s creepy, but it’s also like a message. A really roundabout one.”

While he talks, Ruri undoes the towel and picks up a brush, beginning the process.

“Do you think we can understand the message if we try?”

“Mm... instead of an answer from me, I wanna hear from you, Ruri-chan.“

That is something she likes about him. He wants to know. He wants to step into her world, see with her eyes, rather than assume things.

The brush pulls off much falling hair.

“I think we are part of the message as well. Once Rin’s trial by fire kills off all unnecessary bits... then I think we will get to understand, even if we give up our memories for his sake...“

Yuto. Yuya. Yugo. Yuri. Four faces of a single person and the epicenter. They have their roles to play. The way to the truth. A sea of blue getting untangled. Is it selfish to want to get to take care of someone like this? To take care of someone before you must return to the shadow of being cared for.

I should be happy to get to move in with Shun.

But she isn’t.

She just wants moments like this to last forever. There is so much untold but mutually understood...

“Sora... I’m sorry. I’m sorry I love your nightmare. Days like these. I’m sorry that I’m your friend. Things are going to hurt a lot more for all of us before it gets better.”

“...Weirdo.“

That much affection in one word...

Outside, the nameless girl sways, covered in feathers.

[fyeahfandomtrash]

fake it till you make it thoughts

i'm terribly late to the party, but my youtube algorithm suddenly recommended this cdrama, and i was intrigued. for context, i've tried checking out different cdramas in the past, but something about the acting, the writing, the cinematography, didn't really grab my attention (there's something more to be said that as a mandarin speaker, i'm also way more selective about what i consider "good" dialogue that i don't rely on translated subtitles to understand, and i feel it harder to suspend my disbelief when i feel like the actors aren't speaking the way real people speak).

needless to say, i was really enamoured by our leads xu ziquan and tang ying, dealing with the struggles of being a small gear in the massive machine that's corporate culture, where their around-the-clock schmoozing with clients, their co-workers, their superiors, requires them to lose themselves for the sake of their careers. it's painfully real, and the way this series is shot almost like a documentary in some sequences definitely immerses the viewer more into this world. there is something to be said that their elite jobs and fat paychecks might be hard to empathize with, but their internal troubles are incredibly universal.

so i think it's even more brave, more romantic when these two make an active attempt to connect with each other, drop their masks, and fall in love.

i love a slow-burn romance when it's done well, and fitymi is emblematic of that. understanding why our characters act the way they do, their insecurities about love, their hesistancy to be honest, is key to sympathizing with our leads when they struggle through getting to that moment of confession. it becomes even more cathartic when we get to that ending in episode 9, when tang ying basically asks xu ziquan, "what are we?" the characters are mature, but they also lack experience in being in real relationships (heartbreaking in its own way, when we feel like we're being swallowed at work, in the vast city we live in, etc.), and the way they handle those "inadequacies" is incredibly grounded. they're not playing caricatures of archetypes. none of the characters in this show are, which is soo refreshing.

at its root, the couple is also supremely convincing with its chemistry between the leads. i could wax poetic about the physical intimacy these two share. the way they casually touch each other, the way xu ziquan looks at tang ying, it makes me feel some type of way! there's an almost voyeuristic quality to these conversations between these characters. xu ziquan and tang ying are so emotionally honest and vulnerable with each other during some truly breathtaking moments that i feel like i should give these two some privacy (it hurts more when these two take a couple of steps back, but it's unnervingly realistic).

(no joke, i could write a whole essay on this scene of them feeding cats, except it's not really about them feeding cats; the subs are kinda wonky on youtube but the ~vibes~ are immaculate)

another thing that makes me love this couple is how after these two circle around each other (very exciting/enthralling to watch), their transition to a real, serious couple is realistic and not frustrating at all (their domesticity is so wholesome and still has me kicking my feet). romance isn't dead after the two get together, which is something that i feel not every drama can land. i'm convinced of why these two are drawn to each other, and why these two choose to stay together. that's a testament to phenomenal writing.

kudos to the entire team behind this gem of a show. if you're like me and could never get into a cdrama before, i highly recommend checking this out! this might finally be the one to get you on board.

