#smoke and mirrors more like. no.

[mulberriesandtea]

A VERY DISORGANIZED AND WEIRD MESS OF THOUGHTS THAT ARE ALL RELATED TO THE SODA EGO SOMEHOW

So wellcheer's story is like, this employee getting drugged and taken aboard a ship, and eventually coming to enjoy his work there, finding it better than working in the city. In general this reads to me as the escapist fantasy of the employees, wanting something that's more fulfilling, more satisfying, hoping for a change. While I think Hong Lu having it is somewhat self explanatory, I think we need to consider Ryoushuu as well, since both can provide context for one another. I will also bring up the fact that someone pointed out they could correlate to the types of work that give grape wellcheers, those being attachment(being kind and friendly) and repression(denying the abnormality in some way)- which I didn't quite agree with at first, but I think I understand better now that yes, it's likely. With that out of the way~! Let's talk about Hong Lu, since he's the one we understand the most about! These are not clean sections by the way. They're ramblings of a mad man.

"Tadaa~ Transformation complete! Hah, we've a boatload!" 

- Hong Lu Awakening

I think Hong Lu's is specifically meant to represent denial as his form of escapism. He denies anything that happens to him, and instead focuses on other things. We can note that Hong Lu seems to enjoy film in some way, and often mentions boredom and 'entertainment.' Not to mention Land of Illusion(I stare at the 5 gloom cost good fucking lord). Yah. Anyways, his magical girl transformation is an obvious reference to well, magical girl shows. Y'know, the kind of shows you watch and go 'man I'd love to be just like her" at least according to people. Understanding that, as well as pointing out that in both his Dimension Shredder and his Roseate Desire he seems a lot more overtaken by the abnormality than Yi Sang and Ishmael respectively in their awakenings(Yi Sang at least has both arms and Ishmael seems really not to be having a fun time), I think I can safely say that I think Hong Lu being on the boat is quite literally him fully accepting the fantasy of it. Have any of you method acted before? I have done it before, but not correctly, and I'm easily swayed by the emotions and thoughts of the characters I overtake, it's incredibly hard to maintain a divide between 'yourself' and 'your character' if you don't properly understand yourself- I mention this because it's quite literally what the Sinners do. I know this seems random to bring up but I hear me out here. I think it's clear that method acting wise, Hong Lu gets much more lost in his roles than the other sinners- I'd argue Canto IV especially shows this. Some of the others seem to also have trouble with Canto IV's play scene, but I believe the difference between that and their EGOs is how prolonged it is. Hard to explain, but yeah, Hong Lu quietly gets much more lost in his roles and it really does show in his EGOs- which is likely part of the escapism of it all. TL;DR I think his thing is denial, and as such, he represents the Repression half of the Wellcheers Grape Soda, and the reason he's on the boat is that he's *fully* invested in the EGO.

...Someone more into method acting should explain it better and see how it works within the context of EGO.

"Go on, open wide. Relax and cram this drink down your throats, heheh." 

- Ryoushuu Awakening

And that brings us to Ryoushuu, who I think represents the Attatchment side. And that might sound really weird at first. Why is the friendly one who seems to be more open with everyone Repression and the one who quite literally would attack other people and seems much more distant from everyone else despite it being several months now be Attachment? I'll explain more in Hong Lu's corrosion section. Anyways Ryoushuu! I think, in a way, her EGO, and the fact it's Zayin, is rather important- I'm still not quite sure on that aspect outside of 'it is really notable Gregor and Ryoushuu have Zayin EGOs.' I think her form of escapism is much more external than Hong Lu's- of course there's her tendency to smoke, but there's also her tendency to get obsessed with her art- and I think the fact that art is often heavily affected by the emotions of the creator is important. Art's a form of venting in a sense, but the way Ryoushuu does art she forces other people to deal with her problems. It's hard to explain gosh. Basically, she's very much ignoring her problems by creating art- she's not solving the root problem, she's not actually understanding why she's feeling that way, she just doesn't deal with it. THIS IS SHORTER THAN HONG LU'S SECTION BUT IN MY DEFENSE-

"The seagulls... They keep crying and screaming away...!" 

