#anyway real interesting features on this guy imo

[ssspringroll]

He cleaned up nice

Didn't end up working as the townie i wanted him to be, but I'll never say no to a cute redhead. Even if we both know that's not his natural color.

[yourqueenb]

So I finally took the player survey. It took me a while to complete because I ended up writing a lot more than I intended to 💀 But I wanna comment on a few things that stood out to me here…

I found this question in particular interesting because global traits were not something I had ever considered, but they could potentially mitigate the issues they have with the constant rigid, innocent, and socially/intellectually inept MCs. At least we could pick how we want to play our MCs, right? However, I find the 3 example traits they were able to come up with concerning, especially given that the majority of their players are women and the fact that we’ve been asking them to give us MCs outside of those boxes. Anyway, I’m curious to know what everybody else put for this. I think I selected 2 or 3, can’t remember which.

I also wanna know what everybody put for the questions under number 9 because to me a lot of them seemed to be related to changing the app’s interface or adding monetizable features. And things like that aren’t really important at all imo. (Or at least not as important as the story development and gameplay changes they need to make). I actually like the interface the way it is and would rather they not clutter it with all of the extras they mentioned.

I was also gonna put what I wrote in the additional feedback box here in case anyone was interested, but some of it got deleted from the original draft of this post. So I’ll just put a few of the major points I touched on below:

“Additionally, we should have the option to opt in or opt out of the appearance of hookups, ending stories in romantic relationships, and romancing certain characters, especially if a book is not classified as erotica or does not have a content warning. Unwanted sexual propositions and descriptions of sexually charged situations can be uncomfortable or even triggering to read, even if the characters aren’t real! For example, the “I’m in a dark mood” scene with Ethan in Open Heart book 3 and the hookup options in Laws of Attraction book 1. Players who have little to no romance points with one character and the majority or all of their romance points with another should not be getting propositioned by or receiving romantic dialogue and narration from/about the former so late in a series. And either less sexually charged lead ins before scenes or the choice to opt in to hookups outside of the main romance(s) from the beginning should be incorporated into the stories. Additionally, if choice is going to be taken away by only offering one LI option, we should at least have the choice to be single by the end of the book. Not all romances have to end in relationships!”

“Outside of romances with love interests, there needs to be a lot more care and development given to MCs. Players spend the most time with and are in the heads of the main characters; yet, it often feels like they’re the least important parts of the stories and experience the least growth. We also rarely see MCs with character trait combinations outside of innocent, incompetent, and new to their field/interest or (occasionally) mildly competent, brash, and uncouth. There should be more diversity in set traits, the choices we can make to shape our characters, and dialogue options/how our characters can react in certain situations. In game personality tests (like in TE and PM) or some kind of point system might help with this issue as well.”

“Lastly, if you don’t listen to any other feedback, please (for the love of all that is holy) retire the new MC body sprites that appear in Unbridled, Hot Shot, Guarded, etc. With flat torsos and legs and disproportionate arms/oversized heads in comparison to the lower bodies, they are very unflattering and unsettling to look at. And what makes them worse are the ghastly pale, sickly looking skin tones. Skin coloring is something you guys never mastered as the Black MCs (with the exception of 1 or 2) have always appeared ashy and as if they were given white/gray undertones - not to mention the minimal hairstyle options and straight roots on textured styles - which is quite irritating and offensive. However, now all of the MCs have skin tone issues in certain books. So players are only left with options that are painful to look at and difficult to enjoy customizing and playing as. MCs with richer skin tones, more flattering hairstyles options, curvier body types, fuller lips/noses, and more unique facial features in general would make gameplay a much more enjoyable and immersive experience.”

[suffarustuffaru]

Have you ever heard of or played an official rezero mobile game called Lost in Memories?The game features a story that is a retelling of the anime and it also divided into 3 chapters: "Main Story"，"Ver. Main Story" and "IF Route". The game features branching paths that lead Subaru to a different outcome of the story，turning into a "What IF" scenario.

But what intrigued me the most was arukoru, a character who looks exactly like suabru, but is much more cold and heartless and supposedly comes from the failed loop  where subaru had tried to defeat Petelgeuse.It's really interesting and refreshing for me to see a different version subaru not from those if routes of canon novel series,and I really like arukoru's characterization and identity, but it's a shame that he's barely mentioned and discussed in either Japanese or Western fanbase.

ANON IM SO GLAD YOU ASKED BC FROM WHAT IVE SEEN OF LOST OF MEMORIES IM QUITE FOND OF IT (though i dont know everything oops T^T) AND ALSO IM QUITE FOND OF ARUKORU/ALCOR. ALMOST NO ONE TALKS ABOUT HIM SO I KIND OF HALF THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY PERSON WHO KNEW ABOUT HIM ALJSFLJS

but yes. i sadly have not played lost in memories and i have not watched Every Second of it unfortunately hah but!!! the branching paths it has are very interesting <3 and alcor is definitely very interesting to me, even though i dont know every detail on him. and okay for anyone seeing this and doesnt know who alcor is, you can have a picture of him:

look at him with his thigh highs and galaxy sword fr............. what a guy.....

i think like a year or two ago i actually made like a small drawing redesigning his mask just bc i didnt like it lajsdlfjd. i love the jagged purple "scar" in the mask and the black feathers and the piercing eye but it does not look very visually appealing to me. imo. so i think i redesigned it to be like a skeleton mask of a ground dragon (and yeah one of the eyes had that jagged scar still) to still incorporate the white + feathers? and also bc he seems to be using similar looking skeletons in this photo for reasons i dont know?? is that his power?? but anyway yeah. otherwise i think his design is kind of. a banger? just a bit HAH.

anyway so. yeah like what anon said - alcor's another version of subaru thats turned out this way bc hes from a failed timeline where he tried to fight and defeat petelgeuse and he died like. Way too much. but also alcor is like?? an "illusion" at the same time?? created by this purple haired elf lady?? who was in turn created by this green haired elf lady whos teamed up with subaru to help him recover his memories bc "lost in memories"?? okay if anyone knows the full story behind this please feel free to explain if youd like aljdflsjdf. but i think its interesting seeing - you know, another version of subaru appear in the "main story". like i think alcor is kind of similar to amnesiabaru in this lense - iirc alcor seems to insist that hes the real one, but its kind of. tragic. bc hes kind of not the real one at the same time, if he really is an "illusion"?????? but also he IS another version of subaru, one that grew cold and empty and jaded. hes so Tired, i just kind of. pity him.

i considered using him for a fic once aljdsfljs along with using some other slightly more obscure / underrated versions of subaru (such as aganau subaru yeah) but that fic never got off the ground iirc but yeah. i think hes interesting and definitely another way to explore like. a version of subaru that has a complicated relationship with subaru. like not just HIMSELF, but you know - MAINBARU. its interesting, i think, that hes defensive. that he seems to have this chip in his shoulder. and hes definitely rough at the edges bc his whole design shows that - not just in like an edgelord way bc of all the black and purple lajsdlfj (and even then its a fun contrast to his normal black/white/yellow color scheme) but theres the bandage on his arm, the mask, the name change (alcor), the when he takes off the mask, theres dark circles under his eyes. dude is tired and i think hes distant from himself too bc hes, well. Alcor now - not entirely subaru.

and also yeah he died a shit ton of times to petelgeuse.... poor dude. needless to say i am a big fan of all versions of subaru and his many flavors of Identity Issues.

Live Mindful of Death (死を意識して生きる Shi o ishiki shite ikiru): Live Mindful Of Death is a second Authority which allows Alcor to recreate or force changes in the timeline after his death if it does not end how he wants it to end. He can alter events or prevent possible situations which can completely change the timeline to his liking. This even works on realms where time is non-existent. The change during a reset are strong enough to bring back the world after it's destruction and revive or recover anyone no matter their condition.

Memories: For some unknown reason, anyone who has some intense bond or connection with Alcor will slightly remember past iterations of the timeline before it is reset, similar to Deja Vu. Though knowledge is limited, it can help them predict future events which is extremely useful to any allies of Alcor as they can predict what will happen next, unless the timeline was changed far different from it's previous incarnation. It can also be used in a fight to throw of his opponent by using an attack they didn't predict or fighting in a way he hadn't done before.

Penalties: The butterfly effect of Alcor's reset is completely out of his control. This means that any changes Alcor's Authority produces can be manipulated, what happens beyond said time is completely unknown. Future events could happen entirely differently after he changes the timeline and nothing like his prediction. He would have to use the ability again if he wished to change the timeline to his preference.

^^^ ALSO REZERO WIKI SAID THAT ALCOR HAS THIS ABILITY??? IS THIS REAL??? THATS KIND OF. TERRIFYINGLY INTERESTING?? LIKE THIS KIND OF POWER IS INSANE GODDAMN.... CAN YOU IMAGINE THE BUTTERFLY EFFECTS THIS WOULD HAVE....?????

[dream-critical]

something that makes me extremely uncomfortable about the dream team and their fans is how parasocial everything is, not to mention the constant babying of those grown ass men. their fans do absolutely nothing to hold them accountable and constantly try to change the context of what happened so their precious creators aren’t seen as the bad guys. they tried doing that recently with the gnf situation

on the tweet where dream was talking about the USMP and QSMP, there are so many replies that just read “AW DREAM YOURE SUCH AN ANGEL 🥺” “I’m so proud of dream for handling this situation so maturely 🥺” and so many others that are just like that…

and it’s so weird because they demand Quackity to talk about it when he literally doesn’t have to. I remember going past a tweet that said something along the lines of “I think I’ve been REALLY patient with him, but quackity’s losing me..” like who the fuck are you? 😭

not to mention hypocrisy, especially tommyinnit fans. when Tommy was critiqued for still being friends with dream, their response was “you can’t force him to stop being friends with him” but was outraged when Tommy uploaded a video featuring Bitzel who is known for heavily disliking dream. (not to mention Tommy has known bitzel and been friends with him longer than he’s been friends with dream)

the babying is seriously so gross… they’re talking about him like he’s some child

hopw this made sense lol

The inniters thing is slightly different from what I've seen, as most people who claim to be inniters and get annoying as fuck about his friendship with dream (aka the ones who defend it) are dream stans who previously would harass Tommy directly before all of this went down, but have now "accepted him" now that the majority of inniters are telling him to drop dream.

Obviously there's still a group within them that likes dream without having hated Tommy in the past but dream stans have tried to do the same kind of thing with other fan bases, like trying to "adopt" Aimsey and ranboo bc their fanbase was "anti dream" or whatever and don't "deserve either of them" when we all know what their opinions on both of them were a couple of months ago.

Either way, I do think Tommy's friendship with dream is bullshit and Bitzel is the most valid Minecraft cc out there atm imo. And people getting mad about it just self reported the fact that they didn't give a shit about Tommy before bc his friendship with Bitzel isn't a recent development.

Anyway setting all that aside, yes the woobification and babying these grown ass men encourage and cause is wild to me.