p.s. if those friendships rings are product placement, that's by far the best use of product placement ever. because those rings are gorg and hold such a symbolic meaning

[mhaynoot]

gigantic genshin rant, genshin enjoyers please ignore. this is for my own cathartism

i liked genshin like genuinely. like i was one of those losers who played when it first launched, gave up because i didn’t like the flat writing then came back into it because i dunno something but then i got super into it and then i spiraled and became genuinely addicted and obsessive over it because it was literally the only thing keeping me semi-sane during the pandemic and also because lumine is the love of my life and goddess of light, my moon and starlight and i simped so hard for her but god genshin kinda really fucking sucks.

i mean this as sincerely and unharshly as possible but the story is really really bad. the themes and the pacing and the way its written is just so messy.

the game expects you to play the main story and then mid-way randomly go on dates or do character stories. like every archon arc has this one part where everything, the build up, the tension, the plot thickening moment just stops and genshin goes ‘okay now time to go on dates with these limited time characters so you can form a bond with them and give us money to pull for them’ and ughughguh it wouldn’t be too bad but most of the time the character stories are just shallow marketing.

i remember playing ayaka’s story quest and when the story went ‘she doesn’t have any friends’, i pulled up short and was like then wtf is ‘thoma?’ and then cried when thats never ever addressed and she just becomes a demure ojousama character and almost nothing else

like genuinely the character story i like the most is still zhongli’s pt 1 and 2 and that was three years ago.

like the characters have backstories, some with really really interesting backstories. why can’t we just explore those???? why do we have to go on another bland date for the billionth time instead of just seeing a nicely animated scene or heck even just a VN style version of the character’s already written up stories.

oh another bad habit of genshin: themes and plots are just dropped left and right or rushed through in one arc and then never brought up again. like the whole inazuma story arc. also again characters randomly coming up for one scene and then never appearing again because their marketing period is over. again inazuma story arc. god inazuma story arc was just so bad.

over utilisation of npc characters who do not have unique models and bland personalities. like how many greedy merchants are we going to have to sit through? or generic fatui bad guy aklsj crycrycyr

the way its formed as a gacha game (especially one where there is no option to replay events and the main story) with a set release schedule really fucks up any pacing it could potentially have. but also the bloated cast is already cracking under its own weight as some characters a very loved and you can see the care and effort that went into their story, their design, their repeated appearance in the narrative and in everything but then others are just one and done. the way a gacha game’s priority is profit and releasing new characters every so often just means this reality but its so sad and frustrating with the potential loss.

even just reading the story is annoying because of the visual novel aspects combined with the 3d cutscenes make it hard to keep an enjoyable flow. I like reading, i don’t mind skipping some animation or voicelines if i can just keep reading but because of the game forcing you to observe these mini cutscenes, its annoying and choppy as my eyes glaze over and i just wait for a character to cycle through one of four stock animations. seriously character animations are so limited i don’t understand why i have to sit through one more scene of someone crossing their arms. like i understand what they want to do but honestly ive had way mor enjoyment reading static image VNs

paimon keeps repeating entire dialogue scenes to the player as if we’re babies who need someone to summarise what literally just happened on screen. like add a fucking history tab or something please if you won’t even add a skip button. like the whole argument about not adding a skip button is because its all about the story but i’m really truly sorry but the story itself sucks. the dialogue is long winded and sometimes i can literally feel as if the writer had been forced to meet a quota and its just- its just frustrating.

[oliversrarebooks]

absolutely love your story bc. growing up and still now (as I turn 20)

its never been beatings its always been dismissal as the abuse or the simpler forms of manipulation. "Your fine, your not being called a bitch/slut/whore/evil/ I didn't hit you. So theres no reason to cry."

and your story combines like just becoming complacent in it and also my love of vampires. So like double win and triple win becuase I didn't have to make myself accept the writing. It was just there. Like with other stories I found in the past I had to force myself to like them bc. I wasn't ready to acknowledge that what I am experincing is calssified as abuse.

But now that I am and have come to the conclusion that it isn't right and that y'know people can perhaps change...Your story just feels like healing and entertinment.

