#also this isn't me saying the emotions characters express while under the influence of the syndrome aren't 'real'

[onewholivesinloops]

one of the most interesting things about ep16 of gou is that rika assumes everything satoko is doing is bc of hinamizawa syndrome and satoko is deliberately playing into this with all of the neck scratching even though she's quite lucid and is being vulnerable with someone else for the first time in so long, venting emotions she's been circling around all this time, so the emotions she's expressing are real and they're hers, and the way she's trying to reach out while still not revealing her entire hand by hiding those emotions behind the syndrome and oyashiro-sama is a lot like magic and beatrice in umineko. satoko's whole attitude to looping is a lot like yasu and maria's killing people with magic to "play out their fantasies and vent their feelings" and this is something that can be seen in the show from how satoko views the fragments as 'dreams' with the only final one truly mattering and even her fight with rika in the end where they constantly swap fragments only to end up back in the river as their high school selves when eua's influence is gone feels very surreal, but the venting stuff is also explicitly confirmed in the afterparty of hou+ and it's described as "a story within satoko"

[rumeysawrites]

Hi!!! I noticed your pfp is of a character of yours and I'm curious to find out more!! What's Rosena like? What wip is she from?

Hello!

Thank you! I appreciate this question a lot!

Rosena, her full name being "Rosena Lilium Freze", or "Rose" for short, is the main character of my current main WIP: Search For The Legendaries (book 1 of the Interdimensional series I'm planning & working on).

At the start of the series, she's a 13 year old girl finishing off middle school and preparing for highschool, and at the end of the 11 and a half year the series runs for, she ends up in her 25th birthday.

For the start of the story, Rosena has three main problems: the challenges and people she has to deal with due to her disability (I made her half-blind like myself, sekf expression!), the friends she had closer leaving one by one, and her power she discovered a few months prior to the story's start. Her problems increase even more when her (and her best friend she's barely holding contact with due to distance) are tangled up in the whole "legend", "crystals", "dimensions", "spirits", and "organizations" thingies.

First book has a little bit more of slow-paced arc for Rosena as she tries to understand and decide if accepting BSA's invite to train her powers is a good idea. She wants to have a chanue in her life but is also nervoys and anxious about all the fantastical elements being not so unreal, as well as possibly travelling to a different dimension and being imvolved with a legend. She also realizes she is then also going to be leaving herold life and remaining friends behind. So the first book focuses on this dilrmma, combined newly appearing teenage feelings of identity, and possibility her actions putting lives in danger. She does have her parents, siblings, and her best friend Tom supporting her, however she herself will have to figure out the right decision for herself, by herself.

Which brings me to the emotional mess trying to seem put togather by a ductape, that is her personality.

She's a kindhearted, caring, and compassionate person, but unlike most of the other Legendary Carriers, she isn't necessarily idealistic or self-sacrificing. She, to tell the truth, is still trying to figure out who she truly wants to be and wants to be herself without worrying about being judged or seen as "different" or "special". With heavy "". She basically wants to be accepyed as who she is and live like "normal". And since she's currently living through the opposite of thenl life she dreams of (especially outside the five people mentioned before), she is very much unhappy with her life. Obviously she doesn't know what she really need to feel that fulfillment, yet.

Besides this, she's slso very emotionally driven and although she tries to be logical, her emotions can throw all logic out of wack. She's incredibly loyal to her loved ones and values them greatly. She can (at the start at least), let other people influence her thought process so easily (example, when she talks to Kent, she's convinced about the legend being a goal of BSA, and possibly being real, but after talking to Tom, she also agrees with him, trying to convince herself too that legends are not real). She has a caring and protective side, as well as a brave and persevering side that she comes to discovers in time. She isn't aware of this side of her at the beginning, as she's too busy overthinking anything ans everything in her life and often crying about things she has no control over but feels like she does and could've done better.

If I had to describe Rosena more simply, I'd say she's a strong girl with lots of flaws she'll have to overcom, with lots of emotions worn on her sleeve, while some others being bottled up under her timid and quietappearance.