To be fair, it isn't a dream team only thing. It will happen in every fandom with almost every stan ever. Both with fictional characters and real people. Not only is it part of the dehumanization process where they stop seeing their favourite CCs as actual people but instead objects to project all of their emotions on to, It just shows the way fandom has become a competition. You have to buy merch, you have to watch every stream, you have to laugh at every joke a cc makes, you have to agree that they're hot etc, call them your poor little baby and constantly talk about how you love and adore them. Bc that is proof you are a "real fan" or whatever and even the slightest critisism or critical thought will go against everything you are supposed to be.

Other posts talk about this better but I'm 100% sure that this is caused by the competitiveness people feel to prove they're the most dedicated fan and also the way people want to be part of a group so badly they would just throw away their morals and common sense. They're making their interest their entire personality, and critisism would burst that bubble.

Babying a creator, acting like they could do nothing wrong, like you know them personally, constantly feeling for them and feeling like you have to know and get involved with everything they do etc, it's like a mix of dehumanization and parasocialness and it's very concerning imo

[spaceorphan18]

Glee Musical Retrospective: Fire (Home)

Sung by: Will Schuester and April Rhodes Original Artist(s): Bruce Springsteen (The Pointers Version)

Hey guys! Look who's back!! I've been meaning for a while to start this project up again. I've just needed a little bit of time. So... here we go with our first song of the episode Home!

And... it's what everyone's been waiting for - a Will and April duet! Let's dig in!

Story Analysis

So, this is when they first meet up at the roller rink and April pulls him into a duet before they even can really talk, which is... really quite her. There isn't a whole lot of story connected to this song, but there are pieces of it that are thematic to the episode as a whole.

First of all, this song is April's band of completely flirty. It's kind of funny - this song is about the 'fire' between two people - and April and Will don't really have it... at all. I don't necessarily think the show was going for a love interest in April. She's too... the drunken version of a manic pixie dream girl to be a real person, and Will's knee deep in his Emma issues right now anyway. But April is indeed a flirt, and the song shows that off in spades.

You're pulling me close I just say no I say I don't like it But you know I'm a liar

This is very April. While it's not really about Will - it is in her nature to do the push and pull with a romantic love interest. Plus, she is a known liar, she kind of lives in half-truths and revels in them.

You're taking me home You say you wanna stay (I wanna stay) (Will: I say I) wanna be alone I say I don't love you But you know I'm a liar

The whole theme of this episode is about 'home' and I think these lines push into it a little. I think April is kind of floating in her life, and for a hot second in this episode, she wants to be grounded. She wants/needs a home, a place to feel safe and secure. And Will is someone who could possibly give her that. It's not really about romance -- it's about security, which is really what April is after.

Technical Thoughts

The atmosphere and lighting are the most interesting aspects of this one. There set is intentionally set up to feature oranges and reds with fringes of blue to represent the 'fire' of the song. Also - notice April's microphone has sparkly flames on it? Totally intentional!

Plus, there's a lot of sparkling going on. April's jewelry is sparkling. There are flashing lights and streamers everywhere. There's a ton of fiery imagery everywhere.

It's also a bit tacky, too, which really is a nice backdrop to highlight April's personality. The performance is indicative of Will and April's first duet together back in Rhodes Not Taken -- which was called Alone. Both duets have the same kind of cheap karaoke feel to them, which is also representative of April's character.

The performance itself is a bit playful between the two of them. Ironically, there is zero fire between the two of them (honestly - they have zero romantic chemistry together, which is absolutely fine). But they both kind of play it up as two old friends would.

Overall, it's a nice song for them, they both sound good - as both Krisstin Chenoweth and Matthew Morrison are good at their jobs. But I can't say this one entirely blows me away. It's fun though.

vs. The Studio Version: So, there's a longer introduction, and there's an additional bit of a bridge that's included. And the ending is extended. It's about a minute longer in total. And... that's about it.

vs. The Original Version: As usual, the Glee version is comparatively sped up -- as they continue to do this to probably save time. And add to the manic pace the show often gives. The original is also mellower, having a flatter feel to it. Kristin Chenoweth definitely plays around with the melody and adds a ton of personality to it (imo). And, as usual, it has that 80s sound that Glee kind of strips away to make it a little more accessible to modern audiences.

[supermaks]

I was hoping you could perhaps enlighten me. (Please)

Why do people hate lestappen so much?

I mean, I’m not new to the fandom but I’m only finding out now because of the manneskin guy?

Its like? Its a good rivalry even if Leclerc doesn’t have a good car yk? And they’re nice to each pther.

Umm sure i can try so imo the first explanation is that it’s popular and it hit mainstream. People have a natural tendency to reject popular sh1ps that suddenly overtake ao3 and social media and start popping up everywhere especially if they’re outdoing their favs’ sh1ps or if there’s a person involved they don’t fw. In this case that’s Max. That’s a possible second reason to hate lestappen. They just don’t like max. 😭 so It’s not really ‘lestappen’ they can’t stand but the concept of their fav being associated wid max like that, even tho it’s just f1c and it’s for fun and literally none of this is real or matters. Yk people project more on max than they do their own favs sometimes. Everything max does or says, or people say to max or about max.. bro they’re obsessed wid it and they have to make it mean something to them, but specifically they need it to validate their life altering premise that max is a villain and nobody likes him. So enter innocent sharl, certified ig baddie and fandom fav, there’s no way he likes max or wud ever like do f1c stuff wid him EW. That wud be bad for anti stocks because again, in their head everything is about max so lestappen stocks = max stocks = ??? Air strikes. A third possible reason is that they just don’t c it as a good sh1p. Imo that ties into the other two but it’s more acceptable. There’s never any ‘valid’ reason to sh1p real human beings lmfao u do it because u think they’re hot and the narrative compels u and u wud like to c them in more narratives doing stuff together . U do it for fun🌻🌻 if lestappen doesn’t do it for u that’s obvi normal and it doesn’t even have to mean all that just that u don’t connect wid the pairing or u find another pairing featuring the same mc more compelling or whatvr bro it’s shippinggg relax. But if u HATE lestappen. If u subscribe to the whole anti thing. Im suspicious.!😐 A lot of people who hate lestappen have lost the plot bro. They don’t do any of this for fun anymore they do it to make a point. So like ‘hating’ lestappen because it’s not ‘realistic’ to me is like yk its a cow farm there’s gonna be cows outside . Like of course it’s not realistic bro it’s f1c. Outside of all the parasocial bs, like u said sharl and max are both very fast drivers from a juiced up talent pool ((that’s dried up btw)) and whenever they race each other it’s gonna eat . As kids they raced lil cars and now they race big cars and that’s pretty cool. Their ‘rivalry’ barely lasted half a season lmfao but that’s to us, to the sport and its entertainment value. They are very much always aware the others potential and that threat to me is an interesting dynamic in itself and it’s got nothing to do wid sh1pping. So ye bro anyway idk if all this helped at all but hopefully u can look at the whole anti lestappen phenomenon from a different angle

[akihikosanada]

i implied in my akechi post that i was playing persona 5 BUT i never said that a month or so ago i started persona 4 which i play whenever the tv is being used . crazy girl era is real

anyways this was all to say that the overall gameplay features in p5 are excellent i really like the palaces especially however compared to 4 the characters leave soooooo much to be desired i think they are the weakest of the last 3 games, including protagonist, party members and social links/confidants

since this is my first gameplay of p4 im having a hard time tackling which social links to leave for a future new game plus playthrough as i have to spend time leveling up my social stats but it never felt like i had that problem in p5 and would instead spend time with the stats necessary for my preferred confidants (i mean not like i didn't make a huge effort leveling up my expression stat in 4 for the nanako and dojima links but you get my point). i cried in a bunch of the social links and i find them all genuinely interesting (besides the 2 previously mentioned which are the only i have completed so far are the yumi ozawa/drama club member and single mom links which i think are soooo good) while in 5 i did feel emotional in some but only in the last link i've been crying in a lot of the others since at least halfway through lol. also the majority of the confidants in 5 that aren't party members follow the pattern of making you change someone's heart in mementos which feels lazy and cheap because it's not like you can solve everyone's problems by changing some person's heart. it feels like you are just solving everyone's problems (in a way that gets tiring also) instead of helping them go through a hard moment/give them comfort. there are a lot of confidants that i only want to level up for certain levels because of the abilities they offer you instead of genuine interest. in 4 other than with your party members you cannot gain new abilities so what will end drawing you to them is mainly the characters (or the fusion bonuses)

as for the party members i can see the p4 gang all being friends which helps that banting aside they all show concern for one another + the fact they hang out for silly moments beyond celebrating finishing a mission/welcoming new members. this is besides the different dynamics inside the group and the protag'a different relationship with each of them. however i don't get that sense of friendship in 5? like i don't think these guys would be friends as a group after they stop being phantom thieves and i can only see joker being individual friends with ryuji, ann, futaba and mayyybe yusuke (they still cannot compare to the better dynamics in 3 and 4 though). also as a group dynamic i could only see it with the madarame gang the additions afterward don't feel as close by as a group? plus the convos they have barely make me think they even like each other that much. i think this problem in 5 affected ultimately my feelings on morgana leaving temporarily because it never really hit me where that could have come from even when they started to imply morgana felt useless around the group

as for the protags i know they are all overall meant to be self insert but p4 protag feels like the one who has the most personality. they allow him to be silly, kind and get the "short end of the stick" at times while still having this cool aura around him. joker feels too much like a self insert character meant to be smart and hot and cool etc so guys can pretend to be him. i think something that affected this is how you barely ever get joker's thoughts in the game as morgana kind of works as his consciousness

anyways this is it so far lol as you can see i have a lot of thoughts on the games. i don't think p5 is bad or that you can't love it but its strongest element imo is ultimately what interests me the least i'm all for character driven stories baby ❤ ryuji still *logan roy voice* my number one boy though