This is so sweet! I'm so glad that I could write something cathartic for you. I know writing this has been cathartic for me too.

Dismissal of feelings is always such a hard thing, because emotional neglect is real, especially when you're a little kid and can't get your emotional needs met easily. It's not something that looks like abuse to anyone, but it can really mess people up.

I think it's important that we get to experience these feelings now and feel less alone through writing and reading.

[pesbianlanic]

march 2023 reading

books in bold are especially recommended! i had the pleasure of reading some absolute bangers this month.

Gilded by Marissa Meyer - 5/10. i dunno. i loved the Lunar Chronicles, which is the main reason i picked this up. while i enjoyed a lot of the horror-lite world-building, there were parts of it that confused me. i also thought that the pacing and the ending were off. i’m going to read the sequel in hopes that it gets better. we’ll see.

Empty by Susan Burton - 7/10. hard to get through. but i appreciated the writing and her insights.

On A Sunbeam by Tillie Walden - 8/10. beautiful art and cute gay story. what’s not to love?

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller - 9/10. y’all. i am obsessed with this. i want to live inside sam j. miller’s mind because OH MY GOD this was amazing. we love queer-centering anti-capitalist speculative sci-fi about a world after climate change! literally want a tattoo inspired by this book immediately.

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence by R.F. Kuang - 10/10. i was once again entranced by Kuang’s prose, world-building, and commentary. i’ve been thinking a lot recently about the *apparent* inevitability of imperialism and capitalism, so this was very cathartic.

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon - 9/10. an enchanting and powerful book. i will be thinking about this one for a long time.

Our Colors by Gengoroh Tagame - 8/10. i always love gay coming-of-age stories. 

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo - 8/10. i think i preferred Ninth House, but this sequel still holds up! it’s fun, bloody, mysterious, and magical.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters - 9/10. i enjoyed this novel. it was an interesting exploration of gender and parenthood, and it made me go down a rabbit hole investigating queer temporality.

Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir - 10/10. DEVASTATING! I NEED ALECTO THE NINTH IMMEDIATELY. I WILL NOT BE NORMAL ABOUT THIS BOOK

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens - 2/10. the more i reflect on this book, the more i wish i hadn’t wasted my time reading it. a few reasons why: (1) the characterization of the two Black people in this book seemed racist in a song of the south way. (2) i think i’m losing my patience for straight people lit. i think i’m becoming heterophobic. (3) kya gave me mary sue vibes (don’t get me started on her poetry). (4) the ending was rushed and cliche, and i skipped most of it. (5) also, SPOILERS but kya did turn out to be the murderer in the end, so where was my murder scene hm???? i wanted to see that asshole get killed. it gets a 2 for its excellent descriptions of nature, because that is clearly delia owens’ true wheelhouse.

The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins - 9/10. excellent exploration of US-backed anticommunist violence (mass murders), its personal and devastating effects for the victims and survivors, and how it shaped the world we live in today.

Hell Followed With Us by Andrew Joseph White - 10/10. holy shit. this was everything my queer, religiously traumatized ass needed. this is the kind of queer representation i’ve been waiting for. beautiful, messy, horrifying, cathartic, and inspiring all at once. i will be following AJ White! i’m so excited to read The Spirit Bares Its Teeth later this year.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata - 8/10. this was a really interesting exploration of work culture, non-conformity, and the ways that essential workers (such as the titular convenience store woman) are looked down upon by society.

Dolly Dingle, Lesbian Landlady by Monica Nolan - 8/10. a fun, modern take on lesbian pulp fiction of the ‘50s/’60s! don’t expect anything too deep or artistically aspirational, because that is not the point. it’s just an entertaining, gay, easy read.

The Bruising of Qilwa by Naseem Jamnia - 9/10. a beautiful, magical, queer book that examines the complexities of immigration, empire, and violence in the guise of a blood magic fantasy novel.

