#and not the whole life story of two fictive people

[c4p7ch4]

[the-skybrary]

Our head protector, Raph, wanted to make a comic documenting some of his personal experiences, since he's a unique case to our system. Part of it was to vent and get the thoughts out of his head, but mostly he just wanted to send a positive message out into the community. We hope it finds you well.

Transcript of the dialogue below the cut:

I’m not like everyone else here. Most of this system is made up of various versions of the core, and they all look like some alternative of the body. A sporty version, a goth version, a punk version, a motherly version. But all of them are her in some way, shape, or form. 

There are some fictives here, too, of course. The ratio is about 4:1 though. A majority of the fictives have little to no source memories. They aren’t exactly who they’re based on, they’re their own individual, and they are able to separate themselves from their source. 

I can’t. I’m an outlier here. 

I have pseudo memories. I remember a life before I came here, and that makes things complicated. Especially because I have a very important job to do. 

As a protector, I stand by to help us through everything we’re going through externally. I have experience with dealing in heavy survival-mode situations, and that’s why I believe I was chosen to be here. But…it also means I ended up being given a lot of trauma memories from the body to hold onto, in addition to my own. 

I’ve made my peace with my role here. I like it, actually. I have a partner, and a family, unique to this system. I have friends, and I’ve even been able to meet and talk to my source family in other systems. 

Although I can’t ignore the way I feel sometimes, living in a body…in a life…that is not my own. 

I can’t ignore the real emotions I experience when my source updates. Seeing my family in distress or danger, and being unable to do anything to help causes me intense anxiety. Sometimes if body is having a bad day, the memories will sneak up on me. Other times we’ll see a part reblogged and it will trigger an intense emotion. Sometimes it gets so bad that it affects the entire body and system even when I’m not at front.

I would like to clarify, though, that I’ve never blamed the artist/creator for any of that. As a matter of fact, I think I lucked out with Cass’s Apocalyptic Series being my source. They’re good to me, to my story, and my family. It’s just hard some days, being able to see your life laid out like that to the world.

I feel like a river that was once whole, and then forked to become two. Suddenly I’m going in a different direction, and the path is unfamiliar. I’m me, but I’m not him. I’m us, but I’m not her. I have both memories from source and from body, and it makes me feel…wrong. 

I don’t belong here. I can’t mask well. I don’t know how to walk in a body this small. My voice is    too feminine when I speak. Being without a shell makes me feel naked, even with clothes on. My claws and strength are gone. All of it is just reminder after reminder that I’m not truly Raph anymore. If I ever even was. ‘Pseudo’ means ‘false’. Fake. Pretend. Unreal. 

But I’m Real. The me that exists here and now is real. I eat, I dance, I have hobbies and favorite TV shows. I talk to people in our life, and I form unique relationships with them. I exist. I am a part of this system, and that in turn makes Raph real.

I can’t explain why I have memories and emotions linked to my source. I can’t explain why I formed so differently than the others here. I’m struggling with my identity as I try to balance my job as a system protector with my place in the Outside World, and it’s a lot. Some days I feel stupid and ashamed. Some days I feel okay with it. Some days I don’t care. 

I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to be an alter in a system, no matter what your relationship is to that source, or even based on what your source is! You’ll figure out your own answers with time. They may not be easy answers, and they might make certain things difficult, but I think the most important thing is how you choose to move forward with it all. 

We have a saying in my family: Antawa Hitorijani. I guess I just wanted to let you know, if you’re out there and you relate to any of this, that you are not alone. And that I’m not alone either. None of us are.

~ Raph

[elosva]

so obviously the whole "serial killer with a split personality" troupe is horrible for all the usual reasons.

but also like, its just boring as fuck.

like your telling me you have a character that has multiple people all shareing a body, and the most interesting thing you can think to do with that is "one of them is a personalityless monster that likes to kill people for reasons"

that is the best you can do? really?

so here are a few ideas i had for stories about systems that are 1000x more interesting then that nonsense.

a protector that has spent their entire life keeping their host safe finally finds themselves in a situation where they truly are completely safe, but to their surprise they don't reintegrate or disappear, and now they have to find out who they are and what they're place in life is when they're not protecting people

body swap romance ala "your name" but instead of swapping bodies its two alters in a system with strong amnesia barriers

any sort of silly shenanigans based plot with the addition of one serious person who really does not want to be involved in shenanigans, but gets dragged in anyway because one of their sillier headmates agreed to it.

love triangle where the person falls in love with someone, who then falls in love with their headmate, but they don't know that they're a system so they end up in a relationship anyway under false pretenses.

alternatively to that last one, the love triangle axis could have fallen in love with both of them separately, while thinking that they are just one person, leading to them having to separate their two love interests in their mind once they find out.

surrealist horror story that takes place completely in headspace, the monster is not an alter, but rather a representation of the systems repressed trauma.

fictive misses their sourcemate, finds another system they know split off said source mate, the two of the try dating but find that they are so different from what they remember and now have to figure out who this new person is and what exactly they feel about them while finding a new dynamic.

reverse isekai with a fictive

literally any character exploration focused story

two companion books, one fallowing a romance story between a host and some love interest, and the other an action story of a protector keeping them safe going on at the same time filling in the gaps of the first story.

i could keep going, its really not that hard to come up with these ideas

if you decide to want to use any of these in your own story, please do, you don't even have to credit me i just want more stories about systems that aren't about serial killers.

though if you do write one i will request that you send me a link as i will want to read it

[fictionkinfessions]

Real talk, but I hope I don't ever cross the line where I end up kinning from absolutely every single source I consume. I've heard people say that becoming a problem before, and I've always watched from the sidelines as people really did just go through a hyperfocus, and go through a crisis when they realize they can't tell the difference anymore, if they could at all. It's a scary thought, to have that much self doubt, and to have the self be so easily destroyed and reattached through the lens of the traits you liked in someone else from another life, that you saw them just being themselves and got reactions, that you want, for yourself, compared to the ones you're already experiencing in this life and body. How many of you go through that hyperfocus and feel like you are falling back into place, like a long lost puzzle piece, only for that hole to grow back over time and needing to be filled by the next big thing that blows up. Sometimes that hole grows back so strong, it completely eats up who you could have been in this life, and you lose that opportunity all together. Too busy playing repeat on a life already spent and dead, just to feel like you belong. But that belonging is just a mimicking of a former life, and that was then. What will you make of now? My kins, have only ever been from things that I had memories from and evidence from in childhood. There has never been a point in my life that I question my kins, or search, because that, to me, will create the false positive. I've always had beyond specific things that never left any doubt. Never left any hole or any longing or any needing. I already know my stories, and I know why I'm here now, and it's sure as hell not to skeleton my life around an existence that is very intentionally no longer mine. I died, I moved on. I'm here now, and my kins served the purposes they need to, which is just holding memories that will help me be a better person, and lead this world into a better future and leave it better than I found it. I couldn't imagine having an identity crisis everytime I wanted to watch a new show or something, out of the fear of 'oh I know I'll kin or get a fictive from this source and it'll change me' because holy shit if you're that fragile.. 😬

Though I'll be honest, I love watching you guys and your funny little brains. You're different kind of kins, and how you all managed to be amazing and such interesting people in other lives with A STRONG PURPOSE AND STRONG IDENTITY just to end up here, and incredibly so much more impressionable than a fucking cracker and waiting for the next source to drop to tell you who you are, in the form of your favvvvvvv. Someone could create a source just for shits and giggles and y'all will foam at the mouth going MEMEMEMEMEMME, especially if there are bitches to ship or 'kindate' with. That's your guys' fucking kryptonite. Especially if it's two stereotypical skinny hot white dudes that barely have any chemistry beyond hatred and being on screen together for like 3 seconds.. The amount of LORE I will see invented or whatever, away from canon from you guys, makes me insane because why in the fuck aren't you guys writing more novels with the shit you're thinking up from your past lives. Won't you get more kins and sources and shit that way? Idk. Instead I see you guys recycling the same dead shit, for yourselves to live through. I don't remember kin being that, but you all certainly turned it into this.

I am studying you all under my microscope, and none of you are safe. One day I will make a wholeass documentary and shit, and I'm not joking. I've been taking notes for a long, long, long, long, time. The elves were first, and you guys are a different breed entirely, and I doubt most of you guys will even know your own history lmao and the elves mention. I can't wait for the whole exposé to drop, it'll be a blast. The world as a whole hadn't really seen kinnies and the whole shit storm that has been THEE history. Besides little, little, memes. But they're about to. So thanks for every juicy thing over the years, genuinely. It's gonna be great content. Maybe seeing how some of you are, from an outside perspective, will help you guys get back into being healthier with kinning again. Fuck knows majority of you need it. Especially some of you young-young kinnies that fall into codependency and abusive relationships over and over again.

There is a pattern and it needs to break. I think exposure will be a start. I think half of you won't be as brave with half the shit you're doing if you're under more of a public eye, and hopefully more kids will grow up in safer environments online. Especially people of alt communities, like this one.

And yes, I'm very much not leaving out the guy who believes he's kin with shitler on TikTok. If you were unaware of that guy and situation, oh you sweet summer child. You are unfortunately always going to be up to bat with fact kinnies, and to invalidate them is like calling the kettle hot. I've seen the arguments in both sides for years, and neither sides will win because you both enable each other. Sorry not sorry that's just the full ass truth. Fact kin will exist as long as fiction kin does, and vice versa.

C'est la vie and see you all in the exposure, it's going to be one hell of a ride. I hope I've made it clear that not even my own ass is safe, from this exposure. We're clowns going down together, for real. Can't wait to source my quotes from shit like 'that guy from the lorax that everyone was self fucking with himself' but it's actually the person I'll be referencing because through it all I do believe in kins FHJSHDHF

party note. This is the weirdest advertisement for a documentary that doesn't even exist. And probably never will, if past experiences with ultra indie internet projects go. [gazes towards kickstarter's early days]. At least you're keeping systems out of it? Longcat speed you, black emperor [metal band reference]

[memwazz]

MASTERPOST - Short summaries of all my Original Stories and links to their own dedicated Masterposts

SEVEN : DIVISION UNITED

This story is the one I currently focus on.

It follows the Seventh Division, a dysfunctional superheroes team protecting a fictive, slightly futuristic version of the USA ruled by a martial law. Most of the plot revolves around them and the teenage MC Erwan fighting different antagonists with or without special abilities, while trying to handle their chaotic daily life together.

Created circa 2019.

B-CLASS

B-Class is the only project I've completed so far, taking the form of two French novels and their spin-off.

The setting is a contemporary dystopia with a cast system discriminating and exploiting a group of people called the "B-Class". The main character Icare is a privileged journalist from the A who will change its viewpoint on oppression after falling in love with his own domestic slave Riùn. Then comes Abys the ACAB Boy and they all start a revolution 🔥

Very very queer and politic.

Created circa 2017 and completed in March 2018.

[B-CLASS Related] POUR UN RAYON DE SOLEIL

The spin-off I mentioned above focuses on Icare's past relationship with Ryse, a major antagonist in B-Class.

They used to date 5 years before the story and PURS explains how Icare became depressed and suic!d@l after a whole year of abuse.

Created and completed between November and July 2018.

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

This one has a special place in my heart since it's the first story I've ever created back in middle-school. Many things changed in 10 years but it still tells the journey of Daniil who rebels against and has to run away from his former boss.

At the beginning, Daniil works as a bodyguard for an important member of a criminal organization; but he loses his temper and tries to unalive him when he discovers Akito murd€red his late girlfriend 3 years before. And then they both chase and try to k!ll each other 🤷

May include shit like war flashbacks and Japanese mafia idk

Created circa 2012.

DE A à Z

Zephyr and Adriel are two angels who've lived as a couple in Heaven for thousands of years.

But when Babel, an artificial angel, is created by humans and sent to Heaven to communicate with God, everything collapses. Babel manages to kill God and takes Their place to impose his vision of right and wrong, influenced by the humans' misinterpretation of the Bible. From then on, all romantic and sexual relationships are forbidden, forcing the couple to hide.

When Babel discovers Adriel's love letters, he is kicked out of Heaven and has to find allies on Earth to overthrow Babel and get his lover back.

Created circa 2019.

42

42 tells the story of Mat, a young woman searching for Sara, her little sister who disappeared years ago. Her investigations lead her to "Number 42", a man who just escaped from a lab experimenting on humans. Since Mat's sister seems to be prisoner from the lab as well, the two of them helped by the amoral Director's oldest son, will try to save Sara and 42 himself.

