vent:

sick of everyone in my life thinking I'm this lazy, useless, incompetent human being !!!

I am trying my hardest to make beneficial changes and improvements to my life and everyone brings up how relaxed and irresponsible I used to be !!!!

in my first year of uni I left everything til the last minute, maxxed out my overdraft twice, went on nights out with no way home or anyone to stay with when I was too tired to wait for the first train of the next day, got so obsessed with the beatles that I didn't do any work, didn't do my washing or shopping til it was absolutely urgent - basically I had no routine so just never got anything done ever.

this year, however, I've gotten myself into a routine and it's working well for me!

...but people are still expecting me to not be able to resist getting myself into debt, people are still expecting me to not take my uni work seriously, people are still expecting me to be silly enough to go on nights out with no plan to get home, but that's not what I'm doing this year!

but noone believes me !!!

I have been keeping on top of notes for uni, I have plans to start some assignments soon when they're not due until december, I have been living on a strict budget and am saving at the same time (which I'm hugely proud of myself for considering I maxxed out my overdraft twice last year, I didn't think I would be able to come back from that), if I haven't slept well and I think I can't stay out for the first train home the next day I don't go out (as heartbreaking as that is when I really wanna go out), I now have a healthy being obsessed with the beatles/life balance, and I have set days of the week for doing necessary things like my washing and shopping - but it feels like those things don't matter when everyone still expects me to be careless and lazy :(

I'm trying hard to prove people wrong but it feels pointless :/ although I'm proud of myself for getting into a routine and doing better in general than I was doing last year :)

here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud!!

✷(print shop)✷

does anyone wanna talk about how the fandom has hyper projected onto shen yuan and went the mile with at least a leap of interruptation of one line yet turn a blind eye to the rest of canon?

specifically I'm talkin about the broke american college studentification of shen yuan coupled with the fanon that he's chronically ill. these are two beasts of their own and should be tackled differently so I will.

I personally and strongly disagree with how a lot of fanon portrays shen yuan with messy hair, a large hoodie, disgustin room, and general I guess losercore aesthetics lmao. and now I'm even wondering if he was explicitly a college student or if it was just fanon based on that he's at least 20 years old. I feel this is a mental image constructed not from canon, but the idea of what kind of person would be his age and show his behaviour online... from a western perspective.

I believe that he would be far more put together, especially as he is a rich pretty boy in modern china. the difference in acceptable levels of casual, especially for a son of a very wealthy family, are much different between america and china. honestly I do find it a bit sad I wear a slightly frilly button up shirt and a short skirt and suddenly I'm a model in my area but I digress. I definitely think that shen yuan would probably even be actively into street fashion, give how well he seems to take to shen qingqiu's own pretty boy life. I also have a hard time believin that such a low life style person would readily take to the upkeep and demands of life as an immortal master with specialty in the fine arts.

there's also something to say about his resemblance to shen qingqiu (re: mushroom body), as well as I've seen some people claim that shen yuan was tall due to his lack of reaction nor stumbling with his new towering height. while the two adaptions I know if depict him with short hair, I think he could have readily had longer hair as well, maybe shoulder or so length. if "not reacting" is grounds to stand on (which is also used for the chronically ill headcanon), one could reasonably point out he doesn't seem to have any trouble with his now waist length locks. even slowly growing out my hair I'm having shocks to what the life entails, so I can't imagine being fully chill with sudden long hair. however, with the it's modern china argument for fashion, it is most reasonable he'd have short hair.

and yet, despite all this evidence in favour of a distinguished shen yuan ignored, the fandom took his pretty boy waiting to die line and ran with it, hard. I have been told this was due to a fan translation note implying that it could have hinted to chronic illness, and it was instead warped as fact of what the line was trying to say. I've also seen the lack of reaction claim used on him supposedly adjusting very well to living with without a cure, often paralleled to some people's chronic illnesses. this is a fair headcanon and is not really a problem on it's own. I just want to speak my thoughts on it, especially in contrast to the other popular fanon arising from ignoring a fair bit of canon implications and then taking one that most likely was not even in that direction as gospel.

first and foremost, as a disabled person myself, I find a lot of fandom depiction of chronic illness to be very divorced from reality, used to play into the losercore vibe, often just thrown in there with feelin like the creator forgot they gave him a disability only to suddenly write a single sentence goin "look! he's disabled!", and worse of all as if it could be his only justification for wasting his life away on the internet.

