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fairuzfan · 1 month

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I don't want to add it to the post (bc I don't want to get into it with assholes) but! I'm literally Japanese-American, and I would say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki are similar to Gaza and Rafah not just in the amount of firepower directed at them but in that they're both CIVILIAN POPULATIONS. it's not about the nuclear weapons (reading comprehension website.jpeg) it's about the inhumanity of the collective punishment in service of US interests. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not individual or unique events -- look at Laos, look at Cambodia, look at Vietnam and Korea and what the States did there!! it doesn't "lessen" the horror or tragedy at all to compare them to Palestine now, especially if that comparison will help to stop it. I need white ppl to shut the fuck up about Japan permanently I stg anyways sorry people are being weird and fuckshit about this.

I think people are stuck on the differences and not willing to look at similarities when it comes to Gaza. Like when we compare its not in an effort to dismiss the differences and "triviliaze" (hate when they say that) but to show "Hey remember when something really bad happened back then? And everyone today is like I can't believe that happened? You can stop something like that from happening today by helping here" which people are allergic to doing for Palestine because they're so caught up in the minutae that they can't see the big picture. I've seen descendants of survivors of Vietnam say this is exactly what happened to them. I've seen Bosnian Genocide survivors say the gaslighting is similar to what they experienced. Holocaust survivors and their descendents! Even Hiroshima in the modern day is drawing parallels! We need to make comparisons to examine similarities and contextualize events in history. Why else learn world history if not to understand the patterns of operation in the modern day? You have beliefs surrounding certain atrocities, things like "I won't let that happen again" or "I would fight that" and that's why people are drawing parallels. To make people take action.

And this isn't limited to just Gaza, people do the same with Sudan and DRCongo. And people who do it for sudan even claim to support Palestine! Even though Gazans are asking people to pay attention to Sudan because they see themselves in their struggle! No one is paying attention to the main idea "stop this before it gets worse"!!!! It's already so bad for all these places and that damage is irreversible in that people live with it for the rest of their lives but yes! We can stop it before a complete erasure happens! It's possible! These comparisons are necessary and important!

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amomentsescape · 5 months

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Heyyy darling,IM POLITELY BEGGING,for some stu and billy with feral ,hyper,punk gremlin s/o headcanons. Simply the boys trying to be as casual as possible so they dont get suspected for the previous murders but then they’re running around with their own little bundle of chaos. Im talking like a real troublemaker,just for the fun of it but always just watching all the drama happening,never being involved even though they caused it. For example: •causing misunderstandings in other friendgroups •cutting someone’s car wheels (or similar stuff) after they’ve been rude to someone in their friend group,maybe when gale didnt respect sidney‘s privacy in the first movie •S/O has a collection of anything shiny and glittery things they stole (from spoons to necklaces) just cause they like how it looks and they know it will cause some chaos. •Flirting with randy,tatum and stu to piss the boys off a bit •Oh or maybe billy getting them one of those vertical cloths or swings for their living room,I feel like that would fit cause billy would be a bit tired of his S/O letting their hyperness out on him. •When they come home from killing a bit later sometimes,they just find their s/o sleeping in the most uncomfy position (criss cross apple sauce type of shit) on their swing,drooling a bit,their body twitching every now and then

I dont know if any of this made sense my head is all over the place right now. <3

Billy and Stu (Separate) with Feral Gremlin Reader

Billy Loomis x Reader, Stu Macher x Reader

A/N: This was honestly so fun to write!

Billy Loomis

Boy, he didn't quite know what he was getting into when he first became interested in you

But he's in it for the long run, so here we go

Making Billy jealous is a common theme with you

Outright flirting, giggling, and dancing around with other people automatically makes Billy see red

But there's something about his possessiveness that you love so much that you keep doing it anyway

It almost always leads to a fight between Billy and the other party

And damn, isn't it fun to watch?

But that's not to say that you don't also feel your fair share of anger as well

Someone pisses you off even slightly? They're gonna regret it the next morning

Keyed cars, egged houses, graffitied threats

There is no limit to your creativity to get back at them

Billy simply huffs and puffs at you, berating you about being too "loud" with your actions

He's trying to keep things down-low by all means

And the last thing he wants is one of your actions getting him caught and put in jail

But there is something kinda attractive with how you stir up drama and give Billy some attitude

He doesn't like easy

He wants a challenge

And boy do you give him one

But on days where he simply cannot have you running amuck, he has you lay down in your own little hammock he bought you

For whatever reason, that always has you relaxed

It's like you become a whole different person with it

And Billy lets out a little "thank you" to the Gods each time he sees you just swinging away

He loves you, but damn, it's hard to keep up with you

Stu Macher

Stu on the other hand, is not phased at all by you

In fact, he matches your energy about 80% of the time

A friend pissed you off? You're both screaming and laughing while talking badly about them

Things are getting a little boring? You and Stu tell different people made up stuff that someone else is "saying" about them

You both love to stir up drama and watch how badly things can unfold

Stu is less concerned about getting caught than Billy anyways

What's even the point in killing if you can't have some fun outside of it?

So having you around is the perfect way for Stu to let out his hyper energy and keep things exciting when he isn't killing teens

But when he is out and about, he's thinking of you

You're probably at home eating all of his snacks in that moment, but he doesn't care

After his victims meet their fates, he is happy to dig around in their pockets and their homes, looking for anything even the slightest bit shiny to bring back to you

Nothing compares to the way your eyes light up at the gifts

Hell, you have a drawer in your room just filled with all things shiny and captivating

But Stu knows he'll have to wait until the morning to give you your gift

Because just about every night he comes home, he finds your head handing off the couch with your legs and arms splayed out, snoozing away

Remnants of chips and chocolate can still be found on your lips and fingertips

Stu secretly has made a photo album in his phone just for all the pictures he takes of you when you're sleeping

It's about time Stu had someone who met his chaotic energy

#slasher preference #slashers headcanon #slashers preference #slashers x reader #slashers #ghostface x reader #ghostface #scream #scream movie #scream franchise #billy loomis x reader #billy loomis headcanon #billy loomis #stu macher x reader #stu macher #stu macher headcanons

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elaemae · 3 months

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The premium version of human is here to wreak house, mfs.

Chp.2

[TwstxObeyme!AFAB!reader]

Whoa.. 😳

Thanks for the feedback, likes and reblogs guys~ It really makes me happy that my hard work is appreciated😊

Guys, what gender should my story's Yuu be in? It's quite hard to refer to two different characters with both gender neutral pronouns 😅

READ FIRST; PROLOGUE:1

• • • •

Again; Pronouns used to refer to MC are blue, because MC will be mistaken for a guy a lot.

SYNOPSIS:

With the Opening Ceremony going off the rails for a second time, MC is more than eager to get back home and probably binge-watch their stress away with their emotionally-repressed boys.

Though with the current situation right now, they don't think that will be happening soon.. Oh well, at least they're not the only otherworldly outlier here... *Nightbringer flashbacks intensifies*

$o|0m°N?

On the other hand, Yuu makes a new friend.

Yuu doesn't know if this makes them a problematic person or not, but Yuu is happy that there's someone else in a similar predicament as them in this strange world, even if it meant that their new companion also had to be kidnapped by a problematic school/lowkey-highkey a cult to be here as well.

But of course, there's trouble in the horizon as the whole fiasco in the mirror ceremony caused the students of NRC to keep a close and careful gaze onto the MC. I'm talkin' from but not limited to; The Fish Mafia, Queen of hearts and Evil queen Incarnates, even down to your perfectly normal 500+ year old war-veteran that looks like a child.

Meanwhile, The Devildom, Human world, and The Celestial realm are feeling a sense of something foreboding in the air... It's probably nothing though.. right?......right?? The calm before the storm. Or the calm before anyone barges into MC's room.

Prologue: 2 Electric-boogaloo

Watching the mysterious and somewhat confused-looking student continuously dodge Riddle and Azul's spells with a calm expression, sharp gaze and a frightening precision, Lilia is waiting for the perfect time to jump in.

Preferably when the student ran in front of him so that he could tackle him to the ground.

Crowley isn't doing anything but screech. Again.

Haah....

• • • •

Azul's smile widens when this ever mysterious new student blocks Riddles' Signature spell by quickly spinning his fancy staff into a make-shift shield once again. what an interesting staff, transforming from a necklace into a cane that can be used for offense and defense..

Azul straight up grins he can see Schoenheit's smile and Kingscholar's shit-eating smirk from here, as well as hear Shroud's maniacal giggles when Riddle screeches at the student to just cooperate and that "NO WE ARE NOT A CULT!!!!" "That's what cults always say!"

Prompting a round of laughter from the useles– *ehem* new students in the hall. How annoying..

What an amusing lad.. Though, Azul wonders.. can all his other jewelry transform as well? Besides the earrings, choker, necklace and forehead ornament that he's wearing, the student also has a ring in his middle finger and in both of his ring fingers, a wide bracelet, and even some bangles in his ankles.

And if all of those jewels can transform into something?....Ohhh, then he really needs to get his hands on them asap.

Seeing Lilia gearing up to jump the student, Azul shifted a bit and tried to lead the student closer to Lilia.

Help idk how to describe shit💀

You click your tongue as you got surrounded by Mr. bird-bitch, that red-mf, Solomon-but-from-wish, Columbina's cousin, lion-dude, "I'm a bad-bitch with a sad past" guy, and a floating tablet.

You ended up getting bound by the bird-bitch's whip the moment you tried to leap off a window in your belphie-escaping-his-responsibilities style. Your pact mark of pride flickered, and Lucifer wonders what MC could be dreaming about for their pride to have taken a hit at this time of the night.

You turned your staff back into a necklace by then, so you couldn't really block the whip and that redhead's spell from hitting you.

You had socked Walmart-Solomon in the face though when he sneakily tried to take one of your bangles while you were being yanked back from the window. Satan stirred in his sleep, feeling but not registering the creeping irritation under your skin.

So now you're here, with a collar for your troubles and a whip locking your arms to your body.

