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#which was incredibly based of him
thelivingautomaton · 6 months
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i started playing max payne 2 and was immediately so put off by how he no longer has sam lake's face that i decided to put together a collection of some of the max payne 1 panels that i really liked. enjoy <3
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aro-arttorneys · 18 days
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consider a swap smp aa au where Miles is the pixl
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HI I absolutely RAN to my ipad upon seeing this ask to make sure I had some sketches down. Ended up working out some coherent designs ehehe
Man I lowkey like these designs more than I had for the initial AU :') Also OUGH I think Phoenix getting so fucked up and sad that he ends it all is just...kind of neat actually.
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vigilskeep · 4 months
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the GOOD thing about having to recalibrate the hawke family is getting to make new lore and potentially doodle more of the little family trees that so delight me
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duhragonball · 12 days
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I COULDNT thiNK Of how to properly thank you for the birthday gift, like, genuinely speechless, SO here’s a LUFFA!!! thank you so so much again!!! AND KEEP ON BEING YOU 💕💕💕😭💕💕🗣️🔥🔥
AAAAAA THANK YOU COZY!
And happy birthday again (give or take a few days)! I hope you're doing well!
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void-and-virtue · 8 months
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Writing fanfic is so dangerous bc whenever I see the name ‘Seth Gordon’ now, my brain just goes “SETH!! My man!!! My dude!!! Allison and Renee’s platonic husband!!!!” And then I have to take a moment of silence as I remember that oh. Oh, in canon, he is first an asshole and then dead
#truly it’s a struggle#my brain saw him and decided he’s free real estate#I just think this guy has so much potential to be explored in AU#my fascination with him is entirely based in the quote from tfc where he explains why he hates Kevin so much#‘his life is not more important than mine just because he’s more talented’#and the entire conversation surrounding that#Seth is a foil to the part of Neil that is all boundless jealousy over being the discarded one while Kevin Day shines#and just like Seth is often forgotten about I feel like that part of Neil is not often talked about either even tho it’s so essential to him#it’s literally quoted to be the thing Andrew found so interesting as to let him stay#and Seth is a character who potentially could carry that same theme with a perspective that is both unique and complimentary to Neil#which is why I fully am with the EC part where Nora says she thinks they would have been friends#and I would love to see that friendship explored#just like I would love to see Seth’s character growth and redemption leading to a better relationship with the upperclassmen#which is exactly what brings me to Renee/Allison&Seth#Seth and Allison breaking up for good and happily settling into a very committed platonic relationship is something that can be so personal#I have so many thoughts about their relationship rattling around in my brain I swear#and ofc Renison bc they are incredibly canon to me#and I think it could be really interesting to explore where Renee and Seth may find common causes when they are pulled together via Allison#aftg#aftg spoilers#all for the game#the foxhole court#aftg headcanon#aftg hc#seth gordon#renee walker#allison reynolds
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mattodore · 5 months
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probably the most important tests i've taken for mattodore 🧑‍💻
#theo's on the left and matthias is on the right btw... though i think you can tell that just based on the percentage bars 😭#matthias fr just likes everything. love my little hedonist <333#river dipping#theodore doe#matthias evanoff#echthroi#oc extras#uh.....#nsft#...??? idk they're words on a screen but just in case#the 41% non-monogamist vs. 81%... lol#idk if i mentioned this before but while mattodore are monogamist they do still have sex with other people together#but bc of how jealous theo is the threesomes they have have a general no-touch rule wrt matthias#like he's entirely off limits to their third. theo is very strict abt this too... he'll be immediately taken out of a scene#if a hand even grazes matthias's skin... which is funny considering they mostly have threesomes with women anyway bc of his jealousy#and yet he still reacts poorly. like theo knows matthias is gay it's just that he's jealous in a completely irrational way#matthias likes it tho <3 it pleases him like nothing else to watch theo snap at someone not to touch him. like he's rock solid every time 🤷#guy whose jealousy meter is always at zero vs. guy whose jealous meter is always at a hundred... incredible dynamic imo#anyway......... i edited two other screenshots too but they're just for me <3 and i think i'm getting tired now#so i'm going to try to sleep. i'm counting on this jerma stream to keep my brain busy until i pass out.#if that doesn't work then i'll be scooping out my brain w/ a spoon as an alternative
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bitegore · 14 days
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Spent a lot of time dreaming that I had gotten bored while dreaming and needed to run around because i was stir crazy so I fucked off to an empty room and flew around in increasingly-fast circles until i was dizzy
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vikugnavikugna · 8 months
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Got bored, so I quickly sketched some more random stuff for the One Piece au today - Sophia, Defiant and Miss Milita as Warlords. Really unhappy with all those designs tbh. Sophia feels like she's just lacking something for a big time warlord (her crossbow should be at least 3 times as big and cartoonish looking, maybe), Defiant doesn't really feel enough like his Worm equivelant (and also looks too much like Katakuri and Franky's lovechild) and Miss Militia looks too much like a Marine because of that coat and american flag scarf. I also forgor to give them each an animal theme, despite tumblr user thesternet mentioning it in my tags like 2 days ago - real rookie mistake. Still sharing them, because I make like 1 drawing a month at best and it cannot go to waste 😌
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pigeonliker420 · 8 months
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whenever i go looking into help or random talk about bg3 i keep seeing people like comparing it to dragon age either in expectations or selling points and bro. ghirl. its not dragon age. its baldurs gate
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softichill · 1 year
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Having. Blorbo Who Shall Not Be Named thoughts
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scrollofgrease · 8 months
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I don't even know how to start unloading my dev and thoughts and feelings here, there's so much of it happening all at once. My brain is bottlenecking. Just know that I am going insane in the wake of the transition between acts 2 and 3. The whole narrative has hands and Lowri's fighting the thing????
