#so ill put this here instead

[itadooori]

i love drawing angry gi-hun

[hinamie]

9 / 266

[eshithepetty]

"Haha Dream BBQ is so random and incomprehensible" "did they take drugs to make this lol" "you're actually not meant to understand anything in this series it's ok" "Joel G just makes up stuff on the spot based on what would be funny" "it's just random for random's sake" "is this AI" "stop theorising, it's not that deep" SHUT UPPPPPPPPPP

[acearohippo]

I love fandoms, especially witnessing what fans take away from source material and how fans interpret it based on their experiences. Not to mention the stark difference of interaction between new fans, casual fans, experienced fans, and long-term fans.

I say this because the SVSSS fandom has continuously fascinated me in insisting in discussions that there are parallels between Shen Jiu and Luo Binghe (tell don't show), but in their fanworks, I just see parallels between Luo Binghe and Yue Qingyuan (show don't tell).

And it's not even (fully) a case where they're blending character personalities because they want what the other dynamic has, it's just how the characters are based on canon in two different timelines.

All of this to say, perhaps original draft PIDW (NOT original!PIDW nor pre!SY PIDW which are completely different) was supposed to revolve around the dynamic between SJ and YQY vs SJ and LBH. Perhaps YQY was to be the last hour mastermind, the true foil to LBH.

And fandom is just circling this idea without realising it because, once again, the unreliable narrator that is SY has already convinced this fandom that any version of SJ has to be a/the villain, regardless if it's through his own actions or baseless rumours.

Warning, run-on sentence ahead.

I don't know, mans, but it's gotta mean something that LBH and YQY have such similar life beats of being orphaned and having a tough life but remaining kind/compassionate because they had someone to live for until they didn't which left them empty until they found (or refound in YQY's case) one (1) man to obsess over in an uncomfortably intrusive way with no regards for his feelings and rejections, eventually reaching a position as the most powerful being in existence with a huge caveat that their sword is 83% of that power and is slowly killing them which did nothing to soften said man of their obsession's into showing them kindness leading to the ultimate confrontation between the two in which only one could survive and keep their obsession, not that it mattered because neither of them got to experience his feelings reciprocated, except in another timeline where the same things are happening until their obsession suddenly stops rejecting their (still intrusive) advances even if he is acting a bit silly, but hey take advantage while you can and take advantage they did because now they have that reciprocated feeling (except one still "won" as he gets to keep him for himself) and be thankful that all it took was, in their perspective, a near death fever that drastically changed his personality and most likely left him crippled in some other way, preventing their obsession from not NOT needing them anymore, all-in-all fulfilling their desire to be relied upon again, hooray! 😋😁✌🏽

In all seriousness, at the end of the day people are going to draw connections between characters that fit whatever narrative they understood from the story. SVSSS fandom just seems to be trying to convince others of one narrative while believing on a deeper level of another narrative. It's amusing and makes following the fandom fun.

[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.

[apyrisol]

biblically accurate pebs jumpscare

[bucephaly]

People love finding random natives online and dumping their family story on them expecting a reassuring 'of course you're native!!' Lol

Sorry, if you don't wanna reconnect why would you even mention your supposed apache or whatever ancestry. If you aren't connecting to the tribe what does it even matter. 'I find it interesting' so you're using supposed native ancestry as a fun fact to make you look more interesting? How is that different than any other 'great grandma cherokee princess' person. Especially since you apparently have time to research the history of all your ancestral cultures but you don't have time to do genealogy

And of course when I tell them 'assume the stories are fake until you've got actual proof' they block me.

[her-canine-teeth]

ok but taste (the famous song) is SO jackieshauna. istg

[tetrahedrals]

Kiriona-centric Locked Tomb fics I want to read but not write.

1. The Emperor's Construct

Timeline: post-HTN pre-NTN.

Setting: Antioch.

POV: epistolary fic narrated by the Blood of Eden soldiers unlucky enough to have to fight against Kiriona- unkillable, furious, Saddest Girl In The World Kiriona who spent her whole life dreaming of serving the Cohort on the frontlines. Kiriona, whose incorruptible body was dropped in rivers, left out in the sun, given to the carrion creatures to eat. Kiriona who still looks like her mother, imbued with all the hideous blessings of her father, fucking-out-of-her-mind Ninth House Big Pissed Off. I would kill to read this fic.

2. The Crown Prince

Timeline: Same as above

Setting: Antioch, Ida, and/or aboard the Dead Fleet.

POV: Kiriona as a Byronic Hero, apt pupil of the ideology of decadence, material excess, and artificiality. First or third person narration by Kiriona on her off-hours, enjoying the tawdry privileges of her rank as Crown Prince, heir to all the hedonistic masochism and moral decay of the Nine Houses, sitting through endless balls and dinners held in her honor. And afterwards- Kiriona fucking her way through literal frontline titties of the Fifth, feeling Absolutely Nothing because her body is dead and that blood isn’t pumping anywhere anymore. It’s everything she ever wanted and she can't enjoy it. It's a 5 course meal and she can’t taste it. She doesn't want much of anything, anymore.

[dullahandyke]

sidenote its probably unacademic of me but i hate having to resort to secondary evidence in my analysis. i'm fine when i'm referencing like history or sociology to build my point but if you make me take my literary analysis secondhand i'm pepper spraying you. source trust me bro + i love doing my own analysis

[pettyprocrastination]

Watching my coworker who only works less than 20 hours a week, constantly asking for somebody to take her shifts, get to go home early because every time they say somebody can go home she volume teers herself before anybody gets a chance to speak

[ame-wa-ame-2]

yall. yall know that psychiatry isnt real right. like. you shouldnt exclude someone from a community just because they dont align with what an incredibly ableist and cruel system says. you. you all know this right. I'd expect you, community full of mentally ill and disabled people who have been fucked over by psychiatry over and over and over, to know this by now

[elegyofthemoon]

im still super giddy about this project,, i finally finished recording it in one shot yesterday because i was Pissed after work and was like 'you know what would be a good stress relief? just screaming.'

and it? worked out in my favor JFBSJSJJS i apparently did very good w my part that the director wanted to rerecord his parts to not take down the quality.

and no critique either? like i love getting critique its how i can continue growing and getting better at the work, but damn i didnt think i did that good but yay???

whatever it just makes me happy that i did well!

[seraphidae]

light emeto warning

[the-mononoke-facade]

Every time this dude is put in a situation where I think he's about to explode in a rainbow of bitterness and entitlement, he just doesn't, and it's very bizarre

Of course he's also the pov character and I don't know that I'd call him a reliable narrator so he could be omitting the parts where he made himself out to be a dick, but still

[lovinggreeniehours]

really random post sponsored by me almost sleeping on the couch but man what if esper fell asleep on sylus's couch. idk