You're just about to resentfully summon Lucifer or something when the redhead who collared you with this uncomfortable fugly-ass neckwear started lecturing you and shit about etiquette and how disrespectful you are for trying to leap out the window and how you should be honored to be there blahblahblah—

Hell no. You ain't letting this short-pimp talk to you like this. (You should really stop hanging around too much with Asmo. Or Levi when he's being a hater on the internet.)

Satan stirred once again, starting to rouse from his slumber as he felt your irritation start to turn into embers of anger.

Lucifer furrows his brows, feeling a rush of indignity that can only have come from you. But why? Weren't you in bed? He hasn't felt you leave through any of the detection barriers he'd set up around your room so you should still be inside, right?

"I think it's much more disrespectful to have your fuckin horses kidnap someone straight from their goddamn bed just to attend a little ceremony they've never even heard of."

You narrow your eyes as you see the bird-man and goons look taken aback in varying degrees of obviousness. (A figure near the mirror perked-up; 'Maybe this person is in a similar situation as them!')

Bruh, what the fuck did they expect??

• • • • •

The Vice-prefects of all seven dorms lead the new students out of the Ceremony hall, leaving behind the five (sorry Mal. Also, Jamil's ass definitely dragged Kalim out with him.) dorm leaders with the headmaster to solve the issues of the sTiLl-uNdEr-tHe-efFecTs-oF-tHe-teLepoRtaTioN-sPelL new student who utterly refuses to cooperate with them.

Riddle is about to combust, Leona wants to go back to bed only to be dragged back by the headmaster—, Vil wants his beauty sleep but was dragged back by that petty bitch, Leona—, While Idia and Azul decided to stick around for their own personal reasons. ("He looks like an anime character—" "Brother, I don't think it's good to be taking pictures of someone without permission—" "AHH–! O-ORTHO?!")

While Yuu is.. hiding behind the mirror.

(The kinda-silver haired guy seems to be in his seventh ritual of making sure his face didn't get bruised from the solid right hook to the face he got.)

(Yuu would've felt bad for him if the guy didn't have such a shady smile on his face while he was massaging his punched jaw.)

Meanwhile...

"Oy human, it's me!"

Mammon knocked on MC's door, fully intent on bothering their sleep and cozying up on their bed again.

He waited for a few seconds, no answer.

He knocked again.

No answer.

... Look, it's not like The Great Mammon is worried or anything but this is strange..

The human always answers their door after a knock or two even if it's the middle of the night.

... Dammit.

Mammon is full of grumbles as he consciously sharpens his senses, tryna sense his the human.

They better not be ignoring him or he'll–

Wait.

What? W- wait a second..

• • • •

The quietness of the night in the House of Lamentation vanished as the sound of a door being busted down rang out.

It's other residents could barely even register the sound before a shout rang out. A shout that sent dread right into their cores.

"MC?!"

← Pr. 1 | Chapter List | Prologue 3 →

'What the?! Why can't I summon them??'

Elae: Hehe~ I'm back with some food~

Thanks for reading this far, I hope you enjoyed this chapter😊

Btw, do y'all want Yuu to be a love interest?

How do I tag ppl??

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proudproship · 6 months

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Not so friendly reminder that creating "dark" or "taboo" fiction can be a sign of childhood trauma!

More below the cut. Warning: long post.

TW: Mentions of trauma, child abuse, and paraphilias

Hi. I'm someone who studies psychology and sociology, and someone who also happens to have an interest in this shipping discourse stuff.

So, back to what I said a few paragraphs ago: Creating "dark" or "taboo" fictional content can be a sign of childhood trauma.

How?

When a child goes through something they consider traumatic, their brain will play the situation on repeat subconsciously, which can cause hypervigilance and symptoms of PTSD.

A common sign of PTSD in young children is that they will reenact their trauma with things like dolls, drawings, figures, and basically any other thing they can use to express their thoughts.

For example, a child who has gone through physical abuse may reenact similar things with their toys, such as making their dolls hit or yell at each other.

This symptom isn't limited to children, though. It is a symptom closely related to the presence of flashbacks and nightmares.

Many artists will create a "self-insert" character, "sona," or a character who is otherwise much like it's creator; when an artist creates a character like this and also has past trauma, their symptoms may reflect onto their character.

Projecting yourself onto characters can happen with other characters as well, even if you didn't make the character.

This is a healthy symptom. It shows that the brain is willing to become stronger from their trauma.

Reenacting trauma in ways that aren't harmful can help the brain process what happened to them, and can even help them deal with their trauma directly.

In order to heal trauma, you must know what your trauma is; you can't heal a wound you don't know you have.

While dark fiction creators are indulging in positive healing mechanisms, certain people will shun them for doing so.

"Antishippers" claim to be the "heroes" and to support healing, even though the thing that makes someone be considered and antishipper is if they're "anti healing through fiction."

Antishippers will throw the same ableist rhetorics around by claiming "if you ship adult x child you're a pedophile!" or "if you have age gap ships (even if both are consenting adults) you're a pedophile!"

This, not only is it hurting trauma survivors (especially those who have been harmed by those with paraphilic disorders), it is hurting EVERY disabled person.

Armchair diagnosis is not something anyone should do.

It is when there is little to no evidence that the condition exists within a person, though people still throw labels onto them to make them seem like they're a "bad guy." (Usually.)

This is also hurting people with actual paraphilias. Paraphilic disorder is real condition characterized by intrusive thoughts of a (usually abnormal or harmful-if-acted-on) sexual nature.

Even if someone claims to not be ableist but still demonizes and villainizes paraphilias, they're ableist.

Ableism is ableism.

And before an anti decides to call me a "pedo-apologist," go right ahead! You don't know what you're saying anyways.

There is a difference between a criminal and a disabled person.

Proship people do not support abuse. Anyone who claims to be proship but still supports abuse is NOT proship.

---

Of course anyone who makes dark content doesn't have to have past trauma.

There are many people who make dark content that don't have what they'd consider trauma, or think their trauma is unrelated to the content they create.

What if they did experience something traumatic in the future?

They'd be able to cope with it better, because they'd seen it in fiction before, so they'd know the impact of it, and how they could handle it.

Of course, not everyone who indulges in fiction will be able to handle it, though.

However, no matter if they have past trauma or not, assume the best when it comes to content creators.

They're creative and strong, and we should be thankful that they're adding onto fandom culture by just existing and doing what they love.

All people, no matter what fictional content they create, are beautiful in their own way and should be met with kindness and compassion.

Do not go out of your way to harass/abuse innocent people.

Do not go out of your way to be ableist towards content creators and content consumers.

---

Thank you for reading my long post, I hope it helped at least a bit.

Have a great day/night and stay safe, no matter your taste in fiction.

Feedback is appreciated, and reblogs are encouraged.

#tw trauma #tw abuse #tw paraphilia #proship #proship please interact #profic #anti anti #comship #proship safe #childhood trauma #para safe #reblog please

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originalartblog · 1 year

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Answering some asks about the dad Murase lives AU under the cut because you are forcing me to think about what I've created (❤)

@inkingkitsune

Murase had to know about N's less-than-savoury work. He was hired as a security guard (thanks to his brother) for a military facility for which he was told to kill any trespassers on sight. And his brother had been legally dead for a decade! But the main difference between the two brothers is that while N will still do horrors in the name of his job, Murase has spent his life after the war trying to help people to atone for what he had to do to survive. I think having to face concrete proof of what his brother did/does, especially without the immediate pressure of war and survival to "justify" his actions, to a kid he's grown somewhat attached to? That would be really hard on him.

Frankly I had never heard of that theory before, and after considering it, I can't agree with it. The government has expressed barely any interest in Chuuya, N seems to have acted on his own. The PM has so many ability users, and abilities are so unknown to the general public, with or without Chuuya, it was an important move to make, and there was no normal legal way of getting it.

As for Oda... I fear he's going to suffer the same fate. In another post I did wonder if Mori would try to be more careful with Dazai, since we know he was very careful to nurture Chuuya's loyalty and bond to the mafia. But after thinking about it, while Mori felt bitter after Dark Era (please read the light novel), he says he would still do it because the permit was so important to get. Chuuya going away here wasn't his fault, so I see no reason he wouldn't do things especially differently. Maybe he'd feel even more bitter though.

If Oda dies the same way... it's a fun question. Dazai would leave, Dazai would still refuse to work for the government, so his options are limited. I can't imagine Chuuya leaving at 16, join the ADA, and the mafia not knowing a thing about it? So what would Dazai do? Chuuya left and joined a group and now that group is his only option in Yokohama. If he wants to join them, he'll still have to wait two years for his records to be erased and hidden. And he knows Chuuya is gonna be there, and he knows him!! How frustrating and stressful is that wait going to be?

I'd like Chuuya to be gone when Dazai first joins, so Entrance Exam can still take place in a similar way. Maybe he accompanied Ranpo on his contract out of town? I do wonder if he'd confront Dazai publicly or in private... I'm still not sure how much he told the ADA about his own origins.

I've decided that Chuuya leaves after the Dragon Head Conflict (after loosing a second set of friends in the same year), because this time, he has someone waiting for him to offer him an out. And this is interesting from a skk point of view. At that point, Dazai has already met both Oda and Ango, and technically, Double Black has made a name of themselves. Chuuya would be leaving at the creation/peak of Double Black, barely giving it enough time to get their name. But all that we know (so far) of what they were up to as teenagers has happened already! And Dazai has met Oda and Ango, he has a support system now! They'll be fine. Well, as fine as their canon counterparts anyway.

This is also funny because their "history" is less than two years of absolute hell, then a 5/6-year gap, and suddenly they're coworkers again.

Honestly I don't know if Murase would have an opportunity to see it or its repercussions? I doubt he saw Chuuya directly after Verlaine (you know, mafia and all that), and I think Chuuya would be the one to seek him out after the DHC. I truly think you could count the amount of times Corruption was maybe used by Double Black in canon back then on one hand, and in this AU, it's literally only twice. Unless Asagiri planned for another big event and hasn't told us yet, I don't think Chuuya has had to use Corruption again in this AU until Lovecraft.