He's suffering for it, but he's sure as hell fighting it
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padfootastic · 1 year
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hiii i had a question - how do you think other people saw sirius? like at his time at hogwarts, what was his reputation like? what impression did he give off? and also i feel like there are a lot of parallels between bella and sirius, and so what do you think their similarities and differences are? anyway sorry for the word vomit and the wildly contrasting questions
hello <3 do not worry, friend, here at padfootastic’s blog we specialise in word vomit. ur amongst ur own here ;)
for the first part, i swear my opinion on this has changed so much recently since i started leaning into the cold, arrogant Black heir type characterisation for sirius as well as looking at the black family as a bit more like,,,royalty among the WW type thing ykno?
so i think that all wizard raised kids have at least heard about the black family, mostly as a cautionary tale, almost always in tones of reverent fear/awe, and sometimes incredulously—sirius black, therefore, would’ve come into hogwarts with a lot of expectations/eyes on him. he almost immediately bucks all of it with his gryffindor sorting but people are still wary (bc the WW is so essentialist) so i think that like—lingering hesitance would’ve followed him throughout the 7 years, something sirius would be very conscious of too.
i’m also of the opinion that the black kids all received like,,,etiquette training and pureblood lessons etc etc so they all have a poker face/mask that they use in public as well as being learnt how to control their emotions (think fanon legilimency) and sirius tended to default to that, which ended up making people nervous.
so, basically, he gave off the impression that he was better than everyone else (he was); thought himself superior (lowkey yes but he was working on unlearning that, promise); didn’t care for the general public (absolutely true); and was a bit of a terrifying bastard who never got close enough to most people to dispel rumours/legends ykno?
(and ik i keep banging on this like a dead horse, but i think that most people, including those who knew him, were also a bit wary of his ~dark side bc of his upbringing and family’s actions wrt voldy. like, even remus and peter, on some level had that in the back of their mind. it was only james who never ever held it against him or treated it like an innate part of him/a flaw)
re bella & sirius, whooooo. i’m rly not a bella expert (that’s @narcissa-black-supermacy and i would love to hear ur thoughts on this, dani) but let’s see:
- both of them r very intense, very passionate people. translates into extreme, almost unhealthy loyalty for the people they choose as their own. also makes them very entrenched in & involved with whatever they choose to do- like bella being a death eater, and sirius being a part of the order/harry’s godfather etc etc.
- i think both of them were great at magic, on an intuitive level. like, it’s one thing to work hard at it, but for these, magic was like an extension of their hand, not a tool. this made them terrifying in battles and displays of power bc they just had. so much potential. (duels b/w bella & sirius were also some of the most explosive & entertaining)
- very arrogant, very ‘most people r sheep, and we’re better than them’ (which is almost a Black prerequisite, ik ik) and i can totally see them hanging out just to sneer at people lol
- also this is v random but both bella and sirius lowkey give me aromantic vibes? like, they don’t much care for romance or relationships as much as they do about a cause/person/dynamic, yeah?
for their differences, hm. i actually think those two were much more similar than not (being firstborn heirs) but i really think bella’s morality was way more skewed than sirius’, for one. also think she defaults to magic/violence/physical fights in disagreements whereas sirius prefers using his words. i don’t think i can ever see bellatrix like, slumming it, ykno? she grew up with the finest and she’s very happy to continue using it. sirius, on the other hand, takes it almost as a way to be rebellious and doesn’t mind living minimal & using whatever.
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astrxealis · 1 year
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mikoto kayano. (just a few gifs. please perceive him.)