The Silence of Our Friends by Mark Long - 6/10. as a telling of the author’s father’s real experiences in the ‘60s, it’s personal and compelling. however, this graphic novel mainly centers white people grappling with racism (because we don’t have enough stories about that /s). could be appropriate for introducing young (white) kids to the history of the Civil Rights Movement and issues of racism.

bonus - a book i stopped reading:

The Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith. the premise of this book was intriguing and sounded like exactly the kind of thing i’d enjoy reading. however, something about the characterization and dialogue grated on my nerves. the main character, claire, especially annoyed me. also, when i see 8 ellipses within the span of a few paragraphs, i start to get peeved. it made me want to reread Good Omens as a palate-cleanser with similar vibes. maybe i’ll try it again at some point, but for now this book is not for me.

goodreads shenanigans here

[lovelylogans]

question about journalism- as someone aspiring to get into it for college, what are your tips on becoming more educated(?) on it? like skills, prior knowledge, whatnot-? thank you!

oh, this is a great question with a lot of different answers!!!

first of all, i'm going to assume you're in the u.s.—mostly bc that's where most of my experience comes from—and as such, there's a lot of stuff to research/examine bc the field is so vast!!!

if you have a particular sub-sect of journalism that you know you'd love to focus on (things like photo/print/broadcast/radio, but also subdivisions like celebrity, politics, sports, traditional "hard" news, media journalism, etc.) i really encourage you to seek out reading/hearing the work of other journalists! find folks whose work you admire, and why you might like their stuff. is it the content itself? is it their writing style? is it the approach they take? think about all of that as you peruse!

on that note—vary your interests in the journalism you consume! if you read a lot of print, try a podcast (like npr, the daily, the new york times, not technically a podcast but i really like the "under the desk" tiktoks) if you listen to a lot of podcasts, try a documentary, if you watch a lot of documentaries, try print! etc. etc.

oh, also—in and of itself, there's a lot to study about journalism! its effects on history, legal rulings, ethical dilemmas, etc. find what interests you—i almost guarantee you can wrangle a number of papers out of it for assignments! plus, there's certainly been a lot of studies/books about it, which are great resources to learn about what shapes the field today!

if you're not rising immediately into college, i'd say work on your high school publications, if offered. that gave me several practical skills i found pretty helpful stepping into various intro courses, but don't sweat it if you haven't—a lot of those intro courses have tas/labs/times for you to learn and ask questions

since you are going into college—if any of your professors have published books, check them and see if they interest you! look up advanced courses and see what subjects pique your interest! check out your campus publications, and if there are any notable alums who have gone on in the field, and just generally the history of your journalism school.

some (a lot) of journalism schools also have memberships into certain membership/socities—editors, broadcast reporters, etc., along with if you're poc/queer/a woman/etc.—poke around! see what you enjoy! hit up informational meetings!

(also, side note—your college library might have subscriptions to a lot of publications. take advantage! read 'em! watch 'em!)

subscribe to your local news, if you have the financial means! both of your hometown and college town!

there are so, so, so many books and documentaries that have been published—it's really just a question of finding the ones that interest you! here's penguin house's list of must-read books by journalists and goodread's journalism category to get you started.

oh, also, not strictly journalism related, but still important—invest in some variant of self-care. writing silly oneshots was so helpful to me in college when i was covering harder-hitting subjects, a night out with friends in the program to vent about certain goings-ons was both cathartic and a good way to stay updated on things, long walks while going to and from class while catching up on music i wanted to listen to helped clear my head. unsure of what your subject is, but especially for a lot of earlier courses, you might be various beats that have harder-hitting subjects in addition to your typical course load—remember to take care of yourself!

[horse-girl-anthy]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks..

tbh this is extremely hard to answer because I have many interests. I’m sure I’ll feel bad when I remember the hundred other characters that should have made the list. I’m not putting any Ikuhara characters because it’d been too hard to pick and honestly I’d have to go through each work individually. 

1. Tenma from Naoki Urasawa’s Monster. I don’t claim to be a complicated person, alright. I just think he’s nice. every time I read Monster I get more attached to him like a little baby duck, which is what all the other characters in that story do as well so I’m valid. trying to put it into words is hard--he’s just an alluring combo of pathetic, ridiculous, cool, strong, and kind. plus he kinda becomes a religious figure by the end and I’m a sucker for that shit.

