Just a silly guy, with silly silly thoughts.

@glowweek Day 2

Casual | Surprise

A casual surprise?😬😬😬

For me fiction is a way of asking: what if things were other than they are? And a central component of that is to ask: what if I was different than I am? I have always found the practice of writing fiction far more an escape from self than an exploration of it.

Zadie Smith, "The I Who Is Not Me"

Last Twilight: Ep 12

The TL;DR of this post is just... Sincerely what the fuck?

I remember posting after Episode 1 that I was keeping a suspicious eye on the mention of the eye donation because while I do think in real life disabled people have the right to manage their disability any way they want to and would support someone's choice to get a cornea transplant, real life is not fiction and fiction is designed to pull messages and themes from. Episode 12 from almost it's first moments completely undermines two and a half month's worth of messaging about learning to accept a new reality. I don't think it is foolish of me to assume based on the set up of the first episode that Last Twilight was supposed to be an exploration of grief as told in conversation and parallel between someone who lost a loved one and someone who lost their vision.

If this story had continued in the way it started out the first half of this show, I honestly think it could have been a 10, those first few episodes I was enjoying so much I was worried it might knock out Moonlight Chicken as my favorite Aof offering. Now I have rated Last Twilight as a 3, I will never suggest it to anyone and I will never rewatch it. Why?

Because from a fictional narrative perspective, having Day gain his vision back at the end undermines the entirety of the show's messaging from the first 11 episodes. Every single lesson, every single message just absolutely obliterated by every moment of Episode 12.

Day getting his vision back right as he and Mhok get back undermines the narrative in the following ways:

Rewarding Day for managing to create a successful and happy life as a blind person (literally like "hey you graduated and ran a bookstore while blind! Congrats you get to be normal again!)

"Rewarding" Mhok by insuring that he never has to do any caregiving for Day going forward so we don't get any navigating or expectation of Mhok and Day being in a longterm inter-abled relationship

We eliminate all chances that the subject of pitying Day re-enters any future fights, meaning there is now zero risk for Day maintaining a relationship with someone he worries might infantilize or pity him

It absolves Night of any remaining guilt he may be carrying from thinking he caused the accident that made Day blind

It absolves Day of any remaining anger at Night thinking he caused the accident that made Day blind

Mhon's ableist fucking ass gets her "normal" son back the way she confided in Mhok she'd hoped for after the first failed cornea transplant

It undermines the theme of the in universe Last Twilight novel and the conversation that Day and Mhok have about Mee being turned in to a statue on the top of the mountain and how that was hopeful because her father had found a sight so beautiful he couldn't think of anywhere else Mee would need to see and instead turns the message essentially in to: "there is hope, you can be cured"

It dismantles their cute couple thing of the one palm distance which also makes the OST that they played all the fucking time completely irrelevant

And most importantly, it undermines all the growth that Day went through while processing his grief and the two, TWO separate occasions where he came to terms with his disability

And that's just the disregard for the narrative messages, giving Day his eyesight back is incredibly ableist in the case of this story because of certain ableist through-lines woven in to the entire show. Namely:

While Day is blind, there is no reciprocity of care. Mhok is always taking care of Day, I cannot think of a single instance where Day really took care of Mhok in a significant way. By focusing so much on Day, and abandoning any strong focus on Mhok's grief over losing his sister, Day is never given an opportunity to be a support system for Mhok. Which is fucking ableist. Disabled people have so many things to offer the world, and while they might have specific support needs that does not mean that they can't offer support in return.

Mhok doesn't introduce Day to his family at their graves until after Day has his vision restored, and it is only then that Mhok says he has someone to take care of him. Able-ist!

Day gets his vision back almost immediately after a conversation with his mother where she says he wants to be normal and the fight he had with Mhok is normal.

Handling the entire story this way, with the break up, and a three year time gap, and then Day having his vision restored literally hours after he and Mhok get back together does not allow for any exploration of Mhok and Day having to figure out the differences between Mhok being his caretaker and Mhok being his partner.

