#and arent inherently flawed

[foxyatlas]

Currently reading The Raven Cycle series (on book 4) and Adam is so so against taking money from his friends that it makes me want to read a sugar daddy au with him. No sex needed, I just want to see Adam take some goddamn help and have to shut up about it.

[ayzenigma]

hello yes i am still thinking about the Multiple factions at work, and specifically about the Hissers, as they were called

given some other hisses and darting/disapparating shadows, these are presumably the same people who were on the ship before/when the ExU squad were. and they're after the circlet.

so why didn't they take the chest with the circlet earlier?

the sailors/soldiers were dead long enough for their bodies to cool (Dorian touched "cold flesh"), so I feel like whoever killed them would definitely have had time to take the circlet... at least if they could touch it...

so is there something else we're missing (besides, like. all the things we are missing), or are these Hissers or whoever... good aligned and unable to carry the circlet (even with the crate) like Dorian and Orym couldn't???

[quercus-queer]

Perhaps, we should simply stop allowing atla content to be produced... perhaps society has progressed past the need for atla content from the creators and hollywood... perhaps fan content is superior... perhaps-

[reanimationstation]

Thanks to the anons I got a cursed idea for a post, one of those put x in the tags and your opinion on x, except it goes, put in the tags if you're a victor or adam apologist and also put in the tags if you think Clerval says fuck or not. Of course this post won't actually be made because I do NOT want the frankenstein discourse in my notifs BUT IT'S FUNNY IN MY HEAD.

ok well too late this is the post now. im happy to have frankenstein disk horse in my notifs because its funny.

so basically,

put in the tags if you're a victor or adam apologist and also put in the tags if you think Clerval says fuck or not

and for fun put it in the tags of youre pro or anti (or neutral) on gatchalife victor

[bloodpacks-archive]

oh people. people don’t like satine?? i- 👁👄👁

[prettyboykatsuki-moved]

Do you have any tips on how to like. Manage insecurity lol

im told i have a pessimistic way of handling this specific thing so take this advice with a grain of salt but i break like all inner issues down into two parts. the practical application and theory

the practical application for managing insecurity is that theres only two states for that thing. can be changed and can’t be changed. if something can’t be changed than worrying is a waste of time. if it can then i can work to change it, then the question is, is it worth it? as in, does making this change serve me as a person or improve my quality of life and am i doing it for the right reason?

the second and more important imo is the theory of insecurity which is why told im kinda pessimistic shfjsnf

but my mindset is basically 1. there’s nothing self-righteous about your misery and 2. thinking you are by some measure uniquely awful is also a complex of thinking you are special.

insecurity is a really insidious things because it places importance on very arbitrary things. and its made so big by social media. you should care about the opinions of people who are important to you and who love you but strangers are just strangers. and people who don’t know you intimately cant make full enough judgements of what makes you good or bad

but ultimately i think of my own self hatred as kind of lame and thats why i dont sink to deep into it anymore. my insecurity is not accurate measure of who am i in the same way my accomplishments aren’t. im not a uniquely evil monster just like im not a heavenly saint

my bodies shaped like that because bodies look like that. my teeth are yellow because sometimes they stain. im annoying sometimes and sometimes im inconsiderate and i isolate often. these are qualities about me i dislike and can feel insecure about but they’re not some machiavellian, radical evil. just like my good traits arent some inherent divine goodness

insecurities are reflections of the world around us and the people we encounter. your insecurities don’t show up out of thin air. they’re brought and imposed upon you through a long life and its normal to have them and working through them is a life long process

but the reason ive gradually become less insecure is because having this intense fixation on my flaws was honestly a massive waste of my time lmao. my miserable and pitiful outbursts were eating away at my long and beautiful life. if i spent even half of the time i did as a young kid worrying about my appearance on literally anything else i might’ve been the next frank ocean. my suffering wasn’t righteous. it didn’t make me special or cool or interesting.

be cringe and weird. be ugly and outdated. be gross and sad. what do you want to see when you look back at your life? beautiful misery or ugly and unkempt joy? its not a fix but it helped me a lot to think that way even if its morbid or pessimistic.

when im insecure the little voice in my head goes “but does it matter?” because i taught to do that. it usually doesn’t matter because a lot if it’s arbitrary. thats my two cents

[dekusleftsock]

Rq thought process for later when I go more into detail about it before I forget (in school atm)

The most fundamental part about Izuku’s character is the fact that he is the side character MADE into the mc. That’s the point of ofa; even though Katsuki fits most of the details of being the main character, he never is.

