#by writing my thesis tho so i don't feel bad abt it

[twow]

i really love naruto (even tho i dont post abt it much lol) and while the writing is bad in some places i generally think a great manga with some really great writing in certain arcs. but god. sometimes i just randomly think of nejis death and get irrationally angry about it. bc usually when i personally disagree with a writing choice i can at least understand narratively why the choice was made but for nejis death its just bad on every single level. like objectively its one of the worst writing choices in the history of writing. rant incoming

nejis arc is one in which he is literally enslaved to the head family and feels despair over the fact that his "destiny" is to die for the head family just like his father did. naruto then teaches neji that nothing is predetermined and that he can choose his own destiny and that head families and branch families don't matter and naruto vows to help neji end the slavery in the hyuga clan. all of this is coupled with the context of nejis father dying in the place of hinata's father to protect hinata, with neji feeling bitter about it towards both hinata and her father. so the most obvious conclusion to this arc is to either 1. show neji rising up and overcoming his status as a branch member and toppling the unfair power system with his clan or 2. hinata's dad sacrificing himself for neji which would parallel and sort of "pay back" neji's dad for dying in his place by protecting his son, just like nejis dad died to protect hinata. it would also show a head family member sacrificing himself for a branch member, therefore following through on the theme of the arc that "destiny" doesn't matter and that head families and branch families don't matter, and that neji has made progress in dismantling the unfair power system considering a head family member was willing to die for him rather than vice vera. instead, neji dies in hinatas place. the person he is enslaved to. the very destiny that neji loathed so much when we first met him happens to him, effectively disproving the entire thesis of his arc - that he can defy his destiny as a branch member and does not have to die for a member of the head family and for hinata specifally. to make matters worse, the slavery of the hyuga clan is never brought up again. naruto never follows up on his promise to end the unfair claim system, and the hyuga clan never gets challenged on its ideas like we were promised. hinata's dad even becomes a "haha funny grandpa" character, completely ignoring the fact the he owned and tortured members of the branch family, including neji himself as a child. a lot of people argue that nejis arc was fulfilled actually since he "chose" to die for hinata out of fondness for her rather than obligation as a branch family member (and contrasting with the chunin exams fight where he tried to kill her) but that really does not sit right with me. its still him going down a predestined past - just one he accepts instead of resents. any version of events where neji dies for a head family member is unsatisfying because of this - it just proves the ji we get during the chunin exams right that his destiny is to die for the head family and disproves the thesis of that arc that defying and changing destiny is possible. i also personally take issue with a plotline in which someone being oppressed dies for the oppressor, no matter how much hinata and neji care for each other. that power dynamic is always there and it leaves a very bad taste in my mouth especially since that power dynamic never gets resolved to out knowledge. but again even taking away my personal feelings, it just narratively makes no sense and retroactively makes one of the best arcs in part 1 feel meaningless. okay im running out of steam but god that writing choice pisses me off endlessly. so so so bad no matter how you look at it. anyway i said this like 3 years ago and i still stand by it:

[iliketodecompose]

A Very Shallow Analysis On The Visualisation Of The Very Abstract Concept Of Processing Grief

so.... i take english lit.... I've studied a streetcar named desire... which.. if you are familiar w that text at all u understand how almost everything means something. let's just say it traumatised me into reading into everything i consume as intensely. ... this is a warning ..... hehe .

OKEY!!!! so as i am physically incapable of being normal abt anything. and ive had 2 weeks to basically do nothing but Consider My Little Gay People i have come to a pretty insignificant but overall (i think) cool conclusion abt... the eclipse & the sequences in which we see dika, aye's uncle, about to kill himself or in the process of killing himself.

they always kind of confused me??? tbh?? bc like. chadok is also seen in that same place at the same times . and neither aye nor chadok are in eachother's scenes . so TO ME!! i think in reality nobody actually saw dika kill himself and the scene w the cliff edge is smth moreso akin to their emotional manifestation of the idea. and how they feel in relation to that. them being helpless to stop him as they weren't there for him to see that. placing his death in a place that perhaps meant something to them when he was alive. yaknow. hence aye placing flowers there ;_______; ough.....

i came to this conclusion. Essentially. by laying down for a while and trying to make sense of those scenes and realising some details that make it seem more of a purposeful choice instead of like. Bad writing .

FOR EXAMPLE!!!!! aye's hair & the necklace. these r rlly. why i have such deranged faith in this idea. in the actual flashbacks to around the time before dika's death aye has much less styled hair. it makes him look younger!!! makes sense. it's generally a more juvenile style . bangs in da eyes babey. <333 he looks v sweet. (smth to b said maybe abt how his outward appearance prior to and post dika's death and how that signifies a change. Oh boy..) but my point is when we see aye in the present his hair is styled!! slicked back generally and if not u can see a parting. makes him look Older. i mean yeah ..... he could have just worn that hairstyle when he was younger but we never see him look like that when he's actually around dika. hence my reasoning lmao. i also believe fiction doesn't normally want u think abt reality as much as that tho . it feels reductive to me.

my other main thing is tha necklace!!!!! babey. . simple as: aye gets the necklace after dika's death. it's left to him. in the cliff scenes he's wearing it as well as his uncle. there rlly isn't much more to it than that lmao. unless.. There was a second one?? but i don't rember it. >:-)

there is also smth to be said abt the weird liminality of those scenes too which make me think it's not smth that actually happened and acts as a way to visualise these characters processing their emotions. how dika flashes in and out of existence. perhaps the characters attempting to place image to smth they never got to see. chadok is wearing his uniform when he's seen there. .... the idea of him being stuck between two mental places i think is highlighted thru that.