- Hong Lu Corrosion

So yeah these two. Ryoushuu's based on a man who committed suicide after the death of his daughter(who we know is dead in Limbus too, Fourth Match Flame and Red Eyes very heavily imply that, not to mention how Ryoushuu reacts to Outis during Hell's Chicken) and very much so has self-destructive behavior(said staring directly at Indiscriminate Art, which passive wise is exactly the same as Self-Neglect, and her smoking habits), while Hong Lu seems to very much have a persona of being cheerful and oblivious to the point of where it's very hard to tell if he's being genuine or not(The one potato joke in Hell's Chicken)- a persona that has not cracked yet in story, even when Faust attempted to break it with a sledgehammer(Once again, Hell's Chicken). I mention this because his persona has cracked in his EGOs- and this is one of them. I argue that both of their egos will be them no longer able to confide in their coping mechanisms of escapism, and their reactions to that. Hong Lu's EGO specifically shows him with the net stuck around him and in his mouth, and with him seeming almost panicked and lost. It's very particular he seems focused on the 'seagulls' which can seem a bit random, but I believe this is due to the 'seagulls' representing his last thread of escapism- his world, literally and in his denial, is falling apart. I'd argue that Ryoushuu's will be somewhat similar, also representing her thread of escapism falling apart- likely to do with either Yuzuki’s death or her completion of the ‘Hellscreen,’ and her being unable to deal with it.

I think they'll both be either Lust or Gluttony EGOs put a cute little thumbsup here

Of course I can be like, completely wrong. Anyways it's like 3 in the morning stream heart's claws by vane(flashing colors warning): 

https://youtu.be/2M2BHjVQPH4

i wanted to post the sodas but that’d take too long

[elftwink]

to preface this post i am anti-advertising i think we should explode the entire industry but it's sooo funny when you people make posts like "and they don't even work!!" like. sorry to be the bearer of bad news but yes they do. that's why we have to put up with so many despite everyone hating them and thinking its annoying. because they actually work really well and make a shit load of money

[yoinkschief]

Another thing I forgot to post holy shit-

This was back when I was in my TordMatt kick,,,

[littlest0nergirl]

its my ✨emotional support blunt✨ 😌

[problemothic]

me (the evil npd alter) when i start fronting and my face changes to become sadistic and evil:

[coldbrewnette]

Brass lighter case by merit cosmetics

[fbfh]

Just watched pretty woman for the first time and I can't stop thinking about callboy!Billy... you're in a nice dress in a fancy car you can barely drive, hair done up all pretty and you stop to try and get directions. Billy leans into your passenger side window, shirt almost totally unbuttoned in the tightest leather pants you've ever seen. He has dark eyeliner smudged around his thick lashes and his nails are painted the same color. Mismatched flashy (some may say gaudy) earrings poke out from his dirty blonde curls. You can see his toned muscles flexing in the dim streetlight, the only thing covering his broad chest is the necklace that hangs down as he leans over. He looks you up and down, chewing on a toothpick while he flashes you a smile that would make any woman in a 30 mile radius weak at the knees and wet in between them.

"You lookin' for a good time, sugar?" You look back, unimpressed.

"I'm looking for someone who can drive this thing to my hotel." You state in a huff. You're taken by surprise when he leans a little further in, analyzing the interior of the car, before he begins rambling about the make and model.

"Man, this thing corners like it's on rails." Out of ideas and desperate, you scooch over to the passenger seat.

"Be my guest."

He looks at you for a few seconds, facade dropping more than it had.

"You serious?" You nod, gesturing for him to get in and giving him the name of your hotel. He flashes you a smile, a real one this time, and pats the steering wheel.

"Buckle up, sweetheart, I'm gonna have her purring like a kitten."

[znarikia]

It's not about being a good person. It's not about being Morally Correct™ or whatever. Anarchy, communism, it's not about being on a mission from God to smite evil. It's about abolishing the present state of things, ie capitalism and its various oppressive support structures. Sure, being anti-racist or pro-queer are good things to be, but, like. Even if you don't care about people other than yourself and you're allocishet white, it's about having fucking allies. It's about banding together to set yourself free, it's about goddamn class warfare.

If you get it into your head that you are a good person because you're feminist, not transphobic, etc, your self-worth ends up bound into your self-perception as "not bigoted". What happens, then, when that self-perception is inevitably challenged? When you misspeak or learnt that one of your beliefs about a group of people was actually based on obfuscated racist caricature? Do you accept that hit to your identity with grace, that you weren't as "good" a person as you thought you were? Can you accept that there are more cracks in your halo than you can perceive?

