#girl loser aesthetic my beloved…..

[venompeach]

Dies cutely jjk self insert

[kerryweaverlesbian]

Character Ask: Jo! (you know i have to) <3

Hehehe hi Ally!!!! @lesbianjoannaharvelle I'm just gonna do the answers that I think I have interesting things to talk about for 😇

First Impression: I do naurt remembar....shrug emoji...I met her over 10 years ago....

Now Impression: GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY. Butchest a girl can be without twitter cancelling her.

Favourite thing about her: she's ANGRY!!!!!!! I love an angry woman! The world is against her and she's against IT.

Favourite interaction: her and Ellen during their deaths (MORBID) just like. That's her mommy 😭

A character I wish she interacted with more: we were ROBBED of a Jo Bela episode. I think if it was one of the seasons where they tried to care about women then they'd have met. Someone who wants to leave her family and someone who had to destroy hers, the clash of aesthetics, Jo telling her "you shoot like a girl" and Bela telling her "don't tell me - your daddy taught you everything you know. guess he didn't know all that much then." [Btw if the jobela concept intrigues you, read my jobela heist fic lol]

I also think. This is entirely self indulgent I have no justification. She should have met Hannah and taught her how to be human and be taken very seriously and find her abundantly charming. And they should kiss. The dean mirror and the cas mirror can have some sapphic destiel mirroring together. As a treat.

A song that reminds me of her: !! Strange Girl by Laura Marling:

I love you my strange girl,

My lonely girl,

My angry girl,

My brave!

I think of Jo EVERY time. Because I do love her my strange girl my lonely girl my angry girl my brave... it's a song about a mother trying to meet her kid where she is and support her even when she's worried about her getting hurt (you're changing all the time, and it starts to blur the line, that's supposed to keep you safe!) which naturally reminds me of the Jo and Ellen relationship

An unpopular opinion: I think she'd have a MUCH harder time intergrating into a friend group or a big family than fics tend to consider. The people she hangs out with on a regular basis: 1. Her mom 2. Ash 3. Random drifters at the bar. That's it that's the list. We know she was alienated in highschool, so she hasn't learned how to exist in a group setting long term.

How is she likely to feel if she was swept into a big party with all of the Winchester's friends in a place she isn't in control of? Territorial, jealous, ignored, out of place. She sees her mom getting along with people just fine, and Dean (her mirror!! Her idol and her equal!) being lavished with positive attention from all sides. And Ash is zonked out with the stoner club* and it reconfirms to her that she's just a loser. Like. I think she'd get to a place of enjoying a big group! But it would take work. She's also Not Like Other Girls so that'd take some working on too lol.

*Ash, Pamela, Meg and Castiel (if they can get him away from Dean long enough)

Favourite picture: I'm putting it below the cut because. It's a little scary.

It's a beloved book club memory from our [me and ally's] beloved @gwasgy about our [me and KK's] beloved snail 🧡

[wernher-von-brawny]

Bocci the Rock Reaction Videos

One of my favorite uses of YouTube is watching a big batch of different essayists spit about a single topic or piece of media.

Today's hyperfixation has been wallowing in vids about Best Anime of 2022 contender, Bocci the Rock.

I would have said Best Show of 2022 contender, but I'm aware that, aside from CGI fantasy, American tastes trend towards that gay murder club show, that troubled children having sex show, that MAGA-friendly western show, and that MAGA-friendly rich family fighting over money show (or is it shows?), so... safest call is to segregate it off into its own garden.

For the uninitiated, Bocci the Rock is a brilliantly and lovingly animated 2022 "slice of life" -- meaning a character-driven show rather than action-, plot-, or quest-driven -- comedy anime about a talented but catastrophically awkward and introverted young guitarist who joins an all-girl band. Hilarity, personal growth and rocking out ensue.

It's not at all like the old Monkees TV show, but it does share some of that same energetic and experimental love of humor, music, friendship and fun.

While searching YT for my usual topics of interest will return maybe a few vids, it seems that a lot of 'tubers (are they called that?) share my love for Bocci.

It's no wonder an anime about an online content creator with intense social anxiety has resonated with many in the the non-millionaire segment of that community.

And he fact that most of these reviews contain as much confessional therapy as critical analysis made me think of our beloved hellsite. It seems to me that one or two of my fellow Tumblr deplorables might also vibe with this show.

It inhabits the intersection of social anxiety and making art, made with incredibly craft and skill and -- reportedly -- a very high level of staff freedom, input, and personal expression.

Based on the content I see posted by the folks I follow on this site, and the six folks who follow me, I think it may resonate with many of them as well.

And since everyone is on vacation or phoning it in this week, and I'm bored, here's a roundup of all the commentary vids I watched today.

It was on Nuttflix, and then it suddenly wasn't. Whatevs, it's on Crunchyroll, and many of the best pirate sites.

Best to watch it before the commentaries, and then use these to satisfy your craving for more, but since it doesn't have a plot that can be spoiled, nothing anyone says in any of these vids steals anything from the enjoyment of watching the series.

Unlike, say, the last Star Wars or LOTR show, both of which are conveniently mooted by reading the recaps.

The Absurd Adaptation of Bocchi The Rock

What happens when you have a series whose identity is intrinsically tied to its production; the times when aesthetic and visuals and animation are so crucial and so integral to the series, that it becomes the primary thing that is elevating the content? Well that's when you get Bocci The Rock.

To call Bocci The Rock creative would be one of the largest understatements that I have ever uttered on this channel. This is a series that seemingly revels in any opportunity it gets to convey its comedy and convey its drama in the most unique, eye-opening ways that I guarantee you have never seen before in the medium of animation. And I can say that for a fact because there are gags in this series that don't even use animation.

Comedy is the lifeblood of this series and any chance Bocci has to surprise you or make you laugh through its excessively fun and creative uses of framing, timing, or just sheer animation power you better goddamn believe it's going to do it, to elevate the extensive commitment it has to its gags and to its character writing.

Why We Love Bocchi

Bocchi the Rock is a completely socially inept, lonely, loser; an asocial schizoid, cast out from society for being a fucking freak.

The only reason she started getting into guitar, was so that she could become rich and famous, and get over her fear of people.

And she seeks any and all validation from others.

She's... a.. honestly a bad person. Kind of. She's, she doesn't have that much conviction. She kind of just goes with whatever other people say. Um- she- she just- her only motivation is attention from other people.

So that begs the question: Why is she so fucking cool?

The Unique Genius of Bocchi the Rock!

Endlessly charming. Unquestionable an absolute gem. Always weird in the best possible way.

Bocchi Rocks Harder

Bocci the Rock was somehow able to get the attention of the anime community in a season with stacked entries, some of which have been building up towards this moment for years.

Looks like I can only link five videos in this post. If I’d known, I might have re-ordered this. In any case, the rest of these are links.

The Masterpiece That is Bocchi The Rock! - Honest Review

I think the best way for me to describe it is how the anime put it: "It might not connect with too many people, but those it does it'll hit deeply."

Explaining the Meaning Behind Guitar, Loneliness and Blue Planet (Bocchi the Rock Insert Song)

How Bocchi the Rock Captures Social Anxiety Perfectly

At first glance the show may seem like just another run-of-the-mill, "tee hee cute girls doing cute things" show, but there's so much love, passion and thought put into this anime that really gives it the extra push.

Bocchi the Rock is Anime of the Season

Bocci excels not only because it has absolutely stellar writing that dives down deep into an introvert's psyche, but because it also has a director that's willing to just let his staff go buck wild and do whatever the shit they want.

Bocchi The Rock is a Mirror into my SOUL 🎸

Making art -- whether it's drawing, music, video making -- is not the easiest thing to do and I feel like it's been a while since we've had an anime that attempted to showcase that without sugar coating it.

What I wasn't expecting was a critical hit to my current existence as a content creator and socially inept weirdo who doesn't like to talk to people and who isn't really comfortable without multiple layers of anonymity between myself and others.

If you want a currently airing anime about just how you can feel as an introvert watching a piece of media, Bocci the Rock has got you covered.

Bocchi The Rock is The Pinnacle of Slice of Life

...eight weeks of what has generally been some of the best anime I've seen for the better part of half a decade...

The Masterpiece You Just Missed | BOCCHI THE ROCK!