But we all know this right? I mean, this account IS for spreading less well known theories/story/character analysis, sure, putting the picture together for people who don’t fully get that is important. Giving hope, all that junk.

But what it’s REALLY for is spreading my own analysis and ideas of the story to you! It’s all for fun, I love doing this, but it still has a purpose which is letting people know why things are the way they are in mha.

But the fact that Izuku fits the idea of the “side character”, the unimportant character, is still rather common in stories. The mc has a journey of finding their own way of doing the thing everyone else can do and does it. The point of their arc is about acceptance or disability or whatever other allegory junk that story has going on. Toh comes to mind first.

But Izuku’s arc, since CHAPTER ONE, has been about being human in an “inhuman society” if you will. Being born average and having to work twice as hard as everyone else does.

I’ve seen Izuku being the “new symbol of peace” (pretty much all might 2.0) or “the symbol of hope” (even though that fits uraraka more) or literally anything else.

But this doesn’t FIT Izuku. If horikoshi has been showing you how these ideas of being extraordinary is inherently flawed, how hero society itself is flawed, why would he make his main character fit into this same idea of “what makes a hero” that the story ACTIVELY TRIES TO BREAKDOWN AND SHOWS IS WRONG!

Worst part about this is that these people will usually be the same ones saying that hero society is flawed and defend any of the villains because they’re also victims. YEAH, THEY ARE, BUT THAT DOESNT MEAN THEY ARENT GIVEN ACCOUNTABILITY??? EVERY redeemable/atonable character in this story so far has shown taking ACCOUNTABILITY for their crappy actions. But people seem to think the guilt they form is enough and all they get is a slap on the wrist. Like what??? That’s not the point! It’s about accountability for crappy actions and how it’s never too late to be saved or change.

Anyway, Izuku is going to represent being a FLAWED hero, so he can break down the barriers between civilians and heroes, to get rid of this idea that they should treat these heroes like celebrities. He’s not gonna be this new all might, or magically gain public speaking skills, he’s going to be himself. A hero that tries his best, even when he does fail. To realize that suicide doesn’t HAVE TO BE his best.

[calebwittebane]

ive struggled w suicidal ideation my whole life, and you bet your ass my mental response to many a crisis is "well, i guess i should just kill myself now" and yet at the same time you would not believe how much i wanna survive. like, my will to live is almost overwhelming. im not even particularly scared of dying, i just dont wanna. on some level i always want to and yet i truly, really dont. its not a zest for life, per se, because i dont see life as inherently joyful or inspiring, and joy is scarce. but i see people say that if the apocalypse were to happen, theyd rather die quickly, and brother, that couldnt be me. i could be starving and burnt and wounded and sick and id be clawing my way thru. like fuck no. im living. is it spite? i guess i want to stick around and see what happens. still, what else can i do but live? with all the things i struggle with, sometimes it really feels like a part of my brain has been furiously mashing the self-destruct button, but i refuse. often i see existence itself as a form of torture, but its mine, mine to experience, mine to keep. i fail at many things, im a deeply flawed person, i suffer in ways that may never be alleviated, i disconnect from reality, i often feel that nothing is real, or all is in me, or there is no me, or there are no things that arent me, or there is a multitude of factors that otherwise would shatter the facade of what i logically know to be reality, and yet i perservere. i'm afraid of pain, misery, loneliness, war, catastrophes, and all these are the reality for many, some are the reality for me, and it soon may be all of them, but i want to live. even if i felt no pride, no joy, no pleasure, and was never going to feel them again, i would chase survival. i want to live! what an unbelievably narrow slice of history and universe and what-is-outside-of-both i happen to exist in. and what abundance can be found in that slice... i want to see it transpire. this incredibly insignificant result of uncountable coincidences, i quite like it, even if i hate it. it is mine. im just a bunch of gelatinous substance that can think, and i love it!