We shunted literally every part of Mhok's backstory completely to the side, which in and of itself is fucking ableist in my opinion because it implies that able bodied people who are caretakers for or who are in a relationship with a disabled person don't have any time for themselves, to deal with their own shit or to have their own needs because they are too busy taking care of a disabled person.

With this being, what, the first main character in a BL with blindness, you want to go for the cure route after acceptance? Like you are rewarding someone for their bravery of handling their disability instead of allowing the disabled person to remain happy and thriving in the life they have built for themselves while they continue to be blind?

I'm not blind, so forgive me if I am overstepping at any point here but in my opinion, if you want a narrative that gives Day back his eyesight, that story that not be written by a sighted person. You need blind writers, people with the lived experience having control over the story so the narrative is better able to navigate the complexity of a decision like that, to reverse a character's blindness. I just think blind people would be able to minimize how much returning someone's eyesight might come off as ableist in a story like this. Additionally going the cure route is not a choice I think anyone should be making with the first BL that focuses this heavily on blindness. This world is so fucking ableist, if you want to make a story with a disabled main character with how slim of pickings there are, it feels much more responsible and subversive to go a disability pride route.

And these are just the issues around disability in this show, I have problems with the classism in this show, I have problems with the absolute ridiculousness of Mhok and Day's breakup and their reunion. MHOK APOLOGIZES, MHOK THANKS DAY FOR BREAKING UP WITH HIM, DAY DOES NOT APOLOGIZE FOR BREAKING UP WITH MHOK OR BLOCKING HIM ON SOCIALS FOR THREE YEARS BECAUSE MHOK PITIED DAY ONE (1) TIME. I get not wanting to be pitied, I get it, but seriously it is so much less compelling to have Day just completely abandon Mhok after all of the positive experiences they've had together because he messed up once rather than reel himself back in and have an adult conversation about what happened and try to get back to a balanced state.

Anyway, fuck this show. I am so disappointed that this is Aof's last directed piece for who knows how long. He could have gone out with a bang after Moonlight Chicken and now I am just fucking thankful I won't have to see anything else from him for awhile.

On the string propaganda

Heeellll yeah

Bestie is an entire PLACE

I look at those guys and let me tell you the soul of that thing ain't just in the puppet, it's in all the neurons carrying the thoughts and emotions, it's in the power rails that serve as the heart. All the memories in the memory conflux and all the numbers we see flicker across displays, the flux condensers, the puppet; a little avatar.

No way these massive machines see life the same way we do. They have their own experiences and senses and things they hold dear. A world we can't imagine, a way of living we couldn't even comprehend.

I could never tear an iterator apart to be just a puppet. Who am I to decide how's life supposed to be enjoyed or perceived?

You treat your creechurs however you want- I ain't gonna dictate that. But damn, hearing the thrums and buzzes of the linear systems rail? They are alive with so much power, these mechanical beasts are exactly what they should be.

Cant sleep so im thinking about ayhalo

I think its like. one sided. qaypierre WOULD smooch that demon and take him on dates. qbad would not recognize anything as a romantic gesture. aypierre could throw a bouquet of chocolate roses at him and bad would just be like ! thank you :}

like they love each other, absolutely. they TRUST each other, to the point where i’d even say it gets in the way of bad seeing aypierre as anything more than a good friend. that’s his guy. The dude always in his corner. Friend resource label: team mate (coparent) (down to help kidnap people). bad doesnt do classic romantic relationships- all of his relationships are INCREDIBLY queer, but the closest he usually gets to what others read as romance is a classic chewtoy4chewtoy dynamic. He LOVES to fuck with people and he loves to get fucked with and if there’s a nice jawline or pretty muscles included?? huge bonus !!

he’s got something- not kinder, with aypierre? not calmer, either, but stable, maybe. pierre has proven, over and over again, that he’s on bad’s side. Spying on tubbo, encouraging bad’s pranks, the kidnapping- i can’t call it a reliable dynamic, not with how paranoid bad is, even when he trusts, but there is still a feeling of understanding that, wherever pierre’s limits are for when he cant support bad (or genuinely turn against him), it hasnt been reached yet

aypierre, on the other hand, i dont know enough about to be absolutely sure but there are some Vibes. ironically, i think hes feeling like his relationships are unreliable. max was going to have their baby, and then he wasnt, and then he left him, then max fucking died. plus whatever is happening with him and ayrobot, which probably leaves him feeling like he cant rely on Himself. like he had, if not a little crush on bad, at least some Interest in him, before. as well as several islanders. i remember the days of the Bed Threat.