For the first time since 2020 I can finally say that I found another masterpiece within the Cute Girls Doing Cute Things genre.

A Better K-On (Bocchi the Rock!)

Narrative Therapist Reacts to Bocchi The Rock! - Episode 1

I have not yawned a single time during Bocci, an I won't! Yawn. Ever. Again! ...on stream.

The SURPRISE Anime of Fall 2022: Bocchi the Rock!

I Almost Skipped This Amazing Anime

Hidden Gem of the Season Bocci the Rock is a show about a girl who wants to be a rock star but instead gets hit by a truck and reincarnates as an actual rock.

Yeah, yeah, I was lying. I just kind of think that the English title reads funny, but you know in Japan it wouldn't surprise me if that ever became a show in the future.

And if you still want more, here's an extensive print interview with the production team:

Bocchi the Rock! Main Staff Interviews – Series Director Keiichiro Saito, Character Designer Kerorira, Animation Producer Shouta Umehara

[robinsnest2111]

have you discovered any new music/bands that you like recently? or do you have any music recs? (something you think more ppl should listen to, maybe?) :^0

uhhhhh tbh the past couple months are a blur and time's a flat circle anyway but I'll try my best to remember!

I did see Oceans (a german/austrian metal band,, they were one of the opening acts at the Blind Channel show @bctrashtime took me to in September 🖤) and they're pretty good? Haven't listened to any of their new stuff yet tho, life is stressful and old familiar music is comforting lol

Been dabbling with Nine Inch Nails recently, but I'm pretty sure I'm one of the last people on the planet to "discover" them in the year 2022 lmao

Then there's I Monster. Got into them through the viral sound bite of their song "Who Is She" and am trying to slowly make my way through their albums now. "Everyone's A Loser" and "Lust for a Vampyr" are pretty catchy songs as well!

Had a short Eisbrecher stint, their songs "Sturmfahrt" and "Leider" are pretty good, not yet into the other couple of songs I've listened to so far. Their style is similar to Rammstein tho which is nice because Rammstein are one of my all-time favourite bands (ever since I first listened to their song "Engel" back in 3rd grade)

Also the Phonk and Hardwave genres have captured my heart this year, there are some pretty good mixes and playlists on yt.

In general, playlists/mixes for characters or specific vibes/aesthetics/genres have been in my regular yt rotation for a couple months now. Some darkwave/postpunk/coldwave/gothicrock/darksynth 80s hidden gems mixes, 80s/Stranger Things/Eddie Munson/Billy Hargrove mixes, some for my girl Misa Amane, a few fnaf security breach (especially for Monty my beloved) ones, and most recent a couple Old Internet and Cutecore/Bimbocore mixes (because nostalgia for the early-late 2000s and all the songs I grew up with lol)

Also thrifted/bought a couple CDs: Papa Roach, Rob Zombie, The Cranberries, Satus Quo, Spandau Ballet, deftones, Good Charlotte, Nirvana's In Utero, some old heavy metal mega mixes from the 80s/90s which lead me to get a Doro Pesch album from 1993 a couple days ago (she's pretty good and I actually don't mind her german songs!)

No specific recommendations, just a list of "new" things I listened to the past couple months

thank you for the distraction, anon 🖤

[anolyso]

Utena thoughts...about 2 weeks later

I've been putting it off for way too long and so most of my thoughts stopped being fresh. On top of watching way too many analysis vids post-watch, but still I do at least want to put my 2cents of Revolutionary Girl Utena out there for the world.

Utena is perhaps one of the most famous "magical girl"/shoujo action shows out there for not only it's transgressive themes of relationship abuse and low-key pretty much being the poster girl for like actual feminist perspective on/in anime...but also just doing it all in both a heavily allegorical and understated, yet super over-the-top stylish fashion

But that's it's reputation preceding itself, is Utena worth while all these years? The answer is Yes, but it also really shows it's age and budget in pacing and repetition, tho as an appreciator for "behind the scenes" compromises in art, it's more showcasing Ikuhara's talent in working around both taboo and long-form budget constraints with just well-thought out and iconic imagery that - while episodic and formulaic - is just very good at filling the 39 eps with feasts for the eyes.

Utena broadly is about tomboy Utena with memories long ago after her parents died being "saved" by a princely figure like a princess...except she's so enthralled by the nostalgia that instead she becomes a full on Prince herself and receives a dueling ring to fight in the Ohtori Acadamy secret duels for "engagement" to Rose Bride Himemiya Anthy.

Utena is divided between 4 arcs, only the first and last being Manga adapted from hearsay:

1: Student Council Saga

2: Black Rose Saga

3: Akio Ohtori Saga

4: Apocalypse

From back to forth I'd say that Akio + Apoc is more just escalation into the finale while Black Rose being anime original comes off as a glorified side-character study which while complementing the secondary cast, feels like one of those Anime movies that has to say "but if you don't watch this part, it's pretty much optional for the main plot" despite it also actually introducing the most important antagonist within it's margins.

More importantly, it's the Student Council (arc and the actual people) that lay the foundation but also a large part of the show's focus which ironically puts Utena in the background until like almost the finale and some in-between developments, so it's less "Utena (and Anthy Himemiya)'s story" until the very end, but more like a showcase of how fucked up the system at large is (pin in that).

By the Council themselves is:

Kyouichi Saionji: The biggest jobber, like actually introduced as the most despicable loser ep 1 and proceeds to be a complete arrogant joke for the rest of the show. Honestly in another shojo "love" story, they'd find some way to redeem him but semi-compellingly they turn him into like an Aqua-lad type pathetic brat with an inferiority complex to the actual Student head

Miki Kaoru: the naive "nice, non-threatening soft boy" that also just never actually listens to the girls around him. Probably adds more complexity to the whole patriarchal idea on analytic reflection since yeah, the whole "nice guy finishes last" plays up better when the kid comes off as that "ally" energy of wanting to save Himemiya from being the Rose Bride but also low-key won't actually not just do the duels and win her cuz he's that sorta wishy-washy hypocrite. Arguably the least hateable guy in the cast (minus mascot Chu-Chu)

Juri Arisugawa: TRAGIC LESBIAN TRIANGLE LOVE. Probably the biggest point to of both "not-explicitly homosexual" but also really freaking obvious since her entire story is her girlfriend stealing her "boy crush" when actually she was crushing on her and being pretty much frustrated throughout her story as pining most of it. It's quaint by today's standards but also like damn girl, get over her she was like the worst back stabbing bitch (literally if Black Rose counts)

Nanami Kiryuu: SPEAKING OF QUEEN BITCH, it's been a long time since I've watched a High School girl bully and honestly it's kinda refreshing. If Miki is "soft-boy uwu" Nanami is a brat that gets her come-uppance often, featured prominently as an anime only with the MOST filler/comedic episodes but also not low-key, being the most out-spoken actual brother complex ironically spins perhaps the biggest twist and ironic relationships of "I love my brother but not-like-that but also like-that" by the end. Mostly comedic relief but I find her inclusion to actually add a lot more to juxtapose...

Touga Kiryuu: Big Student Council Prez himself, the first arc antagonist and also a strong foil to Saionji and later a stepping stone for Akio. Touga is THE image of a Princely Playboy Heart-Throb that in any other Shoujo romance would have the main girl win him over from all those "other girls" despite him being apathetic if not outright manipulative of them. Good thing Utena is better than that and really puts a spotlight on just not-actually-ok his power hunger for "the power to bring the world revolution" that leads him to heavily objectify Anthy, arguably even more than Misogynist Trophy Girlfriend beater Saionji, since he doesn't even see her as more than a means to an end despite professing and looking the Prince part but lacking all the actual virtues.

