#you might get addicted

[peachyy-da-panda]

jeeesus.. i gotta try you 😵‍💫

M | 25

[marciaillust]

on a break

[icewindandboringhorror]

Little bright colored outfit with a fun vest ~

(shoes from ebay like 10 years ago. everything else is thrifted)

[katoska]

Theory why Betelgeuse left Lydia's side to "go to the little boys' room" and took over for Richard at his booth for a bit:

Yes, he could have dealt with Jeremy without playing dress-up and taking over Richard's job, and didn't have to enable Richy to get a little more family time in the process. They could have saved Astrid just fine without that, so it seems unnecessary, for him to do that. OOC, even. Except

2) Richard wouldn't owe Betelgeuse a big favor for said taking over of his job and enabling the extra family time with Lydia and Astrid. Also, ofc, for saving his daughter from trading places with Jeremy. Betelgeuse did all that at great cost to himself: A Code 699 violation (see screenshot of transcript from reddit below) gets you extra time working as a civil servant, it gets your topside privileges revoked, and it voids any marriage you entered into, so his contract for payment from/marriage to Lydia was meaningless (well, if it had been a marriage certificate rather than just an agreement to get married in the future. and if he'd actually signed it. and then possibly only if he'd signed it before entering the Netherworld so there'd be a marriage TO void, rather than... not signing it at all... *sigh* he totally burned that half-signed and not-yet-binding contract himself bc he understood she wasn't ready to marry him yet, is what I'm saying, but I digress).

1) Lydia wouldn't have gotten closure for her ex's death without it. Closure which she sorely needed, because the fact that Richard's body was never found plus her seeming inability to see his ghost (Richard: "I know you two can't see me, but I check in on you all the time") add up to her having been in denial of his death. She couldn't see his ghost because she really really did not want to see proof that he was dead. So now she gets to move on from him. Which is very convenient for B. Especially as Richard is unlikely to be able to visit her anytime soon even now that Lydia has accepted his death and should be able to see him again, but I'm getting to that.

Still 2): Anyway, B doesn't do favors. He does business. If people are allowed to take over for others at their jobs in the afterlife, but those jobs are also a form of punishment where you have to "do time" at them for a specific duration, then those work hours are a currency that you can give away or trade. You can, if you find someone who is willing, get someone to do your time for you (hell, you can even get a naive Breather to trade their actual Life for your afterlife existence).

So yeah, I don't think Betelgeuse took over Richard's booth just out of the goodness of his heart. I think they made a deal, one that means that B will be topside again much sooner than the Deetz' will expect so he can get back to trying to seduce Richard's ex (hey, Richard always supported lost causes, so... 😆), while Richard will be stuck at work, unable to visit the Living for a long and unspecified amount of time. Not that his family's gonna notice, bc they never used to see him visit them, anyway.

And yeah, according to someone from reddit who decyphered that page in the Handbook, there's a bit about how the Deceased who violated Code 699 has to cease Trading, if applicable.

But I think that only goes for post-conviction of the crime, not as an automatic consequence of the crime, as B was also still able to visit the Living World to attempt the church wedding. Which, actually, is yet more evidence that this latest marriage attempt was more for the sake of declaring his feelings and testing the waters (and showing off, and getting rid at the competition) than him trying to actually get, and stay, married. Cause the church wedding would have been voided by a conviction, too.

Anyway, that's my theory on B's incredibly considerate, and therefore incredibly suspicious, detour to Richard's booth and letting Richard have his heroic moment.

And tbf, Lydia and Astrid are Richard's family. So it wouldn't even be unreasonable to expect Richard to pay for the legal trouble B got into from saving them. Like, I'm sure he'd have done it anyway, but if B can pass on that buck then ofc he's gonna.