but thats part of it, too? because those flings didnt have that emotional connection, and i always got the sense that he started looking for that with maximus, to Love and Be Loved rather than pure lust. To care about someone, genuinely, and be cared about in return. but he didnt get that with the flings, and We know that max was using him, but i dont know if he did, but maybe he had a feeling about it and maybe he also had a feelinf about maximus’ feelings towards bad and maybe- there’s something about that? A little push of not-spite-not-projection onto bad.

because bad IS that reliability, right now. he’s a fucking gremlin. a bastard. a prankster silly guy. he trusts aypierre and aypierre trusts him and they dont share everything but so often, when it comes down to it, it is them against the world. them in the corner, caught, aypierre shouting about kissing as a cover for their crimes while bad runs giggling away from him.

i think there's something really beautiful about carpenter distancing herself from the trawler man every chance she gets and still getting showered by miracles while faulker, oh he of strong convictions, gets to bring the miracle of the trawler man to everyone around him but never quite gets to ascend to glory himself. i just love that they're both perfectly poised to stare at each other and each think "your goals are backwards and your methodology is dumb and possibly sacrilegious" and then still end up as something close to friends

also let's talk about how, despite these dynamics, at the end of the day, the trawler man is really just trying to give each of them what they want from him.

MMM YEAH. carpenter being beloved by multiple gods despite being such an ornery bitch who wants NOTHING to do with their sacrificial bullshit..... it really gets me. as does faulkner's ongoing crisis of faith and spiral into Faithless Cult Leader (TM). SO GOOD.

perhaps only tangentially related, but.

i've been thinking a lot about faulkner killing roemont lately. i was surprised that roemont's death ended up Breaking My Fucking Heart -- a real testament to his voice actor!! the whole pathetic old man losing everything he's worked for really.... Got To Me. ough. "don't you recognize me?" OUGH.

but i've been thinking about it in the context of faulkner's crisis of faith, too. because like. faulkner Knows that roemont is faithful. he considers roemont a heretic for trying to legalize the worship of the trawler-man, but it's like....

i feel like. killing roemont was a test of the trawler-man that faulkner devised on purpose. because if roemont dies due to the prayer marks that faulkner scrawled, then there are two possibilities:

1. the trawler-man really IS furious that the high katabasians want to legitimize the faith; the trawler-man really IS on faulkner's side; this schism really IS necessary to keep the faith "pure," and faulkner has never done anything wrong;

OR

2. the trawler-man really IS nothing but a mouth. this isn't a god with a plan or with sentience or with feelings, this is just a living river that chews things up and spits them out, and it doesn't care for its followers at all. and if that's the case, then faulkner is betraying nothing by being a faithless cult leader lying repeatedly to his people.

faulkner is devastatingly clever and constantly being underestimated. but he's also completely alone in the world. and he's Desperate for any sign that the choices he's making are the right ones. and he can't find that sign in anybody close to him, because he keeps destroying the lives of those close to him. so he has to devise his own trials....

hrugh. my boy. my boy my boy my boy.

hello again everyone i'm putting on my tinfoil jester hat & passing out Hefty grains of salt. its batshit theory time!

in short: i think Julie is gonna get violent & might end up killing someone - or she'll at least try. and i'm pretty sure something terrible is gonna happen to her.

in long: hoo boy. strap in

first off, i'd like to say that i love womens' wrongs And rights! all of this is said with utmost affection & respect for Julie. i love it when characters do terrible things, its interesting and so tasty for the story and their development <3

second disclaimer: most of this is just based off of what we have / know as of now. which is, admittedly, not much! so despite having short arms, i may be reaching very far! i'll get the based-on-knowledge part of my thoughts out of the way before getting into the more abstract I'm Just Making Shit Up At This Point part (educated guessing, yk yk!)

