#take this with a grain of salt but i don't think i'm completely wrong here lmao!

[intoapuddle]

Tell us your dnp opinions 🎤

Am I boring if I say I don't feel like I've seen enough of them to have a fully formed opinion? The honest truth would be something like that, but I do have stray ideas and concepts. Don't take this as me not watching though. I watch everything they post, every video, every tweet, every ig story, the works (even if I'm not as active on here as I've been in the past). They just aren't giving us a lot recently. And in the small things they have given us, they haven't really told us their plans.

BUT if there's one thing about phannies it's that we are LOOKING, we are analysing, and we are relentless LMAO. So despite not having a lot to go on, after thinking for a bit I've come up with a theory:

Ever since covid hit, Dan and Phil have been *waiting*. Waiting to be able to perform again, waiting to move house, and now waiting for the house to be fully finished. Not that they haven't done things, but I honestly think this is one of the reasons for why they've delayed some youtube things? This could be just a shot in the dark but I feel like I can see this pretty clearly as being "a thing". Having things need to get done at home and being around workers a lot I think honestly affects their youtube stuff, and as we already know about them they love to wait until "the time is right". Which, obviously, is for better or for worse sometimes.

I think they want to do a joint project together again when they feel they can, and I think it's gonna be sooo much fun (like everything they do together is!!). I don't know if it's going to be a podcast, or a video series, or gaming channel/talky youtube videos or anything, but I do have this inkling that Phil is giving us tiny hints. And we know they love to give us tiny hints.

I think Dan's projects, the book and the tour, were because he's been so tired of waiting. He's told us as much, just maybe not in exactly those words. And Phil has done what he always does: going along for the ride and trying to keep his youtube channel alive through the means he has under the circumstances he's in (illness, anxiety, big move).

So in conclusion, my opinion is I think things are on the horizon for the lads and we aren't all just here for nothing. Something will happen! And that's gonna be great!! \o/ xoxo dapg delulu lifer since 2018

[destinygoldenstar]

'Jax is an NPC'

Hm... ... ...

No.

It's a good theory, don't get me wrong, I see the evidence, I see where you're coming from.

But it's not a theory I agree with. Let me explain.

Caine's line "But if I start losing track of who's a human and who's an NPC who knows what could happen" is very vague as is. This could mean a whole lot of things.

I said this in another post of one of my own theories. I think it's possible that Caine could've killed a human player and his trauma of that was showing.

We know A.I's can shed traumatic emotions. Look at Gummigoo.

Now, yes, Caine couldn't 100% kill a human. Otherwise he would delete the abstractions. And it seems like human players abstract when they die and that's the only way they CAN die.

So therefore Caine having killed a human player should be thrown out as a possibility.

BUT. Hear me out.

Abstractions are shown to be able to glitch several in game objects because of their abstraction. And we actually do NOT see if all the abstractions look exactly the same as Kaufmo's abstraction.

They could very well not.

Going to biblical text, Caine was the first murderer and received a permanent consequence.

Could a permanent consequence be, idk, failing at your programmed job over and over again and be forced to watch these humans abstract and perish forever?

Especially if because of the human player death's abstraction glitch, is WHY the other human players cannot leave the game!

If you look at Pomni's room in one shot, there's a couple of blocks that are stacked from top to bottom 'ABXEL'.

Could it be that the human player Caine killed was named Abel?

But there is also the other possibility that somehow, there is an NPC among the circus. So let me explain my thought on that possibility.

I don't think it's possible.

I think Caine would've noticed, especially if he immediately recognized GummiGoo wasn't supposed to be there.

If one of the circus folks were an NPC, their figure would've appeared with the others in the backrooms.

Now, there is the possibility that it was placed somewhere else, that place is huge after all. So take that with a grain of salt.

I'm not completely eliminating the 'Jax is an NPC' theory.

I get the evidence. He's constantly breaking the fourth wall. But I think that more so has to do with what I’m about to say.

He has keys to people's rooms. I get that one. That is definitely sus as hell and I'm not denying it is sus.

He also ‘lacks human physics.’

So does everyone else in the cast. Pomni can stretch her body out like Elastagirl. Ragatha has stuffing instead of blood. Kinger has his own glitchy moments. Gangle has two faces. Zoobles body can fall apart.

I’m just saying. These are not human physics either. So Jax being able to keep in place whenever he wants being only a Jax thing is not too far fetched compared to all these other examples.

But I also think, and this is my opinion, that he's much more compelling as a character as a sociopathic human player that is beyond saving and MENTALLY cannot be humanized again.

What I mean by that is that while he is TECHNICALLY a human player, MENTALLY, he is so detached from his humanity and moral code often associated with humanity that he acts more NPC-like as a side effect.

Jax is not designed to be a morally grey character. He is written to be the least moral of the entire show.

It would be SO EASY to excuse those moral wrongdoings as 'well they were never human to begin with'.

But I think that's the lazy way out, and I think this show is smarter than that.

Because here is the thing, there ARE some really REALLY terrible humans. Evil humans in fact.

WHY they're so terrible varies, but that doesn't make them less terrible.

And yes while some terrible people can get redeemed if they themselves can, this is NOT absolute. There are people that are just plain beyond saving. So beyond saving that they ditch their moral code, a code drilled into the human mind, that they SEEM inhuman to humans who can't relate.

This is a very real psychological thing.

With how many morally grey characters get thrown around as compelling these days, Jax NOT being written that way and instead being written as the morally worst would naturally make people go 'he must not be human'.

In psychology, behavior like that doesn't physically inhumanize them, but it MENTALLY does, they behave in a set of rules so different from the normal that it's corrupt to the normal.

So I think he is a human player like the others. But his MENTALITY is not, so he ACTS NPC-like as a side effect to that mental loss.

Not every human is morally grey and get cozy redemption arcs. There are some truly awful people in the world with no redeemable qualities whatsoever. I like that he represents that. I like that there's a character on this show that acts as that huge wake-up call of 'Yeah some people just plain suck and you shouldn't have to deal with them.'

But while I don't think Jax being an NPC would be the best route to take. That is just my opinion and I am not the one writing the show. If that IS the route they are taking, I am fine with that so long as it is written with proper care. I could definitely be reading this wrong.

[thestargayzingetherian]

She-Ra In He-Man Revelations/Revolution

So it's been a few days and I wanted to put this post out there to basically publicly give my thoughts on some... recent developments concerning He-Man Revolution. Before I go into this, MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING FOR THE SHOW!

And also, and this is probably MORE important than the spoiler warning. Do not, and I repeat, do not take whatever speculation I put in this post as gospel or something that is GOING to happen. I may be a bit more knowledgeable than a lot of people about this stuff, but I don't wanna consider myself an expert. This is just me speculating and giving my thoughts and I don't want to get anyone's hopes up because there's a good chance, that what I'm saying turns out to be completely wrong and I don't wanna be responsible for that, so please, take all of this with the smallest grain of salt possible.

With that out of the way...

So the new season of He-Man ends with the reveal of this lady, Despara. For those who don't know... she is Adora. As in She-Ra Adora. In the DC He-man comics, Despara was the name Adora was known as when she was raised as Hordak's daughter. Her name is often used by Catradora fan artists and fic writers who really wanna just make Adora a hot evil lesbian, usually with a hot butch hairdo. It is likely that if/when another season of this show comes, Despara will be the main focus.

Now this raises the obvious question... how are they going to handle the She-Ra stuff. As I have made posts about before, the She-Ra rights and He-Man rights have been separate for a very long time and apparently, the last thing I heard, Mattel themselves can't use any of the She-Ra characters in animated form due to Dreamworks owning them now.

