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johannwolfgangvongoethe · 7 months

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Some Personal Thoughts on Disability in Enstars

disclaimer: disability is a very broad term that covers many different experiences. i will be talking about physical disabilities since i feel most comfortable doing so/have experience with them. obviously that ignores a Huge part of what disability and chronical illness is and can be. but i think it is beyond my capabilities to talk about experiences i don't know much about.

alt caption: i think ritsu is a good character and im trying to explain to myself why

this is sort of a long post, sorry.

content warnings: i talk about ableism and touch on related topics such as dehumanization and objectification and such below. individual parts of this post have their own cw's.

Enstars Writing, Beloathed

to get this out of the way; it is bad sometimes. this is discussed very often. it doesnt depend on the authors either, in my opinion, some writers will hit you with something really troublesome only to (seemingly accidentally) invent human emotion and compassion in a different story. i dont want to repeat what others have said eloquently but there is a fair amount of imperialist worldviews, xenophobia, just racism really, transphobia, ableism, and copaganda to be found in enstars. this isnt about x character being x thing, but about how it is very noticable when the author of a story holds these worldviews and they bleed into their stories.

so that is not the greatest foundation if youre looking for well-written disabilities. but i wouldnt be reading enstars if i didnt think it genuinely is really really good sometimes. in my opinion, the way disabilities are portrayed is a mixed bag overall but there are some extremely worthwhile bits that touched me quite a lot.

What I personally understand as Well-Written Disability

the way disabled people suffer often goes unnoticed, and disabled people dont have a platform to talk about oppression. a lot of life-changing issues can go unnoticed to those unnaffected by them, even if they are in broad daylight: underfounded or entirely lacking healthcare, the way many healthcare systems are marketbased and ethics are prone to suffer bc of this (even under 'welfare' capitalism), a lack of equal marriage, the inaccessibility of the most basic and necessary facilities, financing care and the dependency on family/loved ones (both a logistical and psychological problem), the huge stigma against disabled people, etc, etc, you get me....

we need to write about people who need care, to keep them in mind at all times. disabled people are not a minority in a mathematical sense but in a hierarchical sense. it is naive to think of them as "a substancial percentage" of populations. as we age, we inevitably all enter the stage of needing care at some point. SO to an extend, i want to claim its a topic that affects every single person. yet disabled people are rarely a central topic anywhere. it is not enough to acknowledge them, we need to plan and think with them in mind. and Write with them in mind, i guess.

SO when i see fiction grapple the topic, i am usually really happy, even if the portrayal isnt ideal. (critical, maybe, but generally speaking very happy) pointing out "badly" written disabled characters is obviously not as easy as calling someone out for uncritically saying "i think eugenics are a good idea!!!" through fiction. people with that sort of facist mindset exist of course but ableism does not end there.

if i were to single out things i see often: i think the most disappointing thing a story can do is to - mention a disability without it ever having an impact on people in the story (-> the disability is basically nonexistent, has no impact or relevance, outside of a theoretical mention) OR - uncritically use a disabled character as a mere plot devise, without granting them the ability to speak (-> dehumanization, a lack of understanding that disabled people are, well, People. they do shit.)

and then of course there is fetishization, both in a literal sense and in an inspiration porn sense and the problem of turning disability into a caricature for jokes (either to other disabled people for their behaviour/body or to create a sense of satisfying superiority by laughing at them) but i feel like those problems explain themselves.

to apply these to very basic examples: i think often something like a robotic sci-fi prosthetic is not a good way to represent a disability because it fails to represent what people go through irl and provides a "magic fix" without repercussions. here is a really good post about it. about the plot device issue... i think it is similar to what people often criticise as "manpain". a disabled person will never appear or speak, they are demoted to being the reason an able-bodied character acts a certain way, like a lifeless accessory. this doesnt always have to be bad, esp if its just a sideplot! but it can get tiring if the audience never gets to learn about other aspects of the unseen character in question and we are only introduced to their suffering.

all of this to talk about gacha idol boys. it is how it is. anyway, this is roughly my mental state when i tackle enstars.

disclaimer 2: i am really just a kogaP. this influences which characters i encounter when reading. there are tons of stories i just never looked at and there is SO MUCh lore i just dont know about. please lemme know if you have additions to stuff i say/understand a character better/have related story recommendations! tl;dr the sakuma bit will be long.

disclaimer 3: i genuinely adore every single character mentioned below and am always excited to learn smth new about them. if i criticize writing, that has nothing to do with that character or their fans. it is about the writers.

the most obvious example. Eichi (content warning for brief mentions of self harm and suicidal ideation)

everything eichi does, he does with the knowledge he will most likely die young. that is a truly dramatic setup.

but before i get back to that thought. it always felt to me like eichis illness(/es) lack a certain sense of conciseness? i do not think you need to put a name and diagnosis on it for it to be relatable and real to readers, tbh!! though to achieve believability, there needs to be a good amount of consistency. what i can recall off the top of my head is the following:

he breaks down/straight up blacks out frequently due to weakness and dizzyness

measures were taken to secure his safety in those situations (the infamous Eichi-kun Gauge as seen in Element)

his stamina is seriously low

he coughs a lot

we saw him cough up blood (Daydream)

he relies on long hospital stays because his health needs to be monitored and/or supported this closely

he stays inside a lot (hinting towards problems with his immune system?)

being healthy enough to eat unhealthy food is a big deal to him, so there are dietary restrictions/it was necessary to precisely control what he eats

his grandfather, who died recently, is considered an outlier for how long he lived (so it IS hereditary)

which..... could be a lot of things...? or, more likely: a culmination of many things at once. if you have headcanons on eichis health, please lemme know!

but in addition to eichis terminal illness, there is a second quality to him that seperates him from most disabled people: he is extremely wealthy. and his wealth is fundamentally important to stories. usually illness and poverty go hand in hand, since incame is tied to the ability to work, which worsens an already bad situation. no matter how limited eichis actions are because of his body, the possibilties offered by his wealth make him a central figure in every overarching plot. in addition to this, his family is well aware of his consitution and he is a patriarchal leading figure to them, the head to their coporate hierachy. eichi is free of the things that usually rid the chronically ill of their safety and power: society (he is an idol and popular) and money (he is the richest boy in japan). if youd ask me, i think that while being chronically ill is of course physically taxing, the worse problem is the economic state it puts you in. eichi simply overcomes this? yes, he is terminally ill, his situation is terrifying. but he has an extraordinary amount of control while he lives. more than a poor yet able-bodied person may have.

his unique circumstances enable him to be incredibly active. this is so fun to read about in my opinion. its a fascinating setup to me. without casting any sort of moral judgement on his actions and the antagonistic role he plays; he is, excuse me for my phrasing here, a disabled power fantasy. (at least to me)

this is a double-edged sword to him. because of who he is as a person (ambitious, cunning, ruthless, diligent)

he lives in relative safety but his strong ambition and financial ability to fulfill his dreams tempt him to go past his limits. because his remaining lifetime is uncertain, the need to preserve the body he is given seems uneconomical (a mindset his upbringing and education as an heir to his family would have enforced imo) he is bound to break down sooner or later anyway. i think he begins to see himself and his body as a tool to achieve his goals and neglects spending time on anything BUT working towards them. so the moment he runs out of goals (like at the end of Element), his reason to "remain" becomes futile.

it really struck with me how he appears in Blackbird - emaciated, pathetic, purposefully neglected because he chose to be neglected and weak in an act of self harm bc denying medical attention (something that couldnt have happened otherwise) wataru has to remind him that no one died and the obvious connection to make is that the eccentrics are physically unharmed and starting over, that they should not be a source of guilt to eichi. but i think this is just as much about eichi himself. he might have expected to die since he left the hospital and overexhausted himself at school and as an idol. he didnt die though. it was a real possibility and seemed likely but he didnt. the neglect and indirect self harm here point out, to me, that he saw the "role" he gave himself as fulfilled at that point and waited to die.

eichi stands over economic or social factors that could ostracize and dehumanize him but funnily enough he manages to do so himself by treating his body as a tool and his happiness as an option that got overshadowed by a need to succeed.

this vulnerability makes him, despite how vague the descriptions of his illness are and despite how unrelatable his wealth is, a very satisfying character imo. it is engaging to me. certain limits are removed for him but he created new ones, specifically because he did not see himself as something worth sustaining once he becomes useless. imo, eichi applied the idea that a lifes worth can be measured in its ability to function in an industry to himself. and spiralled over it, entirely inverting his uncanny amount of bodily autonomy. it is clear how the situation he is in worsens his mental health like that. and how his mental health in turn worsens his physical health. it is inseperable.

i cant really get into !! era eichi because i genuinely just dont... know enough. the fine tradition of having a weekly H-Day stands out, though. after all, eichi has new bigger ambitions and is, once again, inviting his own ruin through overexhaustion. so his friends (the new addition of having friends is essential) had to forcefully make him stop for at least one day a week. that is pretty big. i think.

this is true for many marginalized existences so it of course applies to disabled people: if neither your surroundings nor yourself permit you to feel human and therefore assign your person an inherent worth and lovability... sometimes you need a friend to do so!!! social circles are the best support structure for your health.

The Sakuma Family

(i will get into ritsu and rei seperately later on. there are just a few concepts i want to get out of the way that apply to both of them.)

so... to get a little theoretical; the concept of "disability" relies on the concept of a "normative" human existence. "disability" is an otherness and can therefore easily be seen as a "monstrocity" in the eyes of ignorant people, something that instils fear. (there is a reason why a lot of horror exploits disabled bodies as a source of terror and uses mental hospitals as settings) from an able-bodied point of view it seems "desirable" to be a "normative human", yet the disabled person knows that is not a possibility and knows their worth and place as a human in human spaces. at least ideally. able-bodied people sometimes lack this understanding. there is nothing to be desired about an able body or fixed about a disabled body, beyond what medical care can do for ones quality of life.

if you have read operetta, this is all very familiar;

operetta, chapter 17 and, well, here we are. vampires. a very basic truth about the sakuma family that i hate to see denied is that they are human. there is nothing supernatural about them. they are just disabled. or, to turn the idea around, if one was to assign them vampiristic traits and such... is vampirism not a disability and should be taken seriously as such? if you consider the limits a vampire has while coordinating through their life, is that not... strangely just a disabled experience? (MINUS THE KILLING PEOPLE OBVIOUSLY but much modern fiction is sympathetic towards vampires instead and does not display them as violent)

anyway, to hear it from the horses mouth (the horse is rei):

operetta, chapter 19 the sakuma family is a curious case. their condition is hereditary though the severity varies from person to person. it comes up in many stories but for the most part i am thinking about operetta, resurrection sunday, and devils right now. how did this all start? what made an entire family turn to live as vampires, with blood ceremonies and all that? what bizarre kind of generational trauma is this?