[hoziersong]

not to get all "actually☝️" about it but. the whole point of this is the fact that it isn't at all eddie's fault and buck just doesn't know how to properly process or recognize his feelings and know what he's missing *until* he gets presented with a specific situation. in truth buck has no right to be mad at eddie for building bonds with other ppl and it's why he has to do some introspection. this is not a "oh no poor buck eddie apologize to him!!!" thing, it's about buck getting, for lack of a better term, a good emotional humbling. eddie deserves good friendships and relationships, full stop. and if he likes the way he feels when he hangs out with tommy then great!! he's his own person and not a tool to further buck's character. but you also can't expect buck to immediately recognize that because, again, and for the millionth time, the whole POINT is that he doesn't. so if it has to get ugly and uncomfortable and embarrassing for him to do so then that is what will happen and that doesn't make either of them bad people. this is not a blame to be passing around. it's just them being human beings

[riacte]

I feel like I learned a lot about storytelling + "marketing" a story from Webtoon (the Webtoon from a few years ago when it was still decent). The way it worked was that 1) story blurb to draw in people 2) three initial episodes to get people invested 3) one episode per week. It showed the strength of a strong summary with a genre but without trope tags (unlike fanfiction) or describing your work as abc meets xyz (which seems to be what YA publishing does nowadays?). The three initial episodes introduces tone, artstyle, main characters, main plot, basic worldbuilding, and is supposed to quickly "hook" the reader. I like the format of three initial episodes (instead of one) because the first episode is usually different (given its main purpose is to grab the attention of new people), the other two gives you a taste of what a "standard weekly update" might contain.

I feel a lot of Webtoons start with a strong premise/ gimmick/ hook but they don't know what to do with it. And that's totally normal because some premises are better when shrouded in mystery and you have to do the hard work of explaining the mystery. I've read Webtoons that start with one premise, then it gets sidelined in the middle as new themes develop, and in the end you realise the "premise" was a marketing tactic to draw people in and the story is about something else entirely, but you stayed because it was still a good story, and you have no complaints. (Eg. I think people step into I Love Yoo thinking it's a romance, and the first bits do seem like a set up for romance, but it turns out the genre is drama and the romance is a slooooooow burn.) I've read Webtoons that start with one interesting premise, then it fizzles away and turns into a rather standard story for its genre to the point the hook is barely relevant when it was what made it stand out. And on the rare occasion you will find a Webtoon that has its premise, develops the plot from there, sticks with its themes, and the ending is thematically resonant. (I think Cursed Princess Club does a good job at this.) But it's difficult to craft a very consistent and coherent story (especially given the serial format), so it's fine to just kinda sideline or even ditch your premise so long the actual main plot is solid. Your premise is what initially got people reading, but they'll get invested in other things. Maybe you even have to manually create a hook and get into the meat later once your readers are properly invested. But I feel most of the time it's otherwise because you can get a really cool idea but NO CLUE on how to end it and it sucks because either you drag on or give it an unsatisfactory ending. The good thing is that you get a "buffer zone" in which readers are still interested in reading due to the premise/hook and you get the time to properly work things out.

So I don't think a premise has to be completely executed and explained in order for a story to be compelling. If it does its job of bringing in new folks and convincing them to stay long enough to get invested in style/tone/plot/characters/relationships/whatever, sometimes it's easier to let the premise go. Sometimes you want a tonal shift. But at the same time, a premise is so useful for marketing purposes. You can talk about what tropes it has and what media it's influenced by, but what is the story actually about?

[datcravat]

Batch 1 of Ghost Trick Stickers ✨

Currently only available on my patreon as part of the July $30 rewards tier (they come with other stuff the stickers alone aren't $30 ahah) but will be on my shop too eventually.

[yutamayo]

Do you think Geto Suguru deserved better friends?

Geto Suguru deserves the moon and the stars.

In relation to your question though, I think he had the great friends he deserved, but they just hadn't grown up in time to realize that friendship can't heal everything.

I think they tried their best with Geto, or felt they had at the time. They all had fun together, faced horrors, and grew together; but the mentality of "we can do anything" was a double edged sword.