And finally, her powers! So, there are several "ability" types in the Interdimensional series, and most people do have more then one type. Rosena's main power is temprature manipulation, with her Trick (inner energy based magic) elements being ice, fire, water, and lide (life spells are basically defense, support, and healing spells). Her temprature manipulation can work both ways too, but works best in creating a colder environment / freezing. She isn't a physical fighter, like at all (Kent even describes her to be unfit for combat). But she makes up for it by being one of the better spellcasters in the series, especially ibcreased by the fact that she has the Legendary Crystal of Life, which lets her access to more life Trick than most anyone else. She later tries to also learn Essence (one of the outside sourced magic systems), and while she can channel it quite fine, she doesn't have nearly enough practice to master it. Thus she only tries to use it when situation gets real dire. Finally, there are "specislities" for everyone (so far every human at least), which are non-magical, natural talents each person has. For Rosena, it's her senses, her senses besides sight at least. Her senses aren't magically heightened or anything, but she has more sensitive senses thanks to using three of them instead of her sight. For example, her senses of hearing and smell can be more helpful for her sense of direction, rather than her sight.

Also I'm glad you noticed the picture is of an original character. This picture is drawn by one of my good friends who's also both my critique partner and one of the character designers (going by the names Frosty or Kat on Quotev, don't know or think she has Tumblr). Shout-out and huge thank you to her! This design of hers applies moreso to book 2 onwards, sfter she's fully involved with Yugenri and BSA, as I'm planning to ask for a pre-fantasy design for book 1 Rosena.

Thank you again for the question and I hope the rambling was alright.😊

[wetcatspellcaster]

“But instead I thought, 'hey, you know, I get it. Break ups are hard. There's obviously some anger there, and you've had no one to express it to. Maybe it’s ok you built a house instead of coming to help, despite being literally invulnerable’. So I talked to Wyll, and we started inviting him to things. We checked in on him, we offered to let him join us on missions - though he never came. We tried to make him feel... included.”

Karlach ran her fingers through her hair, “I invited him to my birthday party - can you imagine that man, the way he is now, with a bunch of my friends, at my birthday? My first proper party, in fucking years, never mind my first birthday since I was freed from Avernus for good? Astarion was… horrible. Angry. Prowling like an animal. All but spitting on everyone else there, just for the sin of being people, you know, with flaws, and with their mistakes and their lives. Someone said something silly, and he charmed them, right there in front of me. Asked them to admit they were an idiot. He only stopped because I asked him to, and I saw it - the moment in his eyes, when he remembered I was a person he was supposed to care about. It took him longer than it should. And it was like he didn’t even consider the rest of them to be real people, just extensions of me.”

“But… we kept trying. We made things smaller, so it was just us, like the good old days. But… he just got worse. Crueller. At first, he only hurt himself, hosting those big grand parties with every vice under the sun, that he clearly hated, and fucking everything that moved, just to prove he could. And then when, surprise! That didn’t make him any less fucking miserable! He just started lashing out at us. Made us meet him at the Caress. Told us all the terrible things he was doing, just so they had an audience beyond himself. The things he used to say to Wyll…”

Thank you for the ask! :D

So, as I said in the chapter endnotes, this was my first time writing Karlach properly (you will note that she now keeps coming up in An Honest Lie bc I awkwardly have to pretend she's always been there, and everything else I wrote was Early Access). I was super nervous when posting! 1. bc she's a new character and I found her voice difficult to get down. 2. bc she's the fan favourite and right out of the gate, I was making her suffer :-)

Saying all that, Karlach was a really fun POV for this fic and this chapter's development specifically bc while she is self-sacrificing, I also think she is not as much so as Wyll, or my Tav. She's been through too much shit in her life and been burned by trusting people like Gortash, so if a guy looks shady af and treats her like shit, I think she has absolutely has a cut-off point, no matter who that person is or was to her in her past. She isn't just going to suffer for the sake of it, she will call a bastard a bastard if she needs to... unlike the resident martyrs of the party.

So yeah. I had Astarion ruin a birthday party :') This is partly bc, for all that this fic deals with Astarion's villain era, I'm not a Dead Dove girlie, so I needed the evil things he does to have emotional impact without being gruesome or triggering. I figured ruining our Best Gal's birthday would be a pretty effective crime to add to the list.

Why was Astarion a bitch at this birthday? A number of reasons. The first is that it hurt to see Karlach and Wyll happy and free of infernal influence. The second is that... Astarion is just forgetting how it works to be around people. Manipulating people he's still got down, but just... being in a space? With people he cannot control and has no power over, who he just has to let slip up and fumble and be generally choatic around him? I imagine the inhuman monster isolated and frozen in time without his soul forgot that pretty quickly, after a year without anybody but those he bought to his side on his own terms.

