#not even ti deny it

[hannibard]

Thanks for coming to my ted talk

[carlyraejepsans]

saw your most recent post about really good fics that contain uncomfortable kinks and i immediately thought "ah, biscia must be reading the mpreg soriel fic" and almost left a reply talking about it but i stopped myself because i realized that would be an insane assumption to make. needless to say i felt so vindicated when i saw you link it in an earlier post.

like. HELLO?

HELLO???????

[dailykugisaki]

Day fifty-four | id in alt

Oh noo Gojo.... Keep your infinity onn oh noooo.

[theminecraftbee]

yo a persona au? I want to know more <- persona my beloved

gonna take this as a free space to talk about what I want so. let’s talk about impulse’s hanged man social link, who as it turns out is also his foil/the hidden bad guy, and person I was rotating in my head a lot in the car going to pick up dinner earlier: bdubs.

so, I think bdubs joins the party deceptively early—like, he’s not the last guy, or very obviously suspicious early on. in fact, he’s very happy with impulse! unfortunately. okay so like. impulse’s central arc in this is sort of that his tendency towards being a people-pleaser leads to him trying to be everything for everyone and also his existential crisis over being the one guy aware of like, the game mechanics of confidants and stuff, leading to “oh god are any of my emotions here actually real”.

bdubs… has always been singularly devoted to one guy. and bdubs got his special little guy well before impulse got here, and that special little guy happens to be our story’s big bad. (or at least, the human one.) it is because of bdubs’s singular devotion to this person—and difficulty being devoted for real to other people outside of his use for them—that lead him to realize that, with the help of his own abilities as a persona user, unlocked before the start of the story, he could find people’s negative selves and drag them into the negative world, taking out people that our story’s big bad wanted removed and accelerating the terrible end the world was going towards.

(side note: possibly making the big bad here like, a religious organization or something. idk if that works well enough thematically but I do sort of like the idea of “evil god that wants to send everyone into a deep sleep/eventual death, possibly because it has decided humanity’s impulse of creation only creates evil things, and therefore humanity’s will to create must be destroyed”. and the idea of it having a church associated with it and that church having bdubs be deeply devoted to it, even secretly, is fun.)

over time suspicious things pile up about bdubs, especially as the link between victims, the big bad, and bdubs also pile up. however, impulse is loyal to all of his social links—the least he can do is trust them if he’s busy using this social connection for his own gain, right? the least he can actually try to help them, even if it’s not for altruistic reasons, right?

so I think, first, that either bdubs’s social link is suspiciously automatic or you have to get it to like, rank five to get the true ending. (note that to actual impulse he wouldn’t notice it’s automatic but you know suspiciously to the player.) then after a certain point you’re locked in and at like, rank 6, impulse goes to confront bdubs, and maybe also warn him, and like. they’re friends they’ve bonded bdubs is… part of the team so he’s also under the fool… he keeps on saying how much he loves impulse… right?

and the confrontation is basically. yeah, but that wasn’t a real connection. we were useful to each other, right? and bdubs talks about the big bad and his actual goals and tells impulse to tell no one. and I think we have a clock moment except now impulse also has “I gave you everything like I gave it to everyone else, oh god what if this is also all for nothing.”

INSERT VERY DESTABILIZING SOCIAL LINK RANK UP WHERE IMPULSE BASICALLY RANKS UP WITH BDUBS FOR BDUBS BETRAYING HIM.

…yeah so remember how I wanted to do a thing an actual persona game probably wouldn’t and have impulse have a bit of a breakdown over being everything for everyone all the time? right now like, throw in the horrible realization that bad things can cause social link rank ups. and I think that’s the final straw here; this idea that he’s pouring so much into these relationships that he’s not even sure are “real” because he’s doing them for bullshit magic reasons and that the bullshit magic will sometimes say “the path to win directly involves hurting you and people you care about”.

and impulse just sorta… shuts down a little bit? he’s horrified and upset. and he badly scrambles to try to warn the others but he wasn’t prepared for any of this.

which gives bdubs the opening he needs to drag impulse’s own negative self into the negative world, because this is the point that impulse hits such high degree of burnout that, despite being a persona user, despite arguably being THE persona user… the negative world can technically infect anyone if they’re upset and burnt out enough.

and then in the most self-indulgent but fun twist for me in the world, the next day, the news impulse was found in his apartment, having contracted sleeping sickness, gets conveyed to the party. we, the player, know bdubs is a traitor, but the party does not. and impulse’s social links and the party decide that, that’s impulse. they’re going to save him.

and THEN we get to have the sappy but also sad “this is what makes our leader despair” maze as like, the penultimate maze, which is also the one you fight bdubs in. undecided on whether bdubs can actually be saved as well. also gameplay-wise it’s a very difficult dungeon and the ultimate fight is very hard, but if you’ve raised your social links, it gets easier, both because you’ll have a better equipped party and because the people who have bonded with impulse want to try to help him, and that energy makes the enemies weaker the better you’ve done bonding with everyone.