(and, while it does not play a role as important as it did for eichi, they are rich. this is important to mention. many normal experiences just dont apply to them because wealth makes them immune. ... how did the sakumas become this influential anyway.)

for an unspecified but long time, an entire family managed to mentally entirely seperate themselves from the rest of humanity because of their chronical illness. personally, i have no doubt this is the result of a world that othered them first. whether the main motivator at play here is a defensiveness towards a society that cannot understand you or an internal need to turn hardships into an identity that can be carried with pride. it takes a considerable amount of emotional strength and planning for the "hey we are human actually" declaration in operetta to occur.

they are, weirdly, what people mean when they talk about a "toxic anti-recovery mindset". (an expression i struggle with because this sort of rhetoric is often used to discriminate against disabled people who speak up for themselves or ask for accomodations. but that aside) it is an amount of pride that leads to internal self destruction.

of course, as is the case with every single character i write about in this post, a lot of it has to do with aesthetics and being chuuni to sell gacha cards. so we know the reason behind the reason. but it makes for some bizarre in-universe implications.

but in any case, the fact that their identity as false vampires is something they have always carried, that modern society sees as "mystical and sexy" has a hilarious side effect: their disability becomes marketable under the guise of vampirism. it is hard to recover from that.

so again, we have a double-edged sword: to present ones medical condition as a "persona" declares it as a performative act, something that is done to bring joy to an audience. personal detriment is not considered here, since it stops being a part of ones being and starts to become "work". the time and place of ones symptoms has to overlap with the time and place of ones performances. or people will hate you for your uncontrollable illness. however, rei and ritsu are both also able to carry their condition with a sort of playfulness. it is almost something like the act of "reclaiming" when they purposefully choose to larp a little for fun. usually, when a scene mentions their disability in the context of comic relief, they have control over the situation that unfolds and even initiate it and invite others to laugh alongside them. this can be a slippery slope to getting harrassed of course.... but i am rather baffled by the amount of dominance they have in social interactions. so it just reads as a healthy amount of dark humour to me.

this, and the consistent writing of their symptoms, and the ability to easily compare it to real existing illnesses, easly make them my favourite instance of written disabled people in the series. their illness has an impact on their behaviour and it is detrimental! and they are both very human in the way they attempt to cope. there is a certain realism to it. idek.

many people seem to headcanon them with myalgic encephalomyelitis, which is a really good explanation, and i personally want to suggest narcolepsy. the point being, there is room to accurately assign them a realistic relatable and understandable condition, even if nothing is ever named in canon. and of course they are mentioned to have an iron deficiency.

bear with this slightly "out there" theory for a moment: have you or a friend ever tried to get a compensation for your disadvantage at school or uni? it can be really hard to do, if it is possible at all, even if it is something very simple (more time, a slightly different enviroment, the ability to drink or sit, etc) yumenosaki is a school for performance arts, mainly idols. bold statement: it might genuinely be easier to get/explain an accommondation for your "idol quirk" (something that would be actively fostered), than for your disability. not that yumenosaki is very strict or asks for a lot anyway, its just something that has been on my mind.

here is another funny thing i have been thinking about: both of them crave juice, soda, and fruit - sugary yet fresh stuff. i feel like this is not uncommon for people who suffer from excessive tiredness and fatigue, the body subconsciously wishes for some sugar intake to "wake up".

Inventing a Guy to Cope. Rei

funny title aside... he... did that... ? rei is a curious example of how different mostly unrelated traumas can overlap. he had no childhood, thanks to his family that considered him "mature" at a very young age and his early status as a child star. and his bad health is a miserable addition to this. it is quite scary to image how pressured to do right he felt growing up and how that resulted in the fragmented distanced way he views himself; reinventable, and ultimately unknowable. (to others AND himself)

despite his bad health he has always been working and performing "well". he was praised for his remarkable talents but rarely had the chance to stop and patch himself up. whether this was a result of a pushy enviroment or his personality as a people pleaser who cannot show weakness and imperfection is hard to tell. maybe both.

the state he is in in Crossroad is fascinating to me. he all but directly lists the criteria of depression to keito when he attempts to explain his sorrows. he is restless, rowdy, mentions later on that he enrolled in yumenosaki against his familys wishes. he is very much searching for joy and his own identity in the middle of a health emergency. this has to do with the way he was raised, only knowing how to exist for and serve others, how he was made to sell a made-up version of himself, but i also believe it has to do with the fact he has started to exclude himself from his familys traditions and values. he started to cast away the uncertain "monstrosity" existence of his family (as well as the false idolhood others assigned him) and instead embraces humanity as a chronically ill person.

crossroad, i forgor which chapters

this of course marks a starting point of change that later results in him making up the wagahai pronouns persona - something he specifically created with the intention of looking vulnerable and weak. because he yearned to do less, to recover from years of exhaustion.

in a way, i want to say both, the ore pronouns persona and the wagahai pronouns persona, are attempts to cope with expectations he cannot handle physically or mentally. one relies on masking, on appearing stronger than he actually is and therefore invulnerable, and the other relies on exaggerating his weakness, in an attempt to finally let others recognize it. i think as a disabled person, both are performances one has to learn in order to "function" in everyday life, while remaining safe from serious harm (doing badly at ones job or classes, angering others that hold power over your life). since ones circumstances are often hard to grasp for someone who does not share the same illness, there is no choice but to simplify and exaggerate until symptoms become tangible concepts or to just brave through it, at the cost of ones health and future time.

rei in particular, for better or for worse, is incredibly capable when he needs to be and unfortunately that means others will often not take his health seriously because they saw him function just fine the other day. this is a general problem but an obvious offender in that regard is koga, who comments on reis fatigue constantly and loves to create a bit of a high expectations toxic work enviroment (and, to be fair, rei terrorizes him too. kogas hostility towards rei is sometimes ableist but not really rooted in ableism. after all koga is highly aware how performative the wagahai persona can be and is a huge motivational and inspirational factor in reis life. its a whole complex)

!! era holds some positive changes. his mental need to please other people remains a persistent source of trouble for him (and others) but he seems to really let his body recover and lives a more nocturnal life. both kuro and kaoru mention that he looks more healthy (in succession match???? i think??) since he finally stopped enforcing a normal day/night cycle on his body just to comply with social norms. you can indeed be very human even if you break human-made rules.

(additional comment: "becoming human" is of course a theme for each of the eccentrics and not uniquely tied to disability, it very much has to do with the objectification one goes through as a public figure. but this is a post about disability and it really fits in well. so here we go)

Literally Just a Realistic Teenager. Ritsu

ritsu, while not really being among my favourite characters, is my favourite instance of a disabled character in enstars. partly because of his writing and partly because my personal experiences overlap with his so much it sometimes is painful - but always extremely satisfying. just had to get that out.

ritsu is perhaps the most visibly ill. he blacks out and sleeps where he stands, everywhere, without control and often requires other peoples (well, mostly maos) assistance in order to remain safe when this happens. he also repeated a year of school, specifically because of his disability.

he is painfully aware of this. that he looks ill, that he behaves ill, that he is an underachiever compared to others of the same age, even to people younger than him.

ritsu developed unique behaviours to deal with this: he is very dependent and clingy and often asks others to do things for him, unapologetically. that does not mean asking for help doesnt hurt his pride, just that it is the most viable strategy for everyday survival that he ended up with. other than that, he clings more to the vampire identity than rei does. either to defy his older brother or, and this is important imo, because it is the one safety net he has to fall back on that makes him feel "normal" and like he is a regular being. albeit not human. no matter how much others might blame him for his shortcomings or how much he is a failure in the eyes of society, he is very regular for a "vampire". under the logic developed by his family, he is just a child, and the world at large is to blame. it is an easier truth to accept than facing systematic injustice and prejudice in a human world.

the stories i mentioned in another part above aside, i really love what ensemble band does for him; ritsu gets extremely irritated with mao in the prologue, seemingly out of nowhere. his character is allowed to express this sort of anger and to take it out on others, even if it is unjust and misguided. it is not pretty and it isnt good behaviour but it is a very heartfelt emotion to me.

its obvious that he cannot compete with others and that this will always been seen as his personal fault instead of a circumstance he cannot influence. and more than that: no one appreciates the real efforts he makes. for instance, getting himself out of bed in time for classes is difficult for regular teenagers and straight up hellish for ritsu. but he manages to do so a lot later on. instead of acknowledging that this is a real accomplishment on his part and possibly really exhausting and bad for his comfort in the long run, this is seen as doing the bare minimum.

while it is not correct, the malice ritsu sometimes treats others with comes from an comprehensible place. able-bodied ignorance can appear as purposeful slights made by those more privileged than him.

yet he learns to conform. his friends are important to him. knights success is important to him. (thought mental health probably played a role here too and made things even harder prior to his third year of high school) and yet;

seven bridge, chapter 24, but its really just an example i had at hand

the remarks stay the same. his peers still cannot help but brand him as "just lazy", even if they are kind and understanding otherwise and habour no ill intent. so i would like to ask: how long can he keep this up? how hard is this on him?

i dont think i need to explain just how common and hurtful it is to be accused of "laziness". probably the single most irritating comment someone with fatigue will hear every single day.

however, on the flipside, ritsu has perhaps the most people who care for him in comparison with other characters, though they sometimes complain (communication is hard, care is hard, everyone in enstars is very young and i cannot bring myself to see those comments as malice. its a mixture of ignorance and ones own burdens) there is mao, obviously. tsumugi is a very funny example. knights, of course, in particular naru. (at least based on my humble knights readings)

quite interesting how he just decided mao is his caretaker, now and in the future. i shared a few of my thoughts on caretaking here. this is.... a huge responsibility to just put on someones shoulders, to say the least. he shouldnt be doing this but i think it speaks for itself that this is a problem that is on his mind. ITS IS A REALLY IMPORTANT TOPIC TO BRING UP, especially since, the younger you are, the harder it is to get insurance to pay for your care. yes, he is often just teasing mao, but ritsu is looking for ways to get through life. by learning to be as independent as possible, whenever possible. though often you really just find yourself at the mercy of friends and family.