The Student council matters more since they're characters and subsequent tragic flaws are the ACTUAL meat of the show and on second rumination actual shows more how fucked up the system/gender dynamic/power hierarchy is since - while it blatantly fucks over Juri who can't just outright say who she likes - also show almost it's own sub-text of Masculine failings: Saionji desperately clinging to being TOXIC MASCULINE™ and completely falling short underneath Touga; Miki's "nice boy" act belying him trying to replace his low-key nostalgia for his sister (also a bitch, but apparently was more like Nanami in the manga); and best yet Touga being the quintessential "Prince in all but actual behavior" by emulating a cutthroat and Machiavellian world view but coming up empty because well, he's just an illusion of a prince...but that leads in way more to the big finale piece where I'll reintroduce the actual story's main trio

Utena Tenjou: Tomboy Prince with brain empty except for lesbian thoughts. Honestly probably what every western "STRONG INDEPENDENT WOMAN" archetype wishes they were since while having very tomboyish personality in athletics, blunt speaking and also VERY oblivious to the actual plot for REAL DRAMATIC IRONY, but also never actually demeaning her being feminine partially due to her love of an childhood prince and how she maintains her relationship with both her friend Wakaba and later Anthy. Honestly mostly a plot device after S1 until she gets ACTUAL development by the very end and instead kinda bumbles her way into undoing the entire REVOLUTION OF THE WORLD. I kinda wish she felt either more cognizant or at least felt like she was developing/properly rebuking the rest of the cast's power obsessions but I guess that's for the movie.

Anthy Himemiya: Actual Trophy Wife with a dark secret (darker than ski- wait no that's terrible scratch that). Set-up very much as an immediate princess in distress while also being the most femme Yamato Nadeshiko, Anthy being the Rose Bride as a literal prize who acts and behaves as whom she's "engaged" with desires while otherwise being quiet, wry, mysterious and noticably submissive, by the end it actually plays up into THE BIG REVEALS of just how abused she's been into a hopeless acceptance...like y'know actual abuse victims.

Akio Ohtori: Grade A Antagonist, probably the most insidious I've seen a villain in a while, Akio is notable for, back in 1997, being perhaps the big go-to of actual deconstructing the facade of a whole shoujo genre's "hots for a teacher/sexy man putting the moves" and highlighting how actually exploitative and abusive a person like that really is. Being Himemiya's brother (somewhat justified in the manga by both being a weird Sailor Moon-esque reincarnation of gods/godesses of Dios), despite how much of his motives are runing the background and how the entire back story is  uh...brought up in like barely in the last arc with little lead up (some scenes feel like they'd be a full melodrama season and they just have like 1 scene in the final arc episodes) he manages to one-up Touga (in the plot as well) by instead of "just" objectifying girls, not-just-flat out saying Utena looks best as a princess, but y'know the fact that he is implicitly yet constantly exploiting and victim-blaming Anthy for her own suffering for "the power of Dios/Revolution of the world" turns it on its head

I've spent all this time on characters but in truth a lot of the meat of the show relies again on the Council Members fleshing out the issues of system leading to outright divorcing "being a Prince" (heroic altruistic virtues) and "being a man" (considering like all but maybe the comedic relief have some deliberately misogynistic behavior) and beyond just the plot (or rather character) synopsis, the talent goes far more in how it's framed, the symbolic/allegorical shots, the repetition adding a good episode formula flow to character showcases, probably the most "tasteful" allusion to uh...*ahem* sexual abuse that so many other edgier/prentious shows fumble. Both in how intimidating yet understated it's foreshadowing is until they hard-reveal it despite never explicitly naming it even tho it sends Nanami into hysterics

Really it's both a massive blessing and reason for it's cult beloved status for it's aesthetics but also it's burden, for being a full 39 episodic season by season character development study of everyone BUT the main trio except for snippets and the very end that makes it greatly appreciable as a legitimate work of art.

What I wanted more to say however (long overdue) is that a large part of following is, visibly at least, western feminist critiques and yes while it almost seems like Utena fits the "deconstructing patriarchy" story like a glove...it's weird how almost none of them actually can give a good historical account of actual Japanese female/gender/sexuality norms nor Anime contemporaries actually were. Like Tenchi Muyo and Berserk came out the same year (Cardcaptor Sakura the next) and despite how you can "feel" the influence in lots of modern shows like SHAFT's signature visual imagery cuts or many WESETERN shows having straight scene references to Utena....almost no one has a similar feel to Utena until like Princess Tutu comes out.

Really tho probably should've watched Utena and then Tutu because while it's undeniable that Utena is a major pillar of shoujo re-codification - what with everyone before Utena was saying they thought it'd be like a Rose of Versaille or Lady Knight rip-off...whose laughing now? - it's almost like there's a missing link between it and it's major western fanbase (probably with what few anime did get overseas, this one probably rose to the top), or how very noticeable there IS an influence on it's genre in Japan

Almost none of the big analyst fans actually know A) it's not "a deconstruction of Magical Girls" since despite Ikuhara working on Sailor Moon just before this, almost none of the tropes line up and instead more with Shoujo genre as a whole. or  one of the major inspirations was Takarazuka theater.

And this is not to dismiss how inspirational it is to it's western fandom, but while I am notably cynical towards placing things on pedestals, there's probably something about cultivating the whole pop-culture feminist reading commune with people making weird time-loop theories while kinda most of it is just filling in a mad-lib mostly thanks to Ikuhara just keeping things on the vague and letting the audience take away their own perspective.

Again, most of the show is completely sub-textual or visually/symbolically depicted and never stated nor properly defines it's weird key words (End of the World, Revolutionize the World, Power of Dios, Rose Bride, all things said constantly but never really said what they "mean". But that's also perhaps its charm, in it's allegory and very Death of the Author approach, it has definitely allowed it's fan theorizing and appreciation to flourish so there's something there for that.

Ultimately I'd say Utena the TV series is great more so for what it isn't...or rather I should say it's great for not just subverting Shoujo tropes and archetypes for the Japanese audience but also that despite dealing with some very serious and heavy subjects in obtuse and perhaps understated ways for the time, people have allowed it to be put on it's pedestal because they can easily fit it in themselves.

Honestly though, not that a more "straight forward" approach wouldn't detract from Utena but I will say that the movie, Adolescence of Utena, is very much the best encapsulation of what Utena strives to be (for another big blog post) and while the TV series has plenty of time and flexes it's directorial muscles with budget constraints and season pacing UNrestrained, the movie will trim a lot of the fat

[mxtcha-tea]

Useless Love Letter.

✎desc; when he receives a love letter from someone else and you're unphased by it.

✎pairing[s]; tsukishima x gn!reader, matsukawa x gn!reader (let me know if i miss any)

✎genre; angst, unrequited love (not proofread)

✎warning[s]; cursing

✎language[s]; english

✎chef note; AHHSHDBJSJSUD WRITER'S BLOCK HITS ME WHEN I'M DOING KUROO'S PART HNNNN, please give me ideas for this...

Tsukishima Kei

You stopped right in front of your classroom’s door frame when you saw a girl shyly standing in front of you while looking down on the floor. Her rosy cheeks peaked from her long and beautiful hair, biting her lip. You recognize her from the other class since she has been visiting your class a few times.

Then, your eyes landed on the letter, slightly crumpled up on her hand. Your mind spiralled a bit at your first thought, that she’s going to give you a love letter, but then again, you snapped out from the thought and focus back on her figure,

“Can I help you?”

She flinched, slowly looking up from the ground and making brief eye contact with you, “Um, c-can you hand this to...Tsukishima….?”

Handing you the letter in her hand as you sighed in relief internally, taking it from her, “You mean Kei? Sure, I’ll let you know his reaction okay?” The girl slowly looks back at you again, giving her a small smile.

A blink as a response as a small smile started forming up on her face before nodding and started jogging back to her class.

You sighed, looking at the love letter for your beloved best friend, “Ah, young love~”

A chuckle escaped from your lips at the thought despite not even being that different in age gap with Tsukishima. You turned around, finding his figure sitting on his desk while listening to his headphones as always. You walked towards him and sat on the chair in front of you.

The male opens his eyes at the sound you made with the chair and put on an annoyed look, expecting yet another rant from you until he saw the mischievous smirk plastered upon your face,

“What do you want?” He blandly asked, not even bothering to put his headphones down. You pouted at that,

“Oh, c’mone, can’t you be more nice with me? I even bring good news right now,”

Tsukishima lifted a brow as his eyes traveled around you until the familiar white envelope caught his eyes. His breath hitches a bit as his cheeks started heating up. Without making it any obvious for you of course.

Is that a love letter? Why do you have one in your hand right now? Are you...confessing to him? He mentally slaps himself in the face and focuses back to what you have to say, hoping that it is about the love letter, “What?”

You hold out the letter onto his face with an excited grin, covering his face. He groaned, trying to put it back down but still took a glimpse of the small red heart in the middle. He snatched it from your hands, finally putting down his headphones and examined it.

