#It's too ... grandiose

[johnnyshrine]

★ 145 // “Happy English SBR Manga Release Day!”

[junipers-insects]

What if they were happy

[commandertartarsmoocher]

If anybody is curious who I ship the funny telephone with... Here is my super awesome and long awaited answer:

🎉 Nobody 🎉

[ranciddrobbie]

Sower and Reaper

[cringearenachamp]

Traces Cover Semiotics Part 2: Here in the darkness she dances alone

"There is goodness in blue skies and flowers, but another force - a wild pain and decay - also accompanies everything." - David Lynch

The initial album cover for Perry's Traces is a super bright daytime scene that juxtaposes vibrant beauty with suggestions of something darker: for one easy example, the border of the cover is surrounded by hydrangeas, orchids, and lilies, but tucked away in one corner are a pair of vultures eating some... thing's... carcass.

*wesley willis voice* THE VULTURES, ATE MY DEAD ASS UP

Near-neon-green meadows are split in two by rivers of lava, beautiful trees are being set on fire, a crack of lightning is going right through the undifferentiated mass of writhing naked women (and oh-so-kindly covers their titties, too! how thoughtful). It's like a representation of mania: extreme good and extreme bad, all jumbled together in a mess of impulses and chaotically firing neurons; something grandiose and thrilling in the moment, then shameful and panic-inducing in the aftermath as you pick up the pieces. Nothing's ever settled, nothing's ever fully calm; you can never relax and expect peace for long.

Perhaps narratives are also helpful when your brain forces fractures upon you; when you do things in the moment you can't explain later, when you make decisions that seem perfectly sound one day and seem bizarre and disastrous the next, when you get into relationships you need to explain to yourself once you come down again. Steve's most successful song, Oh Sherrie, even suggests a kind of fracturing in the lines "I must've been someone else" and "You'd be better off alone/If I'm not who you thought I'd be".

(Betty and Rita in Mulholland Drive)

The sorts of dichotomies already present within the original album cover take on an entirely new angle with the introduction of the alternate release album cover: something already fractured, fractured even further. What was originally a daytime scene is now either a nighttime one or otherwise dark and stormy: and while Perry's lyrics are often ambiguous, sometimes unfortunately to the point of near-banality (what can you say if you're preoccupied with what everyone will think about what you say and you're worried about how much of a profit your words will make?), mentions of "darkness" or dark rooms are common enough and used in similar ways enough (and the usage is common enough elsewhere, in other writing from other writers) that I'm confident saying that it represents what's intentionally hidden, what's "protected"; it's the deepest core of his self and the parts that he's either the most ashamed of OR the parts he believes will be rejected by others (hence the "protection"). It's a safe place, but also a fearful one ('No More Crying', a song on Traces, actually gets into this a bit); it's safe because it's familiar.

(ugghgghgh i did NOT save the artist for this, like an asshole. i will add it once i find it or someone tells me <3)

Keeping yourself in the darkness to protect yourself from others is heartbreaking in a lot of ways, though it's something traumatized people generally would be familiar with, and traumatized queer people would know VERY well. Queerness is often the part of our Self that is rejected the earliest, and those rejections can be literally violent, but even if it's not violent, it's still heart-rending when its someone you love, when it's someone who's supposed to care for and protect you, when it's family. Even if you never tell anyone, if you can't "'pass" well, if you just give off inexplicable "vibes", you're still going to be treated differently and that fear of rejection might just hang over you. You'll still be made to feel "wrong", even if no one tells you to your face that you are, and even if you don't understand yourself as queer yet. The homophobes in your life often see you before you do, and that can cause SO much damage, because *you see yourself through their eyes* first before you ever see yourself through loving, compassionate ones.

When others around you see you before you do and do so in negative ways, you *internalize* their disgust of you until you're disgusted with yourself; you internalize those feelings of wrongness and disgust and fear until no one needs to point at you and call you a freak or a monster in order for you to feel like one. You do it to yourself. And if you never get out from under feeling like a freak or a monster, that obviously negatively impacts your ability to make healthy connections with others or have a healthy relationship with your own sexuality. It's unacceptable, so it gets shoved down as far as possible until it's bursting at the seams. You act on it in that moment, you feel controlled by your own desires and impulses in a way that's scary, and that just further enforces that queerness is bad and scary and "addictive", like the alcohol you might use in order to comfortably experience queer encounters to begin with. (A bottle of wine is present on the cover of Traces: a rattlesnake is coiled around it. Venomous? Yes, but also a very common phallic symbol, as is the wine bottle, and the snake coiling around the neck of the bottle is just very ummm. I'll just say. It's suggestive. Lol)

Anyway, what's so different about the darkness of the second album cover? The most immediate, to me, is that nearly *all the women disappear*. Even Sherrie's eye is replaced by a burning microphone (with doves around it-- symbols for peace, as Neal Schon pointed out himself). The darkness represents his deepest inner core of his Self, the parts he's ashamed by or afraid of or afraid *for*, and there's no women there beyond a very faint picture of Kellie and his own mother (and his biological father-- also one of the only men that shows up on EITHER cover, a safe man to represent as a man).