Inter-Sibling Violence

apologies, i will be done with the sakumas soon. i didnt know how to fit this in at the start.

the relationship between rei and ritsu, as people with the same disability who experiences different symptoms and challenges, is worth thinking about. infighting within people of the same disability is very common since experiences can be so different, there are no universal truths or opinions. with different lifestyles come different expectations for what is "normal" and sometimes pressure and social norms can cause someone to shift blame onto others who have no achieved the same things in life.

rei and ritsu are said to have been very close as small children and likely depended on each other a lot. i can see how reis fostering nature and ritsus needy nature developed alongside each other and enforced each other.

time and time again, rei says that he is a "less severe" case, that ritsu has it worse. he jets around the world because he feels forced to do so, when ritsu just wanted emotional support from him to begin with. ritsu stayed alone at home, sheltered and likely caged by their families convictions. but! i want to suggest the following: as much as it hurt him, it was important for reis health to be away from his family, too. i dont think staying there would have been good for him. his absence and the experiences he made away from home were an important catalyst for the positive family development we see in operetta.

of course, rei means well. he cares. he is trying to have a positive impact. yet from ritsus point of view, all of this must feel terribly condescending, especially with how much rei babies him. there is just one year between them. this is barely anything when it comes to sibling inferiority complexes the brain can make up. rei, who is successful and famous and beloved and, most importantly, proclaims to have it "easier than him", is trying to find a cure for him. from ritsus point of view this must be unbearable. their lives are so different when they basically started at the very same point of origin.

more than that, rei shoulders the sketchy blood rituals himself, out of love of course, but if one was more jaded, one could assume he doesnt think ritsu would be able to stomach the responsibility.

you will always compare yourself to your siblings in unhealthy ways but ritsu is just doing this on hard mode, i fear.

HHHRAGAHHHH GHHH ghgghrhgh. Niki

nikis writing is... driving me up a wall sometimes, to say the least. dont get me wrong, i love him. to an extend i understand that his single-mindedness and shallowless has purpose to it. in fact, i adore these character traits. he really seems to be behind four mental barriers at all times, unable to let deeper thoughts touch him, lest they make him succumb to despair. (yet nikis specific flavour of menhera cannot quite shine since... well, he has to stand next to himeru all the time)

the descriptions we get of nikis illness are nonsensical, at least to my knowledge. you could imagine he has something like hyperthyroidism. this never really gets explored though. at some point ENGstars mentions he has "gastroptosis or whatever" (the "or whatever" is part of his dialogue - niki really doesnt give a fuck), which makes no sense at all. weirdly enough, it would even be strangely in character if this was just a misconception.

so, can anyone take niki to a doctor? has this happened and i just wasnt there for it? there is no excuse why no one is considering medical care when it comes to him. except that he often is the butt monkey of jokes the writers want to make and has to stay available for it. more than that; his parents just left him alone like this? as a child? did he get an allowance at least? this cannot be legal, right? i wait for the day this comes up as a topic but i fear it is in vain. (please tell me if it actually did. i dont follow niki that closely) this is an unbelievable thing to do to a healthy child, yet alone one with a severe illness. we are basically looking at denial of assistance.

so many things surrounding nikis story are designed to make him as miserable as possible. i cannot help but feel that he exists purely as comic relief, for funny bickering, and superficial drama. i dont really like that at all, his misery just gets exploited.

EVEN SO... his self-image is actually really fascinating. as rinne likes to point out again and again, niki has no self-worth. he works two jobs, one of which he hates, he constantly gets into dangerous situations, and he will do anything just for some crumbs, and quickly forgets when others treat him badly. and of course, the worst bit:

es!! main story, please dont make me go find it

to some degree, he just accepts this as something he deserves. there is no consideration for his own quality of life, somewhere along the lines it seems like he got conviced just surviving is all he gets. he internalized self-degredation to a dangerous degree and i never see anyone mention this mental affliction specifically as a comorbidity of his disability. to me, there is without a doubt a relation here. sure, maybe he would still fight with this otherwise, just because he had to witness his fathers fall from grace as a child and knows there is a stigma attached to his name now. but i think you can tell it is more than that, from the way he is ashamed to beg (even in a life or death scenario, as seen in hot limit), as if his condition was his own fault.

this circles back to the point i made earlier for eichi; how much nikis life is worth, is measured in his economical value.

of the characters i have spoken of so far, nikis is financially the most accurate to real life. there is no safety net for him, no convenient family wealth.

(at this point it feels important to mention that somehow rinne manages to be the only person entirely aware of the danger and desires to change nikis mindset, YET he is a huge strain on nikis health. i dont know how those two function.)

Just a Lamb. Tatsumi

tatsumis specific trauma is a unique one: while most other characters struggle with conditions they were born with or developed as they grew up, tatsumis injury is the result of strain and violence. those are two different pairs of shoes, though the outcome may be similar. whether it is worse to be born into circumstances you cannot escape or to have to live with having something thrust upon you unfairly is up to personal judgement. pain is not really quantifiable. its just important to keep in mind, i think. under the circumstances tatsumi grew up in, he has his own burdens. it is very easy in many ways to compare and contrast him with eichi. of course this applies to how they used their bodies too: as an expandable resource. they had ideals for their school life (and beyond) that just seemed far more important and they both ended up in hospital because of this. (+ we know tatsumis surroundings were purposefully manipulated to destroy him)

and, of course, tatsumi got attacked later on. he never really talks about it directly but his legs seem to talk for him, in ways.

the story does not quite make it clear whether his occasional weakness and pain are the result of old injuries or entirely psychosomantic, and i dont think there is a real need to know, as a reader. in fact, in a certain light, i think it can be considered good that we dont know for certain: it would be relevant for tatsumi himself, sure, since it would influence which kinds of treatments and help he can seek out. however, i think the ambiguity may foster a certain level of sympathy in readers.

often psychosomatic problems are not taken seriously enough in real life: they cannot be proven physically and they dont fit into the neat little boxes that the ICD wants you to believe exist, so they cannot be defined on paper or easily explained to doctors or insurance providers.

to foster empathy with his situation requires his character to be lovable and for the narrative to treat him with care as well. which is thankfully the case. alkaloid are dear with him and, despite the fact he cannot perform in his work enviroment all the time, he is very respected for his other skills. he is a well-rounded person.

all that aside. it is absolutely worth to mention tatsumi pre-injury, too. he came up with a form of small-scale universal income among a semi-union at school. without getting too much into all that. (obbligato really seems like required lecture in the realm of enstars stories) the entire concept strives for social equality and is extremely anti-discrimination. it fundamentally goes against the idea that someone needs to "deserve" care, and is the opposite of the mindset i described with eichi and niki above. he never had to make first-hand experiences with disability to be extremely compassionate. this seems really rare among people in real life, even those who preach altruism.

While we are Here. K.... Kaname

as mentioned, i spoke a little about kaname before. so i wont get into the complex of caregiving.

it is extremely satisfying we got to meet kaname, if only for one event story. he does not have to remain a faceless motivation behind himeru and tatsumis lives, he thankfully became humanized.

the entire conflict around kaname at the moment is a matter of bodily autonomy. how much of your person can be in anothers hand, ethically? there is no excuse for the theft of his (idol) identity through himeru but the damage is done now. ideally, you dont want any part of yourself to depend on others but the disabled reality is that this is very often impossible. especially for kaname. there simply is no one else who could be responsible for him right now and, to be fair, at least when it comes to medical care, himeru seems to behave very responsibly.

repeating what has been said in the other post but i am worried for kanames seemingly inevitable reintroduction to the story. he has been in a comatose state for a year. if he wakes (since this is fiction, it is possible to exchange 'if' for 'when', realistically it really would be an 'if' though) he would most likely be confronted with permanent neurological and physical damage and years of rehabilitation. at least logically. (not to mention the psychological shock) would this be written with compassion and a sense of realism? it makes for a compelling source of conflict and emotional hardships that could be extremely worthwhile to explore. i just cant entirely bring myself to trust the writers with this one but i would love to be convinced otherwise.

that is, of course, if they dont somehow just skip rehabilitation entirely and declare it a miracle healing.....

imo, the in-game discourse between characters is just as important as his future development. i just really hope autonomy and recovery will be large topics.

He doesnt go here, but. Adonis

so bringing him up just really feels necessary within the context of this post because of his interests. one of adonis hobbies is sign language and accessibility.

this is, i think, maybe the best thing they ever did with his "protector" persona. it just fits so well, it is a direct conversion of ideals to actions. knowing undead songs have been translated for a deaf audience in canon is extremely wholesome and uplifting, even if it is entirely inconsequential for the story and just something that gets mentioned.