Created circa 2015.

MINIUM Part. 1

This one is pure heroic fantasy; its universe and lore are my most extended so far.

Gailin, the adoptive son of Kel'Daran's king, passed a deal with him and has to save Kel'Daran from the Selv, an humanoid species invading the Kingdom. A mystic prophecy tells the war can't be won without a half-blooded Selv with mysterious powers.

Due to coincidences and quiproquos, Gailin is manipulated by Aldanys, a teenage thief who pretends she's the Chosen One.

Created circa 2015.

MINIUM Part. 2

According to my writing plan, Minium is supposed to have a second part taking place 5 years after the first one.

After Gailin killed his father/king at the end of Minium 1, he is exiled and his mentor Edelia takes Kel'Daran's throne. When a new war is suddenly started against the kingdom, Edelia realises someone she thought had died wants her dead too.

On the other side of the plot, another protagonist named Lavaan predicts a major antagonist's return through weird prophetic dreams.

Created circa 2017.

[Minium Related] ST-ANRIEL

In Minium, Gailin and elves his kind believe in an entity named Altea and the Gods they gave birth to.

The Anriel is the equivalence of their Holy Bible and tells the story of the Gods and how the world was built from the beginning to the end. It takes the form of an anthology of poems and prayers.

Created circa 2017.

[MINIUM Related] JADE ET MOI

Another Minium spin-off, focusing this time on Osvald's coming out and transition as a trans man. The story takes place on sea as "Jade"/Osvald starts his journey as a pirate after running away from home.

Created circa 2018.

[MINIUM Related] GOLDEN-EYED BEAST

GEB is a Minium spin-off telling the backstory of Lavaan, a 12 years old protagonist. Born with a golden eye in a village who fears this feature after a terrible incident with a cruel golden-eyed enemy, he is treated as an outcast since his childhood.

His life changes when Kalras, a mysterious elf with black magic, destroys his village and murders everyone. Being the only survivor, Lavaan is made prisoner and tortured by Kalras but develops a Stockholm Syndrom and falls in love with him.

From then on, Kalras who turns out to be a cult leader, uses him as a slave a pet in a toxic relationship.

Created circa 2017.

[MINIUM Related] LA SAISON DES BOURGEONS

In Minium, Edelia has a little brother named Veidin who cursed himself to save her as a child. The curse caused him chronic pain, blood, heart and bones fragility and he's doomed to a very short life expectancy.

LSDB tells his love story with Jyëlven, another young man who was cursed and has flowers and thorns growing out of his skin.

Created circa 2017.

[MINIUM Related] THE WARMTH OF OUR COLD LANDS

Just like for the Anriel, Genkhìs will have their own religious texts written.

Inspired by vikings, the people of Genkhàr honour Gods similar to Scandinavians. Each one represents a value, the most worshipped one being Ero, God of Bravery.

Created circa 2017.

ODE TO ODD

My first and only story ever to look like a shonen anime lol--

One of the main characters Naemi is a highschooler with anxiety who just wants to live an ordinary and peaceful life.

But her goth and spiritism-obsessed best friend Sayaka accidentally summons Evelgard, a young necromancer in her living-room. Evelgard decides to befriend her and live in her closet, while trying to open a portal to the World of the Dead to save his late sister's soul. The two girls discover a whole new world after meeting necromancers, exorcists, witches and demons.

Created circa 2016.

SACRED DUST

Another heroic fantasy setting, but this universe is different from Minium's !

In this story, each kingdom worships a God-dess supposed to grant it their protection. When Lidala, the Goddess of Telaman, is murdered by a rival God, she turns to dust and leaves a devastated kingdom behind.

Fortunately, one of her ashes gives birth to a child, Saljän, who soon has to become the priest of Telaman. Aged 16, Saljän hates his responsibilities so much he finally runaways and travels around the world with a little demon named Orgos. Their goal is to gather all the Sacred Dusts to resurrect Lidala before it's too late.

Created circa 2016.

BAD ROMANCE

How to define Bad Romance without telling it's my most fucked-up story ? You can't. The two main characters are such assholes I can't name a protagonist, they're both antagonists.

Derek, a criminal, gangster and drug abuser, kidnaps Jay who sent him to jail 8 years before the story. He aims at mistreating him enough for Jay to kill himself, but he soon discovers that this guy who seems to live an ordinary and boring life is as much of a sociopath as him.

They start making each other's life hell then become addicted to each other, fuck, engage in a toxic relationship and even create a gang together at the end of the plot.

Created circa 2017.

LE ROYAUME DE GAHS

My first attempt to deal with astronomy eventhough I don't understand anything about it-

The story takes place in the sky and is about two stars and their father trying to discover why the Cosmic God decided to kill/destroy all the stars. Meanwhile, there seems to be a perturbation in the cosmos and some shooting stars start turning evil for no apparent reason...

Created circa 2024.

WE ARE THE WILD

The Lion King but with wolves, mixed with Prince of Persia and the COVID-19 pandemic before it existed--

The plot follows Sôkah, a 15 years old werewolf and the son of the Alpha, who's accused of murdering his big brother. The responsible is actually Akbar, his father's counselor who evicted the two sons to take his place when he dies.

Sôkah is banished from the pack and wandering in the forest, discovers the human world. Most humans are dying from a deadly virus nicknamed "white plague", and Sôkah gets rescued by the cousins Ludwig and Weiss. Weiss is a scientist who tries to find a cure to save Ludwig who caught the white plague, and soon discovers werewolves are immune to the disease...

Created circa 2018.

STAR-716

This story's plot is not very developed and I don't know much what will happen through it. But it's once again about someone looking for a missing family member, a mother this time.

Sacha is 13 and grew up in a circus, his mother being a dancer there. But she disappeared a year before (probably after a kidnapping) and Sacha doesn't know where to start his researches. He will be helped by Novak, an irresponsible sex-worker and hopeless romantic who fell in desperate love with the mother after sleeping with her once.

Created circa 2016.

DIMENSION OF DESPAIR

Are you surprised if I tell you this one is about another dimension ? No ?

Well, the MC Megane is a single mother who works hard to raise her 4 years old alone. One day, she wakes up in an unknown dimension ruled by Master, a mysterious person with psychic powers who created the dimension with their own mind.

Turns out it's actually a "harem" where Master gathers people and things he loves or wants. Megane will look for a way to escape and save a little girl named Kadd as well as Zoé, Master's "favorite".

Created circa 2018.

UNTIL SEPTEMBER

A more simple and less fucked-up story, I swear !!

Some sort of teenage literature, Until September focused around Nero, who's having hard times as a bullied 9th grader and discovers he has water powers. From then on, he befriends the other elementaries and has to deal with Hilda, the air elementary who wants to sacrifice all the children to create a Philosopher's Stone.

Created circa 2021.

SCARECREW

Another under-developed lore !

It's a basic apocalyptic/zombie novel with a disease turning all the adults into monsters. A bunch of pre-teens who survived and don't even know each other decide to fight together against the threat and to rebuild their own world.

Created circa 2020.

VIC'TEAM

Mostly shitpost, I don't want to turn it into a novel but more like a bunch of comic strips.

It follows the daily life adventures of highschoolers with teenagers problems like love, exams and family with a comedic tone. The MC's main problem is to be named Volvic (nicknamed Vic) and there are a lot of jokes about it, as well as absurd humor.

Created circa 2016-17.

Undeveloped shit with OCs waiting for their twisted up plot

Yeah, I love creating OCs and some of them have a background and design but no story for the moment. I'll just put them here and share random facts about them.

[PERSONAL DAILY LIFE SHITPOST] The ABSOLUTELY UNCHILLING Adventures of a Smol Angry Emo Birb

The parenthesis speaks for itself, I'll gather a few billets or illustrated jokes about funny things happening in my life.

[venomous-system]

Hello.

I want to post here about something, since the system is somewhat public and I felt like I need to explain this.

There are several introjects in Venom whose sources are the villains in their stories. These alters range from morally gray/ambiguous characters (ex: Mikey and Hanma from Tokyo Revengers, and practically any Tokyo Ghoul fictive, mainly Ayato) to outright evil/extremely problematic (ex: Tetta Kisaki, Ryo Asuka, and myself).

None of these alters are persecutors. None of them are dangerous. They all have their reasons for forming, mostly as coping mechanisms for the body/system as a whole. I’m not about to air the traumas that caused such alters to form publicly, but the short version more or less comes down to this: the two previous hosts (original body holder included) had bad people in their life who constantly victim-blamed and guilt tripped, and it left both of them feeling like monsters.

The body is diagnosed as autistic, among other things, and without fully knowing if it’s caused by the autism or not, both previous hosts had the habit of going numb in painful situations. The psychiatric professional we’ve been mainly treated by refers to this as a “crisis mode,” and says it’s not a bad thing to have. On the contrary, it’s a self preservation tool that just helps the body to stay calm and handle things logically without having a panic attack right away. The meltdowns, shutdowns, and panic attacks that come from these moments usually happen later, after the dust has settled. In the moment, however, it’s much more common that tears not be shed. Instead, the physical reaction of the body, especially with our previous host, is to become practically robotic. For a reference to what the speech and behavior would look and sound like, look to Abed in the show Community or practically any other autistic-coded character.

The way this has caused a negative effect is mostly during arguments, as a child, or as a reaction to abuse. We as a whole have dealt with abuse from multiple angles and sources. I will not go into detail about it on a public Tumblr post, but the longest period of it came from a girl who was two years older than the physical body. The system was physically 10 when meeting her, and 20 the last time we saw her. She has abused, blackmailed, and stalked Venom during those ten years. One of the worst things, however, was reactive abuse. She constantly used fake tears, rumors, and dog whistles to make our previous hosts feel evil for the way they experienced emotion, mainly pain and suffering.

She had put this idea in Venom’s head that not crying means you’re heartless, or that you aren’t hurt, when in reality, autistic and heavily traumatized people (or really just nd people in general) show their emotions differently. It took a long time to stop feeling like a monster, and to be honest, it hasn’t fully gone away even now.

That’s why our last host would get so attached to villainous characters, enough so that their subconscious mind would spawn a copy of them. Every single one of them, as alters, are polite and kind, if not a bit shy. Many of their memories differ from their sources, and some don’t even identify with their source enough to be called “Fictives.”

They all have one of two things in common:

1) Their sources are coded as being autistic or neurodivergent (ex: Tetta Kisaki)

2) They can’t handle/don’t understand painful emotions and decided they must be monsters because of it (ex: Ryo Asuka)

Personally, I, Yuki (until recently I went by Vi on here) formed as an introject of Scaramouche/Kunikizushi/Wanderer from Genshin Impact. Being so incapable of processing emotions, not to mention being a literal robot, is what caused the attachment to my source to form. As an alter, I’ve been here for less than a year and have already become the main host (out of necessity), which hadn’t left much time for self discovery or figuring out anything about who I am or want to be.

I don’t perfectly identify with my source, but I will still acknowledge him being my source because there is a reason I formed the way I did. And that reason is the same as any other villain introject: If even I, who actually has committed atrocities, can be worthy of love, then surely an autistic child whose greatest crime is nothing more than a monotone voice and not crying as often as other people could never be a monster incapable of love.

Tldr: Don’t disrespect introjects based on their source alone. There is a reason every alter/headmate/other forms, and you don’t know what that might be. Introjects aren’t their sources.

Also, neurodivergent kids aren’t cold or cruel just because you don’t see them cry. Your emotions are valid whether you visibly display them or not. It’s okay to react differently to pain than the people around you.

You are not a monster.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

- Yuki

Edit: If you don’t like any of our sources and my post flew over your head, just unfollow and block. Haters will be blocked on sight. Thanks!

Edit 2: If you read/interpret the mentioned sources differently, cool, your views are valid. But this is not a post to debate the moral alignments of anime villains, just an explanation of why introjects form. I am not inviting anyone to argue headcanons over a system positivity post.

[amazilla]

In the read more, a few choice thoughts for you on the subject of being a fictive and how that affects my view of things.

I came into being because Tsukasa already existed. As far as our system goes, Tsukasa is as close to a "core" as we can get, and I exist to protect him. But when I first gained awareness, I was angry that I was me, especially because I knew I was only taking on this form and personality because of someone else. I've gotten over that, though, and come to find some joys in being a fictive.