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#⋯ ꒰ა starry thoughts ໒꒱ *·˚#⋯ ꒰ა milgram ໒꒱ *·˚#cw partial nudity#cw blood#tw murder mention#he is so. HE IS SO...#i am so obsessed with him. he interests me so much he is so silly he is so funny he is so cute he is so pretty#his voice is so nice. he's so silly. he's. so incredibly interestinf#I HAVEN'T READ STUFF ABT THE TAROT CARDS SYMBOLISM YET................#wheres that gif w him in the bathtub smoking (hes so hot. even if yk uhm blood and smoking haha)#okay anyways little ramble but#irl don't fucking like murderers or 'bad guys' just bcs of their looks#but in fiction imo it is. fine? but also i'd rather not that be the Only Reasoning but if others yeah there's no problem#jackalope himself (?) said particularly for milgram that you can choose to vote#innocent/forgiven or guilty/unforgiven based off your sexuality preferences and all which is really funny#bcs they must have seen stuff w shidou. and esp mikoto i'm guessing#hello. they didn't have to put those kinda scenes in. mikoto's literally shown w/o proper clothes one way or another 3 times#and then shidou is less extreme but dude... the gloves..........#anyways yeah. really funny jackalope! but i get it. i really do#mikoto. you are so pretty you make me go insane in more ways than one#the 1st gif here... wnvr i see that it always makes me laugh. hes smiling!! hes so normal and silly inwant to cry#hes so cute but so fucking silly its hilarious i just want to CRY#but then the yk. and its like. prisoner 009 you are very interesting what is up!#hes just smiling#i want to cry#and then boom#yeah..... he is so interesting#but also i appreciate his beauty so much ^___^#but yeah he's so interesting. i hope they do him good and don't uhh...#bcs ofc the thing w him. a bit of a negative stereotype w Murder. but. ??? i hope they do it well
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trashlie · 2 years
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ILY FP 181, 182, and 183
Man, I thought I’d at least put together one of these for 181, but I really have not been able to pull myself together for this last month, I guess, ugh. That’s okay, I think - it will keep me from turning this into a recap and maybe allow me to explore my VERY MANY thoughts on this little flashback! And trust that I have SO MANY. 
It is no secret that I’ve taken a lot of interest in Alyssa over this last half year or so, so you can imagine how much I’ve been enjoying this flashback arc. While it doesn’t provide us a major look into who Alyssa really is, we’re finally getting more clues to cobble together than we had before, and it definitely is blowing some fandom beliefs out of the water! It also reinforces what I’ve said before - that Alyss and Kousuke are mirrors! In my Alyss and Kousuke As Mirrors post and ask responses, I had a lot of uncertainty as to where I thought this would go, because of how little we knew of who Alyssa truly is and what is part of an act. I think we’re starting to get somewhere with her now! I know she’ll likely never be a very sympathetic character to a lot of people, but my fascination with her has definitely increased and it’s giving me some hopes and wishes of my own! 
To preface, I’d like to lay out what the general fandom belief of Alyssa has been. Until now, she’s been regarded as a fame seeker who wants to have everyone’s attention and always craves the spotlight, that she’s spineless and cannot handle confrontation which may be coupled with the fact that she wants to be liked (as in, to save face, she doesn’t defy or contradict others wishes), she doesn’t care about who she hurts to get what she wants, she’s more interested in Kousuke than Nol, and in general she’s been viewed as supremely selfish and self-centered. 
There’s some things I agree with, others only to a certain degree, and still others I wasn’t totally sold on. In previous posts, I’ve noted that I believed it possible that Alyssa’s idol career itself may not have been what she truly wanted (although at the time I assumed it might just be a stepping stone towards what she really wanted, a necessary stop in her trajectory to her power-couple goal, to influence and power). At any rate, though, we can see now that a lot of this has been proven incorrect, although certain things have definitely been reinforced. 
People Pleasing and Peer Pressure 
Something that certainly stands is how very easily influenced by others Alyssa is. This isn’t something I’m going to fault her for, either, because frankly, I know a lot of people who take to their mid-twenties or thirties to feel comfortable and confident in who they are, regardless of what others think. Especially for a middle-schooler with no prior experience with social settings, this is extra hard for Alyssa, who begged her parents to let her attend public school with the dream of making lots of friends and experiencing a “normal” life. Peer pressure is hard and when what you want is to be liked and have a lot of friends, being seen as weird for the things you do like (like math) or hanging out with someone who everyone else regard as weird and potentially a bully doesn’t bode well with what you want. Frankly, it takes a strong spirit to be comfortable in your own skin, to be who you are, and Alyssa doesn’t have the experiences yet to be that person. I think we can also argue that the way her parents treat her hasn’t helped -  though well-meaning, they seem to overwhelm Alyssa and limit her ability to actually explore the things she’s interested in. She states that she’s not even good at dance, which is why she’s taking lessons at all, and she’s only in them because she once expressed interest in it - and there’s an implication that it’s not something she even likes or enjoys anymore, and yet she continues. 
Is it just that Alyssa lacks the ability to push back and tell her parents when she loses interest in something? Is it that they don’t give her the room to do it? It sounds a lot like they hear she likes something and then drowns her in that thing without ever considering that her interests will change and wane. 
We are also given a lot of indication that at this early age, Alyssa just struggled to confront people in any form of it. She can’t stand up for herself to her parents about not wanting to follow certain paths, she can’t tell Shinae the truth about her feelings and seems to be cornered when she finally starts to open up, she can’t push back against people who are picking on her. 
