#hi. haven't been here for a while. LOL

[astrxealis]

good eve, sending u all hugs ^_^

[shadowduel]

all i wanna do is untie all your knots, dissolve all your thoughts

[eveningrainstorm]

People often talk about Rio Ranger as if he's the doll version of Sei but what I find super fascinating is that he isn't, not in the same way Fake Reko or the Dummies are replications of their human counterparts.

Ranger resembles Sei on a surface level — same physical appearance, just an unclear amount older; same way of speaking. But he is unmistakably different. Ranger is an incomplete being, missing his positive emotions, but even the true Ranger is Rio Laizer rather than Sei, because there's still something different.

Rio Ranger is, fundamentally, inhuman and yet desperate to be human. He was created to be jealous of humanity and despite his hatred for them, humanity is what he is always striving for. But it is something that he doesn't possess, and is forced to steal instead. He takes clothes from the dead and uses drawings on cards to feign emotion; he is the Dress-Up Doll, Rearranger, not possessor of anything of his own.

While the other dolls based on humans in the game have identity issues based on their personhood being defined by someone else, being merely a copy of another person, Ranger is not even allowed Sei's identity to base himself on — it's very likely he doesn't even know who Sei was. He does not have Sei's clothes — nondescript and tied to Asunaro as they are — and he does not have the capacity for expressing emotion that Sei had.

When comparing Ranger and Sei in terms of personality, differences are obvious. There are similarities, naturally — besides the abrasive way of speaking, there's the jealousy and desire for validation. But in Ranger, these are present to an extreme — they're all he has. (And, ironically, this is what Gashu claims to believe makes him so human, even when Ranger's inhumanity comes through most clearly in this lack of anything else.)

In Sei, on the other hand, these traits are tempered by logic, to put things in YTTD's beloved logic vs. emotion dichotomy. Despite his outwardly emotional nature, from what we see of him he appears realistic and focused on survival in a way that Kai isn't. He's aggressive and overly casual about killing people, but he doesn't express the glee at violence that Ranger does, only a fierce desire to prove himself and survive. Sei is jealous of Kai and desires Gashu's affection, but also has an understanding of the situation he's in that both Kai and Ranger lack — he can tell that Gashu doesn't care about him as much as he does Kai, and recognizes that the way Gashu treats both of them is wrong. Ranger believes Gashu truly loves him, a fact proven blatantly false by his eventual demise at Gashu's hands. Ironically, this blindness is more similar to Kai as we see him in his minisode, rather than Sei.

Of course, this understanding isn't simply a part of Sei's basic nature, but rather the fact that unlike Kai and Ranger, he has past experience to go on. Sei wasn't born into the Satou family — though his exact origins are unclear, based on his grief for his birth father and how he talks about Asunaro ("all this shady organization crap"), it's possible he wasn't even born into Asunaro at all. Before being sent to Gashu, he had his own father, one who we don't know anything about but whom he apparently loved. He doesn't accept Gashu's treatment of him and Kai the way Kai does because he has known a different father and a different way of life. This doesn't free him from Asunaro's influence — he still accepts the role of assassin they give him and resigns himself to becoming a killer. What choice does he have, after all? But he carries no illusions about Asunaro or his role in it. He knows that the training is cruel, that he is viewed only as a tool, that Asunaro is wrong even if they are also not worth resisting.

This is a major part of why Ranger isn't Sei, why he cannot be; because Asunaro is all Ranger knows. They are his creators, who he was literally built to serve. In Ranger's mind, he is not only Gashu's son and heir, but his creation, his masterpiece. And of course he wouldn't have been created with Sei's memories — why take that risk? Why give him any sort of knowledge of a life outside Asunaro or reason to be disloyal to them?

Ranger is not Sei — so why model Ranger after him? Because Ranger is the idea of Sei, what Sei was meant to be: a counterpart to Kai, a rival, a second choice. Gashu preferred Kai, once; Kai won out over Sei. But Kai has proven himself a failure and betrayed Asunaro, leaving Gashu with no choice but turn once more to Kai's long-dead competition. Ranger is, like Sei, the opposite of Kai, temperamental and vulgar while Kai is stoic and polite, and perhaps more importantly, capable of murder while Kai steadfastly is not.