So naturally, you might be thinking that Despara here is just a placeholder because they can't use She-Ra. Except... there are a LOT of She-Ra references in this season that are way too numerous to be just references.

For example:

They recreate the exact scene from the 80s She-Ra movie where Adora is taken as a baby by Hordak in a flashback scene. They also mention Horde Prime existing as well and they EVEN imply that Shadow Weaver exists in this universe as well and Hordak's new robot second-in-command, Motherboard is a replacement for her.

So yeah, all signs SEEMINGLY point to some sort of She-Ra-inspired adaption being the next part of this show. Now, considering the very complex rights issues... I can see this going one of two ways.

Mattel and Dreamworks did a deal like the one Sony and Marvel did with Spiderman to temporarily get the She-Ra rights back for JUST this next season. Despara is revealed to be Adora and her arc will be her learning her true family AND eventually becoming She-Ra to fight Horde Prime with her brother and possibly all the other She-Ra cast are there too. This I feel like it would be the ideal solution to all of this.

2. Despara is revealed to be someone else OTHER than Adora under her helmet because her face is obviously not seen in her brief scene when she takes her helmet off. Technically, Mattel would own Despara outright and not Dreamworks and they could easily make Despara her own character. This was also how they planned to include her in the second season of CGI He-Man. HOWEVER, considering all the foreshadowing and knowing how many people working on these shows loved SPOP... I feel like it'd be really unsatisfying if it wasn't Adora under the mask, both as a fan and from a creative standpoint.

As for my personal theory of what Despara's whole deal is, I think she's ruling Etheria on the other side of the galaxy with Catra and serving personally under Horde Prime. Basically SPOP but a bad ending. The plot will be He-Man and his friends finding out about Etheria and going there to free the planet and Despara will redeem herself and she and Catra and whoever will join team good guy.

But that's just my personal theory. I really don't know what the hell is going to happen here or even IF more episodes will even be coming and I don't want to get people's hopes up. There's a reason I myself have been working on my own She-Ra and He-Man crossover extended universe stuff for the last while so, at the very least, there'd be a fanfic that would satisfy my hopes. I am prepared to be very wrong here.

But even if none of this speculation pans out, I still highly recommend this show to She-Ra fans. The second season definitely fixed the few issues I had with the first one and I hope more comes out of this version of He-Man... then again, it wouldn't be the first time a He-Man series was cancelled.

Hope you find this post informative!

[daisy-daze17]

Omori Manga Thoughts cause it was uhhh

OK so like. The thing is I only got into the omori fandom in February of this year so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

1. I'm mostly a fan of the art style-- a lot of people said that Sunny always seems to have a panicked expression so it's hard to read into him, plus the characters look a lot younger than they're supposed to (Which I find odd). But other than that, I think it does a really good job representing the scarier parts with very abstract drawings of Mari/Something. They coloured it well and thank god did Kel's skintone right. There is one particular panel that I especially love:

So much detail and it captures the feeling of seeing faraway for the first time really well ^^

Some nitpicky positive thoughts:

Sunny could have looked more distinct from Omori because the only difference I see are their outfits. Maybe make Sunny's features softer and have less contrasting values so we can see an immediate difference.

I like how they did everyone's eyes-- Sunny/Omori's are just dull and black, and everyone else with dark eyes are shown to have a light in them. (Just a nice detail i appreciated)

I like how Omori is clearly less expressive compared to sunny, but I think Sunny could have benefitted from having more emotions than surprised/blushing.

2. The pacing was weird. like really fucking weird. The basic structure of the game Omori is: Omori is in whitespace -> Omori plus the gang (Hero, Aubrey and Kel) meet up with Basil and Mari in headspace -> everyone minus Mari goes to Basil's house and learn all the combat stuff along the way -> after fixing the photo album it suddenly shifts to basil in a panicked state before glitching you back into white space again. The moment when basil shifts the mood from calm to terrifying is REALLY important.

It forces the new tone on you very suddenly and also sets up a lot of mystery surrounding Mari when Basil can't finish what he was going to say about her. By now we know that something is very wrong and it has to do with Mari, but we don't know what.

The manga is kind of all over the place the whole time. First we see the christmas scene when Sunny gets his violin. But then Mari does her whole nightmare thing and we know somethings up from the first few pages. Next we wake up at night as Sunny in the real world... yet it shows the little "THREE DAYS LEFT" as well? At this point I was super confused because basically the entire nighttime sequence is shown through a sort of montage with Sunny's mom's voice message in the background before transitioning into the day when Kel first knocks on the door. A cool thing they did was parallel Kel's knocking with the creepy knocking we get from Mari Something. HOWEVER for reasons unknown they just completely cut out the fight against something on the stairs??

Something I was really excited about was seeing how they would integrate the combat into the manga. And they do it later with the Aubrey fight (more on that later), but not now? So now I'm wondering if they'll include Sunny's three fears that he has to overcome.

So next we find our boy (KEL!!!!!) and he is asking Sunny if he wants to come to Hobbies. I did find the dialogue here pretty awkward as Kel bounced back and forth in demeanor, but that's to be expected since Sunny isn't talking. (And I appreciate how he shows some kind of reaction to seeing one of his best friends after 4 years lol)

I mean compared to this when he just jumps straight into his hobbez idea without much reaction to actually seeing Sunny lol.

The most notable thing after this is the Aubrey confrontation with Basil and the other hooligans. I DONT KNOW WHY but they chose to not show the hooligans in that scene!! The hooligans are aubrey's little gang/posse who she hangs around with all the time and the people we always see when she's bullying Basil.

It's very important to note that Basil is talking to KIM here. He starts the conversation begging for her to tell Aubrey to give the photo album back. Aubrey is actively ignoring his attempts to get it back, with basil claiming "She won't listen to me."

In the manga she appears out of seemingly no where and proceeds to beat Basil directly with her bat. Prior to this we get no setup or explanation as to why Aubrey's attacking him or what the situation is. WORST OF ALL, It's only Aubrey alone attacking him and NOT her gang of the Hooligans. The hooligans are important in showing us just how isolated and ostracized from society Basil really is after Aubrey began bullying him. He literally has a whole gang of kids who call him a creep and attack him regularly. Here it seems like Aubrey is insane and is just beating him selfless for kicks. (not that I'm justifying Aubrey's behavior in the game, but the lack of context makes this situation even worse.)

I think It's also important to bring up how they switched around the order of events because in this situation, it's not working. We're supposed to first be introduced to younger Aubrey and Basil in headspace-- their younger counterparts. Aubrey is strong-willed and excitable and Basil is calm and kind. And most importantly-- they're VERY GOOD FRIENDS. So seeing Aubrey revealed to have been bullying him these past 4 years shocks the player and makes them understand how much things have really changed. Doing it the other way around will automatically villainize DW Aubrey since we already know what goes on in real life.

And then something interesting happens-- Sunny blacks out during the fight and returns to Headspace. This is SUPER weird as we've only ever seen Sunny go into headspace while sleeping, because it's an escape mechanism he uses to avoid The Truth. Does this mean he isn't aware he goes into headspace unwillingly sometimes? And what does this mean for the continuation of the real world story? Are we going to go through the entire Space Boy quest just to get back to that scene?

Anyway, I'm interested to see how they take it from here. Maybe they'll do a continuous switchover to the real world where they jump between it more frequently. But I question what that would mean for the timeline because the events of headspace happen in between the three days while Sunny is sleeping-- so he can't be in two places at the same time. Maybe they'll write more and more random ways for Sunny to black out to do this?? They defiantly are trying to take a step back from following the game exactly. I can't say I don't like it because I don't know how it'll turn out, so I'm excited for chapter 2!