So the women that show up that aren't in a weird mass of heaven-women are... a pin-up model, a pin-up nun, Kellie, and his Mom. The men that show up as men are... Steve himself, his biological father, and some other singer. Steve's father, of course, was absent for most of his life: a loss he might have tried to fill in various ways (this isn't to say he's gay because his dad left him lol, that's the bad kind of vulgar freudianism-- but some of the men he was drawn to/the dynamics he was attracted to might have been affected by that, for better or worse or both). Steve's mother on the other hand was QUITE present, and Steve himself never seemed to feel present enough for her. He had a drive to find Daddy that society, his peers, and maybe even his own mother would have rejected: as an adult man he's supposed to want to be the Daddy. He also had an equally compulsive drive to find Mommy that he could make happy (he was also drawn to and I would argue *emulated* diva-type women: Barbra Streisand and Donna Summer, for example--but of course, and sadly, that would be more punished by society and family/peers than anything else. It's sad because I think it would've been the healthiest path to follow of the three!), and that drive is far more easily rewarded by society. But was it fulfilling for him, personally? Did it make him a better person? 🙃

(it's Mommy and Daddy issues all the way down folks. If you're a nerd like me you might have already spotted the Oedipal Complex in all this)

There are other symbols and signs that show up in some form in both of the covers: Perry's name is wreathed in thorns in both, for example. Thorns are protective: a defense against external interference, something he's always hypervigilant about despite being aware of the drawbacks of it (as No More Crying suggests). His flaming microphone (flaming... 'flaming homosexual'... ha. I don't think that was intentional on his part-- likely is a reference to his burn-out-- but his voice IS flaming and it's beautiful for it <3) is also not the only thing associated with doves: Sherrie's eyeball (sorry its just so funny... Sherrie's eyeball...) and Neal Schon's guitar are, as well. All things he's trying to make peace with and leave behind: but has he (again, No More Crying seems to suggest this is a lot more complicated than he'd want)? There's also broken keys along the dirt road in the original cover-- he hasn't had the best relationships with keyboard players. The full piano in the alternate cover doesn't even get a dove! No peace for Jon or Gregg! Even in the alternate cover, then-- or the differences between the two-- you get little moments of pettiness underneath the grand narrative of "coming clean, finding peace, moving on".

Nothing's as easy as that, isn't it? Steve, though, like always, wants to have it both ways here. He wants to *acknowledge* the dichotomies, acknowledge some parts of his failures, acknowledge some of the darker parts of his past, and use Kellie as a way of tying those acknowledgements together. The promotion for FTLOSM was similar, in a way, but more honest in that he didn't use the image and story of any woman (or anyone else) to try and paint himself as a new, perfectly sympathetic, introspective, thoughtful (spiritual in FTLOSM's case) man ready to repent and start anew (he had a "girlfriend"-- Robin-- who was very young and seemed to only show up when he "needed" a girlfriend-- even the length of time they were together is ambiguous and changes in various interviews; he says he's single in 1994 and then in an interview in '99 he says he's been with Robin for 9 years-- but she was completely removed from the promotion of the album and was rarely seen elsewhere).

Acknowledging you fucked up is just step one, though. Breaking out of the trauma cycle takes time, patience, interpersonal support, and a huge amount of effort. It's also not a linear process, and setbacks can prove difficult to overcome in some cases. People often never fully make it out from under it: Dale Cooper is never the same Dale Cooper after the events of the Season 2 Finale. We want him to be, we hope he'll show up, we're excited whenever we see flashes of him in The Return: but those flashes are just that. Dale Cooper wanted to save Laura Palmer partially to save himself. He can't accept that what happened has already happened, that there's no going back. He's still a partially fragmented man, and instead of doing the work to actually integrate himself and move forward, he tries to take a magical shortcut.

Fame and wealth are themselves magical shortcuts: as I suggested earlier, Perry was able to craft this narrative as successfully as he was because he's rich and famous and connected. Was Kellie's family happy with how her story was subsumed into Steve's? We'll never know, we'll likely never find out, and Perry has far more power than they do in order to keep it that way, if need be. Was his rewriting of his Self and his story a more successful one than other Lynchian characters, then?