Before he can ask you any questions to make it seem like he’s oblivious to it (but in reality he’s not), you spoke first.

And oh boy, it’s really not what he’s hoping for,

“The girl from class 3 asked me to give it to you, and as you can tell, I think she has a little crushy- crush on you~” You grinned, quite oblivious to the emotions welled up inside him now.

Not like he’ll show it any obvious anyway. The slight hope in his eyes died down as he looked back at the letter with no emotions. As if the letter itself has no meaning whatsoever to him.

It’s true, because it’s not from a certain person in his mind, so why would he look at it with excitement?

“Yeah, sure, so what?” You frowned at his response, putting the letter down on the very corner of his desk while rolling his eyes and putting his headphones back on, “What’s with that response? Don’t you feel, I don’t know, excited or something? I mean, I would get excited if I get a love letter from someone,”

‘Because it’s not from you’

“Because there’s no purpose to it? How do you even expect me to react when someone give me a stupid letter? Also, how come you’re not even bothered by it?”

The last question slips from his lips as he yelled at himself internally but trying to not make it any more obvious that he didn’t mean to say that. Thankfully you didn’t caught on to it, like every other time,

“Should I be bothered by it tho? I think that I’m happy that you finally receive one because your lonely ass needs a s/o. You shouldn’t ignore it too, y’know,” You pouted, resting your head on your palm while looking out from the class window.

Tsukishima frowned, it’s not the response he’s hoping from you, then again, he should’ve seen it coming. But it still hurts,

“I already promised her that I’m going to tell her your response-” “Just tell her that I don’t accept the confession,” He sighed, waving his hand around as he buried his head on his arm, avoiding your stare,

“Tch, whatever I guess, if she cries because of it then you’re responsible for it,” He grunted, looking back onto your eyes.

They look as pretty as ever, just like yesterday, and honestly everyday. But he can still couldn’t admit it,

“Shut up, have you finished the english work?” You widen your eyes at that panickly holding onto his table, “FUCK, I HAVEN’T FINISHED THE LAST ONE YET,”

You quickly went to your seat and rummaged around your bag, pulling out two books and a pen before landing back at your previous seat. The blonde sighed, rolling his eyes and put down his headphones while watching you flip through the english textbook.

The love letter left next to him.

Tsukishima walked through the hallway with Yamaguchi next to him. In the end, he still keeps the love letter thanks to your pestering. If you hadn’t stopped him from throwing it away, he could’ve caught into some unnecessary drama.

Yamaguchi takes a glance at the blonde next to him, then at the letter inside his pocket. Slightly crumpled and dirty from the amount of ignorance he gave to it, “Tsuki, sorry to hear about that. So, did they know about it? Y’know, about your crush on them,”

He kept on walking towards the gym, where Hinata had asked both of them to help him and Kageyama practice a bit during lunch. His face unphased and hands left on his sides,

“No, still oblivious. And I’m pretty sure that…”

His words fell on deaf ears when both of them reached the noisy gym, filled with the balls hitting every corner of the room along with Hinata, Kageyama and…

Your voice.

Both of them took a peek inside through the small opening and his eyes went wide when you spike a ball, holding up your hand in victory and clapping hands with Hinata and Kageyama.

Yamaguchi sighed, half lidded eyes staring at his best friend, “And because they have another person in mind right?” The blonde looked at Yamaguchi and pulled out the letter from his pocket.

Hollowly looking at it’s crumpled up state before averting his pupils back to your beamed figure talking with a flustered Kageyama. The expression you’re wearing is enough to make it obvious on who you’re REALLY into.

Tsukishima clenched his hand, crumpling the letter fully with a dead stare towards both of your figures. He calmed his mind a bit, looking up with his eyes closed avoiding tears falling down.

His friend gave him a pity look, patting his back. He throw the letter at the trash bin and turn his expression back to neutral again,

“I fucking hate them. Whatever, it’s not like I care anyway,”

Matsukawa Issei

“Fuck, gross!”

You punched Matsukawa’s shoulder, laughing in the process while walking with him towards your classroom. He chuckled, shrugging slightly and catching the familiar frame of both you and his class,

“What? I already told you it was once,” “Shut up loser,” You shake your head, walking ahead of him and entering the classroom. Greeting some of your classmates that’s either talking with one another or playing cards.

The latter yawned, slouching his figure a bit as his eyes caught something on his desk. He stares at it for a second before realizing it’s a letter and a little bento. He walked towards it and lifted the letter up, “[y/n]!”

After putting your watch down on your desk, you look back at him, “Hm?” He held the letter up as it caught your attention. You walked towards his desk and take a look at the letter closer,

“Oh fuck, you got a confession letter!” Matsukawa looks at the letter back and flip it showing a name written in cursive, “Miyahara...Sora,” He read it out loud as you widen your eyes at that,

“MIYAHARA?? Mattsun, that’s like, the sweetest girl in our whole school, she likes you?” He barely shrugged, “Seemed so,”

You rose a brow at that, “Aren’t you excited? She’s really popular and to know that she has a crush on you?? Of all people?”

“Oh shut up, who’s even getting the letter right now?” He lightly hit your head and put the letter down, grabbing the bento next. He opens it as your eyes sparkled at the content. As expected from the cinnamon roll of a person Miyahara is, the food was aesthetically pleasing to look at and even smells good for bonus point,

“Well, at least she’s one good housewife,” “Oh my god, stop with your housewife kink,” You groaned, earning a laugh from him as he handed it to you, “And you seemed like you wanted a taste,”

You flinched at his statement and wearily looked at the bento in front of you. You wanted to refuse since it’s for him but the octopus sausage is practically calling you to eat it,

“Fuck this,” You grabbed one of it and chewed happily, making a sound of content as the ravenette watches you eat it. But, now that he started realizing it, you didn’t seem bothered by him getting a love letter from some popular girl that he didn’t bother to know about.

In fact, it looks like you’re actually rooting for the romance between him and ‘Miyahara’ to blossom.

His smile faltered a bit but then he put back his usual grin when you turn your head to him, “Can I eat one more- wait, no! It’s for you, one is enough,” “Are you sure?” “...”

You reached out your hand to grab the onigiri and stuffed it inside your mouth, earning a chuckle from Matsukawa, grabbing one too,

“Mn, what did she put in here? Tuna mayo?”

“Hm, taste like it honestly,”

“It’s good, dang I hope that I can have her make bentos for me,”

“Yeah, sure,”

The letter’s still rested on his hand, he fiddled with it and left it unopened. He doesn’t want to open it since he could already tell that he won’t feel anything while reading it. Matsukawa saw your figure running towards him as you stopped right in front of him, panting,

“Hey chief, you okay?” He asked with a lopsided grin, you stand up straight and look at him with a glare, “Why didn’t you tell me that you don’t have practice right now?! I had to deal with Oikawa’s ass inside the gym and cleaning it up since none of the others want to!”

He dodged your attacks as you continue your rambling, “And what’s worst is that your stupid volleyball gym is so fucking far away from the school main gate!”

You stopped trying to hit him when he catches your wrist and shoving it back down, “Geez, sorry I guess, don’t get so worked up with it since you knew that this isn’t the first time it happened,”

A sigh escaped from you, letting go of his grip as you opened your shoe locker. He chuckled, leaning against the locker with one hand inside his pocket while the other still holding the letter.

While struggling to put your shoes back on, you catch a glimpse of the letter previously from your class, “You still haven’t read it?”

He looks at the letter then back at you, “Nah, I don’t feel like reading it right now,” You scoffed, standing up straight and hit your front shoe onto the floor, “Well, I hope you would read it anytime soon, not making the owner of the letter to wait for your response,”

You froze a bit and looks at him with a small smile, “Wait, don’t tell me you have a crush on me so that’s why you haven’t read it,”

His eyes widened at that as both of you stare into each other, his cheeks heating up at the contact. Was he really that obvious? No, if you had already known it, you would have tease him about it a little earlier. He kept himself calm under your stare as he coughed,

“Pfft, what? Of course not, you’re seriously hallucinating right now,” “Oh,” You chuckled, leaning against the locker besides him, “Thank goodness,”

You easily stated.

