#i view myself as though i literally have an animal brain

[lizz-crimson]

So No Head? (Shinnok's Head X Reader Part 3)

We back!

Summary: Shinnok spirals as he realizes he actually does things for you, even when you don't ask.

Tags/Warnings: Cursing, knife wound, Deliberate decapitation, Shinnok spiraling, Netflix, grocery shopping, Two Johnny Cages oh god, goofiness, Shinnok eats a lot, gender neutral pronouns (please let me know if there's any mistakes!)

Words: 2149

Part 1 Part 2 Part 4

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It was an odd thing. To see a once powerful Elder God scarf down so much food. Apparently, losing a chunk of his power had made Shinnok's apatite skyrocket. As he savored every bite of cheap, frozen eggrolls, you hoped he didn't mind they'd come from the main back of your freezer. He'd eaten you out of house and home, and it had only been a couple days since he regained his body.

As you finished up your own meal, you asked," You get enough to eat?"

Shinnok, with a mouth full of eggroll, nodded. You nodded in turn, sitting back in your chair with a sigh. Your fridge was empty, as were your cabinets. All except for a small container of cinnamon, which Shinnok practically hissed at once he tried some.

Besides the food, Shinnok had behaved okay. He slept on the couch, quite a bit more entertained now that he could scroll through Netflix himself. You two argued over what to watch now and again, but you both ultimately settled on animal documentaries each time. It was hard to find the fallen Elder God intimidating when he was so enthralled in lion pride dynamics.

"Y/n, what are you making for dinner?" Shinnok asked.

You huffed, sitting up. Shinnok's bottomless stomach was slowly killing you. And considering he ate a whole cake, it was probably doing the same to him.

"Water soup," you replied curtly. Shinnok raised a finger, about to ask, but you cut him off with your hand. "You've eaten everything. There is no more food."

"Lies. I know you must have something."

"I don't."

"Then what will I eat?"

"We. And nothing." You push yourself up and out of your chair and start doing the dishes, taking Shinnok's empty plate. Shinnok sputtered as if your lack of food was a malicious joke. You again raise your hand, splashing him with a bit of soapy water. "There is no more food. I'll buy more tomorrow."

Shinnok groaned. He used to be all powerful, feared, and worshiped. Now he had to conform to a mortal's schedule. "Fine, I will accompany you," he huffed. If he was made to wait for his meals, then he'd at least get to pick what he wanted.

"Yeah, that's a hard no," you said.

"What? Why?" Shinnok asked, his voice daring to grow angry when he looked like a hellish priest.

"No offense, Shinnok, but not even Wal-Mart would let you inside the building," you replied, now drying the dishes. "I'll go by myself. I'm sure I'll be back with something you'll like." He'd eaten everything else; no doubt he'd eat whatever she'd bring home.

Shinnok pushed himself up from his chair, his hands going behind his back. "Bah.." he grunted, then sat on the couch. You rolled your eyes and started putting the dishes away. He was a whiny sonofabitch. Still, you two tolerated each other.

Shinnok wasn't accustomed to all this, and even with his body back, he couldn't help but feel frustrated. Damned Quan-Chi for taking his throne like that. He ought to just kill him himself. Even so, as he looked your way, he stared. You'd become so… normal to him. Even though you went against literally everything he originally stood for. He didn't mind waking up to the loud music you played while you took your morning shower. He didn't mind watching the apartment while you were at work. He didn't mind 'earning his keep' by doing chores. He'd become some kind of well-treated servant. Some butler. Some… what was that one anime called?

He quickly scrolled through the shows he'd watched on Netflix, and the anime he was thinking of came into view. Ah, yes, househusband; that was the word.

As the anime played automatically, Shinnok's brain seemed to let the word sink in. Particularly the husband bit. He glued his gaze to the TV, praying to himself that the warmth on his face was from embarrassment and nothing more. Maybe talking to you had damaged his brain, as he thought would happen originally.

Suddenly, your body landed beside his. "Is that 'The Way of The Househusband?' Move it; I wanna watch!" you said, nudging Shinnok aside with your hip. The fallen Elder God sputtered and nearly jumped to the opposite end of the couch.

"Don't just-!" He was cut off by a Coke being shoved into his hands.

"Found one for you," you said, your eyes on the TV.

Shinnok's nose curled. He snapped his head back to the TV, about to open the can, but paused.

"You didn't shake this, did you?" he asked.

"I might have."

The next morning, you were at the grocery store as promised, list in hand and mailbag on your shoulder. You'd started using it as a plain old purse after Shinnok got his body back. Since he was no longer a head, you figured it could be of better use that way.

Which is probably why you didn't notice the familiar weight in the bag.

"[Y/n], are we at the store yet?"

"Oh my god!" you yelped. You frantically open the bag and see Shinnok's re-decapitated head looking back at you. "I-what-are you serious?!"

"Shhh!" Shinnok shushed you. "Someone could hear!"

You were appalled. Quickly, you covered Shinnok up and dashed into the bathrooms. You're quick to lock a toilet stall behind you.

"What the fuck?" you ask, pulling Shinnok out of your bag. He looked just like he did before he got his body back.

"What?" Shinnok asked, not understanding your confusion.

"Where's your body?" you asked through gritted teeth, prying anybody else in the bathroom just thought you were high or something.

"Back at the apartment," he replied similarly.

"What the fuck do you mean 'back at the apartment'?" you laugh out of shock.

Meanwhile, a beheaded Shinnok lay limp on your couch, covered completely by a blanket. You just thought he'd been sleeping..

Shuttering at the thought, you placed Shinnok back in your bag.

"Let's just… Lets just get this over with…"

During your shopping, Shinnok bombarded you with many questions about all the different foodstuffs he spotted while peeking out of the mailbag. Luckily, it was early, so there weren't many people in the store yet. You tried to make the shopping trip go by as quickly as possible, and any time you spoke to Shinnok, you put your finger to your ear as if speaking via Bluetooth call.

You groaned as you looked at the prices of all the fresh produce. Prices had gone up lately, and you had no interest in paying five dollars for a head of lettuce. You pushed your cart on by.

"I thought vegetables were important for you humans?" Shinnok said, raising a brow.

"They are, but the price is awful, so we'll wait for a sale," you said. "I oughta just grow my own at this point."

"Why don't you?"

You sigh. "We don't live in the countryside, Shinnok. Don't you know how much space you need to make a garden?"

"Then move there?"

You caught the attention of a few staff members of the store when you straight-up belly laughed. You were quick to shut up and push your cart along. You lowered your head, whispering.

"Believe me, if I had the option to, I'd be deep in the Appalachian Mountains by now. I'd rather deal with cryptids than New York as a whole."

You spent the rest of the shopping trip explaining what cryptids were to Shinnok.

Later, you're carrying two mountains of groceries to your apartment door. When you finally unlock the door and push it open with your forehead, you were frozen in place as Shinnok's body hung limply off the couch. The blanket that had been concealing him had fallen to the floor. You close the door behind you quickly, making sure nobody sees. You fling your bag onto the couch, with Shinnok groaning in displeasure as he rolls out.

"I assume you can attach yourself back, right?" you asked, hands on your hips.

"Yes, yes.." Shinnok rolled his eyes. "Come. I'll need your aid."

You nodded and picked Shinnok's head up. "Now what?"

"Just hover my head over the stump of my body, and I'll reattach," he instructed.

Lowering yourself to your knees, you set Shinnok's body up a bit, then hover his head over the stump of his neck. At least he hadn't bled all over your floor..

A red glow appeared between Shinnok's two body parts and began to swirl around, engulfing both his head and his neck stump. You closed your eyes when the light blinded you. When it died down,… Well, when it died down, you were still holding Shinnok's face, attached to his body once more.

The two of you kind of just.. looked at each other for a bit. Shinnok, feeling a rather uncomfortable sensation in his chest, broke the silence when he couldn't take it anymore.

"You can let go now."

"Right, sorry!" You snatched your hands away. Shinnok stands along with you. Both of you kept your heads turned away, as you do. Luckily, your gaze fell to the mountains of groceries, and you used that to transition away from this awkward situation. "Come on, let's put these away," you said.

Shinnok grunted curtly and began helping you put all the food away.

Shinnok couldn't help but look back at you, sneaking glances. You had been good to him. Something he didn't deserve in the slightest. And as he put the spices in the order you told him to, arranged the frozen foods in the freezer, and helped you cut up pork for dinner,… he couldn't help but feel like he wasn't doing enough.

He hated that feeling. Why? Why did he want to do something for you, his jailer? Why had he still been teaching you dark magic? Why had he not returned to the Neatherrealm and overthrown Quan Chi? Why did he want to sit next to you on the couch? Why does his fucking chest hurt?

"OW!"

"Shinnok?" Your head snapped in his direction. He'd been cleaning the dishes. It was odd, as you hadn't even asked that time. The bit of blood on his palm and the kitchen knife on the floor alerted you, and you went over to him.

"I'm fine," Shinnok said. He was about to put his hand away, but your own hand took it before he could. He froze.

"Always do knives by themselves when doing dishes, okay?" you said, taking a mini-med kit from the counter and dressing his wound.

There it was—that sensation in his chest again. You bandaged his hand so skillfully. You'd done this before, clearly. Likely to yourself. Stupid mortal. Stupid mortal, with your gentle hands and good food. Wretched mortal for the kindness. Abhorrent mortal for the.. the.. well, everything!

"…Right," he replied.

That night, Shinnok lay on the couch. You'd long been asleep. You had work tomorrow, after all. Shinnok already agreed to vacuum the apartment while you were gone.

Damn it all. He wasn't helping himself by doing all these things for you. He felt like it wasn't enough, which he hated.

After another hour of spiraling down a tunnel of why, how, when, and curse words, he came to the decision that he would need to do something else for you. Something other than doing dishes or helping cook. He needed something big, something that would sate his desire to just do things for you.

You'd left your phone on the kitchen counter. Shinnok had a pretty good idea of how to use it. It turns out Netflix can teach an old god new tricks. Now… where was he?

Chats: Two Johnny's, One [Y/n]

[Y/N]: Johnny Cage.

Annoying Johnny: Yo, [Y/n]! Dude, you will not believe the hottie I have in my bed right now! Wanna pic?

[Y/N]: This is Shinnok. I have no interest in your hottie. I need something that requires your wealth.

Old Man Johnny: Woah, what? What the hell are you doing with [Y/N]'s phone?

[Y/n]: Why are there two of you?

Old Man Johnny: Long story now what the hell do you want?

Annoying Johnny: Chill out, old me! Clearly Shinnok saw my new movie on Netflix and wants in on the next one!

[Y/n]: No. That film was horrendous. I demand you both listen to my words!

Shinnok growled at the phone screen. Two Johnny Cages… What was his mother thinking?

He jolted when the phone began to buzz in his hand. He quickly tapped the green symbol and put the phone near his ear, like he'd seen in the movies.

Johnny Cage, the older one, spoke.

"What the hell are you planning?"

"Something for [Y/n]."

There was a pause on the other line.

"For [Y/n]?" Johnny asked.

"Yes. For them," Shinnok replied.

Johnny rubbed his temples.

"Okay. Hit me."

---

Shinnok: ew feelings *barf emoji*

Heyo, hoped you liked this part! I plan on one more part to this so stay tuned! Also this story is now on my AO3 account! The link is on my pinned post! This part will be added there soon!

These vine reference titles are getting outta head *bu-dum-tis*

[raticalshoez]

reading ur last reblog and hidfhihs LIFE SERIES BUT POKEMON,,,instead of last person standing its last pokemon standing,,,worlds most painful nuzlocke speedrun ksjfdhslfh

Dude I was thinking of making fakemon based on Life Series members and like. This idea is so big brained...