At any rate, the point stands that due to the way her parents treat her, smothering her with everything she dares to breathe about, she hasn’t been given the opportunity to find comfort in being who she really is, because they are always a step behind or clinging to something she said in the past that is no longer true. She’s too reluctant to mention anything else she likes because maybe they’ll do the same thing again. She has no room to breathe to explore herself to figure out what she really wants, and the things she does know about herself are considered “weird” by other kids - her disdain for kpop and preference for classical music, her favor for math and science type things, she goes to exhibits for her own keen interest! If the other kids knew, they’d definitely continue to pick on her and call her weird.
And yet that’s exactly what she’s so afraid of. She states she’s seen what happens to kids who are ostracized and that’s the last thing she wants. Alyssa is learning the hard way that not only are kids cruel, but who she wants to be is at odd with who she really is. If she wants to fit in with the other kids, she has to put on a front, feign interest in things she doesn’t care for, squash down her true interests and perform for them. Long before she becomes an idol, Alyssa is already having to perform and learn about conditional favor: people will like you only so long as you fit what they want you to be. 
How ironic, that she had such strong disdain for kpop, and yet she had to perform for what she wanted, and ended up in that very career. 
I still badly want to know how this happened, because it’s clear that the career Alyssa is in is not what she truly wanted. I’ve seen people argue that maybe she’s here for the stepping stone reasons, or because she changed her mind. But idk, she seems pretty set in her way with her interest there, and it just really reinforces my theory that Alyssa only wound up a kpop idol because she couldn’t speak up against it. It largely seems like something that fell into her lap and her parents jumped at it assuming that Alyssa was on board for it because she’d practically trained for so long. Maybe she felt too guilty about the money they’d put into her lessons - there’s implications that they’ve spent so much money on her that they’re tight on money - maybe it’s just part of her inability to speak up for and defend herself, her inability to say no this isn’t actually what I want.
Maybe it IS just that she reluctantly is following through for the hopes that it will afford her the connections to get out it and go for what she really wants? 
Power (for freedom)
Even this little glimpse into Alyssa’s life has given enough to re-examine her previous statement about how she desires to be part of a power couple (and how Kousuke likely might be her intended target). Even though her family seems to be trying to do things for her favor, she still feels trapped and oppressed by them and craves escape. And now she’s in a kpop group that she doesn’t seem to enjoy completely - the fact that in middle school she made a note that being able to write music is far more interesting than being able to play instruments and she was given that opportunity to write a song, and it ends up being about feeling trapped and shackled down, unable to escape speaks volumes. Additionally, we know she spends more time with her sister than her group mates, it’s implied that she doesn’t practice as much/as hard as them and frankly I don’t think this is mean girls being mean. I think it probably IS true that Alyssa doesn’t put as much effort into things because she doesn’t enjoy it she doesn’t want to be here and who can blame her group mates? They DID train hard for this, they DO want this. Of course they’ll be upset by the way she acts! 
Unlike them, Alyssa doesn’t want to be part of this career, and if her case is anything like Shinae’s, she feels trapped by Yui. What happens if Alyssa denies this opportunity? What has her family gained from Alyssa’s career/connections? I think there’s a good chance there’s a lot more on the line than we know about, and thus Alyssa has to continue to fake it to make it. So, who is surprised she wishes to be part of a power couple? It seems less about wanting to be influential, to have people look up to her and more about wanting to be in a position to feel in control of her life, to be free to do what she wants. 
Consider this: Yui is a powerful woman with a powerful family name and more importantly, she is very much in control of herself, she takes no direction or control from others, she has shadow puppets (possibly including Alyssa herself). I think Alyssa is aware of what kind of person Yui really is - a widely-held fandom belief about Alyssa is that she wants to be the kind of person Yui is, right down to the scheming manipulation. But when Alyssa calls Yui a charitable woman and says she wants to be like her, her eyes are closed. They remain closed as Alyssa remarks how nice it is of her to give Shinae a job. I think Alyssa sees through this, because it’s the same situation she’s in, and she above all probably knows what a trap it is. If Alyssa feels stuck in a career she can’t escape, “gifted” to her by Yui, then she has an understanding of what it means for Shinae. I used to think maybe Alyssa said it because she understood the implications - that she, too, had been handed her career like Shinae, but if Alyssa has no love or pride in her career, then it’s less that she cares about what others will think of her being handed a career and maybe more about concern for Shinae, and what it means for her to also be entangled with Yui. 
Despite this, though, Yui possesses qualities that Alyssa clearly covets - starting with the fact that someone like Yui wouldn’t be ensnared in traps like Alyssa currently is, the fact that no one controls her or dictates her moves. 
