#MEANWHILE IM SITTING HERE. RUNNING A TUMBLR BLOG

[apollos-boyfriend]

i love the qsmp but also it’s become my biggest fear because before, despite Also being into minecraft/mcyt, i knew my younger cousins wouldn’t know the same servers/creators i did due to them only watching brazilian creators, and therefore i did not have to worry about the possibility of Brainrotting over something they were just normal about. now, with a lot of them being teenagers, they are in Prime age range for the qsmp, and the possibility of them also watching it is Not zero

[firefly464]

I posted 34,541 times in 2022

That's 7,614 more posts than 2021!

318 posts created (1%)

34,223 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@prismartist

@yb-cringe

@gardenergulfie

@rozugold

@loudly--unladylike

I tagged 2,359 of my posts in 2022

#yeah - 92 posts

#oh my god - 77 posts

#beloved - 56 posts

#what - 48 posts

#yes - 46 posts

#sobs - 43 posts

#hehehehe - 36 posts

#sobbing - 35 posts

#hehehe - 35 posts

#<- prev tags - 33 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#also if skizz was in dlsmp and he didn't get impulse as his soulmate im sorry but that'll be a crime. they share hearts all the time already

I sent 1 gift in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Anyways I think we need to sit down and talk about the fact that c!wilbur was an isekai protagonist

142 notes - Posted September 3, 2022

#4

Something something Scott no longer having the crystals around his head as an indicator that he’s learned to live with his grief, instead allowing it to become a part of him, hence why his hair has the streak in it. It hasn’t gone away, likely never will, but he’s going to be ok

And that’s what’s important here, isn’t it?

162 notes - Posted June 19, 2022

#3

despite everything...

its still you...

244 notes - Posted May 28, 2022

#2

i miss the citizen memes we should bring those back they were funny

339 notes - Posted May 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I like to imagine that when the skin swap happened, everyone actually swapped bodies. Meaning that everyone was also different heights and weren’t used to moving as someone else. So scott would be struggling to figure out how to walk as a 6’6 enderman hybrid with backwards legs and ranboo would be trying to figure out how the fuck do humans walk

Meanwhile scar is trying to remember how to walk again, but the memory ends up clicking after ten minutes or so. At first, he’s overthinking it, trying to outsmart it, but eventually he just lets muscle memory take over, and then he’s running with the best of them. He’s got such a large smile on his face, and you can hear his laughter echoing across the arena. As soon as he figures out who eret swapped with, he goes up to her and just starts thanking her profusely. Thanking her for this opportunity, for this chance to run around in the grass and do all these things he didn’t think he’d be able to do again.

Meanwhile, Joel is struggling to figure out how to use his wheelchair efficiently, how to actually move around and quickly, how to do everything that comes so naturally to scar. And so of course, Scar notices. And he does his best to help. He shows joel how to turn quickly and go up on his back wheels and zoom around super quickly. He tries to apologize to joel, but joel brushes him off super quickly. He doesn’t really mind. Sure it’s a bit confusing, but he’s able to get the hang of it pretty fast! Besides, after seeing the look of joy on Scars face, he couldn’t really be upset, now could he

808 notes - Posted July 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[panickedvulture]

Found this in my drafts, so I’m posting it with no shame to give this blog some life while I’m busy trying to deal with post-endgame feels in the mcu sector of tumblr:

So I had a dream last night that made me realize I spend too much time on this site because it included some of my mutuals and people I enjoy like @theuriearchives ,@yagirlcammmm ,@i-think-im-ready-to-go ,@canyousevmyheavydirtysoul ,@dunjosephurieimagines , and @andbeingblueisbetter to name a few.

I have very vivid dreams and since I write all of them down I figured why not write it here where everyone can see it.

The genre for this dream: a mystery.

The setting: A beautiful cabin (apparently mine) plucked straight out of a “Visiting your SO’s family for the holidays” or a “fake-dating for a visit to your frenemy’s family” AU, my personal favorite. And there was a snowstorm going on outside.

I should also mention everybody had their own appearance. Usually I attach someone’s name with the face in their profile pic, meaning about everybody in this I previously imagined as Brendon Urie at different angles and in different lighting. But thanks to my brain randomly generating faces for everybody, I will be greatly confused in the case that I ever learn what you actually look like.

So, the topic at hand is, as it always is, Brendon Urie. Everybody’s cuddled up on the couch and on the floor in their pajamas drinking hot chocolate, eating dessert, and writing/giving ideas. In the background AFYCSO plays on an old record player, the fire is flickering beautifully alongside some black and white videos of old Panic! performances playing on one of those old big-backed TVs with lines across the screen – at this moment I feel like I am once again a preschooler laying on my stomach and watching movies in a pile of other preschoolers at my old after-school program but I digress–

Then somebody has the audacity to break into my house.

