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trashlie · 1 year

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Nol and Kousuke; their continued parallels

I know I never shut up about parallels and mirroring and foiling but that’s something that I find so fascinating about ILY - the intentional set up of characters who can illuminate something else in another character, and how the way they respond similarly or differently to their similar scenarios makes or breaks them. For instance, we see in Nol and Shinae typically positive mirroring - where she has learned from him how to be a better friend and turned around and gave it right back to him. But we also see between Nol and Kouske’s parallels a tendency to fracture and create chaos.

The more we learn about Nol and Kousuke, and their relationship, the more intrigued I grow about how they parallel each other, because I think they are more alike than they - and some readers - realize. Or, rather, I think Nol is at least aware of it to some degree, but Kousuke remains locked up inside his comfortable bubble.

I don’t have a clear cut thought-process for this post lol so please bear with me - I’m just tossing around some thoughts I’ve been having. It’s a LOT of long-winded rambling lol I’m sorry in advance

To some degree, Nol and Kousuke’s parentage is paralleled. Neither of them had much of a relationship with Rand - for Nol, he didn’t even know his father for years, and Kousuke may as well not have as busy as Rand always was. They also had a mother who loved them. I’m using this word loosely here because frankly I think Yui sees Kousuke as an extension of herself, rather than a person of his own, and thus I feel like her love is more of a means for what she wants but, that’s part of what I’m getting at, too. Kousuke interprets it as love, Kousuke believes that their family is unlike others and that they don’t show affection the same way, that nurturing isn’t the same, and that Yui wants what is best for him and guides him to that goal. On the flipside, we have Nol who, as far as we can tell thus far, had a mother who loved him and doted on him, was affectionate and warm and made him feel like he was special, gifting him with a special nickname.

The foil goes further, too - Kousuke grew up wealthy and privileged, wanting for nothing, with the security afforded to the family heir who would go on to one day inherit the company and the fortune. Nol, on the other hand, we can tell didn’t have the same fortune as Kousuke, and we get the sense that the only abundance they had was of warmth and love. Or maybe that’s just my projection, haha. At any rate, we see the set up clearly: one is cold, lonely, but with all wants fulfilled*; the other warm and affectionate though they may not have had everything they wanted.

It’s easy to see that Nol was nurtured. That he may not have had all materialistic wants met, but his basic needs were. When he first meets Kousuke, he exudes confidence and charm, he seems like a friendly child. We also can see in him, even if he buries it deep down, that Nol is deeply empathetic and understanding of people, and even if he did it for penance, he took it upon himself to help others - but more than that, he seems to intuitively understand what people need, because he understands the wants and needs of people.

Kousuke, on the other hand, doesn’t have that same ability, because he lacks the experiences Nol has. When you’ve had to want for nothing* your whole life, when you are intelligent and successful, when you have every opportunity afforded to you, you grow to accept what you’ve been told your whole life: that you are the best, that you will go on to do great things, that you are above these other baser needs. It was through the internalized belief that becoming better will make his father love him, that he could earn his father’s love by being just like him, that he would impress him and receive the love and attention he craved. So Kousuke never developed that understanding of the importance of friendship and peers, never learned the strife and trials others endure. He knows he’s privileged, but he also knew that empathy was beneath him, because he had no need to engage with others, because he knows his place and it’s above others.

We haven’t seen young Nol interactions with kids his age outside of the teasing about his name, but it’s safe to guess that he probably had a pretty decent childhood before he and his mother moved closer to Rand. Kousuke on the other hand admits that he knows no one likes him, that he lacks the personality and charisma Nol possesses, that he fears he acquired none of Rand’s good traits and only the ones that made him the most like him in the worst way.

Idk this is something I like to talk and think about, because it’s not clearly not simply a story of have vs have nots, or, well it isn’t so cut and dry. Because to some degree I guess it is. Nol had something that Kousuke didn’t - that affectionate nurturing, someone who gave him reassurance and warmth, someone who made him feel love. Does Kousuke feel love towards his mother? Does he even feel love towards his father? At a very young age he internalized that love is different for them, and he also internalized a transactional sense of love. That he must be worthy of love, that he must earn it. He forsook the activities a normal child his age should have engaged in and instead set himself on a one-track quest to chase after the one thing he ever wanted but couldn’t obtain: his father’s love.

Though it can be argued Yui loves Kousuke, it doesn’t negate that he grew up in the face of neglect, and that he so deeply internalized this neglect until it poisoned him and grew from him an ugly, thorny bush that has him deeply caught within it. I think that’s the thing that’s saddest to me about Kousuke - he had everything he could want but for the one thing he truly desperately wanted, and it clouded him so strongly that he couldn’t see beyond it. It turned him into someone jealous and unhappy, someone who couldn’t bear to live with the idea that someone else might have had what he wanted, that someone else had experienced it, someone who wasn’t (in his mind) good enough.