So I don't have designs yet, but here's my ideas for the primary types they would be:

Grian - Flying

Bird motif, for the most part, but also idea of a bird's eye view, watching over, Watchers...lmao

Jimmy - Ghost

He has such a strong theme of death that I just had to dude...

Etho - Ice

What with the Snowfort and Red (Winter) Army, he has connections to snow and cold. Also ice is a bad type competetively and Etho washed up pvper...

Bdubs - Grass

Mossy guy! Also he likes the sun and uh photosynthesis..? (And he dropped a wither rose in Last Life)

Tango - Fire

It's his hair headcanons but also his love for explosives

Impulse - Electric

Caffeinated animated redstone innovator and also his color scheme!!

Lizzie - Fairy

She owned the Fairy Fort, so I feel like it's only fair. She also likes cute things but can be mean sometimes (like the fairy typing itself)

Gem - Fighting

GeminiSLAY, very competetive fighter

Pearl - Dark

Something wicked this way comes. But also, wrongfully seen as evil! Misunderstood like some dark types okay (ABSOL IS LITERALLY HER)

Scott - Water

Mean gills but also I'm pretty sure water's a pretty good typing competetively? Mainly cause mean gills though

BigB - Psychic

Messing with people's minds by being the liar of all time. Has a motif of deception with his character

Cleo - Poison

Sometimes associated with snakes, but also they have venom behind their words. Lots of vengence.

Mumbo - Steel

A bit unsure about this one but I thought of Grumbot! Also because I associate the steel typing with machinery, and also Mumbo's vampire hc's are funny with this considering steel's probably associated with silver

Some I'm more unsure about:

Martyn - Dragon

Uhh...fantasy smp reference..? Dragon is a really powerful type and Martyn is a formidable guy? They also have a sense of mystic to them with related to his hastag lore..?

Skizz - Bug

I can't do shit to explain myself here uhm uhm. His angel headcanons of wings...his silly little guy energy matches silly little bug...he dies fast in the series..?

Joel - Ground

Mounders? He did dig those holes in Double Life where he was called a mole...oh and also this would make him weak to Scott's typing which is very funny

Scar - Rock

He sells useless things and says they're valuable. See: the crystals of Last Life. Also all his relationships are rocky haha ba dum tss (he is the loneliest life series character I coukd talk about him for DAYS)

Ren - Normal

This leaves Ren with normal which just...doesn't feel right...like. This man is FAR from normal! Most I could think of was like a dog-like a theatre related pokemon, but those could be outside of the normal type! I'm lost...

Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed my insanity. Tune in if I end up mystery dungeoning the life series members and making them fight to the death

[brybryby]

VERY LONG POST IM SORRY. DONT FEEL OBLIGED TO READ

HI. Alrighty, this has been on my mind for a while (ever since promotional content for Trials started being released).

I have a TON of analyses in the drafts, but I want to make this post before I release them for public viewing.

I know that I like to make goofy, light-hearted little fan animations and fan art of Outlast, but I think I need to start changing how I navigate through the content. After spending so much of my time deep diving and writing up these analyses, my eyes have been opened to just how much the franchise revolves around fucked up historical events. I feel that some of the stuff I've posted is tone deaf, or at least the way I posted about it is. And I think—for the most part—there's an understanding that I don't intend to be harmful, but I fear that the way I go about it **is**. (And obviously, action takes precedence over intent.)

For contextualization, when I initially got into Outlast at the age of 12, I was enthralled by the horror aesthetics and found a lot of the angsty gore to be cathartic. I felt so “taboo” and “scandalous” lol (especially as a developing child trying to understand myself amidst my puberty stage). I was young and—for lack of a better word—braindead in how I navigated the media. I was naive, mindless, ignorant, etc etc… Now that I have a deeper understanding of the narratives and historical implications/influences, I need to do better in how I interact with the franchise.

What am I getting at?

Pretty much, I'm working on being more careful with how I interact with the media. At the same time, I want the analyses that I post to be educational. And most importantly, please message me if I ever say some bullshit. Seriously. All I ever want to do with my life is to be a positive impact. I genuinely get upset if I cause harm to someone else. (One time I literally cried at a high school football game as a freshman because I thought I hurt someone else's feelings. It turned out they were faking it lmao. Then they started feeling bad and then that made me feel bad for crying and yea yea).

Seriously though. I know that my posts can get public outreach, and anything that has public outreach can be influential and have a good or bad impact. So please let me know if I do or say anything harmful or ignorant. I won't be offended. I don’t want to spread harmful stuff. There are many instances in my life where people sit me down to have meaningful conversations about shit I've said or done and how I can improve myself.

That said, I'll be posting more analyses and making my own syntheses of historical events. My next analysis post will be about Waylon's Asian-coding (specifically Korean-coding), how Trials actually supports this (using themes of US immigration), and why it is apparent to many Asian fans (including me, hehe).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's pretty much it. But if you wanna stick around a bit further, I'll tell you my (excruciatingly long) story about how I got into Outlast :) along with how much it has invaded my brain and life :') and maybe get a little ~personal~ hehe

STORYTIME:

So, the game came out in 2013. Nearly 10 years ago. I was 12 at the time of its release. Let me tell you…this game was a HUGE impact in the horror community. HOLY. SHIT. It changed the way I looked at lockers and beds. I remember it being critically acclaimed (and rightfully so). It may have not been the most technical video game, but it certainly was a piece of art.

I remember commercials being shown everywhere. The trailer of beta Miles Upshur running and parkouring through Mount Massive while being chased by the tiny beta model of Chris Walker will forever be canonized as part my childhood. I remember specifically heading to the bathroom from my living room and my dad interrupting me to say “Hey! Check this out!” and then proceeding to play the trailer for my 12-year-old eyes. I was scared shitless.

Couple weeks later, Conan O'Brien featured Outlast in one of his segments of “Clueless Gamer” (yeah, my family and I used to watch Conan lol). I was very familiar with Slender and Amnesia, which were the 2 other games featured in this Halloween special, but this was the first time I REALLY got to check out Outlast.

Now, let me preface that during this time, internet culture was very interesting and even less safe than it is today. I had a ton of bad experiences on the internet during my childhood. But oddly (and embarrassingly), the emo/scene/horror/creepypasta culture was what brought me comfort amongst a sea of awful things you could find on the internet. It was probably unhealthy for my developing brain, but I indulged in a lot of angst that was presented with heavy gore and violence. And to be honest, looking at this kind of stuff at a young age helped me process a lot of my own personal shit that I experienced outside of the internet realm. (To be clear, I don't endorse this type of violence, and I don't endorse exploring the internet in the same way I did as a child—it was probably very unhealthy and I think it caused some early development issues.)

But nothing—and I mean NOTHING—scratched that itch more than the way Outlast did. I watched the finger cutting scene in Conan's “Clueless Gamer” and was fucking mortified. I was scared of the dark for weeks. But I remember spending that night in my bedroom looking at more Outlast content to get that cathartic fix to fill my emotional hole of…I don't know…morbid curiosity? I definitely felt shame at the time. I don't know. In recent years, I've been on this journey to process stuff I experienced during my childhood and I struggle to go about my middle-school/junior-high stage because…I don't know…puberty? Access to the internet? I once got bullied by a forum of adult men for posting fan art LMAO. I was 12 years old—I forgot what the fan art even was. ANYWAYS, yea. That was only one instance of my conglomeration of internet experiences. (Like many other peeps, I had to hide my gender & racial identity to preserve my sanity). Indulging in gore art was therapeutic and helped me release negative emotions in a non-harmful way. Horror-genre communities online have been mostly friendly and welcoming towards me. That's probably why I fell in love with Outlast as an art rather than a video game.

I wasn't in the fandom straight off the bat. I had other hyper fixations at times but I navigated through these other fixations with this personal “Outlast standard” where the art and fiction I consumed needed to be horror-themed, gorey, or angsty. And Outlast isn't solely to blame. I was into gore and angst before the game came out. It just so happened that it came out at such a perfect time in my life. (Horror made my queer self feel accepted)

This whole “Outlast standard” stuck with me throughout high school. Uh… this next bit of information may get a little personal. During my sophomore year, someone really important in my life passed away. Then I had this life-impacting thing happen during my junior year that changed how I perceived things forever (lol, this sounds so dramatic). I turned to art to help me process and yada yada… but y'know what really helped? You know what I turned to when I needed to “scratch the itch”? (I bet you'll never guess)

I finally considered myself a part of the Outlast fandom in 2018-2019. I was a high school junior/senior and I posted the Outlast-Outkast animation that got retweeted by Red Barrels. Had a lot of fun in the fandom during that time and it helped get my mind off of things. Also, I loved the fact that Waylon graduated from Berkeley. I was applying to colleges during this time and it made me romanticize Berkeley, lol. I ended up getting accepted. Had an awesome time. I recently graduated and got my Bachelor's. I'm very privileged and gracious for my experience. I spent a lot of grueling time and energy dedicated towards my education.

During my college years, a lot of the unprocessed shit from my childhood started resurfacing and it was becoming hard to navigate through life. I became really disconnected with people who were close to me. Art started to fall out of my life. Stuff happened. Got in touch with psychiatrists thanks to my college's free health services. I don't mean to downplay or normalize what happened, but I'll bring up that many college students deal with mental illness and depression (and this could be attributed to many things: moving away from family, student-life, financial pressure, pressure to secure jobs/internships, living alone for the first time, maturing into an adult, etc. etc.).

But I remember sitting alone in my studio apartment one weekend and started surfing Tumblr. I came across new Outlast fan art and it sparked my hyper fixation all over again. I re-read the comics and—OKAY THIS IS GONNA SOUND FUCKING RIDICULOUS—but I started jogging because Miles went on jogs LMAOOAKJDGHJAHKGFL. I finally picked up the pencil and started drawing again (after like…months) and drew Miles and Waylon flipping off Murkoff. And THAT was when I realized what the narratives of Outlast were actually about—FUCKIN' CAPITALISM AAUGGGHHH. MY LITTLE POOPOO BRAIN AT AGE 12 NEVER UNDERSTOOD THAT. AND NOW THAT I'M AN ADULT—NOW THAT I CAN BLATANTLY SEE MYSELF AND MY PEERS AS VICTIMS/PRODUCTS OF CAPITALISM—CAN FINALLY FIND SO MUCH VALUE AND MEANING IN THIS GAME HHHRHRJGHKSDKFGLAJKDG SAY W H A T IM GONNA *explodes*

Then a year later, I started drawing more and more again. Trials' promotional marketing was becoming more prominent. I started posting my fan art on Tumblr. Then I made the fanimation (thank you Mr. Baichoo, you're so awesome, I will forever be a fan of yours) and now here I am. Still fixated on this silly little game for nearly 10 years. WHEW.

I FEEL LIKE A SHRIMP CHIP. Anyways, thanks. I much needed to get this off my chest.

Also, hey! Just wanted to say thanks for the friendly and welcoming interactions in this space. It feels so much safer and more comforting than previous internet experiences I've had. Since 2013, the fandom has evolved a lot. In my opinion, it has evolved for the better. The resurgence of new fans bring such refreshing perspectives and fields of knowledge that haven't been influenced by some of the harmful internet culture that I grew up in. So truly, many thanks to y'all for making the fandom space a nicer place (especially for such a heavy game). Also, what the heck, everyone in the fandom is seriously so talented and artistic

Uh… fan art time? (old stuff/sketches I haven’t posted)

But seriously if you got this far, thank you

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

Regarding Howl's Moving Castle: An absolutely unnecessary explanation I'd like to get off my chest.

I'd like to clarify a few things regarding my stance toward Howl's Moving Castle even though nobody asked (both movie and book) and its characters, mainly toward Howl himself:

I often present Howl as a thought-absent brainlet who hadn't had a single active brain cell penetrate that pretty head of his ever in his life (and he's so real for that). I can see how that could come across as disrespectful or ridiculing of the sources, but (and it's an enormous BUT) Miyazaki iteration of Wynne Jones' book is one piece of media I find myself visiting repeatedly.