It truly is as Karlach says: he got angry at others "just for the sin of being people". Astarion is no longer human/mortal, and he cannot relate to humans anymore. He also cannot stand seeing other people happy in ways that did not require any supernatural aid or sacrifice - a reminder that he could've done it that way, if he'd been brave enough to risk it - and he also doesn't like people who seem undeserving of that happiness - ie. people who just seem to be 'doing fine' without any seeming effort.

What did the person who was charmed say to trigger it? Well, I think they were maybe one of those type of people: an average guy who'd stumbled into something good that he didn't really deserve through circumstances that were not his doing. I imagined him as a pretty arrogant mercenary that would be in Karlach/Wyll's wider circle of friends (a guest of a guest, say, in the adventuring trade), who is bragging and peacocking and isn't really a good person? Just an alright one? But talking about himself like he's the dog's bollocks. And Astarion got bored of him talking and so he charmed him and humiliated him, bc he was frustrated with this random man's existence and also bored.

In regards to the final paragraph, I struggle to imagine Ascended!Astarion as someone who is crass enough to often resort to violence. I imagine his brand of cruelty as being a lot more psychologically driven. For all that game Astarion brags about loving to kill, his arsenal is, ultimately, emotional and sexual manipulation first and foremost. So in this 'descent into villainy' (again, the non-dead dove edition), I tried to make Astarion's evil manifest by making people physically and emotionally uncomfortable through his behaviour. Pushing them to see how far they'd break, or how far they'd compromise themselves and their morals to be around him. Especially people like Wyll and Karlach, who would care if he hurt himself or make up narratives about how it was a cry for help. I think partly, Ascended!Astarion loves to watch these characters twist themselves into knots trying to find excuses for his behaviour, striving to remain kind to him and remain his friend even as it gets harder and harder. And also, maybe, somewhere, it's a fun test for him - to prove that people still care, that he still has people who care for him, until they don't and they're gone.

DVD commentary ask

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts: 366 – Full Moon

O  I wish I could be more engaged in the business of Shigaraki’s “ideal form.”  It’s very hard to get there, though, when my mind is stuck wrestling with questions about the mechanics of the possession and the psychological balance between the relevant parties.  Like, if this is a form born from Shigaraki’s psyche—and all the hands and family faces say it is—then why isn't more of Shigaraki apparent in the body's active consciousness? Conversely, if the AFO vestige's will is so overpowering, why doesn’t anything of AFO’s psyche seem to have ever been reflected in the shifting, unsettled form he's currently controlling?

Also, did AFO and Ujiko have any idea this is what the process would look like?  I would assume so, since VFO talked some chapters ago about the “ideal form” thing, but while I can buy Ujiko finding this all very fascinating, AFO, who has previously expressed distaste for desperate struggles,(1) seems like he’d find it pretty unsightly, especially as something he might be stuck with himself because of Shigarak’s subconscious!

(Continued under the cut.)

O  While I’m on the topic of the mechanics of this body, this whole business of heroes “besting” Shigaraki’s initial form is really poorly expressed.  And that’s kinda bizarre!  Because, like, okay: during the war?  I could believe Shigaraki’s body was having trouble keeping up with the damage there!  He developed those awful cracks and fissures, he showed burns, he got thrown around, all of that.  It was painful to watch because I was convinced of the pain he was in.

But this?  We watched him shrug off a laser canon. Bakugou’s biggest attack left little more than a skid mark on his face.  The electrification stopped being relevant approximately two chapters after it was introduced..  Mirko got some good kicks in, though I struggle to understand why they were markedly more effective than Suneater’s attack. A lot of the monster hands have been damaged, sure, but since those were equated with fingernails and hair, I don't see why continuing to blast them apart would have more than a negligible effect.(2)

No part of this is as effectively, convincingly portrayed as the similar fights during the war; indeed, I've spent most of this time thinking the heroes' attacks aren't having much effect explicitly because of things like Mirio and ShigAFO himself saying that Shigaraki's body is just too tough. So to have this magic fiat wand waved over the fight just feels like Horikoshi's trying to—and forgive me the use of this rather loaded term—gaslight me about what's been going on this whole time.

The alleged stress and panic are also murkily expressed.  We’ve watched VFO have a fear response to Bakugou, tied in some nebulous way to the second OFA bearer, but because that relationship is still entirely unexplored, we don’t know why it would be causing him to panic.  And anyway, the focus of the narration here isn’t even on VFO; it’s on Shigaraki. He certainly has all the reason in the world to feel stressed and panicked, but then I’m right back to the beginning: how can Shigaraki be feeling or influencing much of anything right now when he’s been so thoroughly subsumed by VFO?