And yet Ranger isn't Sei. Sei was jealous of those — specifically Kai — he saw as superior or at least as being treated as such; Ranger is this idea taken to its natural conclusion. Sei had lost everything he had outside of Asunaro; Ranger never had anything else to begin with. Sei was a human; Ranger will never be, doomed to forever long otherwise. Ranger is Sei only in the ways Sei was useful — desperate for recognition, willing to kill, a perfect rival to Kai — but something entirely different, an inhuman machine, in all the ways Sei was a liability.

Sei was human, and he knew that he deserved to have that fact respected. Ranger isn't human and gets only the wanting, desperate to be as good as a human even humanity itself is unattainable. Of course, it isn't being a doll that is actually Ranger's problem — it's Asunaro, who view humans and dolls alike as disposable. Sei's humanity didn't make him any less of a tool as far as Asunaro was concerned, it only made him more difficult to control. All Sei wanted was to be seen as an equal to Kai, a person worthy of respect — and this is what he gets, in the end: his face and voice used as a base for one of Asunaro's weapons, while his true identity and personhood remains forgotten.

Ranger has nothing to hold him back from doing his duty for Asunaro, nor does he have anything to hold onto outside of it. In that sense, Ranger is an ideal asset for Asunaro — at least until the very jealousy and hatred Gashu programmed into him goes too far, and he is, once again, deemed a failure. Ironically, Gashu shoots Ranger for attempting to kill a participant, when willingness to kill was perhaps the one true advantage Sei had over Kai.

In the end, Ranger is offered no more humanity in his death than Sei is — they are both merely pawns of Asunaro, set to die at its whims. But while Sei dies in the arms of his brother, receiving one final act of kindness as Kai refuses to kill him, Ranger has no one in either of his deaths but his creators: in his death as Rio Laizer the dubious kindness of Tia Safalin, making his final moments full of agonizing guilt, and of course in his first death, as Rio Ranger, nothing but Gashu's coldness, the bullet in his head a sort of culmination to the favoritism Sei found weighed against him, and a demonstration of just how far Gashu has come from the father who once genuinely cared for Sei. Sei was human, Ranger was not, but as far as Asunaro is concerned, they are exactly the same: tools, easily thrown away as soon as they stop being useful.

[biitchcakes]

FRIENDS OF THE DASH ⸺⸺ hi ! apologies for the sudden disappearance over the last month +, i wanna also update that i won't be back on the dash for at least another 3 WEEKS. that said, once i'm back, i'm planning on revamping the blog ! new pinned post, new carrd ( i'll finally update my rules lol ), new mains, updated verses, ect ! i'll finish off the starters owed from that last call, but for the sake of my own sanity, damn near EVERYTHING that's been sitting around in my drafts is going ( unless you message about wanting to keep it ! ). and double apologies to all the messages i've missed here and on discord, i'll get to them when i can. 🩷

[sysig]

Things could be better, if you were to ask Ishida (Patreon)

[dandyshucks]

once again therapizing myself through the blorbo 😭😭

so i have had no heat for three years, and i live in a basement in the north. uhm. i gave my parents exact number readings of the thermostat but they never cared or took me seriously. and then my brother moved in halfway thru the winter and they finally started caring when HE complained. they came downstairs and looked at the thermostat and went "wow it's really cold down here! we should get this fixed!" and i was like. yeah. no shit. i've been telling u the thermostat numbers for three years. why is it only after brother moves in that u care and also why did u never believe me???? they also told me a few times to stop using the space heater so much bc it was jacking up the hydro bill. i've been thinking i was being a baby for having my hands be stiff and in pain every evening when i was just typing on my laptop to like. chat or scroll or post. haven't been able to work on any writing in the winter unless i was wearing gloves. ppl in my life that are not my family kept telling me that "basements are just cold". but erm. living in the north with no heating is . insane.