[elmflowers]

Make the PMMN superhero post. Do it

fuckin bet lets go

obvious one: superman/clark kent and madoka kaname

both represent the platonic ideal of hope and both are sort of protected by the plot wherein they will always "win" in the end bc of how they represent hope in the story. what makes it interesting is how they "win", what gets sacrificed along the way (madoka sacrificing her individuality and "humanity" for a greater good and superman being the loneliest being on earth and constantly putting himself in danger and as this icon rather than human, despite clark kent very much being Human)

batman/bruce wayne and homura akemi

other than the clear gay parallels between madohomu and superbat, homura and batman are people who have suffered significant loss and have great love within their hearts, which they use to protect people they love. bruce is strongly motivated by his parent's death + catholic guilt despite being half jew half probably protestant what happened there buddy and homura her catholic guilt upbringing + idolized bestie death combo. both characters are somewhat jaded and not necessarily the pure platonic ideal of hope their bestie personifies, but if you look at them for a little bit, you go, "Oh shit, these bitches are bleeding hearts". also how they interact with their gay partner i mean best friend, wherein batman sees superman as hope and what gives him the ability to keep going because if there's someone as good as him can exist then its worth it, while homura pinpoints madoka as her motivation to keep going, tunneling her vision and essentially being the only reason she still tries to save people and live.

green lantern/hal jordan and sayaka miki

both want to be heroes but are in a system wherein they are exploited using their drive to do good. hal jordan became a poster child for the green lantern corp and basically trapped in this cycle of illusion of choice wherein he supposedly! can quit, but no hes has to keep coming back. he slowly loses touch with his "humanity" (ie his home, his friends, his hobbies, etc) and it gets replaced with his job (literal icon of marx's theory of alienation). sayaka miki wants to be a magical girl because she wants to help other people and save them, she wants to do good and thats in contrast to the fact that being a magical girl does separate her from her "humanity" (her soul got fucking ripped out) and that she does not feel like she will ever be good enough because she is a flawed person (girl youre 13 youre going to have flaws). both are driven to a point wherein their roles are separating them from what they feel as their humanity that they succumb to despair after a final break (for hal jordan his home town coast city being fucking vaporized while he was off world and for sayaka hitomi going out with kyousuke) that makes them realize how fucked everything is and they cant handle it anymore. sayaka becomes oktavia and hal becomes parallax.

john constantine and kyoko sakura

okay im breaking a rule, constantine is a dc character but not necessarily a hero. lol. lmao. anyways

both have fucked up in the past and made a serious mistake that does not allow them to go back to who they were before (constantine in newcastle, kyoko with her wish). they are both jaded people who act tough and seem like they only look out for themselves, but routinely go out of their way to help others because they are inherently good people. theyre both kind of assholes in their own way and also both seriously hotheaded. both are also extremely experienced within their area of expertise.

nightwing/dick grayson and mami tomoe

iconic eldest daughter syndrome kids. pushes a face of happy go lucky vaguely mature and cheerful persona and hides their flaws like theyre going to fucking die if anyone sees that they arent necessarily perfect. incredibly fucked up past. a deep fear that influences a lot of their actions (dick does not want to turn out like bruce did, mami does not want people to leave her as she is a deeply insecure individual). has guilt complexes miles, miles wide. dead parents. both deeply insecure. go eldest daughters!

the jonker from sanic 2 and Cube

just little guys who committed so many crimes

[actualbird]

Oh god!

I really love the poly headcanons they are so sweet.... (or don't but that's part of it and i think the tot boys+MC deserve all the love the world has to give).

But, liking it or not, our 4 beloved boys are kinda complicated (that's what makes them perfect). Plus I never thought about how people get in poly relationships. So i was thinking, how do you think they all get into a polyrelationship together?

(I really have no idea of how that would happen)

hi, two anons!! im glad you guys liked my nxx team polycule stuff!! i'll answer these in one go, my "headcanon" (in quotes because i think this kinda turned into a character analysis/minific of sorts HAHA) being what first anon asked, How They Get Together.

heads up, wc of this is 1.9k words long so buckle up for a bit of a read jfsjdfkjbf

because first anon, youre right!!! the boys are stupendously complicated which i love so so much but canon has also shown us clearly that each of the boys' quirks and habits and tendencies causes a lot of (mostly played for laughs) friction. the bickering, the backhanded insults, the "im the best one here" preening contests. theyre all SOOOO RIDICULOUS and it is hilarious but yep! the boys r complex!! and that means this beautiful ship, imo, has a lot of phases to get to the actual romantic relationship bit.