(now that sandstorm is out on engstars, you can check that out too for further mentions of this! if i could wish for one thing, it would be for the stories to acknowledge that there are tons of independent sign languages and i would love to know which one adonis and rei speak... you ever think about how adonis speaks like four languages fluently. at least.)

nightless city live, chapter 3

everyone in undead loved that and supported the vision. to see koga, who is usually against anything but musical performances and wishes to express art freely, praise the idea really puts deaf identity and accessibility in a great light. it is a very positively radical forwardthinking idea.

so, i just wanted to mention that. adonis is treated horribly by the narrative a lot, it entirely fails to grasp his identity and is insensitive towards foreign cultures, but i would die for him i think.

finishing thoughts

like mentioned, please absolutely let me know if you have different related ideas or recommendations. or corrections, or worries over something i wrote!!! learning and improving is always great. i am sorry i could not get into so many other characters, the ones i wrote about are those that i feel confident enough to comment on. in the future i would love to meet maguro!! i just havent really read any mama stories at all :'''3

i feel like i barely said anything at all and barely engaged with text enough since i didnt get into any character specifically. i would love to write another post about ritsu or rei or both. a draft for it has been sitting around for ages (as did the draft for this post, lol) but i hope someone will find an interesting thought in here somewhere.

all in all, enstars is actually... surprisingly nice to read for the disability in there??? even if it is disappointing in handling many other things. of course, the writings not always ideal (i read hidden beast just the other day and the ableism in there took years off my life) but often its really nice. nothing hits quite like seeing real emotions and experiences through some metaphorical stylized anime lense, you feel.

anyway thank you for listening. i am actually for real done now.

#enstars #ensemble stars #enstarsposting #did i overreact and write too much..... ah... nay......

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rottenpumpkin13 · 7 months

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Remember how at the end of CC Zack beats gen ass? I kinda like the idea about gen wanting zacks attention bc he just wants to like, square up. Like,,,,, i like the idea you had where Gen is like "ugh hes so annoying" and then be like "Ugh what do meeeaaann you didn't invite him!!" but at the same time Zack will deck him.

sorry this isnt my most eloquent ask but do u get the vibe??

Tbh I always think Zack and Genesis have the potential to be genuine besties and it boggles the mind why most people don't write them that way. Genesis initially turns his nose at the idea of having this hyperactive kid around his best friend, but then quickly warms up to him when he realizes he can annoy Zack for attention and gain a new sparring partner.

#ff7 #ffvii #final fantasy 7 #ff7 crisis core #final fantasy 7 crisis core #zack fair #genesis rhapsodos #tbh i want to make them kiss #jsyk

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vitalconviction · 4 months

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Sephiroth, for that ask thing

Sexuality Headcanon:

Gay in the way that any person they would enter a relationship with would be a queer relationship, that's just how they work

Gender Headcanon:

biology wise I have Seph always as intersex in some regard and genderwise it depends on how much thought he's spared himself--overall I think he's nonbinary in the most overarching definition and if given the chance to exist outside shinra he would gravitate towards femininity and eventually land on only feminine pronouns for herself! as it stands canonically i think she transcends gender in the corrupted ascenion to godhood seph has, but overall has left the aspect of his gender unassessed

A ship I have with said character:

tsengseph! genseph! I like smashing the obvious yin and yang counterparts together and also the red guy with the almost-sort-of-blue guy

One day I'll answer this on a more eloquent level HAHA

A BROTP I have with said character:

aeriseph but I do also ship them sometimes--i just cannot get over the thematic resonance of the child of the calamity and a child victim of the calamity essentially unionizing. This would be peak full circle, cue the cycle breaking, cue the chrysalis to butterfly, all that jazz

A NOTP I have with said character:

angealseph/sephgeal-- i personally find angeal unbearable. he really annoys the fuck out of me im sorry angeal fans but he's not my man... I think that his hardheadedness/stubbornness in his idea of honour would grate on sephiroth, but the reason sephiroth likes him is because of his care otherwise. It's just not something I can see sephiroth pursuing romantically though Lol so in that vein I also don't really like AGS or any angeal ot3 😔

A random headcanon:

niche weirdest hc i have is the eyeball nipple ALSO applies to seph, he has that eyeball nipple guys.

Less insane hc is that he is a sugar fiend, desserts are his favourite food and his drinks could all be classified as syrup. also despite not being the biggest fan of citrus he really really likes yuzu! I tend to flit between him being vegetarian and not as well, mostly because he would be tripping over himself to try new things because he's excited over the prospects of new sensory stimulas that isnt, say, Pain in a new flavour

General Opinion over said character:

WAAAAUUUGH! i love this blorbo. I wish he had a chance to live and not die everything he was always going to be. It was really self fufilling and in the end he died as what Hojo wanted of him--never breaking free, dying under the abuse, becoming the abuse that made him. Fucking kills me! I want a world where he breaks the cycle, where he becomes the future. That's a reason I love the transformative aspect of fandom here, I couldn't love ff7 the way I do without all the AU's, there is just far too much here to mess with, to reshape.

Totally tangentially, but I don't agree with people speaking of him being irredeemable or deserving of punishment, these are fundamentally reductive ideas and don't even line with the politics of ff7 itself LOL Atonement and redemption does not mean everyone suddenly forgives and forgets, but it does mean everyone is afforded another chance. Everyone is deserving of that. Even people who've committed heinous acts, because foundationally they're still people. It all depends on whether or not they double down on their damage and believe in it till the end, if they're apathetic and even jubilant at their violence. If he came back uncaring, apathetic, and fundamentally unchanged from the blind bitter hate filled attitude he had before, then yes he is unredeemable because he is refusing it. But were he to acknowledge the wrongs and try to right them, try to move on and apologize then yes he could work for atonement. Sorry for the random anti-punishment rant LOL I've just been thinking abt this for a while, check out philosophytubes video on capital punishment (its on youtube!) for further challenges on this idea :D

#ff7 #sephiroth #ask meme

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ofthenoseclan · 10 months

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hey. talk abt reimari. unless you already have then any other specific combo of charas u find interesting or particularly like

REIMARI... oh it would be my honour to,, sorry for not getting to this sooner im not very eloquent when it comes to ships but i wanted to do this ask justice

funny enough both characters took a lot of time to grow on me. i didnt dislike either of them when i began the series, but they didnt quite click for me until i got to the latter half of the franchise, and after reaching that point i had a newfound appreciation for what came before it as well

a huge strength of both reimu and marisa is how dynamic and malleable their personalities are over the course of the series, and despite the large changes in outlook as time passes they still continue to act as two halves of the same whole, complementing each other by evolving to fit the roles that the other grows out of.

as a child, marisa is extremely brash and impulsive, marching to the beat of her own drum. in contrast, reimu is a lot more mature— comparatively, at least; at the end of the day she can be as much of a kid as marisa at times (see many early chapters of touhou kourindou ~ curiosities of lotus asia.). she is carefree, but still pragmatic when need be. she often fills the tsukkomi role whenever the two interact with each other in the early era of the franchise.

over time, though, reimus worldview changes from a generally optimistic one to a rather jaded one when it comes to her role in gensoukyou. as she starts to become disillusioned with her identity and her lifestyle, marisa begins to take up the more responsible role in many instances. while still staying true to her laissez-faire, free-spirited self, she is also more down to earth, considerate of others, and able to see the big picture.

you can see this big shift on display most distinctly in touhou ibarakasen ~ wild and horned hermit. the manga is framed from kasens unreliable point of view, so the duos behaviour should be taken with a grain of salt, but not so much as to doubt it entirely. at many points of the manga you can see reimu at her most irresponsible and vulnerable, and marisa very often acts as a straight man in those situations. one persons attitude is fitted to complement the other at their lowest point, and to match them as equals at their finest.

theres also a LOT of parts in ibarakasen where marisa is visibly affectionate with or worried for reimu. chapter 37 is iconic in the fanbase for showing them being blatantly flirty with each other, but theres many other points too. chapter 47 is an honest-to-goodness official sick fic, and during it marisa is noticeably way more worried for reimus health than everyone else, feeling annoyed when no one can nurse her back to health fast enough.

its also telling in the first place that marisa frequently makes visits to reimus shrine at all, seeing as shes very often a loner, living secluded in the forest of magic and studying danmaku techniques in her spare time. aside from leaving to find more to research, visiting reimu seems to be the primary reason she ever leaves the forest. likewise, reimu is characteristically rude and annoyed at anyone who visits the shrine if they arent donating patrons, wanting nothing more than to be left alone. the sole exception to her surly attitude toward uninvited guests is marisa, whom she expects to show up on a whim rather often, and casually and unconditionally welcomes her if she does.

i know this isnt even close to the amount i can say about them (i havent even MENTIONED their date at the end of 4, for example) but im gonna leave it here at least for now. theres so much to their dynamic even if you ignore the romance side of things. they have been perfected and chiseled down into a beautiful intricate sculpture of a protagonist duo over the years. reimari nation represent

#touhou #blub #hydrophone

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okthatsgreat · 2 months

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HI LEE sorry you're bored.. hmmm okay. are there any of your ocs who havent interacted with each other who would be fun to throw together somehow? under what circumstances/in what setting would that be the most fun/interesting? and like. how would you picture the interaction going

OH MY GODD????????????????????????? lily u rule always ANSWER BELOW THE CUT!!!