Back when I was a kid, I've grown up watching Spirited Away (2001) and Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) on a loop. My sister later took the reins and continued the legacy with Ponyo (2008) and Arietty (2010).

I'm so endlessly lucky to have parents who recognized Studio Ghibli's stories as art and genuine fairy tales - mainly because this kind of animation wasn't that known in my country when I was little. They realized the heroines were similar to us in attributes and characteristics - Chihiro (literally being a 12yo), Ponyo (brave, courageous little fishy girl), so on and so forth. All these little ladies inspired me and my sister to be adventurous and strong and Miyazaki's stories shaped us to some degree.

Howl's Moving Castle, however, is very special to me. I found it around 11 years ago (I was around 12 give or take) and everything about the movie inspired me. I fell in love with the art (both Hisaishi's music and the art style), I yearned for the hopeless romance, for all the adventure, for the funny fire demon and I wished to be like Sophie, who had her head straight no matter the circumstance and whose spirits were never broken. As time passed, I started coming back to it frequently, and now, I'd say those pieces have become my quiet places to which I can go when there's too much commotion. That one piece of media I dive into when I want to clear my head.

I've always viewed Howl as flamboyant, a bit too dramatic, lazy, pretty disregarding, a bit cowardly, melodramatic, charismatic son of a gun. And I believe that's precisely the point of both the media. In both media, Sophie eventually 'unmasks' Howl and learns what loving, caring, and gold-hearted lurks underneath all the pretentiousness and rumors. The main catalyst for me to view Pendragon as a thoughtless idiot was Wynne Jones' original interpretation of Howl's character itself. Miyazaki's iteration of Howl (even though it 100% works within the movie universe) is heavily romanticized and toned from 100% to a 10% (20% at best) obnoxiousness. This 'toning down' works for the movie, because even though the movie Sophie is my beloved ladybug, the book Howl would swallow her whole. Poor Grandma Sophie wouldn't survive a day with the book adaptation.

If I may, I'd like to describe Howl as a happy-go-lucky idiot who throws stuff at walls and sees what sticks. This man smells of trouble, unforeseen heroics, poetry, and heartbreak. He is openly a coward who runs away from his responsibilities like it's an Olympic discipline. He throws childish tantrums over the smallest inconveniences (book Sophie must've been on the verge of committing crimes on multiple occasions, god bless her, I hope she has a wonderful day). BUT that's what makes him so loveable, intriguing, and fun to follow on a journey toward peace, remedy, and growth. He's flawed. He's a character who grows and learns from his mistakes, someone who finds a family along his journey.

So, even though I've called (and I shall continue to refer to him as such) Howl Pendragon a brainless king, the epitome of 'no thoughts, head empty', not a brain cell in sight & often assume he runs away from coherent thoughts, I view him as one of the most inspiring characters I ever discovered. It might sound stupid, but I aspire to be like him. I wish to find someone worth fighting for.

[sydneyscarm]

“about the blogger” meme

thank you to @bioloyg for tagging me :)

y’all don’t really know me so this’ll b fun

star signs: aquarius sun, gemini moon, capricorn rising,,, two air signs in my big three might scare u but trust my chart is earth dominant!!!! i promise!!!!

fav holiday: i love christmas! im not particularly religious, and i don’t consider myself christian or catholic like when i was a child, but i love the lights and the music and the gift-giving and general holiday cheer

last meal: lol i think i had a joint for dinner last night honestly. just forgot to eat and went straight to bed after smoking. i’m about to eat filipino spaghetti for breakfast though

current fav musician: faye webster (specifically jonny rn) and beyonce (all of renaissance has been on repeat since its release) and victoria monet (all of jaguar II is insane, grammy sweep i just know it)

last music listened to: probably ctrl (deluxe) by sza on my way home from work last night

last movie watched: taken, that action movie with liam neeson lmfao. but if we’re talkin movie theater viewing, it was the ballad of songbirds and snakes

last tv watched: i’ve been rewatching s2 of bridgerton. kate & anthony the couple that you are.

last book/fic finished: the last book was catching fire (i was rereading thg like the rest of the world) and the last fic i read was an unfinished sydcarmy fic i found literally an hour ago called all things go (all things go) everyone should read it, very good.

last book/fic abandoned: last book i abandoned was speak, okinawa. it’s a memoir about an asian girl’s struggling relationship with her mother and her culture. very good (and relatable) but extremely heavy so i took a pause on it.

currently reading: thg resurgence so i’m reading the ballad of songbirds and snakes, i didn’t get to finish it before watching the movie and i keep getting caught up so it’s taking forever to finish, but im almost done w it

last thing researched for art/writing: i haven’t full-fledged written for fandom in probably years. but i used to research a lot of fighting techniques cause i was deep in the my hero academia brain rot LMFAO

fav online fandom memory: i mostly inhabited twitter fandom spaces so in 2020 i was placed in a ship gc and i met one of my best friends on there <3 so i think that would be it

fav old fandom you wish would have a resurgence: the show is quite shit and not good at all but, for nostalgia reasons, i would love to see fairy tail (anime) have a resurgence. i bet the fics would be soooo top tier compared to when i was like 9 and reading fics on wattpad and ffnet

fav thing you enjoy that never had an active or big “fandom” but you wish it did: this is more to do w me being interested in things once hype dies down and less to do with a fandom actually being active or big, but i absolutely devoured s2 of bridgerton when i first saw it. and i read every single fic in that kathony tag.

tempting project you’re trying to reign in/don’t have time for: i don’t really write anymore and have stuck to silly posts and headcanon threads but i’ve had a pride and prejudice sydcarmy au stuck in my head for a couple days

this was fun now u know some of my life!!! im pretty sure @bioloyg tagged everyone that i come across in this fandom so ive got no one WHOMP but feel free to do this if u see it 😛

[ithillyienseowyn]

If I may, I think why my viewing experience of The Little Mermaid was so much fun and felt so fresh to me is that this got green lit and announced back in like 2019 and they were under preproduction and what else have you and then the pandemic hit in 2020 and news just slowed down {along with everything else that by the time they got back to it in 2021} I had just paid no mind to everything that was getting dropped in trailers and the most I looked at were casting announcements but throughout the years I've just slowly started to avoid looking for spoilers so the movie went pretty much under my radar even though I was very adamant about not spoiling myself for this movie. I usually watch press junkets after films release. The most I saw out of anything for the first time was when they announced the trailer at the Oscars but even then I think I muted the tv? I might've had it on in the background as background noise, so I couldn't hear it fully {just bits here and there}. So when I finally did get to see it at the end of May I was just this whole {adult} that felt like a kid in a candy store at the way I was just captured by this movie. And there were times near the end where I would just unconsciously just reach toward my sisters arm and just like grab her out of anticipation {even though she was lowkey swatting me away}.

I literally spent an entire 4 years with this movie deliberately under my radar. And that's just why I have so many feelings about how great it actually is. Although I did crack out of curiosity sake when the soundtrack dropped {because its Alan Menken and I love that man so much and have done so since I was a baby in the 90s watching all the films he scored and composed for so my impulsiveness got the best of me in this case, I'm so happy I did because there is just something that is so special about this soundtrack specifically, honestly I'd pick his brain about this whole era of movies if I could}. And honestly I think its why it was so easy for me just to actually sit down and enjoy it without being overly critical about what they changed and what else have you. This also includes how I was reacting to how they made Ariel and Eric this mutually pining all consuming whirlwind romance, I'm still losing my mind over how incredible it was and how much that was weirdly and specifically needed for me. It definitely made me think on. Because the difference between watching the animated as a 5-10 year old and watching the LA as a 30 year old just hits so unexpectedly in the best way. It definitely has a lot to do with looking at things with a different type of lens and perspective.

[system-of-a-feather]

(TW: Blood mention, gore mention, slaughter / animal death mention, homicidal ideation)

Dude I pushed Riku out of the front so I could go off about my unique brand of homicidality-suicidality, but shit gets too gorey apparently for this blog so they had me backspace it out

But honestly trauma-induced bloodlust but also being cognoscente and aware enough while triggered to not Commit a Crime in the system's name can become a fucking mess.

And honestly, yeah bloodlust is a huge issue in this system's main trauma holders (we actually have a part that went to a slaughter house for a class in university and really really really wanted to become a butcher for life cause it gave them a high) and yeah we're kinda horrible representation cause of that but also putting it out there cause like, yall don't gotta be ashamed if you are in a similar boat. Thought crimes don't make a person it's the actions that do.

Honestly though, I still do love that like anon that was like "UWU YOU ARE DANGEROUS WHAT IF YOU KILL SOMEONE" cause like, yeah we really do have that potential already in this system. I promise you me, and like two other parts in this system, should we have been given our own bodies and not had other parts to counter act us, would have very likely at least tried to kill someone at some point. I *am* an "evil alter" and I *am* probably what would have been a "serial killer alter" - but I am NOT one because I am an *alter* in a system.

Like people that go "UWU YOU MIGHT BECOME A KILLER" like literally, DID is what kept me from being one. I'm not ashamed to say it because its true. 100% there was a time I did consider it, there was a time I did plan it, there was a time I was enthusiastically interested in it.

Those days are gone cause

I can't make decisions for just myself because Im tied to the like 40 other versions of me and my decisions will inherently affect them

My other versions of myself have gained my respect and have a view of the world and life that I genuinely believe is far healthier and better in the long run than my own

I'd probably get booted the fuck out by Mom and Dad in my brain if I even so much as genuinely considered it

I have too much to live for these days to be throwing my life away for senseless highs and thrill seeking cause these idiots actually have me sitting here experiencing parts of the world and life that is better than pure thrills

Like I'll straight up be upfront about it cause I am 1) not ashamed of what my trauma made me into, the same energy that caused me to be like that is what saved OUR life and I'm better than the me of the past so *shrugs* and 2) I'm not gonna fucking do it so it doesn't fucking matter if I admit it.

Homicidal ideation has no moral weight to it - especially not homicidal ideation that occurred in the past.