how they get together, in my opinion, starts because of mc.

not in the sense that she matchmakes them all, but like.

phase 1 of the nxx team polycule is this:

through being in love with her (which we all know the boys 100% are), each of the boys come to terms with their own flaws and weaknesses. it's very apparent to me in all the story thus far that these boys are flawed as hell, it's very compelling but even more compelling to me is how all of them also do intense mental gymnastics to Not Confront Those Flaws. like, marius is a dickbag always teasing and toeing the line of insincerity, vyn is a controlling mf who always tries to sway situations to his benefit, artem is so repressed to the point that he has genuine trouble with emotions, luke is a self sacrificial bastard and also a huge hypocrite about how no, actually, hes the only one that should be hiding his pain and being dishonest, no dishonesty from other people!! in the beginning of the story, all the boys have their flaws and seem to have just kinda...not addressed how those flaws are harming them and the people around them.

and then mc rolls around and they all fall in love with her. and she sees those flaws and she doesnt let them slide. she challenges the boys in her own ways to see another side of the situation, to acknowledge what theyre doing. she doesnt want to get rid of flaws, thats impossible and also not cool. she just has this beautiful hope for like, all of humanity, that goodness can prevail with the right work. so when she sees her beloved nxx boys, she believes that for them as well.

which leads to phase 2 of the nxx team polycule:

the boys, more aware of themselves, become more aware of each other.

they werent Unaware of the others of course. it's just that they didnt like...truly connect on a personal level just yet. they saw the other teammembers with their emotional armor and flaws and saw a wall that wasnt worth looking past.

but after mc makes them realize that hey, flaws arent the end of the world actually, it's alright and the person behind them may just be worth it, the boys like. end up understanding the others. A LOT OF THIS BIT IS UNINTENTIONAL, ON THEIR PARTS KJDSBFS. like they stumble into understanding each other by accident, they didnt plan it, but over the course of nxx investigations, it's inevitable that they end up seeing the depths of the others. i delve into this a little bit in my fanfic "filler eps of the lost gold" where the boys are just going thru their actions and then trip over another boy's fears or desires and through that, gain a deeper understanding mutually.

and with understanding, sometimes, comes trust.

phase 3 of the nxx team polycule goes like this:

everybody in this team, whether they like it or not, whether they know it or not, has a heart that wants to give love so desperately.

marius lives in a world full of snakes so he cant have his heart on his sleeve for his own protection. vyn wants to be seen as perfect and the heart is inherently messy so he holds it back. artem for a very very long time was focused on work and success and achievement that he neglected his heart. and luke has been giving love all his life in a sense but in a way thats hidden.

all these tendencies that are brought upon their life circumstances results in this: they want to love honestly but they havent been able to do this

until mc. and all of them want to push back whatever fears or patterns their life has instilled in them because they see her and see somebody so unwaveringly good that all their hearts begin giving love to her to make her happy and to make themselves happy as well.

but heres the thing. the boys dont just see mc. by this point, they have connected and understood and come to trust each other as well, and the consequence of that is that They Can See Each Other Now Too, Truly.

and heres the thing. all of the boys are unwaveringly good as well.

one by one, each of the boys realize that what they feel for the other boys in the team starts to...change. yeah theyre all friends, they pick on each other a lot of the time, but the bedrock of the relationship is solid and strong now. but when marius is with luke, marius sees a light inside of luke so bright that he seems unaware that he gives off. when artem is with vyn, artem sees a goodness inside of vyn that hesitates to make itself obvious and known because vyn is scared of getting hurt thanks to it. all of them see the other and their goodness and, unbidden, their hearts want to give love to each other as well.

and because theyre all a bit stupid in their own way theyre like, huh, weird! wonder why this feeling is so familiar! and yet i cant seem to name it...and then they all independently compare these feeling with the feelings they have for mc, a feeling they do know the name of, and theyre like.

WAIT.