2. Xie Lian from TGCF/Heaven Official’s Blessing. I read the novels this summer after watching the donghua. I was just expecting a decent BL, but what I got was epic historical supernatural fiction (and BL). Xie Lian is such an impressively written character. his story helped me deal with my own fall from grace, as it were, and was overall cathartic and engaging. plus he’s my type. step aside Hua Cheng, I’d die for him first. 

3. Orel from Moral Orel. I love this show a lot because of its focus on the cruelty and hypocrisy of WASP America, and Orel is relatable for struggling to understand the bulltshit answers he gets to all his questions. he’s a lot more innocent than I was as a kid, but I think his kind of purity plays well against the satirical, dark edge of the show. 

4. Reki from Haibane Renmei. most of the reasons I love her aren’t revealed until the very end of the show. I’ll say that I love her because she’s the ultimate manifestation of the story’s themes of guilt and redemption.

5. Ishida from Koe no Katachi. I just finished rereading this manga recently. if you want a character who does wrong, suffers, tries to change himself, but finds it isn’t that easy, Ishida is your man. he’s such a funny, well-written teen boy, but also someone I think anyone from any background can see themselves in--the good and the bad. 

6. Naruto from... you know. Naruto was the first anime I became really obsessed with, when I was in middle school, and Naruto himself is the first character I can remember becoming attached to in an intense, lasting way. I loved him so much and I still have that attachment to him. he’s so, so cute, and so, so lovable. when I’m done with my first round of Ikuhara vids, I’m going to download Naruto so I can make my friend a Sasuke fancam and I’m also gonna make a Naruto edit just for me :)

7. Miyuki from Naoki Urasawa’s Happy! I’ve read everything by Urasawa except for Yawara, and I’m one of the only people who seems to have read Happy! I gotta say, would I pick it as one of his best works? no. I love everything he’s done, but something like 20th Century Boys or Billy Bat is clearly a more serious, meaningful story than Happy!, which comes out of his transition phase between writing romantic comedy sports manga and his later thrillers. however... Happy! is one of those works which makes me lose my mind regardless of quality. and Miyuki, the main character, is just so damn adorable. I find her a very appealing, sweet character. beyond that, kind of like Monster, the entire story is about people trying to break her down, but she refuses to ever give up and I love that sort of thing when played right. 

8. Ged from Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series. I am still digging into Le Guin’s body of work but I’ve read most of her novels and short story collections. I could absolutely make a top ten list with just characters from her books. however, I managed to narrow it down to just three from this list, all from the Earthsea books. Ged is the only character who appears in all six books, and the reader gets to experience close the entire course of his life. he starts as an arrogant, careless boy and grows into a wise man. Le Guin decided not to leave him after he does his final great act, and his story continues after he loses his power. Tehanu, the fourth book in the series, is probably my favorite book I’ve ever read, I’ve thought about writing an analysis comparing it with RGU, and one of its main themes is life after loss and trauma. his story interwines with the next two characters on this list.

9. Tenar from Earthsea. like Ged, we get to see most of her life throughout the books. book 2 contains her coming of age story, while Tehanu features her as a widow, struggling between the life of an ordinary woman and her status in the mythology of Earthsea. she brings so much fire, mirth, and strength to the series. she’s someone I wish I had in my life, and if you really pressed me, she’s my favorite character Le Guin ever wrote. 

10. Tehanu from Earthsea. this character is a strange one to try to write about. I’ve seen people criticize her writing by saying there’s nothing to her, she’s just a vessel for the story. but I can’t agree. as someone who’s known people who went through severe childhood trauma, I think that Tehanu is written with thought and care. I love how unnerving and unknowable she is, but also how she is written like she’s any other child. the ending of her story in the final book made me sob and sob and sob. 

sources for the last three images because they’re fanart: 1, 2, 3

[sinbury]

I’m relieved to hear you’re doing better!! I’m really sorry it took me a while to get to you life has really been beating me down lately and it made me nonverbal, I have thought of you though, how have you been?

I’m sorry, how’ve you been with that? I’ll never understand your loss but I do understand your bond, I have an older sibling and she means a lot to me. It’s funny huh they know how to tick you off but at the end of the day your each other’s missing piece.