[justfor2am]

it is midnight i have been on n off asleep since like 7 .anyways perspective flip, bts, for want of a nail, + a thousand words of the unusual fic asks? for whatever fics u want as usual 🫡

doing these ones out of order because brain said so, anyways— BTS: I’ll write a DVD commentary about my personal favorite passage from: [7th Sense] (Chapter 9: he's picking a lock he doesn't go into)

The final scene of that chapter, with grian and mumbo, is probably my favorite part of this fic so far, mostly because i'm getting to explore a different side of depression than I often see written in fics.

usually, you get the sadness, the shaking, the no talking/no eating, the limp, wilted flower who needs to be saved. and yes, depression is that sometimes, but it can be, and often is, so much messier than that.

it's anger. it's misplaced frustrations because the truth is too scary to confront, it's knowing you need to shower/brush your teeth/get dressed and being unable to do it anyways. it's not doing those things on purpose because you think you don't deserve them. it's quiet lethargy, it's restless nights that turn into a room ripped apart because you just can't fucking sleep so you're making it someone else's problem.

it's the lashing out at someone who means the world to you, because maybe this time they're take the hint and leave forever. it's knowing deep down that you're too scared to ask for help, and that you didn't mean to help them.

grian isn't magically better by the end of the chapter. his room's still a mess, he still hasn't eaten or gotten cleaned up, and he half asses his way through an apology to mumbo.

but he asks mumbo to open the window. and they both know the deeper meaning in that gesture, knowing that it was that very window that scar escaped into the night. that it's been firmly shut since then. it's progress, like it or not. _________ For Want of a Nail: If Scar had died giving Grian his life force in: [though i've closed my eyes, i know who you pretend i am] the ending, i'm sure you can imagine, is much more depressing. Eleri, the elven queen, would be without an heir to her bloodline, and the grief of losing her only son, the last blood family she had, would cause her magic to lash out, and cast the kingdom into a century of darkness. somewhere in that time, the heartbreak would kill her.

in the mad scramble to find someone to take over, gem would accept the offered kingdom, but feel immense regret over the situation, partially blaming herself for scar's death. if she had kept quiet and agreed to marry him in the first place, would he still be alive?

mumbo, now without a ward, would pledge himself to grian's aid, who very much does not want mumbo's help. grian is the most guilt-stricken of them all, half of scar's life force now pounding in his chest, keeping grian alive. that coupled with newfound avian instincts, and no mate to help ease him through the new magic in his blood, grian would be an complete mess, unwillingly relying on mumbo to keep his instincts at bay. it would be a few decades until, eventually, grian would isolate himself in the nearby mountain range, somewhere far too cold for a vampire like mumbo to follow.

grian would live out the rest of his days more animal than man, a self-inflicted penance for costing his lover his life.

good thing that didn't happen, right? _________ A Thousand Words: I’ll create a photoset/gifset that, IMO, sums up the main themes/concepts I intended for [the blood i'm owed is all yours] (trying to motivate myself to update the damn thing lmao)

compromise, i'm doing a playlist instead because this post is long enough as is. no particular listening order, put this bitch on shuffle king

_________ Perspective Flip: I’ll write a scene from [Why Do I (Even Try?)] from another character’s point-of-view (Chapter 18: just count to ten, and try to breathe)

(italics are original text, i wrote this stream-of-conscious style literally this moment so sorry if it's not super cohesive)

Grian hid behind his wine glass, the ruby drink only brightening his blush. "Rule two, no letting the public find out. I've got a lick of sense about me, and I know that we would be immediately framed as me being the pity points, some kinda mangy boyfriend, and I'd like to pass on that part of the publicity train, thank you very much."

"I think you would make an incredibly handsome boyfriend, but continue."

It was too easy to rile Grian up, Scar genuinely wondered if it was worth taunting him this early into their evening. It was cute, watching him try to gloss over Scar's attacks, deflecting with his own pointed silence. The game was fun, but half the joy was in the end result.

"Most importantly, rule number three." Grian set down his glass, purely for dramatic effect. "No falling in love with one another."

This one caught Scar off guard. He hoped Grian couldn't tell in his face, quickly clearing his throat to fix his soured expression. Right. Of course. This was transactional at best: Scar would receive Grian's company in the form of sex, meaningless hook ups between co-workers. At least, that's how Grian was presenting the idea.

Scar didn't want that. He wasn't after only the physical, as much of a nice bonus as it could be. He wanted to know Grian, really know him, reach the parts that the man kept hidden from the world and fall into his mind; Scar wanted all of Grian, not just the surface level.

Even so, he knew that for Grian, sex was so much more than surface level. It was a serious gesture of trust, and not one Scar was willing to betray. But that didn't mean Scar would give up his love so easy, and let himself be heartbroken in favor of physical intimacy.

Some way, some how, Scar would make a space for himself in Grian's heart. He owed it to himself to try, at the very least.

Scar grinned, and lifted his wine glass in toast. "Challenge accepted."

[penguindrumchronicler]

Slight introduction: I'm not a nuclear brain linguist, or Japanese, or acquainted with all the nuances of other works of artists mentioned here

What I wanted to write as a lengthy post turns out to have already been written down by someone much more literate and knowledgeable about this issue. I like viewing Penguindrum as a work of art dealing with Japanese national trauma, and seeing it from this perspective gives a fresh view of the story as a whole.

I can't bring myself to disagree with any of the mentioned parts, such as characters being personifications of a way of dealing with the tragedy.

One thing I really want to see asked though is - why? What is it meant to accomplish?

The closest neighbor to Penguindrum in this matter that I can think of is Murakami's Underground. And it had a very clear purpose - to revive the thought about the tragedy, to give birth to the analysis of not who did this or how, or even how to stop it. No, the primary point was *who* did that. And the results were shocking because it wasn't anything that's guaranteed to never happen again. Even more so, it's difficult to imagine the same events not happening over and over again, as loneliness spreads among the most normal, unassuming, everyday people.

I feel like Penguindrum serves as a reminder. A cautionary tale, almost - here, look what happened sixteen years ago. Have we learned anything? Have we done anything? Has anything improved?

In the final episode, the story goes on and makes a full circle. None of the characters were evil. None of them had some inherent will to destroy that made them stand out in a crowd. Ikuhara goes out of his way to portray Kenzan and Chiemi as great parents who risked their lives for their children. Sanetoshi still sends Double H Himari's scarves. We get to watch Kanba, Shoma, and Ringo grow as people, and yet everything still goes on. The attack still has to be stopped by one person's sacrifice, as if Ikuhara was giving a big middle finger to the Japanese myth of exceptionalism, and a silent nod to the unsung heroes that paid with their lives on the 25th of March 1995.

Great, Momoka stopped the attack by paying with her life. What will happen when she's gone again? Next time, there might not be anybody sacrificing themselves for the bigger good. It's like some inherent fight between good and evil, but the evil is here, it is between us, and it isn't leaving if we don't deal with it., and approaching the trauma is the way to do it, and will do more than banning trash bins in public spaces

One difference I would like to point out between the real story and anime is the omission of Asahara. I fully believe it was intentional, as in not to dilute the message. Imagine Penguindrum, but instead of trying to find the Penguindrum, you end up trying to track down this omnipresent fat-ass cultist who's plotting the downfall of the world. Yay, we stopped him! And we will all live forever... yea nah, this was very clearly not the focus.

And what brings me down the most is the realization that nothing has gone away, and nothing has changed. You can argue that Sanetoshi is no longer even a ghost, and the Takakuras have basically been reborn, but why wouldn't the Kiga group be born again?

And it will. I'm terrified because any day it could be me on the train. Or, if it were you, I don't know if I could be the hero. I shouldn't need to be.

slight plug:

And yes, the image is AI-generated. It's hilarious

[lily-drake]

Going 2 b honest it's kind of weird of u 2 assume those of us who use it/its don't know the implications that might come from that . For some of us its reclaiming it (plenty of us got called "it" as children for looking a bit 2 transgender or being a bit 2 autistic or weird or gay) for some of us we don't care. Some ppl use it because their genders r more complicated than "man" "woman" or "nebulous other/none". Some ppl use it because they r therians/kin/etc but that is not my experience so I can't speak on it. It's not rlly ur business 2 decide what we deserve 2 call ourselves. I mean if u want 2 misgender ppl that's its own problem but assuming u don't want 2. Don't patronize us and assume we don't know what we're doing. Most of us aren't children and we r perfectly capable of understanding what we r saying. I hope u never interact with someone who uses it/its because its literally not that fucking deep

It is deep though. I am deeply sorry for the people who were constantly called and referred to as “it” throughout their childhoods and lives. That’s a heartbreaking thing and I can only imagine the pain each individual felt when being referred to as such. It’s heartbreaking to know that many of the people were not truly seen as humans, and it truly is a travesty of our modern age.

I know many of the people don’t understand the implications of the word as a majority asking to be called “It” are in fact children. Children that don’t fully comprehend right from wrong, that don’t fully comprehend truth from fiction, children that simply can’t understand the meaning because their brains are still not yet full developed. If you don’t trust a 10-year-olds to drive safely by themselves as they don’t fully comprehend the dangers of the road, if you don’t trust a 13-year-olds to comprehend the consequences of getting filler/injection as they are still underdeveloped puberty wise, if you don’t trust a 16-year-olds to be able to comprehend what it takes to take care of a family; then you shouldn’t trust them to comprehend the decision they are making to willingly dehumanize themselves, to be at war with themselves constantly, never knowing who they truly are.

Gender isn’t actually that complicated. See “gender” was created for the use of languages and languages alone! For example Latin uses genders to refer to masculine, feminine, and neuter nouns and verbs, and where all Romance Languages are derived from Latin, they follow similar patterns! For example Agriculae means “The Farmer” and because it ends in “ae” the word is masculine; Stella means “A Star” and because it ends in “a” the word is feminine; Verbum means “A word” and because of the “um” the word is neuter. Gender was never used to describe a person, nor was it ever meant to, it’s just for the words themselves. And as for sex, well simply put, there are only 2 sexes as proven by science.

Animals also only have 2 sexes which are male and female. So even if someone finds that they wish to be more animalistic, they would still be either female or male.

I will call people by what they are. I hold respect for the person, but that does not mean I have to respect their choices; and I expect the same in return. When I made that post I already knew someone would tell me to kill myself, which a person did. I knew that I would be insulted and told to grow up, which many people did. I knew that people would talk down to me and try to guilt trip me, which did happen. Despite this, I hold no grudge and I will continue to talk in a respectful manner. I believe that everyone has an important purpose in life, that each person is imperfect (myself included), but even so everyone can create beautiful and important things no matter what. Most importantly, I believe that real and objective truth is one of the greatest things we hold in this life. For if we can not see the world through the lens of reality, there is nothing left in this world that can ever be viewed as true and beautiful ever again. Where truth has been covered up, chaos and cruelty will reign in its place. I often hear people say that “God made a mistake”, but that would imply that God is some bumbling oaf that doesn’t know his left from right. God is a perfect being, He has never, nor can He ever, make a mistake. If you don’t believe in God, then it must be even harder. To constantly be war with yourself, to never be at peace with oneself is a heartbreaking thought. To never trust your mind, to curse your soul, to choose to remain in confusion and darkness…I can only imagine how painful that must be. I send all my love and all of my prayers to these people, because they deserve happiness; but more importantly they deserve the peace and assurity that comes with truly accepting oneself for who you are, not who you think you “should be”.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this, and please know I am open to having a peaceful and open discussion. There is nothing wrong with a disagreement nor civil debate. I hope that even if we can not come to an agreement I hope that we can at least see eye-to-eye and that both of us can come to an understanding.

[dank-memer-to-the-extreme-r]

Can't Drink Wine, But Can Whine

Summer is extremely uncomfortable for me. For some reason I can't handle the heat at all this year, not like last year. This might be because of the mysterious health problem I've developed over the past 6 or so months.

I'm lucky enough to have an air con in my room, but good god do I need one for the office. My bedroom is way too cramped to fit a desk in there, and my air con is too big to drag out anywhere else. Yes, first world problems. But still, it's hot as all hell, even with a fan pointed at me.

Also I hate not having an ergonomic chair. My back constantly hurts and it just adds to the discomfort.

Currently saving up for an air conditioner for the office and an ergonomic chair, but it's very slow because I'm a broke uni student and have to pay for expensive health insurance that I absolutely need for personal reasons I don't want to share. That, rent, food, and wifi suck up pretty much all of my money. Hence why I'm trying to start up an Etsy/Gumroad business and do content creation on the side. I'm starting off with clip compilations, but I might branch off into tutorials and gaming content with voice over. I'm very insecure about my tics, though. But for some reason I'm not afraid of creating things on YouTube anymore, so long as I don't show my face. It's not like people can hate me when I have 0 views. I've got nothing to lose, so long as people don't know who I am.

Anyhow, I can't live anywhere cheaper because of the rental crisis (there's literally nowhere available). I'm honestly lucky I'm not living under a bridge.

Overall, I'm extremely uncomfortable, and my sensory issues just make it a hell of a lot worse. Plus my disability makes things a lot worse, too. It could be worse, it could always be worse, but sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in my own personal hell. The only things that make me feel better is friends, the few family members I get along with, good food, animals, and the topics I'm endlessly passionate about that I keep switching between. These are the things that are literally keeping me alive. They make my life worth living.

I generally believe life is 50% hell 50% heaven. I feel that I've been through most of the hell, so surely things will start to get better soon. Life doesn't feel like it's in motion yet, but I'm sure it will when uni holidays are over. I just feel frozen in time, yet I'm also aware of every passing second getting closer to death.