Matsukawa can feel himself getting stabbed from the back at your mere words, and he started noticing why you still pestered him to accept the letter. How can it not be any obvious? You don’t love him more than friends.

Then again, you act so carefree around him, you’re always comfortable with him and could effortlessly talk with him without being shy. That it became hard to know if you like him or not.

Some days you would just be next to him engulfed with silence and he would think that you’re in love with him. If only, that was true and not a scenario that he made up. But it’s quite impossible isn’t it? There’s actually no way for you to hold up a more-than-friends feelings towards him.

That’s pretty much the number one ‘not to’ rule as best friends. And he broke that sole rule. How stupid of him, he should’ve known better.

“I just know that you two would be the perfect couple, I mean, you two are so cute together now that I think about it!” You give him a bright smile,

The same smile that made him fall in love, and the same one that got his heart broken,

“I’ll be your number one wing person, so I hope you could read the letter when you got home,” He blinks, chuckling at that while putting on a smile that could’ve mirrored yours, if it isn’t so fake,

“Whatever,”

You smack his shoulder and wave your hand at him, “Loser, see you tomorrow, kachow,” He waved back, almost half heartedly, “Kachow,”

And with that, you’re running out from the gate, trying to not miss the train again. Half way through it, you tripped on a rock but quickly gained balance and started running again.

His hand fell down to his sides, the smile on his face disappearing in a second. He lifted up the letter, almost glaring down on it as he speed walked towards the nearest trash bin.

And almost too easily ripped it into half, throwing it away and not caring that the owner would find it anytime soon. He held up his middle finger at it, sticking his tongue out at the process, “Fuck you, you ruined my fucking life, Miyahara,”

Matsukawa frowned, searching through his pocket and pulling out his phone, dialing a number that’s all too familiar to him.

It let out a few beeps before the call was accepted, “Hey, what’s up?”

Hanamaki’s voice echoed from it, a little bit hoarse from sleeping the whole day. He covered his face, letting a sigh before responding,

“Hey, I know that you’re sick right now, but can I go to your house?”

A line of silence filled in the gap between them before his other best friend responded back, “Is this about [y/n]?” His voice now laced in pity, almost knowing exactly what happened between you two while he’s away.

He let out a forced smile as his vision started to blur and sting from the tears welling up. He bite his lip, trying to calm himself from breaking down right there, letting the whole school see him crumbling,

“Isn’t it obvious enough? I even bet that you had known about this in the first place,”

[davidjjohnston3]

General Sketch Freebie Sample Reflections on North Korean Studies

a “wine-offering(?)” with half a thought of Miles Klee, Mom, Pop, Hesp365, JiU, Taeyeon, mental Nietzsches, mental Beethovens and “trillions now unborn depending on two votes for their amazing grace-emancipation” (~ Lincoln)

I.

“Admirare” / Hero-Worship

Korea became so influential / prestigious morally as well as physically aesthetically governmentally from their physical beauty (”a high cheek-boned large-handed race that loved children and flowers” - Susan The Foreign Student) that people became blinded to the weirdness, alienness, or specificities of Koreans as they were before finding what Bruce Cumings calls their place in the sun; such as hero-worship or an unabashed affection for celebrities from Yi Sunshin to Brad Pitt.  This celebrity-positive attitude becomes infectious for those who live there because or in as people like CS Lewis, DesiringGod.org main teacher and BCSMN Chancellor / “Pastor John” John Piper and Ayn Rand (in The Romantic Manifesto) I think will say like whoever it was who said admiring someone or something is the first step to becoming that yourself. 

2.

Don’t read these books if you want to have a clean and simple life or even have Koreans understand you.  If you want Koreans to understand and appreciate you wear black, navy, and white, don’t consume sexual materials, expurgate your vocabulary and body-language of anything that could constitute double entendre.

3.

Lee Soon Shin or Yi Sunshin, the admiral who never lost a battle and sank like 300 Japanese ships or something with 11 Korean ships and saved the nation for 500 years, after being tortured by his own government and betrayed by corrupt established elites.  In Kr I would call him “Grand Admiral Prime Minster Naval Commander of the Three Provinces Eternal Protector YSS” and his full title in Korean or kind of what US Army call the “fruit salad” of ribbons on their chest is even more than that.  Why do kids to this day write essays about him worldwide?

In “The Admiral” Yi Sunshin is supping with his son who says “Korean peasants are a bunch of losers why are we dying to defend them.”  Yi indicates the crude rice-soup and small fish of their repast and says, “Eat your food.”

I once reflected that before the battle of Myeongnryang Yi must be thinking how his service can’t really save KR forever and moreover he’s protecting a bunch of sex-traffickers who would give female slaves no names in some cases and make women into kisaeng for life before burning them alive at their lives’ end (I believe), as a kind of purgation-rite to cleanse them of their sensualism after a life into which they had been compelled to make them both givers and mandatory receivers of sexual pleasure since the latter gives men a lot of pleasure (cf. Dante’s “Inferno” in which a whore is punished forever for taking money when she actually ENJOYED getting rwliuhewiruhiweurilht and should’ve just been a “harlot” I guess instead of a paid harlot although that’s funny since Dante himself was a huge fan of prostitutes and never admitted it, unlike Flaubert who said “The truth is I love prostitution” and Baudelaire who said “Man has an invincible thirst for prostitution which is one becoming two except the genius who wants to be / remain one”)

4.

I was driving and I just started crying because Yi laid down his life in act of patriotism for such imperfect people.  I associate this sacrificial donation of self also with Cao Xueqin of “Dream of Red Mansion(s)” / “Red Room Dream” etc. who offered an homage to Chinese women and their loveliness and love and “scholars and beauties” in a novel he spent all his life preparing for and wrote 10 drafts or something after giving up on all external ambitions.

It was one of Chairman Mao’s favorite books and in a stupid glib way puts me in mind of a fatalistic overly hipster-y and “veiled” movie where a guy says to a Chinese girl “one day your life will be better” which I don’t approve of since ultra-orthodox New Testament Christianity says, “we are offering the world’s women monogamy and husbands who will sacrificially and EXCLUSIVELY love their one wife of their youth as much as Jesus loved the Church to the extent of getting brutally tortured, publicly disgraced and executed for h/Her... (and some would say harrowing Hell for h/Her.)”

II.

Obsession; Tragedy of Obsession; or “Lear and Cordelia”

1.

FWIW I love the McKellen / RSC “King Lear” with a phrase that my old and exceedingly admired beloved and missed missed missed missed friend Mike Cunningham once used to describe Ms. Myung Hyungseo ex-Busters who liek all Asian women deserved better though unlike some [’yay Shanghai”] she didn’t irewuhltiuhqlihtrqu to get it.   

I saw KL about 30 times and gradually understood that it’s about Lear’s delusions of Cordelia.  He’s obsessed with her and pace MHKC’s novel “Yolk” he doesn’t understand that she is a kind of soul-projection of himself or that he thinks of her as his own anima / soul.  I mention “Yolk” partly becase Lear’s jester / Fool likens Cordelia to the “golden one” or yolk of hardboiled egg to which the “sea-monster cannibals” Goneril and Regan are the fairly un-nourishing whites.

Wm. Hazlitt once said of Juliet to Romeo that Romeo that Juliet is his one reality.  

There are people so agonized and beat up or else so self-pitying or cowardly or simply under-educated or they painted themselves into a corner that they think only others are real.  When these others disappear the whole world ceases to make sense.

2.

I reflected that 1994 was a critical demarcation in NK history because the death of KIS in a way grief-trauma-blinded the entire nation.  Everyone loved KIS to distraction and also the mandatory quasi-Confucian grieving reinforced their confusion or almost hysterical blindness.

3.

IDK if it matters but according to “Tombstone” when 50-70 million Chinese died in the Great Leap Forward (imagine how many ribs that is or something), many were crying out to Mao himself as a kind of sun-god to save them.

NK poet Jang Jinsung or so also wrote about LOVING the Kims so much and loving they’re fat and now many upset KJU lost weight...

When I was a was kid in Church I thought of God as my Taiwanese aunt Jamie who is very portly and Spengler’s concept of the Faustian Western civilization (Decline of the West includes a painting-style that emphasizes fat clothed bodies with revealed hands because “Faust culture-soul” is always reaching out and towards although IMHHHHHHHO it’s really God the Father’s love that reaches “is my arm not that long” to all of us all the time if we don’t resist Him.