MAYBE someone would notify Chuuya's dad guardian that his son charge was badly injured, but with Yosano in the room, I doubt it would make it back to him. Same thing with Dead Apple. Murase lives in a blessed world where he knows Chuuya's powerful, but doesn't know the extent of it.

Have a lil' doodle for making it all the way down here! (it's Chuuya's first week or something)

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r0sequarks · 11 months

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doodles for a tears of the kingdom roleswap au, because those will forever be my jam and i really like the idea of playable zelda. notes/rambling under the cut.

Scavenged Zonai tech instead of Ultrahand (she made it herself??)

idk if the stone stays a necklace or goes on a hand or what

Maybe Zonai glasses? idk

She has an undershirt b/c boobs. Patterned off main padding.

Zonai Survey Team + Hylian Armor (people just give Zelda shit)

Bow of Light - summons freely, acts like Master Sword, powers up with shrines?

Text is readable (Purah: stealing my look! rude!)

And then the general core conceits of Playable TotK Zelda:

Archer - ranged combat focus/optimized

Princess/General - focus on group combat (sages / monster squad / Gerudo Town)

Priestess - Light + Time magic, upgrades

Zonai Researcher - extra knowledge in ruins, can read tet, can do more with scavenging

I need to finish the final boss fight before I decide what entirely Link's role ends up as, but he's sent back in time injured with the broken sword while Zelda is teleported by the Purah Pad away to the Sky Island. IDK if she still has Rauru (or Mineru) as a guide, but even if she does, she's a lot more self sufficient, and scavenges/builds the tech to interface with Zonai devices herself instead of just being given the Ultrahand. I think she still gets the same abilities, but like. She's doing it herself. very stressed out this is fine energy.

Zelda on the sky island is probably more than a little feral researcher. It's her getting used to combat. When we started with the broken master sword, I though the game was going to let you keep it and power it up over time; I'm glad that's not how it went but I do think it would be interesting, so Zelda gets to summon a bow and it levels up over time (probably connected to the shrines system, because Holy Light, but idk how exactly). She can use swords and other weapons, but she definitely defaults more ranged.

Zelda also gets magic, which is obviously the Time Rune stuff, but I think also it would be cool if she had a light power unarmed attack (similar to but weaker than the Yiga Earthwave you can unlock). I like the idea of a playthrough where you never pick up a sword and you just keep light blasting people and dodging even though it is almost certainly the weaker attack. feral untrained self taught mages are and forever will be my jam.

When Zelda returns to Hyrule proper, I think the reactions are very different, because everyone pretty much agrees she's in charge (even if, perhaps, she doesn't). I also think that, well, people are less worried about Link being missing than they are about Zelda - the Lucky Clover isn't running stories about him, y'know? As such it's driven by what Zelda wants - which is to find Link, even if it''s not what others want.

Zelda as princess I think also plays interestingly into the group combat TotK introduces; I think in her game she acts more as general and they're more common. Not that she can't be on front lines, but it'd be pretty easy to play letting the Sages eat up melee while she's sniping. I also think she gets magic that can heal allies, making them more useful in fights to some extent. This would maybe be very messy in a real game but this is a theory baybee!

Although I think that's probably similarly limited / you don't have to drag people around while climbing mountains. Which, to be clear, she still does. It's been like five years and she's clearly been traveling the world with Link still at her side, there's no way that she's not just as feral an adventurer as he is. She's just better as passing as normal.

The big change in exploration is the various ruins, because she actually knows shit. I like to imagine there's some feature Zelda can use to sort of take notes on basically any Zonai or other ancient shit you find anywhere. She doesn't need to run back to Kakariko Village to translate, she's putting stuff together herself. This is maybe manifested by Zonai glasses/mask, which replaces/augments the Camera feature? And then upgrades to help you better see stuff? idk. [let the purah scope zoom in and out. ideal fix. kthxbai]

as for how Zelda interacts with the world...that's kind of complicated but really interesting. she's the beloved princess, but she is the Princess, and for the other four nations, specifically, Not Their Princess. like the dynamic with the Sages definitely changes. There's probably some themes there to parallel Zelda with Rauru but like that means there are Implications and I need to think more on that than 2am.

#tears of the kingdom #totk #totk spoilers #totk au #totk zelda #zelda #roleswap au #totk roleswap au #my art

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stoopid-turtle · 8 months

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On the Acceptance of Unsteady Ground

Throughout this whole dive into turtle world, I've been very conscious of just how LITTLE access to information I have. I'm relying so heavily on English translations and platforms, and most of these are from turtles, so I'm fully aware I'm getting a biased perspective.

I've tried to read stuff from solos or even just neutral third-parties. The neutral parties don't have much depth of information, though, and I found solos heavy on accusations and declarations but light on actual...evidence. And they sometimes use some really nasty rhetoric against the idea that gg and dd might be gay.

Don't get me wrong, turtles get weird too. There's plenty of clearly false rumors, deceptively edited videos, silly stretches of logic, weird ideas of what how people in a relationship would act, etc. But there's at least enough English-speaking turtles that I can find some who are giving open and, as far as I can tell, accurate information (honestly, I find tumblr turtledom better at that then other platforms). I haven't really found a similar pocket of solo fans.

I'm also aware that there's always going to be a limit on how much I can know. I don't speak the language, so I'm always relying on translators. I have limited access to Weibo (even putting aside the language barrier, I'm in text confirmation limbo in actually getting an account), and I have little familiarity with the culture. I don't get a lot of the jokes or references, and stuff may strike me, an English-speaking American, differently than it would someone in China.

Add on top of that the fact that I'm trying to find out purposely obscured information about two celebrities, and, yeah, I'm fully aware that I'm on unsteady ground here. I can do my best, but I'm never going to know anything for certain.

But I've become okay with that.

It took a while. The dissatisfaction with the unknown (and unknowable) is what drove a lot of my early fixation and subsequent fall into the turtle pit. But now, especially after laying out my thoughts, I've reached a zen place with it. I'm 100% certain ggdd were together during filming/promo, and I'm 95% certain they're still together (I had this at 85% originally, but then the whole dd being sick and gg changing his schedule thing happened and I'm just...welp, guess I'm in this confidence interval, then).

Just having that certainty means I can enjoy updates from them without anguishing about "proof" or uncertainty. Oh, gg took the day off on dd's birthday? That's really sweet! I'm not gonna fuss about if it's coincidence ENOUGH to convince me, because I'm already convinced. It's a good place to be.

I typically don't care about celebrities. In fact, I've long been bewildered by celebrity culture here in the US, and I've often been actively annoyed when people assume/expect me to have opinions on things celebrities do. I'm the nerd who doesn't get why the actors get all the attention when the writer or director would be much more interesting.

So the fact that I've gone all fangirlish over two celebrities is bizarre to me, and I appreciate the irony. Well done, me. I attribute some of it to just being able to watch the bts and see their early interactions play out like a story. I find stories compelling, and both gg and dd are charismatic, attractive and have great chemistry. Whatever disdain I have for celebs, I do love a romance.

In my foray into the ggdd world, though, I've also had to learn more about c-ent, and y'all. It's nuts. Like, US entertainment is nuts too, but c-ent ratchets it up to 11. I've been in fandom a long time, and I thought I'd seen some weird stuff, but it's got nothing on c-ent. Just wrapping my head around the culture these guys are in took a lot of learning.

But I appreciate being able to dive into this culture and this country, because I knew very little about China beyond the antagonistic politics. It's been refreshing to get a view on life on the ground in China to humanize the folks there and get a clearer picture of the country.

I started this thing bc I had been spending so much time on Youtube watching clips, and I had thoughts and opinions and nowhere to put them. I already had a tumblr that I use to lurk on some fandoms and I had started following turtles too. I figured tumblr would be a decent place to splurge out my thoughts, so I set up a throwaway account to do so.

I get the vibe that a lot of new turtles come to bjyx through the same route I took? They watch The Untamed on Netflix. They get curious about the show and start watching some clips on YT. Next thing you know, they have 3 playlists full of purported "proof of love" and they need a whiteboard to connect everything together and their wife thinks they've gone completely bonkers supports them in all their oddities.

Like, I was really confused by turtles at first. I was just trying to watch bts videos on YouTube and I didn't know what bjyx meant, but the videos with the label were weird and had strange disclaimers that they were "only for turtles" and I had no clue what that even meant.

My confusion continued as I tried to read more. The fake story disclaimer convention is hella confusing as an outsider, and my first impression was that turtles were kinda crazy. The videos I saw gave overviews of candies without context, and some of them explicitly said they were proof of Yizhan love while still having that fake story disclaimer. Basically, it was a big confusing environment, and it's why I resisted buying into bjyx so hard for so long. It all seemed delulu.

But in reading more, I guess part of that is the point? Recognizing that gg and dd are in a vulnerable position should their relationship ever come out, having so much noise to muddy the waters makes a twisted, clownish sense. I don't know who came up with that convention or if it just kinda happened (is it a normal thing in c-ent? I don't know enough about celebrity fandoms), but hats off, I guess.

With the supertopic recently hitting 4 million active fans, there's something heartening about such a depth of support for the guys. I'm not naive enough to think all 4 million (plus international fans) are allies to LGBT folk in general, but it surely means something to ggdd to have that sort of support for their relationship. Honestly, it means something to me, as a random gay chick on the other side of the world, to see a gay couple get that kinda of support behind them.

I started watching the bts because I was afraid there'd be a lot of cynical homophobia on the set or some evidence of all the male cast being icked out by the whole thing. Instead, I got gg, who was so passionate about WWX being gay. I love that everybody knew they were telling a love story with as explicitly as they could get away with. I love that the guys wanted more Wangxian scenes and that the cast and crew made "everyday is everyday" jokes in a non-mocking way. I'm glad that the whole shoot seemed like such a positive environment for the cast and crew to being themselves and tell a type of story that they may not be able to be involved with ever again.

So, yes, this is my zen turtle place. When I set up a soapbox for myself, I didn't think too much about the fact that people would respond, but I'm so grateful to have had a chance to talk to some other turtles! Everybody is lovely and thank you for sharing my enthusiasm.