I once read a fanfic that seemed to just list a bunch of things he had or did because of his disability in a very list-like way, but a believable combination enough to presume they at least knew someone disabled, only to leave his cane at home after establishing his unamed illness with 50 symptoms could suddenly k.o. him at any time. not only did nothing happen while he was out, I question why someone of his status yet so severely disabled would not have an ambulatory wheelchair.

I also question the lack of mental illness present in many fanfics. this is not only due to that chronic illness does not really exist independently of mental illness, but I feel that shen yuan is canonically very mentally ill. not only is he wasting his life away with no purpose, heavily implied to be neglected, but he immediately accepts and welcomes a foreign life with no consideration of going back. many people write fanfics of shen yuan pressed about his identity and wishing to be seen for him, but as I've noticed and have pointed out to me by others, that's just not the case. there is no canon reveal because there is no identity conflict. he may divorce himself from shen jiu adamantly, but he marries himself quite well to shen qingqiu, readily switchin how to refer to himself near instantly.

I also feel there's something to say about how he's not only welcoming a foreign world, but one with severe danger that he has to face. and what does he do? dissociates like hell. it takes him a couple books before he even sees those around him as people! I also feel that him not even recognizin that he was cryin from literally ripping a chunk of his own leg out until binghe pointed it out speaks volumes. he let binghe rawdog him in a craze with excruciatin pain that literally killed him and was like "yea this is fine ah what do you mean there's a chance binghe might be dead when I get back noo". could even make an argument that his ignorance to his harem is more than just comphet, but also believin that he wouldn't have value to others in that way. his value is his status: a status he didn't earn and has never earned.

I don't know. I feel there's a lot more to shen yuan than the fandom looks at or rather the fandom digs into things that aren't even there as if it's the penacle of his character. I wanna see more exploration of shen yuan as he is rather than what the fandom wants him to be. or at least to me, his pretty rich boy complex feels far more interestin than the hundredth "oh yea he's chronically ill" shoved in for little to no reason other than they can't comprehend his behaviour without it. as if to say "well if only he could physically do other things, he would. he's not like those losers who can't get a grip of themselves." completely ignorin the depths of mental illness they could explore. it feels both saneist and ableist, in different directions. he's only so pathetic because he's physically disabled. that he can't be any other way, otherwise he's just not likeable.

like give him a couple personality disorders to explore his behaviour with or something! show how he's actually so used to playing pretty composed rich boy in public and that's why he so easily slipped into his idea of shen qingqiu! something!! anything!!!

procrastination is starting to have its consequences finally

bad astrology by flower face

.

five seconds away from stealing the plot to honnouji hotel for a zany hijikata x daigo story

jesus christ

(wrote this song before i left for college but it’s sure applicable to life right now!!!!)

lyrics: falling from grace, i’m a rusting lace artifact / tears down my face as i break my immortal pact / trust me, i want to be healthy / trust me, i want to be special and loving and sweet / trust me, i know that i’m broken / please, i just want one more chance to prove that i could be the— / best friends know how to reveal me / best friends know how hard i try to have something to say / best friends know that it’s not helping / can i just go far away to where there’s nowhere else to— / turn around, up and down, i’m melting!!!! / turn around, i have something to say!!!! / color bleeding, heartbeat leaving, need a place to lay my head / arms are folded, fine print bolded, everything is overloaded!!!!!!!! / color faded by the sun, i bite my tongue, i’m coming undone / color faded by the sun, i bite my tongue, i’m coming undone / color faded by the sun, i bite my tongue / trust me, i want to be healthy / trust me, i want to be special and loving and sweet / trust me, i know that i’m broken / trust me, i know that i’m broken….