THESE FEELINGS ARE...VERY BASICALLY EXACTLY WHAT I FEEL FOR MC.

which only means one thing: theyve fallen in love with everybody else

marius: //goes to his studio to Think and sees that a bunch of his recent art actually had little crumbs of these feelings already, etched into the brushstrokes and scenes. has an emotional crisis about it

vyn: //records a 1 hour long entry in his audio diary to examine and gain control of his feelings but by the end of the hour all he knows is that he wants to hold these people and be held by them

artem: //quite literally just bluescreens, artem.exe has stopped working, sits at his study and slowly, slowly, thunks his head down onto his desk, valiantly trying to ignore the fast pulse of his heart

luke: //manically vents about it to peanut who, by virtue of being a bird, doesnt get it. just keeps talking at peanut to get a grasp of it all and then lies down on the floor, overwhelmed

mc, sitting in her apartment watching some netflix: ...why do i inexplicably feel as if something very, very important has just happened?

phase 4 of the nxx team polycule is basically:

pining: extreme difficulty level

because pining is already hard when ur pining for one person. what more for an additional 3 more people. and those additional 3 more people are pining back.

and all these boys are SOOOO OBVIOUS with their romantic feelings, in their own special way. the way they show their affection to mc starts to bleed into their interactions with the others and everybody can CLEARLY SEE WHAT IS GOING ON, LOL, but also all the boys are too chickenshit to confront it, because if they confront it, what will even happen??? being in love with each other, all of them, thats going to be such a complicated fucking relationship, holy shit. it's 2030, yeah, being a polyamorous group relationship isnt completely unheard of, but sue them, theyre scared.

but mc (who i forgot to mention already knows of the boys' romantic feelings for her, shes just hasnt made a move yet on any of them because SHES IN LOVE WITH ALL OF THEM AS WELL and shes been trying to figure out how the hell to make that work, she cant bear to choose just one of them, she'd be heartbroken over leaving the rest of them behind) sees that the nxx investigation team is now all pining for each other FULLY and she kinda wants to laugh when she realizes whats going on because like, what are the chances? that this would happen? that they all found each other and their feelings fell into just the right place for nobody to be left behind?

theyre all scared, she can tell. and she is as well, she wont lie.

but shes always had a belief that goodness can prevail with the right work.

and love is one of the greatest goods out there.

phase 5 of the nxx team polycule:

It's Time For Communication, Baby!!!!!

the exact scenes of how this happens is a bit vague to me. it could go two ways: mc going to each of the boys independently to talk about feelings, hers about everybodys and his about everybodys as well. OR they have a fucking meeting about it all together and artem literally schedules it in his google calendar, or something.

either way, they like, actually talk about this. starts casual, maybe over a chill date, maybe over dinner at a nice restaurant, maybe over a walk in the park as the sun is starting to set. but where ever it happens, the end result is the same: a heart is laid out bare and it is taken in gentle, grateful hands.

marius: OKAY, NOW THAT THE FEELINGS ARE OUT OF THE WAY, CAN I PLEASE KISS ONE OR ALL OF YOU, PLEASE, IVE BEEN WANTING TO KISS U GUYS FOR FOREVER

vyn, laughing fondly: has anybody ever told you patience is a virtue? we quite literally just talked it all out.

marius: //needy whining noises

artem, embarrassed: ive...never kissed anybody before

luke, embarrassed but trying to play it Cool: ....same here

mc: kissing is great, you two will love it!

marius: awesome, awesome, so is ANYBODY going to give me a go ahead or WHAT????

phase 6 of the nxx team polycule:

i dont want to say it's happily ever after, once they all get together. thats not really realistic.

they all have their quirks and tendencies and habits. and those will inevitable clash against each other. theyll have their arguments, theyll get upset, theyll sulk and be angry, sometimes. but also...

theyll see each other smile and feel like their love shining so brightly. theyll reach out for another's hand and be held in such a way that makes them think that their heart is in a safe place. theyll love each other and theyll put in the work to continue loving each other. because goodness will prevail.

and they all see each other as the most good people in the world.

so whatever happens, theyll get through it together.