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i think i've only seen a soma playthrough twice and the first time i didn't absorb it great lol but upon just some light brushing up (incl a short article that was one of the few results that cropped up when i was like "show me the images for 'soma's save feature featured fisting, right' (yeah basically)") it's like, it's always fun when you're just left with a lot of room to Interpret Themes and unsurprisingly at this juncture i'm lasering in on just, like, the matter of [the self vs the other] via this premise that basically people can just make a copy of their Psyche at any point (but needing to find a new & different Soma in which to upload it but like, largely setting that aside when In This Scenario the new bodies don't affect their minds / sense of self at all....except for when they sometimes do? or maybe not. the like glitchy monsters are just kind of WAU automatons, right. and the people are all able to act / communicate themselves as people, though they might be affected by like, existential crises over the goings on) wherein like....the protagonist can Split In Two* at a few points via the psyche copying/uploading, and then the game Follows the copy that will be continuing to advance the plot, and the version of the protagonist we Were following is now An Other even though it's like, that was The Self (at least insofar as that was our first person pov player character) up till just now. and the protagonist can Know like, yeah that's You right over there also. and yet iirc from like, yesterday's light research, in the first instance he at least gets the Option to kill that Other/Self who was, up till just then, the Self to us too, if that makes him feel better abt the existential crisis, or at least discomfort, enough to like, keep moving right along lol (speaking of. just the other day i was like "adagioly onomatopoeiaing the opening banjo strums of rainbow connection from the muppet movie soundtrack does so much for me" and then i learned it was the anniversary of its theatrical release. hell yes. also memorably once when like marinating for hours in a general malaise & failing to find the wherewital to get up i was like "haha oh wait. i'm playing the song 'movin right along' from the muppet movie in my head. okay" up & at em)

anyways the fisting article (which, i was wondering what thoughts it would have on that truly interesting facet of the game. mostly it posited that the uhh sphincteresque penetration of it all would be Typically considered to make cishet men anxious / threatened / vulnerable, and notes the protagonist (hypothetically a cishet man) is indeed trepidatious about it, while also arguing he markedly Doesn't really hesitate in shit that hurts or endangers others in the course of his shit (though ig that can also depend on the player? haven't really rewatched it recently enough to know how much his dialogue adds to [as a character though he's making it clearer he just wants to cut a swath through your shit asap]) and also questions whether the game thinks of (or, from their argument, knows of) the protag as pretty sphincteresque himself. and like yeah probably imo lol like thee ending being what it is, and as far as i know no like Multiple Endings like in amnesia series* stories usually, and thus more room to have a protagonist who talks to characters in the present and i think like, without the ability to choose what he says

anyways that the protagonist can Understand like, hey see that guy over there, that's literally also you rn, and yet he can [Not accept that] in one case such that he'll kill that Self for "his own" Self's comfort really, as the fisting article expressed, to continue believing he is Unique and the One True Self, the only Real [himself]. when, to be sure, the game Could have kept the first person pov on that version of him we'd Been up till then, and had that pov of the one killed. or maybe left behind in another instance, i don't remember all the "transfers"....catherine Explicitly explaining that only the copy/upload format is possible, Not Transfers, making sense what with like. her magic brain scans that can can wholly parse & store your Psyche data, whatever that'd be like, definitely not being meant to, say, Extract the person's Psyche from their living human body upon doing so. while the ending's drama comes from the game Now staying with the version of the protag who'd been our first person pov character prior to that "transfer," who is Again like "why am i still here" despite having the "it's not actually a transfer" explained, b/c This version Just So Happens to be the copy of the copy of the copy like simon(4) or (5) or whatever and ofc can't have been the one(s) already just left behind somewhere back there in the complex or he wouldn't have been able to be at that point in the first place. and then "killing" catherine b/c he's so pissed, i remember it as him hitting whatever device was her effective Soma, but the article i think suggested she just got too stressed in turn and that Output fried the device. while, of course, post credits shows us their "transferred" selves just fine chilling in the ark like whew glad all that's done with

anyways just getting around to the fact of how it's easy to land on catherine as the center of the game....and of course she's the one really Not having crises over [my god, copies of my Self] or others' selves or what all, having even less of a usual Soma than simon but rolling with it, and evidently having already fully absorbed her Self as a distinct version from her original Self, despite having the same links to her that make simon or anyone else who's been copied into whatever other Soma feel like he's continuously been Himself(tm), the one true Real Self he's always been....and like, naturally catherine being the one behind the entire project of [what if we copy/paste people's psyches into a big ol mmorpg server & shoot it into space so that Maybe something can happen with them / in a way they can continue to exist] so she's Been thinking of, you know, being separate from these Selves turned Others who you'll jettison into space beyond even the body of the earth. unless it's supposed to stay in orbit lol i do not remember the details....and ofc like plenty of other people are like wow that's Fucked Up or it's Not Us and like, the latter sure is true with with the [copying, not transferring] element, but also the former is more choose your own adventure (interpretation) when the game isn't about like, and the simulation Is fucked up, or there's any element of distress or dissonance to existing on the ark, though you can't really know that until the post credits scene confirms you're just hanging out for real....which, that article was also going in on the character who's on this quest to kill the WAU as like "the versions of us it makes isn't Real it's Corrupting" and like, arguably the WAU as just kind of, naturally, something capable of growing, and doing so, and the real problem seeming to come in with the [doing whatever for supposed safety but superceding/supplanting/displacing autonomy in doing so] like, people who did not agree to whatever was done re: their Somas or they would've remembered & been like yeah i'm hanging out as a robot now, or a goop guy, gunk [YES], etc. but separate from that obvious issue it's like, my guy, You're a copy made by the WAU now lol, you're your whole person that you are, with the thoughts & feelings to decide you wanna go on a quest to destroy it, and whatever capacity to pursue it....either way i think the game makes it clear enough the WAU is a Neutral force exercising no conscious discernment, it Is a body, or it's some body (once told me) anyways lol, though i guess i did just go "those Monsters that can chase you are just wau manifestations right" so that's getting kind of complex lol, but even that can be taken as, like, it Mimicking human's shapes & bipedality & other external characteristics, i guess, and just the way an overall theme can be [hmm where's that division between the soma and psyche, machine and ghost] the WAU has been expanding and making various forms of itself, and of humans, and that's also an element of the fisting that starts out as a fingering and can end with having to leave part of yourself in WAU's core if you have completed the choice to corrupt & destroy it, that Connection and Interfacing is required, with increasing [get it in there] required as well though there's no given clear in universe reason why (w/my theory here being: just the Themes of the increasing interaction / reducing Boundary)

where was i going with this. idk naturally there's people like "well you don't have to see the wau as evil or at least required to be destroyed" like yeah one can imagine the case for that, wherein again this one guy's hypothetically mad abt like oh it can't be Us it's making, like, brother in christ You are here as You are b/c of what wau did, if you don't think You're legitimate enough, how can you be dead set on pursuing any decision you make. but also the lack of autonomy wherein wau has (probably? again would have to rewatch) killed people to transfer them to a less fragile soma, but a) also maybe it's just acted when people were already dying / killed from other causes, and naturally there's the Everyone There Doomed To Die Fairly Imminently factor and b) that [wau's neutral / purely soma no psyche (or is it. etc)] aspect that is that classic mixup of wau just acting on its programming in a way unintended by its programmers re protecting life and c) i think WAU can sure be interpreted as a parallel counterpart to the ark project, where people agreed to the latter, & get to chill with simulated bodies in a simulated world, versus the WAU being that [body, world, realm of physical existence] which is funky & Not like a cool nice recreation of the usual world & is also at the bottom of the ocean, but it's sure trying to extend the existence of ppl's psyches by shoving them into whatever robots or slapping together parts or propping up their original body or what all, i don't remember that many of the characters encountered

Anyways Back To Catherine For Real. i'd forgotten this element completely, but that when catherine finds out her original self had been killed by crewmates (lol. amongst) for being set on carrying out the plan for the ark, Her Project, (i.e. launching it into space (risking that launch going incorrectly) vs keeping it on site at the bottom of the ocean here (theoretically less risky, according to at least the crewmate who killed her about her insisting on launching it anyways)) and catherine's copy / now alternate self comments on being like, a bit disappointed And surprised b/c like she says "i knew they didn't like me, but," like not thinking that dislike would lead to a semi accidental killing her (where apparently the guy who killed her may have been wearing the like powered diving suit w/the extra Strength to operate in the water pressure, like oh didn't mean to hit her That hard. in a different soma already) and seeing other ppl (not in universe) commenting on how it sure did seem to be culmination of like "the way others treated her" and how catherine always mentioned like, never having really had friends including as a crewmate here, being an Introvert....in fact, now i'm remembering that catherine doesn't even say "i knew they didn't like me, but" but rather something very close to "i know i'm not easy to like, but" like, aaaugh....like, as ever, a character or a Real Life Person sharing any particular info like "i'm [xyz]" Isn't Required for just trying to always not be ableist and to always treat other people as people even if they don't "just be normal" correctly enough, supposedly. rather than [what is "just being normal" is Correct & Good and you do Not need to undergo a continuous lifelong journey of in fact questioning this & navigating & learning how to communicate & interact & relate, you just need to fleetingly muster some superficial unhelpful Bonus efforts sometimes when you encounter the rare "exception" like someone who hands you their License To Autiste and you can let them keep their fidget cube and continue treating everyone you encounter ever organic aba style]....like, naturally in the game there's no twist where catherine turns out to be Evil or even antagonistic. she's like, patient, encouraging, friendly, helpful all throughout. she's also, ofc, simon's only guide (adding to the suspense of that [my god. my only guide was evil, and/or just my antagonist now anyways]) so he doesn't really get to pick someone he'd Like more. but that like, lifelong matter of why catherine doesn't Get to have had friends. that even as this professional associate she's treated differently, and worse, b/c you have to personally like someone & find them charming & je ne sais quoissy to Not be worse to them? it's fine to be shitty until catherine can, say, say "i've noticed you're being kind of shitty. it's probably b/c i'm autistic, officially, which i'm choosing to share with you & am now presenting my license about it, so maybe be cool about it" and then and only then go "oh ok" and Make The Exception rather than shifting your entire shitty Rule (they also would not actually really make the exception. "shoutout" too to the concept that, of course, it's actually Disrespectful to stop hating autistic ppl b/c you should treat them The Same as anyone else, and you're bringing that organic ABA all the time as part of your "just be normal" ethos life, so be sure to keep being an asshole to them & double empathy probleming putting all the depletion, extraction, punishment, losses, harms on them and all the rewards on yourself)

and like, catherine being killed b/c she was this Body who was going to take away the ark (her project / creation, which she was also just insisting on following what'd always been the plan for) wherein like, even if this guy didn't mean to kill her, he sure did after lashing out at her, same as happens w/simon in the end....and catherine also failing to be thee most "normal/default" version of a person as well by being a Woman, and probably not white either, and, of course, a nonwhite woman, also making her that much more vulnerable to being Out Of Line(tm) by just like, existing as a person & trying to do her shit, though misogyny, racism, orientalism or the like isn't explicitly invoked or especially implicitly hinted at that hard either, but it's like, how does this [scifi magical realism set in the not That distant future but material made in the way less distant past, i.e. all intents & purposes modern / current day of: in the 2010s] have Relevance beyond "would that be fucked up or what" type Invention that doesn't map on to our experiences at all....you don't Have to read into catherine twice being killed by a man who's lashing out b/c she's not delivering what he wants, but you sure don't Have to Not and be like "this is definitely No Misogyny world" like they're still being implicitly ableist b/c she's just not deemed Winsomely Likable enough, she's internalized that with that "i'm not easy to like" framing, why assume a premise of [misogyny is over] [racism is over] etc. whilest soma doesn't really proffer any scenario of like "oh if it weren't for our being able to perceive our designated Physical Differences in our human bodies, all that oppression would be over," that's not being explored even in the specific situation of its plot in the first place; people on the ark seem to have the simulation of the same bodies they originally did, ppl Can retain like, how they'd move, their voices, their sense of their bodies: elements of their physicality. and, you know, whether one even supposes there Is any meaningful body/mind division, though in soma it Is this premise like oh yeah we can digitize your psyche perfectly okay, such that your copy would experience no disruption in that Sense Of Selfness, which is what makes everything particularly like, whoah, and [wow this is just like soma] whenever something kind of invokes similar enough What Ifs but probably less engagingly lol....while also soma is flexible and spacious in letting you interpret shit, you Can defer from fisting wau to death, you don't have to be like "it's so true. thee horrors" abt the Copies Of Selves, who really just become Others to whatever now-other versions of that person, i.e. how catherine, who, as the person who wanted to scan copies of ppl's psyches & put them in a just chilling simulation server launched into space for the Chance of being copy/pasted elsewhere eventually and the chance for the participants to Exist in some form Now, and who did so, is never like, shocked or freaked out by the notion / reality of these copies' existence even though she didn't set out figuring any scans' uploads would end up on the ocean floor stations, she's not aghast & distressed in the end when after having uploaded her latest Self data to the ark & launched it, she's also Not on the ark and Still in the eventually / doomed ocean floor station, even if it's a bummer, b/c she has already just accepted That's How It Works....this [her] was not going to experience being Transferred, like she's Been saying, like she again tells simon while he's blowing up abt [why wasn't i transferred]....just clearly being an example of like, not everyone is like horrified and freaked out and like "that's fake &/or wrong" and you don't have to decide she's incorrect for being Like That, i.e. like, yep, this is the situation, i know there's the me who was killed and the me on the ark and the me here, and i know also we're also for intents and purposes separate people