And that’s all a shame!  Because I truly did have some Feelings upon looking at the hand armor.  All that horror, externalized as a defense mechanism, his family’s hands displayed, not as something to disgust and reassure him, their presence entirely a means to steer his emotional state, but rather as something to protect him, to physically shield him against the damage the world is so set on doing to him.  It really is incredibly evocative!  But it’s evocative of Shigaraki, and if that’s going to be the case, I wish this whole fight could have been with Shigaraki, not with an ever-so-slightly Tomura-shaded All For One.

O  Suneater continues to be the character who is Most Shoujo in this Extremely Shounen manga.  God, him saying Mirio’s name as Shigaraki’s shadow looms above him, right before the blow lands.  GOD.  As soon as I parsed that chain of events, I was right back to him startling awake with Mirio’s name on his lips at the exact, simultaneous instant Mirio lost his quirk.  They are the Most Valid ship, actually.

O  Jeanist interposing himself in between ShigAFO and Bakugou is good stuff, though I can’t help but sigh for the plot we might have had, of a defenseless Jeanist refusing to leave Bakugou’s side even as certain death advances because he’s still weaving Bakugou’s heart fibers back together.  Hell, you could even have had Edgeshot’s last stand there, and it still wouldn’t have had much impact, but throw that little flashback to his school days with Jeanist in and the contents of his flashback would have lent more weight to his stand because it would have been in defense of someone he had an actual relationship with,(3) even if that relationship was only revealed at the last second.

Because the Edgeshot stuff continues to be confounding even after the fact, let me add: if Edgeshot’s so capable of mucking around with peoples’ organs, why not go fuck around with Shigaraki’s heart?  Are we meant to believe Shigaraki’s body is too tough to pierce?  Probably Edgeshot shouldn’t have been the one to take down Re-Destro, then!  But even setting aside what seems like it ought to be the relatively similar toughnesses of Re-Destro in full Stress mode and Shigaraki post-surgery, god knows ShigAFO flaps his jaws enough with villain monologues; just go in through his mouth!

See?  I wanted to talk about how I like this fight’s Jeanist+Bakugou beats, and I can’t even do that without having to contend with how That Ninja I Hate got shoehorned in in the most awkward way imaginable.

O  The only reason I am not going to spend a paragraph harping on the “two seconds” bit is because it’s all internal, and thoughts can process extremely quickly.  But it’s cutting it very close, and I am kiiiind of already thinking ahead to the number of seconds the anime is going to require for that scene to get through the voice-acting alone. In fairness, though, Jeanist's more coherent thoughts are confined to only two panels, which are presumably running concurrently with Mirio's higher panel-count but also far more fragmentary monologue. So I can reasonably believe, albeit just barely, that those streams of thoughts could happen in only two seconds.

O  The ass joke is a massive tonal swerve, but honestly, I can’t really hold it against the story.  Recall that Sir Nighteye’s introduction was him manning a tickle torture machine; the man idolized All Might, whose highest form of humor is puns.  Nighteye's sense of humor has never been as dignified as his hero persona, so I 100% believe that he thought Mirio’s butt jokes were hilarious.

Also too, I remember that one of the things Mirio told Deku after Nighteye’s death is that, while Sir might have been harsh with Deku, he actually laughed a lot when it was just him and Mirio, and so I really liked that the little flashback here is consistent with that dynamic.

I do kind of wish Mirio’s face sold the gag better; him looking like he’s on the verge of a hernia kind of detracts from the intended humor, at least to me.  It just makes it look effortful, and a good non-sequitur should not look that labored.

ShigAFO’s little puffed exhalation of laughter is funny, though.  It reminds me of his little “Tap” sound effect talk bubble back in Deika.

O  Deku’s here, biiiiiig whoop.  I have all of two thoughts on this: 

I wasn't yet doing chapter posts back then, but I called it on the thing Deku was reacting to back in 357 being the Americans’ jets.  I assume plenty of other people did too, though; it really was the only even pseudo-reasonable way for him to get to this fight in time with Warp Gate off the table.  I imagine we’ll open next week with a flashback to that.

Well, at least we can get on with things here, maybe finally see what, if anything whatsoever, Deku’s going to try on the whole Saving Shigaraki front.  “Getting on with things” is about all the positivity I can muster, however, which I think we can all agree is a far cry from the fist-pumping and hollering that was probably the intended response.

More, perhaps, on Deku and the gaping failures of this story’s teamwork narratives next time.

--

1:  Nana, All Might, everything he or his vestige have said about people who lack the power to make a difference.