I'm unfulfilled, incomplete, a work in progress. I feel like an unfinished painting, but I am the painter. I can't let myself slip away like I sometimes want to, not now, not ever, not until I've done what I've set out to do.

I'm a very motivated person, but my consistency is spread out. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, it means I can develop a few skills to a high level, just not one skill at a time. One skill at a time would be more efficient, but I don't operate that way. My neurodivergent brain won't allow it. I'm extremely creative because of it, though. Honestly if I could choose to be different, I don't think I would.

My memory issues are terrible, though. I don't remember most people from a year ago or longer, unless they traumatised me in some way, and even then, I only sometimes remember. I just remember how they made me feel. I remember to stay away from them. That's for the best, I'd say.

Honestly, I don't remember what happened almost at all if it's longer than a month ago, unless I'm in a certain frame of mind that remembers it. It's complicated. Really, I struggle to remember yesterday. I mostly live in today, with a little bit of yesterday, and flickers of the recent past. I know facts about myself, I even know things happened sometimes, but I lack the memories of them. They're just blank, empty. I don't think I'm supposed to know. If I remembered how much I suffer on a daily basis I think I'd have a breakdown and give up on life. In a way, I'm very lucky that I don't.

My dream messenger is a gigantic crow with shiny black feathers, and he's told me that sometimes losing things is for the best. I'm inclined to believe him.

[harrypotterhogwartshitpost]

Ranking every Beach Bunny/ Lili Trifilio/ tiger lili song from my most to least favorite.

Beach Bunny, Lili Trifilio, and tiger lili are the three names Lili Trifilio releases music under

(note: She has literally never put out a bad song. Even the ones I rank the lowest are still amazing)

---

1. Sports (single) "Maybe love is overrated"

2. Jenny (Crybaby)

"If you want me why can't we still be together"

3. Boys (Crybaby)

"Boys will be boys but you're not like the other ones"

4. Scream (Emotional Creature)

"I miss being certain, certainly I miss"

5. Painkiller (Prom Queen)

"Do I look like her? Does she talk like me?"

6. Weeds (Emotional Creature)

"Begging a boy to come for help, when I could just learn to love myself"

7. Love Sick (Blame Game)

"You've got me falling on to the ceiling. I get so dizzy when our lips touch"

8. Nice Guys (Blame Game)

"You got in my pants then left my ass and made me cry"

9. Dream Boy (Honeymoon)

"Gushing eyes she replies, 'you feel like summer'"

10. Fire Escape (Emotional Creature)

"Any place is the place I'll be when you're far away"

11. April (Honeymoon)

"I've been trying to call you since April and now it's October"

12. Deadweight (Emotional Creature)

"I'm pissed off, no I'm enraged"

13. Gone (Emotional Creature)

"Are you hanging out with someone I don't know"

14. Good Girls (Don't Get Used) (Blame Game)

"You're acting like your dead beat dad"

15. Oxygen (Emotional Creature)

"But life looks better through my world view"

16. Rearview (Honeymoon)

"You don't love me anymore, I still do"

17. Book Club (Book Club)

"I'll be the author, you'll be the best quote"

18. Shoegazer (Pool Party)

"You're not sure if god's real yet you say a prayer. Hoping he still cares"

19. Promises (Honeymoon)

"When we're all alone in your bedroom, you came like a reoccuring dream"

20. Bottle Rocket (Book Club)

(acoustic)

21. Entropy (Emotional Creature)

"Somebody's gonna figure us out, and I hope they do cause I'm falling for you"

22. Christmas Caller (single)

"I miss your mom"

23. Prom Queen (Prom Queen)

"Teach me how to be okay, I don't wanna downplay my emotions"

24. February (Crybaby)

"Inside the sleeve of a green windbreaker"

25. July (Pool Party)

"In July the sun was high, the world was melting through the sky"

26. Oozin (Animalism)

"Was it something you said, or is it all in my head"

27. Best Friend (Book Club)

"Maybe this is just a crisis, all I know is I don't like this"

28. 6 weeks (Animalism)

"I've been playing the same song for six weeks, trying to find a piece of you"

29. 6 weeks (Prom Queen)

"I've been playing the same some for six weeks trying to figure out what you're feeling"

30. Cycles (single)

"To be mortal seems like such a constant struggle"

31. Ms. California (Honeymoon)

"I need to let go of everything"

32. Greetings from California (Animalism)

"You know I love you the most, so can we go back to California"

33. Racetrack (Honeymoon)

"Rose colored lenses eventually crack"

34. Adulting (Prom Queen)

"Life was easier but now you're almost twenty-three"

35. Colorblind (Honeymoon)

"Every moment I fall to pieces. Every moment I fall apart"

36. Cloud 9 (Honeymoon)

"Tired of tripping on my shoes"

37. Bicycle (Book Club)

"Stuck inside my teeth like a showtune I can hum to but can't remember the name"

38. Barbie (Book Club)

"Your body is a treasure til he needs a little pleasure"

39. Blame Game (Blame Game)

"And I'm tried of the world perceiving me"

40. Cuffing Season (Honeymoon)

"Sometimes I like being on my own"

41. Call Me Baby (Animalism)

"Said you'd call me everyday, we both know you won't"

42. lightning (single)

"He's always halfway somewhere, but never quite all there"

43. Eventually (Emotional Creature)

"I try to cry but I laugh cause my brain's acting stupid"

44. Ghost (Animalism)

"Oh but I love falling apart"

45. Waves (Pool Party)

"And though I have cried pools of watercolor"

46. Deja Vu (Pool Party)

"Except when I lay in your laundry with tears in my eyes"

47. Love Song (Emotional Creature)

"You paint me in your sky like modern art"

48. Infinity Room (Emotional Creature)

"And all and all the promises I've made to myself can't help me from wanting"

49. Intro (Animalism)

(acoustic)

50. Goodbye Summer :( (Prom Queen)

(acoustic)

51. Gravity (Emotional Creature)

(acoustic)

52. Karaoke (Emotional Creature)

"You say Tokyo looks the prettiest at the end of May"

[gralunaisland]

A Veritable Essay in Response to a Pro Gr///uvian Argument

Because I hate myself and love bashing gr///via, I forced myself to look up “why gruvia is a good ship” (heretical, I know) to find some points made by pro-gr//vians on why they think it’s a good ship, because I sure can’t think of any on my own. This is a post I’ve happened upon, posted below for your viewing displeasure. I shall attempt to dissect each point in this person’s post below the picture.

Here goes nothing.

However, fair warning, this is a doozy. You might need a break during this read because of its length. I'd hope people could finish though so I can see what y'all think!

The "forced anime relationship/ not real life” point

- So this point.

Does Anon (anonymous poster) not realize that a “forced relationship” doesn’t mean that Mashima had a gun put up to his head to force him to write gr//uviugly as canon, it means that the relationship is a product of poor writing?

I don’t know how many times I can rehash just how poor this ship has been written, but I shall do it as many times as I need to I suppose.

Here we go, a lightning round:

Obsession and idolatry are not healthy to either partner. juvia is selfish and insane. Stalking and gaslighting should NOT be fetishized. Gray’s wishes are ignored. What they have is not true love since it's the product of gaslighting, manipulation, abuse, and ego.

Those are only a fraction of the reasons why it’s a disgusting ship, but I shall leave it as that for now because we have lots to talk about. All these reasons (and more) are why this ship is the product of poor writing and therefore is a forced relationship.

All throughout the anime (which I shall use for reference because I never read the manga) Gray shows disgust for juvia, at the very least for her actions. Any hint of affection he displays for her is merely because she’s a fellow member of Fairy Tail, and therefore he treats her accordingly. However, he displays the discomfort he feels from her actions clearly, freaking out every time she gets in his personal space and even going so far as to call her “CREEPY” during the Grand Magic Games. I don’t have the brain capacity to provide all the times he rejects her right now, but if you don’t believe there are many, I believe you and I watched different shows because 80% of their interactions from the beginning were with her lusting over him and him cringing.

All this to say, this is the norm for almost the entirety of the show.

(It should be noted that I have only watched up to after the disbandment of the guild and a few episodes of the last season, the Avatar arc, anyway, and that was enough to see the part about the juvia and Gray sharing a house. I do know, however, about the gr///uviugh garbage that takes place in the 100 Years Quest, and I remember hearing some about Gray and juvia being in a situation where they have to kill the other that results in juvia having a scar.)

Anyway, all the affection that Gray gets for juvia is super rushed and out of the blue after the Tartarous arc. she had done nothing out of the ordinary for Gray.

Risked her life to save his? As if Erza and Natsu and many other people haven’t done that already.

Always been there for him? Well, that is literally the creed of the Fairy Tail family, although unlike them, she has dirty motives for doing so.

All this to say again, the huge switch from being grossed out by her to becoming affectionate is insanely sudden and jarring. Any relationship written like that is poor writing, to have it one way the whole time and then to flip it on its head out of the blue.

And of course the apparent reason for this polarized shift is because juvia sacrificed her life for Gray, as I’ve said. But what’s the difference between her and any of his other friends being prepared to die for him?

It’s that from the beginning, juvia has been declaring her absolute love for him.

That is the only difference.

He proclaims that he will take her affections seriously for once not because he suddenly likes her, but because he feels obligated, indebted, bound to return her affections because otherwise he feels like he’s disregarded her emotions, like he owes her since he “hasn’t given her anything in return even though she’s signed her life away to him”.

Let me tell you this. That’s a big no-no. Just because your stalker and abuser throws their life away for you does NOT mean you have to suddenly return their feelings. They never cared about your feelings—otherwise they wouldn’t be stalking or emotionally and physically abusing you in the first place!

Otherwise, in Gray's manipulated, traumatized mind, she threw her life away “for nothing in return”. Think about it. Gray never said "I'll take your feelings seriously" to anyoneeee else who had sacrificed or was about to sacrifice their lives for him. The only reason he told juvia that was because she had basically bargained her life away for his devotion. she already had her cards on the table- she already let Gray know what she wanted- with her open declarations of love, and all she needed was for Gray to feel compelled to throw his hat in the ring.

In other words, the reason why Gray wouldn't promise to take the feelings of someone like Ur or Ultear seriously, both ladies who also sacrificed themselves for Gray, is simply because they had never told him that they loved him and wanted him romantically.

Yes, that is very obvious, but again, think about it. Gray would never have told juvia that he would try to love her if she had never pounded it into his brain that she loved him. It is that very fact that shows how Gray doesn't love juvia because of how special she is and how much better she is than the other women who've done the same thing, it is literally only because she already let him know that she lusted after him, and that is the only reason that makes her different.

You might say, “well it’s not like that was her reasoning for killing herself! she was just being selfless!”

To that I say well obviously she was being selfless because she has no sense of self outside of Gray in the first place. her life doesn’t matter to her so it’s no big deal, all that matters is Gray. she doesn’t exist without Gray.

And secondly, that may have not been her conscious goal, but if she had really wanted Gray to fall in love with her organically, naturally, for her as a person and not because of the one thing she did for him, then she would A, not stalk and harass him and would listen to him when he says NO (consent, people! It’s important!), and B, she wouldn’t feel good about Gray returning her love just because he feels indebted to her.

But nope.

she’s just happy Gray-sama is finally not rejecting her disgusting advances anymore.

In any case, that’s never a good start/factor of a relationship anyway, with one side madly and blindly obsessed with the other and with the other side being in the relationship ONLY because of an overwhelming sense of guilt and debt and duty to the other.

- I know this was supposed to be tacked on with the first question, but like what even is this, “it’s anime, not real life”.

Well... obviously???

Who said just because it’s anime and therefore not real life (again, isn’t that obvious?) it gets a pass at being poorly written and just plain terrible? (That doesn't even make sense- there's no script for real life anyway!) Those of us who actually appreciate character depth and chemistry would certainly not give it a pass.