Kousuke believes that in order to win his father’s affection, he has to be good enough. And how could this illegitimate child possibly be good enough to win it? This illegitimate child who was nearly a spitting image of Rand, who had a bright smile and laughed. This child who emanated every positive trait used to describe Rand - every positive trait Kousuke had never born witness to.

And because Nol wasn’t good enough because he was insatiably jealous the fear took root. Fear that nothing he did would ever matter, fear that Nol who already had beat him when it came to genetics, could possibly best him again.

That neglect played so heavily into Kousuke’s identity that he has yet to separate himself from it, has acknowledged the way he is driven by fear and jealousy, that he couldn’t bear the idea of Nol ever besting him and did all he could to tear him down, to ensure he never could. And that’s the thing - Kousuke wasn’t wrong, although he wasn’t correct, either. Nol could have bested him, just not the way he feared. And, until now, he had chosen not to.

That’s the biggest difference in where Nol and Kousuke foil each other. Kousuke was raised with cold, lacked the kind of warm nurturing Nol had, learned love to be transactional, and that neglect turned into want and grew into jealousy and fear so intense that he had to tear someone down. But where Kousuke was raised in a corporate family, by business minded people who had no room for empathy and certainly not for those beneath him, by people who needed to be cunning and make calculated choices, Nol was raised by someone who seemed to exude warmth and instill in him the kinds of morals that were beneath Kousuke. Nol came to this new home equipped with empathy, and also with a gaping hole of want.

Over and over Nol reached out to Kousuke, wanting to help him fill that hole of his own, hoping for a companion, for a buddy, to be part of a team. That even if they felt small - and though Kousuke may have felt otherwise, Rand certainly made him feel small and not good enough - they could have been together, they could have lifted each other up. Nol learned at an early age what it was like to have an ally, to have someone on your side, to have someone you were able to show your weakness to. Kousuke never did; he had to be perfect at all times. He could never make a misstep, lest he disappoint father, lest he set himself back on his quest for his father’s love.

And this further came to manifest as they grew older. Where Kousuke’s neglect turned him jealous and fearful, Nol’s didn’t really externalize the way Kousuke’s did. Even though he was punched down by Kousuke and attacked, even though we know his experiences with Yui still cause him fear, even though he, too, suffers from disappointing Rand, Nol never really took it out on Kousuke, the way Kousuke did to him. I think there’s another reason to it, but I do think his sense of empathy played a strong role, here. As someone going through it, and worse, Nol understood what it was like to feel like you weren’t good enough, that no matter what you did you would never make a difference. Over and over again he appealed to Kousuke knowing he wasn’t good enough in his eyes, but hoping one day he would be. He understood!

That’s not to say that he hasn’t fought back because we’ve certainly seen that throughout ILY Nol has started to push back more, that more and more his veneer has changed and he’s gone from obedient for the sake of keeping peace to going toe to toe with Kousuke and finally voicing his feelings. But I think even up until the night before his court date, Nol hoped one day he would reach Kousuke, that maybe there was something left in him that was salvageable.

But that’s not all! I think that’s the most obvious way that Nol and Kousuke foil each other, because it constitutes for so much of who they are, of their core identities. Nol made a point to distance himself from people out of both a fear that he would bring harm to others and a deeply held belief that he didn’t even deserve that kindness. And yet he still reached out to people who needed that help. Even though his motivation stemmed from a selfish place (his penance), it still was an act of kindness, it was still him empathizing with people and playing his part to benefit them. Kousuke, though, came from an environment that encouraged every man for himself, that there’s no good in softness, that you had to be hard to be strong you had to be above your feelings, that you had to be the best, that people were beneath you and you had to ensure they knew it.

And yet, Nol and Kousuke both are SO SIMILAR in ways that they don’t seem to realize, I think, because they are so blinded by the very thing that makes them so similar.

Especially at this current stage of the story, we see that both Nol and Kousuke are at war with themselves. Or rather, there’s a battle raging on within each of them, both of them contending what they believe to be true and actual reality.

Kousuke has spent a long time projecting on Nol. We’ve been seeing it for many episodes, all the way back to the night he got drunk at the club with Kousuke and Yujing and all the voices he “heard”, people talking about him and saying things that were, frankly, true. Things that deep down he knows to be true of himself. We’ve seen him lie to himself on MANY occasions, usually to placate himself. We’ve also seen times he’s stated things with eyes closed, impying some kind of mask or lie. One that I remember off the top of my head really clearly was when Nol and Shinae were bickering about his jacket at dinner, and Kousuke told them they’re ridiculous, they’re acting like children. But looking back on it, doesn’t it feel more like a moment of Kousuke’s jealousy he spoke of? That Nol is someone so good natured and easy to get along with, that people just naturally get along with him. He doesn’t have these kinds of frivolous relationships with people, doesn’t even allow himself them because there’s no time he has better things to be doing.

But by stuffing down these little truths, by squashing down his insecurities and fears, by lying to himself at each opportunity, Kousuke plays heavily into the world he believes in, and it’s clear to us readers that the world he believes in is not, in fact, true.