And this brings us to Kousuke! From the outside, Kousuke lives this way, too. He looks to all outsiders like he’s completely in control of his life, on a path of his choosing that he was meant for, he’s successful, influential, rich, and in control. Like Yui, he looks like he is free to move where and how he wants, so it’s not a surprise that Alyssa is drawn to him. But more than that, we now know that Alyssa and Kousuke are far more alike than we had considered before! I used to think that Alyssa was drawn to Kousuke because she saw in him all the things she wants for herself, and while I do still think that’s true, it clearly isn’t the totality of it! I wonder how well she knows him - does she know they both favor the same kind of music? Kousuke is regarded as a bit of a genius, years ahead of kids his age in school, quick to pick up new things. Since she was 3, by the time she was in middle school, Alyssa had learned to play FIVE different instruments and wound up writing her own song pretty early in her musical career. And it’s not even a left vs right brain thing, because she’s also good at math and fascinated by science, especially anatomy, with a previous dream of being a biomedical engineer. Much like Kousuke, we can see that Alyssa isn’t really into things kids her age are. Does she know how similar they are? Does she just sense it? Kousuke clearly doesn’t see this in her yet (I think) but I wonder if with enough time, they could come to see this? She’s easily written off by others as being vapid and maybe even ditzy, with little going on in her head, but that’s clearly not the case. 
Notably, too, where Alyssa learned to play all five instruments, Meg only learned a couple and stopped her lessons. We are further given a sense that there’s a “golden child” vs “the other one” with Alyssa and Meg. Was Meg allowed to give up because she wasn’t as gifted as Alyssa, not worth the money it would take to teach her? Is the focus just heavily placed on Alyssa so Meg is given the freedom that Alyssa badly wants for herself? 
And so, in search of that escape, seeking a sense of normalcy and the ability to breathe and explore what she wants, Alyssa finds herself in public school, befriended by a boisterous Shinae. 
Shinae from hope to self-isolation
This is a very Alyssa-heavy post, I know, but I do want to dedicate some time to Shinae, too, because the Shinae we see in the flashback is SUCH a contrast to the Shinae we first meet at the start of the series, which reinforces just how much of an impact this experience had on Shinae. Alyssa’s betrayal affected her so deeply it left her with not only physical but also mental and emotional scars, so deep that when Nol later betrays her and walks away, this bubbles back to the surface - an experience for which she blamed herself and repressed, shoved so deep down that she never recovered from it. Had she made peace, it wouldn’t have come bubbling to the surface when Nol acknowledged the very scar she hides. 
Alyssa was so important to Shinae, despite their brief stint in friendship. She was Shinae’s first friend, someone who she found so cool and fascinating and she fought hard for that friendship, too. Both girls know that Shinae is putting more into this friendship than Alyssa is, and I think Alyssa shows some guilt over it. She’s never quite able to address her issues to Shinae and though we know she’s trying to pull away and distance herself, she never succeeds when Shinae calls her out on it and corners her. Shinae has spent much of her childhood picked on and bullied, not even defended by the school, and it gets so bad that she has to transfer schools! You can’t blame her for being a little desperate to keep that first friend, so afraid of losing out something she’s always craved. 
There’s a lot about young Shinae that really hurts my heart, to be honest, especially compared to her current self. Her admission that despite the barriers she put up, despite all the ways she isolated herself for her own protection and chose loneliness over the risk of getting hurt again, she carried some hope that people would prove her wrong, that she would find the friendship and acceptance she actually craved HURTS - especially when you know that because of that quiet hope, she let down her walls for Nol who she thought had proved he wasn’t the threat she worried, only to learn that so much of him was a lie, that maybe that friendship never meant anything. 
The Nol vs Alyssa parallel is SO intentional and BOY does it hurt! Also, I know I’ve talked about the irony that Shinae has been hurt by these two people who are dating, but it just feels even more intense in light of everything. Shinae put so much hope in Alyssa despite all the signs she should have listened to, she hoped so much and fought so hard to help Alyssa learn to ignore the feeling of being picked on, and in the end, she failed. Alyssa meant so much to her and as far as Shinae was concerned, she didn’t mean the same to Alyssa. If she did, wouldn’t Alyssa have chosen her over popularity? Wouldn’t she have stuck with her? If she meant so much to her, would she have treated her the way she did, ostracized her in effort to save herself from that very fate? For Shinae, Nol’s betrayal hurts so much not because of the lies but because it runs parallel to the last significant betrayal she experienced. Once again, she made someone so important to her, only to feel like she wasn’t.
It’s not about the lies or that he gave her a fake name: it’s because she believed it didn’t mean to him what it did to her, that she foolishly fell for someone who didn’t care about her the way she did him. 
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And that’s what is SO significant, too, about Shinae’s willingness to accept Nol, how desperately she wanted him to answer her calls or messages, to come back and show his face. If it was about the lies and betrayal, it might be harder for her to accept that friendship - but despite that, she ardently hoped he would prove her wrong, because she needed to know that it meant something to Nol, that her friendship was not so easy to cast aside, that she mattered. And that’s why she’s able to accept him back, albeit with anger. To know that she is important to him, that even though he began those friendships with no intention of them being real only for them to end up meaning so much to him makes up for the lies. 