not sure where to start so i'll begin with what starting this line of thinking - flower symbolism. I've gone a little bit into it in a previous post from a while back (where i just made observations about the neighborhood map), but i'll restate the relevant parts. there are two flowers in the neighborhood with greek myths attached, and similar ones at that: the hyacinths outside of the Post Office, and the sunflowers outside of Frank's house.

most people know the hyacinth myth! Apollo, while playing metal frizbee with his (male) mortal lover Hyacinthus, Apollo's thrown discus bounced off of the ground and accidentally hit Hyacinthus in the head, killing him - then Apollo turned the spilled blood into the hyacinth flower. in another - popular - version of the myth, the wind god Zephyrus was jealous and blew the discus off course to kill Hyacinthus. as for sunflowers: Clytie, a nymph, was in love with Apollo and grew jealous of his relationship with a princess, Leucothoe. Clytie informed Leucothoe's father of the relationship, and he buried Leucothoe alive as punishment. Apollo turned his murdered lover into a sunflower. two flowers attached to greek myths about Apollo falling for a mortal, and that mortal gets murdered by a jealous non-mortal.

next, I would like to bring attention to This Concept Artwork from 2021. now i'm not gonna use this as a definitive "oh this exists so it must mean-" but there are always elements of concept work, especially Canon concept work, that sticks or can allude to themes or information that will be revealed later in the story. concepts are concepts for a reason - it means there's a solid idea that's being explored in depth, most times for use (especially that deep into the story crafting).

specifically, right now i'd like to look at the type of flower Julie is holding. pansies. normal ones + the primary fucked up pansy. pansies are symbols of love - both romantic and platonic, but predominantly platonic. it can also symbolize nostalgia, thought, admiration, remembrance, and can even be used as an "i'm sorry" flower. in victorian times, it was often used to represent forbidden/secret love.

stick with me, i'm getting to the point i promise

now, another thing is how much of Julie's character (meta-wise & in regards to the WH show as a production) is centered around love. her house is the "cutest" or most feminine one in the neighborhood, and it's downright infested with hearts, from the windows to the bushes to the chimney. she exists as Frank's foil, and it's almost definitive that she was meant to be Frank's love interest (there's just. so much evidence that there's no way that's not it). and just look at her! she looks like a love interest! if WH was a real show that i sat down to watch, i'd see her and immediately go "oh, ok, that's her base role"

this contradicts with what we know of her character - Julie seems big on platonic love, loving her friends, but other than that? she very much steps around what her house/character design is trying to say. she's hopscotching right over what the production wants from her. the only thing she kinda sticks with is the whole flower thing

but. but but but. i wonder! after the update, I'm pretty confident that the neighbors are influenced by the "script" and the workshop, even if they're not aware of it. see: the difference in how they act in the "recovered media" (where they behave more like they're characters playing out a bit, their dialogue has no natural lulls and it just sounds like a (really good) script) vs the 14 audios & the phone calls (natural dialogue, they seem more layered & like actual people instead of just characters, there's no set shenanigan - they're just doing their own things). and we can assume that the latter audios are from the neighbors off-script off-the-air.

despite this, they still somewhat try to fill their roles. the question is: how much of that is authentic, and how much is them still feeling that pressure to perform? just like how We as people feel pressure and expectation from societal rules/norms, even if we're not conscious of it. like, say... kids growing up thinking being queer is wrong, even if they've never been directly exposed to / made aware of homophobia/transphobia. We fill in the absence of being told "this is right" with "it must be wrong", and We act accordingly

so apply that to sapient puppets who were (again, most likely) made with set relationships, dynamics, and character details in mind. they're meant to be This Way, even if they want to be That Way, and that internal "programming" has to conflict, at least a little. like how I've seen Clown mention that homophobia will/may be a theme, and the only way i can see that happening among puppets who have never been directly exposed to it is if the above happens: they feel pressure from something they're unaware of. expectation from a "higher" plane of existence. as above, so below.