[thechekhov]

Drinking Anon here.

This is what I was talking about, the Nomiai: https://www.nomunication.jp/japans-business-drinking-culture/

I knew it was more of a Japanese business 'ideal' tradition. I was just wondering if it extended to school teachers. The idea that you "HAVE" to go drinking if invited otherwise its an affront to someone's honor.

....alright, having looked at the website, here is my critical analysis of this:

This guy, Whiskey Richard, who 'has been exploring the Tokyo cocktail scene since 2008' may have a basis for what he's saying but please keep in mind the following:

He's in Tokyo, where the drinking scene AND business is larger comparably, and it's easier to find drinking buddies and older colleagues who may want to pressure you to go

He has clearly made a business of explaining 'Japanese drinking culture'. His main site is about advertising distilleries and reviewing them. He didn't write this article only because he wanted to Share The Deep Japanese Lore with foreigners. He's angling for a specific type of feeling. A feeling that helps buy what he's selling.

With all that in mind and our reasonably angled Skeptic hat cocked (a hat you should always have on, btw, so long as it is not glued to your head) let's review the rest of it.

Does Japan have a culture of drinking with coworkers? Yes.

Are nomikai a unique event that has a specific structure different to a standard 'out with the lads for a few beers' type scenario? Yes, absolutely. It's a more structural event.

Do Japanese businessmen take advantage of a more casual environment like a bar or izakaya to suss out who is a genuine person and who might be a pain to work with?

I believe yes. This is not a far stone to throw.

Are you going to be affronting someone's 'honor' by refusing to go drinking with them?

Absolutely fucking not. And if they think so, they're a shitnugget.

It also should be noted that the author correctly writes that this is specifically a salaryman business thing rather than something that affects all areas of the workplace. He does start with 'If you're in Tokyo on business...' after all.

Sure, your business partner may invite you to go drinking with them to try to get an idea for your non-professional side. That's no different than someone inviting you to a business lunch. I think the business side of things is more important here than the alcohol element, though. The point is that if you're in a foreign country and someone invites you to join them in a social event that takes place in a traditional restaurant, turning down the invite may indicate that you're not really that invested in the relationship.

And most people will reasonably understand if you have a real excuse, or don't really drink. Especially these days. Hell, I work in a Japanese office and I get invited to nomikai and often turn the invitation down because I have an hour drive back home and no way of getting back if I'm drunk. And I've never gotten flack for it, nor has anyone ever suggested I've dishonored them for it. If I was seeking new employment and was invited out for drinks, I might try to make that happen, if only to satisfy the social request to meet up. ...I also enjoy a drink every now and then.

Like I said, the article in question isn't necessarily wrong... but I think it goes a little too hard, digesting every single detail and milking it for all the 'mysticism' it's got instead of presenting it through a reasonably comparable lens of Western drinking culture.

All I'm saying is... look if I had a potluck catering company and I needed to sell my stuff to Japanese people in the US, you bet your ass I'd make a site about how Sacred the potluck is to the Americans and how important it is to bring The Correct Thing. So I respect the hustle. But I think anything about The Complete and Utter Uniqueness of Japan should be taken with a grain of salt.

[imreallyloveleee]

Where do you think it all went wrong with Riverdale?

honestly, part of me is like, the show's over and nothing but fandom matters. so who cares?

the other part of me loves to complain about Riverdale and will continue to do so until the day I die in the parking lot of Michael's Diner in Montgomeryville, PA at the age of 86. so, long-winded answer under the cut

I'm tempted to say it's the s4 b*rchie kiss. It was so wildly out of character for both Betty and Archie that it's laughable. You know how you can tell when something is just blatantly OOC with no justification? They...don't justify it. They find ways to dance around any interaction that might offer clarification. They mute the reactions of the characters who should be devastated by it. And then they jump ahead 7 years so it's easier to just handwave it away as something that happened a long time ago.

but the thing is, I did keep watching after that. I thought: okay, at least we should get an exes-to-lovers arc out of this, which is one of my favorite tropes. there is no way they would spend 4 seasons developing Bughead as this loving, supportive, communicative, sexy, and almost-unbelievably-compatible couple just to tear them apart and never do anything with that dynamic again. maybe it'll be even sweeter seeing them come back together after so much hurt and longing.

boy was i wrong!!!!!!!!!

so, the episode that actually made me stop watching for good, with the exception of some standalones like The Jughead Paradox and the finale, was the s5 musical. that was when i realized that this team of writers was 100% willing, maybe even eager, to completely drop storylines they themselves had been building over the course of a season - do a 180 with all of the characterization and relationships - and then act as though the buildup they wrote never even happened.

in this case, i'm specifically talking about the Bughead reunion storyline they dropped in s5. i'm not going to pretend like it was a GREAT buildup - and it was mostly on Jughead's side, Betty's character in s5 was basically an emotionless misery bot that had sex sometimes - but it was there. Jughead told Tabitha he had unresolved feelings around Betty. that's followed by an entire episode that lays out Betty & Jug's time jump relationship, and how Jughead still believes she's the one who saves him from himself. they work on a case together, they start opening up to one another. Jughead's so worried about her he can't eat.

and then...you know what happens.

(i'll also note here that there was random bts stuff that strongly indicated the musical ep storyline had a drastic last-minute rewrite: lili tweeted a blue dress, suggesting the song with that line was meant for her character; RAS said cole had to do last-minute recording sessions; supposedly crew members have confirmed this was the case, too. since none of it's 100% confirmed you can take it all with a grain of salt, but i believe it.)

it was so fucking insulting as a viewer to give my time and attention to a show made by people who would not only randomly drop the threads they set up, but torpedo them altogether, and then behave like the fans are the ones somehow at fault for expecting a story that actually follows through on its own emotional and plot beats. we're just shippers, so our opinions are dumb and biased! it's just a tv show, so who cares! get over it!

so, i stopped watching, because i knew they would continue to write without any thought or respect for their characters or their audience, and therefore inevitably write themselves into another corner. and, shocker, i was right. they did it again, whisking everyone away to the 1950s because actually resolving any of the scenarios they set up was ToO hArD. why bother when you could just make every single character Righteously Angry and Incurably Horny all the time, lecture the audience about social issues that have already been mainstream progressive for the last several decades, and call it a "love letter" to your fans?

[babbletaels]

After playing sky for a while and not going through the elder cutscenes since the first time, I decided to do just that. I had such a powerful experience my first time in eden that I didn't want to let that experience go, I based my theories around it even. Right. I thought I was meeting myself, offering myself forgiveness for not being able to save everyone, forgiving myself and being forgiven all at the same time. But I have some more lore heavy ideas and theories now. Though I still don't know everything there is to know, so take it with a grain of salt.

I watched the Vault elders cutscene last, of course, and I realized that I had completely forgotten this one after all this time. Maybe you have too, so let's go through it a little.

You get to see all the elders constellations light up with more detail, then they all gather and bow to you to thank you, then you're shown.. A constellation that looks like a crown.

All the realms have constellations: this must be edens constellation of course. A crown. A king?

A king in a castle, what else could it be? I don't know what orb he is holding. When I saw this, it went really fast by and I got the feeling that by his expression the king is distraught, stuck in his castle, and immediately after you're teleported into the room that leads you to eden. All the elders showing up, bowing to you, showing you a distraught king in a castle and then taking you to the gate to eden, it seems clear to me that they're sending us on a mission: You saved us, despite what we did, please save him too.

So the next time I went to eden I would keep this in mind, I'm going there to find and save the king. But I've been to eden many times, I already know that I'll never meet the king, even if I save every single statue I won't save the king, because I never have saved him any of the other times.