all that is to say, like, yeah the Scifi What If specific [you can copy/paste your consciousness into a different soma] is there, but also you can be looking at it as just this like, pushing to thee limit of the Self(tm) and the Other(tm) insofar as imagining yourself, as the only Internality / Mind / Selfhood you have access to, as The One True Real Self and all Others as mere somas/bodies, whether you take that to as dehumanizing an extreme as you can or you just put some double standards on Others / treat them as lesser/less Real, or oh but just Sometimes, in Some Cases, which is fine and relevant to anything, rather than what's fine and relevant being to always be aware that everyone's Otherness is a matter of perspective, you're the Other to everyone else, everyone is just as The Self as everyone else, You Could Be That Other, that other Is [you] to themself, you are the "that could be you" to them....with soma, it can just be elevated to "that Other WAS you from 0.5 mmsec ago, and continues to be them, b/c they didn't experience any disruption in their existence, though now you're both in different situations of: different locations, different bodies, the awareness there's that Other Self over there now, possibly the difference of killing that self you were just copied from so you can go on feeling like the One Real Self"....but wherein like, that's just like, [What If: you Were able to wholly & accurately Know the self inside an Other? b/c it's you from 5 min ago] of like, scenarios like [what if you time traveled 5 min into the past] except wherein that case there's usually the efforts to Resolve(tm) the timeline of that One True Self one way or another, ultimately. or is there. obviously who's positing that soma is the only material to be About the "whoa lol. me as an other" concept made scifily literal or anything

anyways that like, it creates that situation wherein one Can point & go "literally literally me" but also simultaneously one Can go "that's Not literally me arrrgh" or "that's also Not literally me, matter of factly"....simon's wrangling with the Othering of his One True Self, but he can also Know, should he choose to shift to that perspective, that all the Others who aren't alternate copies of him are all Another True Selves, An Other True Self even, though ofc as per the nature of not having a collective consciousness, he Doesn't Know the accurate whole of their psyches b/c he was not ever [literally them], but he doesn't need to to know they're just as [a whole psyche in there] as his own have been. original catherine with her fellow original crewmates being othered enough by them for the dehumanization of treating her worse, her being isolated, that indeed her being killed doesn't feel separate from all that by her or by anyone else, just an escalated extreme final fatal manifestation of it, b/c nobody ever liked her in the first place and then she became a (psyche Piloting a) body getting in the way of what one guy with amplified strength at that moment wanted from the project she made to let others' psyches keep existing in some way, which was deemed valuable enough by that guy to want to commandeer it and keep it at the bottom of the ocean versus risk a launch, regardless of how you the player think of the idea

and thinking of the way you can like, effectively befriend that boxy underwater little propellered Regular Simple Robot Helper that follows you around at some point, that is, of course it can't talk to you, it's definitely Just(tm) this not-ever-a-version of a human robot for practical tasks (dyspeptical tasks, clerical tasks, hysterical tasks) and like, imagine Its interiority, get invested, try to protect it, humanize it regardless....whereas with actual humans, and their psyches in a microchip, you can kill them for not perfectly delivering whatever you wanted even when that's not what other humans ever exist to do. then simon loses the Company he still could've Gotten From catherine, [guy who killed original catherine] didn't succeed in keeping the ark unlaunched, b/c that's what you go and do....but really just thinking of that Thread that feels so extremely relevant of like, catherine copy being simon's only option sure and working With him on this mission until we stay with the edition of him who realizes it didn't lead to his escape onto the ark, i.e. always being in relation to him in a manner of a direct practical teamup & a [take it or leave it] sole option for that anyways....but that in her original, human-bodied life, she was always "oh only a little bit" dehumanized by everyone such that she is very much aware of the way that's defined & limited her life, never had friends, i know i'm difficult to like; until that dehumanization escalated to the extreme of trying to hit her to stop her from seeing her project through, and just happening to kill her, and the fact that this seems to no one just a coincidental whoopsie of a fate just entirely disconnected from the way others always saw her and treated her as this Other among others, while other [psyche/soma]s of others who are clearly not Your Self get to have friends and not be isolated and feel hard to like forever and end up killed by coworkers

tl;dr like love a text just inviting plenty of interpretations and lenses and perspectives, ofc gonna look at it like whoa it's anarchy in there (political cats sense) where are the borders where you are thee self above thee other....soma providing that thinnest boundary of like, yeah that mf over there? there but for the [being in a different body, in a different place, with 7 seconds of negligibly different life experience] go ye. but also the usual boundary of "that person is in a different body in a different place with a different whole life but you're [that] to them and they're just as much a person and a self and an other as you are" like catherine center of the game to me

(* just remembered i had these asterisks: sure enjoying how the premise of amnesia games effectively creates Alternate Selves b/w the protagonist's present self, with however much missing time, and past selves whose goings on are completely relevant to the in media res situation you're also tackling while obtaining pieces of that past to priovide further context/info, and how this premise manifests for different stories each time; you've even got oswald like physically divided into Two Selves in a:amfp, though iirc it's not like, psychically equivalent, kinda "regular oswald & nefarious destroy the world duplicitous oswald" lmao, classic....uhh and shoutout to penumbra being similar ish in that the protagonist's story isn't want's relevant, he's trying to find out what happened to his dad and more broadly the like underground pocket world he enters for those answers? iirc....but that soma shares that amnemonic premise of [intro] [suddenly like ???] [having to navigate your present mission & figure out the past & your Missing time] but like, thee respective Lores don't overlap really, soma obviously starts present day and takes an even more obvious leap into a future / completely different location, rather than amnesia games being set in the past with missing time of like, idk months? to even just days, uhh supposedly like [forever] in justine but that's like, i dunno sure lol, the peak mysterious / withheld protagonist really, on purpose. while naturally there's also the fact that, technically, this simon we are following at the start of the game did not actually forget anything, and that's a fun distinction despite that it otherwise initially seems like the same [amnesia] premise....and that he did kind of ""forget"" things in that original simon lived however much longer before dying, that his scan then ofc didn't retroactively include. so once again it's like, well, in amnesia ppl have likewise kind of rewound to a Past Self before the missing [crucial context to your in media res misadventure] time, w/daniel (and justine) even doing this On Purpose, though as is the nature of the amnesia series, everyone regains enough of that missing info about their goings on anyways, though you the player are Not in a story of like "wow they did Exactly the same thing again and ended up in the same place anyways" and Do get to kinda choose who they are / indeed end up with some Alternate Self, potentially, despite there being plenty of room wherein like, it's not precisely, granularly laid out Exactly Who They Are at any point anyways. only just now getting extra amnemonic lore that yes daniel got all fucked up on vitae rituals b/c that's just what happens! and people are fairly horny for it! always a possible interpretation that he was high on vitae (okay one proffered pronunciation of "curriculum vitae" (which i was like lord i feel like i've gone "what tf is that" about before but what tf is that. turns out it's what CV stands for as your specifically educational resumé) does say "vitae" would, in that case, rhyme with "nigh." other sources are listing like a million different combinations of a million different ways to pronounce each syllable. also they gotta say it a way in the game but i forget. daniel's VA apparently being some chemistry teacher? just like alchemy. not what the pope said to do, weird science, it's my creation....) anyways! the psyches diverge, the bodies don't, unless they do (oswald....uhh the guy in the bunker. lambert :( ) like catching up with The Self again, encountering extreme examples of Othering and Dehumanizing and [you are just like only a soma to me] with various means and ends of acting thusly to get xyz results

[ghoulodont]

re: the tags on my last reblog. one of the things that surprised me the most is that as far as i can tell a lot of people consider the masks to exist "in-universe" i.e. the ghouls (as opposed to only the real-world human performers) wear masks onstage. their appearance is taken literally. but the ghouls are still ghouls, so there is necessarily a sort of complicated (imo) back-and-forth situation where ghouls are not human -> they disguise themselves as humans¹ -> on top of that they wear costumes to look inhuman.

my interpretation has always been that the meliora/prequelle era masks are (a somewhat stylized version of) what ghouls "really" look like. they are just some guys with little horns to me. anything else -- opus era hoods², impera era helmets³ -- are "real", but the masks are not. i came to this conclusion without any conscious logic or thought, i think mostly based on my expectation of what a mask would mean in a theater performance.

i do see the appeal of decoupling the ghouls "real" appearances from their stage appearances in that it allows basically unlimited creative freedom⁴. so i really have nothing against people who do this. the logistics of it⁵ just seems like way too much to me.

whats more interesting to me though is the psychology(?) of understanding masks, and conversely faces/facial expressions. personally im just abysmally bad at both reading and producing facial expressions, and i absolutely see this as connected. i hadnt realized it but i think i basically lose next to no information if a persons face is completely still. so the mask doesnt create any significant gap in immersion for me.

anyway, i think its fascinating what can grow and take a life of its own starting from very little ground truth. im far too much of a recluse to participate but i do appreciate that it exists.

in christian (etc) mythos demons are traditionally shapeshifters so this does make sense. i personally fall more into the DOOM school of demonology. i also know basically nothing about any religion and most of the catholicism references go completely over my head

there were masks in the early eras as well. i guess i consider them also to not exist, but would say they are not as "realistic" or representative of the actual ghouls faces due to the lower budget

yes the impera costume reveal initially threw my vision off somewhat but im sticking to my beliefs

the ghoul features people have created are really interesting to me as well. i honestly had not considered most of them. tails and elemental traits/magic are two that jump out. but also claws seem like they would be a real pain in the ass for the guitar ghouls

often theres also the idea that ghouls with ghoul features shouldnt be seen by humans, but honestly what would you do if you saw some guy with horns in public?