For example, Gojo said "we're the strongest." The hope and naivete they all had in their ability to keep moving forward stopped them from ever imagining their friend could succumb to all the pain. I'm not blaming Geto in any way, but nobody is a mind reader. He wasn't well and it showed, but he did hide the majority of it from the people who would have helped him (if he had asked the right ones). I don't think he wanted to show weakness, a.k.a his wavering faith in the Jujutsu way, and I think that's why he asked the older sorcerer about his dark thoughts instead of his close friends. He saw them as they saw themselves; strong enough to overcome anything. And I believe they felt he saw himself that way too.

They had too much faith in strength because I know, even when noticing his struggles, they likely believed he'd get through it. He always had, until he didn't.

I don't think believing someone can get through struggle makes you a bad friend, and I wouldn't say they didn't try hard enough to notice the signs because at that point, they had too much faith. They all thought they were in it together.

Obviously we could say looking back, "Why didn't you keep asking him what was wrong, even though he answered 'nothing' the first time." But life, and friendship, isn't that simple. Unfortunately most people only learn to push past the face value of the people they love, when they've learned from previous misfortunes. And sadly, they had to learn that from Geto's downfall. What he did wasn't something they could recover from, obviously, so there was no, "Let's work on this."

It was just like every other shock, like when a friend commits suicide and you look back thinking, "I didn't know it was that bad."

On top of the fact they were distracted by life & death situations every day/basically saving the world, and alongside the fact I don't believe anything like that had happened with a Jujutsu Sorcerer before Geto, they just didn't think it was a possibility.

I get that, and I feel that anyone who says they don't, is lying to themselves.

That's why people remind others to check in on their friends. Like, really check in. Sometimes, we have too much faith in our loved ones strengths.

He had amazing friends, and I only wish they had been given the opportunity to express their pain more. If anything, I blame the leaders and higher-ups at JJHigh. They definitely didn't have enough mental/emotional supports for the literal teenagers thrown into that kind of world, and I could never blame those kids for not understanding the consequences of carrying that weight until they were forced to face them.

It reminds me of a quote I love;

-

I'm sorry I keep saying, how are you? When I really mean, are you happy? - Ocean Vuong

-

I know this is an anime post but, check in on your loved ones, please.

And ask twice.

[soup-is-here]

Mouthwashing Spoilers

TW: Addiction and Self Harm

I wanna go on about Swansea's final monologue but it's hard to put into words, but I'm gonna try anyways cause it's a short, but strong story about autonomy again. This post ended up significantly longer than I wanted though

It's the autonomy to choose the "less healthy" option because it's appealing to you. It's the moral assignment to normality and stability. An alcoholic is an alcoholic by choice, technically, but do they owe us otherwise? Is it morally reprehensible to enjoy taking LSD at a party? Should we see someone as less than because they relax with a xanax instead of a hot shower? It's not healthy. We know that. We've seen anti-drug ad after ad after ad. But is that the part that's morally wrong, in and of itself? Does enjoying the drugs and chaos make Swansea a worse person?

Like him talking about his entire life and ending it by saying between the "stable" "normal" life and him waking up every morning with a new hangover, he preferred the latter. People always talk about getting clean and fixing their lives and Swansea did it! He did the thing "good men" do! A wife and kids and a trade job and sobriety! He was doing it! He was finally "worth" something!

And he hated it! I mean I don't know if he actually hated/despised it, but he misses his previous life. He misses drugs and partying and living like you might not wake up the next day. He said the thing that changed him was seeing himself dead in a ditch under the bright beam of a streetlight. Now he's looking down the barrel of a gun. And as he looks down it, he looks back. That was his preference. It felt good to be like that. And he wouldn't be here if he stayed there

We always have a narrative about drugs or gambling or sleeping around where a person suddenly realizes that they aren't "doing anything" with their life and becomes stable and it's always played like addiction is a false pleasure. Swansea got to the stability people said would be the real pleasure of life and that just wasn't true for him. One bad paycheck could've been the difference between his stable life and falling apart anyways. His lifestyle was going to kill him someday apparently, yet he's staring down the barrel of a gun at his steady trade job to feed his wife and kids.