I go to eden to fail my mission once again.

But with the king who I'll never meet in mind, things seem different. This time in eden I just so happen, maybe it was a glitch, to make it to the very last petrified friend with 18 winged light left. What do I do, just sit here and wait for death by falling rocks? I'm down to 10 winged light and I start crawling toward the giant crystal that never seems to get closer. Maybe.. What if I did make it there? Would I find him? But I didn't make it to the crystal, of course. I fall. I go through the painfully slow limping towards my winged light. I reach my savior.

And I stop for a moment to think. Why IS he sitting there, looking sad.. looking.. guilty? I reach my hand out and he takes it hesitantly. Of course maybe he is lonely but then wouldn't he be happy someone is here to get him? But it strikes me.

I'm not here to be saved from my doom, I'm not here in this room with a winged light who I need to revive myself. This light needs something from me. I help him up from the floor. He looks at me. I have the option to offer him a silent hug. I imagine if I had been here for the first time, what did I think this was? A hug of forgiveness to myself. Maybe I wasn't totally wrong after all. Because the light hesitates as I extend my arms to him, as if he's thinking

I don't deserve forgiveness

But I have already forgiven him. Does he know you don't need to think you deserve it for another person to forgive you? Because he accepts my embrace, and as he accepts being forgiven, he saves himself at the same time as he saves me. He's with me now, there's a crack where light streams in, and we fly out of the darkness together finally reaching the place beyond the crystal. His castle.

Idk.

Some people say the "winged light" in there is prince alef. I never understood why really. But I always for some reason believed the prince and the king to be the same person (obviously at different points in his life) so I kinda see it now.

(screenshots from sky wikis youtube channel because I wasn't fast enough to screenshot the actual cutscene)

[garden-of-joy]

Mistake| Kyle "Gaz" Garrick x reader

Summary: Gaz felt from the begging something about the mission was awry. But he didn't expect this...

I totally forgot about Gazfest! I hope I'm not too late @glitterypirateduck

Warnings: Angst, death

Gaz could feel it even before you left the base. Something about the mission was off. It rubbed him the wrong way when Laswell had her hands tied and forced out of the briefing room for "undisclosed reasons". The person that was in her stead seemed shifty and untrustworthy. His eyes were constantly jumping between the 141, never focusing on anyone in particular. The informat never regarded anyone by name. It was always "Captain" this, "Lieutenant" that, "Sergeant" third. Kyle never trusted that CIA informat.

What takes him out of his train of thoughts is you nudging him on the knee. "Kyle? Are you with us?" You whisper to him, making sure to not disrupt the meeting.

"Yeah love. But that skeezy guy doesn't look... Right. Something's off." He whispers back, leaning closer to you with his body.

"Relax, it's not like it's our first time without Laswell babysitting us." You reassure him, trying to be rational. Yeah sure, the replacement CIA guy doesn't look like the most trustworthy person out there, but to trust someone from the CIA fully is straight up stupid. Even with someone as close as Laswell, you still have to take everything with a grain of salt.

"I know, I just don't know if everything is right. Something is wrong." He keeps insisting, bouncing his leg nervously.

You put a hand on his thigh and press it down. "Relax, you're just being paranoid. Come on, we've gotta focus up on the brief." You move your hand up from his thigh and hold his hand, resting it between the two of you.

"You're probably right. Sorry love." Kyle shakes his head, feeling his bones pop a little and focuses on the briefing.

And even then, everything about the informat was wrong. From the way he didn't seem to look at anyone for too long, to how he never stopped changin his posture, but always had an anxious and hostile body language... What really sent him was when Price began strategizing how **his** team should go in, the CIA agent shot down his offer and gave a completely ridiculous idea. That they should all split up. And enter from four different sides, while Ghost keeps overwatch. The mission is a simple warehouse sweep, just go through it quickly, find what you need and get the hell out of dodge. It sounds painfully compromising, to send them alone like that so nobody has their six, having to comb through a warehouse with lots of potential flank routes and ambush spots.

And now here he is, two weeks later, pinned by what he assumes is dozens of russian mercenaries, taking turns to fire at his position. Some have already tried to flank him, but he picked them off, so now they just wait for him to come out, firing at him mostly to make a point. Kyle knows he can't stay here forever, or he'll eventually be caught off guard. He looks around himself, trying to find the nearest exist, his heart beating all the way up in his ears as bullets fly by, too close to his head for it to be safe. Comms are jammed, so he can't even call anyone to come help him, even though his squadmates have definitely heard the gunfire.

The exit to the north of him will take him to a more close quarters part of the warehouse. Maybe he can lose them there? Try and get any news from the team, maybe even find his comrades? At any rate, he'll have to get the hell out of dodge first, and then think about comms and whatnot.

He waits for the enemies to stop firing, just for a second, immediately springing off towards the exit, adrenaline coursing through his veins, his breathing heavy as he barrels towards the door. A bullet grazes his cheek, missing him by barely an inch, but he slams his entire bodyweight on the door, swinging it wide open. He doesn't stop sprinting, feeling the air going through his hair a mile an hour as he rounds corner after corner, in a frenzied sprint to get away. He stops after a minute, panting heavily, but catching his breath, securing his rifle.

"No doubt they'll go after me. I need to be ready. I need to-" is all he can manage to think, before he hears rushed footsteps coming in his direction. Footsteps, laboured by battle gear.

Gaz readies his rifle, setting it to full auto. His mind is going a mile an hour, Kyle can feel his hands itching to exact his flight or flight instinct, as his vision blurs around him. He doesn't quite realise what he's doing, adrenaline pumping through his veins with such intensity it can almost make them burst. He only comes to when a body hits the ground with a muted thump, all the rifles and punctured body armour clanking loudly to accompany the thump.

Gaz takes a cautious step to his fresh kill, to confirm it, but he freezes when he hears you. Or rather, the pained, blood-soaked croak you barely manage to let out. It pierces his ears like a thousand gunshots never could. Kyle lunges over to you and collapses to his knees, hoping that he misheard, but no. It is YOU. Your face, your attire, everything. Just like he remembers it. Except that now, every detail is getting bathed in blood, faster than anyone can help.

"Y/N, I... I..." He tries to find the words but he can't speak. His stomach is turning, making him squeamish. He can feel something rising up his asophagous, forming a lump in his throat as all he can do is gasp.

"I-I can fix this! I-I just need to call a medic." Gaz talks to you, clasping his palms around your wounds, desperately trying to stop the crimson fluid from seeping out of you, taking your life with it.

It's when he looks over at your face, a faint smile curled on your lips, that he feels it all. Death is staring back at him, its cold, boney hands dragging you away from where you need to be. In Gaz's arms, carrying you out of the goddamn warehouse. He stares back at your empty eyes, somehow so full of tenderness, transfixed on a place far beyond Kyle's reach.

His rationale is screaming for him to go, to at the very least save himself, but how can he? You're dead. Gone. Perished. And why? Because of him. It's his fault.

**I should have noticed your attire, your signature weapons, your fucking face!** His mind curses up a storm, drilling into him the severity of the situation. His gloves feel disgustingly warm, caked in something that isn't his, coated by something he wrongfully took. It's HIS rifle that shot HIS bullets that made it to YOUR stomach.

He takes your lifeless corpse in his trembling hands, his usual relaxed yet no-no sense attitude gone. Tears stream down his face as he presses you close, the salty drops finding their way into his mouth, painfully contorted as he tries not to cry. Gaz's ears begin to ring, but all sounds feel so distant now, as if coming from another planet. Everything feels distant and foreign to him, everything, except you. Kyle knows full well there's no going back. No amount of blood transfusions, stitches, resuscitation attempts, NOTHING, will ever help you. Because. Of. Him.