Over the last several years, I've been able to expand my view of the world with help from other parts/personalities/headmates, whatever you want to call them. In particular, the last few months, our Angel has helped me realize my role outside of our system as well, to exist and enjoy existing. That my purpose isn't only as a guard dog for the others, nor even just as a peice of a whole. While I do still view us, as a system, as parts of a "whole" out of nessecity (one body and all that, got to see things this way) I am still allowed to exist as myself and make myself as an individual seen and understood. Life doesn't have to be strictly as part of someone else.

Tsuki has since taken an extreme backseat in our life, leaving me and two other parts to take over physically. We do take turns, although not really on purpose or anything, it just sort of happens. It can be jarring to suddenly realize you are the one present fully when you thought you were floating by watching as someone else did the work. Switching can feel so smooth and gradual like this, but it can also be jarring and feel like whiplash. Sometimes I'm able to step back and sleep, not be present at all.

I'm still pretty unsure exactly how we function, but it's something I'm interested in observing and attempting to describe, for the benifit of understanding. Of course it would be helpful to recognize patterns, predicting things is preemptive damage control.

That's a lot of words to say I've been enjoying being in control and dominant and present much more than I have in the past. lol

In this time I've come to an understanding of why I was Amane to begin with, and also understood I don't have to fit some kind of narrative for the sake of others. Angel is similar, he won't even use his canon name because he wants to be able to enjoy the fandom and the character he is based off of without immediately associating them with himself. But he will still respond if we call him that name, its still his.

With that being said, I'm going to be doing a re-read of the source material that Tsuki and I are sourced from. With fresh eyes, maybe I won't feel so strongly about the events and can enjoy them as a story?

But let's talk about that, about how the story is completely different from my "canon" which I associate myself with. For me, it feels like if I am a fanfiction version of Amane, essentially. It's not that I come from a fanfiction, I'm pretty sure this story doesn't exist IRL just in my head. Tsuki said one day he'd write it and post it anonymously. Since I'm an AU from the Amane in JSHK, it's easier to look at fandom. I can enjoy fanart and fanfics knowing that there is no way that these people are making this about me, like me me specifically.

I may see myself as Amane, but the reality is I'm nobody, and I am not the guy in all those fanarts and stories that get posted. I can project myself on them if I want to, but I can also disengage easily if I see something I don't like. This is, in my opinion, the way fictives and fictionkin should approach fandom if they're interested in taking part, either as an observer lurker or an active member in some capacity.

I thought maybe if Tsuki does write that fic based on our "canon" that if anyone got inspired by it and drew art of it, would I then have to admit they were finally depicting me and Tsuki as we exist now, or could I still divorce myself from that? I think I would try my hardest to separate myself from it, no matter how close it feels. The artist would have no way to know it was meant to depict the fictionalized mythology of two members of a plural system, unless there was a note on the fic and then that could be dangerous.

It's wise to be careful what kind of information you give out to anyone, especially things that could impact your health or safety. Some details of our canon would give away information on manipulating us, and so it would be something we should take care to replace and re-write for the fic. Even if nobody knew, I'd still have it be changed. The fic would be a sort of way to share, catharsis and venting, or getting it out on paper. For me and Tsuki, keeping everything a secret forever when it impacts us so greatly is frustrating. And part of why I made this blog.

[101gaysalmon]

Decided to post a canon call!

I'm a transfem c!Tommy fictive, and I'm mostly looking for Eret, Fundy, Puffy, Niki, and Techno, or any L'Manburgians who remember a fem Tommy!

I was very early into my transition during the L'Manburg war, only coming out to a few people, and I'm pretty comfortable in where I am now, around Las Navadas (a few years later).

Eret was like a cool older sibling to me and Fundy, and a handful of other queer kids. Whenever we would all tell stories around a fire, she would always tell the best ones, even acting out a few scenes, and making shadow puppets. I remember she would braid my hair when I was first starting to grow it out. During Pogtopia, she offered me a home in her castle, which I took whenever things got bad. She and I were really close.

Fundy and I switched uniforms during the war, since his was more fem fitting, and mine was more masc fitting (Wilbur never caught on, somehow). When we were meant to be training or listening to lectures we would sneak away with Tubbo, and go play in the fields. The two of us would often hide in Eret's cape, playing little "sneak attacks" on her. I don't remember much of him during Pogtopia, but I do remember afterward, during NLM and exile, he would visit me at least twice a week, and we would talk about whatever over some baked good from Niki's bakery.

I think Puffy and I met through Niki, she introduced us because Niki wanted me to have more non-cis people in my life (I don't know what Puffy's gender was). The two of them were really welcoming to me, Puffy would even let me on her ship, and Niki let me design and decorate cupcakes for her bakery.

I wasn't out to Techno when we first met, but I could tell that he knew. He didn't fully approve of Eret when they first met, with the whole government thing, but never held any real ill will toward her for various reasons. When he and Phil were housing me after exile, Techno was willing to jump to defend me the moment anyone did anything transphobic. He definitely threatened at least one person. Phil made us all hot coco while I told them a bit about what happened during exile. Techno taught me how to properly ride a horse, and let me name some of the wolves.

Nothing has to be completely accurate but if anyone remembers even a few things like this or even just a transfem Tommy (and you're comfortable with it) you can reach us at @101gaysalmon on Tumblr or Father Long Legs#0257 on Discord! (We are bodily a minor)

[strangertheory]

Will and El are technically the same person? Along with Hopper? Did I get that right? This is so confusing.

Hello there! Thanks for Asking.

My current hypothesis regarding what might be happening in Stranger Things is that we are following a story about a DID System and that many characters in the series are perhaps alters and hosts (separate states of consciousness and identity within one human mind) dealing with trauma memories and seeking to learn to work together to protect one another and the DID System as a whole.

The short answer to your question is: only if you perceive of alters (different states of consciousness that have their own individual sense of identity and self) that are sharing the same human mind as being “the same person.” Generally those with DID will refer to themselves as being “multiple,” as being hosts in a DID System, as being alters or as having alters etc. Each alter will have their own distinct memories and life experiences that they’ve lived (both in the external world and the internal worlds that might exist in their mind) and that are part of who they know themselves to be just as individuals with a single state of consciousness have built their sense of identity over many years of lived experiences.

kaypeace21 and I might be (?) the only two bloggers on Tumblr analyzing the concept that El, Will, and Hopper (and potentially many other characters) are all sharing the same mind and are part of a DID System (but if there's anyone else I'd enjoy following their blog!)

@kaypeace21‘s hypothesis is that the writers of Stranger Things are telling a fictional sci fi / fantasy story that, like in X-Men or Akira (etc.), involves characters with superpowers and psychic abilities. Her theory is that because Will has both dissociative identity disorder and psychic / supernatural abilities that he has unintentionally and subconsciously brought his alters, his trauma memories, and his internal worlds to life and they’ve escaped his mind and are now in the real world and in Hawkins.

Although I do consider @kaypeace21′s hypothesis that everything has been brought to life and has emerged from Will’s mind into Hawkins by supernatural means (like David Haller’s / Legion’s alters do in X-Men) to be a very well-argued theory and analysis of what might be happening in Stranger Things, I have recently pushed my own hypothesis regarding what is happening in the story towards questioning whether the supernatural events and superpowers of Stranger Things might exist exclusively within internal worlds in our characters’ subconscious. I’m unsure of how much of their “real” physical world we have seen yet in the series if I follow this train of thought, and how much of it is memories that are symbolically playing out in an internal world of their mind. In short: I think there might be a certain level of consciousness and wakefulness at which they’re all still in the same body that we have perhaps not fully seen or realized yet because of the creative way that the series is telling the story (although this might have been imaginatively represented in season 2 when Will and/or the Mindflayer are conscious/unconscious at the Lab with Dr. Owens.)

Perhaps El and Will only appear separately and can only interact with one another in internal worlds, while co-conscious, or within liminal spaces between wakefulness and unconsciousness because Hawkins is not always their “real” world but is an internal world in their shared brain. Maybe Hawkins is similar to the Upside Down, which I also believe is a mental construct, but more comfortable since it’s meant to be a home for alters to live rather than a place that trauma has been hidden away. I think that El is a gatekeeper in the DID System. And I currently hypothesize that Hopper is also possible part of that same DID System and that Hopper is a protector and potentially also a gatekeeper. (Hopefully I will find the time to write a new post about Hopper sometime in the near future.)

The questions that I keep asking myself are: what if some moments in the story are not actually taking place in the ‘real world’ even within the Stranger Things universe? What if many moments in the series so far have been fantastical because they were moments in characters’ lives that were re-imagined by their subconscious mind in order to cope with trauma? Not hallucinations (because as Hopper says “these aren’t nightmares, it’s happening”) but imaginative re-workings of "what happened” in their life that are easier for their mind to process. PTSD and internal flashbacks and also reworked memories that manifest themselves more symbolically and metaphorically within fantastical internal worlds.

Many movies on the Stranger Things 4 Video Store Friday movie list encourage me to continue questioning the boundaries between Stranger Things characters’ physical lives and what they might be experiencing as flashbacks or as memories within internal worlds and different states of consciousness. A few films on the list which inspire me to question what might be going on in Hawkins and what Hopper, El, and Will (and many other characters) might be dealing with include Altered States, The Fisher King, The Matrix, Inside Out, Inception, The Truman Show, What Dreams May Come, Drop Dead Fred, The Cell, The Neverending Story, and many others.

The first season of Stranger Things had a lot of artistic and thematic strength in its mystery and layers of ambiguity, but I suspect that once Stranger Things was renewed and they knew that they could have multiple seasons they began planning how to reveal what’s going on behind the curtain of mystery in a meaningful way by the end of the story.

The big question is: what has been happening in these characters’ lives? Am I “overthinking things” as some of my friends have told me? Is it really “not that deep?”

Here are a few blogposts that I have written on this topic in which I explore some of my thoughts regarding what might be happening in the series if Stranger Things is about a DID System, internal worlds, and alters dealing with trauma:

🧠 What is going on with the eerie parallels between Will and El?

👀 My response to an Ask: "Do you think there’s any relation or symbolism between a Brenner and Lonnie other than being shitty/abusive father figures?"

🦸‍♀️ My response to an Ask: "What are the source of their powers?" in which I share my "first layer" and "second layer" meta theories/thoughts (re: The DID Theory) + a brief follow-up Ask regarding the concept that El's powers might only exist in internal worlds if she is a fictive alter

🏞 My response to an Ask: What do you think is going to happen with the Upside Down especially if Will and El's connection grows? 

In this post I briefly address how El, if she were a teenage girl alter that exists in an internal world of the mind but who is sometimes conscious in Will’s body in the “real world”, would have experiences comparable to those of a trans girl

Truthfully: I am at the point that I speculate that nearly all of the characters exist as alters either exclusively or are introjects which are alters based on people that the DID System knows that exist in the external world. But I realize that would be quite the plot twist and might push the question of “what is real?” farther than some fans might be willing to go.

I recognize that this is a lot of information and theoretical content and blog links to provide to you in response to your general Ask but I wanted to offer you reference points and direct you to other blog posts regarding this theory in case you wanted to learn more about the evidence and analyses that led me and a few other bloggers to these hypotheses. If you have any other questions regarding my theories regarding what might be happening in Stranger Things (whether that’s this topic or others) please don’t hesitate to send me another Ask or to DM me directly. I always enjoy talking about ideas with other fans. :)

If this concept interests you I know that kaypeace21 would greatly enjoy sharing her own theories with you and answering any questions you have. I highly recommend that you visit her blog, read her posts, and message her if this topic interests you because my thoughts are often very different from hers and you might enjoy reading both of our blogs for two different theories based around the same hypothesis: that Will has dissociative identity disorder and that this influences all events in the series. If you are interested in reading about her current analysis that hypothesizes that superpowers are real in Stranger Things, that Will has dissociative identity disorder, and that both monsters and some other characters have emerged from Will’s subconsciousness into the “real world” of Hawkins then I recommend reading these two blogposts that she wrote: 🧠 Part 1: Will Created the Mindflayer and Upside-Down Theory + Part 2: Some of your favorite characters are Will’s split personalities (psych/narrative analysis) CW: abuse, sexual assault, psychological trauma (a content warning is also noted before the section in the post itself.)