Quimchee has talked before about how memory plays a role in this story - and that there isn’t one true memory, because everyone’s memory is biased by their own views, their own feelings. Memories are malleable - over and over you remember things and details change and you can’t quite recall what was or wasn’t true.

Kousuke speaks with such conviction of things that aren’t entirely true. Even recently, he said to Nol “Do you know how much trouble I’m in with father because of you?” even though he’d just had a phone call with Rand reassuring him he was not, in fact, in trouble, and that all Rand wanted was to know they are safe. But it doesn’t compute with what Kousuke knows to be true - that Rand will be disappointed in him, that he is Nol’s keeper, that it’s his job to keep an eye on Nol, so he dismisses the truth and reverts back to his own version of things.

Not only that, but even the aftermath of that call roughed him up and worked him up so much it set him off on a spiral. Kousuke was dealing with a lot that night, especially with what he believes is expected of him. He was already high tension long before Nol jumped into the pool, and long before that call with Rand, but by the time he shows up at the Parks’ house, he’s full on spiraling, ruder than usual, meaner than he tends to allow himself to look in front of others (he prides himself on being a gentleman and understanding the importance of decorum and a good public image).

When reality tests his false reality, it sets him off. He can’t handle the dissonance between the two, is incapable of facing that what he deeply believes to be true may not be. Because if that isn’t true, what else isn’t it? And from what we saw after he punched Nol and he took that fall, there’s something buried deep in Kousuke’s subconscious that he cannot face, that he refuses to. Something that he is protecting himself from.

“Sometimes those that experience trauma create falsified memories to cope.”

Kousuke is speaking of Nol, but I’m pretty sure he’s projecting. He’s the one, I think, with the falsified memory (though I’ll get to Nol in a moment). He is the one who has come away from that night Nol was taken away the inherent belief that Nol is unstable and violent, that Nol attacked him, that he is constantly laying an attack on him. He’s paranoid of Nol at every turn and takes every success Nol has as a slight against him. Maybe Nol was planning all along to use Oxford as an opportunity to best Kousuke and threaten him. But Kousuke never even considered an alternative. I think there’s even a likelihood that he got in the way of Nol and Shinae’s growing friendship not only to isolate Nol again, but because that jealousy still eats him up: that Nol is so personable and likable, that he just has a way with people who end up genuinely liking him, whereas no one likes Kousuke; he lacks what Nol has that makes him so likeable. But anything Nol does that looks like success is a slight against Kousuke. He can’t bear to see him rise up, lest he ever rise high enough to eclipse Kousuke.

And while it’s very believable Nol is the violent one - because we’ve seen him lash out already and we know about his punching bag and what angers does to him and how he relieves it - we also have to wonder. If Nol was the one who attacked, why was Kousuke the one huff huff huffing in his memory, just like after punching Nol? It doesn’t match up with Nol’s memory - asking what he did wrong insisting he didn’t do anything. We’ve already established memories can be falsified - so whose is? What is it that is so traumatic about this experience that Kousuke couldn’t clearly recall it? There’s a whole post to be said about that memory and why we should be wary of its accuracy based on the coloring but that’s not for me to write (someone else on reddit has said they are working on it and I look forward to it!) but the point is: Kousuke is probably the one coping with falsified memories, with a false reality.

But he’s also not quite wrong, I think. Like I said, this is where Nol and Kousuke overlap in similarities.

It’s harder to state for certainty regarding Nol, since it’s just conjecture at this point, but I think it’s safe to say that Nol’s inherent belief that he is a monster, that he is a villain, is part of a falsified reality, and I think his was born out of the time he spent in that mental facility. In fact, a lot of Nol’s other trauma reactions seem to be born of that time. He’s vehemently against medicine, he doesn’t like to be in hospitals, his entire reaction when he woke up thinking he was back at Hirahara Memorial alone is enough to deduce that the time Nol was there was awful and irrevocably changed him. Is that where the belief that he’s a monster was born? Was it through Kousuke’s emotional abuse and the time he spent in the mental facility that Nol came to regard himself so lowly, that he came to believe everyone is better off without him, that he can only bring danger and badness to people he cares about?

We’re obviously missing a few puzzle pieces here, but I think it’s a safe guess. Did something happen to his mom as a result of her pregnancy or his birth, or is it more than something happened to her and he feels like it wouldn’t have if he’d never been born? It feels like something happened and he was made to internalize it. Not all “mental facilities” are good, and not all have the good of the kids in mind. And worse, with Yui’s connections to the hospital, it’s likely that what was “meant to be” help was the complete opposite. I feel like that’s why Nol has internalized it so deeply; it’s something that was pressed upon him at a vulnerable time and it completely changed the way he views himself and how he thinks he’s reflected to the world.