"Please Y/N forgive me, please..." He barely whimpers between stifled sobs, burying his head into the crook of your neck, your scent just like he remembers it. He wants to lose himself in you. He can't imagine a life without his one true love, especially knowing that you died by his own hands. All those dreadful, sorrowed sounds leave him, filling the room with unparalleled anguish, reverberating between the walls and drilling back into his head. It's too thick for him to move, too thick for him to hear the rapidly approaching footsteps and loud voices. It's too thick for him to see the bright red laser from a rifle, trained onto his head.

[i-read-that-manga-for-you]

Given

Admittedly, I read this manga a long time ago. Like when chapters were still coming out. I was still in high school at the time (holy fuck) and couldn't really articulate my feelings as well as I can now.

I had left this review (bits and pieces of it) on a manga site and decided I might as well put it on my tumblr, finetuning it, of course. First post, because in spite of its flaws, Given is still close to my heart. And I reread it again (somewhat) to make this a better review. I hope each person who reads this will reimburse me with 50 cents each (jk don't). So here it is. My impression of Given, with !!some!! talk about how SA is treated in BL/Yaoi culture in general.

Or not, this is just my two cents with no anthropology degree.

Do take what I say with a grain of salt, a piece of creative media does not exist in a vacuum, but this review treats it as one at times because I'm not really skilled enough to talk about any wider implications. I'm just some guy giving my review.

Spoilers ahead. Go ahead.

TW: Sexual Assault.

Honestly, this manga made me feel a lot. Good and bad feelings. But let's focus on what I liked.

Ugetsu.

He's on the phone, shhh.

I found Ugetsu to be a very compelling character, and it was a huge shame that he vanished partway through the manga. Basically? I have no criticisms about him as a character, he has his flaws and he's nuanced. He's interesting and compelling, and it's clear that he's someone who is still growing and learning to walk on his own two feet. I won't deny that his relationship with Akihiko was very toxic, but I definitely think this isn't something that can be blamed solely on him.

But with this out of the way. Let's talk about the pairings.

Let's talk about Akiharu.

Kizu Natsuki is an amazing artist... Even when I have certain issues with this manga.

Well. I have a lot of qualms with Akiharu.

For starters, Akihiko assaulted Haruki. I'll never forget that. The fact that they ended up getting together anyway was a huge point of contention for me. Given was framed as a story about love more than a traditional story about BL/yaoi which (sorry) usually leans towards the sex. (This is not to say that sex and romance are separated, well they are but they are linked rather than being one in the same. You can have either, like they're hot/cold water but they come from the same faucet.)

But I feel that having this scene in rather than an argument feels completely wrong. I'm someone who will digest pretty much anything the world throws at me, but the Akiharu assault scene came off wrong and it came off scary. (Note: I say scary but I definitely mean much more than that, I just feel like "shouldn't be romanticized" doesn't encapsulate all of it. This topic is not something I'm qualified to talk about, so I don't want to overstep any boundaries.)

And to be honest, that's good because SA shouldn't be romanticised, for that, a big well done to our author. I just wish the aftermath was dealt with better.

This is terrifying. Please retract your words.

In spite of the SA scene being scary, afterwards all seemed to be resolved the moment it was revealed that Akihiko had nowhere else to go.

Everything for them goes uphill from here. Yay.

I just have to wonder what was the point of that buildup if you were just going to allow things to end nicely like that. With a scene like that, you'd think that the manga was saying that "SA is scary, it's terrifying and it's something that you shouldn't forget even if it's BL/Yaoi." But, why did it end up like this.

What I'm trying to say is: What does it matter that Akihiko apologised (twice), he still assaulted Haruki, he assaulted a friend. Even worse is the way that they're framed as a healthy couple afterwards, this just made me all the more uncomfortable. I feel like this is saying "SA is scary" but also saying "the power of love and friendship absolves everything". I've seen some people talk about the fact that SA happened, but haven't seen them say how it was "resolved". I think it's more to do with yaoi/BL fiction culture, that we've grown to accept SA that is unaddressed in our media to the point that Akihiko's apology is like a prayer more than something that's not even worth a second glance.

Saying that Akiharu started off rocky is an understatement, but if I pretend it never happened, I can say for sure that they are much healthier than Akigetsu, and they deserve each other. It's just not good storytelling especially because I don't really understand the motivations of Haruki liking Akihiko.

I once said that Haruki's character arc was based on Akihiko and that was my bad. I was wrong. Haruki, in fact, has a minor character arc, that isn't really to do with Akihiko, about how he feels insecure surrounded by geniuses in the band and this gets resolved by Akihiko saying that they wouldn't be able to function if all of them were geniuses, and Haruki himself seeing Akihiko hard at work. But I had completely forgotten about this arc, my bad, but my point still stands. Haruki deserved a better character arc.

I don't have a smart comment for this unfortunately. Eat your veggies??

In spite of saying this, I'm not an Akiharu hater, I swear. But I just found that ship much less compelling than Akigetsu in general. Akigetsu was a relationship where they were both incredibly toxic towards each other, there was an imbalance in the fact that Ugetsu literally owned the place they were living in, as well as how he'd kick Akihiko out whenever things were rocky. However, I think the end of their relationship was dealt well on both sides, their toxicity towards each other was framed in a negative light as it should have been. They ended the relationship and went their separate ways, this was the best ending for them. For Akiharu and Akigetsu: The difference between these two relationships is that one was dealt well and the other was dealt wrong. Akiharu deserve each other and Ugetsu deserves to learn how to grow by himself.

Anyway, another point of contention was, in spite of the healthy nature of Akiharu. Somehow, the friendship between the two couples seems to have waned and it was pretty disappointing to see. I think it started before this, but the first time it was obvious to me was this scene.

I know you're in the middle of something, but don't be mean to Mafuyu >:(.

Context: This is Chapter 40. Akiharu are in a moment of intimacy and Uenoyama is knocking at their door trying to get advice.

We've seen that Mafuyu is a very reserved person, to see that Akihiko was so ready to tell Mafuyu to stop coming over (even if it is to stop him from coming over so suddely) right to his face was extremely immature.

Basically, imagine if that had been Mafuyu. Personally, I feel like Mafuyu would have been hurt like hell and closed right back up. This scene is something played for laughs and that's something so disappointing. Given is shown to be a band of friends, but in the end it seemed more like two couples who hang out sometimes. Also the fact that both Akihiko and Haruki are pushing Uenoyama to get Mafuyu to rejoin the band. That's something else that bothers me heavily. That they're treating Mafuyu as Uenoyama's responsibility because they're dating. It's a band that is sure to fall apart if you are not making an effort to support each other equally. I mean, it doesn't have to be entirely equal but points for effort and they get no points here. It's funny because they were at least a little self-aware of this prior.

Dating in a band is something that is nuanced, of course. But it sure is funny to see them practically go down the same route they condemned.

That's my criticism of Akiharu.

So, what about the other instance of SA? I'm talking about Shizusumi and Hiiragi, of course.

Let's talk about Shizuragi.

Here they are! Let's talk about them!

Admittedly the first time around, I wasn't particularly into Shizuragi, I was too busy mourning the absense of Ugetsu. But it was during their sex scene where I realised something was very wrong. I was having flashbacks to the Akiharu assault chapter but this time it was played as "love" rather than something reprehensible. Once again, assault was in the manga and it, once again, resolved with badly.