YA!!!!! that's my thesis. truly.. i could write an essay on this. but i can't scrape enough Braincells together . i am sick and sitting in my pitch black room w my one window covered by the blind at 2 in the afternoon on a school day . .. I am beyond saving.

FAREWELL

<3 uses my college adobe subscription for evil (putting gay people in front of pride flags) (no greater comfort to me)

[starlightkun]

okay but what if changer is my favourite starlightkun fic ever. what then 😳

also me the moment sungchan says he does astrophysics:

WE GOT IT! WE GOT IT EVERYONE, THE STARLIGHT IN THE STARLIGHTKUN, THE MEL SPECIAL, ONE STARGAZING DATE™ COMING RIGHT UP!!!

also y/n being absolutely so done with hyuck and jaemin is hilarious like when they're at jenos party and shes like is this chenles doing? no the terrible duo woke up again this morning and decided to make it my problem i see i see. or when shes trying not to ✨romance✨ sungchan and is like yeah i can say this to my pals. i could say this to shotaro and jaemin because they're both my pals. maybe not hyuck tho idk the vibes are off

no but genuinely this is one of my favourite fics you've ever written, it feels so natural and the way you wrote sungchan makes me feel so warm and fuzzy (i love finding people as insane about him as i am) i want to be there. also the denim baseball caps with lavender embroidery???? so fucking cute holy shit.

honestly with this pair i could see them pulling a tdhea and start dating but decide not to tell jaemin, hyuck or shotaro. like shotaro sees her walk out of sungchans bedroom in the morning and hes all 🤨 and y/ns like "studying werewolf anatomy is so HARD 🤪🤪🤪 thankfully sungchan is such a great teacher and goes slow at first so i can get the hang of it" like really fucking with them as payback for their meddling. or sungchan going up to hyuck and jaemin lamenting about his unrequited love and asking them for advice on what flowers to give someone who doesnt like you back and the dryads are like 🥺🥺 but they do like you back and sungchans like 😓 i am a man with faults, i have made mistakes 🤧 and i am not worth the pain or suffering 🫡🥲💀 like really playing into his loserboy potential

anyways thats all lives were changed, changer changed lives

-✨anon

omg 😳 ur fave 🥺🥺

and literally me writing any sort of learn'ed man who knows things about the stars like....at this point its inevitable its a canon event that i cannot interfere with in every single universe i will write a stargazing date like ajsfgjdfgkjg;; anywayyyy i hope they've all been different enough to not be too redundant??? or i hope that yall at least like stargazing dates too lmao

the rest of my response got sooo long and contains minor/vague changer spoilers so it's under the cut :)

dryad!hyuck: *exists*

half of the characters in the strawbsunday universe: idk the vibes are off

and im fr soooo glad there's one other person out here that's unwell in the head abt jung sungchan. im on my sungchanist shit 24/7 lately like between changer pt 1 being 22k, phantasmagorical pt 1 being 21k, and the both of them having pt 2s in the works........ im down bad and im never getting back up im telling u 🫠🫠

nahh bc if hyuck had to deal with ANOTHER oblivious (or "oblivious") pair after woos x strawbsunday reader and sungie x tdhea reader (bc in my canon timeline that i keep in my notes, changer does take place after both of those) he would literally kill somebody. like somebody would Die. he wouldn't bother beating around the bush either. he'd just sit the both of them down and very calmly say "you two have big fat stupid crushes on each other and if you don't fucking admit it im going to walk outside and commit vehicular homicide right now" with one of his eyes twitching. my bestie would be Fed Up. like sungchan x changer reader were only safe bc hyuck wasn't as good of friends with sungchan but if they pulled THAT shit they wouldn't be spared twice

NAWT the werewolf anatomy 😭😭😭 poor taro their rooms share a wall....... but, you know, reader IS an MCS student, and "there's so little literature on half-werewolves, it's a fascinating opportunity to get hands-on experience and research— hey taro why are you running away i haven't even told you about my thesis question yet"

also i agree w u that i could totally see changer reader and sung trying to pull a tdhea (with it being either one of their ideas tbh, they'd both think it would be hilarious), but werewolf sungchan is way too much of a simp (affectionate) and ruins it almost immediately. it's day 2 and they arrive separately to a movie night at jeno and jaemin's and reader is trying to ~coyly~ sit just close enough to sungchan on the couch but he's just so excited to see them he's like "oh hi baby!!" and pulls them onto his lap and and kisses them in front of EVERYONE. and their friends r all just like. "uh, fascinating way to tell us that ur dating, guys. cool." bc they all think that it was an intentional grand reveal and not sungchan royally fucking up them keeping it a secret [not canon but hilarious to imagine]

ALSO also your imitation of sung "😓 i am a man with faults, i have made mistakes 🤧 and i am not worth the pain or suffering 🫡🥲💀" had me cackling at my desk at work today like so true he IS loserboy (beloved) but we have not yet witnessed his peak simp behavior nor his peak loserboyness

[dokyeomini]

after writing one sentence of my thesis: i think i deserve a lil break