Conversely, what happens when your status as a "good" person due to your leftist beliefs clashes with the other ways you think of yourself as "good"? The death of capitalism won't be painless. Will you still show solidarity when someone attacks an agent of oppression? Will you keep your mouth shut, even if it was an attack against someone that "wasn't that bad" or "one of the good ones"? Fucking hell, I mean, will you report that shoplifter? They're stealing a luxury item from a mom and pop. Or did you not see anything, having done your duty to not say a word? Can you identify the enemy? Do you understand that it's about identifying and combating enemies, about identifying and aiding allies?

Can you identify the enemy when they are otherwise "good" people? A capitalist--as in a member of the capital-owning class, not a proponent of their class-conscious ideologies--that gives away billions in philanthropic donations is still an enemy. That money was accrued by appropriating the surplus value of the laborers under their employ. Even if they donated every cent they earn from their ownership of capital, they would still be an enemy. They still yoke the necks of their workers. If these workers revolted and seized the means of production that they worked for themselves, whose side would you be on? The workers or the one that poured billions into charity? The ones that liberated themselves and struck a blow against the capitalist death machine or the capitalist?

[dino--draws]

"I'm adding it to my reading list" I say about any SCP thing I hear.

<- fir ass does NOT have a reading list. it's in fir brain and fi has the memory of a squirrel on ketamine. Half are forgotten. The other half is shit fi's already read but would read again in a heartbeat

[johnmalevolent]

yknow when i first watched the first yoshiwara arc i thought "tsukuyo is such an interesting character... it's a shame that she'll most likely be a one-off character" and oh boy am i glad i was wrong

[mulberriesandtea]

I am so normal about the fact that Ryoushuu's identities, what she presents herself as, center around art, and her EGOs, what her deeper thoughts and feelings are, center around family. I am so normal about how much she misses Yuzuki.

[lesbiansanemi]

Okay last night I finally managed to finish the third chapter of Kyo’s backstory for the role swap AU so I can stop being haunted by it. Tonight is for doing laundry, dishes, and reading other ppl’s fics now that my own fics have stopped eating me from the inside out for a bit. Also replying to the 50 ao3 comments that have built up 😭

[izzy-b-hands]

I am realising how many spots I missed trying to shave the back and sides of my head last night (down to skin this time bc it grows back so fast and it gets so hot in the summer bc my hair is thick)

This isn’t necessarily an excuse to start saving towards the Boomtown Rats mirror in their shop, but also, I could totally ask Housemate to put a lil hook on the opposite bathroom wall to the main mirror, and we could like. put that there for haircuts and find some cool art to habitat the hook the rest of the time and then the mirror could otherwise reside in my room unless needed for the aforementioned haircuts (bc I don’t yet have a mirror in there and I didn’t think I really needed/wanted one?? until I realised I was trying to style my hair in the flip view/selfie view of my phone camera a few days ago and was like. Oh.)

But also. Isn’t it?

[canisonicscrewyou]

Good morning, 6 AM, 3 hours till we start to move (!!!!) and I’m both dreading it and sosososososososo excited

[ineffable-kelpie]

for the ask game: 💜🤌👍!

Thanks for the ask! (From this question list)

💜 What is the most heart wrenching passage you've ever written?

For me, personally, chapter 7 of Reality Check makes me tear up every time I reread it. But in general, probably...some part of Smoke and Mirrors? Maybe all of Smoke and Mirrors? The more I try to choose, the more tragic scenes come to mind, so I don't think I can answer this.

🤌 What is your best fan fiction you've ever written in your opinion?

It changes a lot! If I take "best" to mean what I think is my best-written, but not necessarily my favorite, it's probably a tie between Heaven's Best and Brightest and Smoke and Mirrors (both of which come with a litany of content warnings, so read the tags)

👍 What is your favorite trope?

Gotta go with mutual pining. It's good if they're oblivious, and it's good if they Know but there are Circumstances keeping them apart. Hard to go wrong with mutual pining. I'm also partial to amnesia, dreamsharing, and truth serum/honesty spells (especially when paired with the aforementioned mutual pining)

I cheated a little bit by going back through my ask game tag to see if I had already answered the "favorite trope" question, and...it turns out I answered this exact combination of questions a year and a half ago 🤣 It's interesting how my answers have changed!

[hedonicghost]

Idk if you're still looking for requests but itd be fun to see your ocs reacting to their original designs

not exactly what you asked for, but here you go! smoke and mirrors was originally supposed to take place in early high school, but as we got older we realized it'd be... weird to write a story about high schoolers, so they're adults now lol. because of that, though, we just consider their og designs somewhat like their younger selves!