Me being the host of this gathering, I feel obligated to check on the noise. It doesn’t help that literally everyone stops what they’re doing to push me in the direction of the mysterious noise before going back to talking about the size of Brendon Urie’s dick (a conversation brought up by i-think-im-ready-to-go, just thought I should mention that).

So I get up, the second my back is turned nobody cares and I go into the bathroom only to find it flooded because this intruder flushed literally everything it could down the toilet.

To name a few things, it flushed:

1) The monstrous dildo linked on a post by beautiful-tragic-fallout (i don’t mean to call anybody out but its been on my dash with every damn refresh for the past week), who i-think-im-ready-to-go and theuriearchives make a point to explain is out of the house buying us more chocolate-covered strawberries.

2) Every single piece of Pretty. Odd. memorabilia I can imagine because someone just has it out for that album.

3) For those of you who have seen Monsters Inc, the toys Boo flushed down the toilet in that one scene.

4) An entire manuscript that my mind recognizes as smut written by @xxip-smut

5) And pink, fucking, crocs

So I walk back into the living room and round everybody up, declaring we’re on a manhunt for whoever the fuck had the audacity to break into my house, and with that we separate into groups. Accompanying me is Cam who wields a flamethrower while wearing pastel yellow pajamas with baby elephants printed on them.

Eventually after getting tired of Cam pointing the flamethrower at my head even when in ‘resting position’ and scaring the shit out of me, we go into the basement only to find everybody else chose to search the basement and the rest of you have been arguing about who actually gets to search the basement.

Long story short, the basement doesn’t get searched.

Instead to deal with the tension, dunjosephurieimagines suggests we all go back to talking about Brendon’s dick. So we go back to talking about Brendon’s dick.

We sit on the floor in a circle in this basement not realizing its dark and creepy as hell, and if you’ve seen That 70s Show the ‘camera’ moves around in this circle to focus on the face of whoever’s talking. The conversation adds up to smut, theuriearchives pulls out a blunt and i-think-im-ready-to-go pulls out a gun, we start playing russian roulette. Out of guilt for not writing a request sent to me months ago because I suck, I give andbeingblueisbetter a free shot at me. Being a saint they don’t take the opportunity yet.

So anyway, being high and creative a thought comes to us all at once. This thought…where the fuck is @loverontheleft ?

Now we’re all mad and sad and scared and alone because where, the fuck, is cece? Everybody starts asking everybody if they’ve seen her, we conclude the answer is no and we all start freaking out.

Then we realize canyousevmyheavydirtysoul (codename: Sev) is being really quiet.

We all turn and just stare like “So um….whats up?”

Flash-forward, this is all of us trying to figure out cece’s identity, sev is just sitting on the floor smiling and reacting to everything we say with reaction gifs they pull up on their phone, meanwhile we’re all screaming running around, we’ve made a literal office out of this basement and we have glasses and slip-on ties on top of our pajamas.

Then there’s a noise upstairs because we forgot there was someone who broke into my house.

Y’all turn on me and push me up the stairs to my death, I realize this is the cabin that appears in the bodyguard series at one point (wonderfully written by canyousevmyheavydirtysoul, binge it), and in front of me is the super fancy dining room table. There’s mail on it, some envelopes, and I’m like uh no and turn around to come back downstairs.

But you’re all at the bottom of the stairs staring at me and threatening me with your knives and Cam’s flamethrower – where you got the knives I don’t know. I hesitate in turning around for a second so andbeingblueisbetter shoots me.

But I’m like, you know, walk it off. So I do and I go to the table. I’m terrified, break out into a nervous sweat, but it’s fine.

I go and open the folder.

And O - fucking - kay

If you haven’t read the bodyguard series or ready to leap I’m not gonna detail any spoilers, just the main plot given right away, and even if you have it probably won’t help this make any more sense. Here….is the story:

Our beloved Cece started off as a teacher, right? But not just any teacher, Ms. fucking Milton, who started a relationship with the music teacher of her high school, Mr. Urie, who in this case is in fact Brendon Urie of our universe and lead singer of Panic! at the Disco. But the deal with him is that he got tired of the fame and through extensive work he managed to get rid of all the files that legally point to him as being Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco. And for the first few years of his teaching, all the kids knew he was Brendon Urie I mean come on, but eventually the whole school and town settle on the idea that this is just one of those situations where twins are separated at birth and coincidentally given the same exact name. So boom, they do what they do – but newsflash, Cece is Y/n from the Bodyguard series and knowing Mr. Urie’s relationship with Ms. Milton, S.H.I.E.L.D pulls a Hydra Bucky Barnes situation in order to train Brendon into the best damn bodyguard the world could imagine because Cece is a valuable asset that needs the absolute best protection. Canyousevmyheavydirtysoul was like a journalist or something for S.H.I.E.L.D and witnessed all of this go down, knows every little thing about these two. So they get trained, they get close, drama happens, then they’re all put under-cover. Brendon goes back to being Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco, Sev and Cece are assigned to live their current lives and specifically assigned to write their stories for this Tumblr community to get everybody off their trails.