Now, whether you support NaLu or not, I shall use an aspect of it as an example. Their ship has at least some character depth because Natsu has saved Lucy many times, especially that first time when she was almost kidnapped in the first episode, and he introduced her to the guild of her dreams and, most importantly, to the family she loves today. Of course he would be important to her. From the beginning, Natsu was special to Lucy, but the most important thing to note is that it wasn't romantic from the get-go. He annoys and exasperates her all the time, and she initially just viewed him as a weirdo. As for Natsu’s feelings for Lucy, he instantly clicks with her like any other person in FT, but it’s only after Natsu witnesses more of Lucy’s love for FT and its members does he start to treat her a little bit differently. Love for friends is of utmost importance to him, so it makes sense that he’d notice her in his dense way because she loves FT more than many. With him, it’s hard to tell when he’s acting differently because he’s so friendly with everyone, but an example is him acting bummed during that Rainbow Cherry Blossom festival. If he thought of everyone as equal in importance, he wouldn’t really mind one person not being there and would soon forget himself in the merriment. Obviously, we know that’s not what happens.

With all this, we see at least some development and depth. The chemistry is easy to see as well because they’re always bickering good-naturally or palling around with Happy tagging along. Honestly, Natsu's side could definitely use some more growth in terms of the ship because Natsu still doesn't treat her all that much different from other people from what I've seen, but my point is that there's a least some development in leading up to the ship. ALL THIS TO SAY (sorry for saying that so often), NaLu is an example of, while far from perfect, at least a start to a non-forced relationship.

In anime, no less. -__-

See, no excuses for poor writing. It doesn’t have to be a true story to be a good one. Before anything, they’re best buds, and I think that is the key point to this.

They did not start off as romantically inclined.

Aside from like all of 10 minutes after juvia initially met Gray, she has obsessed romantically over him for the whole time she's known Gray. juvia literally cannot be more obsessed with him, and that means there was no room for romantic development except from one side, i.e. Gray's. He could do no wrong in her eyes, and she needed to have him all to herself. Just because he was kind to her once, she believed she owned him.

Those are all major red flags.

Some might protest that it was simply love at first sight, even though none of that sounds like love, and is in fact not love, but even if it was love at first sight, in terms of a relationship, it's still not a good beginning. she "loved" him for having basic human decency and even swooned for him just from looking at him, so it was all surface level attraction anyway. We don't get to see any natural development of feelings and loyalty between the two because one is already there and has always been there, and the other has to be pressured there because, again, the other one is already there. There isn't any organic falling in love from either side.

The “blame it on the storyline etc.” point

- I don’t think Anon realizes that that’s what anti-gruvians are doing essentially. It’s really what any person who has a problem with any piece of fiction that someone makes is doing…

Yes, we hate the character juvia and her interactions with Gray, but it’s not like she’s a real person.

We realize this because we’re not insane.

Mashima is obviously the true culprit regarding her bad character, but I mean... We can claim that in one sentence with no real meaning.

“I blame Mashima for writing juvia as a bad character."

Okaaay, then how is she portrayed as a bad character?

“Well, she’s a stalker and an abuser etc. etc.”

Even though it was the author’s will that made a character the way they are, which is how it works, by the way, we still have to scrutinize that character’s actions as if they had their own agency in order to properly judge a character’s goodness/quality.

Okay, anon, we blame it on the storyline, on the author. Does that mean she’s free of critiques, that we cannot dislike her as a character?

Nope, because if you believe that, no one can have opinions on anything people write, because just as there are reasons why we dislike characters, there are also reasons why we like characters. No one asks “does the fact that Mashima is the one making juvia act the way she does mean we cannot like her?”, and you certainly wouldn’t say “I blame Mashima for making juvia likeable”. It adds nothing to the conversation to shift the blame to the author. It doesn’t make juvia any more likeable because guess what, she’s still the same character no matter if we blame her or Mashima, and therefore she’s still unlikeable. I feel like I could've articulated this better but it's 2 AM, so if anyone is confused, just send an ask or comment.

The "juvia is a perfect character” point

- I kinda hate that these words have to be uttered on my page. It is no exaggeration that she is the single most hated anime character I’ve ever watched in my life. ANYWAY. Saying that juvia has had the most character development out of any of the FT characters is such an astonishing thing to say. Sure, she goes from doom and gloom to cheery and obsessing over Gray, but rather than that being character development, it was really just a plain 180. Nothing developed, it was just poof, juvia's crazy about Gray.

Gray did nothing and said nothing to her in their first fight than what a decent person would do, though to be fair, her whole life hadn’t been filled with decent people. Even if he was the first one to be kind to her, the fact that she threw everything away to turn into one giggly stalking obsessive fan-girl for Gray is insanely creepy and concerning and cannot be described as good character development.

It took the span of, what, 2 episodes, for her to change?

she has had some nice moments, like where she opens her heart to Lucy in the Tower of Heaven, or when she saves Cana by sacrificing herself in the Battle for FT (both of which I have problems with anyway), but she is the opposite of consistent with those instances. Instances of her being a good, kind member of FT to people other than Gray are few and far, far between. A few instances of her being ridiculous and unkind just off the top of my head are her trying to drown Lucy by making her air bubble smaller, her wishing harm on her fellow Grand Magic Games FT people so she could fight alongside Gray, her lying to her guildmates that she’s worried and wants to go find Wendy on Tenrou Island when she really just wants to find Gray, her throwing the Grand Magic Games (even though it’s extremely important to all the other members to make amends for all the humiliation and grief the FT members who didn’t get the 7 year skip had to go through with losing all their best members) because she’s too obsessed w Gray, and how about her deliberately ignoring Gray’s rejection at the Ball in the palace.

she looks like a pretty stuck, one-track-minded character to me. she only joined FT because of Gray after all, and although she’s sometimes nice, she would obviously follow Gray wherever he went, even if that meant leaving FT. Unlike Lucy, who searched endlessly for her former guildmates after the guild disbanded, juvia merely followed Gray off and had the time of her life barging into his house and living with him. she didn’t care at all that the guild had disbanded, so long as she had Gray.

That brings me to next part about how she’s apparently “had the most character growth”. My next point is a great point made in an @absolutezerotolerance​ post, but basically they posted a picture of juvia when we are first introduced to the she-devil, as the Rain-Woman (who was so much better than the fan-girl juvia we unfortunately are stuck with) and a picture of juvia in the rain after being abandoned by Gray after the disbanding of the guild. Same girl, surrounded by rain and gloom, practically dead to the world, and being in a self-induced sickness no less. she remains near dead until being reunited w Gray.

Now tell me.

If a character only experiences character growth after attaching themselves to another character, and more than that, if you take that attached character away, they revert to their old self (and an even worse form of their old self on top of that), would ANYONE call that character development???

NO!

Development is when the character develops for themselves. That is not to say another person cannot help you grow, but to be so dependent on them to maintain your development means you have not developed and are just leeching off that person. This type of person changes only for that person, not because it’s good for you or that person or anyone else, and they have therefore not grown at all.

What's more, her so-called “growth” isn’t growth at all, it’s just different because she’s not a better person after turning into Gray’s groupie. she’s just now suddenly intrusive and insane and manipulative when before she'd just been depressed and depressing.

The "Natsu's had the same personality throughout the anime" point

- If you’re trying to prove juvia’s growth just by putting other characters down, that’s not much of an argument. This, however, might be indirectly Anon's best point. I will admit, like they said, Natsu’s character development isn’t that great. I think that's a product of the nature of his role in the story though. He’s kind of already your standard perfect MC. His ideals are steadfast, he’s fiercely loyal, and he will do anything to protect his friends.

I will agree with Anon that his “personality” stayed the same, though I think when they said that, they revealed that by character growth, they just meant personality change, which juvia did most definitely. Personality does not equal character growth however, especially when your personality takes a turn for the worse. To do such a 180 as she did so easily and quickly just shows she had no solid character to begin with.

Anyway, in regards to Natsu’s development, I’ll say a big thing he has over juvia is that he’s already a good person, someone who will beat sense into you if you’re wrong like with Jellal, and someone who will not kill an innocent man just because of what he might do in the future like with Rogue. juvia is just generally not a “good person” nor “selfless” unless it has to do with Gray (and even then, her “goodness” and “selflessness” is EXTREMELY debatable). That is not consistent character, nor is it commendable.

For Lucy, I think she discovered what it meant to love others, considering that fact that after her mom died, she didn’t have much love given to her. While mostly silly at first, she became to realize the true bond of friendship, well-displayed in the Phantom Lord arc. She learned she was not alone and could rely on others. She sacrifices her body and pride to save Bisca’s little daughter, a girl that Lucy isn’t super familiar with like she is with her team, in the GMG against Flair.

juvia would definitely do that kind of thing... if it were for Gray. juvia did do it once for Cana, but after Tenrou, she became one-track minded again. Also, I have problems with that Cana sacrifice thing for several reasons, but this is long enough as it is. (If you want to learn why, I made a post about it here.)

As a general note, I will say I don’t think Mashima does well with character development. I think Erza’s had some great strides at least once with the whole armor thing. After that, the "no armor" thing has just basically been her go-to OP mode which doesn't make much sense. Gajeel is definitely fighting for good now, as well as many enemies in Fairy Tail's world. But a lot of the characters seem a bit stagnant to some degree. With juvia however, I will say that I just don’t think she’s really changed, and her personality change isn’t even a good thing.

- Continuing on, about the "comparing to juvia" section of the point, I feel like Anon accidentally proved us right about gr///via.

Yes, you're right, Anon, juvia had been in Phantom Lord for a while, and then she went on to try to join Fairy Tail for the sole reason of her "sense of attraction" to Gray.

I really don't see your point.

Is that supposed to show any kind of character development on her part? Anon does realize that this switching of guilds is actually on par with her almost nonexistent character, right? she joined Phantom Lord ONLY because they were the first to act like they wanted her, so she would do anything for them blindly, disregarding the fact that her guild was hurting another guild for no reason besides jealousy, rivalry, and greed, not to mention almost killing all of them with the Jupiter cannon (and especially Makarov with the magic-sucky-suck move), and trying to kidnap a girl.

Just goes to show how blindly she'll follow anyone who shows her an inkling of kindness back in her early days (because subsequently, people are kind to her like Lucy, and yet she treats them like dirt because of her delusion that she owns Gray).

Then Gray was nice to her, and she imprinted on him harder than a baby chicken. That being her sole reason to join Fairy Tail shows that she didn't suddenly get a change of heart to try to make amends and become a good person, like a good plot development of her character would be, she actually just joined, disregarding the bad things she did to Fairy Tail, dumping her old guild mates except Gajeel as an after thought, because of her addiction to all things "Gray-sama".

Are we supposed to pretend like that's a good thing? A good thing for Fairy Tail? Or a good thing in terms of character growth? It really was neither. Something I hadn't thought of before is that although juvia was the reason Lucy got kidnapped, literally drowned her until she passed out, instead of trying to make amends with Lucy, even do so little as to apologize, she harasses her whenever she's in Gray's presence. The mean-spiritedness of that just shocks me.

How awful of a person do you have to be to be an absolute a-hole over a delusional romantic interest to someone you hurt so badly?

[This reminds me of Kazutora in Tokyo Revengers. (Spoiler warning!) He killed Shinichiro, Mikey's brother, while trying to steal a bike for him, and in order to make it make sense, he lost his mind and blamed Mikey for his own actions, when he was the one who was wronged by Kazutora and lost his fricking brother. Yes, Kazutora tries to redeem himself, and I can sort of understand it since it was clear that he was mentally unstable and unwell, but even so, during that period, I hated Kazutora. He did the same exact disgustingly toxic thing juvia does: create a victim and then blame and harass that victim.