I do agree with many aspects of kaypeace21′s theories and I think she explains how dissociative identity disorder might influence many events of the story so far in a way that I do find compelling, but the critical difference between our hypotheses is that kaypeace21 currently proposes that Stranger Things features characters with DID that also have superpowers (like David Haller in X-Men) but I currently think that the vast majority of what we have seen on screen in the series so far is “not real” and exists only within characters’ minds and I do not believe that El has any superpowers except when she is within internal worlds. (And that’s a fairly notable difference.) I also don’t think that the Mindflayer exists as a blobby mass of melted people except within internal worlds in their mind. I wonder if the vast majority of season 3 took place entirely in an internal world version of Hawkins and when Will said “what if we locked him out here with us?” to El that he might have been more accurate if he had said “what if we locked him IN here with us?” in very simple terms: I want to know if Will has actually woken up yet from being sedated in season 2 at all, or maybe whether he's sometimes present in the external world but then sometimes switches back to the internal world, etc. (But perhaps the events of season 4 will invalidate this thought of mine. I look forward to seeing what happens!)

Thank you again for your message. I hope my response wasn’t too rambling, that I didn’t repeat myself too much, and that it remained coherent in spite of how late at night I am writing this. I might return and edit this in the morning. (I’m wrapping up this reply at 12:56 AM but I started writing this at 10PM. Time flew by! Time for sleep.) Goodnight :)

[dailyexo]

[INTERVIEW] EXO - 191213 Billboard: “EXO Talk 'Obsession’ Album & Future: 'I Hope that the Name of EXO Can Grow’”

"It’s been seven years since EXO arrived with 2012's MAMA EP, and since then the boy band has spent much of its time atop of the South Korean music scene, with hits like 2013’s “Growl" and 2015’s “Love Me Right” setting them up as a dominant act throughout much of Asia. Last month, they unveiled their sixth LP, Obsession, ending the year -- and the decade -- with both a new sound and a hint towards what the future will bring for the men of EXO.

Fronted by a lead single also dubbed “Obsession,” the 10-track album is bookended by Korean and Chinese versions of the song, which turns the group towards hip-hop-inspired sampling and an intense Auto-tuning, blending their more typical R&B and electro-pop styling with musical elements that at first seem anachronistic and jarring. But it’s the perfect way to set up the story they’re trying to tell.

For EXO, the majority of their musical releases have been tied into fictive narratives revolving around the members and fantastical, sci-fi plot lines, ranging from the extraterrestrial to the supernatural. For Obsession, which peaked at No. 198 on the Billboard 200 chart dated Dec. 14, EXO presented oppositional sides to themselves through a series of teaser images and videos ahead of the album’s release, setting up an epic battle between EXO and their X-EXO clones, which played out in the music video for their single. The song’s apparent disjointment on first listen is meant to go alongside the visual elements, representing a dialogue between the two warring parties.

“Honestly, when we look into a song we think about what kind of performance will work and whether a song will fit the kind of performance we want to put on,” Kai tells Billboard. “So when we heard this song, we thought it was a really good fit in the sense that for the Auto-Tune it matched the idea of the two different EXOs, EXO and X-EXO. The Auto-Tune kind of gives us the vibe of communication between the two different parties having a conversation, so it was a very specific move that we took.” He said he thinks EXO will win the fight, eventually, “Because anytime you watch a movie or read a comic the hero does win. X-EXO is temporary so they’re going to disappear anyway.”

The idea behind the storylines that EXO utilizes to promote their music is to better get their music across to fans -- known collectively as EXO-L -- and also to better relay content in the age of digital media, where visuals are just as important as audio elements. It’s been something the group has been utilizing since their earliest days, and each member has supernatural powers associated with them that often are featured in their branding. “We’re not just a group that sings and dances,” says Chanyeol. “For people watching us, of course they know the storylines are fake. But like watching a movie, it's another way for people to fall for us more deeply. It gives people a back story about how we were formed. Our storyline isn't just incorporated into our music or videos, but it's incorporated really well into our concerts as well. We do feel that it really allows people to become properly immersed.”

Kai and Chanyeol are two of six EXO members that participated in the album, alongside Baekhyun, Chen, Sehun, and Suho, following the enlistment of Xiumin and D.O. in South Korea’s military, fulfilling the country’s mandatory draft requirements, and Lay focusing on a solo career in China. The six other members are expected to similarly enlist and take temporary hiatuses from the industry in the near future.

The new dynamic has given EXO’s members opportunities to explore different sides of themselves, and Chanyeol says that it’s also opened their eyes to how they work together and cover for one another in case of any issues. Each member "has to pull their weight so whether in singing or dance, there are parts that won’t be hidden,” he says. “It would be a really big problem [if we made a mistake] because it would be really obvious.” For Suho, who is EXO’s leader, the diminishing numbers makes him reflective. “The fact that we’re unable to perform with all the members is a little bit sad, so when we look at old videos we do feel like, ‘Oh, there are a lot of members in the group’ and we’d like to come together as a full group.”

As all able-bodied South Korean men are expected to take time off from their lives to fulfill the country’s draft requirements, EXO knows it will be seeing more such changes in the near future, and the act will likely not look the way it once did for sometime. But rather than dwell on the past, the men of EXO are looking towards the future, and 2019 saw many of them work on alternative projects, where it was releasing solo music, such as Chen, Baekhyun, Xiumin, and D.O., or working with new units, like Sehun and Chanyeol’s EXO-SC and Baekhyun and Kai in SuperM, along with numerous other professional activities. “We’ve received so much love for our units and solo projects, but at the end of the day the most important thing is the team and group’s performances,” says Baekhyun. “The fact that we’re able to show all these different sides to us also allows us to show different sides of EXO as a group and show how diverse we are, and how each of us have our own talents.”

When asked how they feel about their career over the past decade and what they hope for the future, Chanyeol responds that the members of EXO feel that they’re focusing on the present and facing each moment on its own. “To be honest, when we do interviews when we’re working we realize that as a group we’ve become very comfortable. Rather than us having to go out of our way to go do something, it’s become very natural for us. It’s grown with time and come naturally, this sense of maturity.”

Though EXO and X-EXO battle it out over the Obsession album, the duality of the release is also reflected in the members’ struggles to explore their identities as individuals beyond the act: how to be both a member of EXO and a man in his own right. As EXO have grown in their career, they have also grown up: youngest member Sehun debuted as a teenager but is now 25-years-old. Unfortunately ill on the day of the interview, he was silent throughout much of the discussion and his health hung over the act like a cloud, with frequent references to how, as they get older, they need to take care of themselves better. “These days, seeing that our physical health is part of our workload, I feel that a healthy life, health in general, is very important,” says Baekhyun. “Rather than thinking about more of what we can do to grow as a group, I feel that we all have begun to focus on seeking individual happiness. Right now, a lot of our focus is on how each person is able to find their own happiness and health, and use that when we come together as a group to move in the right direction.”

Suho echoes this, saying that their branching out as individuals beyond the group is a way to take care of themselves as individuals after years of focusing on the collective well-being. “In the past, EXO’s schedule didn’t allow a lot of individual talents to be focused on but starting from the beginning of this year we were given the time to really focus on ourselves, whether it was internally or externally. It’s not just us as a group, but I think everybody needs that kind of self-care. It was good for everybody.”

Even as they focus on themselves, the group is still the focal point of EXO’s identity. “We came together, got very close, and without the passion that we had as a group I don’t think we would have made it as far as we have come,” reflects Baekhyun. “When it comes to being satisfied, as people I think that we’re never 100% satisfied.” This passion towards improving and always seeking something closer and closer to perfection, but recognizing that is impossible and that there is always something more to be done, is emphasized by the members’ responses when asked what their obsessions are: Kai says he’s a workaholic, and Chanyeol says his competitive nature is to the degree that it could be considered an obsession. (Meanwhile, Baekhyun’s obsessed with games, and Kai jokes that Sehun is obsessed with alcohol, as it is well-known he’s one of the group’s members who enjoys drinking.)

One place where Chanyeol at the very least is satisfied in is EXO’s music. “When it comes to our music, I’m 100% confident that we release quality music,” he says with pride. “It’s almost like we’re not following trends but we don’t fall back behind either.” He and Sehun tried to push their artistic side in a new direction with EXO-SC’s What a Life EP in July, and there was a bit of a negative response from some fans over the title song’s music video, which featured the pair partying it up with female dancers. But he says it’s all good, as there’s no moving forward without trying new things, and it’s always good to hear differing opinions. “We wanted to do something drastically different. You could say it was so completely different from what EXO typically releases. It was a very dramatic challenge for us, and even though there was some backlash from fans, for me personally it was a big motivating factor, that I need to show more new sides and that there are many new challenges to take on.”

It’s important to EXO that their audience takes in all the different sides to themselves that they have to offer, and Chen says he hopes that listeners recognize that there’s a difference between an artist releasing a single and an album. “If you listen to the whole album beyond ‘Obsession,’ you’ll recognize that all of the songs are good,” he says; his personal favorite is “Groove.” “I feel that there is a tendency that people just listen to the title track, but it would be really great if people can listen to the whole album because every song is really great.”

Moving forward, EXO knows they’re shifting into a new era of their career, but they express a desire to always remain as one. “I hope that EXO is able to continue just the way it does right now, but beyond the group I hope that each individual member is able to find his own happiness,” says Baekhyun. “We may not go on music performance shows all the time in 10 years, but we hope that we can release albums here and there. In that we can all live our own lives and come together, happily, as a group.” He pauses, and adds with a wry expression, “I think that in 10 years, hopefully we’ll be able to release something like a ballad or an R&B-heavy song where we can just stand around rather than dance.” Other members quickly jump in and refute this though. “That’s not EXO’s thoughts, that’s Baekhyun’s thoughts,” Sehun says with a laugh, while Chanyeol adds that he hopes EXO is “a very cool group” 10 years down the road; Kai adds that he would like to continue dancing as long as his body allows for it.

“As time passes, like our members, our fans are going to start pursuing their own lives as well,” says Kai. “As they fall into their own lives, when they suddenly have a thought of EXO, I hope that one thought that comes to their mind is, ‘It was a really good memory being their fan.’” Suho echoes this, repeating “A good memory” in English with a nod of his head. Baekhyun agrees with this desire for their time together with fans to be thought of warmly, but follows up with the suggestion that the idea of being a memory, while heartwarming, is limiting. “I really hope that we aren’t a group that is remembered as a group that’s part of the past, because when you think of that you think about these groups that don’t really promote and they don’t really do anything as a team. I hope that, whether individually or as a group, we continue to promote and that the name of EXO can continue to grow.”"

Photo links: 1

Credit: Billboard.

[linkspooky]

Do all the villains in Medaka Box have complexes about the concept of main characters?

That’s a good question, Non. I would say that Medaka certainly has a main character complex where she sees herself as the center of the world, and therefore the most important person. As if the whole world is written to revolve around her the same way it would for the main character of a story.  Rather then them all having main character complexes I would say they’re written to reflect one aspect of Medaka’s main character complex. They’re all basically callouts for her own egotism. More under the cut. 

1. Medaka is Always Right

In a story, the protagonist is usually right. The story’s morality and themes are usually written that way to center around the main character’s point of view. If the main character is wrong they’ll usually find the right answer in the end. It’s like how most detective novels end with the detective solving the mystery. The main character is usually written with the audience point of view in mind, so the audience will agree with the main character. Therefore, the views of the main character are usually the right one.

Medaka takes this to its logical extreme. Her point of view is always the correct one. Despite the fact that there are clear gaps in her knowledge, she just assumes that she knows better than others. Despite the fact that she doesn’t understand most people’s circumstances, she preaches to them like she knows their own lives better than them and what she says is best for them. 

Medaka’s like fifteen so thinking she’s the center of the universe and she has life figured out is pretty much the norm. However, Medaka is so strong she can usually strong arm others and force her views on them. Which is why she’s confronted with Unzen. 

The extreme result of thinking you’re right all the time is moral absolutism. Unzen suffers from the exact same flaw as Medaka. He thinks his views are the right ones. He’s completely confident in those views. His opinions on the world are the only ones that matter. 

Not only does this show Medaka how egocentric she is, because Unzen is literally ten years old. Which means Medaka has the developed empathy and ability to see other people’s viewpoints as a ten year old. It also confronts her with what forcing her views on others looks like to others. Unzen blows up the student council room, because he thinks he is right. Unzen attacks the student council members, because he thinks he is right. 