And then I look up. And there’s cece and I think…

“She is about to fucking, kill me.”

I try to throw the folders at her but for some reason I can’t throw anything in my dreams, so I get frustrated that my arm just won’t work, Cece in the meanwhile uses this time to approach me. My mind can’t even generate her an appearance and I think that she’s wearing a disguise because she’s like a spy or something that did after all break into my house to clog my toilet with dildos.

We maintain eye contact for what my dream-self recalls as a long time. I feel this energy in my soul I have never felt before and it is not fun, I don’t like it.

She takes the folder from me and gives me a red one.

And with her eyes piercing my soul, I get this feeling that literally has my skin vibrating even after I wake up, and I hear this voice that’s like “I know you know. And I’m watching you.”

So I woke up in a cold sweat obviously and tried to suppress this whole thing but it kinda lingered in the back of my mind all day. Then the weird tiny details came back to haunt me when I saw the elephants at the zoo. 

[iveonlyeverseenliketwoanimes]

How Horikoshi treats his female characters (Feat. How his ‘Fans’ treat him): A Rant

Something that has recently been popping up a lot in the BNHA tags, for me at least, is this idea that Hori is a “Lazy/Bad Writer”. It’s a topic that’s genuinely interesting to me and I would love to discuss it! After the reaction i got to my last post on discussing the fandom, i feel like this is a really fun topic for me to look into and i love having an open discussion with people. So just to let you know before we start, everything here is my opinion - feel free to respond with your own thoughts and i’d happily have a conversation with you about anything and everything! If you disagree with me then that's fine, if you agree with me then that's fine too! I'm just a person with a keyboard and an opinion and so are you! :)

So today i would love to discuss how people treat Hori in regards to his female characters and i hope you enjoy this 1500 word essay/ramble i did. (PS if you came from my last lil essay then this one is a lot less sarcastic because its a more serious topic and i don’t want to come across as too rude also i actually got sleep today)

Now, this was actually the first topic I came across when looking into the Hori tags. At first, I was on board with the general theme of what was happening. I saw some lovely artwork of Momo where people had redesigned her costume, they were very creative in how they did it and overall, I had no complaints – if the whole topic of this tag was about how people wanted to be creative and redraw characters in their own design then I’d 100% support it, but the more you look into it, the more…. Nasty is gets.

So, the overall theme of what I gathered from this little tag is that idea that Hori is some sort of [Word I really don’t want to type out but im sure you can guess what it is] because of how he draws his females, most of which are underage. So if you, as a consumer, are, well, consuming something, such as a TV show, film, anime, Manga etc. and you see something that makes you go “This is disgusting – I need to write a Tumblr post about this to warn other people about what's happening here” then I fully support you – please keep on doing what you’re doing. 

However, this isn’t what I see, what I see are posts going “F*CK HORI HE’S A [Nasty word] AND I HOPE HE D*ES – HERE EVERYONE I MADE AN ANTI FLAG, SHARE IT EVERYWHERE AND LET ME KNOW WHERE I CAN SEND MY D*ATH THR*AT TO” Meanwhile, when you go on this same persons page it’s all reposts of the characters and screenshots of the show, posts of them saying “Yo did you guys see the new BNHA episode last night?!?” and overall just very fandom-y stuff. I truly cannot comprehend this type of behaviour – you are so set in this belief that Hori is a [Nasty Word] and yet here you are, on the very same blog you use to slander his name, actively supporting him! Listen, if one of you Anti’s were to sit there and say “I wholeheartedly think Hori is a [Nasty word] and therefore I am no longer going to participate in this fandom or with supporting his creations” then, while I don’t agree with you, I support you in your decision as you have made a clear stance on something with both your words and your actions and I can truly respect that, and hell you would actually get my attention and I might read into what it is you’re talking about. I’m not, however, going to waste my time reading a piece of material written by someone who does all that nasty stuff I previously mentioned and take any of what they say seriously. Let me put it this way; you think Hori is a [Nasty word], you are supporting the show, you are therefore supporting a [nasty word], so why should I take anything you say seriously? I don’t want to see any more of this ‘One minute we love him, one minute we hate him’ attitude because when you hate him the things you are saying are some of the worst things you could possibly say to another person and its childish, disgusting and you’re giving this fandom a bad name.