Like I said in the beginning, I don't have the time to keep super-active in the long-term. I had intended to write up my thoughts and poof away. But I do also plan to keep up with gg and dd and turtles, so instead I'm just gonna leave off with the potential for further posts down the line.

I'm not gonna be incredibly active, so please don't expect frequent updates or interactions from me. But if I have more Yizhan thoughts I'll pop up again with a post (I mean, I do have lots more thoughts, but nothing energizing enough to write about), or I'll leave a comment somewhere if I have something I simply must say. I'm also open to responding to asks about the timeline or anything else. And if I ever do stumble across anything groundbreaking with regards to the timeline, I'll probably add that in, because I'm particular about things being complete.

So thanks for being so welcoming! It's been a joy to clown around and make up completely fictional stories with everybody here. 🤡🐢🙇🏼

#yizhan #bjyx #gg and dd keep being ridiculous and it makes me ridiculous #also always gonna read moar fanfic #rooting for them #waiting for that tell-all book

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miraculouslbcnreactions · 2 months

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[Text: Tell me, what do you think of people actually liking the character development in season 4-5 and the show's treatment of mental health? [Redacted] thinks that and she's the mother of a teenager]

Re liking the show: I generally assume that they have poor taste and/or media literacy.

Re the mental health rep: I generally assume that they're incredibly privileged and/or ignorant.

I'm posting this as an image and not an ask response specifically because I will not participate in fandom drama or shaming. This blog exists specifically so that people can actively choose to engage in my content and so that I can post critical thoughts without dragging their source into some petty fight. So I'm not going to talk about the named individual. Instead, I'll replace them with the show's head writer and talk about him in a similar context.*

He's pretty famously denied that Chloe suffered any abuse, ignoring her obvious neglect, which came from both parents, just in different forms. When you pair that with how the show handles people like Gabe and Jagged Stone, we see a clear pattern of the show ignoring the devastating effects that abandonment and neglect can have on a person, especially if they're a child.

Now you could look at that and say, "The head writer condones abuse! He's a monster!" But I prefer to go the more likely route and assume that he's a privileged middle-class cis white man who has never had to deal with those issues or support someone who has, so he has no idea how to handle them properly or that they even need to be properly handled. There's every chance that he's a loving, kind man and a fantastic father who just happens to not be very good at writing a complex topic that he clearly has no understanding of or desire to learn about. I apply similar logic to fans who share his opinions. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence or ignorance.

And all of the above is assuming that we're talking about someone who thinks that the show is objectively good or that the mental health rep is good, which are big assumptions. It's fully possible to enjoy a piece of media that you know is objectively bad or even "problematic" in some way.

Personal confession time: is Loonatics Unleashed an objectively terrible show that you should never, ever watch? Absolutely. 100%. Are Rev Runner and Tech E. Coyote two of my favorite characters who will live rent free in my head until the day I die? Yep! I pulled up a YouTube highlight real as I was writing this and those dorks still make me smile even though the show is terrible on multiple levels and I know that I'm not alone in that sentiment. Those two clicked with a lot of people for some reason.

A piece of fiction need not be good for you to love it and you don't need to justify your love for a piece of fiction if you're not claiming that it's good. Similarly, people hating that piece of fiction or pointing out flaws in it is not a reflection on you in any way shape or form. You can even agree with their criticism and still love the piece of fiction. This approach to media - loving a thing in spite of its flaws - is normal and healthy and I'd really love to see it make a comeback in younger fandoms.

Like, I cannot emphasize this enough, most fandoms consider it perfectly normal to have lots of fans who are critical of the source or who have even lost interest in the source for one reason or another, but they still like some element of the source enough to want to create/consume fan content for it. These more critical fans arguably make some of the best fan content because looking at canon and saying "That's nice, let me show you how I'd do it" often leads to some of the most complex stories that you'll see in fandom spaces. Stories that can often blow canon out of the water for TV shows and movies since fanfic isn't limited by budgets or studio policies or marketability concerns. Fans who think that the source is perfect tend to just write fluff or romcom type fics, which is not a dig! I love bother of those genres! But woman does not live on fluff alone.

Obviously there's some complexity here because who decides if a show is bad? Saying "it's okay that you like a terrible thing" can certainly sound like an insult and prompt a feeling of needing to defend the thing, which is why I don't fight with fans who like the show. There's really no need to convince them that the thing they like is bad. Do I think it is? Yes. Does it matter if they disagree? No, not really. At worst, they create stories with similar issues and, well, they're not the only ones and fighting with them isn't going to stop them. You're much better off focusing on creating your own good media and trying to get that popular. Heck, even if you made the head writer see all of Miracuous' flaws, it wouldn't change anything. The show is already made.

So, yeah, I don't really assume anything bad about people who think that miraculous is good. I know lots of wonderful people who have terrible taste in media and I'm still friends with them. I just don't take recommendations from them.

It's important to remember that, when you're online in a fandom space, a person is condensed down to a very tiny snapshot of who they are and judging a person solely off of their thoughts regarding a poorly written kids show is a dangerous path to tread. Like, looking at this blog, you might assume that I spend all of my time thinking about miraculous and obsessing over its flaws, which is very much not the case. I actually have this blog specifically so that I don't obsess over miraculous' flaws because I've found that, when something is bothering me, writing it down or talking to someone about it is the best way to stop thinking about it. Even then, most of my posts are reblogs of stuff I come across while browsing my tumblr feed, which is not solely miraculous content. I mostly interact with the show by creating non-salty fanfic that I honestly enjoy writing and find to be a relaxing, positive outlet.

It's human nature to judge and it's totally normal to think that a person's an idiot because of something they post online, but be careful to not lean into those thoughts too hard. At the end of the day, Miraculous is just a stupid kids show that will fade from the popular consciousness a few years after it stops airing. If it and/or the fandom are negatively affecting your mental health, then it's okay to step away for a while or use the block button. It really is your best friend. I enjoy being critical about Miraculous specifically because it's not that important. While I do think that kids deserve better media, I don't think Miraculous is some terrible evil harming the youth. I'm not horrified when a kid watches it, it's just not a show that I'd encourage them to watch and, if the kids was close to me, we'd spend a lot of time talking about the bad things that the show showcases from time to time. There are lots of episodes that are fine and I can think of way worse kids shows. Shows that tell their horrifying morals really well, making a kid far more likely to pick up on them and internalize them.

*Note that I only feel comfortable talking about the head writer like this because he's a public figure with an active social media presence AND because I'm not @ing him. If he was a private person or if he was not a professional creator, then I would not talk about him like this and even in that context I try to avoid it whenever I can. You can think that he's a terrible writer, but he's still a human being and, as far as I'm aware, nothing he's done deserves people harassing him.

I absolutely understand how devastating it can be to see a story you love get ruined by the creative team. The first time that happened to me, the life lesson I came away with was, "I will no longer put my happiness in the hands of another creator. I will enjoy stories, but I will temper my expectations and remember that they're just another human being and it's completely possible that their vision for this seemingly awesome story may end up being terrible."

#ml writing salt #ml writing critical #ml fandom salt #fandom salt #ask response

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morroodle · 2 months

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The Ninjago Battle Box: the best investment of my life

A reveiw

A few days ago I got bored and made a somewhat impulsive decision to buy the ninjago battle box which I've been wanting for a while and it finally arrived today so I'm gonna reveiw it cause I haven't seen like anyone talk about it. It dosent even have its own wiki page even though it is chock full of fun facts and information and pictures

Contents:

A 2 sided map - one side is ninjago city while the other is ninjago as a whole (kinda)

Book of battles

Ninjago world guide

30 cards

Lloyd minifig

Garmadon minifig

The map:

HOLY SHIT THIS IS COOL. As far as I'm aware this might be the most detailed map of ninjago we've ever gotten and no one is even aware of it! What I think is the most interesting and what makes me question how cannon this is is that the main map of ninjago only covers like... 1/4 of the whole ninjago island? Kinda odd how like all the locations are in this tiny chunk when they have a whole island they could cover but hey its still a super cool map and an amazing piece of art!

The book of battles:

Kind of a weird thing and I couldn't find any information on what it was until I got it. Basically each page is a rough (and not 100% accurate) summary of one of the battles of ninjago, a vague but still pretty obvious clue about where the battle took place, a prompt to play and a neat art piece based on the battle. It's not so much a history book as it is a book of play ideas, your meant to use the clue to find where the battle took place on the map and then use the little battle dojo, the minifigures and the cards to play out the battle however you want. Very cute and I love it. One weird thing I found though: in one of the battles it calls the serpentine the serpentai? It's done 3 times so I don't think it's just a typo. Don't know what's going on there but its cool. Here's an example of the best page, they're all formatted the same

It only has a handful of battles, not nearly all of them, but that's to be expected and it's still great

Ninjago world guide:

It's like a little encyclopedia of heros, villains and artifacts. It includes the main ninja, the elemental masters, all the villains (up to season 15 and strangely excluding the overlord), and a bunch of non people important things like the bounty and the realm crystal. Pretty much nothing I don't already know but still neat! It's kinda cool how it's split into 2 sections, one half being heros and good artifacts and the other being villains and bad artifacts. I don't know how to describe it but theyre kinda facing different ways? It's like 2 books in one, both starting on the outsides and meeting/ending in the middle like so.

Here's Morro's page (again most of the pages are formatted the same):

Cutie pie <3

The cards:

I wish I could show off all the cars but sadly tumblr has a limit to how many pictures you can have in one post. Cards include heros, villains and artifacts, similar to the world guide but not quite as many things, just the important ones. Theyre pretty simple, with just the name/title and a drawing of the character/item. Theyre meant to be used to play the battles in the book of battles. Morro's is the absolute best one look at this little cutie pie!

Hes so sweet and adorable he has never done anything wrong in his life and I love him

The minifigures and the box itself:

Nothing really special about the minifigs just a basic Lloyd and Garmadon. Interesting to note that despite wearing his season 8 gi Lloyd has his legacy hood on. Not complaining, I hate the smooth round hoods.