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Popularity vs Individualism
The thing is, I think Shinae may have meant something to Alyssa, but she was just at odds with what she wanted. Numerous times, we see Alyssa get very flustered over the sincere, earnest way Shinae praises her, the way she sees her as this really cool person for traits that the other kids treat as weird, things she knows she would get made fun of for. She downplays her skills and intelligence, not even in a coy or demure way but like... Alyssa really doesn’t seem to think there’s anything special about being able to learn to play instruments or anything like that. She’s quickly learning what she needs to hide about herself in order to fit in, but outlier Shinae finds these things about her so admirable and cool. In fact, Alyssa is so sure that Shinae had lots of friends before because she’s so tough and confident and courageous and brushes off all the teasing that comes her way - but she only seems that way because she’s been there before, because she’s endured it before but NOW she finally has a friend. It’s easier to deal with that if she has a friend to have fun with. 
That whole admission is so painful, for Shinae to confess that duh, of course she also wishes she could experience what it’s like to be liked by so many people instead of treated like a weirdo, picked up and bullied simply for existing. But she doesn’t know. That’s why Alyssa means so much and is so important to her. That’s why even though she knows Alyssa is trying to pull away, she keeps trying to reign her in closer, asking her to be her project partner even when she can see Alyssa looking away, calling her out on her she’s growing quieter and quieter and less involved in this friendship. Shinae is determined to keep this special friend. 
But the other kids think Shinae is weird, and Alyssa knows this. In fact, the flashback where Maya overhead the girls calling Shinae weird is probably a big turning point for Alyssa. Based on the two flashbacks, that’s probably the day that Alyssa misses lunch with Shinae, and we can sense a big change in Alyssa. She’s been told that public school sucks unless you’re popular, she’s told that people think Shinae is weird and even that she looks weird, and though they don’t really tease her about it there’s definitely a dig about how Alyssa uses intelligent words the other kids do and that it seems weird to be so studious and well-learned. Again, Alyssa is learning that she has to bury who she really is to fit in, and while she seems to like Shinae, she also is learning that to stay friends with her will very likely lead to her own bullying.  Alyssa never even though Shinae’s hair was weird until the other girls said anything! There’s so many things she accepts for what they are, until she realizes that others think they’re weird. I think we can agree that she’s shaped by what others think, but I think it’s a little more like... it’s not necessarily that it’s changing her opinion of things as much as she’s just learning what is and isn’t considered acceptable and she’s trying to align herself with the acceptable.
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Everything is a parallel
It begins her rift with Alyssa, though. Through Maya’s flashback, we know something will go down with Alyssa and Shinae’s science project - there’s a flashback where she’s being accused of copying someone else’s project and Shinae pointed says she did all the work, it’s her project and never once mentions Alyssa about it. Following that, Minhyuk asks if Shinae hangs out with Alyssa anymore and she notes that no, they don’t hang out as much as they used to, because now Alyssa has lots of friends. Alyssa has been influenced and she makes her choice - she decides to fit in, to shrink herself into something the other kids will like, to start playing a role. 
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And yet, before she was influenced by other peoples’ opinions, Alyssa really did seem to like Shinae. She had fun with her in math club and she seemed really touched by Shinae’s sincere compliments and earnest friendship. But she also knew that she was making a different decision, that Shinae was giving more to their friendship than she was.
When Shinae smiles that blinding bright, very Yeonggi-like smile, Alyssa’s face screws up and she blushes - but I think it represents guilt and remorse, not anything positive. She feels bad Shinae cares so much and she herself cares more about popularity than this friendship. She knows the choices she’s making, that she’s pulling away, and she feels so guilty she has to physically escape. 
In a very similar way that Kousuke seems to see Nol in Shinae, Alyssa seems to see Shinae in Nol. That bright smile she puts on is SO very like the kind Yeonggi would wear, so it’s only natural that in the aftermath of all that went down, when Alyssa was back to being lonely and friendless, when Yeonggi offered her his friendship and that bright, earnest smile, Alyssa would accept this weird stranger’s friendship, because it reminded her of another person who candidly offered her such sincere, earnest friendship when she needed it. And, likewise, when Alyssa is aware that she’s hurting that person, she finds herself pulling away and withdrawing. 
For a long time I couldn’t tell if Alyssa really understood how much she was hurting Nol, if she simply took his friendship for granted. I think she definitely carries guilt that she refuses to acknowledge, which is why she deflects and throws things back at him when he calls her out. But I also think she knows that she’s being a bad friend, a bad girlfriend, and that’s why she avoids him, the way she avoided Alyssa. (Shoutout to DATBOYWHOISCHILL on reddit for calling out that parallel of avoidance). The way he reaches out over and over, just like Shinae trying to reign her back in, UGH the way Nol and Shinae are SO VERY SIMILAR and yet unaware of it just KILLS ME. It was even pointed out the way they both defend her and aren’t really met with gratitude - although I guess it’s worth noting that by the time Nol is doing this for Alyssa, her image is on the line and she’s already aware of the conditional relationship she has with her fans, the image she has to maintain if she doesn’t want to be ostracized and cast out.