Now back to the girls, I personally do find certain characters outfits a little distasteful, especially with how they’re done in the anime and how they zoom in on certain body parts, i also dislike how it’s ‘funny’ for characters like Mineta to get away with such disgusting behaviour. I do think that’s the biggest flaw I can find in this show – I don’t however 100% blame Hori for this. Now obviously at the end of the day, it is down to Hori what happens in his show, but can we all stop pretending that it’s just him that does this? When I think of anime the first thing that comes to mind is anime girls and their… attributes. It’s an industry issue and Hori is one of many people that partakes in it – so im not saying he’s not to blame, im just saying some of you are a little dramatic and need to realise if you truly want this behaviour to stop then you need to go after the industry and not just one guy.

Now this next point I want to make is something im sure might be a little confusing for most of you and something I can 100% see the other side of better than some other points ive made. It’s also kinda hard for me to put into words so please bear with me here.

I don’t think its necessary for Hori to develop his female characters as much as their male counterparts – now im sure that’s an odd concept but let me explain. As a child growing up in the age of great TV shows such as Hannah Montana, iCarly, Wizards of Waverly Place etc. I think ive spent a fair amount of time watching TV, my personal favourites as a child were Winx Club, BRATZ and W.I.T.C.H (Im from the UK so apologies if you have no idea what they are). Now all of these shows were ‘for girls’, they all revolve around a group of girls and their adventures in their respective worlds, they learn things along the way, because, even if you don’t realise it, these kids shows have hidden messages in them that are like ‘we should be kind’ ‘we should treat others with respect’ and all that jazz you need to know to be a decent human being. However, the one thing that these shows always lacked was any form of male presence. Now im not saying these shows had no males in them, that would be weird, but what I am saying is that the males in these shows were very one dimensional and they were always the love interest of one of the characters, or you might get the odd parental figure that would show up for one episode to be a motivation for a character. However with BNHA, a show that is specifically aimed at teenage boys, I don’t feel like they do such a disservice to females (AKA the ‘men’ equivalent of my other shows), sure they’re not treated great in certain aspects that I've already discussed, but look at their actual characters, Uraraka is the main girl, sure she very much has the same role as many of the men did in my childhood shows of the ‘love interest’ but her character is more than that and we see it in the sports festival as well as some of the more recent chapters (213-215 to be specific). Her character isn't just some airhead and neither are the other girls, Momo is literally top of the class in terms of written ability and she had her own little mini-arc around gaining confidence (which is still ongoing because guess what – people don’t change overnight), Mina has had some spotlight on her and is seen to be a very confident and skilled fighter, Tsu was literally described as the ‘perfect student with no flaws’ and is shown to be a badass on multiple occasions, Midoriya’s mum is even a character that’s had some form of arc with her learning to believe in her son and she's not some faceless character we hear about every so often when they need a plot device.

Now im not saying the female representation is perfect and it’s certainly not 100% equal to that of the men, but im saying it doesn’t need to be. This is a show for boys, sure girls can watch and enjoy it, but its made for boys in the same way my shows were made for girls, and the average boy isn’t going to want to watch a bunch of fairy princesses run around saving their fluffy little pets like I did (im sure a some of them will – and good for them, in the same way that some girls might want to watch superhero films, it’s not something im saying is bad, its just most people raise children into predetermined stereotypes of what gender roles they should fill and the media caters to that).

So what im saying is that taking a show aimed at boys and comparing it to shows aimed at girls and how each handles the opposite sex (we’re not going into gender here, that’s a whole other topic of diversity), I don’t think BNHA is all that bad. I guess if I want to be a little harsher in my approach, why is it okay to have a near-all female cast and not a near-all male cast? I understand a need for diversity, truly I do, but sometimes having a token character for each ‘type’ of person takes away from what the show is actually trying to convey – and in BNHAs case I think its trying to teach young boys that it’s okay to be emotional or vulnerable when you’re in situations that other shows teach you to ‘man up’ in. Not every show can solve racism, sexism and homophobia, I’m sorry to break it to you, but some shows are a little more basic in their approach to what it is they want to show and I think BNHA is a perfect example of that, it’s showing boys that you can cry, you can go through struggles in life, you can even come back from being a terrible person through growth and development, and I think that’s something boys need. A lot of people in this day and age want men to change (and I agree that there are a lot of things all groups of people can work on) and BNHA is showing boys how to grow up in a way that’s not this ‘tough guy that has no feelings’ and at the end of the day isn’t that something we want?

I do believe there are areas that BNHA really needs to improve in when it comes to it’s female cast, but can we stop with this awful hate? This fandom had such potential to be an amazing community of people who are skilled with art, writing, storytelling, cosplay, etc. but it seems like half of you just want to tear each other down and it’s sad to see such potential wasted because you can’t handle someone having a different opinion or view to you.