OKAY NOW WE'RE GETTING TO IT I PROMISE! blend this all together into Frank & Eddie catching feelings. they weren't meant to fall in love. they're not supposed to be together. it's - from the perspective of Playfellow & society (in the time period WH was active/created) - wrong.

Julie is supposed to be with Frank. Frank is supposed to be with Julie. in a way, they are together - they're best friends. they're foils. they were created to compliment each other and click. in the media audios, they're almost always together. if one of them is in a scene, so is the other.

so what happens if Frank starts to pull away? if he starts to spend more time with Eddie - what if Julie feels like she's being pushed out? what if she asks Frank to come play, only to be told he already has plans with Eddie, and if Julie tries to join in, what if Frank tells her no?

if it were me in this situation, I think I'd start to panic a little. everything has always been the same - it's always been Frank and Julie. that's how it's supposed to be. Frank and Eddie, well that's just - that's just wrong! and if, at this hypothetical point in the story, things are tangibly starting to degrade/go wrong, Julie might cling even harder, panic even more.

you see where I'm going with this? what i meant with the flower symbolism and what it could point to?

their world is falling apart, and Julie's one constant - Frank, her best friend, her grumpy rock - is pulling away. for Eddie. the mailman. and so what if the jealous "lover" takes action? Julie can make things go back to normal. she needs Frank, and in her mind she's losing him, but she can't lose him. she can't. and maybe that little whisper of expectation that she can't hear but feels nonetheless, fuels this fire. it makes her feel justified, makes her feel the need to act and "correct" this. maybe if she gets rid of the distraction, Frank's love and attention will be hers once more.

i mean, people do insane things when they're under that much pressure. from current probably-horrible events, a loss of control in their own life, their closest person seemingly distancing themselves, subconscious pressure from societal expectation. especially when it comes to love - platonic or romantic. w/ Julie, i'm pretty sure it's platonic in regards to Frank. though she is bi, so you never know! could be both!

and maybe it won't be about Frank & Eddie, if any of this turns out to even a little right. maybe there's a factor I'm not considering or haven't seen yet. but i really do think that there are things pointing to it.

like yeah, the Concept Art linked above. the caption saying "liar", the specific species of flower, Julie holding it over her mouth as if keeping a secret, the hammer. not sure if the person standing over her is her primary puppeteer, an abstract, or something else (it seems cracked?) but that's not what this theory is about!

then there's the flower patch - both behind her in the concept art, and the one behind her house on the map. it's striking me now that the two look very similar. they have mostly the same flowers, even. blue/yellow/white/orange "daisies", some daffodils, what i think are roses (it's hard to tell specifics on the map). an odd choice to make them so similar (unless it's coincidence!).

when I first saw the patch, my immediate thought was "holy shit is that a body dump?!" bc it's oddly green compared to the rest of the map, it's placed at a noticeable distance behind Julie's house - as if it's supposed to be "hidden", and it's the lushest spot in the neighborhood. now, to provide a counterargument to my own claim: it could be very green because that's how things are shaded, it looks like it's at a distance from the house bc the map is 2D, and its the lushest spot bc Julie's all about flowers - also, i doubt flowers would spontaneously grow since we can assume none of them are real. it's a puppet world of props. but who knows.

(and okay this might or might not be relevant but we can assume Julie is the one who made the chalk drawings on the path, right? i think there's a spiral in front of her house. just making a note of it.)

and there's just how much "pressure" seems to be on Julie compared to the others. she doesn't match her house. she doesn't fit her "role" the way she's meant to. AND OH AND I ALMOST FORGOT - by the swingset, there's now a bowling ball and what looks like red scissors. idk about you guys but i associate scissors with Eddie. he's all about crafts, after all! now i'm really reaching but hey? murder weapon? Julie does seem fond of bowling balls... that's a perfect bludgeoning weapon to have on hand (in abundance!)

in conclusion, i just think Julie has major potential to do some deliciously fucked up stuff. in fact, i hope she does! it could be handled/done in an absolutely fascinating way, and could have intriguing consequences.