Conversely “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.”

III.

To be continued(?) - I’m just trying to say valuable good things to mitigate idiotic stuff I said on Tumblr in past and to clarify or rectify the understanding of Covid-19 as a divine Judgment that reflects God’s will for future humanity on Earth as in Heaven but I still have to attend to person matters

[stina-is-a-punk-rocker]

to all the boys i’ve loved before: the good, the bad & the ugly

THE GOOD

I live my life with the belief, not in any religion, but in several other truths: pineapple topping on pizza is a crime against humanity. FOUR is the superior One Direction album. The book will always be superior to the movie based off of it.

Actually, maybe we have to reconsider that last one.

I first watched To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before expecting a slightly polished version of a Disney channel original. I was- to my surprise, and delight- proven wrong. Sure, the premise is a bit flimsy (why, in god’s name, would Lara Jean put her letters in envelopes and address them if she had no intention of mailing them?); there’s a multitude of cliché YA tropes (naïve, introverted MC meets floppy-haired white boy ft. some reincarnation of Regina George who happens to be his ex with a vendetta against the poor, innocent MC; the GBF); I’ve got several concerns about the casting (the Covey girls are supposed to half-Korean. The actors playing them don’t even have the same ethnicity? Nor do they look like they could pass for siblings?); and the soundtrack is- well. They could’ve done better.

BUT. And that’s a big ‘but’, which is why it’s in all caps. There were so many things I loved about the movie, so much more than the ones that bothered me. My little Asian heart always bursts in joy whenever I see a positive representation of someone like me in media- I don’t care if they’re South Asian or East Asian or SEA or Middle Eastern or anywhere else from the Asian continent. For so long, the only representation in Western media- if any; having Asian characters is a rarity- were perpetuating stereotypes; Lara Jean and her sisters are such a breath of fresh air. Noah Centineo’s… well, a lot of people find him cute, and he’s got a charming smile. Kitty is my spirit animal. And the aesthetics are so cute- Lara Jean’s wardrobe is a dream, and her room even more so. I loved the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movie, and I will go to my grave defending it.

Since I loved the movie so much, surely, the book would be better! Right?

… Sigh.

THE BAD

The cover’s very cute, I’ll give it that. Arty font, reminiscent of something you’d find in a love letter, good call. The color scheme’s adorable. The girl on the cover is very pretty. And, um… that’s about it.

Right off the bat, Lara Jean’s monologue made me go, oh. It’s that kind of protagonist. The one who spends way too much time telling and not enough showing (blame all the writing advice videos I watched on YouTube. It never used to bother me before, but it’s all I can see now).

(Also, “After I write my letter, I’m no longer consumed by my all-consuming love.” You’re proud of that, aren’t you, Miss Jenny Han?)

And, see, I wouldn’t mind (I probably would) if Lara Jean’s thoughts were particularly riveting. Mildly entertaining, at the very least- that’s all I’m asking for.

Lara Jean is uninteresting; almost painfully so. Film-LJ’s quirkiness barely translates to the pages. Sure, Lara Jean likes romance… and baking… and antiques… and writing letters to boys who are supposedly out of her league and who could never fall for little old her. And she’s a bad driver. She idolizes her older sister. Decent character traits for a YA protagonist. And, as far as I recall, no internalized misogyny that comes in the form of slut-shaming, which is a rarity for the genre of YA. Great.

And yet there’s something about book-LJ that feels so… contrived. A little Mary Sue-ish, if you will. Papery.

Which can be said about almost every other character (except Chris and Kitty. Margot, to an extent, but I don’t like her).

There are loads of useless info-dumps strewn throughout the story, which makes me wonder if it wasn’t edited. The writing’s just… bad. It’s more like a Wattpad story (when did ‘Wattpad story’ become the paragon of bad YA? Honestly speaking, though, all the popular Wattpad books give the website a bad name. There are some incredibly well-written works on it- yes, even Harry Styles fanfiction. Not every Wattpad story is going to be *bleh* After or The Kissing Booth. But I digress). Lara Jean goes into too much detail about her outfits and the trivial details of… everything, really. And, well, no one gives a fuck.

Which brings me to: the love triangle. Beloved of all YA clichés, pretty much a staple in the genre at this point. Always with the female main character choosing between two men, both conventionally attractive in a very Eurocentric way. Usually, it’s painfully obvious who gets the girl; “Emma Notlikeothergirls has to choose between the handsome, confident, gorgeous, athletic, strapping Ashton Dreamboat and that rando who lives next door, Billy Whatsisname. Whoever will she choose?”

I’ll give credit where credit is due. The book makes both Peter and Josh (unrelated, but why are the boys’ names so standard Hoosier boy-ish? You’ve got girls named Genevieve and Margot, and the boys are pretty much the twelve apostles) pretty evenly matched. Josh has the whole boy-next-door, childhood friends, I-have-always-loved-you cliché going for him, while Peter’s the popular boy, the jock, the guy every girl wants to be with and every guy wants to be.

And yet they’re both complete dicks.

I’m supposed to be rooting for one of them. Team Peter or Team Josh; either Peter-Jane or Lara-Josh. Either the guy who’s got nothing but his looks going for him, or the guy who slept with her sister and kissed her without her consent. hOwEvEr WiLL sHe ChOOsE???

And I was never really convinced that Peter actually developed feelings for Lara Jean, ever. Maybe I’m just oblivious, but they seemed more like friends instead of lovers. I was lowkey shipping Lara Jean x Chris, even though I knew that was plain wishful thinking; I already got my Asian MC, this won’t be getting too diverse.

Other clichés I’m tired of seeing but were unfortunately present: Lucas, the token Gay Best Friend (I was annoyed with the movie for making him the Rafiki to Lara Jean’s Simba and nothing else, but rereading the book made me realize that they didn’t have much to work with in the first place); Margot, the Bitchy Sister (I never forgave her for lying to their dad about Lara Jean having sex. Seriously, how low can you get? JOSH kissed LARA JEAN, not the other way around! Margot’s supposed to be the same age I am, I think, so I believe I have the ability to call her out on her bullshit); Genevieve, the Bitch Queen Extraordinaire; Kitty, the Annoying Younger Sibling (but I love and cherish her so I don’t mind it).

“The sibling dynamic was surprisingly better written than a solid 75% of the book,” says me, an only child.

Also, a final complaint: is having sex that big of a deal? I get Lara Jean being (rightfully) horrified at the accusations, and Peter Kavinskydick deserves a decent roundhouse kick (the movie did a better job of making Peter’s actions forgivable), but why does everyone else care? Seriously, do you have that little fodder for gossip?

THE UGLY

Am I going to complain about the sequel to the movie based off of the sequel to the book that I can’t remember anything of besides the fact that John Ambrose was ten times the man Peter Kavinsky was? You bet I am.

In all honesty, I can’t remember much of the book version of P.S. I Still Love You. Rest assured that I was Team John Ambrose all the way, both while reading the book and watching the movie. I don’t want to make myself suffer through the book again, so I’ll resort to bashing the movie sequel.

This movie sucked balls. Not on the level of Sierra Burgess is a Loser or Swiped or The Kissing Booth or- yikes- The Kissing Booth 2, but it was still pretty bad. It’s pretty obvious that the two movies weren’t directed by the same person. For all its plot-related shortcomings, the first film was charming and pretty widely well-received. The second film takes all that charm and cuteness and fluff and flushes it down the toilet, along with the tiniest bit of affection I had for the character of Peter Kavinsky. Lara Jean, too, to an extent.

At least Peter and Josh were evenly matched. John Ambrose is lightyears ahead of Peter. And yet Lara Jean chooses Peter because… the first dick is the best dick? Make it make sense!

She’s leading John Ambrose on during the entire film, and I normally hate using that term because it’s such an incel way of putting things. But she doesn’t tell John Ambrose about Peter and her dating, even though she’s had the opportunity to do so countless times. She gets mad at Peter for being close to Genevieve, and yet? Hypocrite much? Not to mention she kisses John Ambrose, right before she’s like, “whoops haha guess I don’t like you that much after all :/ lol my bad”.

John Ambrose deserved better, and that is the hill I will die on.

