how old i think palia characters are based on nothing but vibes (minus einar, hekla, and tamala because i'm not doing all that math):

ashura - 57

auni - 12

badruu - 47

caleri & elouisa - 34

chayne - 52

delaila - 46

eshe - 61

hassian - 23

hodari - 46

jel - 27

jina - 26

kenli - 55

kenyatta - 24

nai'o - 25

najuma - 14

reth - 25

sifuu - 48

subira - 42

tau - 13

tish - 23

zeki - 38

so what if i feel mentally insane, atleast i have pretty handwriting

I feel like a lot of times ppl talk about gaining their parents’ acceptance of their lgbt identities by being like “but I’ll still have a normal life! I’ll still fall in love and get married, and yes you can still have grandchildren!” at least I’ve seen that a lot in like. Media. But I feel like we need to normalize being queer in a way that is Not equivalent to a “normal life, just with genders switched”. I would argue that queerness as a way of life is an inherent rejection of the norm. Same goes with “love is love” and “it doesn’t matter who you love or fuck” kind of statements, like sure that’s Nice, but for me queerness is not about Who I love or fuck. It’s about who I am and my outlook on life. It’s a way of revolutionizing how I define my relationships and what “family” means. I am probably never going to “settle down” or get married, I may never even have a traditional committed romantic partner or anything like an “average” sex life, I sure as hell do not want to live in a single family home with a sole partner and kids and be isolated from all sense of friends and community, and even if I woke up straight tomorrow, I am never ever touching a razor or wearing makeup to work again. You don’t necessarily have to be “queer” to have this perspective, and I’m definitely not saying that all queer people do or should live this way, but I would argue that it is a perspective that emerges from queerness and is deeply intertwined with queer history and culture. If I wasn’t a lesbian I would be a completely different person, and that’s not just because I would be loving or fucking men. It’s because I wouldn’t have had to completely deconstruct my relationship to womanhood and femininity and romance and monogomy and all of these things that are deeply ingrained in the structure of society. and I Want straight and cis people to have access to the freedom that comes from that deconstructing, but I think we do ourselves and them a great disservice by trying to make queerness palatable or “the same as” straight/cis-normative life

you ever listen to sleep token and then get overly emotional because out of all the years of human existence, you get to exist at the same time as them?

Also I quit my job of what would in about a month or two have been 10 years, and perhaps now I will get to actually be a human being again.

fuck man

finding out new things about nightwing makes me go insane, rotating him in my mind at high speeds, centrifuge his ass, I want to pull him apart, see his every facet, study him like a bug. hes just so interesting to me. there's so many interesting things to his character that could be explored and delved into. things that would be cool to see. like, hes just got so many parts that could and have interacted in ways that just captivate me.

having such silly little father issues are weird because my father wasn’t and isn’t awful

he’s done some shit fs but he’s not as bad as my mother and why i have mother issues

he was simply not there for my growing up. not of his own accord, not because he didn’t want to be. he worked all the time because living where i used to was expensive all over and we were broke. my father is not a bad and the reason i have issues is almost because he was a good father, trying to keep us fed and the water running.

Yona and Keishuk as representations of Suwon's feelings and pragmatism.

Disclaimer: Yona, Keishuk and Suwon are obviously their own persons with dozens of more layers than what I talk about in this post. The scenes I use as examples are also about much more than what I use them for here. All of this is just one way I like to read things and I don't claim that the manga is meant to be read that way at all (the contrary honestly). This is just me having fun overanalyzing everything.

Something that has been on my mind since chapter 232 now, is the idea that Yona and Keishuk represent perfectly the duality inside of Suwon. I have loved this trio for all the potential they hold since the castle arc now, and I didn't get as much as I wanted with them at all but this specific page of chapter 232 still makes me "oooooh".