who knows, maybe i'm right about her trying to get rid of Eddie (not out of malice or anything, just fear & pressure), and there'll be a whole thing where he keeps on coming back, completely unaware that she tried to off him, bc he's a puppet and it's probably really tough to kill something that wasn't really alive in the first place. i mean, in This Observation post i made about some new map secrets, there's a strange window shine on the Post Office door that could be spelling out either "nexus" or "new us". that plus the apparent extra hands/faces behind the door... Eddie is quite accident prone. who's to say he's not used to being replaced by himself? it's not like he'd remember. or is that the reason his memory is bad? holy shit wait - no wait this is a tangent. sorry. this post is about Julie lmao maybe i'll make a different post for this Eddie Thought i just had bc ough. ough...

and also, before anyone tries to come at me - because there's always people who twist words to Start Shit or misinterpret/miss the point - i'm not saying that Julie is like... homophobic. or hates Eddie. or is a "jealous crazy-" just. yk? and if you think that, maybe reread the post. or take a reading comprehension class &lt;3

AS FOR THE SOMETHING TERRIBLE HAPPENING TO JULIE. this is based on Two things and also Vibes. this section will be mercifully short compared to the rest of this clusterfuck of a post

so in the Livestream Trivia doc compiled by @/theneighborhood watch, yes i'm referencing this again sorry, there's this tidbit:

that, plus This Artwork, which features Julie (they're her shoes!) standing at the edge of an apparent chasm (the edge of the set, i assume) paints an interesting hypothetical picture. maybe she wanders a little too far and falls off the edge of her world. maybe she discovers something and Wally has to do something he doesn't want to do, but "needs" to. hey, who knows. maybe she is gonna hurt / try to hurt someone, and in an attempt to save them / stop her, Wally pushes her - either accidentally or on purpose, either way the end result would be the same. now I'm just pulling things out of my ass so lets move on lmao

then there's the Unknown Record in the website's media section. i actually recorded the audio and sped it up - i'll post that video later - and it seems to be an excerpt from Alice in Wonderland. the only part of it i've been able to clearly pick out is "Alice found herself falling down.... down... down..." followed by, presumably Alice speaking - who's high pitched voice reminds me of Julie's. so that's another point in the Julie Goes Bye-Bye Via Rapid Descent theory. or just goes temporarily missing! it could be that the only relevant part of the above trivia tidbit is the "falling down a cavern", and not the "never seen again" part. but it could. be. both.

though! though. Clown has stated that if all the neighbors were to take on roles in Alice in Wonderland, Wally is the one who would be Alice. which follows his direct connection to the spiral/eye pit, and the phrase "down the rabbit hole". so it could be either or. it could be both! it could be neither! this is all speculation, which brings us to....

the end! we made it! i hope you're still carrying your Hefty grains of salt! soon you'll be able to fill a large chicken-shaped shaker with it all!

am i a total asshole for being kind of upset that they totally healed lydia? i know disabilities in fantasy are tough because there are spells that can fix everything but i get a bit sad imagining the new art of her without the gem standing up.

rarepair week day 2: running away/death

i’ve drawn so much cute fluffy art of them (definitely more to come in the future) so i wanted to give them something more thematic and sad!! they make me go a little bananas ok…… the tragedy of it all…….

@dr-rarepair-week-blog

I saw someone say it was weird the fashion was so different from TBOSAS to THG

like it’s been 60 years do you really think they’d have stayed the same ?

cant stop thinking abt disco elysium. im obsessed w the Pale. i love how its an extremely prominent and fundamental part of that world but it only comes up a handful of times. you can very easily go through the whole game without knowing what it is. its just not super relevant to Harrier’s current situation

when you ask Joyce about it Kitsuragi gets concerned learning about it will break your brain because its such a horrifying thing but its also mundane and every1 knows about it, slowly swallowing the world. its like. imagine waking up with complete amnesia and having someone explain that global warming is happening

y'all i mean this w love but mha from the start has been a story examining how villains are also victims of the circumstances their world has imposed on them. why would afo be any different

Hello. How are you?

I was wondering, If you could describe Roger’s personality, how would you do it?