2: If we were still in the part of the story where caloric intake was a factor in being able to produce physical effects, I might be willing to assume Shigaraki's body was just running low on energy reserves, but the fact that he can still whip out hand armor family puppet battering rams disinclined me to that explanation.

3:  I realize there’s emotional weight to be had in sacrifice for an innocent, someone the sacrificer doesn’t even know, solely because it’s the right thing to do, but even that isn’t how the story chose to frame Edgeshot’s sacrifice for Bakugou.  It went with the “adults sacrificing for the next generation” angle, which immediately runs into the problem of Bakugou and Edgeshot not even being in a separate generation, age-wise.

[appledotcodotuk]

why the hive fckin suck at its job: a rant

spoilers for tgwdlm ahead!

first of all, it's important to consider what exactly the hive's job is. my answer is... who the fuck knows. literally. what is the hive's aim. what do you want Paul? more like, what do you want hive? let's find out!

it kinda evolves, as the play progresses. the intial aim of the hive, and one that does actually remain consistent is the constant burning need to grow and devour and gain more and more (insert capitalism metaphor here).

however, this is distorted by the people it possess who influence that aim, as we'll see later.

also the fact it crashes into a theatre displaying Mamma Mia gives the hive the motive it need to fit the world around it to the structure of the musical. having no originality of its own, the hive instead just picks up what is given to it. kinda like an evil baby.

it wants uniformity, that is indeed its ultimate goal and desire, no duh. it thinks it can achieve that through musical theatre, shame that the hive is dead wrong. cause the hive fucking sucks at its own job / aim / ultimate purpose / one concrete goal that motivates all its actions.

can't maintain control over its subjects

okay, so, the hive wants uniformity. it wants everyone to be dancing to the beat of its own tune. right? yeah. shame it literally can't keep its own possessed subjects in line at all. at the risk of sounding like the 10th doctor waxing lyrical abt humanity for the 50th time, humans are really difficult to control cause we're not really motivated by an altruistic allegiance to one primary good. we've got icky emotions that often move us to do stupid unpredictable stuff way more. it makes me wonder if the reason the hive wanted to use musical theatre to try and persuade ppl was cause it seems to think that is how theyll get emotive humans; through emotive songs. anyways. let's look at some examples shall weeeee?

Mr Davidson:

so, Mr Davidson. funnily enough, he's the guy whose in part acting as the hive trying to figure out what it wants through his interactions w/ Paul. every person it possess gives it just a bit more humanity and curiosity abt the world it is currently taking over. at least I think so. hence why as the musical develops u get character's like possessed!Alice wondering 'why does it hurt to love?' - the change in music and mood to something much more introspective really suggests to me that the hive is beginning to question the thoughts and emotions of its human hosts.

Mr Davidson is a family man through and through, he loves his wife Carol. she's his muse, his source of light. his feelings for her are not concrete or easy to explain and solve - hence why his sudden ahem demand of her is so hilarious and also jarring. it completely clashes with the 'I want song' which is simple, and often pushes forward a wider cause. not so with Mr Davidson, he just really loves his wife man. enough to break a frickin alien possession.

tbh I think its hilarious that (at least to me) the hive has to force him to forget and continue with the song, like, he straight up is just talking to his wife in that phone call, talking, not singing. so, no possession until he reverts back into song. ergo, the hive cannot maintain the uniformity it wants. even from the get go when theoretically its control should be stronger cause it has less ppl to co-ordinate. bad. at. its. job.

Paul:

this one hurts folks. yes, I know it's generally agreed, though somewhat debated that the state of Paul by the end of the tgwdlm is not purely possessed. I agree. once again, the hive is unable to truly enforce uniformity.

at this point, the motives of Paul and the hive are kinda just mixed, neither fully human nor fully alien. hence the constant shifts between pleeing for her to get away, to hide, to stay safe: 'what if the only choice is you have to sing to survive' and just full on old style hive nastiness 'let me puke in your mouth and just open your food bin girl' (so romantic 🥰 /j).

the hive has gone away from its original aim, and become something... different. no longer stuck to just one type of genre or style of song, it's really clever to show the developing complexity of the hive by showing how it is now juggling lots of different motifs with references to all the old songs from before recontextualised in a new way - its learning. evil baby... no longer uniform.

general miscommunication:

there are several instances of the hive not fully having uniform control over its subjects. for instance, right after not your seed with the three teens having to like... calibrate. they aren't just completely connected then?? also, this is a very small thing, but uhhhh at the end of inevitable when Paul is about to say the apotheosis is upon... the chorus interrupts him with USSSSSSS. interruptions??? not very in sync of u hive.