Kousuke clings to his falsified reality for comfort, Nol hides in his because he has nowhere else to go. Kousuke is afraid of reality and the truth, Nol is incapable of even seeing it! And even here, where they are so alike, they still react differently. When faced with dissonance between his reality and actual reality, Kousuke externalizes it, starts spiraling and grows angry. (Or, we could say.... he becomes.... unstable?) Nol, though, internalizes his and delves deeper into that dark.

Now, I’m not saying there’s no case for Nol having ever attacked Kousuke. But I also wonder if we aren’t supposed to think deeper on this. Nol looks like he’s violent based on this altercation with Kousuke and what we saw with Sangchul, and how hard it is for him to bite back his anger. But we also know Kousuke to be an unstable person - he struggles with reconciling truth with what he believes and when he gets overwhelmed and stressed, he becomes irascible and paranoid - and some of that paranoia seems to leak the truth he’s fighting. But that’s not what this post is about lol.

The point is, both Nol and Kousuke are struggling to reconcile what they believe and what is really true. So much of Kousuke’s peace seems to hinge on what he believes - it’s so easy to tip the scale and lead him into a spiral as he fights off the truth. Control is what makes him feel powerful - not in just the lording over people way, but over his own mental state. He needs everything to adhere to what he believes, lest he have to face something he isn’t ready for, something that will change everything he believes. He needs to believe that what he knows to be true, because who is he, what is he, if it isn’t? What of the years he spent grinding and trying his best to meet someone’s approval if it was all in vain?

But Nol struggles with his falsified reality because he believes himself to be dangerous and undeserving. Who is he, to think he deserves friendship, to think he deserves kindness? Who is he to think he deserves comfort. For what he believes he’s done, he must suffer and any form of peace is undeserved - even dying. But we see that he is starting to struggle with that - he has formed friends he thinks he doesn’t deserve and they care about him. He is allowing himself moments of relying on others, of accepting their comfort. How does he reconcile his internalized beliefs with what he is finding himself wanting?

If we are to take their drunken states to be indicative of some truths they cannot face - like Kousuke’s paranoia that people are talking about him, that they are saying horrible (but true) things about him as a reflection of how he sees himself and what he believes of himself, then Nol fighting with Alyssa and stating that he doesn’t even want to be there, that there’s somewhere else he’d rather be is indicative of the truth he is denying, seeing in a group of strangers the people he’s yearning for. Just because he doesn’t believe he deserves it doesn’t mean he doesn’t want it. As much as Nol believes he’s a monster meant to be vilified, he still craves the comfort that comes from his friends. He still wants to be around people who DO love him, around people who see the good in him.

They both struggle to reconcile this with reality. Kousuke can’t face who he really is, that he spent his whole life trying to earn affection that should have been given. He left no room in his life for anything he enjoyed because there was one desire that trumped it all, one reward that would justify the means. Who is he if what he believes isn’t true. What has he lived for, if he will never obtain his strongest desire? How do you live with yourself, when you realize that? So he runs from it, he takes shelter in something that makes sense, that makes him feel better, that grants him the control he needs. And Nol runs from his truth, because what he believes - that he is a monster - is something he can’t let go of, lest he bring more harm to people he cares about. He has to evade it, lest the truth catch him - that maybe he isn’t the monster he believes, that maybe he does deserve the love he craves. How can he continue to evade it, though, unless he continues to believe in his truth?

I really look forward to seeing what Nol and Kousuke make of these scenarios, of whether or not they ever choose to accept/embrace reality (or if it has to be pushed on them). In a sense, they both reside in these falsified realities for a sense of control and security. Maybe Nol knows deep down that he can’t control what happens to the people he loves, so he just hopes by distancing himself he can control that much. They both face very difficult choices and have a lot of demons to confront, and I want to see they’ll ever find where they overlap again or if they will choose forked paths.

It all boils down to this: Nol and Kousuke are both prisoner of their own minds, in some way. Neither of them can move forward until they tackle that, but it’s such an intrinsically woven part of them, how are they to shed that? That’s what I’m dying to see.

#I Love Yoo #ILY Brainrot #Kousuke Hirahara #Nol #Nolan Oliver T. Lochain #I feel like I need a tag specifically for ILY parallels LMFAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO #i also feel like i should add images to this but i'm also fighting the desire to take a nap SO. ALAS. another wall of text #maybe i'll update it later when i'm more up to it lmao #anyway this is just something sitting on my mind because talking to poisonheart got me to reframe some of the parallels between Nol and Kou #i'm such a sucker for foils lmao you just never go wrong with em do you?#and i love the way that for as different as Nol and Kou's experiences are there's a lot of ways they overlap #it's just what they make of that overlap that sets them apart i think #well let me rephrase that #i think what really sets Nol and Kou apart is how their respective childhoods foiled each other #but i'm fascinated by the ways they overlap and how they go about it differently #what motivates them and stuff like that #yknow. the usual LMAO #at the end of the day Nol and Kousuke both seem to have some demons to grapple with #and those demons absolutely are a prison to them that prevents them from moving forward