He seemed friendly when the ghosts of his past weren’t actively trying to get him.

Greetings!

Roger is, suffice it to say, complex, and thus he is a tough man to describe...but here is the trait list I came up:

stubborn (determined! dedicated!)

justice-oriented

Main Character Syndrome (needs to be the center of attention but also is clearly tormented by being the center of attention)*

insecure (outwardly displayed as narcissism)**

haunted

lacking in interpersonal soft skills.

caring (very much so, but not in a warm fuzzy way, in a “I care so much it fills me with incandescent rage” way)

funny/clever/dark sense of humor

sensitive/moody

unapologetic (yet also has a guilty conscience)

creative!!!***

emotionally closed-off (there happens to be a rock opera on the subject)

--------------------

*roger comes across to me like the kind of person who started thinking of his life as a narrative and then acted accordingly. I genuinely think this is where so many of his Issues come from

**I've heard roger discuss many times how much social anxiety he has/had, especially in his younger years. this seems to be where a lot of his reputation for being mean comes from – lashing out like a scared animal. It doesn't excuse being a bully, but I think he generally has good intentions and is just terrible at communicating

***This should go without saying, but when thinking about who roger is as a person, we really ought to think of him first and foremost as a creative. pink floyd's music didn't just spontaneously emerge from his tormented psyche – the level of technical and artistic expertise required to make all that is just, astounding. his ego is warranted in this respect at least (although he could stand to give more credit to the rest of the band...)

Genuinely Zhou Ying from Tai Sui is one of the most insanity-inducing characters ever written, like

He's a prince. He's chronically ill. He eats almost nothing that isn't bland and medicinal. He hates his dad so much he wants to start a revolution to destroy him. He's born vaguely psychic and eventually becomes the closest thing his world has to omniscient. He starts his revolution by having two local politicians chopped into mincemeat, blended together, and poured out in the street. His favorite person in the world is his annoying little cousin that hides out at his house with him when he gets in trouble with his parents. He's probably a sociopath. He's murderous enough that all his servants and subordinates are scared of him. He has the same clothes made for himself every year. He founds and runs his universe's version of the CIA. He had his bones magically removed as a baby. He's a commentary on the way that psychotic and neurodivergent children are often villainized and mistreated by their caretakers. He has his bones un-removed over 20 years later. He's faking his chronic illness to cover up other, weirder chronic illness related to the bone removal and psychic thing. He loves his grandma. He purposely engineered his mother's miscarriage as a young child. He can turn himself into mist and break off chunks of his body while in mist form. He grew up with his consciousness halfway bound to a hell bubble full of demons. He has a personal assassin/assistant/general-purpose henchman that can turn into paper and ride around in his sleeve. He sometimes calls the henchman a cutesy nickname. He was partially raised by the living embodiment of emotional manipulation. He sometimes calls his annoying little cousin an even cutesier nickname. He tries to destroy the whole world in a fit of grief when he thinks his cousin's dead. He basically kills himself in order to plonk his soul into a magic mirror and see beyond the bounds of reality. He treats his own life and body as expendable assets because he was bred and raised to be a human sacrifice. He didn't speak for years as a child because the way he spoke scared his mother. His experience of the world is so alien and incomprehensible to others that a man with the power to play souls as music cannot understand his tune. He's a case study of the fact that sometimes you simply cannot save someone who doesn't want saving. He's thin and sickly from his illness but canonically beautiful. He has his father's eyes. He spoils his pet cat.

Ive been brewing a theory that people are obsessed with demanding media show them morally good things because we're replacing religion with tv shows and pop culture in general in our everyday life. From one story, one form of escapism that dictates our life and community seeking to another, humanity has always been the same. Or rather, there will always be forms of control to keep us occupied and distracted (at the same time it wouldn't be so effective if we weren't intrinsically wired to seek a distraction from reality, so i can't even blame people who "fall" for it. I think it's a natural instinct that helps people build a lens to approach reality through, to stay sane in a meaningless irrational world.)

w when the. when you. look let's just say that some things are embarrassing. for example: feelings.