I don't know quite how to word it but Swansea is the poster child for rehabilitation. There's this weight to him saying his alcoholic period was the best time of his life. Like it just hits at that pang that makes people wear DARE shirts while smoking weed and post those videos of smoking 100 cigarettes at once. Anti-vaping ads tell you about the damage they do to your body but everyone knows that already. Everyone knows "this is what your brain looks like on drugs." I smoke medical marijuana and it isn't good for my lungs but it's good for my pain. Doing drugs isn't good for me and I know that and that's sorta the point sometimes.

I don't know it's just this weird pang where I know what Swansea means, just not to nearly the same extent. I don't have an addiction so I don't think I could fully understand it. Maybe a better thing I could relate it to for myself is self harm. It's not healthy sure, but who do I owe health? Myself? Other people? And what is healthy? Is it feeling better now? Is it resisting now and feeling worse for it until it stops? What if the coping skills I learn make it worse? What if they make it better? Do I want it to get better? Does Swansea want to get better? What would better feel like to either of us?

Who knows until you try. Swansea got a collared shirt, a mortgage, and a credit card. He got a job and a wife and kids. He got sober. He got healthier, depending on your definition.

But did he feel better? He's looking down a barrel of a gun and he has to decide if he feels better. It doesn't seem like he regrets his new life. He says he wants his kids to be better than him. He wants good things to happen for them. He saw himself as one bad slip away from falling again. I don't think he felt better though. I think he got healthier. He likely would've ended up in the ditch he dreamt about, but we don't know that. We also don't know if that's what he'd prefer. But, we do know he got healthier, depending on your definition.

[king-crawler]

hey, even if you end up not doing some entries for the sake of the length of the video, could you post the full uncut version of the iceberg with all the entries?

Probably not, sorry :[ Do keep in mind I'm not cutting out any entries because of length (i love long iceberg videos), more so just keeping the ones that I personally think would make for an interesting topic / cool discussion, which will be like 99% of them anyways bc diving into fandom culture is fun ! If it helps I don't think I'll be deleting anything on the public iceberg, I think I'll probably just make a copy of it and use that one for my (hypothetical) video. I might also combine a few entries, idk yet we'll see! I hope that's not upsetting :') Again I still don't know if I'm making this thing but it seems fun in concept, I'll just have to find the time which might be a while... Regardless I do appreciate the entries that have showed up and how its filled up so fast ❤️ I genuinely can't believe how much stuff showed up that I'd never heard of before

[polterhaze]

Jimmy and Curly from mouthwashing are unironically such important comfort characters to me as crazy as it sounds. Their human portrayal does insane things to my brain as someone struggling with severe mental health issues and trauma.

I see different ugly/scary parts of myself in both of them. Stuff from my intrusive thoughts that scares me, the way system fails mentally ill, and such. So yeah, these two and their narrative regarding mental health and accountability matters a lot to me.

Also some of you are ableist as fuck in the ways you talk about Jimmy lmao. We can absolutely talk about his wrongs and the evil he has done without punching down people that hallucinate, are delusional or suffer from personality disorders.

EDIT: adding my tags because I am deathly afraid of being misunderstood

[gayofthefae]

Hey so you know that the playlists are my Byler Bible. Just remembered that THIS Mike:

Was singing

"And I want you. And I want you. And I want so, it's an obsession."

He also describes his love for Will as a religion. If you even care.

[virsancte]

good days aren't easy to come by

[oifaaa]

Bruce should kill the Joker because he created the Joker. Batman is the one that chased him into ace chemicals which resulted in him falling into the acid and the Joker is obsessed with Batman. We’ve seen (at least in one DC movie) that the Joker just stops being the Joker when Bruce dies. Could this all have happened without Batman? Yes and then it would be someone else’s problem but right now Joker is a monster of Batman’s creation and he should be the one to end him.