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andromeda3116 · 1 year

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looking at job prospects in science writing (depressing), and one of them is offering $80k/year. i look at it out of curiosity. it requires a phd.

for $80,000 per year. a phd. you want someone who has a fucking phd in a life science for $80,000 per year

jesus christ we are living in the worst timeline

#like i know now that my bachelor's was useless #you can't make shit with a bachelor's in microbiology unless you go to grad school and even then it's only a little more #i thought i was making a good decision but i see now that it was a mistake. i should have fone something different.#i should have started with the idea of being a scientific journalist and fostered it then #now i don't have the resources to go back to school for a journalism degree #and even with online courses in journalism and if i can build a strong portfolio #i'll be at a massive disadvantage because of my lack of formal writing experience #and so even if i can get a job it won't pay me well because i'm not really qualified #i don't want to discourage myself but i just.#i literally do feel like that part in the game where you've finally figured out the mechanics #and now realize that you've built your character all wrong #i know that life can change but i feel like i've made everything harder for myself and have nothing to show for it #don't mind me #these tags have gotten out of hand ugh #this post was about the insanity of thinking that 80k is a reasonable salary for someone with a phd

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soup-or-who-lock · 1 year

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Ted Lasso Wednesday Thoughts!!! Rebecca's Dutch pal seems....he seems like a fella who could possibly be called Rupert...not that he seems like Rupert, just seems like A Rupert. And he would be a swell New Rupert lmao

Jamie taught his grandad to ride a bike, to honor Jamie's grandad's grandad. pardon me while I'm sobbing.

"You fellas say pillow fight one time and we're never watching a movie again" or whatever Ted said

Arguably my single most important thought ever? Ted got reverse-Princess-Bride-d. (To "get Princecess-bride-d" one would be served 1 of 2 glasses, both of which have Substance. a reverse-Princess-Bride situation is that you think both glasses have Substance, but neither does.) And neither of them referenced the Princess Bride??? The Beard serving glasses of tea with Something in it scene was so Dread Pirate Roberts and that's such a Ted/Beard movie!!! I'm hurt and shocked and offended not to have had them mention it.

#i say Substance b/c i'm not 100% sure if it's supposed to be weed or mushrooms or something else that idk about #(i'm much more a ted than a beard if you catch my drift)#in regards to the dutch fella's name i just simply think it would be funny!! I think they should do that and then the media can #call gross rupert Old Rupert (as they called our rebecca Old Rebecca) however i would also accept Crusty Rupert #ted lasso #ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso season 3 #ted lasso wednesdays #and im gonna go ahead and hide my last prediction deep in the tags which is #i don't get the feeling Trent is capital-G-Gay (given that he didn't say he's gay he just came out and he's closer to a woman than ever)#it sounds like he's bi and still married the difference is that he's accepted himself and so has his wife (or whatever they are)#and naturally many bi people use gay either as their preferred label or an umbrella term so if that is trent's preference then that's lit #i just think he might actually be bi and happily married #and while i think trent and ted are in LOVE i just want them both/each to be happy #jinkies this is a lot of tags. b/c surprising no one i have many feelings about the theodore lasso show #anyway i don't think i'm being eloquent but i loved this episode i loved it i love trent and colin and keeley and i love this show #i also could felly be completely wrong about trent being bi and that would be a-okay by me!! i just kinda mean to say that while he is #decidedly LGBT and decidedly interested in men he didn't say that he's not into women. hope i'm making sense

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arapydea · 2 years

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Stargate Atlantis & Voltron: Legendary Defender are the same if you just squint hard enough

You know

A group of people find ancient alien technologie, travel through a wormhole into another galaxy, find a giant castle/city-ship and get sucked into a war against an evil alien race that has been reigning for 10.000 years.

Coincidence ??

Probably

But still interesting.

#Stargate #Stargate Atlantis #Voltron #voltron: legendary defender #Tell me I'm wrong I dare you #I do wonder if there is more maybe I should look further into it #I did consider comparing the main characters but I think they are too different for that #I mean everyone in SGA seems to be at least 30 #and the oldest human we have in VLD is Shiro with 25 #AND he is like 7 years older than the next oldest so the comparison already fails there #Hello I still don't know how to use these tags #This is Neuland for me #ArapyDea Posted That

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sanstropfremir · 2 years

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I love the fact that Yunho stayed true to his artistry throughout the years. Sadly the same can’t be said for younger male idols like Taemin or Kai, in my opinion, who strayed so far away from what we saw of them doing in their groups. And it got me thinking; how much of it is them and how much of it is SM’s marketing strategy? How can their group self and solo self be soooo different? For me they’re not selling their solo self well enough to convince me that that them you know what I am? It feels almost like they’re acting (yes, every performer acts a little bit) but with Kai and Taemin it looks like they’re both playing a role…