Ohh okay good questions!! I do have a cat. I’ll show you pictures when I reveal myself but she’s a grey tabby!! I adore her and found her in the streets lol I have an older sister aaand my favorite hobby is crochet it gives my hands something to do yanno? I get pretty antsy so that helps. I wanna learn bass or maybe drums in the future (I heard the ladies love a girl who plays an instrument and I need something—anything to impress lol) jk I love the sound them 😊 okay, I’ll keep this short buuut I love villains because how misunderstood they are, most of them are woman and our feelings are belittled even in the media. It’s always “they’re crazy” or “you can’t excuse their behaviors because of their trauma” failing to realize that not everyone comes out of trauma as a soft uwu. Trauma isn’t pretty. And most men are forgiven by the public even after making terrible decisions. Some actions become a defensive mechanism and we just want what we deserve. People fail to see that with woman. Men get to feel rage and destruction and literally nobody bats an eye, that behavior is so normalized god forbid woman feel that same intensity of rage and selfishness without the public making entire studies about their behavior. I think 2 of my favorites that I can think of at the top of my head are Catra from shera and Jinx from Arcane. Maybe I’m bias? Now your turn, hobbies? What tv show are you currently watching? Fave season? - Red ❤️

thanks for responding!! i was starting to get worried abt u hehe xx im sorry to hear lifes been hard enough to make you nonverbal :( i dont know what thats like specifically but i know it must fucking suck. i hope u feel better soon and im sending u love 💕

grief sucks ass but its always nice to hear about other peoples siblings!! makes me feel a little bit closer to my brother sometimes :)

i am SO excited to see ur kitty!!! i love that u enjoy crochet bc i have dabbled in it myself and omg its tedious!! kudos for having that patience lmao. i def recommend learning bass too bc my brother was teaching me for a while and its SO FUN !!!!!! 1000/10 makes u feel like a sex god

i like your breakdown of villains in media too, thats always why ive been drawn to them too! especially hot sexy women who do unspeakable acts theres just something so good and cathartic about seeing that 😍😍😍 i havent seen all of she-ra or arcane but i do LOVE jinx from what little i know of her!!! probably due to my harley quinn obsession when i was in high school lmaooo

my pretty much only hobby is art. i just say art as a broad term bc i tend to skip around mediums forever and ever hehe i love all kinds of art!! im not currently watching anything new but one of my fav series is an old detective drama called Life bc the symbolism and the writing is just SO chefs kiss that ive seen it approximately 274818858 times!!! it only has 2 seasons and both are so beautiful in different ways :)

i realize now that i dont even know your pronouns smh!! tell me more abt u!!!! i need all the juicey deets >:3

[1ore]

exhausted-drone

So this version of the imperium doesn’t have the absolutely horrifying strangle hold on the populace that’s enforced with rabid priests, indoctrination, and a secret police force that pops up when worlds get a bit tooo lenient?

after writing a paper for like 3 hours this has activated my infodumping brain. Hope putting this in its own post is ok! This is one part answer and three parts needless extrapolation LOL

I would say the Empire does, in the sense that it has the /appearance/ of conformity as a result of draconic enforcement, and doesn’t, in the sense that even under the cruelest, most restrictive regimes there are still countercultures and people who are aware that something is Wrong, even if they can't articulate what, but are just trying to get by and not get got by the inquisition.

of course I'm most interested in these edge cases of resistance and survival, and people who are in the process of becoming these edge cases, so the sampling group is already skewed in that direction. But on the whole I think the Archive and inquisition have only driven opposition underground. Just because these people have to organize in clandestine ways doesn't mean they aren't out there-- though to the bystander and to the Archive, it sure feels like they have an iron grip on things.