And yet unlike Kazutora, juvia never completely comes out of her stupor. she never begs Lucy or Fairy Tail, or most importantly of all, Gray for forgiveness. she never acknowledges that what she does is utterly immoral and wrong. And that makes her infinitely worse.]

And yet Anon has the gall to use the only defense pro-gr///vians have addressing her terrible treatment of other women in Fairy Tail, that "it's only comedy".

Of course, thanks to the nature of comedy, this seems like an impenetrable defense since comedy is subjective. All they have to do is claim they find it funny, and therefore they are justified in liking the way she treats women whom she views as romantic rivals. While the subjectivity of comedy may be true, I believe there exists humor that just shouldn't be found funny on a moral standpoint. I'd rather not give examples because then it can get very dark, but if you imagine the worst things that happen on this Earth, there are plenty of things that no one should make light of.

Continuing to elaborate on why I personally don't think her actions are joke-material, I firstly want to say I have never found her fits of fury and passion funny. Even before I shipped Gray with someone else, even when I was a 12-year-old watching this show for the first time almost a decade ago, juvia's disgusting behavior perturbed me to no end. I hated seeing her on-screen at all. Seeing her hate Lucy rubbed me the wrong way- Lucy, who is just genuinely trying to be everyone's friend in the guild, considering how she considers them her family, maybe more than most of them do. Fairy Tail is her life, and for juvia to join it just for Gray and to hate Lucy just because Gray had the audacity to say he'd die to save Lucy from her clutches, when he owed nothing to juvia because they had literally just met, the attraction was one-sided, and they were MOST CERTAINLY not dating.

I mean, look at juvia's level of maturity when Gray said that in the Phantom Lord arc. she was allll prepared to step aside, abandon her guild's goals just because "ice boy hawt" and decidedly not because she was trying to do the right thing, but as soon as Gray shows his passion for protecting his guild mates, she freaks, yelling that Lucy, whom she's never really met before besides the time she KIDNAPPED HER, "cannot be allowed to live", and then proceeds to try to boil Gray alive.

I am struggling to see how that's funny.

That's just immaturity and insanity, and I would say downright evil. Lucy had done nothing to juvia, yet she was prepared to kill both Gray and Lucy even though her guild was the one that was in the wrong in the first place.

It is insulting to say that juvia is still a good person even after doing those kinds of things "for comedy's sake". Regardless if it is over-the-top to make it funny to some people, they are still actions she took very seriously. I find no fault in judging her on those actions as if she meant them, because she does. Never once does she laugh it off whenever she called Lucy a blonde bimbo or said she'd kill her, or when she suspected Lisanna for going after Gray when she offered to help her in the S Class Trials etc. etc., nor does anyone else laugh it off. The receiving end or the onlookers of the harassment are always uncomfortable and put off by her behavior. (Yet of course they somehow still all support juvia in her manic quest for "Gray-sama's" affection. I don't know, man, what can I say? Terrible writing and absolutely despicable behavior by Gray’s guild mates.)

- However, I shall say this on the "it's just comedy" front that so many pro-gr///viughs protest about juvia's overexaggerated obsession with Gray. Just like how I don't find Mest/Doranbolt's pedophilic tendencies/implications towards Wendy funny or cute in the slightest, so also do I not find someone who stalks, who creeps, who lashes out at innocent people, who creates out-of-character delusions of you, who creates a loofa made of your face and uses that same loofa to wash her privates and finds pleasure in it, who forcefully intrudes and lives with you while also trying to sleep with you in your own bed even though you say no, who gaslights, who manipulates, who doesn't take no for an answer, who doesn't ask for consent to touch you and say sexual or romantic things you don't want to hear, who assumes she owns you when nothing you've done suggested that you wanted that and in fact told her the opposite, to be funny in the slightest.

The fact that she's a woman makes many people find it harmless and comical, but as many before me have said, switch the genders and people would label a male juvia as a filthy pervert who doesn't respect a woman's consent. Why is she not viewed as a filthy pervert who doesn't respect a man's consent? That is literally what she is, and I am still to this day unsure how people find that perverse and r*pey behavior humorful... But I suppose there's no helping that if you truly do find it that way I suppose.

The "hating juvia bc she's obsessed with Gray and give me input on Lucy" point

- With this point, I was almost at a loss for words. Not because Anon had stumped me, but because of the ridiculousness of the argument.

Why can't pro-gr//vians just give a darn argument for their ship without putting other characters WHO ARE NOT RELATED TO THE SHIP down?? That doesn't make your argument stronger, it makes it more easily destroyed. Instead of providing a rebuttal for why juvia's obsession with Gray is a bad thing, Anon proceeded to COMPLETELY DUCK AROUND THE POINT and attack Lucy?? Even if you don't like Lucy, that leap in logic makes no sense.

You can just ask yourself:

"Okay, so I don't like Lucy, but what does that have to do with gr///via??"

(Personally I like Lucy, but it changes nothing whether you do or not because she is just not related to the argument for gr///uviugh at all.)

The answer to that question is it has nothing to do with that ship whatsoever. Anon just started hating on Lucy for crying a lot over the course of the show for no good reason. Not only that, Anon exaggerated their hyperbole to "she cries every episode" and "ngl 99% of the show was her crying".

I'm sorry, I think you are completely out of line with that comment, not because I'm a fan of Lucy, but because that statement is ONE, verifiably untrue (do I even need to prove that? Like seriously, she was not crying every single episode and no, Fairy Tail wasn't 99% Lucy crying and 1% gr///uviugh. Who would watch that?), and TWO, does nothing to prove why juvia's obsession is a "good thing."

Plus, crying harms no one. Even if you find it kind of annoying to see a lot, are you going to fault someone who cries at truly sad moments? She's never crying for no reason. Plus, almost every main character has cried at least several times in the manga. It just gives the situations our heroes find themselves in depth and meaning.

Anyway, crying shows Lucy cares that much about her guildmates, who were her family when her own family crumbled; crying shows how deep and expansive her heart is for others. She empathizes and loves deeply, and to say that's a bad thing is quite heartless. But see, where her crying harms no one, (crying is not abuse, and I have no idea how Anon is claiming someone's crying to be on par with someone's stalking), juvia's obsession harms Gray quite deeply. Again, no consent and no regard for his feelings, plus all the manipulation she enacts on him to make him think he loves her.

juvia's distrust of all women also harms her relationship with them, and the fact that her bullying did nothing to harm her relations w the guild is another example of Mashima's poor writing. her obsession harms herself, as she brings herself to the point of death from sickness when Gray disappears. So much harm. Again, this particular "point" made by anon just might be the worst one they have made here.

The "I'm in the mood to drop this" statement

- I am not surprised at all that you are, because you have made no good argument for the ship. I applaud the effort, however.

The "I hated the anime but watched it bc of juvia's personality and therefore I am biased" point

- I have no qualms w you wanting to watch an anime for just one character. I am glad you acknowledge that you are biased. MY PROBLEM IS is that while you say this, you still have said nothing to back up why her personality is good in the first place. You can't just say "sometimes people just favor one character over the other and that's normal" in the context of an argument, as that is not an argument for why she is likable.

Yes, in the end, I am not trying to convince this person to hate juvia. We all have opinions that are very hard to change. However, I am picking apart her character bit by bit to show why I do not think she is likable, and Anon is there trying to defend why she's likable and the best character by putting down other characters, by saying "I like her personality" when Anon would have to further clarify what about her personality is likeable, by saying she has more character growth than others when that is objectively false whether you like her or not, and by saying "I just like her more and that's normal".

The entire post made by Anon is a non-argument.

The "I don't see why you have to make a thread bashing a character" point

- Just like how you are able to make a whole post defending a character, so can people make posts bashing a character. It goes both ways, Anon. Since we are all entitled to our opinions, it's just something we can do. If we are frustrated with a character, why not rant about it on the internet? You say "you could make a thread bashing Lucy, but you don't because you're not childish", but seriously, Anon. Half your argument in response to why juvia's obsession is a bad thing is that Lucy sucks, so I have no idea why you think bashing a character is childish.

You are literally as childish if you really think ranting on a character is childish, according to your own definition of childish, Anon.

Just like how you love juvia so much and are allowed to expound on her good attributes (*cough cough* there are none) on the internet, so too can someone hate on her just as much. The internet is and has never been a place where you can only say positive things about people or things. If it were, it would be a place even more filled with lies because not everything has good sides to it.

Other people on the internet owe you nothing. They don't have to hide their opinions just because you love a character. Don't believe the world revolves around your opinions, and especially don't think you're somehow above it all when you literally kept bashing a character yourself. (By the way, I do not find bashing a character to be childish, nor do I find praising a character to be childish.)

Have some self-awareness.

Disclaimer

Yes, in the end, who really cares whom you like? It's all fictional characters, (although I believe popular media affects real life) and this argument was more for fun than any real attempt at changing people's minds. No essay on Tumblr will probably ever change a pro-gr//uviuggo's mind, and that's okay. We'll all live. Won't stop me from bashing her though >:3

Closing Notes:

Well, I think I have covered every base. I hope this all made sense. To be honest, I was planning on cutting this up into several posts considering how behemoth this post is, but then I thought people might not see my response to every point given so I just left it as one mega-post. I am sorry for the length; I hope some of y'all survived.

If any of you think I made a bad point, have any questions, or if you would like me to go more in depth on anything, please feel free to comment or send me an ask. I have my asks on so I hope that is working; like I said before on my blog, I am very new to Tumblr. Thank you for your time! Have a wonderful day.

[katyspersonal]

bestie you started a ER playthrough?

Yes I did, and it was hilarious/painful sdfhsdhfds

Basically as I escaped the gate to the large open world area, my first reaction was to go and explore some, to literally any direction possible but not THE one I was supposed to go! I got to hunt some animals and check some interesting places, met a dude with really weird and funny hat, also met Irina and then went to the castle but then dropped it, and found a poisonous mini-swamp, and so on and so on...

But I started to grow gradually frustrated because in the game you need a character, Melina, to level up! I had more runes than there are letters in my BB lore essays ffs, so I gave up and bugged @val-of-the-north to help me to find her ok? And this is where things got REALLY stupid, because not only I was not able to understand his directions at all but also apparently for these several hours I went anywhere BUT the intended place?? She was supposed to appear near a site of grace (a checkpoint) but I checked like 10 of them and yet? But wait it gets WORSE

He was like 'but you did meet Varre, right?' and I was like NOOOOO I DON'T HAVE ANY IDEA WHERE HE IS! Who places gameplay crucial NPCs in a SPECIFIC spot in an OPEN WORLD game? I kept walking in frustration and decided to sit at the random site of grace ok? The one I DID check before, and...

FSDHGHFGFSDSGD so yeah okay now things should be fine, right? WRONG! I realize I know this cliff, so I jump up and up, and end up at the exact doorframe that I started from, and...

IT GETS WORSE!!!!!!!

Because I look right in front of myself, and realise that Varre was literally within like 5 footsteps from the entrance, right in front of the view THIS WHOLE TIME????

It is like... I don't even know HOW I missed him. I've never searched for an NPC in the game more desperately in my life @_@' (Worth it though, his voice is really hot) My ONLY guess as of how it happened is that like... he stands in front of the rocks that are grey... and his clothes are rather grey too, so the colors maybe merged for my weird brain and made me glaze through him?