Honestly, all of this makes me even more certain that Alyssa needs to experience a fall from grace in order to learn to be herself and to escape the people-pleasing quest of acceptance. Only when she loses everything - her career, her fans, her image - will she be able to face who she really is and who she really wants to be, to come to terms with being okay being alone, and maybe find her voice to push back against what she doesn’t want. And I still think it could possibly lead to some kind of reconciliation. While I’m not sure if Shinae and Alyssa could ever be friends - there’s so much hurt and anger there yet - I think they could at least make peace with their past and resolve their issues in a way that helps Shinae move on. An Alyssa who, like Shinae once had, has lost so much and hit rock bottom and has to go through the hardest and darkest times would probably be better able to understand what she couldn’t in sixth grade, how Shinae was able to endure the ridicule because she had a friend at her side. I think it would lead to Alyssa being able to accept herself for who she really is, and not the performance she puts on for other people. 
Frankly, I feel like while Alyssa is a people-pleaser who seeks out popularity, what she really want is the kind of friendship Shinae offered. She’s chasing after something she won’t receive. Fans don’t unconditionally love their idol - they will only love her if she performs for them, and that means the person she presents herself as, too. Who will love Alyssa for who she really is, for her nerdy side and her love of classical music, for finding math fun, for her interest in anatomy. Who will love her for all the things that made her so “weird”? She continues to put on a front for people who “love” a version of her she’s created for their consumption, chasing down the sincerity and earnest approval she received from a maybe-weird outcast who saw her for who she really was and still thought she was cool and interesting. 
Trauma and Healing
But to segue back to Shinae, I think these episodes have shined a lot of light on who she used to be, as well, and we can still see glimmers of that Shinae today. I keep thinking about that smile she wore for Alyssa, and how she said that she hated Yeonggi’s smile because she was unable to smile like that herself. She went from being able to wear that smile to finally defeated, scarred deeply by Alyssa’s choices and the fall that followed. Physical ramifications of trusting someone too much, of giving someone too much of a chance. In her eyes, she was punished for daring to think she could have friendship like that.
In fact, even though Minhyuk fills that void and becomes the kind of best friend Shinae needed, we know that years later she still has enough seeds of doubt to wonder if Minhyuk was only her friend out of pity because it’s so unfathomable for her to think that anyone can truly be her friend because they like her for who she is, and it takes reaffirmation for her to accept that it’s true. 
That’s what makes this current arc SO special, in my opinion. This is a Shinae who still carries trauma with her, who is still so greatly affected by a literally traumatic fall, and in spite of that, she still finds herself wanting to find the best in people, craving the friendship she dares not believe she deserves. Despite it all, she held out a hope that she didn’t necessarily believe in, that Nol would find his way back to them not just for closure but to maintain that friendship. I think that much is obvious by the way she addresses him when he finally joins her on the rooftop - she’s cagey and uncomfortable having exposed so much of her vulnerable self to him because she thought they were ending things, not that he might decide to go back on his word, and she was so unprepared to face that. And still she tries to! Though he has to corner her to get her to, she admits that yes of COURSE she wanted him to hear all of that, to see him again. 
In spite of all the ways Shinae has been hurt by people - by her mother, by her sister, her first friend, by Maya and Rika, by students who knew nothing about her but bullied her anyway, by the adults who never did their job and intervened or looked out for her - she still wants to find people who prove her wrong. I think this is even true for her relationship with Kousuke, who she has noted she thinks isn’t so bad as much as he just has lived a different life and is kind of misguided. I continue to think this is why Shinae will serve as a bridge between Nol and Kousuke, too - because she is likely to be the person to see the best in each of them, to bring out the best in them, and help them to see it in each other, too. 
For as much as she’s told herself she doesn’t like people, that they will only let you down, for as much as she tried to isolate herself from others to prevent that kind of hurt ever happening again, she can’t resist but to want to let people in, because even though she believes the universe is punishing her simply for existing, I think she is learning that it’s not enough to simply bow your head and accept it. Things don’t ever change when you do that, and though she’s also experienced that sometimes things don’t change when you try to fight back, maybe it’s different when you have others by your side? 
Again, I think Shinae’s entire experience with Alyssa has only reinforced her friendship with Nol, should they both decide to continue this friendship - which I think is what is being established. If Nol wanted to still run away, he would have used his opportunity. He states that his being there is for him - because it’s his last night and he wants to make things right, to make things up to the people he’s hurt. It’s for him because he wants to be where he really wants to be for once, and to atone for what he has done not for his karmic retribution or absolution, but because that is what friends do. The whole conversation that follows where he holds Shinae in place is not because he is finalizing their goodbye but to call her out and square things away. If they are starting this again, they need to do it on the same page. 