[imperiuswrecked]

It’s so sad the way Magneto interacts with Pietro. I think somewhere in his mind in moments like that part of Magneto’s mind is screaming at him ‘Just comfort and hug your son’ but his completely broken sense of self just rejects it but it’s still nagging at him.

My headcanonesque theory is that Pietro and Magneto’s relationship is so strained because Pietro (before shitty retcon) canonically was supposed to look exactly like a young Magneto in many ways and he sees the version of himself that lost control and lost his family. He’s harsher on Pietro because he just sees a bunch of mistakes.

Pietro was always the most unforgiving or harshest in his language towards Magneto (from my reading) which I think comes to a similar thing. He looks in the mirror and society has told him he looks like the baddie; that Magneto is a part of him and he’ll never cut the bond.

I do think that comes more from Pietro internalising and external superficial view of him from others which is far from reality.

I don’t think the Avengers is a healthy place for Pietro, he 100% is better off in an X Team and around mutants as their world view is not black or white.

Magneto & Quicksilver's messy family relationship is so interesting and sad and I am highly invested in them. Like we know Erik's lost a daughter, he spent years in emotional pain and still blames himself for it, he would see Pietro, who's just as quick to temper as himself, as himself and due to his own inner turmoil he can't separate the fact that Pietro isn't him, he sees all his mistakes and all the mistakes Pietro does as something to be judged and he puts all that on Pietro's shoulders. I personally believe that Erik has lost that ability to sympathize with something so familiar to him because that would mean he would have to acknowledge all over again that he failed Anya, also even though Pietro looks like Erik, I always felt Pietro had more of his mother's personality from what little we know of her we know she had a very caring heart. Wanda and Lorna are safer options for Erik to show emotions to, but the best he can do is be better with his grandkids because they are much more removed from the memory of his own trauma. I always felt that even though Wanda looked more like her mother, she had her father's personality and was more sympathetic to Erik.

This is a very long way to say: It hurts Erik more emotionally to connect with his son because his son is such a strong reminder of himself and his wife and to make a real unfiltered connection with Pietro would mean he would have to face himself/his past and reopen those wounds to a very old pain that he spent years locking behind metal wall.

Pietro in canon looks like a younger version of Erik, this is CANON.

Avengers Origins: The Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver

Pietro has HUGE self esteem issues, but that's rarely talked about, but the hints you get are of him feeling out of place due to his silver/white hair, he doesn't look like the other people of his family.

(I always had the headcanon that Pietro's albinism was something that had him looking paler skinned/lighter complexation than other people of his Romani Family. So Pietro was always out of place, either in his own family (Django & Marya loved him but I'm speaking of reasons why he might have felt out of place with other Romani kids which is why he clung to Wanda when they were kids more because he didn't really have friends his own age.) Anyways, that's just a headcanon.)

So Pietro finds someone who looks like him and it's someone who mentally/emotionally manipulated them as teens and is a bad guy and this man turns out to be his Bio Dad, so he would have even more issues with his looks; he also would have had to deal with people connecting Pietro's features with those of Magneto's and him being his son, he couldn't escape the preconceived notion by other heroes that he was the same as his dad, it's something he struggles with and one of the major points of his character growth: I am not my father, I am who I choose to be.

The Avengers is literally the worst place for him to be, the Avengers simply are not a very nurturing or caring team imo, they don't have connections with Pietro (outside a few members) and they certainly aren't friends with him. Pietro himself knows he is being used by the Avengers for what he can do for them.

All New X-Factor #12

Imo Pietro works better with X-Factor. I would love to see him interact more with other X Teams though.

[1ddotdhq]

🖕Mon Sept 28 ‘20 👓

First things first: see ya Psycho! Music Week published an article confirming Syco’s “low-key” demise. Music Week tells us two interesting things - the first is that “artists from [Cowell’s] TV show will now be free to sign to any label, with Sony no longer enjoying first refusal”. The second interesting tidbit is that “all Syco Music employees and artists have now either been redeployed within Sony Music, or have left the company”. Happy days!

More like busy days - for Harry, at least! He was seen yesterday evening in LA, taking pictures with a fan. He was wearing a mask (sexy) and a mini hair clip (less sexy, but adorable nonetheless). We can take this as an indication that pre-production for Don’t Worry Darling is likely underway, and as he’s the lead male role (!!!!!!), he has RESPONSIBILITIES and so he had to be there before the day of the actual shoot. Your intern spent a few hours reading up on film set guidelines, so I’m going to tell you that at some point between the UK, Italy, the UK again, and LA, Harry got himself screened and tested negative for COVID, as is mandatory to do before entering a film set. These sets are closed, and any visitors must also undergo screenings, as far as I could tell. Anyways, hopefully that keeps him safe and busy for the next few months! 

His Grammy campaign is ALSO underway, as his team told Music Week that they’ve “got a few more things up [their sleeve] for the rest of the year, but [we’ll] have to wait and see”. Is it the Golden video? I bet it’s the Golden video. Some more information about Harry’s accessories also became available to the public today: his custom vampire wife blue HS bag was VERY custom-made, apparently, as he specifically requested that color blue for his initials (the letters are normally done in a ~golden~ thread, which makes it funner, imo). In case you’re curious - it IS the same color as his Light’s Up costume, the Vespa, the room that Falling was shot in, and on and on and on. He does seem to rather have a fascination with that color, doesn’t he? Almost like...he gets so lost inside it? Can you believe it??

Hahaha okay moving on: Zayn ALSO keeps on keepin’ on to make Z3 a more tangible reality: he registered two new songs today: “Different” and “Look At Me Now”. And even #better (last time, I promise haha) - “Better” was featured on Amazon Music’s “song of the day”! I have to hear the songs before I say anything about it, but I do sort of hope that things will be “Different” this time around - “Better” - and that he’s telling us “Look At Me Now”. To use twitter terminology, I’m manifesting good things for him.

Liam had a feature in Esquire Mexico, where they talked about his early aspirations as an Olympic runner changing into his decision to give up running to focus on music. I wish they had talked about this a bit more, because I can’t expect that was an easy decision, but also, he would have been around 14 when he made it. That’s a BIG responsibility for a kid, and I want to hear how he felt about it then, and how he feels about it now, some thirteen years on. About his music career, he says: “The effort is what really counts. Having tried it was fundamental, but also understanding that if it didn’t work, it just wasn’t for me”. He does, however, attribute his success to his obsessive attitude (hmmm). At any rate, you’re a JOY to have around, Liam, so I’m glad it DID work out!

The feature also came with PICTURES, of course, in which he looks better than anyone reasonably has a right to - I have to keep reminding myself that if I want to stay impartial, I can’t be attracted to any of them, but DAMN did Liam test my resolve in these! They had him in glasses and a knitted hoodie/jumper/sweater thing holding a guitar on the cover photo. There are other pictures in which he’s wearing half undone button up shirts and too cool for school shades and looking moodily off into the distance (while holding his guitar) and a few where he’s looking pensively down in a blue paisley shirt and glasses (whew!). I think it’s the glasses that killed me, tbh, but go check them out, because I’m certainly not doing them justice! 

In some sunny news, Free My Meal popped up again to thank Louis for raising awareness for their cause, calling him a legend (we been knew, but it’s nice to see!) and using hashtags like “#noshame” and “#justask”, and I have to say - sometimes, you would be surprised at how kind people can be if you ask. ALSO, I am bringing this charity up literally ANY TIME I have the opportunity to, because I think it is doing phenomenal work, and I wish there were more programs like this one.

I also have a little bit of a Clown Car update for you: yesterday, Nick Gordon posted a “#theysaidyes” picture, featuring both Briana and Freddie, and captioning with a quote from...wait for it...When Harry Met Sally!!! He then went on a comment reading spree, liking such comments as “Although you are not the real father, you will be the best father, believe me” and “*** **”. I...am actually speechless, which never happens to me. AND THEN! Briana followed and account called “thepropertybrokers” which is an “Investment Property Specialist” account in Beverly Hills. Are you...going somewhere, girl? Don’t be shy, *** **. 

And, hmmm, let me think - what day is it? Oh, yeah, the 28th, I almost forgot! You know who DIDN'T? Paul Higgins, former One Direction bodyguard and bona fide Tour Dad, who went around Instagram liking “Happy Anniversary, Harry and Louis!” posts, including my favorite, which was captioned: “Happy 7th anniversary love birds! 28th September 2013 - it’s so great to see how two beautiful friends finally did it!...”. Yeah, guys, nothing to see here, they’re just celebrating 7 years of a beautiful and committed BROMANCE, doncha know? 

[alexis-medina]

Dissecting: Edens Zero Ch. 130-134

Kleene/Jinn

I was reading Ch. 83 and found this.

See, I don’t know if Mashima plans his story out or if he develops certain plots on the spot because everything is connecting. “Oh, I could use this later...” Brilliant. Amazing. For real though, I was like damn it’s the Mildian/Sun Jewel arc again (Xiaomei’s battles foreshadowing).

Shura vs Ziggy

It was interesting to read that Shura isn't the biological son of Nero. This leads me to think...what if Shura and Shiki are related? I mean they both have gravity ether and they both were taught by Ziggy. They both are also strong in their own right. We also have the theme from Fairy Tail of Good vs Evil (Zeref and Natsu) but in this instance it would be Shura and Shiki. We also don't know where they came from - their origins. Plus, Nero says that his power was incompatible with Shura but he was able to match with Ziggy's gravity powers.

Later, when the crew of Edens Zero find another relic (Robo Cola cap), they infer that Mother could be a place and a person. I was also thinking that because in FT: 100 years quest, Aldoron was a dragon god but his body was home to 5 cities.

So, if I'm right then, Shiki and Shura maybe are from a city on Mother...and maybe even Rebecca.

I'm noting that Shiki is younger than Shura. When Ziggy was training Shura, that was 15 years ago but, that's also the same time Ziggy found Shiki as a baby....unless Ziggy is lying and he has false memories. 👀👀👀 Is Ziggy truly good or bad? Does Shiki have additional powers like Rebecca?

What is the all-link system? Looks like Shura and Ziggy have the same idea. I think if Shura and Ziggy battle - Ziggy will win. What did you guys think?

Xenolith and the Crew of Edens Zero

I wonder why Xenolith's maintenance is lasting longer. Perhaps it may be revealed in the future. I would laugh if he moved his consciousness/personality data into a younger robot body.

Weisz stays being a perv lol with the bondage training.

Did Xenolith teach Shiki 'Black Sky?' For me, I feel like in the next arc, when Shiki is facing a really tough opponent we will get flashbacks of his training with Xenolith and him learning Black Sky. Then, he'll perform it against the enemy...which could be Ziggy. So, yes, I think Xenolith did teach him. Could be wrong but we'll have to wait and see!

Both Xenolith and Xiaomei have stated that Rebecca's power will change/save the world/universe.

- Xiaomei (Ch. 64): "She has only just begun to unlock the secrets of Leap’s real power. This power may truly save the universe one day."