On your same logic should it also be on Joker's parents since they also created him, or maybe on the government / social systems since they were the ones that failed joker to begin with and made him turn to a life of crime ? If anyone has the legal right in America to kill the joker it would be the criminal justice system so why dont they sentence joker to death? Bruce hands joker off to the local authorities every other week shouldnt it be their responsibility at that point to keep joker incarcerated until he can be deemed no longer a threat to himself and others? And just bc one dc movie said joker would stop after Bruce dies doesn't mean that always happens especially with how dc keeps insisting there are multiple jokers- does Bruce have to kill all the jokers or just the one he personally spooked off the side of a platform by accident? I don't totally think you can blame Bruce for joker being as insane as he is since harley took the same dip and she still redeemable, and I don't think it should be on Bruce to compromise his morals just to kill a clown that literally several other people can kill - and I know " "ohh but Bruce gets in the way" then don't tell batman about it don't invite batman to your execution of the joker don't let him find out when Bruce's no kill rule is at its maximum (bc writers can't decide how extreme it should be) he can't let anyone die if he knows about it so just be sneaky and don't let him know

[illarian-rambling]

So, all I have to do is keep an eye on an uncannily determined, three-and-a-half-foot-tall gambling addict while also keeping my head on straight in a place designed to dazzle all five senses despite being used to having only two, without forgetting that I have to look for three… situation-prone loose cannons currently on a quest to turn three swords into a small fortune.  Anarac would’ve laughed if his vision wasn’t already going hazy at the edges. By the Sun, it’s like raising teenagers all over again….

Mr. Fifth-Blood, you'll always be famous to me...

[ichinisankaku]

Event Translation - Spotlight: Tsukushi High & St Flora (Prologue: Super Popular Feature!)

Kasumi: This kind of meeting has become a regular occurrence, hasn't it?

Thanks to you, the latest special feature of "Spotlight" was also incredibly popular and in demand.

Even I got to hear a bunch of stories I didn't know, so conducting the interviews was really enjoyable.

Izumi: We're also very grateful and happy. Thank you!

Kasumi: The Newborn Mankai Company really has a lot of different relationships in it, I doubt we'll ever run out of special features.

Izumi: Speaking of… what should we do for the next group?

Kasumi: About that…

Our readers seem to want another school focus, there were a lot of survey responses about it.

The last school focus was the first of these features we did, on HanaGaku and O-High, so I think there's been a good span of time too, but… what do you think?

Izumi: I think that sounds good! It was mentioned last time that there are a lot of groups like them that go to the same school, after all.

Kasumi: That's great~ thank you!

It is, of course, due to the reader's requests, but…

Personally speaking, I'm also excited for the valuable opportunity to hear tales of youth from students, as someone who can't go back to that time.

Izumi: Ahaha, I'm interested in those too.

Izumi: Thanks for taking the time to come today as well.

Kasumi: I should be thanking you! You even went as far as getting some nice tea and snacks.

*door opens*

Homare: I have returned.

Izumi: Welcome home, Homare-san!

Kasumi: Pardon me.

Homare: Oh my, Kasumi-san? Welcome, I didn't know you were coming.

Kasumi: We were just having a meeting to discuss "Spotlight".

Homare: Ooh, is that so! I always enjoy reading each new issue.

I've yet to be featured in one, but I'm sure my waiting will be over soon.

I'm looking forward to it. Well then, until we meet again.

*footsteps*

Izumi: Umm…

Kasumi: …I guess I'll have to have Homare-kun in the next feature?

Izumi: …Yeah, probably.

[Flora 1 | Flora 2 | Flora 3 | Flora 4 | Flora 5 | Flora Epilogue | Tsukushi 1 | Tsukushi 2 | Tsukushi 3 | Tsukushi 4 | Tsukushi 5 | Tsukushi Epilogue]