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

okay I’m STILL not done the book yet because #life(tm) but some follow up reactions

The entire scene where Calypso and Apollo were trying to escape on the slow kiddy train at the Zoo had me in stitches holy shit

Apollo frantically hitting the gas and Calypso is just leisurely walking next to it while glaring at him??? And the guards? omfg I was dying

Meg’s entrance was dramatic and awesome good for her

Why the fuck is this 12 year old so good at sword fighting she can keep up with one of the deadliest swordfighters of the ancient world(tm)

When Lit threatened Leo and Calypso essentially morphed into the knife emoji on spot. A plus.

I mean I’m just saying: I feel like a pregnant griffin isn’t more important than helping a tortured seven year old girl. But I still love Britomartis so I guess it’s whatever

I love how Lit was going on like he has a score to settle with Leo because ‘he and his friends’ fucked him up in Oklahoma but like....Leo didn’t contribute to that at all like Jason literally did everything during that fight??? That was kinda like important to Jason’s development and shit??? Leo and Piper were golden statues and Hedge was outside eating grass??? Shouldn’t Lit’s anger be focused on Jason??? lol

Idk I just found it funny (I want to see Jason Grace again)

Calypso managing to shove out some magic yeah girl!!!!

MEG AND APOLLO HUGGING EACH OTHER FOR DEAR LIFE WHILE SOBBING: MY ENTIRE AESTHETIC

Leo meeting Meg was way too fucking funny omfg “so I understand you can like...control him?” and when Apollo tried denying it she makes him slap himself??? 😂

How did we fucking segue from lighthearted banter directly into Apollo having a vivid flashback of the time he had to murder the love of his life with his bare hands

Like I??? Was sobbing??? So hard???? Because a batshit insane Roman empire was getting killed by someone who loved him bc it was necessary for the world and the lover couldn’t stand to see anyone else hurt him??? Fuck me???? Rick Riordan ain’t real

“I couldn’t bare to look into the water without seeing my beloved’s betrayed face starring back” or whatever the fuck the line was but FUCK

Jo was a teenage girl crossdressing to fuck around with gangsters in the 1920′s before Artemis found her and honestly??? Goals

Also the scene where she was helping Apollo after his flashback was very sweet

Can’t believe the nerd spent like six hours playing soothing music just to get a griffin to lay an egg

Leo and Calypso better be whispering amongst themselves what I think they’re whispering

Leo seems a lot more...subdued than usual in this book? I don’t know if that’s just because we aren’t reading from his POV, or if it’s like a “I literally died and came back and then spent six months getting attacked every single day while trying to find home and now I’m stuck on another dangerous quest I’m fucking stressed” type thing, or if it could be from the relationship problems he’s having with Calypso, but either way he seems a little off and I’m worried about him

The Dread Pirate Valdez...leave.

How was that joke never made once on the Argo tho??? lol

The speed at which Leo seems to have emotionally adopted Meg is astounding and also #relatable

Meg’s far from my favorite character tbh but like??? I will probably punch everyone who’s ever frowned in her general direction in the face. Holy shit give this kid a break

She thinks Nero is scared of the mystery third emperor on the West Coast??? So....Caligula, probably? Laying my bets down on him now

“I triggered the First Law of Percy Jackson” I had to put the book down bc I was laughing so hard I think that lines gonna end up on my gravestone or as the afterword in my autobiography omfg

“I’ve always had a phobia of snakes, especially if you included my step-mother Hera. BOOM!” I choked.

I like that half the time Apollo is able to figure out what to do to win because he has a general understanding of science

Like he knew his burst of godly voice power would only help so much, but he also knew if he stood in the right spot and yelled in the right frequency it would reverberate and knock over the bricks and shit??? NICE

How long were these kids wadding through a sewer how do none of them have hypothermia

Leo: *sets himself on fire* “Gather round, children.”

Like first off someone saying ‘gather round children’ is always going to make me laugh for some reason that’s just a fact but human torching it up really added to the effect lmao

Like okay I understand the set up of the room so that no one would look in the canal and see them but like...how the fuck did no one realize they were there that just felt too easy I’m sorry

Chia Girl

When they found the prisoners was horrifying omfg???

The two fucked up boys on a hunger strike???

“...Hunter the Hunter?” “Yeah, I’ve never heard that before.”

Tall, Dark and Jamie.

Apollo babe you’re on a rescue mission with a time crunch please you can check out Jamie later holy shit

Georgie made me wanna cry get her back to her Combat Moms immediately

The entire sequence of Apollo getting the door open: S C I E N C E  B I T C H

“Lemme just fill up some syringes with ammonia just in case”

Alright I’ll admit when Meg started insisting she had a feeling they needed to go through the door: I was really worried she was about to double cross him.

Glad I was wrong but tbh that whole arena dress rehearsal bullshit was STRESSFULL

S T R E S S F U L L

First of all: Apollo’s out here constantly complaining about his puny mortal body but manages to fight and climb and run with a heavy ass chair strapped to his back: okay,

Second of all: why did no one warn me about Livia the elephant I was on the verge of tears every time he mentioned her

Third of all: Monsters, ostriches, race cars, basketballs, football, human mercenaries, animals, like...what even the fuck else SO MUCH WAS GOING ON I would’ve died in ten seconds flat???

Fourth of all: let’s just SET THE FUCKING GRAIN SPIRIT ON FIRE WHY THE FUCK NOT. HOW DID MEG EVEN MANAGE TO GET HIM DOWN. HOW DID APOLLO AND LIVIA MANAGE TO CRASH COMMODUS’ CAR TO THAT DEGREE AND HE NOT ONLY SURVIVED BUT THREW THE WRECKAGE AWAY FROM HIM

Fifth of all: THE FUCKING HUNTERS SHOW UP AND CAUSE EVEN M O R E CHAOS. Truly I don’t know how any of the main heroes survived that there was just too much.

The entire time I was reading it I was like “This feels like a giant fight at the climax of the book how the fuck are there more pages left what else is going to happen???” AND IM STILL WONDERING THAT LIKE

Thalia Grace has been returned to me.

Apollo’s strong urge to save Lit??? Okay I guess. It’s nice to see him being compassionate and shit but. I was kinda with Leo on that one lol

“Thalia Grace slid behind me on the elephant, which fulfilled one of the fantasies I’d had about the Hunter, although I never quite imagined it playing out like this” M E

What was his elephant-involved fantasy with Thalia I need a complete play by play lmao

Also the scene where Commodus dropped his composure for a sec and had a full-blown Angry Ex moment (which...he’s definitely entitled to). That was good and also I was highkey worried he might just try to kill my nerd then and there

Also that he’s not just mad that Apollo killed him but like. All their fucking history together. Shit’s intense.

Apollo loves this elephant so much after only like 15 minutes the first thing he’s gonna do when he’s immortal again is bless her or some shit

Also I’m glad they got that awful chainmail off her

The Hunters apparently just have a magical energy drink with mercury in it okay

Honestly??? I’m a little mad Artemis has been ordered not to contact him THE BOY JUST WANTS TO SEE HIS SISTER HOLY SHIT

Aaaaaand that’s about where I left off. Hoping to finish it all together the next time I get a chance. Hoping all the losers are alright. LOVING this book so far. Waiting to see an official reunion between Georgie and her Combat Moms. The Headless Ghost’s cryptic warning has me worried. Until next time...

[orpheusterminals]

Can you get to that? Jason Robert Bell's mystical inspirations

POSTED ON MAY 24, 2013.

INTERVIEW

For Gallery 400’s current exhibition, I THINK WE’RE READY TO GO TO THE NEXT SEQUENCE: THE LEGACY OF HALFLIFERS, the HALFLIFERS—the collaborative team of Torsten Zenas Burns and Anthony Discenza—present a re-edit of their entire video history as well as an alternative self-portrait that catalogs key materials, sources, influences, and other touchstones in a new book. Alongside the HALFLIFERS’ works are sculptures, videos, drawings, installations, photographs, and paintings by a number of invited artists who have affinities with the collaborative and who have produced new works mining the HALFLIFERS’ oeuvre. As his contribution, artist Jason Robert Bell created The White Feathered Octopus Tarot Card Deck, a full tarot card deck inspired by the HALFLIFERS, whose title is taken from a novel the artist published in 2012. On June 13 at 7pm, Bell will use one of his decks to perform a “Multi-Mystical" Tarot Card Reading.