- Xenolith (Ch. 132): "Her power is weak…but it is the most special. Special enough to change the world."

Witch calling Rebecca a 'Chrono Witch' is giving me Scarlet Witch vibes...

Math for Dummies lol

Stronger heart = Stronger gravity Strength + Tranquility = Strong Heart = Rise from darkness Strength - Tranquility = Weak Heart Weak heart = Weak gravity = Fall to darkness

Fan service with the bath scenes but, at least it is keeping the story going, in that, she has to train in the bath in order to get stronger. Sister makes me geek, "You better get out of those ropes before this turns x-rated." When I read that scene, it gave me Virgo vibes from FT.

I also want to see how Xenolith met Ziggy. So, I'm wishing for a flashback.

I don't know if I put this on a post before or not but, my thoughts are that Ziggy did reach Mother and found Shiki there. He erased the Four Shining Stars memories because something bad would happen if he didn't (like they would get infected the way he is now). So, he did it to save them.

UGHHHH BUT THAT CLIFFHANGER...WHYYYYY - It'll probably blow my mind when it gets revealed.

Also, WOOHOOO! Jinn and Kleene joined the crew. That cute ass smile!!! OOOMG his face when he isn't able to untie Kleene. 🥺🥺🥺

The Oceans

So cool to see the winners of the Edens Zero character competition featured as the Oceans 6! I'm a fan of all of them and don't you worry...we won't forget Shura's assistant even though she's not part of the 6. However, she might be since Shura killed off Cyca. Yikes.... RIP Cyca

Their designs are so clean!! (Sorry if the images look blurry Tumblr only allows 10 photos per post so I tried stitching them together in Illustrator but I think the file size is too big for Tumblr so that's why it may be blurry but, I hope you get the gist of their designs.)

Holy

I wonder what she means by that...I feel like this will be important later. We also don't know much about the other members of the Oración Seis Interstellar. I'm excited to see what their ether gear is...especially Eraser. 👀👀👀 Does his ether have something to do with erasing things? Are they corrupt or good guys? I guess we'll found out soon...

B-Cube

Rebecca has carved 'Edens Zero' onto her B-Cube. Did you guys notice in Ch. 134 that Rebecca's ingrained B-Cube is the same one we see in Ch. 4? That's the scene where there are two robots 20,000 years in the future who find two bodies (a man and a woman) and a B-Cube which we can now confirm is Rebecca's.

The Ships + Other Notable Mentions

LOL I feel like if I was a B-Cuber, I would be an entertainment/fashion channel....basically like Sorcerer Weekly but make it Space Weekly or a cool name like Into the Void. Maybe a play off of 'Cosmopolitan' but shorten it to 'Cosmos.' So many options.

Anyways lets get into the ships. I talked about this first ship in a recent post.

#1 Homura and Creed

I'll say it again...I SHIP IT! I am hoping for some more scenes with them together. He always looks so cute when he blushes <3 He's a Homura stan too hahah. 🥺🥺🥺

Predictions: - Creed and Homura will fight - Creed will protect Homura again - Homura will save Creed - Creed will join the Edens Zero crew

Now, I was reading on a few discord channels that people are comparing Creed to Mest (Fairy Tail). Now, I am really trying to understand this comparison because frankly, I don't see it. Creed has a crush on Homura. That's valid. Also, Creed doesn't just have pictures of just Homura, he has Weisz, Rebecca, and Shiki. He's not creepy like Mest.

Mest was a weird guy when we first met him laying in the pool or eating flowers. Their personalities are totally different IMO. We could talk ages about the age gap stuff but I'm not really gonna go into that.

Do you see the comparison?

#2 Rebecca and Shiki

Shiki escaping from his restraints to save 'Rebecca' made me happy lol. It makes me think what he would do if it was Homura or Weisz in that situation. What would Shiki do? Plus, after the simulation was over...we can see Rebecca in awe and blushing.

Then, Shiki is hugging Rebecca and they're both blushing 💕 That's a cute moment ngl.

"I'm not THAT into Shiki." - So, you don't deny that you like him 😉

#3 Hermit

I don't know if I mentioned this but I fucking love Hermit's name. It's such a cool name.

#4 Justice

Ch. 130 he was looking gooooood with his bandages. 🥵🥵🥵

Ps. Did you get a chance to view Edens Zero PV 2?!?

Did you notice the homage to Fairy Tail in Ch. 134? "Why are your ideas so Fairy Tale?"

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Back at it again with the DC solicits because there have been some neat Super-related announcements recently! And this blog is the only place I can geek out about ‘em at length and in peace. XD

ONWARDS.

Alright, so, first! The stuff I couldn’t grab cover images for! XD

Action Comics will presumably continue to be excellent; the newly solicited issue reveals that Clark is still on Warworld as of July, BUT! I think starting in...June? The backup story will focus on Lois and Steel helping Thao-La back on Earth. Woo!

Dreamer’s making the leap into the DCU for real for real this time, teaming up with...*pause for long sigh over the fact that there’s no ongoing Supergirl title for her to appear in RN* Jon Kent.

A new Elseworlds title starts in July! DC: Mech. Really hoping that this is *actually* Superman-centric, and not just another bait-and-switch Batman story in disguise. *Glares at DKoS*

Aaaand now for the stuff that I COULD grab covers for:

DARK CRISIS: WORLDS WITHOUT A JUSTICE LEAGE - SUPERMAN

So, I’ll be honest, I’m primarily interested in this because Tom King is back at writing Superman, and after Up in the Sky and Woman of Tomorrow, I ABSOLUTELY want to read his take on Jon Kent as a Robin-type figure to Superman. 

Can’t believe I’m gonna pick up a book based solely on the WRITER and not the ART TEAM, what’s this world coming to! XD

...Okay and we’re immediately back to a title that I’m interested in based solely on the art. XD

SUPERMAN: SPACE-AGE #1

I mean, the premise is very cool: Superman aging in real time through the decades, a la Spider-Man: Life Story.

The reason I’m not as gung-ho about the writer side of this is because Russell...kinda dropped the ball with Fantastic Four: Life Story, so. *shrugs*

The real draw (ha, ha) here--for me, at least--is Mike Allred on art, doing a prestige format Superman story. It’s gonna look awesome. 

BATMAN/SUPERMAN: WORLD’S FINEST #5

Nothing revealed in the solicit text honestly, it’s a very vague, “END OF THE FIRST ARC! DRAMATIC THINGS OCCUR!”

Mostly including this because DAN MORA SUPES AND BATS!

And also Robin hitching a ride with Kara and clearly having...a time. XD

So this was kind of a surprise! I’ve not been keeping up with DC vs. Vampires but APPARENTLY--

DC VS. VAMPIRES #7

--will feature a resistance force fighting back the undead hordes, and said resistance includes Batgirl, Green Arrow, and Supergirl!

Not a horror/gore/vampire person, but I’m sure I’ll see some of the pirated Otto Schmidt art that shippers will spread around on twitter.

Not sure if there’s other ‘Super’ stuff necessarily but this is what stood out in the July Solicits this time around.

And NoooOOooow...

Some stuff that isn’t from the solicit but still of note, IMO!

First up, some old news, but good news:

Sampere is the main artist on the Dark Crisis event, and he confirmed that he’ll use the Evely design, if/when Supergirl appears.

WOOOOOOOOO!

Though TBH I’m taking this with a grain of salt--not because I don’t trust the guy actually drawing the book, but because editorial weirdness has resulted in stuff/characters being removed before.

(See: The double page spread from Superman: The Truth wherein Kara was swapped out for Jess in the final art.)

So like, cool, but also...I’ll believe it when I see it.

Alright, now for the FINAL bit of...well. Not news exactly:

TOM. TOM DON’T DO THIS. DON’T TEASE US SO. XD

Okay, anyways. 

Some context: This is a QT reply to a comment left on some Woman of Tomorrow art that King shared recently.

Now, look. I am not suggesting that he’s actually teasing a direct sequel/prequel/midquel/what-have-you to Woman of Tomorrow. 

There’s just. Way too little to go off of, here.

(Bolding that to make it EXTREMELY CLEAR that this tweet really amounts to zero concrete info. About ANYTHING.)

(Also, the comic industry being what it is: Even if there WAS some kind of project--of any kind!--in the works, it can be canned/altered/shelved for any number of reasons.)

(See: the current mess with the WB slate of films and the movie tie-in comics.)  

Anyways.

The ONLY takeaway I’m allowing myself to even be REMOTELY excited about here, is that he’s open to/wants to work with Evely again.

To which I say: I’m in. I’m sold. BRING IT ON, whatever it may possibly one day be.

(...Watch it be, like, a Harley Quinn book, or something. To really test my devotion. XD)

SO IN CONCLUSION: DC is still a veritable sea of Batman titles right now, but! There are cool Superman projects on the horizon! Definitely looking forward to ‘em! 

[jet-bradley]

tron 2.0 longposting time

ok wait hang on, it's three in the morning but i had a thought.

more than any other section of the tron franchise, tron 2.0 is full of mishaps with the laser technology. it's the only part to explore the idea that the laser itself isn't infallible. within that timeline, we have: lora getting fatally injured by the laser, implied to be partially digitized; the fcon trio attempting to digitize, and being scrambled in such a way that they become one monster; and the protagonist being backed up by the computer unsuccessfully, leading to the events of ghost in the machine.

anyways imo it seems like. the horror of tron 2.0 is, more than any other part of the tron franchise, the danger of technology you don't trust hurting you and fundamentally changing you as a person.

like. the 1982 movie is about what happens when technology falls into the wrong person's hands, and imo there's a lot of stuff in there about the morality of a machine having the morality of its creator. and legacy follows that up by exploring what the ability to create does to you when it gets to your head.

meanwhile, tron 2.0 tells you, it doesn't matter if your intentions are good or not. you should be wary of everything you create.

like... to draw a parallel here, let's compare what happened to tron in the two sequels. we all know in tron: legacy, clu reprogrammed tron to become rinzler.

well, if you haven't played tron 2.0, tron was reprogrammed by none other than alan himself to be able to combat users who digitize into the system for malicious means. however, it's unable to distinguish good users from bad-meaning ones, and makes its purpose for existence the destruction of jet, its analog sibling.