.

a few people are bringing up depression in response to my shen yuan post, and while do what you want yes, I feel this does go back to how people don't know how to write disabled characters as another person brought into light. including mental disabilities.

mayb now I'm projectin on this one, but seein the absolute cluster fuck of shen yuan, it feels strange to go "it's depression!". I see narcissistic personality disorder, other cluster b traits, I see autism, mayb even ocd. he's a paranoid, hot head mess whose constantly calculating every moment. but people don't really know how to contextualize mental illness, especially not the "scary" ones, even if they have mental illness themselves. just slap on depression and anxiety as a bandaid and don't talk about the rest! it's not that people don't want to go further (or at least I have some faith), I just think our current society has not prepared people to step out of the "nice" mental disorders.

so I don't fault anyone who reduces his nonsense into the socially acceptable depression, but I can't act like that it doesn't make me uncomfortable. but also not uncomfortable enough to directly respond to strangers on the interwebs HSKDHDH.

but I also did want to talk about the depression to slob pipeline as well because that's I suppose the part that gets me. he's unwell, so he's a slob and a disgustin mess. a statement that could be made about someone who has depression, but I have a hard time applying the "he" to shen yuan in this case. I'm personally under the "I care so much about my image that I feel like I'm gonna rot from the inside out" type, and my response has been to hyper clean. clean and clean until I can't clean anymore and so I'm stressed that I can't make my space (and by extension myself) better in a small matter of time. I was once a slob in the past as a teen, but I'm immensely embarassed by it. I'm vain, so I take photos of myself with my backdrop being my room, and I will loose my marbles if someone looks down on me because I threw my pjamas onto my bed while gettin changed. no one but me and my family enter my room. no one else even enters the house.

*picks up shen yuan by the scruff of the neck* yer telling me this rich pretty boy obsessed with tryin to get people to take him seriously wouldn't have an instagram or whatever the equivalent would be?? honestly I feel like it would be expected of him, and he might also flaunt his wealth (that he didn't earn) to try to feel better. if you couldn't tell I'm tryin to shove a superiority/inferiority complex onto him over his status. that's just cause I think it'd be funny I don't have any text evidence off the top of my head for that lmao.

ultimately with all this, I just want something different. I want people to step back and look at shen yuan for who he is and then extrapolate out from that and into how they want to play with his character. I don't know how, with all these complex thought processes and characterizations of binghe, we have landed with a very 2d, copy paste version of shen yuan every time. maybe I just need to dig more into shen yuan fan creations, but I have yet found one to step out of the invented fanon version mold or their small variations. and its quite strange to me given how divorced fanon shen yuan is from canon shen yuan. I suppose I'm not used to a fandom with a character so warped away from canon well accepted. dare I say, ooc.

...........

hm. if i ever end up finding out im actually a system i think im gonna keep that shit to myself lmao 🙈 like i got several good experiences out of telling some people online and if it turns out im a system im rlly glad me and my alters had someone to talk to abt system stuff at a really hard time for us but like. outside from maybe a very select few irls i genuinely feel like i cant trust anyone abt it bc my ex constantly asked to talk to my alters to the point they were all uncomfortable and stopped communicating with me at all and like. if that was real then i cant imagine talking with them again and losing them. again bc it was rlly hard for me and caused more problems with my sense of reality :^) but like. idk if that was ever real shoutout to my ex for ruining my already shaky trust in reality..

and ik not telling people is like. INCREDIBLY common but it feels weird to me bc im excessively open with people (an issue that would be much better if my mom didnt take me out of therapy. lmao!) but i think it would be very good for me actually. <- isnt even close to knowing if im part of a system but overthinking it anyways

the main issue I have with endos is the community around them.

Sorry to keep throwing Miscellaneous Asks your way, but I finally had a moment to get my thoughts in order on one of the points on your Venn diagram I wanted to talk about! I always kind of debate whether or not to send other, semi-unrelated long asks like this when we've already got a chain going, but oh well. I'll try and address anything brought up in response here in the main one and hopefully it doesn't get confusing lol.

So I was thinking about the extent of Jo and Arakawa's relationship. It is completely true there's not much you can say that's concrete, especially since most of what we see is from Jo's perspective. Although his perspective is crucial to forming an understanding of their relationship, it's not sufficient. This is particularly the case because, coming back to giri-ninjo for a moment, Jo is largely bound by giri; it's clear his loyalty runs deep, but it's not a choice for him.