[shidiand]

How do you imagine Tenco's Story ending in your head?

that is a GREAT but UNEXPECTED QUESTION freshlybaked "spider" bread and i'm really happy to have the opportunity to try and answer this ageless question that has burned within all of us in the tenco's story iv waiting room community since 2013. it is an incredible coincidence (or is it? 👀) that i was just talking to Risa about tenco's this (edit: yesterday) morning so i am extra double super in the mood to talk about Tenco's Story today. so excellent of a coincidence is this that i am tempted to refer you to them in case you wanted to hear their thoughts on the matter that would probably turn out super cool, but that is neither here nor there; let us talk Tenco's Story.

i of course must mention my unadvertised and modestly detailed commentary on tenco's i-iii at https://shidiand.tumblr.com/tencos, presenting slightly interesting facts in an unwieldy and difficult-to-use format, but as it dates back to june 2017, i want to take some time to understand my feelings about the series once more.

tenco's story is a series that has a lot of meaning to me.

i took on my current name of shidiand in november of 2013. i was still in 11th grade at the time, 4th year of high school, and a very socially isolated person. i should say i was introduced to touhou in 7th grade, 2010, so i was still working through a 3 years-strong phase of trying to simultaneously both find an outlet for and bottle up an endless wellspring of awkward weeaboo-gamer nerd energy at the time.

i had my first real foray onto the internet in 2010, tried out twitter, followed some RPers and other people who had Cool Touhou Usernames. didn't really go anywhere. i had maybe 50 followers, i dont really know the count but it was definitely a) double digits and b) pretty low. didn't know what to tweet about. didn't know how to hit it off with others. i think there was basically maybe only 3 other people i ever properly interacted with. oh shit i was playing league of legends at the time. oh my god. i really did play league of .. oh my god. let's move on.

aw shit im super digressing amn't i. well.

this is just how it goes when i write essays on tumblr.com.

i'm afraid you're just along for the ride at this point so please do your best to enjoy it.

i got kind of tired of twitter at the time because i didnt know what to do with it. didnt know how to interact with people and didnt find the people i was following interesting, so i ghosted on out of there by the end of 2012. didnt deactivate it until like 2015 but at that point that was just burning away my dark history. anyways. november 2013.

--im taking a lot of time here trawling through old files on my computer, my tumblr blog, notification emails still lying around in my gmail inbox from twitter, the dropbox i didn't actually use but it had several tenco's story pictures on it but i deleted them so this was useless, ... to trace the timeline of this story and im really seeing a lot of remnants of dark history here you know? did you know i wrote a letter to a girl i had a crush on valentine's day 2014, slipped it into her locker, and anxiously hung around nearby at lunchtime to see how she reacted at lunchtime? i certainly didn't, or at least i made darn ass sure to forget about this incredible virgin incident and not remember it, ever, until i came across the records of it that i thoughtfully preserved for the me of 5 years later today. ok well now i have to read the letter to see if it was as bad as it just sounded there brb

ok so the good news is that it was actually very focused on being positive and full of admiration for the cool things she did instead of being a confession letter so i am very glad i was able to be a respectful chad 5 years ago, but the bad news is that the jokes, the actual sentences i put together. oh my god. but i mean. well. at least i got the spirit. its certainly a step up from this other person in my grade, WEEABOO ANDREW, YOU MAY RECALL THIS STORY AND HIS NAME FROM PREVIOUS STORYTIMES, THE MAN THE MYTH THE LEGEND who came to school on halloween once cosplaying kirito from sword art online and got very possessive about people asking if they could hold his black replica plastic sword, and probably worse, dropped a "will you be my girlfriend" letter into the locker of my homie and fellow trombonist samantha, who was a little bit nerdy, hung out with the anime-likers who were actually sociable and fun to be around so you can imagine why weeaboo andrew was into her, which had i) a direct quotation from SAO chapter 16.5 (origin of the famous "glopping noise" line), and ii) a condom. jesus christ. i dont want to talk about this any more. next topic.

i also put this drawing of iku nagae and her skarmory (actually an albinoss from 18 DRAGONS) on the other side of the letter because it was the coolest thing i could think of drawing at the time. and i completely agree with 2014 me because it IS super fucking cool. hell fuckin yeah

https://shidiand.tumblr.com/post/76301993387/iku-nagae-ft-that-thing-that-supposedly-is-a

alright that was a fun little trip down memory lane but lets get back on track. november 2013. i started anew as shidiand. still awkward, still learning how to express myself and looking for my place among others. i followed some touhou bloggers, hung around r/touhou a lot as well. in december i got my first tablet for christmas, a wacom bamboo splash. i still use this thing! the usb cable disconnects if you bump it so i have to find just the perfect position to sit in whenever i want to draw, but its served me well. anyways. i was just starting to play around with digital art but i remember, probably just before new years, for some reason i wanted to find out more about tenshi hinanawi (i don't remember why. tenshi wasn't even one of my favourite characters at the time) so i went googling and right there on zerochan i found this:

https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=23525572

this was during my dark souls phase so i just went BANANAS at the sight of this. this was literally the coolest image i had ever seen in my internet life. That image alone made me want to draw in hopes that I could make something as cool as that someday.