[image ID: concept arts for Ma3a's Tron Legacy code form from Tron 2.0. It's mostly flat colors, featuring Ma3a reformed to have samurai-like armor, on a black background. On the left is a glowing blue form; in the middle is the same art, recolored orange and glowing less; and on the right is lineart of the back view with the lines in light orange. End ID]

i think the most important detail in these stories is that in tron: legacy, that repurposing happens because clu is his own being who doesn't trust flynn. the coup happens because clu has agency. programs in 2.0's timeline don't have all of that same sense of independence; mercury, for example, often refuses to act or even save herself because she isn't programmed to (or simply because she's done everything she was programmed to do.)

so it follows that while clu eventually grew to mistrust flynn despite flynn's programming, which led to him reprogramming tron... in 2.0, tron was reprogrammed by alan himself, on purpose. no program "decided" tron would exist to lash out at users or their believers. they don't do that in 2.0. if a program doesn't work in this timeline, you can trace that right back to their user.

however, i also want to point out that ma3a is heavily implied to be related to lora. specifically that some of lora's code (and also her voice) are a part of ma3a. so in a way, lora herself was repurposed in tron 2.0 to lash out against users; and this results in her attempting to murder her own son.

why does any of this matter? i guess it's just a really interesting piece of tron's history to think about it in these terms? both legacy and 82 are very different philosophically from tron 2.0 and i don't think that makes tron 2.0 less legitimate. if anything i think it was pretty brave of disney of all people to associate tron with both a shooter game and a psychological horror comic as its sequel.

and it's neat to think about how legacy and 2.0 responded to the original's moral of "the power of programming, in the wrong person's hands, can cause untold harm" - tron legacy asked how you know you're worthy of that power. tron 2.0 said, you have that power, your friends and family have that power. but it doesn't matter if you're the "good guy" or not - unchecked work and undue trust in it will kill people. which is surprisingly real for, well, a shooter that's colorful enough to rival splatoon.

and the idea that your creations will change you more than you're able to control them? well. that's a classic but seeing it embodied by lora baines trying to murder her son is. something.

[balkanballad]

Eurovision 2021 ranking

hello, hello and welcome to my eurovision 2021 ranking. the songs are ranked with numbers but I also put them into categories (from 💐 to 🥀) and added a short comment. so, if you are interested in my personal opinion about the songs, have fun:

💐:

Switzerland: I was rooting for him last year and it’s the one returner in my top that didn’t disappoint me that much. what a start, huh? I love the song, I love the feeling it gives me when I listen to it, the clip is very pretty too. did I like his last entry better? yes, but I will say it already here at the very top of this list: I liked last year’s choices in general a lot more. nevertheless, this is a beautiful entry! and it is my personal winner this year

Australia: I loved her last song. It was there for me when I needed it. Technicolour does not touch me in that way but it is fun!! it’s catchy to me and I really like Montaigne. I adore her style and how she sings. I am excitingly looking forward to this performance :)

France: beautiful song, amazing singer, the national final performance was wonderful. however, I listened to it so much that back in March I already needed a break form it. now as I am finishing this it’s April and I can slowly listen to it again. it’s me though, it’s not her. that’s really a me problem. she’s wonderful and I love the French touch to this

Albania: a ballad from the Balkans <3 hello, of course I like it and I love that they kept it in Albanian this year. I heard similar songs before, but I like the sound of it still.and overall it’s a song that gives me familiar vibes in a cozy way with a bit of drama

Russia: interesting!! I was relived to see that Little Big didn’t return because, as I explained in my ranking for last year, I was not feeling them. absolutely nothing about them, but I love her! I think it’s catchy, it’s something different and I like the message she supports. it took me a few times to fully decide how I feel about the song, but now it’s in my top for sure 

Denmark: fun! a fun song in Danish. I really like the good mood it puts me in. I even see this in the context of the Umbrella Academy or Stranger Things or something like that when they go to Europe to party a bit. I also really enjoy the old school vibe this has to it. I miss that vibe. I’m also a bit old school

Cyprus: I absolutely do not relate to anything said in this song but it’s catchy! it is a bit fuego and a bit replay but I liked those entries as well, so yeah fire. I have not heard a single live performance by her but I am not exactly sure that vocals will be the aspect that she will try to win votes with anyway. I am amused by the fact that apparently people were offended by this song when it clearly makes no sense whatsoever. it’s simply a bop, move on and dance a bit

🌺:

(8.) Greece: fun as well! a ‘dream team’ entry for sure. I say this a bit sarcastically, but they do well a lot of the times and I am lured in by a lot of their entries myself. Kontopoulos is a big name in the esc industry, it’s a fact. the song is a bit more mature than Superg!rl, which I also listened to more often that I thought I would. It still reminds me of a theme song for a superhero show for kids and I am a bit worried that the ‘dReAM TeAm’ is a bit too outdated for Stefania because I think she could have done something cooler than both of those songs

(9.) Sweden: it took me a few times listening to this song, but I like the song now. I don’t think it’s too special and “a million voices” reminds me of Polina immediately because those are her words for me, but this is a good song too. I like how it makes me feel empowered and like everything will be okay. thank you for that, Tusse, I need that 

(10.) Israel: Eden deserved a better song. I like this song less than last year’s entry because I think it’s less interesting and I loved some instrumental parts from last year’s entry, but this is not bad either. I am rooting more for her than for the song, but I guess that’s this year’s motto for me. I also can’t say that I love the revamp because it made it sound even more generic for me  

(11.) Belgium: I saw the promo pics for them and was very confused how different the singer looks this year, but it turns out that it’s not the same woman. I like this entry a lot better. I like her voice and I really like the vibe. It sounds a bit like it could play in the background of a classic American tv show when a character is going a bit through it and pouring a drink while it’s dark outside. I have the same problem that I mentioned already while talking about the French entry, but that’s still a me problem. I just need a break

(12.) Ireland: this entry is a lot less annoying to me than the song that she had last year. I like the lyrics and whole aesthetic of this one a lot more. it’s another one that I can’t listen to too often, but I still think it’s a very good choice imo

(13.) The Netherlands: Jeangu!! I think he for example will give a wonderful vocal performance. Growth felt way more personal to me, but that’s a repeating motive this year and also a me problem because obviously this is his song and he does it well

🌻:

(14.) San Marino: I’m still confused by this feature and I can’t really say that I’m ‘living’ for it, but I already made a post about how I don’t think she needed Flo Rida. minus the feature it’s a catchy party song, but it reminds me of one song that I simply can’t remember anymore. something that I heard from the Greek music industry, maybe even Eleni, if you know which one I mean, pls let me know

(15.) Estonia: just like last year: this song doesn’t make much sense and I don’t want to, but I still catch myself listening to it frequently... I am sorry, I can’t help it, but it puts me in a eurovision mood and yes, I am blaming Kontopoulos again. I am a weak person when it comes to his melodies

(16.) Ukraine: first I had it lower in my ranking, but I like SHUM better now and I like it a lot more now than last years entry. I really like the part when it gets faster, that’s really fun and makes me want to jump! jump! jump!

(17.) Spain: it’s a lot less repetitive than the last entry, but I would be lying if I said that I listen to this very often. it’s alright, not bad at all actually, but I just wasn’t in the mood for this (yet?)

(18.) Romania: this is for me still the same type of style as Bulgaria. European Billie Eilish type. last year I ranked her higher than Bulgaria as well, but they are pretty much the same to me. I can’t comment on whether I like her song less or more this year. it’s not bad either but I simply don’t think about it much

(19.) Bulgaria: I think I like this entry better than her last one. the message is cute, the melody too and yeah, but I don’t care about it too much

🌼:

(20.) Croatia: it’s a faster pop song without a real meaning. ground-breaking. the title makes me think of Ukraine 2014. which I like better, but we’ll see, maybe the performance will have something cool too. I will say though, I would have prefered the whole song to be in Croatian, it doesn’t make it much deeper, but I like that part the most

(21.) Malta: another faster pop song. I think she will give an amazing vocal performance and it will be cool and powerful, but the message and lyrics are a bit confusing to me. I am not the lyrics police, but I am confused by them a bit

(22.) Iceland: I think I like it better than last year’s song, but it’s still not LOVE that I feel for the song. I can listen to it though

(23.) Lithuania: it’s there. I am not a fan of them and it’s not a song I love too much, but I can listen to it

(24.) North Macedonia: sigh. I liked last year’s entry a lot and Vasil seems like someone who cares a lot about the contest, but I don’t feel this ballad. I think I know what they were going for and what it’s trying to be, dramatic and meaningful, but I don’t feel it that much. it’s okay? but it doesn’t do much for me

(25.) Czech Republic: this was a surprise because I think the overall quality of his entry got a lot better, this time though I have the problem that I do not like the lyrics. they don’t make me as uncomfortable as Germany last year but they are in that area of uhm, I don’t love the feeling this gives me

(26.) UK: hm :/ I can’t say that I’m a fan. this sounds like the type of song that the boring straight men in my area put in their tinder bio as their song, but it’s every third guy that says this is his song. those Calvin Harris remix type-ish songs and I am sooo bored. I swipe left because it’s no match, I delete tinder. breath was a lot more my thing and a lot more exciting and interesting

(27.) Poland: as soon as this stops, the exact same second, I forget everything about it. I don’t remember a single word, barely the title and singer and not the melody. what is this about? I can’t tell you. it’s not exactly bad, but it is so forgettable

(28.) Moldova: oh faster pop song? wow.. so.. original. I am starting to sound like those weird people that hate ballads. I don’t feel it and I don’t relate to it, but I also don’t hate it. the video though.. no thanks.

(29.) Italy: as so often: I see a lot of Italy fans on here and I can’t relate. it’s not for me, but it’s there and I can listen to it when I can’t reach the skip button for some reason

(30.) Austria: hm. Austria and Slovenia are going there. this is the better Amen song for me, but I don’t love it. it’s better than what Ana is trying to sell even though it’s super repetitive

🥀:

(31.) Serbia: I can’t tell you if it’s worse than last year but it’s less catchy. the lyrics are still bad. actually, maybe I am the lyrics police

(32.) Finland: this not my genre and I don’t really listen to it

(33.) Slovenia: nop. not for me in any way. I already said last year that I don’t like her voice and it didn’t change but now I also don’t love the message or weird vibe of this entry. I had it even lower, but I can’t push it up more. this is as high as I can rank it

(34.) Norway: I don’t like it. I don’t like the lyrics or melody or performance that was in the nf actually. I have a hard time understanding the concept even with the explanation it makes no sense to me

(35.) Portugal: I don’t like it. a lot of the parts of the melody are really not for me and borderline annoying, but definitely boring

(36.) Georgia: it’s boring. the last entry was at least something interesting, but this one is boring, which makes me a bit sad because his voice sounds and he seems like the guy that could make something cooler. I know I am not the person that can judge rock because I don’t listen to it too much, but I feel like he could have done something cooler and ‘rock’ it more

(37.) Latvia: again: I can’t even say if it’s worse or better than last year. maybe a bit better actually but, just as last time, I can’t listen to this. it annoys me and gives me a bit of a headache. I don’t think her style and voice is for me

(38.) Germany: I wouldn’t necessarily call it hate that I feel when I have to listen to this, even though that’s a funny play with the words of this title, but I definitely feel very annoyed by this song, so I simply don’t listen to it

(39.) Azerbaijan: the song sounds just like the last one, which I had placed on the 14. place in my own 2020 ranking, however, I can’t bring myself to support someone who posts war propaganda on their socials. it’s eurovision and about the songs, I know, but this is my blog and my ranking. so it’s a no for me this time and my last place in this ranking

[makeste]

“I came here to find what it is that I lack.”

hey everyone, so can we talk about this?

this is the first time that Katsuki has talked about his own personal shortcomings to such an extent. he’s flirted with acknowledging them out loud before, at the provisional course, and we know he’s been working on improving himself, because we saw the change during the joint training arc. but this is the first time he has actually come right out and admitted that there is something he knows he’s missing, and that his goal now is to find it.

so there are two parts of this that I want to break down and discuss. let’s start with this:

“I’ve learned that just because I’m strong in a fight, that doesn’t mean I’m strong as a person.”