anyways. all this. and i am still feeling like maybe im just being dramatic or hysterical about the situation. maybe i shouldn't be getting mad about it. maybe it's not that big of a deal and i'm being unfair towards parents. maybe i didn't make enough of a deal about it the past three years and so they never took me seriously bc i didn't bother them enough about it.

but nooooo. thinking about what Guz would say in this situation fdsjkl and he would be like. furious honestly. as should i. because this is genuinely neglect???? like. no fucking heat for three years. they've been living upstairs with their heat working just fine but the heat broke in the basement. as soon as they got it fixed a month or two ago i was able to like... exist comfortably in the basement again, my hands stopped hurting all the time, i could work on SEWING in the evening again!!! i actually got overheated at certain points bc i guess my body was used to trying to work overtime to heat itself and now suddenly it didn't have to anymore (this would also possibly explain some of my exhaustion in the winter, if my body had to work that hard just to keep me warm enough to function fdsjkl).

and i really did do my best to be insistent enough about the heat not working, but with everyone acting like i was being hysterical and spoiled for wanting ... the basement to be room temperature, i thought maybe i WAS being ridiculous. and also in this household, the squeaky wheel does not get the grease (if the squeaky wheel is me. my sister and one brother on the other hand.....), the squeaky wheel just gets (metaphorically, there is no physical abuse) beaten back into place until it stops squeaking. so i did not want to push the matter too much bc i was scared of being punished and bringing further abuse down on myself.

anyways yeah i just . am spinning around in circles trying to work through this in my head and not fall into the same old "you're being ridiculous, you are not giving enough grace to the ppl who have done wrong, you are spoiled and terrible" thinking patterns, and thinking about how Guz would feel about the situation is helping that a lot fdskjl. i feel like if i went crying to him about this, he wouldn't think i was being hysterical even if i WAS crying. he would be angry for me. he would do what he could to help me w the housing applications mess to get me out of here. he would want to have a chat with my parents but i'd tell him absolutely not HFDSJKL bc they will never change and anyone pointing out their abuse would only make things worse unfortunately.

ough.

[ufolane]

wow, it's been a while since i've posted anything, haha!

anyways, here's stitches (it/they), freaky lil dolly with an insatiable appetite!

as usual, click for better quality, reblogs > likes, etc.

[dia-tribe]

frankly i Hope people are jerking it to my art

[joltrify]

Everytime I wanna draw for a fandom other than Ben 10 you guys keep pulling me back with ur ideas THIS IS INSANE

[awesometothe3rd]

[onrainynights]

I'm about to be so annoying btw

[souenkun]

Life update: my brain feels like scrambled eggs but I've also started going on short walks with my cat, and it turns out to be a nice routine. Apologies to messages and ao3 comments that I haven't been able to reply; I'll get to them soon! 🫂

[sysig]

If your almost out of requests I'll send my second allowed one! Didn't want to send a second one at first though to give other people a shot lol

Howsabout.... something something Scriabin with the vibe from the song "This is Love" by Air Traffic Controller? If vibes from songs are allowed ofc xD

Day 13 - I know wrong, I know right, I just love to pick a fight

[footballandshit]

[sacredpit]

HEADCANON GENERATOR   (   KAKYOIN’S VERSION   )

it would not take much for kakyoin to turn evil .

WELL   . . .   technically it took a fleshbud .   but leading up to that ,   there’s a lot of speculation about why   /   how kakyoin didn’t escape from dio like avdol did ,   &   i think the logical explanation for that is just that avdol was very lucky that he encountered dio in the place he was born   &   knew how to navigate the backstreets to get away from him .   but even if kakyoin had that same advantage ,   i don’t think he would have gotten away .   he was drawn to dio ,   &   even when he realized that he was in trouble ,   he was already paralyzed with fear   &   unfortunately became a victim .