Where Shinae gave too much of herself to Alyssa and to Yeonggi, maybe this time she and Nol will be equals, partners for real, and with this deeper understanding of each other, what their past has done to hurt them and twist their feelings, it is likely for them to form an even stronger bond and alliance. 
UGH I have so MANY feelings and I feel like I’ve still missed so many points I’d like to make, but I think I’ve at least addressed a good bulk of them. I know there are people who aren’t enjoying this because they’d rather see Shinae and Nol talking, but this flashback is such a necessary piece of storytelling. It’s clueing us in more on who Alyssa is and what her motivations are, it’s really emphasized just how much of a toll this experience took on Shinae and comparing it to Nol demonstrates just how much it means for her to still reach for him. The perspective it’s given us is, I think, crucial to the friendship that Nol and Shinae are setting and helps us better to appreciate it as something beautiful in spite of the ugly they’ve endured, and what they mean to each other. 
I think there are some readers who forget that what has happened to Nol, Shinae, Kousuke, and Alyssa in the past is absolutely a part of who they are now and what their paths currently are. Without examining all those scenes, we’re missing pieces in our puzzle and we can’t move on to their adult selves without exploring all of this. And considering this is a very character-driven story focused on exploring human traumas and the way it affects us, I, for one, am absolutely over the moon with this. I appreciate the rekindling of Shinae and Nol’s friendship even more knowing just how much Alyssa’s failed friendship hurt Shinae. Give me all the emotional baggage, thank you!
#I Love Yoo#ILY Brainrot#ILY FP#ILY Spoilers#Alyssa Cho#Shinae Yoo#this is largely about these two#admittedly it's very Alyssa-centric but I promise I get to Shinae throughout this too!#i'm forever fascinated by the way Alyssa and Shinae continue to parallel each other but more than that i am fascinated by how much their#intersection has affected them and the people around them#you could argue that as much as Alyssa has affected how Shinae responded to people and potential friendships Shinae has affected even how#Alyssa treats Nol which is just incredible to me and something i really didn't anticipate#i talk a lot about how i think Alyssa may never have gotten over what happened with Shinae too and how this might be something that affects#her to this day but god being able to see the core of who she is now back then is wild. and also sad#gonna character tag for nol too since i address him here#Nolan Oliver T. Lochlainn#Yeonggi#because there's some Yeonggi specific bases too lol#i'm gonna end up making relationship tags soon i swear#rs: a few good friends are more than enough#afkjafjkafkjaf lmao idk if i'll use that but i love the idea of it#because i just know that we'll be seeing a lot more of the alyssa shinae impact in time#anyway aAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH#i hope alyssa kousuke anon is out there and sees this cos man i am vibrating#i'll probably work on a follow up for that alyssa and kousuke as mirrors post in time too tho it may be better to wait for more eps#IDK we'll see#this post is a best i am sorry
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growing up in a small town is like. i want to get as far away from here as humanly possible and never look back. i've been sorted into homeroom classes with at least seven of the same kids from kindergarten through graduation and i don't know that we've ever talked longer than five minutes but i'd probably die for them. this would be a nice place to live for the rest of my life, i think. you know everyone in town by their family name even if you don't actually know any of them personally. i'm tired. everyone i know is tired. i hate it here. i never want to leave. we have nothing to do here and the boredom gouges tracks in my brain. i am personally offended by anyone not from here who says there's nothing to do here. everyone here knows too much about me. i know too much about everyone here. how does it feel to start from a blank slate? i would never know. there is a quiet, hidden sort of rage that everyone plants in their gardens. the lemonade at the market tastes like five-year-old laughter, the library smells like paper and the hot chocolate they used to make for events in the basement. the local history room hadn't changed since they installed it because there's nothing else to add, nothing else to know. i am tired. they're developing things and too much is changing too quickly and this has been the same unchanging neighborhood for fifty fucking years and now it's utterly unrecognizable from the place i knew barely a decade ago. i am never sure how much this change is a good thing, how much is too much. it feels like someone is peeling back my wallpaper skin when i'm not looking, painting different shades over what i thought should be there. i'm not the only person in this place but it feels strangely like they should have asked for my permission first, like i am part of its foundation, or maybe it's part of mine. (do we ask the bricks what they want the wall to look like, too?) we all share layers of the same memories that are slowly shifting and eroding, and you can see it everywhere you look, viscerally, physically. i think it is impossible to escape this place unless you are willing to bleed, and make bleed. it would be so, so easy to just disappear. the air feels fresher here than anywhere else, simply because it is the baseline my body has learned and my lungs have loved. i am so very, very tired. i think it's this place. i think i like it. i don't know. i don't know how to be anything else. i learned from brick and mortar, from pavement, from parks; buildings that served my mother as a child, graves no one visits anymore, trees older than my family line; everything sags, the colors washed out. they are tired, too.
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vanivanvanilla · 1 year
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red couldn’t find zam’s castle, and thank god for that!
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