(Long post under the cut. sorry)

I know the important part comes just after with the "You are needed." Suwon-Yona scene, but I think the composition is super interesting here. Yona and Keishuk are having a full conversation, debating over what to do about Mei-nyan, and Suwon doesn't participate at all (he only enters the conversation next page but doesn't say anything on that matter specifically until chapter 233, when he makes his decision). As if quietly listening to both sides and considering all the points they present. Yes saving Mei-nyan is a bother, why should they do so much for one captive? Yes it's also dangerous to let her in enemy hands given the informations she has against Suwon. It's not farfetched to imagine Suwon can agree to both of their statements. Suwon is hidden by the bubbles of their conversation, erasing himself to give room to their discussion. It's as if we were inside Suwon's head and being a spectator of his trains of thoughts, as if Yona and Keishuk were two parts of Suwon's psyche. They're obviously their own independant characters outside of that with their own merits and personality etc ect but I think it's still interesting to read their dynamic this way.

After all, didn't Yona always represent for Suwon his own feelings? And Keishuk the lack of them? Discarding Yona (and Hak, but I think Yona especially represents that) has always been synonym to discarding his feelings. By discarding her, Suwon discards that he is not a 100% impartial human being that loves (and hates) some people more than others, and that he actually cares and cannot always 100% control his heart. The reason he discarded Yona when the coup happened is because his feelings don't matter from that point on and are directly in the way of his goals. And one of the reason he rejected her so much in the castle and kai battle arcs is exactly because she means something special to him and she keeps trying to appeal to Suwon's heart and feelings (by making several references to Yonhi for example, but also simply by being herself and asking Suwon to save the prisoners, etc) and tries to make the situations personal, two things that Suwon forced himself to stop and not do for a plethora of reasons I won't develop here.

(About Yonhi, the manga has made a connection between Yona and Yonhi a few times? One thing is Yonhi's hairpin that Yona also wears on one of the magazine cover, and there are the few mentions Yona makes of her in front of Suwon. I don't think the manga tries to say that Yona=Yonhi at all, but rather that Yona acts as some sort of reminder of her to Suwon? After all, there's close to no one left in the world who knew her, and even less in the castle and around Suwon in contrast to how Suwon grew up and is surrounded by Yuhon's faction and people admiring him. But most people forgot about Yonhi or never thought much of her. So I assume post-diary Yona tries to balance things out a little bit on that aspect, showing that even if people see Suwon as Yuhon's successor, he is also at his core his mother's son and it's sad to pretend he is not.

In parallel, even if not as explicitely as Yona (as I don't remember Keishuk ever mentioning Yuhon in front of Suwon?) Keishuk is one of the many reminder of Yuhon to Suwon. Keishuk definitely isn't Yuhon either, but the way he thinks and his ideology are similar enough. So you could say that Yona and Keishuk are Yonhi and Yuhon's voices in the present.)

In parallel Keishuk represents the exact opposite of listening to your feelings. Keishuk needs analysis posts for him alone, but even though he is obviously not without emotions at all, his place and role by Suwon's side is precisely to present him things as objectively as possible and make the most practical and efficient decisions, leaning towards machiavellianism (and I love him for that <3). Plus, contrary to Suwon, Keishuk doesn't have any emotional attachment for Yona and Hak, so while Suwon can rarely think straight when it's about them, Keishuk can, and is essential. Suwon would have never made it like he's engaged to Yona, he would have never proposed an alliance with her in the first place, nor would he have asked her to support him on the battlefield on his own. Before the alliance, Keishuk also investigated on the DDHHB behind Suwon's back, and tried to kill Yona and Hak several times because he knew they would be/have become a nuisance, while Suwon overlooked what Yona could/does represent because of his feelings.

Keishuk takes the decisions Suwon can't. And I think a part of Suwon is aware of that. Keishuk is like a point of reference and the reason he has Keishuk by his side and lets him do all these things is because he agrees that these actions are sounded and benefit Kouka in some way. Suwon would have never imprisoned Hak himself, but when Keishuk tells him about it, Suwon doesn't object. When in chapter 2 Keishuk tells Suwon to kill Yona, he doesn't object either, and readies himself to do so.