It sure is bad to beat others up  and get into fights all the time because you think you’re better than them. Oh wait. Unzen’s moralizing crosses into zealotry, because he thinks he’s right he also thinks he has the right to punish those who are wrong. Just like Medaka thinks so, it’s his job to correct the flaws in others. He punishes people for their flaws, Medaka forces her help on other people, that’s the only difference. 

Unzen thinks that he’s standing up for justice, but it’s only his own idea of justice. Medaka thinks she loves people and therefore she’s helping them, but really just like Unzen she loves the idea of people. The idea of justice that’s in Unzen’s head is what drives him, and what Medaka thinks she sees in people which we’ve shown time and time again her ideas about people are wildly incorrect are what drive her. When people don’t meet her ideas Medaka tries to correct them as well the same way Unzen does and it’s forceful. 

2. Medaka Stands Above Others

The main character especially in a shonen manga is usually the strongest character in the story. Everyone will flock around the main character. The main character is the leader, the chosen one, etc. etc. However, a real life person who thinks about themselves this way would just have a superiority complex.

The center of Oudo’s entire character is that he thinks he’s better than other people, therefore he knows better, and has a right to control them. “Abnormal” is just a fancy term for saying he thinks he’s special. He’s better than normal people. Normal people are beneath him and meant to be his subjects. 

Oudo has this same chosen one complex that Medaka has. Because he’s special, he can’t live a normal life. He’s above ordinary run of the mill parents. He’s above friends. He sees himself as the magical chosen one meant to create a happy world for everyone else.

But it’s not actually about other people it’s always about himself. Oudo’s main character complex takes a running leap and jumps all the way into narcicissm. 

The end result of centering the entire universe around himself is that Oudo starts hurting the people around him. He does it so easily because he doesn’t see their feelings. Oudo never really wanted to help others, it was all just narcicissm on his part. Medaka too, does she genuinely from the bottom of her heart want to help people and do what’s best for them, or does she think she’s better than other people, knows better, and therefore wants to meddle in other people’s lives without really understanding who they are or what they need. 

3.  Medaka Fights for Her Friends

The main character is always surrounded by their Nakama. Kumagawa and Medaka have lots in common as character foils, but they’re united in one aspect they’re both incredibly lonely people.

They’re both an equal distance away from everybody else. You can only love everyone, or hate everyone from a distance, because it requires you to stop seeing individual people as people. They do this for opposite reasons, Kumagawa because he’s traumatized, and Medaka because she’s been spoiled all of her life. 

The main character surrounds themselves with Nakama. Medaka and Kumagawa are both people who misguidedly try to surround themselves with true companions and fight for the people around them. 

Kumagawa just like Medaka is someone desperate to love everything about people. He accepts the flaws, the damage, and the pain of being close to other people. In a way Kumagawa’s desire to help traumatized people is much more genuine because he knows what other people’s damage looks like. Medaka is convinced everyone in the world is a suffering, starved orphan waiting to saved by her kindness. Kumagawa knows that traumatized people are messy and traumatized, and don’t really want to be saved a lot of the time because they’re too caught up in the pain and can’t imagine a life outside of it. 

However, both of their methods are wrong. They both try to help the people around them by forcing their views onto others. Kumagawa assumes that everyone just wants to stay a traumatized little mess forever like he does, and Medaka just assumes everyone wants to be fixed. 

However, the result of their misguided help is different. Kumagawa’s efforts to help his friends always blow up in his face. He always has good intentions towards others, but those good intentions always go the worst way possible because he doesn’t really know what he’s doing. He’s just inserting himself and needlessly meddling. 

Medaka does the same thing, she “fights” for her friends when it’s really more about herself. It’s about her own desire to not be alone. It’s just Medaka’s mistakes haven’t blown up in her face the way Kumagawa’s have, at least not yet. Kumagawa is punished over and over again, Medaka is spoiled, creating the difference between the two of them.

At the end of the minus arc, Medaka and Kumagawa are both trying to have small groups of friends, but they’re also trying to fix those friends because they don’t know how to have friends like a normal person. 

4.  Medaka is the Main Character of this World

Finally, if someone truly believes that they’re the main character of the story it means they’re applying a fictive lens to the world. They see the world as if it were a story happening in a story book, written by an author with meaning and purpose. 

However, is this world is a story and they’re the main character then what about everybody else? Unconscoiusly, other people are casted as side characters in their own story. 

That’s what Ajimu hammers in hard when she breaks down Zenkichi and Medaka’s relationship. Medaka never really asks Zenkichi what he wants. Their friendship from the start has always been about her. Zenkichi just revolves around her. 

Medaka sort of just treats him like a side kick to her story. Which Ajimu says, if Medaka treats him this way he must not be that important to her. He must be somebody Medaka can easily replace. If Medaka can treat her own closest friend like that, that goes to show just how she sees other people. 

She seems to lose all interest in Zenkichi in about fifteen seconds. Ajimu doesn’t even have to try really hard to split them up. It’s because Medaka can’t see other people, and she can’t believe her relationships with other people are going to last. She’s constantly working to earn the love of other people because she literally can’t believe someone would just give it to her. She lacks object permanency in regards to other people, like if she doesn’t give them a reason to stay they’ll just go away from her. Which is also just a symptom of her narcicissm. 

Seeing the world as just Medaka’s story makes her ignore the fact that other people exist, and therefore they have their own stories as well. Ajimu suggests something as simple as Zenkichi could be considered a main character too. 

Medaka who treats her friends like they’re all sidekicks in her story. The most extreme result of that behavior is Ajimu, who simply doesn’t see or care about other people. 

Ajimu is so far gone she simply believes the world doesn’t exist. Therefore it doesn’t matter how she treats people it’s all the same in the end. Medaka and Ajimu are both people who assume they know it all and at the end of the arc they finally learn...

They’re thinking was completely wrong. 

Medaka didn’t know anything because she didn’t know other people. She didn’t know their view points, she didn’t know their stories. It’s after this point in the story Medaka shakes off her main character complex. Instead of assuming she’s always right, that she knows better than others, that she’s like the main character in the story she comes to realize she doesn’t matter that much in the grand scheme of things. She now knows, that she knows nothing. 

Now that she’s no longer living as the main character of a story however, she can start living as a human being. 

[kajaono]

hi so I saw you reblogging so much of (different) sherlock stuff. where is it all from and how gay is everything if u dont mind me asking? :D have a good day/night (:

Updated version: 08.09.2024

Hey nonny, thank you for asking. I guess you allready know BBC Sherlock so i skip that and come straight gay to other stuff.

1. The The Furtive Festivity. It is a Johnlock comedy short movie that was produced during the bbc sherlock season 4 aftermath (seaosn 4 aftermath = fans who didn't liked the idea of canon Johnlock said that IF we want a canon Johnlock we should do it ourselves. So the heros of @sherlockppu started a crowdfunding page and made this short movie). It is about John who trys to organize a surprise party for Sherlock. It is really funny, full of heart, unapologetic gay and has a super soft ending. It can be watched for free on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQaoCdh7q6I

2. CBS Elementary. It had the bad luck to be released during the second season of BBC Sherlock. So many people ignored it and/or gave it a lot of hate. It is not justified imo. Like BBC Sherlock it plays in modern times, but it plays in modern NY. Sherlock is a tattooed ex junkie (still british) who just got dischared from a rehab center and Joan is an chinese woman. She is an ex doctor and now should help Sherlock for six weeks to get back into his regular life, find a job again, stay clean and go to therapy. Even with those changes is a really briliant adaptation that stays really true to the orginial stories. It is super nerdy, the humor is on point, the cases are really clever and the show cares deeply for its characters. It is also really diverse. For a whole season Sherlock is dating a disabled woman, mental illnesses are a topic, Sherlocks drug use is topic in every season, lgbt people get mentioned really often and appearing often as side characters. Sadly noone of the main cast is queer but the possibility is allways discussed. Actually the sexuality of the whole main cast, expecially of Joan Watson and Marcus Bell, are left open and there are a lot of nice shipping options in the show that the writers deeply care for: male/male, female/male, female/female as well as an OT3. I would highly recommend to check it out. It is my favorite adaptation. The last epsiode is aired tonight. The show is closed in seven seasons. I can not say how season 7 final is, but orginially season 6 was planned as the final and it is an awesome final season that gives you everthing you want and more.

Edit: Season 7 is absolut amazing. Reichenbach happens, no shock value ending. No force straight relationship. Untraditional family bounds. The ending is honoring the relationships of the characters and the growth they archieved. This show is amazing. Please watch it (many shows can still learn from this ending).

Edit 2: After I asked one of the Elementary writers (Robert Hewitt Wolfe) here on tumblr about the queer undertones he confirmed that Sherlock - in this adaptation - is definitly implied to be queer (Longest yay ever!) He also confirmed that Sherlock - in this adaptation - is basically neurodivergent.

Proof:

3. RDJ Sherlock Holmes. The movies with RDJ and Jude Law are focusing more on Sherlock nature as a fighter then on his deduction skills. Nevertheless they are also really clever written and i like how Guy Ritchie is filming his stories. There are two movie, a third one will be released decemeber 2021. The first movie is named “Sherlock Holmes” and focus on a more fictive case that is not discussed in the orginial ACD books. While the second movie focuses on the Moriaty case and stays more true to the ACD canon. The relationship between John and Watson is really queer, especially in the second movie. Sure it is still a Hollywood movie so Sherlock is dating Irene, but a kiss between Sherlock and a woman that you can see in the trailer was cut from the final movie and instead we got a Sherlock and John dancing scene. (In the second movie: A game of shadows.”). Jude Law himself describes the movie as a rom com. I would also recommend you to check them out. They are on Netflix. Also the humor is great and costumes are a dream.

4. Granada Sherlock Holmes. That is a TV show that was released 1984 and actually retells all of the orginal stories 1:1. With a few changes. John never marries Mary and the personal life of John and Sherlock gets more fleshed out. Jeremy Brett who is playing Sherlock Holmes is really close to how i imagined ACD Sherlock Holmes. John Watson is not portrayed as dumb side kick like other adaptations did back then but as a clever fellow. Of course because of the time it is only subtextual queer but due to the performance of the main actors they are really shipable. Jeremy Brett the actor of Sherlock was bisexual in real life and said such golorious things as “If it cheers up the gays, I’m thrilled“

5. the private life of sherlock holmes. The movie was released 1970. I do not know if I can highly recommend it but the author wrote Sherlock as a closet gay man in this adapatation and if you are a fan of BBC sherlock you will find a lot of similarities. Because the writers of BBC sherlock based their TV show on this movie. Nevertheless there are some great queer scene. For example where Sherlock refuse to impregnate a woman by saying that he and John are in a loving relationship. You can also find that scene on Youtube if you are interested in that.

6. Miss Sherlock. A TV show from HBO asia where both Shelrock and John are japense woman. While the first case is really disappoiting imo it gets a lot better in the later epsiodes. I only have watched the first three epsiode (because i am from germany and i do not like to stream illegal) but from what i saw it is a really promising show. John and Sherlock are of course really shippable again. What of course gets a really great new dynamic with both of them being women. Some who watched the last epsiode even go so far to say that Johnlock is canon in this adaptation. I can neither confirm nor deny that.

Edit: I have now watched all epsiodes and I can tell you that this adaption has the most well written Reichenbach ending I have ever seen. First, does the show levels up from a really mediocre first epsiode to a breathtaking final epsiode it. Second, while a few elements in the final epsiodes are copied from BBC Sherlock they are 100% better written, so clever and so well crafted. Also I now understand why people say that Watolock is canon here. I do not want to spoil to much but at the end Wato has to choose between her boyfriend and Sherlock. The rest is obvious, isn‘t it

7. Gosick. Also a japense adaptation. In this case as an anime and as books. I only read the books. In this adaptation Sherlock is a teenage girl with long blond hair who lives in the higest room of an old library in a school for rich kids. John is a teenage boy who comes from Japan and got an internship at this school because his brothers and his father are army members. John himself is not really a soilder but he does his best. He and Sherlock (Victorique) are solving cases in 9 different novels. There is nothing queer about this adaptation but i love how well written the cases are and that unlike other young Sherlock novels John does not gets ereased. Appreantly there are also sequel novels but i can not tell you something about.