Ultimately these are still humans enforcing these systems on other humans, and humans is messy. one of the things I really enjoy exploring is how the same characters can harbor a little bit of that spark, while also stomping it out in others-- this is a system where we often hurt each other to bargain for our own safety, security, power, etc. (albeit one in which the old adages like "There Is No Ethical Consumption Under Late Capitalism" and "You Are Not Immune To Propaganda" are taken to their hyperbolic extreme, so it's more morbidly funny and cathartic instead of despairingly painful for me.)

like, Markus does this by keeping his real intentions guarded close to his heart, being 100x more clever, pitiless, and monstrous than his enemies, and clawing his way to power through any means necessary so that he can do the One Good Thing he wants to do. I imagine that the people who knew him before his ascent reminisce about how he used to be "one of them," and the betrayal of him selling his soul and throwing away his responsibility to them in exchange for power really fucking stings.

But when he is at the top, he can leverage his charisma and inordinate power to create nigh-blasphemous (read: marginally progressive) changes that nobody really has the power to challenge him on. (and also collect all all the gay people in the Archive under one administrative roof, i guess, yeah.) Arguably this catches up with him before he can do the One Good Thing he wants to do, and the One Good Thing was impossible from the beginning anyway, but for a minute there he sure is doing. Something.

The Doc does this by resigning herself to the role of pitiless doctor she was casted as. In action, she's doing everything the Archive asks of her, but she owes them no love or loyalty and jumps on any opportunity to go her own way and further her own (admittedly buckwild) interests when it's safe to do so. Even when she's being subversive, she has the appearance of reveling in doublespeak and doubledealing, and you can't be sure if she actually means it or not. But this is to reinforce an image of being emotionally untouchable, manipulative, and two-faced, which protects her and those around her from having any emotional ties used against them. Ultimately, she's the only one with the power to do things like make certain """mistakes"""" during MarkOS' creation, and look the other way when Reyes later takes a magnet to his brain.

And then, of course, when the culture of compliance and mutual enforcement fails, there are the people who are explicitly tasked with rooting out opposition. Hard to untangle from people who are in positions of authority already (i.e. Markus and the Chief) but there's the Sibyls and the late inquisitor. MarkOS too, technically, as most secutors are hard-wired to serve a surveillance function.

I did Not get into it on their post, but the Sibyls in particular are walking two different paths re: being agents of inquisition. The current Sibyl enforces faithfulness with the fervor of someone who 100% believes in what she's doing, and that sincerity is where she draws her power and sway-- leading by example and scaring the shit out of anyone who doesn't live up to her expectations. This is why anything short of perfect adherence is so disturbing to her, from others and especially from herself. She's the shining golden child, and if she can't get it right, who can?

The ex-Sibyl, on the other hand, considered all the little lies and implicit threats of divine retribution to be tools in a toolbox, vital to keeping people alive in the face of unconscionable violence, and especially in situations where fragmenting and defecting could threaten their survival. whether or not this was actually true may have had some kind of effect on her going absolutely off the shitts later. But her understanding of The Propaganda as a utilitarian tool allowed her play both sides, forming authentic relationships with the rest of her company and more effectively identifying where doubt and fear is hiding through these relationships... Even if it tore her apart in the end.

Barring Reyes, most of these walnuts are coming from positions of relative privilege that make it challenging to let go of the lies sold to them. I think it's easier to see past the power blinders when you go down the hierarchy. Obviously there is a. Big interest in selling the public on the idea that they stand to gain from throwing their lot in with the Empire and the Powers That Be, in much the same way that certain political forces need you to rest assured in the idea that anyone can become a billionaire if they just pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. The alternative is also the threat of Death and Dying, or maybe being left to the "savage and uncaring embrace of the cosmos," which the Archive assures you is full of nasty things that want to drink your bone marrow and eat your eyeballs. Anyway. Point is, I think it's more common than meets the eye for the average citizen of the Empire to be aware that Something Is Wrong, but moved to inaction by despair, or fear, or survival, or just complacency.

And as long as that doesn't turn into visible, organized action (or as long as they are sneaky enough) it gives the appearance of cohesion, even if it's false. It's enough that even someone like Reyes could make the mistake of assuming the average Imperial is so brainwashed they're not aware of the power dynamics at play. (or at least. Some of them. misinformation about things like other spacefaring communities and nonhuman peoples abounds.)

Mostly this just means Reyes is surrounded by people who are uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh acting out of fear of something that both does and doesn't hold the power over them that they think it does.

The God-King Isn't Real. He Can't Hurt You