DANGANRONPA CHARACTERS ONLYYY

sae is the oldest danganronpa oc ive got and also a teacher so if i put her in a room with any other oc she immediately becomes the Wise Old Mentor. ryobe especially treats her like that one pocket mirror michael jackson post where he asks "sae should i get the meal or just the sandwich" and she so wisely from the corner replies "get the fries sonny ..... you will need the energy in the coming days 🙂" and ryobe tears up

WAIT STOPP HOLD ON I JUST REALISED THAT I CAN MAKE ALL OF THESE GUYS GO TO SCHOOL TOGETHER BC THEYRE ALL DANGANRONPA CHARACTERS ok yea so hopes peak is where they all meet. dr:50th are in their final years and billie is JUST starting out but sometimes hangs out with them bc yoshito invited her to their table after he saw her sitting all alone and felt terrible. she just does her homework with them LMAO

naomi goes and hides in sae's classroom soooo often because sae a) doesnt care to get in her trouble for it and b) can either talk so much as a distraction or just sit on the other side of the room and leave naomi alone for the entire period depending on what is needed. theres probably been multiple times where naomi has gone "ok i need to get to my next class thanks for letting me stay here ms sae" only for sae to wake up and go "oh....................... you were here? yea ok good luck in algebra :)"

they interact with each other already in canon but this just needs to be said. rie and yoshito form a study group early in the year and occasionally invite mika or naomi if they really need motivation to do better at school. yoshito and rie realise this study group is actually really good and slowly invite the others into it but the more people they invite the less productive it becomes until they eventually have created two study groups: one with their friends and one with just the two of them again LMAO

ANDDDD FOR FUN BECAUSE IVE BEEN REALLY INTO DND/DND-RELATED MEDIA. bringing my dnd characters into the mix with my danganronpa ocs is extremely funny and also i love giving my ocs dnd stats ALWAYS. grins :)

elese and erin (glamour bard) would be so fucking funny because elese is just sooooo immediately petty for no reason???????????? and pippy truly could not give less of a shit. like there is zero reaction to any of elese's passive aggressiveness. elese can be like "woowwww pippy... that song was certainly loud! 😃" and pippy would go "THANKS!!!!" and then minor illusion a bunch of confetti around the two of them while theyre trying to sneak through a dungeon

and while we're talking about elese i do think she gets instantly humbled by rie (eloquence bard/pact of archfey warlock) LMAO. they both have very similar means of persuasion and speak very noble-like despite elese being the only one actually from nobility, however rie is juuuuuuuuuuuust ever so slightly more persuasive. juuuuuuuust ever so slightly able to get people on her side with her charm (and the silver tongue feature). it drives elese a bit mad but she cant actually complain about it until the moment she figures out rie is a warlock and she throws her hands in the air and yells I KNEW IT (she did not know it). but then once she gets over this i can see the two of them bonding over quite a lot in their life i think :)

since we're putting the same classes together nowhere and sae (path of tempest barbarian) are also cool. cuz nowhere isnt necessarily one to repress her emotions, she just unfortunately has quite a lot to be mad at and BECAUSE she gets angry her magic tends to go everywhere. meanwhile sae absolutely spends a LOT of time going through the adventure thinking that she is a strength-based ranger because she absolutely refuses to go into a rage during battle. so he spends so much time thinking to himself "hmmmmm well i do hold the knowledge one might expect from a ranger but i am incapable of certain magical feats that rangers have.... 🤔 oh well guess i am a late bloomer 🙂", while also greatly assisting nowhere in rearranging her thoughts and where she's expressing anger. and then one day during some huge climactic moment sae actually finally rages and it's terrible for so many people and shes like Ohhhh Wait Nowhere Help. Hellppppp

putting tinni and naomi (scout and THEN phantom rogue) is like putting two scared deer together except one of them is actually for real a deer

OK THATS ALL I GOT FOR NOW i love dnd/baldurs gate aus alwaysssss i do think however a few of these people would have a heart attack if a tadpole went into their brain but thats a problem for another time. BYE THANK U LILY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

#ask lee #lottiematthewsgirl #oc: billie #oc: sae #dnd: elese #dnd: nowhere #dnd: tinni #dr: 50th

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hevendor · 4 months

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i feel like ppl on the internet overanalyze what makes a good apology now .. i remember wen i first started seeing ppl talk abt the difference between "good" and "bad" apologies like 10 or so years ago n the focus was more like "are they trying to shift blame off of themselves or are they actually accepting responsibility"

so an example as a shit apology is like "im sorry you felt offended i didnt expect anyone to react that way to what i did" n its cuz its basically blaming ppl for being offended

and then other apologies that r often considered bad r ones that seem almost like a vague generic template like "i did wrong so i will do better now pls forgive me" n it doesnt show the person even acknowledges what they even did wrong they just want to skip to being forgiven w/e any effort

and criticisms of those types i accept fully but i feel like ppl r starting to get more and more specific w how apologies need to b as if the apology needs to b absolutely flawless to mean anything n i think thats so bogus ... usually wen someone is apologizing for smth and they actually mean it and care a lot then they r also gonna b v emotional n its weird to expect someone who is spiraling to produce the most perfect well thought out and eloquent apology humanly possible .. like that is a legit skill to be able to write well thought out statements and its not a skill that spontaneously develops based on how genuinely sorry someone is lol ..

of course there are also lots of important nuance in any given situation such as what it is that is being apologized for and who the person is n all this other stuff so of course an apology can still b bad even if it isnt trying to blame other ppl/feels like a template but i still think there r way too many situations in which there are overly high expectations of what an apology should include

i feel like after taking a step back from internet culture i gained more of an understanding that people r just people and are always liable to make many mistakes and to b unable to handle everything perfectly especially wen emotions r high so i feel more forgiveness esp for ppl whos "crime" wasnt anything that extreme or was maybe understandable given the situation they were placed in and the feelings they were likely feeling .. no one acts rationally 100% of the time and mistakes r how ppl learn.. again there is nuance to everything tho

#i think ppl also overestimate how well they wud respond if they were in a situation where they had to publicly apologize for smth #its much easier to criticize wen u r not directly involved and therefore not feeling crazy amounts of stress and negative emotions #also i wanna say this isnt even about a particular thing and its not in defense of any particular person LOL #i dont have any stake in any current drama rn #i dont even kno of any current drama now that i think abt it lmao ...#its just one of those things im thinkin abt too hard again cuz it captivated my interest while ive been procrastinating on homework #and since i have no one to directly ramble on abt nothing i just post it here instead :)#but this is what i mean wen i said my friends dont reply to my shit and i cant even blame them btw #imagine getting this whole post in a dm ... im so annoying LMFAO #also any1 who reads this dont bother taking it seriously #tumblr is my diary #long post

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literaphobe · 3 years

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hello everyone :) as someone who’s been in fandom spaces for a decade and creating content for half that time i think i’d like to talk about the concept of intrinsic value vs extrinsic value: especially when it comes to tumblr, a site where low reblog rates and terrible reblog-to-likes ratios have been an ongoing and worsening problem!

this is something younger people in fandom should know, i think, and it’s something i’ve learned and reinforced over the years myself. often times i see fandom creators complain about how punishing making art/writing/creating anything is, and how absolutely disheartening it is when they don’t get the traction they want, or when they see other people being more successful. it’s discouraging. it could make you feel inferior. you wonder what you’re doing wrong. i’m here to assure you that it’s Absolutely nothing — art is such a subjective thing, and timing and chance have so much to play. just because you are not as ‘popular’ does not mean you are less talented

however, that’s where the problem starts: if you only derive extrinsic value (validation from others) from making fandom content, you are setting yourself up for heartbreak and disappointment. if you are suffering a lot (sacrificing sleep, time, energy) to make fandom content and the only thing that makes it feel worth it is potential popularity, then i genuinely suggest you stop or cut down the amount you create for the sake of your health

i know it sounds so silly and obvious: make art only if you like it! write only if you have fun doing it! but that is how fandom works. that’s how it all started. none of us are doing this because we have to. we do it because we want to. and if you feel like making fandom content is making you more unhappy than happy, then i recommend you stop/take a break. there is NO shame in that. there are multiple ways to participate in fandom. there is no right or wrong as long as you aren’t hurting anyone. you don’t have to ‘make content’ to be absolutely vital to the community. every single person who interacts positively is important. just put out the energy you want to feel in a fandom space and that is the best thing you could possibly do :)

i absolutely understand the appeal of getting attention and love and appreciation for the things you do. however, it cannot be your sole motivation. this is something true of content creation in general. when you ask successful ccs what tips they have for streaming, most of them say do it because you like it. don’t do it for clout or it’ll kill your motivation. it’s the same for fandom spaces. it’s even more true for fandom spaces, because no one is paying us. and that’s why when i write/make any form of content i constantly ask myself the same question. am i having fun? is this worth it even if no one else cared? and if the answer is yes i go on!

in the same way how small ccs cannot expect big ccs to just ‘give’ them popularity and receive a huge dedicated following overnight, it is counterproductive to expect bigger blogs to reblog any and every piece of fandom content they see. and especially in smaller fandom spaces like tumblr, what we really need to emphasize and promote in general is interaction — reblog the things you like! talk about what you liked in the tags. whether you are a big blog or a small one, this is incredibly vital to any fan community. you might think you’re not making a difference because your reblog doesn’t expose a person’s work to thousands of followers, but i have personally found the greatest meaning in one sincerely made comment than i have in like… hundreds of silent likes/reblogs. the point is, as understandable as it is to resent blogs with huge followings who i cannot speak for, there is so, SO much power in all of us as individual members of this community

it goes without saying that we should encourage and support creators in any fandom. however, it worries me to see fans, especially young people in fandom, tear themselves apart over making content, things that should be joyful experiences. it’s worrying to see resentment within a community as well. let’s try to do right by each other, and please don’t sacrifice your health for fan content, or any content in general!

#text #peace and love! my two cents #not mad at anyone hopefully that comes across!!#i just want u all to be happy :(#and to perhaps see that I suppose we aren’t enemies?#and… well its 3am #so sorry if this isnt the most eloquent #if ur reading this ily and i hope this helped!!

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420technoblazeit · 3 years

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You dont have to publicly post this if you dont want to but in regards to cmc:

Not only is cmc trying to make a comeback, he’s currently being housed by mizkif, which people (including me) are definitely not happy about

I saw, yeah. it's around midnight for me so sorry if this isnt the most eloquent post. but the fact that mizkif, a popular and influential streamer with a large active fanbase, is publicly supporting cmc is definitely worrying. i'd guess we're about to see more than just a few people defending carson and it isnt going to be pretty

#420 squeals #mizkif #cmc #callmecarson

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satoruvt · 3 years

Text

for a moment i forget to worry

pairing → xu minghao x reader

word count → 3196

genre → fluff + angst, college au ↳ tags: strangers to friends to lovers </3, college kinda sux, ROOMMATE CHAN MAKES AN APPEARANCE OR TWO, dance major minghao, reader is completely lost but its ok who isnt, lots of cute couple stuff, pov ur entire relationship with minghao. thats it, a sad break up scene, a solid amount of crying

summary → there’s something about minghao. maybe it’s the way he dances, vibrant and youthful, or maybe it’s the way he loves you. based off of hunger by florence + the machine.

warnings → i hint at sex but its pretty vague, i also mention a breakdown type deal (revolving around school/life after school)

a/n → first of all this was NOT supposed to be 3k words i dont know how it happened. second of all i’m only kind of happy with this HAHA i feel like the story itself isnt bad but i wanted it to match the song more ... idk :/ i hope u guys like it regardless !!!

pieces of you masterlist

The first time you see him is by accident.