I think this inability to exert uniformity is also shown in the contrast between genre of musical theatre. my alien abomination cannot decide whether it wants to be the more modern edgy rock musical (join us (and die), not your seed ) or super happy go lucky old style musical theatre (lah dee dah dah day, and inevitable). it tries to do both, even while trying to encourage union, and sticking to one thing. hypocrite!!!!!

2. aims are guided by the people it possess

so, I mentioned this a bit already, but the hive isn't only mutating the humans, the humans are mutating the hive right back. this is more an interesting observation than any actual analysis but let's goooo.

greenpeace girl:

I think it's very likely that greenpeace girl is one of the first to be possessed. This is probably easily debunkable but whatever this analysis is flying by the seat or its pants anywayyyyy. why? cause where else would it pick up that whole 'this planet needs fixing' thing? it's interesting too, cause it morphs from expressing the desire to join hands and sing together, unity and peace with no actual action behind it. this then goes right to the other end, with the hive going 'fine I'll do it myself' and trying to save things by enforcing a dictatorship on the world. it develops and changes, and strays from its original means of accomplishing its aims! speaking oooooof...

3. inconsistent in means of accomplishing aims

okay, ur an evil hive mind. u think musicals are the way to win over these silly humans cause they're all weak and emotive and seem to respond to them. but, wait! schwoopsie! you haven't realised that for emotional depth and growth to mean anything, you need there to be established development and well... growth. otherwise the sentiments are as vague as the ones expressed in What Do You Want, Paul?

this show has genuine emotional moments, just not really during the musical numbers WITH EXCEPTIONS. any strife is smoothed over quickly, and so the development and change that would have to go into such growth is just gone. (see, You Tied Up My Heart) all so it can achieve its own desire to grow and grow and grow, maybe a metaphor for art being killed under late stage capitalism??

what actually matters is the impact the songs have afterwards, in causing a death - because we have a bond and care abt these characters. those short scenes between Paul and Emma are actually way more resonant than any song. except... inevitable, and also not your seed a bit. at this point the hive has learnt a thing or two, and can actually twist human emotion a little. but for it to do that, it has to reject the uniformity it prizes, and be adaptable. point towards being more human than it first thought? methinks so. and yet it's just not enough...

it's also why let it out, to me, feels really ingenuine. Paul has expressed himself in much better ways already. what they're doing is clearly paining him, and hurting the guy. he's terrified bless.

you can't force someone into being emotional vulnerable, man.

it's why all the deaths for the characters who are forced to express themselves are really violent, involving them being ripped open - literally forcing them to expose themselves from the 'inside out' as Alice reflects in Not Your Seed. you can't force genuine emotional connection, it has to be fostered, shown in the much more affecting relationship of Paul and Emma. the only reason the hive actually has power over our characters is because of these genuine emotional connections, which it tries and often fails to take advantage of, resulting in just resorting to brute violence. messy hive, very messy.

at the core, the musical's a kinda attack on that toxic positivity mindst: trying to force people to reach the sort of easy solutions by sharing feelings in a way that feels pretty invasive and deciding you are instantly fixed. the problems these characters face are jarringly not really what you'd expect a character in a musical to face, cheating, a lot of it, mid-life crisis. problems that are bland, or wayyyy too real. this is purposefully done, to reveal just how silly the hive's aim to use musical theatre to solve everyone's problem is. life is more complex than that smh.

4. a human can write a much more expressive, and genuine song than they ever could lol

u know which song I'm talking abt. what more is there to say. so much for making persuasive songs to tempt people over.

5. make me sad cause they took some perfectly nice ppl and funked them up 😭

this was a stupid point lol. basically I'm just bitter that this hive took a bunch of perfectly okay ppl and gave them hive brain. screw u hive. I swear I'm gonna watch Black Friday soon, cause I'm sure it's gonna completely destroy every thought I've had so far, but whateve,,, just take this as a look at tgwdlm like it's a stand-alone piece.

these guys are supposed to all be 'individuals' on one level, but also 'appendages of a much larger organism'. there's a little too much individualism and fracturing to be cohesive enough to do that I feel. the hive to me is not an infallible, unstoppable force, in fact, every human it takes over only brings it closer to understanding us. so that's maybe a slight positive note??? idk ?! I just have lots of thoughts and feelings abt this musical even if this doesn't make sense I'm proud i wrote it down hehe.