The box that everything came in doubles as the little play area :D its a little dojo setting with some cute nicknacks scattered around. It needs a bit of encouragement to stay flat though. Oh also here's the outside of the box

Conclusion:

The best $25 I've ever spent. I can't believe almost no one knows or talks about this! It's from 2023 and covers up until seabound. I might have to see if I can add this stuff to the ninjago wiki, more people should know about it. If anyone else is interested in getting one (you should be) it's on the scholastic website for $17.99 + shipping, not the actual lego website.

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago battle box #ninjago morro #morro

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suzuran777 · 2 months

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Lamento stageplay news + visuals

Just one more day left until the live performancs of the Lamento stageplay start! The stageplay was of course already announced last year, but as they finally started tweeting the countdown pictures, I wanted to write a blog post about the visuals and information they've released so far, comparing some of the stageplay visuals to the official game illustrations!

Similar to the DRAMAtical Murder (DMMd) and sweet pool stageplays, the Lamento stageplay will also have different routes for each main character, Asato, Bardo and Rai. I'm going to assume that the first half of the stageplay will be some kind of common route, while the second half focuses on the route of each different character. Something that is new is that this time the stageplay will have "musical elements" as well, so I'm not sure if I should call it a stageplay or a musical (I'm just using "stageplay" this time as the official account also seems to call it that). Even though in the game Konoe's song is just a melody, the actors did tweet about singing, so I am curious what they will do!

Ohyama Yoh, who composed 19 of the 37 songs of the Lamento original soundtrack also tweeted that there will be 11 new songs (+ addictional background music). I think it's super cool that they're working together with the original composer again to create new songs for the stageplay! I remember the DMMd stageplay also had a new song by GOATBED, which they even performed live a few times at the end of the show. The previous stageplays were about two hours long, but this time they mentioned it will be at least 3 hours, which makes sense because Lamento is a lot longer than sweet pool and DMMd.

I'm really impressed by the costumes and wigs so far, the ears and tails also look so fluffy... I really wonder what they will look like in motion and what the battle scenes will look like. Most of the visuals of the individual characters they've released so far seem to be based on the in-game sprites, but what I found interesting is that Rai's, Asato's and Bardo's pictures seem to have the same pose as the Kotobukiya figurines! You can see the comparison below, the pictures of the figurines are from the Kotobukiya official website.

Another new visual which was released quite recently seems to resemble another official illustration, which I've seen in the artbooks before and which was also the cover of magazine B's Log, specifically the December 2006 issue. Some of the details are a bit different, for example Konoe is not holding Leaks' mask in his hand anymore, and this time they added Shui to the illustration as well, but some other things such as Bardo's pose make it quite obvious this picture was their inspiration. The way Shui and Leaks stand next to each other kind of reminds me of the Rhapsody to the Past drama CD as well? One thing I noticed is that they're not really trying to hide Leaks' face this time, which was actually quite a big reveal in the game.

Next are some of the other illustrations they recently showed us during a short livestream which was available on Twitter for a limited time. Luckily they also posted the pictures on the official account! These won't be sold as merchandise, but they're given away as a bonus for those who attend all three versions of the show. I guess one thing I never noticed before is how little promotional/extra art Bardo got back then, so in this case they had to use one of his in-game CGs. For the other characters they mostly seem to use some of the extra/promotional art. Anyway, you can see a comparison below! I think it's fun to see how they re-created the pictures with the actors.

The last picture they recently showed during the Twitter livestream uses the cover illustration of the official world guidebook! Unfortunately no Bardo in this one either. This is one of the items they are selling as merchandise, it seems to be some kind of booklet (they call it a "pamphlet" but it's 32 pages long). I really wish they would sell the merchandise online, but for now it's only accessible for those who have a ticket and who buy it inside the venue. Maybe if they have any extra stock they might sell it online?

Update: The stageplay will also be livestreamed on DMM TV! The ticket to watch all three routes is 10000 yen (about 66 USD, which is cheaper than the in-person tickets at least!) which also gives you some special bonus videos to watch. First is Bardo's route on February 24th, followed by Asato's and Rai's routes on February 25th. Be aware that it is region locked and not all VPNs work, so unfortunately I can't help much with that! For any further updates you can check the official Twitter account!

Cast list: Konoe: Maejima Yoh Rai: Kato Sho Asato: Hiraga Yusei Bardo: Seto Yusuke Razel: Kimisawa Yuki Kaltz: Okamoto Yuki Verg: Iwata Tomoki Froud: Muramatsu Koki Kagari: Asaba Maya Tokino: Fukuzawa Taiga Firi: Kita Tsutomu Kil: Yoshun Sakamoto Ul: Arai Yuya Shui: Osaki Natsuki Leaks: Matsui Yuho

#lamento #nitrochiral #nitro chiral #blvn #blvninfo #visualnovel

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thinkin-bout-milgram · 7 months

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Hello! If it’s okay, I’d like to know your thoughts on the Trikoto theory (3+ alters). I think it’s a cool theory! And pretty likely, honestly. (Here’s a document about it in case you don’t know what I’m talking about. I didn’t make it, and I unfortunately don’t know who did, I just found it in another blog)(I really hope that link works lol)

Hey FF! I was wondering when you might send something in. Not the topic I expected, but I'm here for it!

I've definitely heard of this theory before. I can't say I know for sure where it originated, but I've always been under the impression that a blog called @bertrandcaillet started it as they're the first one I saw talk about that theory and they told me about it a while ago. They've since deactivated, though, so I can't really check with them to see if that's true.

I think the trikoto theory is interesting, and I fully agree with what's said on the document about how it would be nice if Milgram is showing a system with more nuance than just having two alters.

That being said, I personally don't believe this theory for a number of reasons. I'm going to do my best to explain why here. I do want to say going into this that while I do have extremely minimal psychology teaching (as in, undergrad psyc MINOR), I do not claim to be that educated on DID or similar struggles. So, anything that I say will be focusing much more on Milgram as a piece of media from a writing standpoint, because that's what I have much more extensive experience in.

I will say that I am very aware that most systems have more than 2 alters. That being said, I think I also remember from my psyc class that the average number is, like... 16? I'm not at my dorm right now and that's where my notes are, so I can't check, but I remember specifically thinking about it in the context of Mikoto and trikoto theory, so I'm pretty confident it's Above Three. That means that either way, it's not like we're doing The Most Common Number, so I think two versus three is largely irrelevant on that point.

For the sake of clarity, I'll be using the names in the doc (Akakoto, Midokoto, Aokoto), but I only personally believe that two of them (Akakoto, Aokoto) exist. I've taken to calling them Orekoto and Bokuto, but for this post, Akakoto and Aokoto it is.

At its base, my problem with trikoto theory is that I don't see a lot of evidence for it. Most of what I've seen has been talking about the implications of it if you assume it's true, but I've just never really been convinced in the first place. I'll just go through some of the main reasonings real quick:

The RGB Colors

I do acknowledge that I'm very much not a visually oriented person, so the color shifting is something I'm less inclined to notice. However, while the background of the room is blue and the train station and apartment are pretty green, I don't feel like there are ever really any red backgrounds (other than when the headspace becomes red as ooposed to blue). Because of that, I have a hard time believing that the backgrounds themselves contribute to the idea that there are three. I definitely think the red/blue coloration in the eyes and such are indicating different alters, but I don't think that specific fact supports there being three of them.

The Voice Changes

This might be a me issue, but I only really hear two different vocal inflections. I understand the point about there being some harsher (?) sounding vocals that don't have the growl, but personally, I still think the tone matches the one described as Akakoto enough to count. Similarly, the parts towards the end that are picked out for Midokoto ("I'm probably not to blame," etc.) actually sound more like Aokoto to me even if I do try to track the three voices.

I'm hesitant to go too hard in believing the different voices because to me, doing so would severely limit the amount of control Natsuki Hanae would have over the emotions he wants to put into the song. The vocalists in Milgram do a fantastic job at using specific vocal intonations to convey deep layers of emotions in their songs. I feel like it would be very limiting to only be able to use certain vocal effects (ex. growl) in specific places due to the limitations of the characters. If there are two, the two voices are far more separate, which gives more space for customization within the bounds of each voice.

This is also a little bit iffier on evidence, but there's the Es cover of MeMe. I don't know how much Yurina Amami knows about Mikoto's story and the entire video is in grayscale, so take all of this with a grain of salt, but to me, I feel like Es uses two voices here, not three. Notably, they even have a bit of vocal growl on the "switch" and on "split and half, make that heart beat," which are both squarely in the Midokoto tone. They do still have the two voice split, sounding a bit more apathetic and aggressive in the Akakoto parts and cuter in the Aokoto parts. To me, that signifies that there's suppose to be two voices going on, not three, but you could argue that that's just Es' perception of Mikoto, so it's not decisive or anything.

Mikoto Fighting Es

Yes, in his first audio drama, Mikoto is able to beat Es up until Kotoko stops him. Yes, that's inconsistent from what we've seen from Futa and also t2 Amane. I agree that that's because the Milgram rules only apply to one or more alters, and thus any others that may exist can get around the rulings. We saw this between trials, too, with how Mikoto (seemingly Akakoto at the time) was able to avoid being restrained despite his guilty verdict, likely through the same loophole.

(Side note: this implies to me that Milgram's system for restraining guilty prisoners is, like the protective barrier around Es, somewhat magical and isn't a physical thing. Thus, if we were to, say, vote Amane as guilty, I am fairly confident she would be unable to harm any other prisoners, as we've already seen the barriers are able to prevent her from attacking others. I still lean Amane innocent anyways, but I wanted to point this out.)

Anyways, I don't think that this is actually evidence towards trikoto theory because it works perfectly fine with just the two of them. Aokoto is the prisoner in Milgram and Akakoto isn't. This doesn't necessarily mean that Aokoto is the one who was fronting while the murder happened, though; the rules of Milgram just necessitate that the prisoner is involved in/related to a death. It can be indirect.

