cruisersensei

[cruisersensei]

i should probably write that one pillow talk piece i’ve been considering for a while only to title it “a lover’s discourse”

[cruisersensei]

my justice, my murder

[cruisersensei]

reading memory and leadership in the late roman republic by kathryn l. seidl steed was like witnessing sullamarius divorce live. tbh

[cruisersensei]

bro i totally get tennis i watched challengers twice

[cruisersensei]

FELIX THANK YOU I HAVE A HEAD-SPLITTING MIGRAINE AND IT PHYSICALLY HURTS ME TO LOOK AT THE SCREEN BUT GOD THANK YOU so sad that your next opponent is all but certainly going to be one mr jannik “human bulldozer with a tennis racket” sinner

[cruisersensei]

truly, sports journalism is nothing but an excuse for serious, well-adjusted men to write yaoi

[cruisersensei]

i have a near-masochistic fondness for german language. the learning process is torturous. reading a book in german actively threatens my mental state. i am utterly in love with it

[cruisersensei]

The Biggest Fan

probably the funniest one out of all the Big Revelations about the beautifully messy dynamics of the culkins is that, when you really look into it, fake chuck is a genuine fan of both real chuck’s work and him as an artist in general. it’s all real. and there’s so much more truth to his endless flattery that it initially seems.

those who know me are aware that, to me, the two chucks’ dynamic is a puzzle i’ve been methodically solving for months. there’s just something so compelling about that weird codependent thing they have, with all of its peculiarities and contradictions. and now i can proudly say that i’ve found what seems to be the final piece of this puzzle (great thanks to my dear friend).

it’s this little panel from chapter 100 i never really noticed because of, well, everything else that’s going on in chapter 100.

things are Bad. as bad as they get. and still — half-dead with shock and fear, in a situation where a single misstep could cost him his life, fake chuck manages to suggest making the bat cuter.

after that, even while kevin yamagata is still in the states and should be the focus of his attention, he, for some indiscernible reason, singles out chuck instead and praises his dedication while berating kevin as a slacker. he’s all alone here, with no one to lie to, and he has no reason whatsoever (as of yet) to watch chuck so closely. chuck’s unimportant. chuck shouldn’t really matter when it comes to kevin yamagata’s billy bat. he himself doesn’t think he matters. but fake chuck seems to like him (look at that stupid grin!) and he seems to prefer him to kevin — perhaps, the only person to do so back then.

and even after all those years he seems to genuinely think that chuck is the only good comics artist in the whole world. chuck hates himself, chuck deems his art worthless and impossible to like, but fake chuck — once again, with no one around; no reason for empty flattery — expresses sincere belief that there’s no one else up to the task. more than that: he was sure of it even before seeing other artists’ submissions (see the “i thought so”).

whenever chuck shows his work to anyone, he asks if the person likes it — in a manner which wordlessly implies: i know you don’t like it. i know you can’t like it, so tell me the truth straight to my face, help me to punish myself for all of my wrongdoings, both real and imagined. he appears to have convinced himself that not a single person alive genuinely enjoys his work and would prefer it in a world where all versions of billy bat are equally accessible. but such a person exists.

there’s a man in the world who’s so sure that billy bat is best when he’s cute that he says so with his literal life on the line, who admires chuck’s way of working and views him as a worthy artist on his own merits, and who sincerely believes that there’s no better artist in the whole world. there’s someone who enjoys chuck’s art greatly and wants to see more of it. his biggest, most loyal fan. it just so happens that this person is also a huge liar and someone intrinsically tied to a lot of chuck’s suffering. someone who convinced and enabled him to make the worst mistake of his life.

so it must all be flattery and lies, mustn’t it?

[cruisersensei]

anyone wants to hear one of the funniest, non-obvious and surprisingly important things i noticed during my last reread of billy bat? quite literally game-changing. hit me like a bag of bricks

[cruisersensei]

sorry for posting stuff no one wants to see, it will continue i fear

[cruisersensei]

sometimes i get a bit shy about my whole culkin-sanada soap opera thing, but then i reread a couple of chapters (or the whole manga, like this time) and get reminded that these four are some of the most compelling and complex characters in the manga when you dig a bit deeper and don’t take things at face value, and it’s actually surprising that nobody else likes them as much as i do

[cruisersensei]

audrey culkin hypocrite of the century

[cruisersensei]

Luna I love you

[cruisersensei]

actually reading something you know well and love a lot over a friend’s shoulder is the best experience ever, and the only reason people have dumb takes is because they never got to know this bliss

(what i mean by this is: bestie made me pay attention to a little unimportant line i never really noticed, and it turned out to be one final proof for a line of thought i’ve been toying with for a couple of months)

got my stunningly talented bestie into billy bat. we are going to have some good fanart very very soon

[cruisersensei]

got my stunningly talented bestie into billy bat. we are going to have some good fanart very very soon

[cruisersensei]

Fukubei is one of the best villains ever because he is a whiny bitch who pursues and achieves his abysmally evil objectives through juvenile spite only. It's incredible to watch.

[cruisersensei]

on my third reread, billy bat really starts to look like a blueprint for the best sondheim musical never created (wouldn’t even be the first sondheim musical to feature a song for lee harvey oswald)