[iicraft505]

Lol imagine thinking every single cop, even the good ones, are bad, just because there are bad ones and the system sucks

[sing-me-under]

im new to the dsmp--new like, i got into it in october of this year--but once i started learning more about it, the more i began to think (and still do) the reason why people love it so much is because its so inherently human. theres a HUGE piece of the ccs in each character that they feel so more innately human than most characters in media (probably because it didnt start with lore but ended up that way) and thats what attracted people to the dsmp/why people like it so much. no one is perfect or entirely evil--theyve all got their flaws and their good parts. in the end i find the dsmp to be a raw reflection of the human existence where everything is gray--not black and white. (sure, the dsmp in and of itself with its storytelling isnt perfect, but its not fair to expect it to be when its characters arent either, and are a much better show of the nuance of humanity)

anyways! just wanted to say how much i love your analyses and appreciate how much you are vocal about your views on the smp as a whole cause they give a lot of insight that i think is very valuable and eye opening to the fandom

How long has this been in my inbox? I assume this must have been after that last ask though judging by the content? (I also have seven other asks that I have never noticed until I opened my inbox on the desktop site. I genuinely have no idea how to check my inbox on mobile. I just answer when I see it in my notifications.)

Wow, you are very new. Even though I don’t believe the DSMP fandom is dying, it’s still strange actually seeing new fans in recent months considering there’s been very little content and a lot of discourse. The SMP was really a miracle of storytelling by its very nature, and I love that even people who weren’t here during the height of SMP can still love and appreciate it!

I’m very glad to see you! I always notice you in my notifications! I’m glad my numerous rambles have made an impact!

I also just realized you’ve been in my ask box before. I never did end up finishing that twitter culture vs dsmp morality slide show unfortunately because it got LONG and borderline incoherent.

[roakkaliha]

I fully support indigenous people and their decisions when it comes to farming, hunting, herding and other traditional livestyles, and I am not vegan myself. You talk quite a lot about a hunter and it being a big part of your identity and I was curious how you feel regarding store-bought meat/factory farming. From your posts I am under the impression that you are current reliant on it and hunting is not yet your main source of food/income. I hope it soon will be!

i think that the animal welfare and their usage of land and resources in animal agriculture have a lot of room for improvement, but that also goes for crop agriculture. the flaws of agriculture in general arent inherent things that cant be improved on.

farming (both animals n crops) is a good thing, capitalism just makes it a lot more destructive. farming should help us with removing strain on natural resources, instead of adding onto it.

[liquidstar]

Which got me thinking, it's interesting how Greed is 'good' in FMA bc he likes everything, but arguably the worst in Re0, and Envy is the worst of the Homnchuli but Subaru has envy as a big character trait and it's not even shown as a flaw most of the time, it encourages him to improve himself.

ok ok so like i totally have thoughts on this too anon and i would so love to talk about it. as far as fma goes i wouldnt say any of the sins themselves are presented as inherently worse, even hohenheim just calls them the "7 desires" theyre neutral by default, but it depends on how you act on them that makes them bad.

i think the reason greed himself turned out well is just because of the people around him- the whole point of fma was how human connection makes us complete, and greed was the only one who actually connected with people in a way that mattered. pride also kind of got a second chance to do the same thing, even though selim 2.0 is baby hes STILL a manifestation of pride and you can even make the argument that he was the worst of all beforehand. and envy? what did they envy? human's ability to connect! i mean, still murder and all, but that came down to their actions in response to the sin.

and on the re:zero end, i agree with you on subaru having envy, but subaru SUPER has greed too! in general hes sort of meant to represent most sins in some capacity (thats the whole point of the what:if stories) and emilia kind of foils him by not being any of them but still being a super flawed character in her own right. you can argue that envy is the worst in re:zero because of satella being the Big Bad Witch, but you could also argue that its sloth because of petelgeuse, lust because of capella, or like you said greed because of echidna. like you said its debatable, its somewhat subjective.

but in the same way that subaru ended up harnessing his envy into a positive trait, he also did the same thing with greed! his "greed" was his immense desire to keep everyone alive, in arc 4 he was presented with a trolley problem and he wouldnt chose because he wanted to save everyone. we also see this represented when he told ram the story about the ogres and ram asks him who hed befriend, and he grabs both fingers. hes greedy for friendship, for connection. so (light novel spoilers) when he obtains the greed witch factor, it manifests in a way that allows him to share his friends burdens with himself, and each other but only if they're willing.

still the sins ARENT always presented as good with subaru. i mean, yeah theres the aforementioned what:if routes, but also his incredible entitlement that shined through a lot in arc 3, his possessiveness and his feelings of jealousy towards julius for just like.. talking to emilia politely. (and having read the light novel i think emilia should be the one more worried abt that lmao). sure he was able to take his envy and make it something that he could use to get better but only after he was at his worst, it was an arc!

and return by death is likely the envy witch factor too, which reminds me of a fan theory that, since its envy, return by death is "fueled" by his low image of himself and his self-hatred. so he will only be allowed to die for real once he starts valuing his life. how ironic would that be? writing-wise i support it but also. can we give this guy a break already? i knoowwww it probably wont have a happy ending but. come on. please.