#i genuinely do not know how to answer this sldkfsdkljfsldkjf #but you probably should have read more than one post on my blog before you sent this #considering i 1) have several of the top posts in the taemin meta tag #and 2) one of the things i talk about quite frequently is about HOW ACTING IS IMPORTANT TO GOOD PERFORMANCE #unironically: do you think every idol is totally genuine in their performances? and that 'playing a role' means something is bad art??#bc if you do you need to get a grip real quick darling bc i can guarantee that even yunho is 'playing a role'#...do you not think that human beings have depth??? that they can want to portray more than one thing in different performances???#look. if you dont like taemin and kai's solo work that's totally fine. you are allowed to have your opinions and disliking things is fine #but to say that neither of them are 'selling' their work well enough to you bc it 'looks like theyre acting'??????#kindly but what the fuck is wrong with you #what the fuck else do you want them to DO????????#taemin especially has talked a LOT on many separate occasions for many years now about how much artistic input he has and how he makes work #also also: literally WHO CARES if its sm marketing?? i'm here for the music and for the performances not some weird parasocial shit #i am under no impression that i know anything about these artists' personal lives or what theyre really like and i dont care to know #all i care about is the work that gets produced and if its good or not #text #answers #i cant believe someone had the audacity to send ME. A TRAINED THEATRE PROFESSIONAL!! the phrase ''yes every performer acts a little bit''#do you hear yourself. do you.#i almost thought this was bait bc you literally managed to hit every point i would strongly disagree with you on #like some kind of perverse internet argument bingo. i feel like i should applaud you. well done!#hall of fame asks

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judyalvqrez · 1 year

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the way people are once again removing all the nuance and moral greyness and complexity out of the last of us, but especially joel miller’s character is kinda concerning lol

#i told myself i wasn't gonna get into the discourse but i was reading through some of the posts and comments in the tlou tag and... oof #like i get it i could write whole essays about my feelings on this story and its characters and the ending ect.#but a lot of people are already getting annoyingly defensive of every single one of joel’s actions #literally stripping him of all of the flaws and complexities and moral greyness that make him such a great character #why are yall turning him into a clean cut selfless hero that did everything right like that's so boring #what’s most frustrating is how people are completely ignoring ellie’s perspective in all of this #some even just pushing her entire character aside in favor of joel #only bringing her or her trauma up when they’re trying to justify something joel did #and treating her like an accessory to his character when you should be reflecting how his actions are gonna affect HER #i hate to break it to yall but if you bring this highly romanticized version of joel into the next season #yall are NOT gonna have a good time #it happened once and it will happen again and i know the inevitable backlash is gonna be twice as bad this time that’s why im concerned #anyway those are just my two cents that no one asked for if you see me posting any type of discourse again pls shoot me lol #and please don't think i'm a joel hater either those people are just as annoying they're just in the minority i think especially on tumblr #why can't we just enjoy joel for the morally grey complex and honestly fucked up and tragic man that he is #it's like joel defender this joel hater that let's just be joel enjoyers #or joel lovers that'd be me because i love him with all my heart 🥺#especially hbo joel like his characterization was so good he just hits different and honestly i prefer him over game joel #and i do enjoy the occasional ''joel is innocent/did nothing wrong' memes/jokes i think they're hilarious and ultimately harmless #(also the joel/abby memes but that's another story sjafhksaf)#this was more about the people writing almost whole ass dissertations or actively starting arguments in their fervent need to defend joel #okay im done lol #lucy rants #i tried to keep this little rant as spoiler free as possible because there's no way in hell im tagging this asjfknsa this was more for me #if you read this whole thing through the end: hi i hope your day was good and if it wasn't i hope it's great tomorrow :)

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neverendingford · 3 months

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#tag talk #watched “it follows” and I shouldn't have. didn't know it was horror going in but after a few minutes I did and I should have stopped #I'm apparently still not 100% past self-terrifying as a form of self harm. I knew I shouldn't have and I kept watching anyway #you know. most people don't know what terror is. they know fear. they know worry. they know anxiety.#terror is something different. I wish I could describe it but you really only know it when you have felt it.#that freezing up of your body. I guess some people get terror in different ways though. I freeze. others fight or flight. I just freeze.#that sense of helpless anticipation as you experience the certainty that the object of your terror is approaching. inevitably.#why fight it? you fucking can't. no matter what you do it'll always get you. it's stronger. more powerful.#hmmm. csa moment oops. I am tempted to make a joke here but I don't want to deflect from my issues.#I have trauma and I wish I didn't. I have hurt that I don't even consciously remember but my body does.#I do not have emotional trauma in the way that people have survivors guilt and feeling like it was their fault. any of those surface emotion #not calling it shallow. but like. it's like when you don't look at the needle and you don't even notice the skin prick but you feel it #you feel it hit your vein and you feel that deep body response that Something Is Not Right.#like when I got my wisdom teeth pulled and I elected to not go under for it so I was numbed but conscious for it.#part way through my body started uncontrollably shaking (well. sort of controlled. I'm good at that).#I didn't feel the pain. I wasn't afraid. but my body was feeling objective physical trauma and I had the response anyway.#I don't remember really. I don't have the surface level pain responses to the trauma.#but deep down my body knows something is wrong and I can't stop my bones from shaking even though I don't feel the pain.#hmmm. I should talk to my next therapist about this.#Lear chased off our last therapist when I was having my dissociative week after watching The Hunt.#which. tbh good riddance she was not equipped to handle us in the slightest. and we're talking to our friend/gf(?) again which is really nic #she and Lear had a few solid conversations too. which was funky cause before he snapped he didn't want anything to do with her #but we kinda had a moment where he realized he's just as fucked up as I am just differently.#anyone reading these tag talks might remember so I won't go over it again.#anyway. I'm not sleeping tonight. I think I should start taking the full pill instead of just the half. but it's just suppressing symptoms #I'm acting up because of my inner state. or maybe my inner state is tumultuous because of my outer condition? idfk #either way I'm suffering over here #not a sui risk but damn #I'm gonna finish patching the pair of pants I've been not working on for the past months