But yeah I am having a blast! Also finally getting to feel FEAR because unlike with Bloodborne, I had little to no spoilers on ER:

[g0reoz]

okay, take 2 on writing this because my draft was somehow deleted.

i am once again calling attention to how much beyburst (especially s1 because that’s what i’m rewatching currently) unironically did for Weird Kid Representation. there was something about the characters and plot points that i thought was really cool back when i started watching it in 6th grade. i didn’t really know how to word it then, but i think i do now.

burst introduced its characters by basically using the “wake up babe, new kind of guy just dropped!” meme format. sure, here’s a socially reserved dude with perfect pitch and the ability to predict bursts. he has hypersensitive hearing and wears or otherwise carries noise cancelling headphones most of the time. here’s another guy who talks exclusively through hand puppets for most of his episodes in the first arcs of the season. we just get A Lot of characters who, sometimes willingly and sometimes inherently, go against social norms. and it’s never portrayed in a negative light!

ben made animal noises and went around wearing bright purple tiger-print shorts, but so what? he was also the one who helped kensuke gain self-confidence on kensuke’s own terms! daina was presented as what could’ve been the “cold, aloof bad boy” stereotype, but he ended up being really insightful and caring. they literally made all of his character development revolve around things like healthy coping mechanisms and how to handle it when you’re essentially fighting against your brain itself. i’m not gonna go into too much detail because i’m tired, i already wrote this before, and you would be here all night, but the bottom line is that burst had a lot of characters who went against social norms, and they’re shown to be interesting or admirable not despite, but often BECAUSE of the thing that makes them different. it showed the audience that “hey, this character looks or acts or processes things differently, and they’re cool! you can be, too!” that was something that gave a lot of hope to my younger self, and i think it’s a really important message.

(i had this in the tags in my deleted draft, but screw it. onto the post it goes.) hi hello can you tell by how attached to ben azuki i became that i made cat noises as a preteen. because that was Very Much A Thing. i wasn’t even, like, a warrior cats reader or anything, i just liked making cat sounds—in hindsight, i think it was maybe a verbal stim or something. sometimes i would do it without realizing; that’s sorta beside the point, though. the main thing is, when i was younger, i was able to see parts of myself in a lot of these characters! i think that was super important, especially because when i was younger i was even less socially skilled? is that the word? than i am now. kids should definitely have the chance to see themselves like that, even if the traits reflected aren’t necessarily ones adults view as ”desirable.” not everyone’s gonna relate to the cookie cutter “middle school drama” books that are supposed to be “”realistic fiction”” from their school’s library. some of us did make animal noises, and got a little bit more excited about our interests than our peers cared for, and did a plethora of other things that would, both in fiction and reality, end up the butt of someone else’s joke, so to have someone like that be shown in a positive light was sort of groundbreaking for me.

[saby-chan]

Why the ATLA comics fail when it comes to Zuko and his family

To whom ever took their time to actually stop and read this post, thank you in advance for not skipping my post and willing to stay and read my humble opinion! I hope I won’t disappoint you!

As a relatively newcomer to the ATLA fanbase since 2020, I’ve come across a lot of interesting debates, comments and rants about the show, characters and fandom in general, but nothing has captivated me as much as the dumpster-on-fire that are the ATLA comics, more specifically: The Promise and The Search. 

On one hand we have the hardcore fans who want them to be animated or serialized into the Netflix live action, praising the comics for the new views and subject matters they’ve brought into the show’s lore, while on the other hand we have the furious Azula fandom who is really angry for the fact that best girl didn’t get the redemption arc she rightfully deserved so much after the painful event that was the Last Agni Kai and the even more angry fans of the Urzai ship (yeah, the people who actually ship Zuko’s parents unironically) who hated the retconning of the show’s cannon since the comics basically took a huge fat dump on what was previously established as official cannon, when the Search entered the scene, but between these two sides, who has the more valid point? In the end, are the comics good cannon or bad written fanfiction?

Well... Here are my two cents on this matter since I myself happen to be an Azula and Zuko fan and had huge expectations from these comics (since I wanted more from my fave hot-headed fiery siblings duo) but ended up disappointed: the comics are indeed a huge mess and actually bad written fanfiction when it comes to Zuko and his family! Don’t click off yet, because I actually documented the reasons why exactly the comics fail in this area:

1. The author of these comics is not part of the BryKe duo

Yes, I would like to start with the fact that if you actually take a second to look up who in the heck took the time to write these two books, you won’t find Bryan, nor Mike, but a fellow man named Gene Yang. This is important because while the wiki of both The Promise and The Search state BryKe as the creators, that doesn’t mean that they were the actual minds behind these comics, but rather because ATLA is their “baby” and these comics involve their characters, over which they have copyright. Mr. Yang here is the actual brain behind the plot, as the main writer, which explains why we find huuuuge inconsistencies between the show lore and the comics, especially Zuko wise.

My main issue with Mr. Yang isn’t that he isn’t BryKe specifically, but because he did an unforgivable mistake in his writing process: He projected himself into Zuko’s character, based on the relationship Zuko had with his father. This is a documented fact from an interview in which he explains that he sees himself and his dad’s relationship into Zuko and Ozai and used that when writing their interactions and built Zuko’s character in the comics. And this is wrong because when you have an already very developed and complex character such as Zuko, you can’t just come in and be like “Oh, I was an angsty teen just like him in my teenage years, fighting with my dad and whatnot, so he must have the same thought process as me!”. NO! This is bad fanfiction writer behavior! Zuko has his own personality and philosophy, which he developed over the course of 3 seasons and is not defined by only 1 unfortunate aspect of his past, so you can’t just base his whole mindset and actions off of your own personal experience just because you had the same daddy issues he had!

2. The whole “Promise that you will kill me if I turn out like my dad!” nonsense in The Promise

Reason number 2 why these comics fail and go under the category of “bad fanfiction” is because they fail to convey the core essence of the source material. The whole point of Zuko’s redemption was that he realized the wrongdoings of his ancestors and his own mistakes. He outgrew his desire of gaining his father’s acknowledgement in favor of choosing his own destiny. Having him worry that he’ll turn into his father is utter nonsense and feels like poor angsty drama material for the sake of angst. At this point in time, Zuko has overcame that obstacle in his life a long time ago and should be at the level where he himself is the “Uncle Iroh” for other people and in no way someone concerned of becoming their own worst enemy!

Not only that, but the whole point of Aang’s journey and the story of the show as a whole was to teach us, the viewers, the importance of forgiveness, empathy and love in life. Aang didn’t spare Ozai, aka “the ultimate evil” just to flex in front of his pals or because he is a “ 12 y/o vegan pacifist monk kid”, but because he knew that killing someone, no matter of what they did or wanted to do, wouldn’t restore balance into the Universe, on the contrary, him killing the villain would have meant perpetuating the “endless cycle of hate” that plagued the world. So having Aang promise to kill his best friend in case “they turned into an evil maniac like their dad” contradicts Aang’s whole character and it’s a nonsense that throws into the trash what we’ve learnt throughout the entire TV series.

3. Azula deserved (and was supposed) to have a redemption ark

This might still be pure speculation, but I count it as a documented reason because I’ve heard quite a few people saying that there should’ve been a book 4 in the show, aka “Book 4: Air”, and no, it wasn’t The Search, but actually Zuko and Azula’s journey as Zuko helps his younger sister heal her broken mind by being her very own “Uncle Iroh”. Sure, they prolly were going to end up looking for Ursa, but the journey should’ve ended with them actually being happy and a family again and not the bs we got in The Search where a still very unstable Azula runs away and becomes the “Next Joker”! The only problem is that M. Night had to pop up and curse the world with his movie, which forced BryKe to delay the project (and eventually abandoned it in favor of Korra).

All in all, either if BryKe had this preplanned or not, it made sense for Azula to get a redemption ark, she deserved it because she was just a broken 14 y/o child! If Katara’s mom’s murderer deserved to be forgiven, so did this poor child who had no fault for what happened to her since she had a dysfunctional family! What Gene Yang did in his poorly written fanfiction was to just antagonize a broken child, turning her into a monster for the sake of friggin angst!

4. The Search is the worst of the two, being flat af character wise

And finally, getting to the point that I personally find the most annoying about these comics: The Search. This one... This one is a mess on a hella lot many levels, and just to list a few: characters are flat as fudge, being either black as vanta black (like Ozai and Azula) or pure white like Gene’s Gary Stue OC, Mr Ikem (or how I like to call him, IKEA man) and his ‘victim’ rendition of Ursa, Azula gets to suffer more for no reason (see reason number 3 to why I find this as a no no), Ursa’s whole character sucks ass (man, I could write a whole thesis on why Yang’s version of her is terrible and doesn’t match the strong woman we got in the show) and Zuko does morally wrong stuff (my man literally used his unstable sister to bribe their dad into spitting info about Ursa... Show Zuko would never do that!;-;)

Oh boy, as a person who’s seen a ton of anime and other media and read many books, I can’t begin on how much I despise this type of writing: flat characters are the worst!

 ATLA characters in the show are nothing close to being flat! What I mean by that is that none of them fall perfectly into pure white (aka goodest of good characters with no imperfections) or vanta black (aka lowest and darkest twisted monsters out there), each of them are various shades of grey (like Aang who is a very light grey because despite being a very kind and nice character, he still isn’t a “perfect hero” since he ran away from his duties, practiced tax fraud with Toph, had insecurities and even threatened to kill people on ocassions like with the sand benders who took Appa) and this is a good choice because that prevents them from becoming what’s globally known as Mary Sues and Gary Stues (aka those either “perfect” characters with no flaws and/or unlimited power, or the twisted monsters full of flaws).

And the other reason why many other people hate The Search: it literally negates previously established cannon. And here comes my short essay on why this comic fails Zuko’s family (since we’ve already talked enough about Zuko himself).

In cannon and even interviews with BryKe, it was clearly stated that Zuko’s family was “once happy”. Where is this “once happy” family in The Search? All I see is pain, deception, lies and betrayal, nothing close to anything that resembles happiness. Okay, some of you might come in and say that “It’s because it was never the case! It was only lies and Zuko trying to convince himself that he didn’t live in hell forever!” and here is WHERE YOU WERE ALL WRONG! And why? Because, my dear fella, where were depicted the flashbacks of Zuko’s “happy family” in The Beach? Ember Island. And what do we know and had been even quoted in the show?  "Like waves washing away the footprints on the sand, Ember Island gives everyone a clean slate. Ember Island reveals the true you." (direct quote from the show). Exactly, no matter who you are or how hard you try, you can’t hide your true self when you are on the Ember Island, best example being Azula, who’s impenetrable though shell cracked and revealed the true vulnerable child that was underneath. If Azula couldn’t resist the “spell of the island”, no one can. So this means that Zuko’s family was indeed happy once and yes, Ozai wasn’t always the douchebag we got to know in Season 3 (I have a whole nother essay on my theories regarding what could be his real past story and why he’s actually the “Zuko” of his generation, based on stuff I gathered from old wiki entries and character analyses I made, but that’s for another time, lemme know if ya’ll are interested).

And what I guess is the biggest proof why The Search did this family’s past trash is comics Ursa herself. My dude, if this woman were indeed the victim of years of endless abuse and never loved her husband, I guarantee you that she would’ve been closer to what we saw in Todoroki’s mom from BNHA and Zuko would’ve gotten that scar or even worse long before the Agni Kai, not from his “daddy dearest”, but from “mommy dearest” herself, because no sane woman would be soo affectionate and attached to a child that’s the perfect copy of their abuser, sepecially appearance wise (again see Todoroki’s mom’s case from BNHA because the stories are really similar) and in no way would’ve she been willing to sacrifice her life for said child’s sake. With this ocassion, I remind ya’ll folks that according to the ancient ATLA cannon wikis on Nick’s site, Ozai was designed with Zuko’s appearance in mind, being meant to be like a “grown up scarless version” of Zuko. So yeah, remember this with a grain of salt that whenever you simp over grown up Zuko, you involuntary simp for Ozai too.

So yeah, I guess this kinda concludes my “not so short” rant about why the comics fail and are bad fanfiction. Lemme hear your thoughts in the comments and if you agree, feel free to leave a like and even reblog.

Bye bye and remember that Momo is the true strongest character of the show!

 Saby out.