it wasn't immediately after but i soon discovered tenco's story, and it was love. kannnu was my very first artistic inspiration, and for a long time, my only one. i absolutely idolized them at the time. since then, ive found other artists to look up to, in a more healthy manner, but to this day i still look up to kannnu, still admire their work a lot.

i played around with drawing, followed the lives of people on tumblr, started reading touhou fanfiction, made a new twitter. i met a lot of new people along the way. some people i havent stuck with, some i cut ties with, and some people i still keep in contact with today. over those long 5 years of being shidiand, i found a name (i used to use shidian and then shid, but someone called me shidi once and i realized that was a lot better), how to reach out to others, how to express myself, places that i could feel included in. this is why i owe a blood debt to evelyn, who permitted me to kneel at her throne and was like "yea ok you can join my discord server u seem cool". evelyn, if you were confused by me ominously mentioning this blood debt/blood oath in a tumblr reply 1-2 years ago, this is the context. those 5 years were like a coming of age of sorts, that i never had when i was in high school.

and my love for tenco's story, that inspired me to draw that day, has been with me since almost the very beginning of my time as shidiand. from the beginning, i have always encouraged people to READ TENCO'S STORY, like the kin of those who cry PLAY MELTY or WATCH SYMPHOGEAR. i think my very first sidebar description was something akin to a prayer, written in very choral language, hoping for the day tenco's story iv was completed, ..., "meanwhile, furious shitposting". kannnu's work, finding delight in whatever they chose to draw, has been at my side, all along. my true mentor, my guiding moonlight...

so that's why i still to this day love tenco's story so much.

let's talk about tenco's story.

tenco's story is a story told through single pictures. the plot is vague, and details are sparse. dialogue is rare. we only know what has happened; we seldom know why. furthermore, there are many gaps between scenes that the reader is left to fill in for themselves; we see only snapshots that form an hazy outline of the events that occurred, and must imagine the rest. motivations and explanations fail me. but even with a barebones plot, tenco's story has themes, and if nothing else, those have to be carried through.

the main theme, of course, is journey and travel, but there are also other ideas, too. i actually think they start to change as the series goes on:

book i, where tenshi runs away from home, is about striking out on your own. it's a very fun and unpredictable journey, together with a friend.

book ii, where tenshi and iku are separated, forces tenshi to find and rely on companions of her own even more. but they do so, and they are able overcome hardships, and there is food and festival.

book iii marks a climax, reasserting tenshi's goal of finding the sword of hisou. i feel like the journey shifts from a travel (visiting) to a path forwards (making your way through). perhaps this is just something i get from knowing the locations from dark souls (Anor Londo, New Londo Ruins, the Great Hollow), but the locations start to give more of a sense of verticality, like they're emphasizing tenshi's climb to the summit. the hardships and enemies are the greatest they've been yet, and right when they near the top, tenshi and iku start to bleed. the book ends on an uncertain note.

if i had to describe the type of journey and travel that tenshi and iku undertake, there's this sense of wonder at discovering new places, wandering from vista to vista in delight, but also a sense of conquering, making it through a difficult patch. the sequence from pages 2-44 to 2-51, taken together, convey this sense of overcoming the best. it's one of my favourite parts. again, although the tone definitely starts to lean towards struggle in book iii, i think tenco's sense of wonder really is the heart of the series. there's no map of the world, no predicting where tenshi and iku will end up next. and through their travels, though they come across many enemies, they also find friends -- places of refuge, places full of life, people who will look after them for a few days, companions who will stay with them for the rest of the journey. at the end of book iii, we see a long haired tenshi with purple hair being impaled by the sword of hisou (3-33, see also this extra illustration that risa pointed out to me http://sinnnkai.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-195.html), and regular short haired tenshi continuing on her journey (3-42). if we ignore the out-of-story images where tenshi has the sword of hisou, tenshi has actually only ever used her sunlight blade (2-24, 3-26, etc), so i think that the long haired tenshi on 3-33 is a different person altogether. (if i had to guess, she might be the purple haired woman in the top left of https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=medium&illust_id=35443328 as we have never seen that woman appear anywhere.) she probably has something to do with the flashbacks at the end of book ii and she might somehow be short-haired tenshi at the same time, but this is just speculation.

however, in 3-43, tenshi's hair is rather blue, so i don't know if this is the purple haired woman or not. if it is, tenshi is probably still fine and closing in on the summit, but if it isn't, then it's very worrying to see a picture of tenshi without any of her companions. it's very ominous.