[eldritch-composer]

actually was thinking abt that shiki post but got off track so new post for this but im like. thinking about the inherently flawed nature of the entry fee system and like......

the fact that the system is so easily abused by meg cause like. ya okay week 2 neku sure. maybe the thing he cares about most IS shiki at that point. it makes enough sense. rhyme and beat are gone at that point and he just doesnt wanna loose another friend. and week 3? even if he doesnt care about every individual hes never even met that much, hes learning to grow and thats just that many more people he cant talk to. that many more experiences and worldviews that he now can no longer access

but ALSO those things are useful to megumi. week 3 for uh obvious reasons and week 2 i really think he thought that taking shiki would break neku. that it would put himself one step closer to winning bc it would just make neku close himself off that much more. and theres also always something to be said about megumi and his beliefs about the city and how it "should be" and the fact that hes the "conductor" and his greatest weekness is his NEED to be in control of the situation and what other people think and feel BUT thats a post for another time

but what im thinking about here is the fact that entry fees arent even a standardized system its just. something josh decided one day. its not some magical inherent fact of the rg that The Exact Thing You Need To Loose To Grow is taken from you. someone is looking and you and MAKING that decision. even if its josh and he looks into your mind and soul thats..... a pale imitation of getting to know someone. they may never tell you their darkest fears but you get to know what they value and HOW they value it.....

if youre just reaching around and pulling the answers straight out of someone how can you know how its going to AFFECT them once its taken away....

or in other words, what if its less "the thing you value most" or "something whose loss will help you grow" and more "this is just the thing you are thinking about the most right now" and it only ever works MOSTLY by accident. no wonder josh was so disenchanted with the whole thing and never understood cats whole motto and so on.

like shiki i think it is kinda straight forward she was thinking about eri all the time. like yeahhhh she was "jealous" but i think it was less jealous of eri Specifically and more jealous of the simple idea of someone who seems to know who they are. and iirc its shiki who is kinda confused bc shes like. i thought it was a mistake i thought i got what i WANTED instead of loosing something but she realizes eventually that what she values is more a sense of self. and that her having her own sense of self IS more important to her. but the question is did josh or whoever picked her fee KNOW that. or did they just go. hm she spends way too much time working about identity and sense of self and how she feels abt this girl. WELP- and just took that. i think its possible given how everyone (in game) tries to break it down as jealousy when its actually a lot MORE than that.

now iirc theres no definitive word of god answer on what beat and rhymes entry fees are so sowwy if this bit is just . wrong but. its always been my opinion that beats entry fee was rhymes memories and we just Dont Know rhymes fee - bc those memories being lost don't seem to affect her at all. she still knows she had a brother. she doesnt look at beat and get nostalgic and teary eyed without knowing the reason. but it for sure affects beat and NATURALLY the thing he thinks about the most is her regardless. (i also dont know for sure if i think rhymes fee was "her dream" bc beat doesnt even know what it was. and i think he said something abt becoming a skateboarder to show her what having a dream is like? or maybe that was fanon idk fhsjhfjd sooo. idk abt rhyme im Unsure.)

ULTIMATELY what im saying here is that things get kinda interesting if you think of it less as "the entry fee system is designed to force you to face your flaws, and doing so makes you a better person" and more "the entry fee system, while it has its benefits, really only ever works by pure fucking accident and most of the players who succeeded probably would have anyway." like. leave it to spending a week fending for your life to figure out Whats Really Important. entry fee or no, yanno?

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I hate also how Young Adult and New Adult become focused on the ages of characters in the stories? It feels so stifling, like i dont see why we could not have a book aimed at 15 year olds about 30 year olds, but tonally still young adult...arent a lot of older works like jules verne this? Adult characters in a story suited for younger readers. Treasure island too?

Adult Fantasy constantly has younger characters, and much older ones, that it is expected anyone can relate to still (and also relatability is inherently flawed concept to hinge character writing on) so why would it be different?