Well, is he a happy guy?

[qoldenskies]

CC!Donnie and his music-his music that the canon brothers have already expressed their audible dislike towards offhandedly, and how he likes to play it so loud. I know it doesn't sound too bad, but I'm sure a lot of people have had their taste in music mocked (especially when you're a teenager) and it's never a good feeling

i mentioned his fear to show passion not long ago and this definitely applies, especially when it comes to things like with the spreadsheet its obvious he'll try to connect things like little comments like that to any perceived current fault-- like an i should have seen this coming. its why even though they werent extremely specific about what he enjoyed in the family meeting, he got the impression-- they don't want to hear about what he likes, especially when it comes to things they've already expressed distaste for.

even if his tastes shift i dont think they'll ever know about it; pretty much anything he gets up to in his personal time is something he keeps close to his chest and never talks about, very rarely even when prompted. a year or two down the the line i think they're going to come to the realization that they dont even KNOW what donnie enjoys anymore, outside of tech. it makes gift-giving kind of hard, doesnt it?

[garchankdefender]

A quick Kiramman in her wet rat vampire era

[moonlightdancer26]

Girl this is exactly how I feel people treat Severus’s character

https://x.com/sevslver/status/1758565312449167839?s=46&t=w_ORKiu2G4SdlDINSqDwIg

YEAHH I ALWAYS THOUGHT THIS, what they do with Sev’s character is literally exactly how they treat any female characters with male love interests/exes/etc. Like hi his “ex” may have been the reason he initially defected and began redeeming himself, but not every single thing he does is about her. People forget that he (+ female characters who get this treatment) is his OWN PERSON and his whole life doesn’t revolve around a woman/man. A lot of y’all like to say “oh Snape bullied kids cuz he couldn’t get with his crush at like 16,” even though he.. bullied kids.. due to his own upbringing and trauma shaping who he is as a person and because he just wanted to bully them? It doesn’t all have to be secretly related to Lily, he didn’t bully Ron bc “oh Ron had red hair and Lily also had red hair so-”, nor did he bully Hermione because “oh actually she’s a good student and a muggleborn so that must mean she reminded him of Lily-”. He bullied them because 1. of their association with Harry 2. their troublemaking 3. Hermione disturbs his lessons and yells out answers 4. Ron is lazy in his lesson and barely listens to him. Honourable mention: there’s absolutely no proof Snape hated Neville because he could’ve been the Chosen One instead of Harry, how would Snape even know about that? It’s like people who say this are just choosing to ignore Neville’s insane inadequacy at Potions, Snape’s reasons for hating Nev are crystal clear, yet y’all still choose to make up different fanon reasons for the sole purpose of bashing him. And also, Snape being a hero doesn’t mean he can’t be an utter asshole too, who said you can’t still be a petty little bitch while saving lives? Sometimes even his own fans can forget that, though thankfully not the majority of us.

[diabotsis]

Need to be able to make music so I can demonstrate what I want out of a musical au.

Wrestling and theatre are one and the same so if you saw my long ass post about wrestling au alder you already know how deep I can get in it. A wrestling match is a dance routine.

so anyway I'm imagining any part in the musical with plasma as being very operatic. The protags being more rock.

the battle between n and alder is represented by alders loud, deep and steady voice contrasting N's higher sharper tone eventually being drowned out by a rising choir that comes to surround the stage like the plasma castle surrounding the league building. Eventually alder goes silent and the song becomes a solo by N about his triumph, of course egged on by the plasma choir.

the first to sing in the choir is always ghetsis unless he is the one doing the singing. Typically in previous pieces he was off to the side and somewhat obscured by shadow, but now he's in the very center of the background taking up as much space as possible.

we go into the decisive battle with n, it's an amazing fusion of rock and opera. The songs general theme is that n and the protag take turns singing their pieces, end up always singing the chorus together since ultimately the line between truth and ideals is blurred, and by the end of the song they're both singing their different lyrics at the same time. And it flows perfectly. The last few lines are N copying what the protag is saying, and then finally following after the protag with less strength in his tone.