I think that that's exactly what Milgram is asking us with Mikoto. The question is, how do you fairly hold a system accountable? Can you blame one alter for the other's actions?

Milgram loves to complicate these, and I can see the appeal of a complication being learning about a third alter. Personally, I think it's much more likely that the route Milgram is taking is looking at how much knowledge the alters have about each other and asking how much Aokoto would have to know to make him an accessory to Akakoto's murder plans. It could go either way, though.

Some Bonus Points

I think the strongest piece of evidence brought up is the use of threes in Mikoto's design. Other than "they just liked it aesthetically," there isn't much of a counterargument I can make about it. My best one would be that they might be going for a "switching between black and white" type of thing, which would work better with more stripes, but that's pretty weak. I also had the idea that the first character of his name looks like three stripes, which might be a better or worse explanation! You get to decide, I have no idea.

The cake sells me less, though. It's true that Kazui's is a perfect 50/50 and that Mikoto's isn't, but that's because they're representing different things.

Kazui's is half and half because his song is called half, and it could also be a sign of how he and his wife didn't actually connect more in a marriage sense; they're still two fully separate people rather than being a unit.

Mikoto, if he has two alters, is still physically one guy. Mikoto is mostly sitting on the flower designs. I'd argue that the flowers are meant to show Mikoto as a whole: the connection point of the two alters.

That's pretty much all of what I have to say on the doc (in terms of the trikoto aspect, whether I believe it or not there's some good work done in character/lyric analysis that applies to two or three alter theories), but I'll go over some of my reason for why I actively believe there to be two, because there are some reasons.

Reason 1: The Song Titles

The doc explains what the meaning of MeMe is in trikoto theory, but it definitely still works with two, more obviously so. That's not evidence, though, because the trikoto theory has a viable explanation too.

I have no idea what they'd be doing with the song title Double, though. I guess it would be a play on somebody being someone else's double, meaning they're someone like them, which is no doubt part of the song title either way, but I think it's difficult to ignore the meaning of Double that means, y'know... multiplied by 2, or:

But that could very easily be a diversion and we haven't seen the second video, so I'd let that slide. However, that brings me to the bigger problem:

Reason 2: Upright Versus Reversed

AKA, the tarot cards.

Tarot cards can be read two ways, Upright or Reversed, based on the orientation of the card when it's placed/picked up/whatever. I already went over in my original theory (which is pretty outdated, I could do a way better job but I wrote that one literally first out of my milgram thoeries and I hated not having a good name scheme for the various alters) why I believe Akakoto to be the Hanged Man (Upright) and why I believe Aokoto to be the Hanged Man (Reversed).

I struggle to imagine why the devs would pick tarot, something that clearly has two meanings to it, when there are actually three alters. Maybe it'd just be to throw us off the scent, but it feels a bit too intentional to me.

Plus, if it was meant to throw us off, I'd expect we'd get a different metaphor/symbol for the second MV (as we have been with pretty much everyone). However, the association between Mikoto and "reversible" things has continued into trial 2, even before his MV has come up.

I say this because of his trial 2 cover song: Reversible Campaign. Funnily enough, I actually thought this song would go to Kazui before it was announced as Mikoto's, but then I looked again and understood why they wanted it for Mikoto.

My thoughts get confused and fight with each other

Very Mikoto, works for either two or three alter theories. However:

I just want to waver between black and white

It's turned me upside down

There's more that seems to paint Mikoto's mind as a dichotomy, not a... trichotomy? Is that a word? I don't actually know.

The Song Lyrics of MeMe

This is sort of an extension of the above part, but there are also definitely song lyrics in MeMe that sound like they're heavily implying two. Again, you could argue that that's trying to throw us off the scent, but some of them are, in my opinion, actively difficult to justify for trikoto theory.

Split in half, Make that heart beat

I cannot for the life of me understand why any of the three alters would say "split in half" if there are three. I guess if any of them were aware of one of the other alters, but not the other? I don't think that's what was being argued, though, sorry if I missed that.

I’m already the fake one

Little harder to argue this one because I don't know how definite versus indefinite articles work in Japanese, but saying the fake one really sounds to me like there is one fake and one real. If you were just having a moment of existential crisis, in most situations, I think you'd opt for "I'm already fake."

The Mirror

This is sort of the same argument as the tarot cards, but there's also the use of mirror imagery in Mikoto's MeMe MV. Mirrors have two sides and are a reflection. You could use Haruka logic and say that it depicts self reflection, I guess, but considering the reflection acts differently, I think it's much more likely that this is meant to show the two alters.

Conclusion

Hopefully this all made sense? I respect trikoto theory and I could easily be super wrong about it (see also: my original opinions on gay Kazui theory and police Kazui theory), but I've just never really been sold. It's possible my opinion would change if I saw evidence that I felt worked better for trikoto than... twokoto? theory, but personally, I feel like most evidence I've seen for it is still better explained by there being two alters. Let me know what you think, though :)

#milgram #ミルグラム #mikoto kayano #milgram theory #admin venus #we talking about mikoto again!#makes sense considering his video's coming up next #MeMe was the first video that i saw the day it came out #so that's kinda exciting for me #also i strongly doubt you're out there anon who asked about mikoto having potential childhood trauma bc DID is VERY heavily related #but if you are i'm sorry i haven't responded i am so no thoughts head empty on what it would be #i suspect there probably is trauma there bc DID is SO frequently connected to childhood abuse but i simply don't have any answers in my min #also hi ff welcome to milgram again :D

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elodieunderglass · 1 year

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Firstly, I wanted to say thank you for finally making Moby Dick comprehensible to me over a decade after I attempted to read it and bounced aggressively off it! But the thing I actually wanted to ask and boggle about is, you get a full year of maternity leave??? I think literally the company with the most mind-bogglingly generous policy I ever worked for (I'm in the US) only gave 7 months, and the place I'm at now only gives I think 3 or so.

You're very welcome! It's very exciting to me that a line by line translation of Moby Dick can make it so much more accessible.

On your second point - yeah! I'm always happy to talk about parental leave policies etc and how different countries handle them, not in a smug "Well, in the UK..." way but in a, "here's very concrete examples of how policies can work, and the material impact they have on people" sort of way, because that's genuinely something that needs to be communicated. Just like with the environmental crises, we are all limited by our ability to imagine the Healed World and what we need to do to get there. So what are some policies that are a bit more Healed-World-ish than the reality that many people live in, and how do they actually work? You are welcome to send me asks! Rumination below the cut.

I wouldn't have had kids if I'd stayed in the USA. I've chosen to have 3 in the UK. This is directly because of maternity leave, free childcare hours for toddlers, quality of childcare, accessibility of school/daycare, flexible working policies, generous holiday leave, and other factors like that. Does that seem weird to say? Should I have moped about in floods of divine baby-desire and universal mother-yearnings and stuff, and sacrificed everything to have squidgy babies? IDK, I've never felt any of those things: I love the children a lot as people and I'm obviously terrifically glad they're here, but I wouldn't have had any desire to have them in the first place if I hadn't been sure they'd have decent childhoods. And a childhood where a parent resents them because that parent had UNFULFILLED INTELLECTUAL GOALS, or where there's always stress because of MATERIAL DIFFICULTIES, wouldn't be decent. My desire to acquire the children has been very much based in the knowledge that I can afford them (financially, emotionally, socially, career-wise, mentally) without sacrificing or martyring myself. So, literally: even though I have 2 life-defining children and one more on the way, even though I'm considered in my immediate social circles to be a real earth-mother crunchy-type, even though I work part-time to spend time with the kids and so on: if I didn't live THIS life, I wouldn't want the children. So I think it’s interesting to see how a simple piece of policy, a difference between nations, so totally impacts and directs the course of an individual’s life.

RE: the actual practicalities, it breaks down a funny way. In the UK, they hold your job for you for up to a year, usually hiring a temporary maternity cover: if they can't give you the same job back, they have to give you a similar one. If you return in 6 months it’s like you didn’t leave at all and get the exact job back. Maternity leave is usually taken for about 9 months, with paternity leave often adding an additional 3 months, and children usually entering childcare at the age of 1.

The actual way that this gets calculated is pretty complicated. My job offers 6 months on full pay, which is a "benefit" - otherwise the default is only 6 weeks on full pay. After the full pay runs out, you're on SMP - Statutory Maternity Pay - which is £156.66 per week. SMP runs out at nine months. If you want more time than that, your job gets held for a full year, but you'll be on 3 months unpaid. -> HOWEVER, you've been accruing annual leave the whole time you've been off, so when the baby is 9 months old, you might expect to have about 6 weeks of holiday that built up. Holiday is taken at full pay rates. So depending on how much holiday you have, you just return to work while on vacation and get paid again.

If you return to work at 6 months, which is sort of the minimum normal time to take off, you get your exact same job back. If you take longer than 6 months, you get that "offer of an equivalent job" but no promise of having your job back - which can worry people. So sometimes people happily choose to take only 6 months off, because they want their exact same projects back.

So what will happen with me is

6 months off on full pay, Dr Glass takes about 1 month off on full pay parental leave at the beginning to provide support

(Child2 enters age where they get 30 hours/week free childcare, daycare bills drop to basically just Child1's afterschool programs from here until last bullet point. As Dr Glass and I both work part time, this means that each day of the week will have a mix of different children, activities and work. We will hopefully be able to bank a little bit of childcare-budget to coast on for the next bits.)

3 months off where I'll only make £624 a month SMP: it’s not nothing and so should be grateful, except for the relentlessness of life. I also get £150/month from the government for having two children - nothing for the third because that would be encouraging families to rely on benefits and have children for money, or something, naturally. Dr Glass will be working, but no family can really lose almost half a wage and be cheerful about it, so we'll have to coast on savings banked from the room freed up in the childcare budget. (we thought it would just about work before the cost-of-living crisis, when we filed our plan paperwork, and gotta say, it’s looking pretty scary now.) we’ll prioritise the mortgage and utilities in cash, and should be able to coast it.