Really - all you’re doing is trying to find Chan. You’re passing by the practice rooms, looking into them in hope he’ll be there, stopping to gaze at decorations and medals and trophies lined up on the walls. It’s when you approach a room that music plays from that you think you’ve found Chan, but when you gaze in, it’s definitely not him.

You don’t know who it is, but he moves like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

It’s hypnotizing, almost makes you want to drop your things and dance with him. There’s a sense of youth that comes from him and it’s almost overwhelming - but it’s not in energy, necessarily, but rather from the precision of his movements, the technicalities that he seems to both follow and break at the same time. Something vibrant seeps out between the seams of his body, colors you can barely recognize as they splash against anything they can reach. It’s almost tangible.

You watch him long enough for him to finish his performance (an unknowing one) with the last notes of a song you forgot was even playing. His eyes meet with yours, slow as he completes an eloquent turn, and at the same time, a hand meets your shoulder.

A small wave of embarrassment washes over you, and you turn towards whoever touched you, effectively breaking eye contact. “What are you doing here?” Chan asks, hair still wet from what you assume was a shower.

“Looking for you,” you tell him, following as he starts to walk towards the exit. “I wanted lunch, and you owe me for that time I took your British literature quiz for you.”

Chan groans but agrees to pay, and you laugh, though the world seems a little paler than it did a few moments ago.

The second time you see him is by chance.

(Maybe.)

You’re waiting for a lecture to start, tapping your fingers against your laptop idly as you watch students trickle in last minute. It’s not a strict course, but it does start at nine in the morning, and most everyone shows up with a coffee.

You look down to brush a stray hair off of your table, and when you look up again, the dancer from before walks through the door, then looks right at you.

You feel a blush heat your face and it’s like he wants to make sure that you know that he knows, because he almost refuses to look away. You break eye contact first (like the last time, you remember for no reason) but still watch as his figure moves up the stairs, past the rows, and you hope he’ll just move past you too…

He doesn’t. He takes the empty seat right next to yours, and you don’t say anything, instead finding the peeling sticker on your laptop incredibly interesting. The professor comes in and decides that today he’ll take extra long to set everything up, apparently, and you want to scream.

“So,” the dancer says, voice quiet. It takes your breath away, the way he sounds. “Mind if I ask why you were watching me the other day?”

You cast a glance at him - not too long, you don’t think you could handle more than five seconds tops - and finally open your laptop so it makes you look busy. “I was waiting for a friend.”

“And?”

The smile in his voice is palpable. You’re already exasperated.

“You…” you start, finally deciding to look at him as some sort of subconscious power move. “You’re a beautiful dancer. It was hard not to watch.”

Beautiful doesn’t even cover half of it, but you figure he already thinks you’re weird for watching him, so you hold back the thoughts of youth and vibrancy and color. The dancer looks at you, almost blank for a moment, before a soft smile draws itself on his face. It makes your heart beat a little faster. He says “thank you” with a gentle tone, sincerely felt.

The class starts, and the two of you don’t speak throughout the next hour and a half. You type out notes on your laptop and you see him write down names of the paintings being shown on the projector, little thoughts and notes written afterwards.

By the end of class, your professor assigns an optional partnered project, and you’re more than prepared to head back to your apartment and start on it yourself. The dancer stops you before you leave, however, asks if you’d like to be his partner.

(And he says it like that, would you like to be my partner, polite and somehow sweet.)

You know your answer. “I don’t even know your name,” you stall, standing from your chair.

“Minghao,” he tells you. “I’m Minghao, and I’d like for you to be my partner.”

You say yes easily, put your number into his contacts even easier. The sky is blue when you leave the lecture hall, trees dotted with pink and purple flowers, and it is all so bright that you forget it wasn’t this way in the first place.

The third time you see him is for school.

Underneath the excitement of giving Minghao your number, there is the knowledge that it’s for the sake of an assignment. He texts you the day after to ask if you’re free to meet up to work and you tell him sure.

(Sure is what you send back, but he doesn’t have to know that you burst into Chan’s room immediately after, plunging face first into his bed just to scream into his pillows. Chan had sighed, turned around in his desk chair to look at you, then asked what happened. He gave you two minutes to rant and then kicked you out, back to your own room.)

You and Minghao agreed to meet at the library on a day that neither of you had any afternoon classes, and you get there early, spend some time working on other classes. You have somewhere around thirty minutes to freak out to yourself before you see Minghao come in, dressed like he knows what he’s doing to you (which is really just a hoodie and jeans, but you think it’s the cap that really pulls the whole boyfriend look together), smiling when he finds you at a table in the corner.

“How are you?” is the first thing he says when he sits down, and you pull down your laptop screen a little to see him better.

“I’m good,” you say, feeling your heart pound. “What about you?”

Minghao sends you a kind smile. “Really good. Should we get started?”

You lose count of how many times you see him after that.

Meeting up to work on the project soon becomes just meeting up, and after the project’s done and turned in, it happens even more. You hang out and get lunch, send each other texts and stupid videos, take walks around campus together. The weeks pass, summer mellows into fall, then into the early days of winter. You develop a genuine friendship with him, finding comfort in his presence, looking for him wherever you go.

(Although the crush is still there, potent and patient, stubborn in a way you’ve never experienced before. You wonder if it’s a sign of some sort.)

You’re in one of the practice rooms with him, sitting in the corner. You had a class nearby and he’d wanted to practice a little more, so you told him you’d work on your own stuff while he finished up and then the two of you could grab something to eat.

But you made a small error on your part - the dancing. You’d forgotten the way he moves (you haven’t seen him dance since that first time) and in no time at all you’re letting your screen go dark in front of you and watching him. Honestly, it’s not your fault, you really can’t help it.

But of course he notices.

Minghao meets your eyes through the mirror and raises his eyebrows at you, and all you can do is look away, desperately try to get your laptop up and running again so at least it seems like you weren’t watching him for too long.

“You’re staring,” he says, long after you’ve looked away.

“Sorry,” you tell him anyways, immediate, quick.

Then he says, “I never said anything about stopping.”

In a second, you look up from your laptop and up at him. He moves closer, crouches in front of you. His eyes are kind - they’re never not - but you think you see something a little more in them. “Sorry, I think I missed that last part,” you respond, blinking. Minghao smiles like you’re endearing.

“I said I want you to keep looking at me.”

You think you’re barely breathing when he shuts your laptop for you, slides it off of your lap and onto the floor (gently, with care, and it’s a wonder to you how he can focus on that right now). He practically crawls over you, one of his hands eventually reaching the junction of your jaw and neck and holding there. “I’m gonna kiss you now, if that’s okay,” he says, but doesn’t move. You nod as soon as his words reach your brain, eager and quick.

And the next few hours get a little wound up in your head, a little mixed in with the feeling of his body - that moves so youthfully, with so much vibrancy that it reaches everything around you - melting into yours and the sound of him asking you to tell me what you need, honey, and the still-playing slow jam music he was practicing to.

You watch him sleep next to you, hand curled around yours against his pillows, and think that nothing bad could ever touch him.

The two of you… come together, after that.

Neither you nor Minghao use any proper labels, but you both seem to know. No labels are needed, really. You have each other and that’s all there is to it. And everything is really good.

You work together and laugh together like you’ve always known each other. He tries to teach you to dance with him when you’re in the practice room with him, pulls you up by your hands and guides you through your giggles. He was the first person you called when you realized that you had no idea what you were working towards, didn’t have a clue what you actually wanted to do with your life. He gets along well with your friends and you text his because they’re basically yours, now, too.

Winter turns back into spring, slow and easy. Vibrant and youthful. You’re not able to meet Minghao’s parents, but he meets yours (and you’re sure a quick introduction to his mom over a FaceTime call has to count for something). The two of you take advantage of the newfound warmth of the season and try to get out as much as you’re able to, with picnics and city dates and anything you can think of. A drawer in his dresser is reserved for your things, you bought an extra toothbrush for him to use when he stays over.

You watch him dance. It still feels like the first time, like color and breathlessness. You tell him he’s beautiful every time, feel yourself fall a little deeper when he still gets bashful amidst his comedown. You tell him you love him for the first time after he gets done with a performance - a proper one, for a showcase of the dance club he’s in. He says it back.

You think he put all the stars in the sky just for the two of you to gaze at them together.

Things shift the beginning of your junior year.

Minghao tells you about a program he’s applying to, a proper dance academy in New York that could really kickstart his career. Training under some of the best choreographers and performers in the world.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You ask him after he tells you, and he shrugs, leaning back in his chair. You’re studying at his apartment tonight.

“It’s just…” he frowns. “It’s so far away, you know?”

Oh. You hadn’t even thought about that, too caught up in the excitement of him being able to apply at all. A quick sigh leaves your lips, and then you reach for his hand, hold it between both of your own.

“That’s okay,” you tell him, though now that you’re thinking about it, you feel nervousness in the pit of your stomach. “We can work something out, though, when we get that far. We’ll figure it out.”

Minghao nods, a fond look in his eyes. He pulls one of your hands to his lips. “We’ll think about it if I even get accepted,” he says.

It’s bittersweet, but a promise nonetheless.

Fifteen minutes after you get a call from Minghao, there’s a knock on your door.

You wouldn’t necessarily say you’re worried, but, well. Everyone’s experienced the jump of anxiety when they get hit with the “I want to talk to you about something” line. Nonetheless, you stand from the couch to open the door, mentally preparing yourself for any and everything.

“Hey,” you greet when you see Minghao, opening the door to let him in. His face is unreadable. “Everything okay?”