meanwhile, iku, while climbing the red carpeted corridor, is stabbed, and disappears for a few pages. there's a black page, a shot of a shrine that strongly resembles the hakurei shrine, and a picture of iku standing behind someone in a tux, with the line "In the past, I was saved by the lady I was serving, you see?". and then iku wakes up in a field of flowers.

i think what this scene makes clear is a theme that has continued to appear and reappear throughout every book of "being saved, being aided by someone's kindness".

i think another theme that is implied and has to be addressed by this story of running away from home is "return". something im imagining is that the reason tenshi makes finding the sword of hisou her goal is because she wants to have something to prove herself with, to vindicate her when she comes home. but i don't think she needs to prove anything, and i ultimately think that she would be happier spending the rest of her life exploring.

so i think this should be what happens in the ending.

open on iku's journey, and give her a long sequence of travel without seeing tenshi. underline her newfound resolve. she climbs to the summit with albinoss, and finds the rest of tenshi's companions fallen. and in the last room is sword of hisou tenshi, who has lost herself, and it comes down to iku to bring her back. after a difficult battle, when both of them are on their last legs, iku is unable to stand any longer. but at this moment tenshi sees her companions struggling to get back up and reach her, and that's what brings her to her senses. and iku gets to see how many friends tenshi's been able to make on her own, and they finally and properly reunite. together, tenshi and iku carry each other out of the last room.

i don't think it's necessary to return to heaven. as a conclusion, dedicate some time to tenshi and iku travelling together. they're on their way back, revisiting old friends who helped them along the way, enjoying the journey. their last stop is the house of the elderly nawis (1-42). tenshi shows off the sword of hisou; she decided to keep it not as a trophy to show her family but as proof of the bonds of her companions. surrounded by friends, tenshi and iku decide to part ways with each other, knowing that the other will be alright. iku drifts among the clouds once more, and tenshi sets off for the horizon.

that's the plot that i'd write/just wrote. i don't really expect tenco's story iv to ever come out, though. i mentioned my first sidebar description earlier in this essay, but of course, you can see that it's been changed. 2 years ago, i read my hopeful prayer once more and was struck with a terrible melancholy, so now it reads this: "having come to terms with the fact that tenco's story iv will never be released, i can still live, knowing that the spirit of the journey will live on through kannnu's original works [...] meanwhile, furious shitposting".

on one level, tenco's story is a story, but in the process of following it, i came to think of the work itself as a journey too. you can constantly see kannnu's improvement between and even within each book. they have always drawn whatever they liked; what plot matters in the face of "I wanted to draw a beautiful sky." "I wanted to draw a fantastic battle." "I wanted to draw Dark Souls and Monster Hunter and Pokemon and Brave Fencer Musashi and Bokura no Taiyou and Touhou."

its not really kannnu's style to go back and tie up old ends. they just draw whatever makes them happy. so as i watch them continue to draw beautiful places and fantastic creatures, new characters heading out on journeys of their own or just enjoying their everyday lives, it's as if tenco's story never ended. the limits and consistency of that world ignored, and a new one springs up; in a way, the world of tenco's, which had such thin boundaries, just gets bigger.

but even so, having said all that, i still see them draw that short-haired tenshi from time to time. it makes me happy to see them remember tenco's story with such fondness. often crossing over with orion or roar or elweiss, you can see tenshi on another journey.

[infinitd]

Guilty

This is the last one. I’m already hovering the delete button but I have to type this one out first. It’s been sitting stewing and now festering in the back of my mind for way too long now. I’m guilty of way too much all at the same time and all of them with the singular cause that is me. Maybe this blog is public in that secret shared way some thigns get and the whole squad has BEEN reading it and trying to give healing and support in their own way without really knowing. lol. NOT. Well.... Where to even begin? Weed? Lix? Lovers? Parents? Brain? Siblings? Art? Pretty cool how they present themselves like that once you open the double bolted, extra secured walled off and guarded door. So lets do the order they’re already in.  Weed Is great and now it gives me anxiety and mild panic attacks. I get so paranoid I feel like the whole world is watching me and even now the primary craving is for fucking nicotine of all things and the association built between the 2 are too strong to break. Not that it would even be useful to. Weeds usefullness has run its course in my life and a dependancy I have spent the better part of a decade now has to go unsatisfied with a complete reversion to sobriety because alcohol was gotten over LONG ago. I’m still tending towards bingeing behaviour with that but its almsot always a reaction rather than an actual desire to get fuucked up. No more high nights floating just under my ceiling . Hours and hours of dota and that most NEET night time routines. No more weed first thing at parties or braais and hanging with friends too stoned to converse or just talking about weed like its the only thing in my life. Prepare for a million comments on how different I am and a tacit understanding that I probably wanna get high until everyone gets used to the idea of me just being and then aggresively EXISTING again. Along with all the negative attention that comes with that I have completely lost understanding and connection with. Well that’s weed I guess (Shit i got distracted and Imma have to read all this shit again )