I feel like sexual assault being played off as "love" and being resolved literally the next chapter with the victim being all kosher with it, should be garnering people's "??? what the fuck"s and not to bat for the opposing team for once but where are the complaints. I've actually seen some people talking about this chapter, but I would have expected more.

Hiiragi said he was scared and was crying, but they still fucked anyway. :D <- smile of shock.

Um what. Haha... ha........ :D <- terrifed smile of shock.

I don't know whether it would have been worse that he knew he was assaulting Hiiragi or whether he didn't know at all. But he knew.

Shizusumi confessed his love the morning after and it was all okay. But, to be honest, the fact that it was played off as being "all okay" makes this even worse. It's normal in yaoi/BL for SA to be played off as love, but you'd think that the last place you'd see this is in Given of all places. SA is SA and the fact that Hiiragi was so accepting of what happened to him afterwards says something about this the culture of BL/yaoi and how we just go along with it says something about this sentiment of how "yaoi is always going to be yaoi".

We're done? We're done.

There are no more SA scenes (that I can remember). But I do want to touch on Mafuyu and Uenoyama as briefly as possible (This is a recount of my experience after all). So, Mafuyama.

Ah, yes. The start of everything.

Admittedly, I didn't actually find their relationship super compelling. This is because I tend to get tunnel vision on characters I like (in this case, I heavily tunnel visioned on Ugetsu). I do like them both, they just didn't fit within my vision. I thought they were sweet but I also see a lot of complaints about how Mafuyu was stuck on Yuki and Uenoyama was getting backseated and I do agree with this. Kind of.

I think Mafuyu's story is about growth as a person, it's like what people say: You don't move on or lose your grief, you grow around it. Grief doesn't get smaller, you just get bigger. The person he loved died and I don't think it's fair to say that he has to get over Yuki. Grief is something that sticks with you everywhere, something you have to carry every day. They're still teenagers, they're still young and still have room to grow.

But as a story? Sheesh, instead of Haruki having no place in their circle. I felt like Uenoyama, even when he's the protagonist, wasn't given his spotlight in his own story. There is no character arc for him, there is nothing for him and that's just not fair. There are two people in a relationship, so why does it always feel like, narratively, Uenoyama always comes as an afterthought?

You could have had a character arc about this... Relationships are meant to be balanced, sweetie...

I just think it's a shame, but they're nowhere near as unhealthy as the other couples in Given, so I'm giving them a gold star.

(Minor irk, I do not remember when this happened but why the hell does Yayoi (Uenoyama's sister) get a character arc (where she comes to an understanding about Mafuyama feelings for each other, but also the gay in general) but the man himself doesn't?)

So, with Mafuyama, I feel like the story could have focused a little more on Uenoyama's side. But I feel like it's similar to how Haruki's story kind of got the backseat to Akigetsu drama happenings at the time. Shrug, we can't have it all.

He's beautiful...

That's honestly... all my thoughts. Wow! That was a lot of them. I think there's a lot to be said about how yaoi treats SA and dub-con in general, even in a manga that's not even focused on the sex.

With that said, I don't think BL shouldn't have SA or dubious scenes but the aftermath should be dealt with better afterwards. I think with Given, it's a start that the SA (at least with Akiharu) wasn't romanticised, but the aftermath was just poorly executed.

But I'm not the yaoi police, I hold no authority and I don't support purity culture. I'm not an anti-anything and I also believe that fiction should be fiction. What people enjoy should no way equate to a person's worldview. But, this was just all my perspective and my opinion. I said it and now I'm done. Haha... Anyway, my paypal is—

[clearwillow]

So I just saw the post you reblogged about A.I on Tumblr and I'm not sure what to think. I want to get back into post my Inuyasha art but now I'm worried about this whole ordeal. On the one hand I don't want to give up making and sharing my art w/ others (esp. Since I haven't in a while), but now I'm scared about it being stolen and other artists I love giving up posting. This whole debate with A.I has me so confused and scared and I really don't know whats going on. I'm also curious about what you will do if this deal goes through. Do you plan on using Glaze or something similar?

Come sit with me, anon cause to be frank, I'm trying to take that particular post with a grain of salt. I hope it's wrong, because it wasn't long ago we were hit with "oh my god tumblr is closing where is everyone going" and we're still here. But I won't lie, it pisses me off greatly that it's even a possibility.

I completely understand, and I say - go ahead and post it. Don't give up on art because a bunch of fuck bois with no talent in their short hairs decide that generative technology is the way to go. I honestly hope that it crashes and burns in the next couple years, if not sooner. It had potential before fat old men in suits decided that they had to have more money than they know what to do with. I'm not quitting, because it's my income. It's my joy. I am also fueled by spite, because if I wasn't I wouldn't be here right now.

Art getting stolen is always going to be a thing to worry about, even before AI unfortunately. People will repost without credit and still take credit when that post gets more traction. Create a watermark and be a menace to the reposters, I say. There's Glaze, like you mentioned, and Nightshade. I've heard you have to do them in that order for it to be effective.

You can also search haveIbeentrained.com to see if your work has been picked up and request for it to be pulled from the databases. I've found three more of mine this evening. One was one of my mother's paintings.

I've already erased 15 years of work off the internet when I deleted my deviantart gallery at the end of 2022. Some of that work is so old it was never shared anywhere else. I may not even have that work anymore. If the deal were to go through, I'm not deleting my blog. It's been active since 2012; there's no way I could go through and find every art post and delete it to repost glazed/nightshade versions. It won't affect the reblogs. I haven't personally tried Glazing anything yet because I'm not sure if it'd even be effective with my style, but it's something to try when time allows.

I'm gonna say it again - don't give up on your art. Whether you're doing it as a career (I dare someone say art is a sidehustle, this is not MLM and I am not some 2-bit influencer) or because it is something you just enjoy doing for the hell of it, you should continue. I've seen people give up entirely on art in the last year, and it makes me mad. If art is something you want to do, you shouldn't let anyone make you feel like you can't.

And if you need someone to rally behind you and cheer you on, you've got me in your corner 💕 Hell, feel free to tag me in some of your art, if you'd like!

[radical-boy-kisser]

Hihi!! this might b a bit long, sry 4 that :))). how do we/I tell if I'm a system? I've been doing A LOT of research specifically on osdd 1b, bc I fit most every symptom, but I don't like self diagnosing. on the other hand I don't have the resources to get diagnosed. I can list symptoms in comments if u guys need. but yeah we r really confused rn. sorry I keep switching in between I and we pronouns. Also we feel like my child hood wasn't traumatic enough to have osdd so I feel like we r making it all up!! anyways sorry this was a bad tangent! hope u hv a nice day :)))) /nfta

Hello!! Thank you for reaching out to me, but I will preface my answer with this:

I AM NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL!!!!! I AM JUST A SILLY LITTLE GUY™️ ON THE INTERNET!!! PLEASE TAKE EVERYTHING I SAY WITH A GRAIN OF SALT!!!!!!!

ALSO! ITS OKAY TO BE WRONG!! IM NOT TRYING TO SAY YOU ARE OR AREN'T A SYSTEM, BUT JUST TO ANYONE READING THIS WHO THINKS THEY MIGHT BE A SYSTEM AND IT TURNS OUT THEY ARENT THATS OKAY!!!!!!! YOU DISCOVERED SOMETHING ABOUT YOURSELF ANY WAY!!

Anyways, as a system I can list some of the symptoms I experienced before realizing I was a system and some now and if you relate to a suspicious amount then maybe that's your sign!! (Very very sorry if this is not enough/what u asked for 😭)

Also, self diagnosing is perfectly valid in this situation! Self diagnosing is valid when you don't have the resources and do proper and extensive research on the subject, and even more so with DID since so many people don't diagnose it, with some outright refusing to!