2-ish months off but "on holiday," i.e. back on full pay

Dr Glass overlaps one month off on full pay (holiday + shared parental leave) plus two months totally unpaid, i.e. Unpaid Leave, i.e. Dr Glass keeps his job and simply takes two months off, making £0 a month. Again, this will be hard to get through, but as we know it's coming, we have time to make SOME savings to live on. This allows Dr Glass to have time with his last child, which is a priority for us over debt, and gets the baby comfortably to the age that our nursery accepts.

Both parents return to work. Baby will enter daycare aged 1 (Child2 remains on free hours, daycare bills go back up to mortgage-level payments, finances return to exactly where they were before Baby3.) hopefully we’ll be able to quickly pay down any debts incurred with two full wages.

You can see it's doable, but there are some scary flippin' periods and a tremendous amount of footwork. We've somehow managed during harder times; with Child1 I was the sole breadwinner for the household and was at a job where I only got SMP, so I went back to work at 6 months and Dr Glass was a SAHP for a long time; with Child2 it was pandemic and lockdown etc, and no childcare was available, so we all ricocheted around the house together for a year. So clearly something absolutely bonkers is going to happen in 2023, but if it doesn't, we might actually have one (1) normal baby-leave.

As you can see, it's NOT the Healed World, but it has aspects that you'll want to include in the Healed World. You can see the impacts on things like family design - the kids all being 3 years apart for affordability, as that's when the free childcare hours kick in - and the way that fathers are still sort of wedging themselves in. You can see how it gets cobbled together and stressful, and the bits where you have to coast over patches that could just as easily destroy a family (watch this space! We might go completely fucking broke! We’re about £200 away from it at all times as it it!) You can see that there are some privileges (having a partner, partner having a job) that materially affect the experience people have. You can see how sometimes people can take a year and others return to work at 6 months (I've done both! Both can be great and both can suck, but it's MUCH better when you choose it for yourself, rather than being forced financially.) you can see that some cruel and stupid policy decisions are meant to punish poor people in the UK for having children despite the lack of internal logic (no child benefit for over 2 kids, when child benefit is meant to help you raise citizens.) You can see places where a conservative politician could shit on one vulnerable place (like the UK’s free childcare hours for three year olds! Liz Truss was thinking about killing it!) and entirely destroy my family at a stroke. You can see that for all my stance of “I am not a martyr” for my children, I’m expecting to have spent several years of my life flippantly being marginally-waged for the sake of having them: but also, you can see the difference between the support the UK gives my stance, and the support a 20-year-old military wife in the American heartland gets with her first baby: you can see how eased the paths of my children are, how isolated hers will be. You can step back from the worldwide generational immolation of mothers, their narratives of sacrifice and drudgery, and unpack how much of that is truly necessary, and how much damage could have been resolved by simply rinsing off the TERF shit, offering a few scraps of healthcare, and giving them a few fucking months off work.

We are all worldbuilding the Healed World: it makes sense to understand the different ways it could work. I’ll longpost about any policy you guys would like until then.

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asterias-record-shop · 10 months

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╭════• ೋ•✧๑♡๑✧•ೋ •═══╮

— i'll win him over

╰════• ೋ•✧๑♡๑✧•ೋ •═══╯

𓆩[main masterlist]𓆪 𓆩[request/ask me something!]𓆪 𓆩[join the taglist!]𓆪

Requested by anonymous: HIIIIIII!!!! Oh boy am I excited. Okay so now it's my turn for James Keene 🤩. Can I please request a story (it's a bit specific, but I've just finished peaky blinders and can't get it out of my head) which takes place after Jimmy has gotten out of jail. The reader has an older brother (think like Richie Boyle from the Outfit..it could even be him if thats okay with you) who runs a similar business like the one Jimmy used to, but they both hate each other. Nevertheless Jimmy falls for his sister which wounds up to be tough for both men. If you want the reader can have more brothers who run the business. THANK YOU FOR YOIR TIME I HOPE THAT WASNT CONFUSING LMAO BYEEEEE

pushed back in time to the 50s I believe, not in the same universe as Black Bird, someone should request for Richie Boyle 👀 *wink wink, request for richie boyle babe-* also, no smut!! i wasn't really in the mood for smut, sorry anon honey :( also, yes, a bit confusing but it's okay! i hope i did it justice :)

Jimmy's front was a bar that he was a bartender for. It fit, honestly, being a bartender for a drug dealing front. The only thing that didn't fit was the flower shop right next to him his competition always frequented.

Richie was too much of a firecracker to be liked, he had a problem with his anger issues so no matter how many times Jimmy tried to make some sort of alliance, it always ended in Richie getting pissed off and leaving — not before punching one of Jimmy's men though.

Today, he was determined to find out what the hell was so interesting about the flower shop next to his bar. Maybe it was just a ploy to see what he was doing? Figure out if they could steal another shipment?

All of the thoughts were running through his mind as he walked into the flower shop, opening the door to make a bell ring out. All of the smells flooded into his nose, his eyes widening when he saw all of the beautiful flowers and mixed bouquets. They were absolutely beautiful and bright, each flower absolutely perfect with zero wilted petals or leaves.

"Hi, welcome in! I'm so sorry, be there in a minute!" Your voice rings out, Jimmy pausing.

Maybe it wasn't what was so in the shop but who.

"That's alright love!" James slowly walked through the aisles, trying to find you in the entirety of all of the flowers that could've blinded him if they were lights. For fucks sake, they were all beautiful. You put together different colors and textures, one bright bouquet of roses and sunflowers catching his eye.

"That was my first bouquet I made," you say, walking toward him with a smile. "N-Not that one exactly, but the roses and the sunflowers. They're one of my favorites."

"It's beautiful." James said, smiling as he looked back at you. "I'm James, I run the bar next door."

You pause but take his hand and give it a firm shake. "Y/N. Nice to meet you. What can I do for you, James?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you know, but I run more of the high-end bars in town, and someone is always asking why we don't have centerpieces in the VIP rooms." James makes up the lie quickly, smiling down at her. "It doesn't have to be very big, and you will have full creative freedom if that helps guide your decision. All I ask is that they are different every week."

"Oh. Oh wow, when would you need the flowers? Come with me," you say, keeping his hand in yours and pulling him to the back. "Is there any color scheme that you want? Or a limit in price?"

"No, again, full freedom. Anything you want, I'll just pay every week." He smiled at you as you pursed your lips, humming.

"Well, it wouldn't be weekly. If anything, it would be biweekly, I make sure my flowers last longer than a week. There's a special element in the water." You say, writing down some ideas in some pretty handwriting. "Each bouquet would range anywhere from thirty to one hundred each. Is that okay?"

"Perfectly fine. I would only need eight each order because it's strictly for VIP rooms."

“Oh, gotcha! I can do that,” you smile one of the prettiest smiles he had ever seen. “I can get these for you in two days. Sound good?”

“Very good, love. Thank you, I really appreciate it.”

The bell rings making you look up, yelling out, “In the back!”

“Y/N! Where are you?!”

You rolled your eyes. “In the back!”

“Oi, you seen that-” Richie paused when he saw James, gaping. “Why the fuck are you here?!”

“Richie! Go away, he’s a customer!” You yell, quickly standing up straight. “James, I will have these flowers for you soon, okay?”

“No you won’t!” Richie comes between you both after you go around the desk, shaking his head. “You stay the fuck away from my sister.”

James paused, looking from you to Richie. “She’s too pretty to be your sister.”

“Haha, very fucking funny! She’s adopted, you asshole, leave her the fuck alone!”

“Richie, stop!” You say, pushing him as hard as you could. “I’m so sorry, James, ignore him.”

“I will,” James smiled. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/N.”

It makes you smile, nodding. “Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“No he won’t!”

“Shut up, Richie!”

After that, you saw him a lot more. James came to see you every day, it was just a matter of time before something happened.

It started off slow, soft kisses behind closed doors and light touches when no one was looking, but Jimmy wanted to change that. You were the first girl he actually wanted to get serious with, he wanted to be able to go out on dates with you without risking being punched by your brother.

Maybe that's the reason why he stood in front of your house, ready to meet Richie and then your dad to continue to court you. It was something stupid he normally didn't believe in, but he wanted to do it right.

So, as soon as he passed the gates, he really did expect the punch he got straight to the face.

"You kissed my sister you bastard?!"

"Rich! Richie, you leave him alone!" You tried to yell, gasping as James shoved him.

"Don't fucking hit me!" He shouted, wiping at his mouth with a sigh. "I came to get your respect, not your approval."

"You don't have any of that, get out!" Richie goes in for another hit before Jimmy caught his wrist, shoving him.

"Listen to me!" James shoved him again, looking over his shoulder to stare at you being held back by one of his henchmen. "I love your sister, even if you don't know anything about that shit."

"Don't you fucking-"

"I'm going to be with her no matter what." Jimmy smiled back at you before glaring at your brother. "So, you better learn how to fucking live with it."

His words make you smile widely, giggling. "Move, Richie!"

Reluctantly, he does with a shout of your father, letting you run forward and into Jimmy's arms. "Oh my, are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'll take more than a punch to be with you." He smiled as you giggled, pressing a firm kiss to his lips. "I'll win him over, I promise."

"You better, or he might just kill you!"

Regular taglist: 𓆩[@lem0ns77]𓆪 𓆩[@cecepop15]𓆪 𓆩[@memeorydotcom]𓆪 𓆩[@your-favorite-god]𓆪 𓆩[@xyzstar]𓆪 𓆩[@just-my-shit]𓆪 𓆩[@your-mom21]𓆪 𓆩[@c78r]𓆪 𓆩[@dizscreams]𓆪 𓆩[@asrt5]𓆪 𓆩[@xoxomoonlightbabe]𓆪

#taron egerton #taron egerton x reader #taron egerton imagine #taron egerton x fem! reader #black bird #jimmy keene black bird #just hot because of taron egerton #with love asteria ♡#asterias-record-shop #requests open

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 11 months

Text

Here's a collection of Trigun Stampede thoughts and observations I had from someone who has only seen this series, since big long posts rarely go over well lol. I'm really intrigued to contrast with the manga later and see if I get similar takeaways... I'm eagerly willing to expand on any of these if anyone is interested but for now they will exist as loose point forms! Hopefully this is coherent!