Keishuk is Suwon's speaker. Suwon rarely voices his true thoughts but Keishuk as a proxy often gives us an idea. His personality makes him more snarky and they don't agree on everything, but Suwon knows that Keishuk will always absolutely prioritizes Kouka as a whole over everything else and he can trust that. And that's also why I think Keishuk can represent one part of Suwon's psyche. He is the part of Suwon that shows no remorse for his colder decisions and is resolved to make any sacrifices needed for the sake of his goals. He is the part of Suwon that refuses to let himself be moved by his emotions and unable to make sound decisions because of it, the part of himself that won't prioritize someone only out of love or compassion.

And Yona is you could say the speaker of Suwon's feelings. Take the Hak imprisonment fiasco for example. This is a moment that shows a bit of Keishuk's vulnerability, but if you decide to read every interaction between Keishuk and Yona as some kind of metaphor of Suwon's inner conflict it's also super interesting. Keishuk wants to kill Hak because he is a threat to Suwon's life: simple and straigthforward. Keishuk doesn't love Hak and is still afraid of the danger he represents for Suwon's life at that point and very much doesn't like how Hak tries to get closer to Suwon without his approval. These are points very specific to Keishuk as an individual, related to his backstory and his personality. But this very reactive answer to Hak suddenly getting too close to Suwon is also very befitting of how Suwon feels imo. Suwon doesn't know Hak was here at that point sure, but on a meta level rejecting Hak so extremely the second he gets too close and sees him at a weak point just makes sense. Hak was the very last person Suwon wanted to be seen by this way. And him not objecting to his imprisonment is for me a sign that he is okay with things this way. He doesn't want Hak to get close. It's better like this. If Hak gets close, he can't think straight in more way than one. So let's discard him.

But then Yona enters and stops Keishuk. This scene is meant to show Yona's development and how she is able to protect Hak her own way and how Hak's life is not something she will ever compromise on, things that are distinct to her as an individual as well. But if you see Yona's rise in the castle as the rise of Suwon's closeted feelings, getting harder and harder to repress, it also shows that it got to the point where these feelings directly clash with his usual mindset, that these feelings for Hak have enough power to put a curb on the "discard every piece in your way" ideology.

Suwon is a secretive person who learned to keep most of his thoughts and feelings to himself. He is by nature someone who doesn't react to tragedies the way you would expect him to, looking detached and unconcerned. But what Akayona showed again and again is that by no mean this is equal to him being indifferent and not feeling anything at all. This is just his way of processing and dealing with grief(I'm not gonna go on a tangent on how he can be read as neurodivergent but yeah. he's so real for that). Being openly emotional like Keishuk and Yona is just not who he is as a person, it happens but only rarely, so the two of them are the perfect proxy to show the turmoil going on in Suwon's heart. Whether it's when Suwon is annoyed and angry, or when he's worried about Hak's whereabouts, they're his voice. (Interestingly Keishuk seems to be the only one convinced Hak is dead and thinks as such. Something something Suwon swaying between hoping that Hak is still alive somewhere(like Yona) and giving up on that hope(like Keishuk).)

But Suwon is not Keishuk. And actually a lot of times when Keishuk advises Suwon to kill someone, Suwon compromises to only capturing and imprisoning them or even lets them escape in Yona and Hak's cases. And one of the way I choose to interpret the Kai battle arc like is that it's all about Suwon accepting his own feelings, that even if he agrees with his father's ideology, he is his own person and he can't keep discarding the part of him that cares and loves and worries and feels. He can't keep discarding Yona and Hak. Yes Yona is needed, his own feelings are needed.

And he is not Yona either. That's why he still sees saving Mei-nyan as a nuisance. Suwon is Suwon, and being able to look at things calmly and evalutating the risks and costs of an action over another and making his decisions based on that is still very much a part of him that you can't remove.

He is somewhere between Yona and Keishuk. A King who inherently prioritizes the bigger number over a few individuals, and yet someone who genuinely likes the people around him and can be swayed by his own emotions. He is very much both his parents' child. And he has to learn to reconcile both, without discarding one or the other.