Arakawa, on the other hand, can choose who he places his trust in, especially early on. And I think it's incredibly important that, despite having men who've already been with him from day 1, men who've already been helping him with his son, Arakawa chooses to "place every confidence" in Jo (per an old Famitsu profile, one of the first official ones) and chooses to make Jo his captain.

Similarly, he kind of chooses Jo "over" Ichi in sending Ichi to prison "instead of" Jo. Perhaps the family really would collapse without Jo's talents, but… does it have to collapse entirely? Didn't Arakawa make it pretty far on his own? I guess it's neither here nor there, but I've always wondered if things would've really played out as feared if Jo went to prison instead. Not to understate Jo's role in the family, of course.

Anyway, I think that trust shows not only in overt gestures such as entrusting Masato and the family's finances to Jo, but also in more subtle behind-the-scenes ways, such as what we were talking about before with regard to New Year's 2001. There's also the fact that leaking information to Aoki was Jo's idea; for that to be the case, Arakawa would have to discuss Aoki's threats at length with Jo. (Unrelated, but come to think of it, "complying with him [to] make him see value in keeping us around" is very often the strategy of victims of abuse and neglect…)

And this one's an underrated detail many people miss, but after Arakawa shot Ichi, while he was able to come up to Ichi to tell him he's counting on him and sneak in the fake bill, if the goal was to not arouse suspicion, I don't think he would exactly have been able to excuse himself from the dinner to drive Ichi to Yokohama. Time was of the essence in terms of Ichi's survival, so that leaves Jo, who was conveniently already at the scene and who was certainly in on the "secret rule" that constitutes part of the Arakawa Family's agreement with the homeless camp. Overall, there is a pattern of Arakawa approaching Jo before anyone else, isn't there?

Sort of branching off of that, I would personally feel comfortable saying that Jo knows Arakawa better than anyone else. He seems to know details about Akane and New Year's 1976 no one else does, details Arakawa would have had to volunteer himself, and that plus his own experiences are what allow him alone to have the most complete picture of that night.

I also get the impression Jo understands Arakawa better as a person than anyone else--certainly better than Aoki, but perhaps even better than Ichi in some cases. There are multiple instances where he defends Arakawa and challenges their perceptions of him--that he's "betrayed" the Tojo Clan, that he's betrayed Aoki, that he's the type to scheme and make power-plays behind Aoki's back. He hasn't. And, despite how little Jo's "allowed" to say, he turns out to be right every time. Also worth noting Arakawa does something similar in asking Ichi to try and understand Jo's frustrations, though he's more or less enabling Jo's abuse in doing so.

Lastly, The Smallest Detail that drives me kind of insane. Them arriving at the office in the back seat of the same car in one of Ichi's flashbacks. I wouldn't think too much of it if it were any other time of day, but the first-thing-in-the-morning quality and the fact Jo isn't driving (thus it's not as an act of service but as an equal) is like… Okay. You're carpooling to work. And if you're not carpooling, you're honest-to-god living together. What the hell.

So a lot of it is this web of inferences--it has to be, at least currently--but I really do think there's a lot to chew on. More than meets the eye, anyway. I've also been stewing in all of this for years, especially since drafting Jo's relationships section, so I might just have inhaled the fumes for too long lol

Thank you for coming to me about the nature of their relationship! Although I did put it down as being more-or-less 'uncertain' on my chart, I do agree that their relationship isn't as cut-and-dry as other relationships might be (it's going back to appreciating the complexities of RGG relationships, especially in the case of the Arakawa's where for every party involved it really IS complicated)

I wanted to exclude making any definitive statements on things that couldn't be verified without making a detour on the original post (I know I already mentioned frequently that Arakawa is able to joke about Jo being 'softer' on Masato, but I do think about their relationship often and the implied depth of Jo's loyalty if- as you said- he was able to climb through the ranks of the Arakawa family much quicker than preexisting members), but there are clear points in the game that due allude to a great trust between the two (and I also note that carpooling detail during Ichi's flashback- or at the very least I know I'd find myself noticing Jo sitting in the back opposed to the front/driving). It's definitely not hard to assert that Jo knows Arakawa well either, it's hard not to come to that conclusion when we have evidence from the game to infer that.

i really really really want to write more for gbf oh MAN