Here are some of the symptoms I experienced before realized I had funky people in my head :

• Gaps in memory, such as not being able to remember what happened the entire week, or even that same day. Especially more so for stressful/traumatic events. (Also just straight up not being able to remember most of your childhood. Again, assuming you're a system, you're not gonna think you had enough childhood trauma because DID is meant to make you completely forget that ❤️)

• Feeling like a completely different person. The first time I actually noticed I switched, it felt really intense and whenever I'd (wasn't ME, obviously, but I'm using "I/me" for the sake of simplicity) try to recall myself, it'd be a different person with a different name and physical appearance and such, and the name "Max" felt so distant and as if it didn't belong to me.

During the first times I'd switch when it first developed, I'd feel like someone different during that time, but I'd usually not notice/forget about it later

• Identity crisis central

Now, here are some of the symptoms we now experience knowing we're a system:

(We still experience memory gaps and such obviously. Also, not trying to say our symptoms just straight up switches after we realized we were a system, these are just some we have realized are symptoms of DID and now look out for)

• Seeing messages, tasks done, notes written that I have absolutely no recollection of doing

• Not feeling like myself, but also no one else in particular and it's like "who am i" (blurring)

• Disassociation. HEAVY disassociation.

These are all the things that I could think of right now, so I really hope this helps!! I know DID and OSDD-1B aren't the same thing but I really hope this helps!!! (i don't know much about OSDD-1B because I completely forgot everything I learned abt it 😭)

But uhh ya that's all hope you have a nice day as well and good luck on your discovery journey! (Or not! Idk if that phrase goes both ways I'm sorry!!)

Edit : Also pls reach out to other systems please don't take just my take/view/whatever on it 🙏 ty

[quackle]

What’s your opinion of Disventure Camp All Star as for now?

overall opinion right now is... hm... all i can say for now is "eh." let's discuss under the cut. (sorry for the rambles, per usual + sorry if things are rushed because i am At Work Bored Out Of My Mind)

ok. so.

is all stars my fav so far? well... no. don't get me wrong, there's some things i enjoy. it's still disventure camp and there are still some hilarious moments that i enjoy. the show has sooo much heart! and it's a product of hard work, which shows through things like certain elimination ceremonies (i'm thinking lake, tess, and ashley here), dialogue (fiore is always funny + tom's dumb one-liners with aiden staring into the camera makes me giggle every time), and voice acting (dcas voice actors i'll always love yall).

i've grown to love characters like tess, ally, gabby, and grett more this season too!! like i smile when i see them personally. i like their writing directions for the most part!

but there are other things in this show that i don't vibe with. yul is a whole topic of his own (tldr i do notttt like any single thing about yul's character / how he treats grett / how he's written in general at all, im sorry). some of these remaining characters are giving little to NOTHINGGGGG (let's all stare extra hard at aiden here! and idk maybe blink in alec, ally, and riya's direction for quick seconds). and the whole tomjake thing is not for me, which sucks considering it takes up a decent portion of a lot of eps. (then again idgaf about this ship and never have + i detest romantic complications due to lack of communication in almost every single media there is, so take this one with a grain of salt)

i think a mutual of mine on twitter said it best. something like, "with an all stars season, it's extra important to either highlight characters that might not have gotten much attention previously, or showcase a new side to these characters that intrigues the audience. they're all stars! prove it!" and while some have proven that imo, others never really get the opportunity.

so yeah. so far everything is a mixed bag for me, which is why i deem this season as "eh" so far.

but that being said. the show isn't over yet!! so i can't give a full opinion in good faith. when the whole season completes, i think i'll have a more cohesive opinion. so im sorry if this was all over the place anon </3

[kimbapisnotsushi]

you seem to have a good read on HQ and your takes are great, so i have a question...and if you'd rather not go there, please ignore this! but i see oikawa get called "arrogant" quite often and i'm curious, would you say he is? what is it that makes people think that? imo he has a plenty of flaws, but i truly don't think arrogance is one of them. self-centered, sure, but not arrogant i think. i'm open to being wrong, i'm just legit so confused by that particular criticism, it makes me doubting my reading comprehension. i feel like that one post that's like "free my man, he didn't do that. he did a lot of other stuff tho" LOL. if you do answer this, then thanks for your time!

oh, dear anon. this is a very very big question and i'm honored you think i am capable of providing an answer that does it justice!! i don't consider myself an oikawa expert by far, but i'll do my best because he's still very beloved to me, and i hope whatever i say helps!

(but also - maybe take what i say with a grain of salt LMAO)

anyways, to get the main point out of the way: i completely agree that oikawa isn't arrogant! i actually haven't seen any commentary about that myself (bless!!!), so i can't say for sure why some people might think that, but my guess is that they think his pridefulness = arrogance — they think that the confidence he has in himself and seijoh contributes nothing to their actual power and is utterly meaningless if they don't win, especially in the face of ushijima. which, like, come on. what kind of captain would he be if he wasn't confident in himself and his teammates? is he supposed to tell them that they're going to lose??? is he supposed to discourage their hard work and effort???

or maybe it's because oikawa acts like he's all that, but doesn't have anything to show for it. who does he think he is? what does he think his pride is worth? what right does he have to go around making grand declarations when he has nothing to his name?

(which isn't entirely true, either, but we'll get into that, promise.)

now, do i think that he can, occasionally, be flippant, shallow, and/or petty? yeah, sure. he's got one hell of a personality about it. even iwaizumi says as much. oikawa is great at being a little shit. it's one of my favorite things about him!

but is oikawa genuinely arrogant, or self-centered? well . . . i don't think so.

see, here's the thing about oikawa: he knows he's good, but he doesn't think he's good enough. i think it'd be easiest to really explain what that meant if we broke this down into two separate parts, so let's give it a go, shall we?

(buckle up, friends, because it's about to get LONG. also: TIMESKIP SPOILERS!! and there's a tldr at the start of the tags because. WOW.)

so, first things first: if people are calling oikawa arrogant, then i'm like 99% sure that they don't actually know what the word "arrogant" means.

"arrogant" is used to describe someone full of themselves. it's used to describe someone conceited and pompous. it's used to describe someone so assured of and invested in their self-importance that they don't care for other people, and if it seems like they do, then it's usually wildly off the mark and still serves to inflate their own egos.

oikawa has never once been like that. he's been pretty much the exact opposite, in fact.

and yeah, sure, by his third year of high school, he knows he's good at volleyball, and that's fine! it's perfectly all right to claim you're good at something if you have the skills/experience to back it up. confidence is healthy as long as it isn't in overabundance, and we actually see a lot of this throughout the series!

(not to mention that this was where ushijima fell short. he was overflowing with confidence. he did not believe, for even a single second, that hinata shouyou and his meager, scrappy little flock of crows could beat him.

but oikawa? he knew. he knew what it looked like to make something bloom.)

the key to oikawa's confidence that made him better was that he could pinpoint others' strengths and weaknesses just as well as he could with his own. and (bear with me, please, i might get kind of boring here bc it's nothing that hasn't been said in the manga before) i don't mean it in the way we see the coaches or more analytical players do, as observations to be taken advantage of by everyone else; i mean that in the sense of how vital it is to his position as a setter. that was always the biggest difference between oikawa and kageyama: no matter how much more raw talent kageyama had, no matter how much better oikawa believed him to be, kageyama, especially in the beginning, struggled to do what oikawa could with a team. kageyama struggled to bring out the best in each player. and it wasn't because he didn't know how -- oikawa freely admitted that kageyama had the skill for it, that kageyama, once he got his shit together, could win against him -- it was because kageyama didn't have that same confidence in himself.