He walks a few steps into your apartment, waits for you to close the door before turning back around to face you. Then he holds up a piece of paper, the creases from where it was folded still bending. You send him a confused look.

“I got in,” he says, a grin breaking on his face, and you blink, then feel your jaw practically hit the floor. Minghao only nods like he understands, and before you know what you’re doing, you launch yourself at him, holding him close.

“Oh my god, Hao, that’s amazing,” you say into his sweater, then step back to get a proper look at him. Youthful, vibrant. “I’m so proud of you.”

He seems to soften at your words, pulls you back into him again with a gentle kiss to your head. “Thank you for believing in me,” he tells you, tenderness palpable in his voice. All you can do is squeeze him tighter.

Minghao spends a lot of time away from you after that.

You’re not really hurt in any way - even though he got into the academy in New York, he still has to practice. You get it, this is important. He doesn’t text you as often, isn’t able to stop by as much, and you miss him, but you know how much this means for him. But it gets… weird, almost, after a while. Strange, even for him. It feels weird that he’s set to leave at the end of January and it’s December and he’s distant.

Both of you are laying in your bed, looking at the glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling, when you decide to bring it up. “You’ve been… kinda far away lately,” you start, nudging him with your shoulder gently. “Everything okay?”

His eyes stay on your ceiling, but you feel the way he sighs. “It’s about the program,” he says.

“Okay.”

“And about… you and me.”

Oh. That doesn’t… sound the best. “About, like… what we’re gonna do?”

Minghao nods.

You say, “I wouldn’t mind visiting every so often. It’d be hard, but I’m sure we could find something to work.”

Minghao shakes his head, says, “no.”

You pause, and when you look at him he’s already looking at you. What does he mean by no? Does he want you to move with him? Or does he -

He reaches for your hand and you think oh.

His eyes are a little glassy. You feel the tears come, too.

“Oh,” you say out loud. Minghao squeezes your hand. “So this is… this is it?”

Your room is suddenly cold, and you want to crawl under the covers and stay there. The person in front of you is blurred into something unrecognizable, but you can’t be bothered to blink away your tears.

“I think so, love,” he whispers back to you. “I think it has to be.”

The two of you cry like that for a while. In your bed, loosely intertwined and broken. Even the way Minghao cries carries a kind of vibrancy that’s overwhelming, makes you think of the first time you saw him so long ago, and now -

When you manage to get a better grip on yourself, you ask him if you can still see him off at the airport. He says, “I don’t know what I’d do if you didn’t.”

Then you ask if you can kiss him again. He responds by kissing you first.

And it’s sad, it tastes like salt and sorrow and you feel like the promises you never got the chance to make are broken. It feels like the most beautiful blue you’ve ever seen, and you know it’s only a branch of Minghao’s color.

He leaves soon after that, pulls on his shoes and his coat and turns around at the door to give you a tired smile. After he’s gone, you drag yourself to Chan’s bedroom, and once he sees the state you’re in, he offers up one side of his bed. Neither of you say anything, but the friendly reassurance of his hand in yours says enough.

You don’t fail to notice that everything seems to be washed out, a blandness you’re not used to.

The last time you see him is at the airport.

It’s a cold day, despite being sunny. The airport offers little warmth, but you figure it doesn’t matter. You won’t be here for long.

It doesn’t take you very long to find Minghao - you still look for him wherever you go, even if you’re not looking for him. Even then, it’s still so easy for you to find him, to pinpoint that vibrancy, that youth. He’s talking to a few others, you think you met them. Soonyoung and Jun.

Minghao meets your eyes and you freeze, but then he waves you over with a gentle smile. You follow like you think you always will.

You greet Soonyoung and Jun and the four of you talk, albeit a little awkwardly, even when Soonyoung tries his hardest to lighten the mood. Eventually he has to leave, and Jun follows with a shy goodbye. They both hug Minghao before they go.

You’re not sure what to say, but after a minute, you find words. “I don’t know what I’ll do without you,” you tell him, a little selfishly.

Minghao says, “you’ll do good. I know you will. I’m not worried about you.”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket to check the time, and you think he’ll give you a stiff and sad goodbye, but he steps a little closer to you. Looks at you the way he used to.

“Maybe…” he starts, then pauses. “Maybe we’ll meet again.”

Maybe, you think. Maybe.

“I hope so,” you tell him, then watch as he leaves.

#caratwritersclub #kdiner #kpopscape #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #svt imagine #seventeen imagine #the8 x reader #the8 imagine #svt the8 x reader #seventeen the8 x reader #svt the8 imagine #xu minghao x reader #xu minghao imagine #svt minghao x reader #seventeen minghao x reader #minghao x reader #minghao imagine #pieces of you

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roxyandelsewhere · 3 years

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i wrote a whole essay in the tags of this post and the new post editor ate half of it and distorted the rest so here's what i could salvage and an approximation of the rest (in a new post so the other one doesn't get too long, this is already long enough):

i don't have fixed headcanons on this, i can see different things making sense and what i myself think about it changes from day to day depending on how literal i feel like being. but! i tend to think of angels as eldritch horrors in a true lovecraftian sense which in turn makes me think of the ideas about how humans comprehend incomprehensible things in stephen king's IT. that's usually my baseline bc i made those associations once and it stuck so while i do love the idea of angels controlling their vessels like handpuppets and cas touching dean at all times in invisible ways, i also think that re: an angel's trueform physical space in our puny dimensions doesn't really....exist, really. it's like i said in the explanation for the drawing of the fall of the angels (i'm gonna be referencing these a bit bc i feel like i'm more eloquent in drawings than in words skdjfg) trueforms are too dettached from our physical world to be able to be big or small close or far. those concepts aren't much to them bc they aren't bound by physicality as we perceive it. this isn't really supported by canon bc there's the chrysler building line but i have thoughts about that too.

the post mentions the wings not being wings but instead the idea of wings and i am 100% on board with that. i've said before that the wings and the hellhounds being such vague projections worked bc they were nothing where comprehension should be, and the writers fucked up when they treated it as nothing where a budget should have been. bc yeah angels don't have actual bird wings with the same feather anatomy and all that, ofc they don't. insects birds and squirrels had convergent evolution to arrive to such different wing morphologies and angels have bird wings? makes no sense. what i do think happens is that the parts of angels that allow them to do things like fly (which may not be appendages at all, they can just zoom like the post said) get 'translated' into physical things when they're on earth. not necessarily by the eye of the human beholder, just by being on earth like that. a reasoning i've applied in my drawings is that when they get into a vessel the parts of them that are involved in their earthly life get converted into earthly things. deer and bird heads and octopus tentacles popping out of jimmy novak like glitches mid act of translation. jimmy's status as just man being adam censored by the vine leaf (the censoring being intrinsic to adam is also a whole other concept but this isnt about chuck). sorry to bring marvel into this but it's like in wandavision when modern things get translated or rather converted into things from the sitcom's decade. it couldn't exist in this world so instead of disappearing it gets converted into something that can. and i started this tangent bc of the chrysler building thing. that's another translation. bc the chrysler building is a human's definition of gigantic. kinda small for what angels supposedly are. it's something that's said to explain trueforms so it's kinda like an actual literal translation.

another thing the post touches on is the fallen angels still having a trueform. just graceless. and i agree!! it's exactly how i drew fallen cas and anna. graceless and different bc they've changed. but they still have a trueform bc being an eldritch horror isn't just inside-out it's also outside-in if that makes sense. they comprehend the universe differently and fitting that into a human brain hurts but it doesn't disappear. magically speaking all languages most likely does (did angel grace get a patch after the babel tower?) but having 'seen' the universe as an angel stays. which is why i talked about trueform endverse!cas like i did the other day when i said his trueform would be some sort of eldritch version of michelangelo's flayed skin. i basically said that he's a cas that has fallen from grace and then fallen from humanity. fallen twice. the way he sees the world gets changed once again and the things he can do change once again and when that happens to humans that's just it, those things happening. but when it happens to an angel it gets translated as a fall. and re: what the post said about those fics while those things seem too literal they can be seen as a translation/conversion of that fall back into things humans can comprehend.

there's also the matter of samandriel. angels being tortured has implications in terms of how they connect to their vessels. pain can be inflicted on the trueform through causing pain on the human body which means they are connected somehow. and i think part of the pain doesn't come just from what is inflicted on the trueform but also from the forced connection to the vessel. bc if you don't have a heart or lungs or legs and then suddenly you do, it hurts. if you didn't have lungs and in a split second you started having them, you'd choke. feeling human hurts like a defibrillator, an instant connection to life. like chidi seeing the time knife, but too alien instead of simply too big. though some angels might call it too big and others too small. so yeah i don't think they are connected to their vessels and part of torturing them is making that happen.

then there's the whole thing of heaven being made of angels, which i love, and angels being wires/generators and the implications of souls as a power source. i'm still figuring out what i think of that but surprise to those who don't know: i'm currently drawing trueform cas full of leviathans. and i painted the leviathans as partially gold, the color i've associated with grace, bc they gave cas that power so they must have something akin to grace. just yesterday i posted about how grace might be blood+Light as in the light of god but that's bc i was feeling literal, you can see it as similar to souls. this could be a whole theological debate but what i'm getting at is souls have Something that grace does too, and from souls you get demons which can be seen as having lost that something but another thing is monsters have souls too. this show never handled the question of the Other properly but monsters have souls. they do. and leviathans' souls are different but they're there and dare i say there's as much difference between a human's soul and a vampire's as there is between two random humans. whatever leviathans have was enough to make cas god. a bastardized god, yes, but for better or worse the children of eve have something holy.

i also really love the idea of angels as the principle of uncertainty. that's really it, for angels everything is atoms, all of it. and they might behave like atoms or electrons but they're not so the two things clash. and this ties up well with zoe exitwound's notion of angels as gravity.

all in all i agree with the post and i think it's all fascinating but i wanted to make these additions

i'm pretty sure i wrote other things but i can't remember them and this is already long enough so i'm gonna shut up now