8. House md. An medial/hospital AU where both John and Sherlock are sucessful doctors. Sherlock (Gregory House) has a drug addiction, is really arrogant but allways gets soft when he is around his Watson (James Wilson). All in all it is more clever written hospital show, but it never forgets its orginis (House is living in 221B, Irene Adler gets mentioned and in the last season Reichenbach happens). And i can spoil you so much. It takes you a time to ship House and Wilson but later they move in a house together, propose to eachother (”as a joke” sure jan..) and they drive into the sunset together at the end. Also pay attention to the music soundtracks. Most of what is left unsaid is told by the soundtracks. The show is closed in 8 seasons.

9. Enola Holmes - Books.  The books are about a fictive young sister for Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes who is solving cases on her own. The stories are still set in 1900. I only have read the first four novels so far. Now, 2024, there are nine Enola Holmes books.

There is nothing queer about the first novel. Sadly, John does not even appear in the first novel and imo the author gets a few things wrong about how Sherlock thinks about women. But the book is surprisingly feministic for a teen novel. Being a woman in Victorian era gets used as a weapon here in a way you wouldn’t expected. Ther first novel does not even has 200 pages but is a good read if your want a well crafted young teen book with a strong female lead.

Edit 1: I have now read novel 1 to 4 and until now there was only one Johnlock moment. At the end of the third book Johnlock gets their own short chapter. Nothing queer… just really soft (I am not complaining). On the other hand, Enola has a “friend”, a young lady that she constantly needs to save from trouble, Lady Cecily. They are not girlfriends, but really shipable in a very cute ‘first teenage love’ way. When Enola thinks about her (and she does that really often) she calls her “my missunderstood lady”. Especially the fourth novel turned out really queer in general, with all being subtext and probably not intended by the author herself.

Edit 2: I now have read book 1 to 8. The books are still not queer but Nancy Springer (the author) said she is okay with every interpretation we might have of Enola and her love life, she just won't give Enola a romantic relarionship, neither male nor female. (She is actually really angry at the movies for making Enola fall in love with a boy, lol). Still nothing queer between Holmes and Watson, but the Enola/Cecily relationship keeps on going strong. Go lesians! (not canon).,

I can highly recommend the books!

9. Enole Holmes - two movies. Based on the Enola Holmes book series a movie was released 2020 with Henry Cavil as Sherlock and Millie Bobby Brown as his young sister Enola. The movie adapts the first book but does not really sticks to its orginial plot. Many things get changed. That does not mean it is a bad movie but many motives seem really poorly explained in the movie, when you compare it with the book. A really MAJOR change happens in the movie: Enola falls in love with a boy what NEVER happens in the books (she is more attracted to girls, see above). So there is nothing queer about the movie. Also because Cavill!Sherlock does not meet his John yet. There are one or two nice gay panic scenes for Sherlock nevertheless.

Edit: the second movie was released recently. Sadly it is still really heterosexual and has nothing to do with the books anymore. I really enjoyed the second movie nevertheless. And we finally got our John! Sadly he is only appears at the end of the movie and only for a few seconds but he exchanges some really soft smiles with Sherlock. So I am really hyped for a potential third movie, hopefully with more John watson content!

10. The Irregulars - TV Show. The Irregulars is a TV-show that was released on Netflix 2021 and has one season so far. I actually do not think the official description of Netflix is really accurate so i will choose another one. The Irregulars is about Sherlock Holmes who lost control over his drug use so John Watson is engaging a gang of street kids to solve crimes for him, and like that tries save his and Sherlocks reputation. The Baker Street Irregulars were allready featured in the orginial novels by ACD. Allready here they helped Holmes to solve cases from time to time. The Irregulars (the show) mostly focuses on the cases the gang has to solve. They have a supernatural twist. John and Sherlock are more supporting characters, but nevertheless center of the story. Is it gay? Yes, definitly. Slight Spoilers ahead. Beware. In this adaptation John is a) a man of color and b) gay. He is confirmed - in the show - in love with Sherlock. He admits it multiple times and he has to face no homophobia for it. Also some background characters are gay and dance, kiss and cuddle at the birthday party of the prince of Endland. On the other hand Sherlock is really straight in this adaptation. And not in the way Elementary is straight with a few sex scenes and a girlfriend. But straight straight. So there is no canon Johnlock in this adaptation…. yet?  All in all this adaptation is really tragic so noone is happy in the end. Nevertheless it allready holds a special place in my heart. Not only because it is the major Sherlock Holmes adaptation where John is canonly gay. But also because this show straight- and queerbaits the audience in the most beautiful way possible. Some people say the show gets Sherlocks and John personality completly wrong but i would argue in its weird twisted it gets them better then any other adaptation i have seen so far. “Sherlock Holmes i not the work of one man, but of two.” And Royce (John Watson) is doing the most jealous, heartbreaking, love puppy faces i have ever seen. This man has an acting range. It blows me away. The only downside, especially the first three eps are really bad written, but it gets better and there is a lot of potential to develop. (i will add a better picture of these two cuties as soon as i find one)

11. BBC Sherlock - closed in 4 seasons. It was brought to my attention that many people haven’t watched BBC Sherlock these days, or never finished it. So i am finally adding BBC Sherlock here as well. It plays in modern London and every episode is 90 minutes long. But every season has only three episodes. It doesn’t really has an overall plot but more focus on the overall cases. Nevertheless Moriaty is allways in the focus of the story. Sadly I can not say it is gay. But it is great at queerbaiting. So good that even the official BBC3 twitter channel posted Johnlock shipping posts… but they never become canon in this adaptation. Also neither John nor Sherlock are confirmed queer. The show heavily plays with the idea of them being a couple without actually ever going there. John even asked Sherlock if he has a boyfriend when they first meet. But actually the close relationship they have is allways played for jokes. There are some gay side characters but all of them turn out to be evil. Nevertheless season 1 to 3 and TAB are really well written and worth a look. Season 4 is a mess full of plotholes and abonding every chemistry these two shared in favor of a straight ending.

12: Sherlock Hound - closed in two seasons.

Sherlock Hound is an anime, done by Studio Ghibli, directed by Hayao Miyazaki (Totoro etc.). It is about Holmes and Watson who happen to be dogs, in a universe where everyone is a dog. The episodes are around 25 minutes long each, and always feature one closed case. It is always Moriarty and his gang vs. Holmes/Watson. There are many throwbacks to the original ACD books, which is really lovely. Sometimes the easter eggs are hidden, sometimes they are really obvious. I only have watched the first 8 cases but so far the show is a lot of fun because every character is treated with respect, especially John. He is not the dumb side kick but a best and caring friend. So there are many soft scenes between him and Holmes. Even though it is not "gay" it is still cute to watch, especially when you enjoy a well written Holmes/Watson dynamic. But they both seem to be attracted to Mrs. Hudson? Thats what i am still really confused about. I will keep you updated.

13. Sherlock & Co - season 1 still running

Sherlock & Co is podcast, currently running on Spotify and everywhere where you can listen to podcasts. Its about John who just returned from the Ukraine, wounded and jobless. And of course he ends up in 221B together with Holmes. And they start solving cases together. The twist, John is a podcaster in this one. So he always speaks directly, to us, the audience. So its an audio book, pretending to be a podcast. Its a lot of fun. John is an akward nerd in this one, suffering from PTSD, and Sherlock has canon autism, among other diagnoses. The cases are always split in two or three parts, between 20 to 30 minutes long. Is it gay? Well.... we don't know that yet. They made Victor Trevor gay, which is big thumb ups from me, and the authors are aware of Johnlock. But if they will go there eventually? Only time will tell.

Edit: So the author of Sherlock & Co has spoken about Johnlock in their adaptation. So far, they don't want to do it:

Nevertheless he used the same tweet to imply that their Sherlock might be queer:

If we get something canon inside the podcast itself... nobody knows. Again, only time will tell

14. The Great Mouse Detective - movie

Thats a Disney movie from 1986. Sherlock and Watson are mice, living under 221B. Watson just returned from Afghanistan and is looking for a flat. He runs into a little crying girl. Her father got kidnapped by Moriarty. They go to Sherlock and together they solve the case. Its a great fun movie but also super unhinged. It has some really scary scenes, considering its a kids movie. BBC Sherlock might call himself a drama queen. THIS Sherlock here is the real drama queen. Its unbelievable. But also really funny of course. Him and Watson are really soft, Sherlock cares deeply for Watson and its really sad when he wants to leave again eventually. Nothing gay of course but a well written Holmes/Watson relationship.

15. The hound of the baskervilles 2002/The case of silk Stocking

These two are TV movies, aired 2002 and 2004. The connecting element is Ian Hart as John Watson. The actor of Sherlock Holmes gets changes in the second movie:

Both Holmes aren't good options imo, but Ian Hart as John Watson is a dream. The first movie focuses A LOT on Watson. The second one.. not so much. Is it gay? Well... it is compliacted. The first one has a really interesting take on the Holmes/Watson relationship, opening the movie with Holmes and Watson in a turkish bath, and them sharing a deep bound and many emotional scenes together. I personally read those scenes as queer (even though they were probably never meant like this). Watson has a really active part in the relationship. Setting boundraies and telling Holmes what to do and not to do. The first movie ends with Holmes asking Watson out on a date. The second movie? Gives Watson a random book non-accuarte love interest, and mostly ignores him. In the end Watson marries and leaves Holmes behind, featuring the iconic line: "“For me,” said Sherlock Holmes, “there still remains the cocaine-bottle.” And he stretched his long white hand up for it." So there are some queer undertones and i really think they were intentional (like Holmes being featured on the wedding photo) but all in all it is not queer.

16. Asylum Sherlock Holmes aka the one with the dino

Let us get one thing straight: This is a trash movie with no budget and it is absolutly aware of it. Nevertheless the actors carry the whole movie on their shoulder.. in just one oufit and a vest that is too short. While they battle a dinosaure... idk what else to tell you about this movie... But you are here for the important stuff. Is it gay? Surprisingly... yes?! Yes it is. Of course not out and proud. But Holmes and Watson nearly kiss? I nearly fall from my chair when it happened. There wasn't even a #nohomo! They nearly kissed (at this point Gareth David-Lloyd had already made out with JB in Torchwood so he is definitly open to kiss men). And then the movie just wents on. In the finale, after the battle is over and the big bad is dead (and no, its not the dino) they just stand there, look at each other: "Holmes...." then they nod, leaving A LOT of things unsaid and return to their home, 221B. This movie also has a really affectionate Holmes who touches his Watson a lot, who rushes to Watson once he is hurt, begging Watson not to give him drugs against the pain calling him "a bad bad man", also a lot of banter. Yeah it is a trash movie, yeah it has no budget, there isn't even a T-Rex in it, the poster is a complete lie... and still. My babies!

17. Sherlock Holmes 2002 - a case of evil (with James D'arcy)

Again a TV movie... what even is the plot of this movie? Holmes against evil drug dealing Moriarty? Idk honestly this movies goes in circles and circles. And Holmes has a lot of sex with women. The movie breaks with a lot of Sherlock Holmes rules on purpose and completly fails. Like Sherock not smoking a pipe but smoking exclusively cigarettes, or him not shaking Watsons hand when they meet for the first time so he can not deduce him ('afghanistan or iraq?') Its not good... nevertheless James D'arcy is a really enjoyable Sherlock Holmes who just nails the Holmes-look. A shame he was wasted like this. I think the potrayal of Watson is really interesting here. He is really bossy but never in an annoying way and he just moves into 221B without even asking Holmes. He takes care of his Holmes and they work really well together. Even with his 'odd' look (see below) he grew on me. But is gay? Not at all. If you squint really hard this Holmes got himself a top and a sugar daddy... but... no. Just don't watch this movie.

Upcoming: CBS Watson A medical drama, focusing on Watson who is working in a hospital. At this point Holmes already got killed by Moriarty. This is everything we know so fat. Watson will be played by Morriss Chestnut. It is written by the CBS Elemenetary writing team

Upcoming: Young Sherlock

Written by Guy Ritchie, it focus on the Young Sherlock Holmes, based on the Young Sherlock Holmes novels by Andrew Lane. It will have Hero Fiennes Tiffin in the main role as Young Sherlock.

So that should be all for the beginning. I hope that helped. If you want more detailed information on one of the show feel free to contact me again.

It could be that i forget a show. In this case i will add it later. 