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alfheimr · 1 month

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My Favorite Cheap Art Trick: Gradient Maps and Blending Modes

i get questions on occasion regarding my coloring process, so i thought i would do a bit of a write up on my "secret technique." i don't think it really is that much of a secret, but i hope it can be helpful to someone. to that end:

this is one of my favorite tags ive ever gotten on my art. i think of it often. the pieces in question are all monochrome - sort of.

the left version is the final version, the right version is technically the original. in the final version, to me, the blues are pretty stark, while the greens and magentas are less so. there is some color theory thing going on here that i dont have a good cerebral understanding of and i wont pretend otherwise. i think i watched a youtube video on it once but it went in one ear and out the other. i just pick whatever colors look nicest based on whatever vibe im going for.

this one is more subtle, i think. can you tell the difference? there's nothing wrong with 100% greyscale art, but i like the depth that adding just a hint of color can bring.

i'll note that the examples i'll be using in this post all began as purely greyscale, but this is a process i use for just about every piece of art i make, including the full color ones. i'll use the recent mithrun art i made to demonstrate. additionally, i use clip studio paint, but the general concept should be transferable to other art programs.

for fun let's just start with Making The Picture. i've been thinking of making this writeup for a while and had it in mind while drawing this piece. beyond that, i didn't really have much of a plan for this outside of "mithrun looks down and hair goes woosh." i also really like all of the vertical lines in the canary uniform so i wanted to include those too but like. gone a little hog wild. that is the extent of my "concept." i do not remember why i had the thought of integrating a shattered mirror type of theme. i think i wanted to distract a bit from the awkward pose and cover it up some LOL but anyway. this lack of planning or thought will come into play later.

note 1: the textured marker brush i specifically use is the "bordered light marker" from daub. it is one of my favorite brushes in the history of forever and the daub mega brush pack is one of the best purchases ive ever made. highly recommend!!!

note 2: "what do you mean by exclusion and difference?" they are layer blending modes and not important to the overall lesson of this post but for transparency i wanted to say how i got these "effects." anyway!

with the background figured out, this is the point at which i generally merge all of my layers, duplicate said merged layer, and Then i begin experimenting with gradient maps. what are gradient maps?

the basic gist is that gradient maps replace the colors of an image based on their value.

so, with this particular gradient map, black will be replaced with that orangey red tone, white will be replaced with the seafoamy green tone, etc. this particular gradient map i'm using as an example is very bright and saturated, but the colors can be literally anything.

these two sets are the ones i use most. they can be downloaded for free here and here if you have csp. there are many gradient map sets out there. and you can make your own!

you can apply a gradient map directly onto a specific layer in csp by going to edit>tonal correction>gradient map. to apply one indirectly, you can use a correction layer through layer>new correction layer>gradient map. honestly, correction layers are probably the better way to go, because you can adjust your gradient map whenever you want after creating the layer, whereas if you directly apply a gradient map to a layer thats like. it. it's done. if you want to make changes to the applied gradient map, you have to undo it and then reapply it. i don't use correction layers because i am old and stuck in my ways, but it's good to know what your options are.

this is what a correction layer looks like. it sits on top and applies the gradient map to the layers underneath it, so you can also change the layers beneath however and whenever you want. you can adjust the gradient map by double clicking the layer. there are also correction layers for tone curves, brightness/contrast, etc. many such useful things in this program.

let's see how mithrun looks when we apply that first gradient map we looked at.

gadzooks. apologies for eyestrain. we have turned mithrun into a neon hellscape, which might work for some pieces, but not this one. we can fix that by changing the layer blending mode, aka this laundry list of words:

some of them are self explanatory, like darken and lighten, while some of them i genuinely don't understand how they are meant to work and couldn't explain them to you, even if i do use them. i'm sure someone out there has written out an explanation for each and every one of them, but i've learned primarily by clicking on them to see what they do.