Going even further, Yona being a proxy of Suwon's feelings fits perfectly the role she has now. She always tries to help the people that Suwon discards for his goals and he used to not let her do so, as a symbol for closing himself off completely, but now he accepts it (with still some reluctance but hey!) and knows he can entrust her with it. I don't think this is inherently a bad thing and it works well with Keishuk as a parallel again, as Suwon always entrusted him with all the logistics and the things he doesn't like to think about. Keishuk also often carries the bad role and direct the negativity at him (on purpose or not) so it doesn't reach Suwon. So like, to each their own role.

TDLR: Yona and Keishuk are like the little angel and devil on Suwon's shoulders respectively telling him to save and kill.

so the thing about identifying with a fictional character is that you must always remember that you are a real person

the character is bound to the narrative, the character will make the choices the author gives them

you are a human being with your own agency and ability to make your own choices

circumstances/environment have effects on your agency/ability, yes

but there is no grand narrative arc, there are no protagonists and antagonists, there is no moral, there are no plot twists, there is no story at all

do my ocs appeal to cis dudes at all. like do i have any following me im so curious

one thing that took me a really long time to realize about the writing of the owl house is about ships, because i gotta say there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room for the main ones. obviously luz and amity were immediately paired together once amity started showing interest in luz and the feelings were mutual, and even at the time when it was still new and some people liked to experiment with different ideas like willow and luz etc., ultimately the majority of the fandom supports the endgame lumity. and that doesn't even take into account for the raeda ship where dana left pretty much no room for any different ships with eda and raine. i just think it's an interesting observation since more often than not, fandoms have shipping wars, and pretty intense ones at that. with that in mind, I'm really excited to see where dana takes us with the huntlow ship since there's no definitive answer for once in the show, just little bits and pieces left here and there by the crew that ships them. i think that's definitely why the ship grew so much in popularity so quickly

ㅤmuch as they hate the name yeong-hwan, byan doesn't consider it a deadname. ...not exactly, anyway. although they do consider changing it as an adult, it's something they ultimately decide against. byan is what they consider to be their real name, but they don't want it to be their legal name — they actually hate the idea of it being common knowledge that just anyone can learn about them. the name that a person chooses to use with them has always been a pretty good indicator of what sort of person they are, where they're coming from, what they know about them, what their intent might be, etc.,* and that's a tool they've grown used to and would thus hate to lose. they also simply like that the name byan is more on the downlow, that it's not official and therefore not as traceable as a legal name is — they've never liked being in the system anyway.

there is a brief period of time where they toy with the idea of changing their legal name regardless, of changing it to something other than byan that's more gender neutral than yeong-hwan, but... the idea of having to get used to being called by a new name that most people (the important people) in their life aren't even going to use anyway is weird. it's as weird to them as the idea of having the name byan on their id is. if they're already not going to want to deal with anyone who actually uses their legal name, what's the point in introducing more confusion for themself into the equation? keeping the name yeong-hwan is just easier, and it keeps the significance that the name byan has to them in tact.

ㅤ*ㅤfor example, anyone who uses yeong-hwan usually knows nothing about them aside from what they've read on paper, is likely seeking them out for some "important" or "official" reason, and is thus to be approached with caution. anyone who uses yeong-hwan despite being aware of the name byan can go fuck themselves and isn't worth the time of day. and anyone who uses byan at the very least respects them in the most basic sense and is probably coming to them from someone who knows them to some extent and is thus a little less worthy of immediate suspicion and/or hostility.

I half wonder if one of the reasons Ford didn't want to elaborate on his relationship to Bill with his family until his hand was forced with Dipper has anything to do with fear that he'd be hated for trusting Bill and getting them in this whole mess. Like, internalized victim blaming. I bet seeing how one of his family members was tricked by Bill could've helped him put some things in perspective by the end of the episode to the point he could help Dipper with his own feelings of guilt. Of course Ford didn't completely grasp that getting manipulated by Bill wasn't his fault until the end of the series, but 'The Last Mabelcorn' was a start.

Hey gamers, post without an audience here but uhhh should I delete my blog and disappear into the woods? Would people care about that?

mmmmmmm.......