…but there’s my idea for that.

[fayevalcntine]

If y'all are absolutely insistent on referring to Louis as a woman can you at least please, for the love of God, not act as if the femininity he's ""performing"" is white and then go off on a tangent about what "white womanhood can even be if a Black man can be one" when white supremacy has a considerable history of upholding white women/womanhood in order to continue their racist blood purity beliefs? At least go into Black femininity as an overall topic of discussion

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

I hope Gege gets better soon, lately his health hasn't been the best :c, at the end of the day Gege is just a silly cat trying his best and I respect that

NO BECAUSE …….. i think . that criticism towards akutami and his writing is completely fair and understandable but some people really do just. forget?? how awful his working conditions are i think 😭😭 like genuinely. the manga industry is completely fucked and it affects all manga undergoing serialization rn including jjk!!!

like yes i think akutami is rushing the story but criticism about that in particular should be directed towards the industry pressuring him to pump out new chapters every single week, not the mangaka being worked to the bone.

[valeechtine]

Ok so the universe hates me I see

[bibiana112]

And for bad oversharing medical news the arrhythmia from december never went away but I thought maybe the throat infection was still there right so that could be a reason but then I went to a specialist and not only is it practically cured (just lingering a bit) but my lungs sound fine as well! which means! the shortness of breath is probably something wrong with the oxygen in the bloodstream and the slight chest tightness is also extremely worrying I could only make an appointment to get it checked next friday and that sounds like way too long

[bucksbirthmark]

.

[ericlovessharks]

did u know sh.arks are cool

[dutybcrne]

No matter if friend or significant other, no matter how harrowing, Lumine will never willingly tell nor talk to anyone of her adventures with Dainsleif & their fight against the Abyss Order.

[afieldinengland]

marks that we left on each other pinkish in colour again

[leahthedreamer]

People feel mixed about the Pink Venom’s chorus but to me it’s sooo cunty like speak-talk-singing done right in my eyes.

[littlegalerion]

I mean...it's an idea...

[noxtivagus]

shadowbringers!!!!

[umishiqu]

that post pissed me off which is why this post exists

i'm putting a read more here for the mini scarabia analysis bcuz no one wants to get swamped with this in the tags. prolly kalim biased? but idk bcuz i think i quoted rly rly specific scenes for either jamil or kalim's characterization

“he provides little to no support or leadership to his dorm members” did we all ignore all those flashbacks in book 4 where exactly the opposite happened or?? his support that he gives is based on what he can give. in a dormitory where everyone’s supposed to be intelligent, his resources come in a form of what they don’t have (emotional support). that’s how he’s resourceful and represents the resourcefulness of scarabia

also are we really going to place all the blame of his codependent relationship with jamil on kalim when he’s insinuated multiple times that he does want to learn, he does want to help Jamil worry less and loosen up more (magic carpet ride with yuu), but just doesn’t because he holds the promises he makes with jamil to a very high degree (because that is all the good will jamil and their parents had allowed him to give him)? if someone tells kalim not to worry, he doesn’t get sarcasm. he’ll drop the conversation. but then he goes back and really thinks on it, and this is what got him to tell his worries with yuu in the middle of the night (twice). he’s insinuated that jamil would have been a better pick as dorm leader in his ceremony robes. he’s instantly assured by jamil’s words, trusting them, thinking he is being kind. if he didn’t, then there goes his last line of sanity. if he lies about this, what about everything else? he even says in silver’s personal story that if Jamil told him they couldn’t walk to class anymore, he’d probably have a meltdown. only reason why he isn’t is because (like I’ll explain about Jamil later), Jamil’s had many attempts to kill kalim. he hasn’t. kalim’s been ignoring a lot of what he actually feels about things for a very, very long time now, and obviously feels frustrated that all those times he’s been assuring Jamil and telling him not to worry about it didn’t get to him properly like he thought his words would. all those times telling jamil that he was so good at everything, explaining to others how good and reliable jamil is, and no one else saw it because jamil kept on submitting to kalim all the time. it’s not just a problem of kalim not understanding Jamil. jamil even recognizes in tamashina mina in Kalim’s card that neither of them properly understand what the other is trying to say a lot of the time. (can I say though that they do understand each other in the little things they don’t say. where words aren’t there. Kalim successfully guesses how Jamil was feeling while lighting the fireworks in tamashina Mina, Jamil reassures him though even if it was the truth. Jamil knew Kalim was going off to stop vil in book 5, he didn’t have to say he would, he just grabbed the carpet and got to them before the poison clouds took horrible effects.)