    also ,   it depends on where in the timeline we’re talking about .   kakyoin is definitely   ‘   good   ’   in the sense that he has a righteous heart   &   is motivated by things like compassion   &   empathy for others ,   but he is not opposed to doing some fucked up shit if he thinks it’s for the greater good .   he has   &   will   kill people without hesitation if he thinks they deserve it .   he’s different from jotaro in that sense that he isn’t as merciful   &   can be pretty vindictive when he wants to be lol .

    but i don’t think he’d go   evil   at all .   dio is the most disgusting   &   vile creature ever born in kakyoin’s eyes   &   the idea of being anything like him would make him physically ill .

kakyoin gets road rage .

    accurate lmfao if you cut him off prepare to die .

kakyoin is a theatre kid .

    literally ,   no .   but at heart ??   absolutely .   kakyoin puts on entire musicals in the shower .   &   he’s got quite a voice ,   too !!   he could have made it on broadway in another life .

kakyoin knows fnaf lore .

contrary to what some people in this fandom think ,   he actually doesn’t know anything about fnaf .   but his son does   &   since jotaro often makes the excuse of having some paper or something to work on ,   kakyoin is often the one on the other end of jouta’s fnaf infodumps   ━━━━   but in all honesty ,   he really doesn’t mind .   he’s not gonna remember half of what jouta is telling him because he kind of doesn’t care but he knows how important it is for a kid to feel like they’re being listened to by their parents ,   especially when it comes to something they’re passionate about ,   so he does genuinely give him his attention   &   listens intently even though he will flush the information out of his brain later to make room for useless trivia to annoy jotaro with .

kakyoin is oblivous to any and all romantic interest someone may show them .

this is true for him as a teen ,   but not so much when he’s an adult .   as he gets older ,   kakyoin becomes very aware that he is attractive   &   that he gets attention from people of all genders ,   especially men .   &   though the only man he wants is his jojo ,   he is not opposed to using his attractiveness to get what he wants when the opportunity presents itself ,   lol .

    the only exception is with an oc of mine ,   yong ,   who he trained with at spw   &   had sort of a friends - with - benefits arrangement while kakyoin was trying to   ‘   get over   ’   jotaro during their breakup / not together for whatever reason era ,   but well .   we all know how that ends .   &   kak thought the fwb   ‘   relationship   ’   was purely physical   &   separate from their friendship ,   but that couldn’t have been further from the truth .   &   by the time they reunite in morioh   &   kakyoin   &   jotaro are together   . . .   things get weird   &   awkward real quick lmfao because while kakyoin has no idea that yong is interested in him as more than a friend ,   jotaro notices   immediately .

kakyoin wears hello kitty socks .

he is partial to keroppi but hello kitty socks are not off the table .

kakyoin is the gay cousin .

a few of his cousins on the himura side in morioh are also gay but yes ,   he is   thee   gay cousin .

kakyoin bullies kids on roblox .

if he ever played roblox he would absolutely be arguing with twelve - year - olds   &   would probably get banned from playing by jotaro .

kakyoin has a diary that they write in with a glittery gel pen .

he does keep a diary !!   but kakyoin is very serious about all things stationery   /   office supplies   &   would hate glitter gel pens because they’re not neat   &   look tacky .   he definitely does use colored ink though   &   color codes his diary by everything from day to emotion to people mentioned lmfao .   &   he loves highlighter pens   &   stamps   &   makes use of those a lot ,   too .   you best believe their family calendar in the kitchen is immaculately organized   &   color coded to the gods .

    on that note ,   once he’s living in florida with jotaro he is like constantly shipping in this stuff from japan because american stationery stores simply do not go as hard .   jotaro doesn’t even blink when he sees like forty dollar shipping on their credit card statement .

kakyoin has an incredible spice tolerance .

he does !!   kakyoin has always has a diverse palate thanks to his parents being well - traveled   &   relatively open - minded ,   but he really built his spice tolerance when he was living in korea during his spw training years .   he went from barely being able to finish the super spicy dishes there to adding gochujang   &   gochugaru to everything he cooks ,   lol .

[polishedforsurvival]