Lix

 The bestie thing is all fucked up and my (probably correct) suspicion is that he’s just good old tired of me. I nthat friend way. There is literally no value to my friendship. Not even material and he’s unemployed at the moment so you know it’s bad. That last cash send felt like paying rent on a friendship and I figure he must have also felt pretty gross taking it even though he needed it. Lol I wont be doing that again.I’m just intellectually and emotionally inferior at the moment, Fuck the complex. It’s just faxx now. The other one is at least figureing out (bizarre and mildly fucked up) shit for himself but Stormu no Kyodai really is just about over now. The bands broken up and all those successful bands breakups make sense now. You’ve just drawn every but of moisture and goodness out of a thing and it gets husky and weird to keep tending to it. I haven’t been a decent human being never mind friend for so long that I completely udnerstand and agree with how I’m being handled. It doesn’t even hurt that bad. It’s just weird and awkward for everyone involved and it does me no good to be catching shots. especialyl when i’m not really doing anything about it then and there. It’s only ever fun if I have a reply and this time I don’t. not even a little one. Just weak allusions to “progress” when it’s just good old fashioned laziness now. So this I deserve and I’m trying to cultivate my own friendships but my source material to work with now isn’t great and invariably I will probably find myself in a similar position to him before long. That weed addition is pretty rough on anything truly meaningful. All in all it is pretty sad that things can go this way especialyl with the newest addition of having productive and contributary friends in your life. Of course it’sa  good thing but it did kinda eliminate me from the running and that makes me lame. Now it’s just navigating this kinda weird and uncomfortable space where he wont say shit to cause damage. I wotn say shit cos I have hope and in the meanwhile the relationship will circle the proverbial drain until distance, time or some other factor snaps the last frayed string. But it is what it is. Lovers

Is actualyl kinda good. The one thing i’ve reconciled at the seeming expense of everything else is love and relationships and my ways of dealing and itneracting with em. I don’t miss exes and I don’t pine over lost lovers other that the typical momentary lapses which is cool. My current love is great. She’s good to me and I’m trying to be to her and its just good, Good all round. All good. Goodness. I sometimes feel like im trying to convince my self of something when it coems to this but actions and results sort of show themselves and it’s just been a constant relief since I’ve surrendered to it really. I’m not even holding my breath for it to last or building foundation. I’m just doing and that seems to work out best when it comes to just about everything.( This does not Feel Good Inc). PRetty wild to me that the lvoers part of this is by far the shortest and best handled but its revelaton did come at the cost of everyting else so yeah...

Parents Is god fucking awful. I mean in truth it’s kind of incredible. I’ve got the best pair imaginable on my team but it’s the resignation that kills my heart of hearts. There is no more expectation of hope or action. No drive or threats. Just plain shoulder shrugs and even that i deserve but when I finally figred it out it floored me. I have no idea baout their intentions or plans anymore. I’m completely out of the loop for the whole family it seems and I’m jsut waiting for the announcement of the intervention or the move out order or the random cash giveaway to get rid of me, I don’t even know but if not for mom I’d have been kicked out long ago. That’s pretty much a certainty and that “mothering” thing is startign to show both it’s calue and its problems. It’s far too comfortable a place to give up easily especially when you don’t bother to be really self aware. But here we are typing the things out. That’s ...a thing.... That they’ll never read or know about and that’s ok. 

Brain

Is poop cos I smoked too much but its Ok too. The regeneration process is gonna be a trip of its own. Really uncomfortable and loopy with unexplainable feelings and intuitions but that’s also OK. Better than Ok it’s recovery. The body will will be right there trhrough the process. I’m even interested in things again. Siblings is also a bit fucky. The disappointment is tangible but they’re not allowed to give up yet. We all inherited that one and it does help when i see the glimmers of hope. I don’t feel garbage but it normally starts with e being normal and not being in my head while interacting. Doing that assuming the best thing I used to be so good at. E is over me and kinda frustrated. Very Kev of him. Neez is trying but she has another baby to babysit and care about and I’m a tangential concern at best. The Suicide scare kind of reminded them of my existence in a weird but valuable way but it’s not an angle Im really trying to take. Especially now that I jsut realised what that anrrative ust look like to everyone it was shared withg hand it certainly was with khan which means by extension by the rest of the family. Probably explains strange interations now while i’ve been willfully poblivious and now I have to work to be cool again but it also wont ever be the same again unless someone else fucks up. But that’s a life long journey and doesn’t feel like it has the same urgency as the others. I’m alot more understood than I thought I was and that’s not a bad thing .

Art I’m going to go and make art and eat my girlfriends pussy and that’ll make me feel better and I’m excited for that.

Goodbye old complainy tumblr