the pressure their parents put on jamil was a lot, and it followed them into high school. middle school was jamil’s first sense of freedom; it was the time when he and kalim were separated in terms of schooling. he didn’t have to lower himself for his sake. it makes sense that all his memories with kalim were all of kalim when he was younger, and that going into nrc, he would apply the same logic with kalim again (must be under him, must not stand out), even if that was no longer the case (with all Jamil said about their parents knowing if kalim even does one thing outside of their positions, the events of book 4 - the actual events - didn’t reach their parents ears.) kalim was right multiple times to say that Jamil was overworrying about things like that. najma even says that Jamil gets serious over silly things sometimes, and she was worried that he was overworking himself too much. she knows the situation they’re both in and is the only other narrator we have to their situation. even in Kalim’s lab coat, he was telling Jamil that it didn’t have to be an overblown party and just serving the leftovers would be fine (because he knows Jamil doesn’t like large parties and casual get togethers would suit better for him when trying to let him get to know his classmates, which is what and who the party was for). jamil believed that this would reflect poorly on kalim (and him) so obviously he didn’t listen and worried over the amount of work he anticipated he was going to get (even though kalim said that just leftovers would be fine). the people who do like overblown things? Kalim’s family. they made Jamil cook a bunch of food for everyone, the entire family, 40 of them, all at once. all of kalim’s gifts from his parents are overblown things he didn’t actually need or want in the past (reserved an entire amusement park! why did his parents do that when he would just be alone with bodyguards.) . now he’s actually getting smaller things, things he can enjoy, but he still thinks his gifts are for other people (mom gave him tea leaves, this should have been for Kalim himself since he actually likes tea, but Kalim… instead uses the tea leaves to have it served to everyone else. what the heck.) (can you see how they both have this problem ….. cut from the same cloth)

(I want to say that Jamil is of the opinion that Kalim seeking new experiences all the time is because he is a bored rich person that gets bored easily and has unpredictable whims. Tamashina Mina: where he doesn’t even say his last name to the guy he’s giving the bus to; his happiness at getting to spend some time with everyone else instead of up in the lonely rafters; him telling silver in silver’s school uniform that malleus is probably lonely all the time; heck, his voice actor saying that kalim is actually a pretty lonely person because of how he was raised… you could consider it to be “rich kid is bored and wants new experiences”, but I think he just associates those “new experiences” with “not loneliness”, because everything his position actually provided him just made him more lonely in the end. the riches and assassination attempts and all.)

a lot of the “fun and games” parties kalim throws is because he thinks other people would like it, and him believing other people actually like those sorts of parties is mainly because of the expectations people have of him and his position (ie like the lab coat situation i just described, where Jamil’s seriousness about how that sort of party would reflect on him and kalim is why he doesn’t accept the answer that he should just serve leftovers casually). he’s not the type of person to actually spend his fun and free time boisterously like this. in playfulland, he doesn’t even want to go to rollercoasters or the arcade; he just wants to relax and see pretty and new things (new experiences) in the seabed stroll. even azul is surprised by kalim’s completely ordinary wants in his bloom card.

and why does jamil stay? he basically says the reason in alab nariya when he’s upset at the thief for putting all his hard work throughout the day to the dust bcuz of the stolen usb. he put hard work into keeping kalim alive and well, whether he likes it or not. he won’t have it go to waste (as per Scarabia mindset of putting in as much effort as it takes to get to your goal, like Ruggie comments when Jamil in fairy gala brings in crewel and vil for dance lessons). he figures this resolution at the end of Alab Nariya as well - where, as long as he is properly recognized like when he was the one to light the fireworks, not kalim, he actually wants everyone to come back again next year even though the day was rough on him.

I feel like people should start getting used to analyzing kalim and jamil properly bcuz they aren’t getting separated from each other, thematically and narrative-wise, any time soon (except for the separation that they need as distance between them in order to come to a resolution. like checkpoints for their individual development)