Having worked on the exhibition, I was keen to learn more about Bell, his practice, and the piece included in the show. In an earlier conversation about his work, Bell wrote to the Gallery: “The artwork I make is not a conceptual twist on content, or an exploration in transitive forms, or anti-social pop surrealism. My artwork is the wave I surf across this reality. Everything is at once serious and silly.” Reading Bell’s answers, one can begin to understand how true this statement is.

Image: Jason Robert Bell, The White Feathered Octopus: The Painting, 2012, ink and acrylic on canvas.

Leonard Cicero: What is your relationship to the HALFLIFERS and how did you get involved in this exhibition?

Jason Robert Bell: The Time was 177666 and the place was Horned Beast University, where I spent many a night getting “Philip K. Dicked” around by two tons of fun, known as The DAFTKNIGHTERS.1 They, along with their ever-faithful Gynoid Glamazon, the Great Gatzke, were right there with me in the C.R.C. Charismatic Metafaun program.2 It was there, in the Thoughtorium, that the old girl got up the gumption, if you know what I mean. Full and total UniMindPenis Collective Life form achieved, the four humors realized the White Feathered Octopus, crawling off the dirty futon to change the station of Hypertexcube and see what the C.R.C. had fully loaded into the Interfaith Orpheus Terminal.

LC: How does The White Feathered Octopus Tarot Card Deck fit with your previous works or practice?

JRB: I have made a number of decks. The first was when I was a senior citizen at the Windycity Country Club. A fellow camper there—LuRa Kino, a local Thothist in her own right in Windyonion—left a random book in my person. Thothic Chamber was a series of stage magic tricks based on the Arthur Lee of Love Deck that the Divamom had around the old Shit Shack in the sub-urban apartments of Rocketcityutopia. I made the cards on paper I stole from Windycity Country Club's Orpheus Terminal Laboratories, as was my duty for four years of attendance. I did the entire seventy-eight in all the Major Arcanna. The first twenty-two cards, the classic archetypes, were strongly ripped off of Arthur Lee of Love Deck. But, after showing them to my Beloved Master, Dr. John "Twisted Roots" Kimsey, I began the Lesser Arcanna with the pursuit of a singular and personal vision. I still have the Deck, they were exhibited at the Windycity Country Club's Fart Gallery, in their "throw a dog a bone and finally exhibit some mother fucking student's work again" seminal exhibition "EL Cheapo." It was a big deal because a noted future Windyonion fart dealer was working there at the time, and I was confused because he thought I was a loser. But I showed him! He never had a full MindPenis activation! There have been a few more decks created over the years, mainly finding their way into the storage spaces of ex-girlfriends and a few noble fart collectors’ hypertextcubes.

As for how this current deck came about, the DAFTKNIGHTERS asked me to create something for this sexhibition and sent me a blank do-it-your-own-damn-self Tarot Card Deck. It came in the mail and sat on my desk for a few days inside a box of over thirty different tarot decks that I have collected over the years. I went for a walk here in beautiful Greenberg, my home of the last thirteen years since I left Windyonion. There, on the side of a Boho Collective Flop den that was next to the fearless bike, was a fresh patch of "The Sons of Zeus." I quickly dug the yellow flesh from the turf and injected it directly into my MindPenis. Upon going home and removing my exoskeleton, I spent the next fourteen hours drawing The White Feathered Octopus Tarot Deck, using only my departed father's leftover art supplies. The images in the deck deal with the same "reality" that I wrote about in my sci-fi novel of the same name, THE WHITE FEATHERED OCTOPUS. I will be releasing the first edition of the paperback at Quimby's Bookstore, there in Windyonion on the 11th of June at 7pm. The book will cost $17.766.

Within the book, there is a section about humanity’s first contact with intelligent life, the Emergent Mothers—a "race" of octopod creatures that float about a meter off the ground and communicate with a biological thought-crystal hologram projection. There, at Ice Station Liger on the Moon of an Extra Solar Planet, two clones of the Mercury Seven Astronauts have sex with the creature and the three fuse into a new single entity, which becomes the new human race, the Alphaflight'n Primitives. They are the next phase of reality.

Image: Jason Robert Bell, The Orpheus Terminal 7, 2011.

LC: What have been your own personal experiences with tarot card readings?

JRB: I sat on my father's lap at the Tejas Yestermorrow fair when I was five, the reader told him everything he wanted to hear. That is really what is going on here: the Tarot is a method to speak to the Bi-cameral MindPenis. That inner and true self within each of us that can never speak aloud.

LC: For your closing reception performance, you intend on using the cards you have created in a mystical reading involving a dozen individuals, each of whom will represent one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. I am more familiar with one-on-one readings. Why and how will you be using the volunteers at the White Feathered Octopus Tarot Card reading on June 13?

JRB: We will be doing a variation of the "MindMirror" Reading, using multiple decks in unison in keeping with the standard "Chance" King Wen Sequence of the IChing's elemental change. We are no longer One-on-One; we are digits in a thirteen-fingered hand of a God.

LC: Is there a connection between the tarot card reader and the artist? Do either exist because we believe they do?

JRB: I consider myself a mystic. I use visual arts, the tarot, the Internet, and the random events of my personal and public life in order to access higher planes of existence.

LC: I read much of the HALFLIFERS’ video work and zombie aesthetics and the other pieces on display in THE LEGACY OF HALFLIFERS as commentary on the anxieties and uncertainties related to the current state of economic hardships, technological advances, and capitalism’s demise. Is your work in any way meant to be political? Do you consider yours a social practice?

JRB: As far as I can tell, we are all apes that are carrying around biochemical hard drives. Our programming is the result of generations upon generations of dynamic living information parasites that primarily exist in the form of sound-waves, the solid state architecture of the hypertextcube, and the Interfaith Orpheus Terminal transmissions.

Can you get to that? The Old Candy Corn Jackhammer that is this here Untitled Snakes of Assyria is a Shuck and Jive, the Jefferson Davis brain fuck. Those names on the map are not really there when you zoom out on Google Earth.

There is no such thing as a country or as society, but rather it is a bunch of apes that figured out if we hunted in a pack we could kill more Wooly Mammoths and get the sexy wives and daughters of those bastard Goat People that live down river.

Capitalism will never die, as long as there is one last needledick bughumper weasel out there that wants to "profit" and is willing to kill his brother for property. As long as people live under the illusion that they are any less than chattel, foodstuff for the oncoming C.R.C Overlord's dinner plate. As long as we are breeding a massive underclass of workers/soldiers/prisoners for their ongoing Warworld Three. As long as we are living the allegory that Frank Herbert warned about—with a hydraulic resource wasteland battlefield where there will one day be the Radiant City of Tomorrow—there will be the Pig Snout of Capital showing up drunk to take the Bird Footed Bitch Goddess of Babylon to the Prom.

Image: Jason Robert Bell, The Fire Inside, 2009, acrylic, epoxy, metallic pigments, collage, and sand on canvas.

LC: What preparations are you making to enhance the reading and connect with the audience members who will be participating in your performance?

JRB: Every day I awake at dawn without a clock. I go to my roof and both Thor's Stoned Zeus Burns and Anthony "REDRUM" Distcenzaaaaxax come out of the clouds all Zion King and shoot a laser directly into my MindPenis via my Pineapple Gland. Then, it is your standard day in the life of most people: 25 mile run, 1000 handstand push-ups (500 each hand), and a standard doctor allowance of NN-Dimethyltryptamine, all in unison with Binaural music and an hour-long reading of the Book of the Law.

Beyond that, there is no need for preparations. The Thothist travels without tools and uses whatever is on site or they happen upon during the journey, in order to create the Masterpiece. That, and my square-jawed, three-fisted Tejas know-how, charisma, and dreamy bedroom gray eyes do the trick every time.

1. Bell refers to the HALFLIFERS, calling them “The DAFTKNIGHTERS” several times throughout the interview. Furthermore, Torsten Zenas Burns and Anthony Discenza are called Thor's Stoned Zeus Burns and Anthony "REDRUM" Distcenzaaaaxax.

2. C.R.C. stands for Clandestine Reptoid Conspiracy.Jason Robert Bell was interviewed by Leonard Cicero, who is currently a student in the

Museum and Exhibition Studies

program at the University of Illinois at Chicago.