We finish out the song with a triumphant guitar..... we get a bit of a moment of reflection and dialogue as the backing drums from the rock portion of the previous song continue to beat like a heart in the background.

leading into Ghetsis' battle, this drum beats more frantic and erratic, until eventually it's drowned out and taken over by his symphony and timpani. Then we just have an extravagant, over the top operatic piece that goes all in. It's pure noise, unreasonable and unyielding. Any attempts at the electric guitar breaking through are promptly snuffed out...

this piece probably ends after the symphony and ghetsis' singing have accelerated to a point that anyone would think was inhuman, and the protag uses this momentum (riding off the coattails of an unstoppable, insurmountable force) as like.... an intro for their rock piece. When ghetsis and the symphony can't go on anymore, they're abruptly overtaken. The rock becomes screeching and angry as his rage reaches its peak, and when he finally escapes the stage he's followed by the ghostly howls of his choir, dwindling away to nothing.

I think the very final piece of this musical would be all the gym leaders and Rivals and elites and other friends met along the way coming together to sing, and then act as the backing vocals for the protags. N is long gone at this point, alder is given his voice back, uses that voice to prop up a young Iris-- and as the music dwindles away, the beating of drums like a heartbeat is all we're left with until it fades away too.

[riddlesnap]

Difficult Person vs. Likeable Person

"Excuse me? I am not 'difficult' to get along with, I simply have a low tolerance of having to deal with such banal idiocy like these little tests, doctor. Speaking of which, if quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?"

Tagged byStolen from: Somebody and an old blog! (probably @smilingmxsk ♡) Tagging: Whoever hasn't done it yet and would like to???

[kinoshi]

Basically, I bet you'll see

At first, I'm not quite what I seem

Every day is just the same

(Picking names, repeating faces)

Everything is show and tell

And things are played off somewhat well

Holding hands, we're rather bored

Nothing lines up anymore

The Chattering Lack of Common Sense

Это сигнатурка Недотеп в масках, я уверена

Just... accept the mask

Пыталась написать небольшую предысторию, но так как я не писатель то,что вышло мне не понравилось. Как к этому все пришло-история умалчивает.

[darabeatha]

/ A reminder to never expect me to be fully updated on lore and know all the minuscule 9487548957894 details of a character's story and their surroundings, I'm empty as men came to this world and can only vouch for my muses through love (also bc I cannot remember things rip)

[tiville]

the prompt was a place to see the sky ☁️

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Number of stories I would like to write: Many.

Number of stories I find myself able to write: Zero.

[21stcenturyschizoidfag]

sometimes ill be listening to music in the car and ill have a little daydream of what itll be like when i pass my driving test and can listen to music like thru the speakers and not in my earbuds and i imagine like well what if i get in a car accident one day and the music is still playing and the ambulance drivers that are called to the scene recognise the song or the artist and theyre like "omg this person listens to peak we need to try extra hard to save him" so they speed a little bit to get me to the hospital faster and it saves my life.. all because i was listening to caro or clarence clarity or something

[i-cast-zone-of-truth]

Ok i have devised a Unifying Theory of FF7 Remake Changes: they are all about changing the GENRE. If the og is kind of a mystery, the remake is kind of a tragedy. (in the sense that major events are known in advance and more or less fated. Maybe that has a name besides tragedy).

-Sephiroth being there from the beginning: everybody knows him already, there’s nothing to be gained from mysteriousness! But he was haunting Cloud just as much in the og, it’s just that he’s doing it openly this time. And in a more personal way because he is literally a time traveler but whatever

-black robed guys show up earlier: idk about you but seeing them in Act 1 felt Wrong. Like this is supposed to be a relatively not-weird part of the story, Cloud’s understanding of reality is supposed to be safe for a while, but psych, nope. Things are already weird because THEY’VE ALWAYS BEEN WEIRD.

-Zack early reveal: similarly! Everyone knows him, and they know he’s done before the story even starts. You’re not gonna get the gut punch from revealing him all at once that you got in the og, and that means getting to know him in real time (before whatever the hell is going to happen in part 3)

-“normal” Nibelheim: this one was a definite loss, i love creepy Nibelheim where everyone tries to gaslight you. But it’s a given that Nibelheim really was destroyed, so the wrongness comes in how normal shinra has made the reconstructed town seem. Less of a “that never happened” and more of a “so what?” — just like an irl oil company, by the by. I actually was creeped out by this

-cloud’s mental state being on more of a gradual crumble than a sudden shattering: same same same same. we know what’s coming. Seeing it coming way down the track, and CLOUD thinking he sees it coming but really not at all anticipating how bad it’s gonna be, thats peak tragic irony babey

-aerith death foreshadowing: the Most Known event of ff7. By now her death has a massive gravitational pull! And giving aerith insight, and hope that maybe they can prevent it “this time” (whatever that means), puts her back into the narrative as a participant on the same level of doomed as everyone else

They’re really just going all-out on the dramatic irony rather than pretending the story has never been told before. i think it's interesting!