And at my fellow Sherlockians feel free to add Russian Sherlock or Rathbone Sherlock or any other adaptation i haven’t watched yet.

[awbrainno]

Here’s an unexpected side-effect of the two of us (Clint and Dean, the Sad Fictive Dream Team) co-hosting this system: it provides us with some very... immediate, very uncomfortable insight into the myriad different ways that being a fictive is difficult.

Being a fictive is lonely. That’s more or less universal, probably: it’s lonely to be here, to be in a system, to be from a world that doesn’t exist anymore and that the entire populace believes to be fictional. It’s lonely to miss your friends and family and know that, short of a miracle, you’ll never see them again. You might see versions of them, people with the same names, people with similar stories, but it’s unrealistic, frankly, to believe that with all these multiverses and different canons and systems that you’ll see the exact people you, personally, knew ever again. That’s lonely.

So: Clint Barton and Dean Winchester. Both lonely, both fictives, both from wildly popular “fandoms.” There are a ludicrous number of fictives from either of those sources, and if we wanted to, on any given day either of us could go searching and find posts made by fiction-kin and fictives and roleplay blogs and ask blogs, all acting more-or-less like the people we love and miss and mourn.

But.

“Clint Barton” is not a name that really pops up a lot on this site. Searching through the marvel kin and fictive types, there are tons of iterations of, for lack of a less self-deprecating term, the “more popular” characters. It’s like looking through the tabloids from nys original universe, really: Steve. Steve. Bucky. Tony. Bucky. Spiderman. Steve. Tony. Tony. Natasha (!)... Steve. Clint more or less fades into the background, and is rarely, if ever, mentioned in “canon-call” posts. Clint is always going to love Tony, sure, but ny’s made nys peace with the fact that Tony Stark is never going to wander into our inbox searching for nym. Tony is married to Steve, or in love with Pepper, or searching for Bucky, or misses Rhodey. A million different “Tony Stark” accounts, none of them looking for Clint - and it hurts, but not nearly as bad as it used to. Clint moved on, got married, and spares a thought for nys lost love every so often. Clint moved on.

Dean... doesn’t really have that option. Dean is, more or less, unable to move on, because “the fandom” will never forget about him. Sure, there’s the occasional Gabriel or Lucifer or even a Charlie sometimes, but for the most part it’s just Team Free Will in the tags, like Dean himself looking into a million mirrors, like looking into an endless list of his own nightmares: Sam misses him, Cas misses him, he misses them, and on and on it goes. Nine times out of ten the posts are either by him or about him, and how can he move on and stop pining for home when every so often the love of his life pops in to anonymously say “I’m here, I’m where you are, I still watch over you, the whole universe wants us to be together and here I am” before fucking off into the void again? And it is always anonymously, Cas for some reason never willing to strike up the kind of conversation that Dean can reply to or participate in, just sending messages in a bottle often enough to remind Dean that he’s out there, somewhere, still.

It’s lonely, being a fictive. We will never see our loved ones again. But it is so much easier to accept that and have a life outside the grief when they don’t haunt us like our shadows: incorporeal, fleeting, and ultimately, just a reflection of the real thing.

[fictionkinfessions]

You know, with all the new fears of season 2 and how it might end, to cope I've just been telling myself that I'm going to be ok, I'm here now, I'm ok, I made it. And I know that might sound counterintuitive since I know I fucking died and I'm pretty sure I died young-I honestly don't think I made it to thirty (30). Plus I'm kinda without like the one maybe two people I miss the most. But you know what? I'm in a world now where I am in a much healthier headspace, I have friends, I once again have a loving family, and I have a whole lot to celebrate. So even if this next season ends in the worst possible outcome aside from me fucking dying (or even, if it does somehow end that way which I honestly doubt) I am going to celebrate where I am now. I hope any Arcane kins/fictives reading this remember this: however our story ends is not the end of us. We have whole new lives and whole new chances to live the life we want. -Jinx (Arcane) #🌙🌹🐚

x

[samurailoveballadhistory]

Would you say that SLBP is somewhat historically accurate?

It “very strongly references historical incidents”, much more so than, say, Ikemen Sengoku. Clearly research was done, and it was great. That is why this blog exist. But by my personal judgement, I would not consider the game as a whole “accurate” for many reasons.

Elements of the narrative are accurate, maybe one scene here or one story event there, but combined together… the “overall score” is lowered, so to speak. While I’m totally fine with the changes as a fan of otome game, if you ask me about accuracy I have to dock points off. 

1) Condensing timeline heavily: the span of Hideyoshi’s and Nobunaga’s route covers events that are 10 years apart in reality. 

2) Having characters do things that does not happen in real life to bring more excitement to the plot: Yasumasa and Narimassa’s rebellion in Ieyasu and Toshiie’s routes are 100% fiction. Nobunaga did not burn down the Honganji in real life. 

3) Muddling of order of events: Honganji falls years before Takeda is destroyed, not after. Kojuro became the lord of Shiroishi Castle after the Date surrendered to Toyotomi, not before. 

4) Combining two events together for either enhancing drama or to save time and space: Hanbei dies during the siege of Kozuki castle, not the battle against Bessho. The poisoning attempt and Mogami’s fight against Masamune are 2 different issues.

5) The MC “stealing” roles from the historical persons: The one who offered to become a hostage so that Sunomata Castle can be built is Hideyoshi, but in the game MC does it.

6) Using myths and legends that are normally considered as at best “not credible narrative” by historians: The story of Araki Murashige eating mochi off Nobunaga’s sword, Hideyoshi’s nickname being “monkey”

7) Using tropes that are outright modern inventions, not just Edo era legends, made up by modern novelists or game creators: Masamune and Yukimura’s rivalry is invented by Sengoku Basara. Mitsunari’s “Fox of Sawayama” title is invented by Samurai Warriors. Oichi and Nagamasa’s love/romance is invented by modern novelists. Nobunaga’s obsession for konpeitou is also modern invention, though unclear when then trend started.

8) Outright fluff/fictive events: Mitsunari was never raised a girl, and he was not the product of rape. His father in real life was a respectable samurai with love for education, who inspired his sons to also appreciate reading. The Date never personally visited Nobunaga, neither Terumune nor Masamune. Shingen never met Masamune. Ieyasu never demanded for Kojuro to serve him. I do believe it was actually referencing the situation when Hideyoshi made the offer, although when Kojuro refused, Hideyoshi just let him off. 

9) Things that are physically and humanly impossible to do: There was once a story event where Nobunaga rushed from Osaka to Usayama just in time to save Mitsuhide within such a short period of time, and this is absurd. “The reinforcement couldn’t come in time” was precisely the reason why in the real life event, that inspired this particular Mitsuhide story, Mori Yoshinari DIED.

10) People dying or conveniently NOT dying for plot purposes: Kansuke should have already died in the Battle of Kawanakajima (Shingen and Kenshin’s common route), but he was still around in Shingen’s route that covers later-date events. Shingen should have died much earlier, but he was also alive for much longer, and performing the role that in real life was acted by his son. Kennyo in real life was not killed when Honganji was defeated, but simply moved away. Ibano Hiromasa should have died in battle, but in the game he only suffered heavy injuries and survived.

ETA:

11) Anachronism abound: There are too many to list here, but I will mention some examples. Masamune and Yukimura belongs to a younger generation than the rest of the samurai. Their fathers, Masayuki and Terumune, are actually younger than Ieyasu. Mitsunari is younger than some of Nobunaga’s sons. Plenty of objects or cultural norms are far too modern for the Sengoku. For example, Sugoroku and the wedding dress depicted in the wedding event CGs. As commented in the replies, strawberry daifuku and donuts are modern sweets that do not exist in the Sengoku. The konpeitou that Nobunaga had in real life was not as colourful as the konpeitou shown in-game, but instead plain white (and also less spiky-looking). Nobunaga did not actually consume castella regularly. In fact, it was believed that Hideyoshi was the first person to sample castella freshly-baked in Japan, about a decade or so after Nobunaga’s death. Kiseru was not a commonly available item until 1590s. Having them being fashioned into hidden blades like what Kyouichirou/Goemon uses is an even later trend from the Edo era. 

Bonus: Hideyoshi’s brother was mentioned in his main route and one of the events, but then goes mising from the game without explanation. In real life, Hidenaga was often said to be Hideyoshi’s most trusted right hand man. 

[tacitcantos]

Why 2019′s Twilight Zone is Boring

Though 70 years old at this point, the original 1950 Rod Sterling Twilight Zone is still one of the creepiest and smartest works of speculative and weird fiction ever committed to TV. It’s a series that poses strange questions and offers even stranger answers, a series that’s moody and atmospheric and thought provoking, a dark parable that’s gone on to inspire other works of weird fiction.

It’s no wonder then that there have been so many attempts throughout the years to revive it: a movie in 1983, a series in 1985, and another series in 2002. Each has been greeted with varying levels of critical success, but none have been as culturally impactful as the original.

The 2019 remake... won’t be breaking that tradition.

Don’t get me wrong, the new Twilight Zone has a distressing amount of quality and talent involved. The cast is solid throughout, and the only reason certain episodes work at all is the powerful performances of the actors involved. There’s also a nice push for racial diversity in the cast, and sometimes in the themes of a few of the episodes like Replay and The Traveler.

The visuals of each of the ten episodes are gorgeous and moody, and the music wonderful and atmospheric and reminiscent of the discordant jangles and strings of the late and great 2013 Hannibal tv show. It’s a lot of quality to be draped on a fundamentally flawed structure.

To understand the fundamental flaw in the new series, we have to go back to the original Rod Sterling Twilight Zone. And the thing that has to be understood about the original series is that it’s not science fiction despite looking like it on the surface.

Science Fiction

Though there are dozens of definitions of science fiction, at its core one of the key aspects of science fiction is that it introduces a technology or technologies we don’t have in the modern day, and it explores and maps out the impact and implications they’d have on individuals and society.

For example, I, Robot by Isaac Asimov is interested in the implications of what sentient artificial intelligence means for our understanding of personhood, how an AI would define and think about itself, and how society would go about trying to control it, leading to the three laws of robotics for which the book is most famous.

This definition of science fiction is also why something like Star Wars, at its heart, is not science fiction despite having a lot of the trappings of it. It has a lot of technologies that don’t exist in the modern day, but it’s not interested in the impact of them. It has lightsabers because they’re cool, not because it wants to speculate about how they would change warfare.

Even the implications of the force, the speculative aspect of its universe that’s most critical to the story, isn’t really explored. How does the force change the universe? You get mystical samurai cops, and that’s about it. Nothing about the force is actually key to the functioning of the star wars universe. You could take it out and the movies would be a lot less fun, but the universe wouldn’t really be changed. This isn’t to disparage Star Wars: I love Star Wars, but despite its trappings it’s fantasy, and to say it’s science fiction just isn't accurate.

Parable

Much like Star Wars, despite its trappings The Twilight Zone isn’t science fiction. But it’s not fantasy either. The Twilight Zone is a much older and simpler form of story. It’s a parable. Each episode is a self contained story of right and wrong, with the strange or impossible element there to hammer home a message, not be explored.

All three of these genres we’ve talked about, Science Fiction, Fantasy, and parable, have strengths and weaknesses unique to them. One of the strengths of a parable is its clarity. There’s right and wrong, and not a lot else to be said. Almost by necessity, parables have to be streamlined and simple in structure. In a parable there’s a message or lesson and the story is really just a vehicle to illustrate it.

The parable of the boy who cried wolf doesn’t go into the emotional underpinnings of why a boy would consistently sound a false alarm over and over again, because it’s not important. Did he have an abusive childhood? Was it a metaphor for trying to escape abuse and the unwillingness of society to listen? Is the wolf symbolically his abuser? The parable doesn’t care and it isn’t important to the point it’s trying to make; don’t sound false alarms or no one will pay attention to you when the threat is real.

Simplicity of Structure

The original 1950’s Twilight Zone understood that simplicity of structure was key to a successful parable: each episode was a half hour in length; just long enough for setup, twist, and falling action. You can tell this simple structure was key to the Twilight Zone’s success because most of what people remember about any given Twilight Zone episode is the ending.

And while having such a simple structure might seem restrictive, I’d argue that not only is it the most effective way of telling a parable, but that there’s a lot of freedom in structure, that the simplicity of the structure allowed Rod Sterling and the other writers to grapple with issues other shows on TV couldn’t at the time, and allowed the episodes to breath in the grace notes.