for the topic of this post, the blending mode of interest is soft light. so let's take hotline miamithrun and change the layer blending mode to soft light.

here it is at 100% opacity. this is the point at which i'd like to explain why i like using textured brushes so much - it makes it very easy to get subtle color variation when i use this Secret Technique. look at the striation in the upper right background! so tasty. however, to me, these colors are still a bit "much." so let's lower the opacity.

i think thats a lot nicer to look at, personally, but i dont really like these colors together. how about we try some other ones?

i like both of these a lot more. the palettes give the piece different vibes, at which point i have to ask myself: What Are The Vibes, Actually? well, to be honest i didn't really have a great answer because again, i didn't plan this out very much at all. however. i knew in my heart that there was too much color contrast going on and it was detracting from the two other contrasts in here: the light and dark values and the sharp and soft shapes. i wanted mithrun's head to be the main focal point. for a different illustration, colors like this might work great, but this is not that hypothetical illustration, so let's bring the opacity down again.

yippee!! that's getting closer to what my heart wants. for fun, let's see what this looks like if we change the blending mode to color.

i do like how these look but in the end they do not align with my heart. oh well. fun to experiment with though! good to keep in mind for a different piece, maybe! i often change blending modes just to see what happens, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. i very much cannot stress enough that much of my artistic process is clicking buttons i only sort of understand. for fun.

i ended up choosing the gradient map on the right because i liked that it was close to the actual canary uniform colors (sorta). it's at an even lower opacity though because there was Still too much color for my dear heart.

the actual process for this looks like me setting my merged layer to soft light at around 20% opacity and then clicking every single gradient map in my collection and seeing which one Works. sometimes i will do this multiple times and have multiple soft light and/or color layers combined.

typically at this point i merge everything again and do minor contrast adjustments using tone curves, which is another tool i find very fun to play around with. then for this piece in particular i did some finishing touches and decided that the white border was distracting so i cropped it. and then it's done!!! yay!!!!!

this process is a very simple and "fast" way to add more depth and visual interest to a piece without being overbearing. well, it's fast if you aren't indecisive like me, or if you are better at planning.

let's do another comparison. personally i feel that the hint of color on the left version makes mithrun look just a bit more unwell (this is a positive thing) and it makes the contrast on his arm a lot more pleasing to look at. someone who understands color theory better than i do might have more to say on the specifics, but that's honestly all i got.

just dont look at my layers too hard. ok?

#process #art tutorial #unsure what else to tag this as. if this does not post properly i will cry.

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knittinglizards · 1 year

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i have started the woman called fujiko mine and am liking it. and i understand like why the change was made and think it suits the tone but this characterization of zenigata is. upsetting

#p #it's like hey you know how he's a cop? here he is doing these violent and chauvinistic things theyre known for/are built into the concept #and i'm like well this isn't the wile e coyote gijinka in a trenchcoat that i've come to know and like. wuh huh?#lupin iii #I PAUSED to pee right before his deputy in this talked directly to her i think she should kill them both #(<-aware it is a prequel and as thus she can kill at most one of them)#also (sorry i always tack on tags instead of commenting on my own posts) the fact that its a prequel makes the zeni thing more difficult #bc differing tone aside him getting more Weird maybe less violent w time would make sense but not less exploitative #idk maybe the rest of the series will prove me wrong on that but im doubtful!#he works in the context of this and what i think it's trying to do but that doesn't make it less jarring #that aside having seen that his characterization in this is closer to in the manga thats solidified my not wanting to touch it lol #i'm somewhat less reluctant abt the koike films bc the more serious/gritty tone is fine but if it's not focused on fujiko idrc 🤷#like the primary draw here was a story that takes her seriously/gives her interiority. secondary is the visual style

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inkskinned · 4 months

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crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

#spilled ink #writeblr #personal #please don't ask me to talk on my experience on the spectrum lol. i hate how ppl talk to me about it #i really try not to write so specifically about it #bc inevitably someone talks to me like im a child #i think this is the first time i've ever openly identified with it but i've been hinting for years #i might delete this. feels big.#the thing is that being on the spectrum actually IS a spectrum #and if u say ur autistic #inevitably someone makes an assumption about ur needs/symptoms #please do not treat me differently than u usually would. like.... we can tell when you do #and like i mention. i do appreciate the effort. i do truly appreciate the effort.#but it still feels like...#when i was blind. sometimes people kind of did the same-ish thing.#they'd find out i was blind and start talking really loudly?#and while i KNOW they're just trying to help. it would be like. i'd be trying to find #the right way into a building (sometimes only 1 door is unlocked and i couldn't see the signs posted about where to go)#and ppl would be like ''OH UR BLIND? YES SO THIS IS A DOOR. IT OPENS INTO THE BUILDING. IT IS LOCKED NOW."#''A DOOR CAN BE FOUND IN MANY LOCATIONS.''#and it feels like. when i admit to being autistic #someone comes screeching into my life being like THIS IS A DOOR.

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