Firstly: Vash my beloved... please be nicer to yourself... please... you are so kind...

Meryl and Knives are the lead active/driving forces of the show, in contrast to most everyone else's passivity and Vash's reactivity

Meryl's influence on Roberto over the course of the story - she actually has him taking a pretty firm stance later on (which is likely the opinion he held all along, he just buried it), which brings me to the next point-

Conrad and Knives claim to be looking to the future but ignore the present - Roberto dismisses this because those who won't even save a life in front of them in the present moment won't save anyone (this is more in keeping with what Vash does)

The juxtaposition between Conrad and Luida's methods are great and I hope we return to that in the next season

I love Meryl. This is not an observation or analysis it is merely a statement of fact. :)

I wonder if we'll get more Zazie and Meryl interactions. Zazie seems to find Meryl intriguing at the very least. I also just like Zazie and think this could be a really interesting dynamic.

I would also like to see more of Rem, hopefully outside of the biased recollections of Vash and Nai... I still don't feel like I know anything about her :(

Ideals in the service of people (Vash) vs people in the service of ideals (Knives)

Most of the children in the series literally age too quickly. There's a lot to examine there.

Given the attempts to create Independent-like humans by Conrad and the rapid aging of these children... is the serum created from Plants?

Vash 🤝 Me: "Wolfwood" 🥺 (I'm kidding, I'm kidding... mostly.)

Vash and Wolfwood are not fundamentally different, as they first appear to be, but are actually quite similar in their drives (protection of others at personal cost) - the difference in their perspectives comes down to the scope of what they swore to protect (with Wolfwood's being far more limited, thus there are outsiders) and propensity to hope (Vash will act on hope without solid proof, while Wolfwood needs the proof but will jump on it if he sees it - interesting for someone who is associated with religion and faith)

Wolfwood's version of mercy is an unfortunate form of projection (aka Legato is a fucking idiot for thinking removing Wolfwood's attachments would lead him to be solely devoted to Knives. my dude, I am pretty sure that attachment plus raw survival instinct is the only thing keeping him going)

Vash: allows himself to get shot and reveals his scars / Wolfwood: >:O !!! / also Wolfwood: repeatedly takes hits either shielding people or just plain not dodging when he 100% could / Me: 😐

I wish we'd gotten some breathing room in the series. That's my number one gripe about it. Specifically, I wanted a little more time with Wolfwood to get to know him in the present before we got into him having the worst life of his fucking life in the span of two episodes... I also wanted to see a little more of this world that Vash cares about so much! I understand the manga and 98 series do this a little better so I'm excited to see that. Meryl's arc was great though!

Loved the really clever way the flashbacks are done!!! Nai is barely focused on at first, then as his character is slowly revealed, he gets the camera focus and childish behaviours more and more!!!

Huge themes of autonomy and choice. I think they're actually more the point than the whole morality aspect. It's not as important that Vash be perfectly moral and right than it is that his philosophy allows people the chance to choose and change for themselves - Knives' doesn't grant anyone that choice, and in fact, he and the people under him actively remove free will (breaking Vash's mind, the experimentation on Rollo, Wolfwood and Livio, what he did to... the Plants... etc.)

Vash is genuinely angry at Nai in a way he doesn't seem to be with anyone else. I do think a part of him can't forgive what happened to Rem or the emotional strain that comes with watching someone you love repeatedly do horrible things. I don't know if humanity could hurt him the way Nai has. The worst part is that I don't think Nai fully comprehends how badly he has hurt Vash. He looked so confused and hurt when Vash trained the gun on him for the first time. The "ominous piano playing" probably isn't meant to be ominous at all, once we see they used to play that piece together. Nai's been playing it on loop for so long. He wants his brother to come home. :(

The twins treat each other like an extension of themselves for a lot of the story, which is somewhat ironic for a couple of Independents. Vash blames himself and seeks to atone for his brother's actions, Nai thinks any differing opinion his brother has is a result of corruption instead of him being his own person. That is why it is a triumph when Vash finally asserts his identity away from Knives in episode 12, declaring himself his own person. That is why it is a tragedy when Nai would rather let his old self die, figuratively and literally, than accept that.

Nai did not want Rem dead. I stand by this strongly. His anger at her is I believe in part to justify her death in his mind.

Nai wants to return to a time of safety more than anything (the higher dimension is like an "egg", the ship's dome around the two as children, the quietness of the tree, etc.).

Tesla 🤝 Livio: products of human experimentation who really ought to be dead but apparently... aren't??? I am putting them both in my pocket and running away

#had to write this all down before i started the manga... agh i am so behind...#anyways. please. please talk to me about trigun.#trigun #trigun stampede #tristamp #trigun meta #storyrambles #vash the stampede #meryl stryfe #nicholas d. wolfwood #roberto de niro #<- i cannot believe they actually named him that. dfhvbsdfhvb #millions knives

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mdhwrites · 5 months

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The demon realm isn’t diverse despite the show saying all myths from the demon realm influenced Earth even back in the deadwardian era it very European inspired there are also POC witches but their skin color makes no difference and the demons in the show barely have any resemblance to demons from mythology or religion I feel like the Crew could not write different Cultures and sticked to the Fantasy European Model because it easier and because some people will take issue with the show depicting their monsters as demonic What do you think?

Punctuation. Is. Important. This post is... weird without it. BUT it does actually bring up an interesting point, in part because... Well, I'd be in a pretty similar boat unfortunately.

See, western/European fantasy may have a WIDE variety of options but it also has the easiest when it comes to having a good selection of easily available creatures, settings, etc. to take from. Everyone knows dragons, dwarves, elves, gnomes, etc. At least, here in the west. Unless you do deeper digging, a lot of people will have a pretty limited reach for what they can do monster wise and I think that is reflected in the show.

And I suffer from it myself. I've never done real deep dives into all the monsters out there so while I like them, my mind ends up freezing on only a handful of common ones to use in my writing or the like. It's something that I would like to get better about due to just the sorts of things I enjoy writing. But because a lot of fantasy sticks to these close knit groups of easily useful monsters and myths, you kind of get stuck in a loop.

The show did give itself an out though for worry about potentially insulting other cultures and that was that everything is BASED on something from the Isles. They didn't have to make one to one portrayals but could have taken inspiration. Theoretically, that is in fact what the show did since we don't actually get anything named after a regular monster. The closest are the fact that the witches and wizards actually use those terms and I guess giraffes. Otherwise, they're all purely made up. Which, you know, isn't a bad thing so long as they're interesting.

Unfortunately they're not for most of the like... five that show up in the series? Cool designs usually but little in the way of making them unique obstacles or having real personalities besides "Creature."

The other potential excuse is that the style of the Isles was specifically based on a Dutch/Netherlands artist named Hieronymus Bosch. While his art is weird, it still is steeped in his culture as his buildings and the like are still European in inspiration. Of course, then we get into the fact that they don't include any of the actually surrealist elements of his art which is part of why the Isles is so boring. Strip that part away and all you're left with is... Europe but it's a little weird.

However, the reuse of European history, even including people who look like Vikings, is much weirder to me. At that point, you're not basing this on artwork or fantasy... You're just copying history. Like you point out: Their architecture, style of dress, etc. like that actually mimics common, HUMAN clothing trends just as much four hundred years ago, before a human ever ruled them, as it does in the present day. That's a bizarre disconnect that adds to the feeling that this is just kind of a lazy fantasy setting.

And no, I don't expect every fantasy world to look like Hylics and be this unknowable, abstract landscape. I am fine if something just steals medieval fantasy for its style and creatures after all. The thing that makes most fantasy distinct are its cultures and the interplay of them, or how they diverge from our world despite being so close to it at the same time. Skyrim is not a bad or boring fantasy world because it is THE style you go for with generic fantasy. It's world is vibrant to many because it feels more alive and like there are conflicts that are motivated by things like magic, monsters, etc.

It doesn't even have to be something big. My favorite book series of all time is a medieval fantasy series with some magic for two books and then NEVER BRINGS IT BACK. The mythos around the Rangers of Ranger's Apprentice though, them genuinely engaging with the different countries they come across (even if many are just replacements for real world countries) and the exploration of those cultures, how they differ, their beliefs, their tactics, etc. helped make each place feel like a unique challenge and world in and of itself even though it was lifting so much from reality. It drips with what makes these countries interesting and fun to take from for a fantasy world.

TOH though? They wrote in explicitly an excuse to take literally EVERY fun part of every religion, story, myth, video game even, etc. that has EVER been told... And decided to snark at all of it instead and act like it was better than all of that. Which is potentially a reason to go with the generic, European-centric style BECAUSE it is the most generic. Because most people will know about it from Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones. As such, it is the one that is the easiest to ridicule because they are actively choosing the elements that are the easiest to mock. It's like when people say that Madoka Magica is a deconstruction of the magical girl genre because they have literally only seen Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura.

And yes, there is an argument to be had about Dana potentially not feeling comfortable including other cultures' mythologies due to cultural appropriation and... I'm not going to try to deliberate that. I am the second to last person to get to behind the British. I also won't say it would be exactly a bad reason to avoid it even. Just that it is a thing and... *shrug*

A lot of this in fact kind of doesn't have a conclusion besides a shrug. After all, I like D&D. I like the Forgotten Realms. They are not, by default, that unique a fantasy world, in part by design. But, you know, a good DM makes that generic world into a playground. TOH never feels like it's willing to expand to even add a slide.

======+++++======

Btw, if you want a monthly-ish D&D show to watch, I HIGHLY recommend Dan Jones and Dragons. It has a more casual feel to it than I feel like a lot of D&D stuff I've watched tends to have while not devolving into jokes and gags. Everyone is taking it seriously but they're willing to diverge for thirty seconds about a good joke that happens. All of the characters, their personalities, the drama they go through and the care they have for each other is also just SO GOOD. Cannot recommend enough.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #the owl house #toh

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