And exhibit A in my argument is the new Twilight Zone.

Where the original Twilight Zone was a half hour, the 2019 incarnation is twice that length at an hour. And while I’m sure the writers and producers thought that was a great chance to expand and tell a more complete and complicated story than the original show, what it actually does is put the episodes in an uncomfortable limbo. They’re too long to be able to embrace the simplicity of the original show, that structure of setup twist and falling action, and too short to really be able to explore the core concept and theme of each episode. There’s a reason most movies aren’t an hour long, and that’s because it’s simply not a conducive length for telling a good story. With each episode of the New Twilight Zone I found myself bored around the thirty minute mark, impatient for the twist out of curiosity but not really invested in the characters or plot.

Not All Men

Episode 7, Not All Men, is a good example of the problems the extended run time of the new Twilight Zone can cause. The core concept is that there’s a meteor that falls and causes all men in the area to become violent. This is sort of a dumb concept to begin with, but not completely doomed. The main character even goes through some growth. She starts the episode unassertive and meek in the face of the patriarchal hierarchy of the company she works at and ends it standing up for herself against male harassment:

This isn’t an inherently bad arc, but it’s execution is pitiful, without enough weight for we the audience to become invested in. We never get any real indication of why the character starts the way she does, what her life experience has been to shape her into who she is, and there’s no sacrifice or growth involved in her change.

If the episode was longer it could’ve delved into that material, made the main character a fully realized and three dimensional person that we could’ve become invested in and root for, but as the episode stands she and her growth are more perfunctory than anything else. She’s meek, she runs from agro dudes for a bit, then stands up for herself.

The twist of the episode also isn’t worth waiting a whole hour for. At the climax of the episode it’s revealed that while the meteor makes men more violent, it’s not an overriding urge: the episode implies that the affected men didn’t resist simply because they wanted an excuse to inflict violence. But, because the twist comes so late, its not really given enough time to breathe and be explored in a meaningful way.

Simple Messages

This ties into another fundamental problem with the 2019 series, which is that it isn’t anywhere near as smart as it thinks it is. Often the idea or message at the heart of an episode is borderline offensive in how simple it is. By trying to avoid destiny you create it? Paranoia is bad? You should care about the suffering of others? Mind boggling. Truly.

They’re not bad messages, but they’re simple. And the television audience of 2019 isn’t the audience of 1959: the modern audience is more schooled and experienced with scifi and weird fiction. We’re not shocked or provoked into thought anymore just by the introduction of a weird element like your car coming to life and stalking you. It’s not enough.

This isn’t to say audiences of 1959 were dumb, but the discourse around scifi and weird fiction for even the casual tv watcher of today is a lot more complex than it was back then. We’re not in the 101 level anymore, more like the 103 level: we’ve seen the initial introduction of most ideas, seen them explored and challenged and subverted, and are now bored by those first two levels of discussion.

This is why the core message of an episode like Point of Origin, in which refugees from another world are rounded up and placed in concentration camps, falls flat. The episode follows a woman who’s privileged life is stripped from her when a government agency identifies her as an unwitting refugee from another dimension, and imprisons her in a concentration camp.

The episode’s message isn’t subtle: you should care about the suffering as others, you should treat immigrants as people: and that even before her fall from grace the woman should’ve cared more about the fate of her immigrant housekeeper and illegal immigrants broadly.

It’s not a bad message, and it’s one that a mind boggling amount of people nowadays somehow still don’t understand, but from a fictive perspective it’s too simple and trite to spark interest and engagement or make the audience think.

Preach Fatigue

And it’s also a message we’ve heard several thousand times. The way we consume information nowadays is different from when the original Twilight Zone first aired; the discourse around topics like immigration or gender nowadays is in many ways saturated and as an audience we suffer from a type of preach fatigue where we’ve been told so many times the given side of a given topic is bad or good that we’ve sort of stopped listening.

This wasn’t as much of an issue in 1960, and it especially wasn’t an issue with the Twilight Zone. Back then scifi and weird fiction wasn’t considered a mode of serious social commentary in the tv arena, which meant The Twilight Zone could lure audiences in for a fun and spooky time, their cognitive defenses lowered, and then sucker punch them with something deeper than what they expected.

That advantage of bypassing and audiences preach defenses is completely lost in 2019’s Twilight Zone. We all know that science fiction can effectively tackle big issues, and we know the deal with The Twilight Zone specifically: that it’s going to have a twist in the last act that makes us question our complicity in some social issue. Our preach fatigue hackles are already raised.

In 1960 the Twilight Zone was adding a new element to the discussion, but now, the social topics it was concerned with are are so heavily examined that to do truly do a comparable job, it needed to be way, way more clever than Point of Origin’s premise of "imagine its aliens instead of Mexicans". To be as effective as the original, 2019’s Twilight Zone really needed to tackle issues that are less clear cut than men having a choice in their violent behavior or whether illegal immigrants deserve basic human rights, issues that are less overtly preachy because they’re less discussed.

For example, Point of Origin actually has the kernel of a complex and interesting idea in it, it just doesn’t do anything in it. In the episode as it is now the main character’s fall from grace serves largely as a kind of gotcha moment of the irony in how the tables have turned, but in a better version of the episode her arc could be used to explore the idea that social lines are largely arbitrary and fickle, and that whether you’re part of a group or not can change on a whim.

It’s an idea that’s worth examining the facets of, the causes and effects of how and why and where social lines are erected, and one that’s more complex than Point of Origin’s trite message about how you should treat immigrants like people. There’s more material there for an audience to chew on and engage with, and one that’s less preachy and more thought provoking.

Metaphor and Censorship

Another element that made the Twilight Zone successful and relevant in 1959 but doesn’t really apply today, is the issue of censorship. In 1959 what could be portrayed on screen, and which topics could be explored was far less permissive than it is today.

There’s an interview with Rod Sterling right before The Twilight Zone first aired where he talks about being tired of clashing with sponsors and executives over what content and social issues his screenplays could include. One example he brings up comes from a teleplay on the Nuremberg trials in which the company American Gas insisted on an edit:

“In it as you recall, mention was made of gas chambers. And the line was deleted, cut off the soundtrack. And it mattered little to these guys that the gas involved in concentration camps was cynanide which bore no resemblance physical or otherwise to the gas used in stoves. They cut the line.”

“Because the sponsor was-”

“They did not want that awful association made between what was the horror and misery of Nazi Germany with the nice chrome, wonderfully antiseciptically clean beautiful kitchen appliance that they were selling.”

But just as with the point about the lack of complexity in it’s themes, the new Twilight Zone exists in a different era than the original. We’re at a point in television and fiction where creators don’t have to bow as much to advertisers or censors and can actually just say what they mean. Point of Origin doesn’t need to veil it’s message about immigrants and their demonization in scifi terms; it could just tell a story about real world immigrants and refugees. This doesn’t mean it has to be bereft of weird elements, those still have a valid role to play, but it does mean it can address the issues it’s about head on and directly, and I’d argue there’s value in that kind of clarity.

Some people will make an argument that veiling issues in scifi metaphors lowers an audience member’s kneejerk defenses and lets them look at an issue stripped of their preconceptions and prejudices. And there’s certainly a tradition of creators using weird fiction to try and accomplish that.

Rod Sterling himself spoke about it in several interviews throughout his career, though he seems to have been somewhat split on the utility of using scifi metaphors. At one point he said about audiences:

“You may have to tell them a story of prejudice in parable form in which they may step aside as third persons and cluck how awful we treat our minority groups but at least they know that it’s an evil, and they will recognize it as such. And by osmosis or some incredible process will somewhere along the line, be faced with a situation in which they too may have to exorcise a prejudice and be conscious of it as an evil.”

“Now on Twilight Zone for example, we made a comment on prejudice, on conformity, on intolerance, on censorship, but it’s easy to do it when you’re talking about Buck Rogers isn’t allowed to write his memoirs in the way he wants to write them so he puts on his backpack, his rocket pack, and he zooms over to the publisher. And they applaud and laugh and think how interesting. Now it may well be that the inner message never gets through, but I think peripherally it does get through.”

But in that same interview Sterling also emphasizes the need for clarity, immediacy, and hitting the audience where they live when discussing social issues:

“I think the- the purpose, the point of a dramatic show that’s used as a vehicle of social criticism is to involve an audience, to show them wherein their guilt lies, or at least indeed their association.

This latter point is the one I think is more valid. I’d argue that veiling real world social issues through weird fiction metaphors to make audiences think is a nice sentiment, it’s not a particularly effective technique, and often the metaphor simply goes over people’s heads.

How many red-hatted build-a-wall-enthusiasts watched Point of Origin and thought to themselves after; “yeah, you know what, immigrants aren’t so bad and we shouldn’t round them up into concentration camps.” I’d argue none. It’s far, far too easy for an audience member to simply think that sure, in this case what happened was unfair, but this real world case is different for x y and z reasons, no matter how insignificant those x y z differences are to the core situation.

Fundamentally, people are simply very, very good at ignoring and minimizing information that destabilizes their world view, and it’s relatively simple to do it with fiction. And none of the new Twilight Zone episodes are pointed enough to break through that cognitive barrier.

Get Out (Or In...?)

What’s ironic, is that for all that Jordan Peele shows up in the new Twilight Zone, his own movie Get Out is a far more effective blueprint of what the Twilight Zone should be, and a good contrast to it. To begin with, the scifi concept at the heart of it, that there’s an enclave of rich white people stealing black people’s bodies for themselves, is a manifestation of a complex and nuanced form of racism that often isn’t acknowledged or discussed.

Racism is generally thought of as a simple dislike or belief in the inferiority of another race, and while that’s accurate as far as it goes, racism can also fetishize or simply allow for superior traits in the othered racial group while still denying the people themselves their agency and basic humanity. It’s a form of racism that was one of the bedrocks of slavery, that as an institution it perfectly paired black bodily strength with white intellect, and you can see a modern expression of it in how until recenly most quarterbacks are white while the offensive line black, the black members serving as the muscle to the quarterbacks mind.

The racism at the center of Get Out is a far more complex and nuanced than Point of Origin’s message about treating immigrants like people. It complicates most people’s understanding of racism as the simple belief that races that aren’t their own are inferior, and makes us question our complicity and assumptions: as much as we don’t think other races our worse than our own, are we as careful about how we assume parts of them may be better while still not valuing their core humanity?

At 144 minutes, Get Out also not only has enough time to explore this idea, but also to breathe and build to its twist and flesh out its main character. Unlike Not All Men’s main character, Get Out’s main character is a real and multifaceted person with weight and history, and goes through a coherent character arc. We never get a concrete reason for why Not All Men’s main character starts the episode meek, which makes her blurry and poorly defined: by contrast, we’re shown Get Out’s main character was traumatized by what he feels was his complicity in his mother’s death, which gives his eventual overcoming of it real emotional heft.

The alternate ending of Get Out even threads his emotional growth through the themes of racism: despite having his body imprisoned, the main character is mentally free, an inverse of the fate he would’ve suffered at the hands of the Armitage family. Here’s director Jordan Peele explaining the scene:

“He beat the dragon, but more importantly for Chris when he says ‘I beat it’ he’s talking about his inner demon. And that was the moment he went back for Georgina after hitting her in the car, he defeated his personal demon of when he didn’t go and get his mother. So in a way he made the only decision that would free his soul. And even though he’s in prison like many black men are unjustly in, his soul is free.”

Get Out also has the advantage of being in a genre that, just like the original Twilight Zone, isn’t oversaturated with serious political commentary. While there are smart and socially intelligent horror movies out there, many people still think of them as dumb fun, and thus Get Out can effectively draw you in with the promise of cheap thrill before sucker punching you with depth and message.

Get Out has clear cut right and wrong, it’s not like we don’t know who to root for and who is evil, but these three elements together, a complex theme, a real character, and low expectations, save Get Out from the preach fatigue I talked about before and from which the 2019 Twilight Zone suffers so heavily.

Ultimately, 2019’s Twilight Zone feels like an outdated show, stiff and limited and slow. Worse, it’s boring, which is really the greatest sin. It’s stuck in an uncomfortable limbo both in terms of era and length; it’s mired in the past trying to emulate a tv show that’s sixty years old at this point while also upending its structure and replacing it with one that’s incompatible with what it’s trying to imitate.