JBox translated this as “I’ve learned that pure strength isn’t enough to become strong.” I’m curious as to how Viz will word it. but it’s Mangastream’s translation that really piqued my interest. “that doesn’t mean I’m strong as a person.” correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the first time Katsuki has ever talked about himself as a person at all. up to this point he’s seemed to have zero interest in any kind of self-reflection. and even now, he’s still bringing it up in a context of strength. he needs to be “strong” as a person because that will help him become stronger as a hero. but regardless of how he frames it, or whether or not he’s only seeking it because it pertains to his goal of surpassing the number one, this is still huge IMO for him to bring up strength of character and acknowledge that it’s still something that’s eluding him.

and it’s not like this hasn’t been brought to his attention before. for all of his strengths, his personality is the one thing that’s been consistently singled out by virtually everyone he’s ever met as a glaring fault. and yet he doesn’t seem to have ever given this real thought until recently. possibly because he didn’t think it actually mattered in the big picture. or maybe it’s because until recently, he was able to shrug off those accusations because he knew that deep down he was good where it really counted. like, yeah, he might swear a lot and he might not get along with people and maybe his temper gets the better of him at times. but he was able to brush that off because he knows deep down that he’s a hero. and not just any hero, but the person who’s going to become the best hero. and so he had faith in his own integrity, and didn’t let other people’s perceptions bother him, because who the hell cares what anyone else thinks.

but note that I did say “until recently.” because in the last six months or so story-wise, a lot has changed. things which have sent little parachutes of self-doubt sailing over Katsuki’s formerly impenetrable walls of indifference. he was singled out as a target by villains. yeah, they were wrong about him, but it still says something that they thought he was a good prospect. and not just them, but everyone. the press gathered together less than 48 hours after a child was kidnapped, and felt comfortable speculating about whether or not said child was unhinged and destined to follow the villain path. yeah, Aizawa shot them down, but Katsuki still got a behind-the-scenes documentary feature look at how some of the actions he’d never before given a second thought to were actually affecting the world’s judgment of his moral character.

and then All Might lost his power at Kamino. something which Katsuki felt was his fault. and then, directly on the heels of that, there was the shock of realizing that the childhood friend he’d maligned and tormented for years had ended up being All Might’s chosen successor. and there are so many ways that Katsuki could have responded to that realization. being jealous of Deku. being derisive of All Might’s choice. but instead, his reaction to learning Deku had it right was to immediately follow it up with: so I’m wrong. and just, wow, though. and then, of course, this was all compounded even more when he failed the provisional license exam. so now we have the villains, the general public, and the heroes -- or at least, the people in charge of deciding who gets to be a hero -- all hitting him up with various different versions of you are flawed, you are deficient.

anyway, thankfully at this point he did something he’s never done before and actually reached out to someone, even if it was in the most shounen way ever (“should I just talk to my rival like a normal person? nah I’ll challenge him to a fight”). and he and Deku had a heart to heart via their fists, and then All Might gave him a hug and some good mentor advice. so the worst of that line of thinking was curbed before it could become more damaging. and he seems to have rebounded since and is back to his old confident ways.

buuuuuut. we have seen him paying more attention to other people’s remarks than he seemed to before. maybe this was something he always did, but just pretended like he didn’t. hard to say. but there’s no denying the way that Horikoshi made it a Thing during the Band AU arc, when we saw those upperclassman grousing about how “class 1-A is the one causing all the trouble” and then Katsuki listening in, stony-faced. and then he got really pissed off and ranted about it afterward.

so yeah. and then more recently, during the joint training arc, we also had that incident where Monoma -- on camera, with Katsuki watching, and we know for a fact there was sound because U.A. based their teaching model on The Hunger Games, and also the kids were able to hear Shinsou’s voice-changing shenanigans earlier -- was all “SO HOW ABOUT THAT TIME THAT BAKUGOU CAUSED THE DOWNFALL OF THE SYMBOL OF PEACE, EH.” which marked the first time we confirmed that Katsuki isn’t the only one who’s made that connection. mind you, I don’t think Monoma actually meant it; he was just trying to rile Deku up into talking so he could pull the ol’ Jedi mind trick. but still, the fact that he had that remark ready to go means that it must have crossed his mind before. and at this point I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s not the only one. it’s an obvious enough conclusion to draw, and society was a hot mess for a while following Kamino, and it was the kind of thing where I’m sure that a lot of people, shaken up in the aftermath of this disaster and struggling to process it, would be looking to assign blame.

so now Katsuki, who formerly did not give a shit and was very proud and upfront about his lack of shit-giving, has been more or less forced to confront the fact that like it or not, his behavior -- and other people’s perceptions of it -- maybe matters a little more than he thought. and it seems like maybe he’s become a bit more sensitive to that lately. a little more aware.

I think it must be frustrating for him in some ways, because he knows that he’s good and that his intentions are good, but he has difficulty conveying that. and the other thing is that he’s not the type of boy to ever have people actually say to him, “hey, you’re a nice guy.” (Kirishima, I think, is the only one that might have actually said that sentence to him -- I feel like he has? -- and honestly there’s a reason why Katsuki trusts him so much, and things like this are no small part of it.) “amazing”, sure. he gets that all the time. and “strong”, which is the adjective he himself uses the most when talking about things he admires. but never good. and he might not ever show any signs of needing that type of reinforcement, but (a) sometimes we don’t know that we need something, especially if it’s something we’ve never had before, and (b) even if Katsuki was in any way adept at identifying his emotional needs (he’s not), the odds of him ever mustering up the will to actually ask are slim to say the least.

but no child wants to be bad. Katsuki’s one and only desire since he was very little has been to become a great hero. and heroes are inherently good. this boy, for all his surliness and stubbornness and toeing-the-line, works hard. he listens to his teachers. he studies. he fights fairly, and shows honor in other ways (like fessing up immediately to being the first one to throw a punch). he shows kindness and gratitude and concern in his own prickly ways as well. his goodness isn’t the kind that comes up to you and slaps you in the face, but it still manages to shine through like sunlight through a cloudy filter. he is a good person. and I think that sometimes, during his more intense moments of self-doubt, he may have wondered if maybe he’s not. but he is.

and having said all of that, one of the things I would like to see at some point in the future is for someone to actually tell him that. for him to get that validation. because I think that’s something he’s seeking, even if he’s not aware of it. even now he still has the media censoring his interviews, as if they’re worried he’ll somehow corrupt the viewers with his attitude. even though the whole reason he’s being interviewed is because he proved himself through his actions. somehow it’s still not enough. so I just think it’s something that would mean a lot to him to hear. “you are strong, but also you’re a good person.” so yeah. All Might, maybe -- get on that.

moving on now to the second part of this essay!

“I came here to find what it is that I lack.”

you know what I find interesting about this? at first glance, one might assume that he’d already solved this mystery. doy, the kid that only ever thought about winning and victory has to learn how to help others. we got that already; All Might broke it down for us nice and clear back in chapter 120. we’re good.

and the thing is, it really seems like we are good, doesn’t it? Katsuki passed his remedial exam with flying colors. he and Todo saved a bunch of would be purse-snatching victims, and he even saved their wallets (that makes it sound like he got them to save 15% or more by switching to Geico lol but NO, IN THIS CASE IT WAS LITERAL). and let’s not forget that dominant performance during the joint training arc, in which he both allowed himself to be rescued, and breezily rescued others with no qualm. by all measures, it would appear that he has embraced this new way of heroing, and seems to be taking to it as naturally as he takes to everything else.

so then the question arises: if he already figured out that IT’S THE RESCUING, STUPID, then why is he still talking about “what he lacks” as though there is still something he’s missing? and not just missing, but as-yet-unidentified to boot. he doesn’t actually know what it is. he’s trying to figure it out.

so I have a few guesses, but since this essay is already running long, I’m just going to jump right to my main one: what he’s talking about is the difference between this:

and this

in a very similar way to how Katsuki himself proved there was such a big difference between this

and this

“the difference between those who are aiming for the top, and everyone else.” so yeah. and if this applies to the “winning” part of the hero equation, then it also stands to reason it should apply to the “rescue” part as well, right?

so what would that mean? basically, as far as I can tell, it’s the difference between your everyday rescuing, and between Deku’s style of rescuing. no, I’m not talking about the bone-breaking. I’m talking about, “my legs just started moving. why? I dunno!” or, as All Might puts it, “their bodies simply moved before they could think.”

what Deku has is not just the will to rescue. it’s the instinct to rescue. in the same way that Kacchan uses his quirk intuitively to reach ever greater heights, what Deku does intuitively is to save and protect others. he is unrivaled in this. his instinct to rescue surpasses even All Might’s. and this is what makes him great.

what Katsuki is doing right now is rescuing on the balanced, sensible, government-approved level of things. which is fine! admirable, even. but compared to what Deku has, it’s the same as Monoma’s will to win pitted against Katsuki’s own utterly indomitable will, which is completely illogical and excessive in exactly the right type of way, and is what drives him to the levels of excellence that he’s achieved. Deku’s will to rescue is like that. it’s on a whole different level.

and I think one of the biggest things I can say in praise of Katsuki is that he is not yet satisfied with where he is in terms of his moral strength. he understands that there’s a level he has yet to unlock and achieve. something that he isn’t yet grasping. and I’m pretty sure this is what it is. and if that’s the case, then he’s in luck, because I think it’s safe to say there will be plenty of opportunities in the near future to hone his own rescue instincts. Deku didn’t really start to approach Kacchan’s own levels of WIN NO MATTER WHAT until his battle with Muscular, and the key thing that made the difference there was the stakes. needless to say, in this latest arc, we have stakes aplenty. 

and all it takes is one moment. for there to be something to be on the line which Kacchan realizes in a moment of clarity that he can’t lose. something to trigger his own instant of my body just moved on its own. and then from there? who even knows. but it’ll be a sight to see.

so that is my [checks notes] 2600-word essay about Kacchan’s 75-word speech in chapter 247. to sum up, what I want for my son in this arc is for things to finally click for him to get that moment of Hero Autopilot, and also for other people to get with the program and acknowledge what a good kid he is, goddammit. even if he gets embarrassed. or embarrasses them immediately afterward by demonstrating exactly how good of a kid he is by blowing up the nearest inanimate object and launching into colorful tirades about someone’s mother. Bakugou is basically like a poorly wrapped Christmas gift. ugly on the outside, doesn’t quite look right when stacked next to the other gifts, but once you rip that sucker open TAH DAH, IT’S THAT BRAND NEW THING YOU WANTED! and it kicks all the other gifts’ asses. what more could you want in a character lol.