#sorry for this being so long but i'm pretty sure i had even more #anyways these are my thoughts. or at least the ones i could reconstruct #spn #spnmeta #mine #hope i'm not missing any glitches from the parts i copied out of the tags #trueform adjacent

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inosukeslefttoe · 3 years

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SO i just finished wonder egg priority and i think that with confidence i can say it has been one of my favorite animes like... ever ?? and not even from hyperfixation or obsession over it just... its so fucking real yet so simple in a way that i havent rlly seen shown in any other shows you feel ??

but first i wanna talk about how sexy the art and animation is real quick... HOMIE ITS SO GOOD LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT JUST... serotonin... the characters are all so unique and iconic and fun but not over the top in their designs yknow ??? they seem like regular every day girls but they stand out and theyre all sO CUTE !!!! also i love how the style is like this soft bubbly slice of life lookin stuff with bright happy colors and the most beautiful scenes you could find but they also have the SICKEST fight scenes complete with whimsical animal helpers and terrifying villains and crazy weapons unique to each character. and the animation. god DAMN shawty i am obsessed with everything in this show. i might make a post solely about the art later lol bc i wanna get into the other stuff.

so the themes in the show right ?? it starts just as this cute lil magical girl kinda deal but within the first episode we see that like.. oh damn... thats kinda heavy... tbh i was a little shocked and thought about stopping bc yknow bad mental health BUT i was so intrigued that i had to keep going and i am SO GLAD that i did. because this show just so beautifully discusses all these heavy topics in such an eloquent and artistically expressive way. and also like, , the juxtaposition of the charming childlike vibe with bright colors and 14 yr old girl protagonists against the dark themes of suicide and so much else,, i think is just perfect. bc a lot of heavy animes are more of the seinen genre and have some middle aged dude as a protag or make the entire color palette dim or offer little relief to the pain of these heavy themes right ?? but NO not wonder egg bitches B) because these problems arent just things that ppl face later in life or just problems that need to be talked about among adults or the edgy seinen watching squad,, these are REAL problems that face people of every age, gender etc and i think its awesome that wonder egg addresses that. some may cringe at the thought of their high schooler watching animes that discuss sexual harassment, suicide, abuse, self harm, eating disorders etc,, but in reality it is the most comforting thing i have ever come across and is basically jsut free anime therapy. because not only does wonder egg present these themes to the viewers as something real that happens to all kinds of people (making said people feel heard in a way that maybe they hadnt before), but it also makes sure to vanquish all of these forms of trauma. and the way the trauma is vanquished isnt always beautiful and it isnt always just magically gone with a poof. the struggles of overcoming or living with that sort of thing are shown in such a real and relatable way that addresses every hardship trauma survivors have to go through. and i just. god i cry bro.

oh m y GOD and the lgbtq+ rep in this show ?? like shawty... as soon as i saw episode one i was picking up on some gay/lesbian themes but then again im sapphic and project that a lot so i tend to see that sort of stuff like... everywhere... but NE WAYS... episode ten made me FUKCING CRY BRO LIke i cant believe there was a whole trans character with a whole trans pride hoodie like LKGHKDGH my heart is just so.. so fucking full thinking about him. bc like yeah i know there are trans characters in anime but i feel like theyre always very ambiguous about actually being trans or not or erased or portrayed as a harmful stereotype or theyre constantly misgendered and still refered to as their assigned gender at birth and i hate it. HOWEVEr... Kaoru.. *chefs kiss* it was so amazing to see a character straight up say “yeah im trans” in such a casual yet powerful way bc i personally have never seen that before. and i love love loved how he went into his backstory and talked to momoe about gender bc i think thats what she rlly needed and that it helped her find herself and it makes me so happy oh my god,, and the way they talked about it never seemed forced or like it was the focal point of his existence yknow ?? like yeah he existed to help momoe overcome some of her trauma but he also just existed to be HIM yknow ?? also... personally, i headcanon momoe as a trans girl even though i dont remember it being explicitly stated plus the school scenes of her and stuff would seem like they suggest otherwise ??but,,, SHAWTY THE AMOUNT OF SUBTEXT and her complicated relationship w gender is... something i feel like a cis girl would not go through so harshly yknow ?? with all of the questioning and feeling detached from femininity or feeling like ppl dont see her as an actual girl and only like her as a guy or for her masculine traits,,, but dont take my word on this bc i myself am a cis girl but that was just my take on it as someone in the lgbtq+ community trying to educate myself on the transgender community :) either way,, wonder eggs portrayal of momoe and kaoru and the way that momoe becomes so passionate about expressing herself the way she wants to as a girl is just... good lord im gonna cry its so perfect,,,.so ... i just love this show way too much. i also am honestly super lost about the relationship btwn acca and ura-acca ?? bc i was gonna mention ura-acca as a canonically gay guy bc when i was watching i interpreted ep 11 as him being in love with acca and being jealous of Azusa (bc i mean,, they lived together (i swear to god there was only one bed in that apartment) and had a daughter together and def loved each other and also when Frill said they were husbands and then when ura-acca said he wasnt attracted to azusa but he was def jealous of their relationship ??) but then i saw somewhere that theyre brothers ?? which would make sense ig since they look kinda similar and accas daughter called ura-acca “uncle”.. but at the same time its ANIME SO THEY ALL LOOK SIMILAR and referring to gay couples as siblings is an EXTREMELY common euphemism soooo... IM JUST LOST HERE... but yeah i tried doing research and found different things so i cant say anything for sure >:( however,,, if they are canonically a lil fruity for each other... when frill refered to acca as ura-accas husband i imploded dude you never hear that sort of wording in anime.. but if theyre related i am so sorry.

god this is so much longer than i planned it to be oops but i also love the theme about like.. relying on friends to help carry your weight but at the same time not becoming completely dependent on those friends and using their support to learn how to love yourself and rely on yourself yknow ?? bc that is exactly what healthy friendships look like. bc i think ai sort of had a codependency thing goin on with koito maybe ?? but now she has a whole squad of funky friends that are so so different but all struggle with different kinds of trauma and although they fight over it, they always get through it with each other together. and they push each other no matter what to be the best versions of themselves and they teach other that getting hurt is okay because theyre always gonna be there to pick up the pieces no matter what happens. they can give each other space when they need and adapt to meet each others needs but theyre always able to balance it out with their own needs and thats such a beautiful thing in friendships especially at their age like damn i wish i had that maturity when i was 14 but no all i had was depression. another thing is that through these friendships you get to see all the different sides of each girl; you get to see them being strong or a shining light to their friends when theyre hurting but you also get to see them being hurt and weak and allowing themselves to be on the receiving end of the comfort. their friendships allows them to have weaknesses but it also allows them to highlight their strengths and thrive off of each others. I LOVE FRIENDSHIP DUDE

next i wanna briefly mention some of the themes connected to suicide that ive noticed. a big one is the survivors guilt that ai feels once koito is dead. several times she screams that she wishes she couldve gone with koito and she dreams of a “perfect world” where they committed a double suicide. one of the main reasons for her troubles is that she blames herself for koitos death and feels like it should be her thats dead... but at the same time she feels like too much of a coward to do anything now that koito is gone. she just has all these complex and contradicting feelings that wear away at her in ways that ppl that havent gone through the suicide of a loved one could never imagine. a lot of the times when things like this are portrayed in media i feel like its more in a way thats meant to guilt trip those that have taken their own lives and paint suicide as this selfish sin thats unforgivable but... not only does wonder egg reject that idea and instead portray it as a heartbreaking tragedy with,,, so so many terrible reasons, but it focuses on the feelings of ai separate from koito without blaming her in any way. not once did i feel like the show antagonized koito or that ai blamed koito for doing any of this, but they simply mourned her loss and touched on ais reaction towards the event but separate from koito herself if that makes sense. and i think that discussing survivors guilt without painting koito as the bad guy is something so beautifully done in wonder egg that can really resonate with those that have lost a loved one to suicide and have struggled with these same things.

okay i think this is the last thing ill mention,,, but HOMIE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE BIT AT THE END. I AM. OBSESSED. i am such a whore for anything about the multiverse okay n e ways...,, not only did this make a super epic trippy ending of season one and add a little bit more magical girl whimsy to the show,, but it had such a powerful message. from the perspective of og ai,, finding out that you killed yourself in another world is... i mean its definitely not a surprise but at the same time it rlly makes you think how close og ai herself couldve been to that point and what decisions led her out of that dark place in her life. if i were in her shoes i would be terrified and id cry bc the thought of going back to such a dark place and actually going through with something like that is my worst fear and probably something that ai fears too. but at the same time,,, think from the perspective of ai two !!! like yeah its true that theres this awful terrible version of ai that dies but theres also a whole version of ai that is a superhero magical girl fighting off monsters to save countless ppls lives !! and she has a badass lizard and a gang of awesome friends !!! at first i was worried that ai two would be jealous of og ai and compare herself to her and feel inferior but like.. THEYRE LITERALLY THE SAME PERSON AND CAPABLE OF THE SAME THINGS !!! and ai two realized that !! just within the span of one episode, she went from the version of ai who took her life,, to the version of ai jumping in front of a friend to take a bullet for them and save their life. and that just inspired THE SHIT OUT OF ME. i think that ai was sent another version of herself to sort of beat her own worst enemy yknow ?? those doubts and fears that shes no good or that shes that same bystander from episode one and that she hasnt changed at all. but getting to interact with her parallel self and see her grow was just what she needed to realize that while yeah sometimes the worst thing can happen and things can be terrible but on the other hand sometimes the most wonderful thing imaginable can happen because she has the power to do either.

so im gonna go ahead and stop rambling bc i got all my thoughts out that i wanted to for this post :D but yeah lol i might make another if i feel like it sometime. long story short: this show is perfect and it is going on my favorite of all times.

#wonder egg priority #wonder egg spoilers #ai ohto #rika kawai #momoe sawaki #wonder egg priority neiru #i forgot neirus name #anime review #wonder egg ai #lgbtq anime

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