(not until much later, anyways. but that's another story, for another time.)

so, oikawa's confident. he knows he's good. he can bring out the best in each player. he's got a killer serve (and a killer smile!), a mind for tactics that borders on machievallianism, and cherishes the trust he is given like it's something precious. his coaches let him lead without leaning on them. his team has the utmost respect and admiration for him. he has a reputation. from karasuno to shiratorizawa to the whole of miyagi -- there is not a single character who knows oikawa tooru and would believe that he is, in any way, bad at volleyball.

but it's not enough. despite all of that, oikawa still doesn't think he's good enough. and that, friends, brings us to the second point.

oikawa tooru is nothing if not passionate.

so were the others, of course. kageyama kept going after his grandfather's death. hinata kept going while being a nobody from nowhere with no one to back him up. atsumu kept going while osamu didn't. it's not even about just those who went pro -- kenma, kuroo, noya, and everyone else found things that they were passionate about and kept going with it. the entire story revolves around loving what you do and trying to keep that love alive, and, sometimes, that can be really, really difficult when it seems like it doesn't love you back.

oikawa was so insecure over kageyama to the point where he nearly decked the poor kid. oikawa got crushed by ushijima-- who kept telling him that his team was not good enough, that his choices were not good enough, that there was nothing good enough to be proud of -- for years in a row. oikawa was taught that there would always be someone better than him no matter how skilled he was, but if he let that stop him then he didn't fucking belong on the court in the first place.

oikawa tooru is intimately acquainted with not being good enough, but he keeps trying to be. he keeps going. he tries to keep the love alive even if he's not loved back. he pushes and practices and takes a plane far from home to become even better. even if he doesn't have the skill, even if he doesn't have the talent, even if he doesn't have the love -- he still has his pride. and what does that mean, in the end? how far does that take him?

in the end, oikawa tooru walks across a world stage and sees people who believed in him on the other side and calls it a family reunion. in the end, he gets to play the volleyball that reminds him of why he loves it and how it gives him so much love back. in the end, his pride is unyielding and unbreakable, a product of the forge. he molded it with his own two hands. he will not let it falter so easily.

arrogance would not have taken oikawa tooru this far. i hope this has proven that he is anything but.

remember: instinct is something you polish. talent is something you make bloom. and never, ever let anyone else tell you what your pride is worth.

[abubblingcandle]

I love your Jamie Tartt meta so much and seeing your take on things is so interesting! People have been reblogging with tags about Jamie at Manchester City. What's your take on that?

I can't sleep and I'm back on my bullshit about S1 Jamie and his return to Man City and the Man City of it all and writing fic so you can definitely have more meta.

Because for me, I completely get the opinion that being benched for half of one game by Ted in Man City's eyes isn't much fodder for getting rid of Jamie. But we also don't see, apart from that last game in the season, Man City actually wanting Jamie there.

Full Disclosure - Now I am not a Pep fan, I'm actually a Pep enemy and will always wax lyrical about how he's not as good as he thinks he is. So that is the grain of salt to be taken here.

Back to Jamie - He's a top scorer. He's a dynamic versatile forward. Nothing that Cartrick or Ted taught him was worthwhile so he would have returned to city in the same shape that he left really just with game minutes under his belt. Yet ... he doesn't make the team. He only gets a few minutes, a few touches of the ball. When he does touch the ball he creates and he scores ... so why isn't he playing regularly?

Say it with me now ✨disciplinary issues✨

Because Jamie returning to Man City under a cloud isn't only bad for Jamie's reputation ... it's embarrassing for City as well. You've got this talent that you've fostered through the academy, spent money on, grown yourselves and he's got an attitude, needs the edges sanding down, doesn't really fit into your scheme so you send him off. Either he'll come back and be City ready or he'll come back with a nice little price tag for the summer. But neither happens and so your little academy pet project is now a "problem". He comes back still rough around the edges but now with a reputation for not caring about his teammates, fighting on the pitch and not going to training. No one is going to want to risk him until he proves he can fall in line but City can't risk playing him if he's not going to fall in line with their scheme and be a good fit which he likely won't be because if he would then he would have done it by now. They are at an impasse.

He's nearly 24, the longer he goes without breaking through the more people are going to look and go "what's wrong with him?" so your next option is to try over summer and send him out on loan in Europe or to a lower league. But you call up a League 1 team and go "hey wanna loan this guy who got in the teens goals in the prem last year?" What will they say? ... "What's wrong with him?"

Teams do not want a loan player that will stir the pot. The last thing you want is what happened at Richmond where a player who is only there for a few months fucks with the dynamics.

For an example of this there is Djed Spence. A Tottenham player who was returned for "not fitting the ideals of the club" by Leeds United. He was immediately put up for sale. No sale came through. He was eventually loaned to Genoa and is probably going to be sold there. Player sent away to a lower ranking club to mature and get game time he wouldn't at his home club. Returned for disciplinary issues. Rejected but barely anyone is interested.

We then get to the LCA of it all, because in my opinion if Jamie was getting good minutes in preseason, a chance of starting for City regularly then that's the dream and yeah his dad would have been shit but Jamie wouldn't throw away the dream. If he genuinely thought I am one of the starting eleven then Jamie wouldn't have wanted to do anything to risk that. But if preseason is rolling around and no one is interested in signing him, loaning him and he's sat on the bench for 75mins of most matches then ... getting away from it all looks a lot more tempting.

[sandwichboiscum]

Alright listen up peoples

I am hopped up on two energy drinks and I have like no caffeine tolerance and I'm in marching band so here's some head canons about how the TF2 mercs might go about being in a marching band + the instrument they would play. Also, keep in mind this is only my first year in marching band so take this crap with a huge grain of salt

Scout: Snare drum. Literally one of his taunts is just him pulling out a bucket of chicken and drumming on it. He would play the music quite well, but I feel like he would suck at marching, especially the slower songs because he's just used to going super fast.

Soldier: Trumpet, you know why. I think he would be at least decent at marching (literally what do soldiers do) but he would struggle with directional changes because I struggle with directional changes and it's funny to project.

Pyro: Bass drum because he can't really play a woodwind or brass instrument for obvious reasons. He has NO clue what tf s going on because he sees everyone else as little floating babies so it's hard to march. Also, like come on, it's Pyro.

Demo: Clarinet because I said so. Also he'd just be too drunk to march most of the time, but when he's sober he'd be really good at it.

Heavy: He seems like a flute kinda guy because it's funny to think of the biggest man in TF2 playing one of the smallest instruments in marching band. But if we're being serious, bass drum because it's the only one he wouldn't completely crush. He'd probably be ok at marching, but he'd also probably struggle with directional changes, especially going backwards.

Engie: Trumpet. Idk why, but it just feels like he'd do trumpet. He'd probably be amazing at forwards marching but the second he had to do hip shifts and backwards marching he'd quit.

Medic: He seems like a saxophone. (Help my brain hurts) He'd also probably be very good at marching because it's very repetitive a lot of the time and he seems like a person who likes repetitive motions like marching (or in some cases stabbing someone because he got hit in the head by a trombone. No, I'm not saying this because it happened. Not the stabbing part I mean).

Sniper: Also saxophone. Obviously. He'd be ok at marching, but he'd also be very focused on everything he's doing right he forgets to check what he's doing wrong and then develops bad habits like stepping off with the wrong foot.

Spy: Flute, idk why but it just makes sense. He'd probably be pretty good at marching, but he would hate it especially it he has to march in someplace that's really dusty because even if he's wearing a marching uniform and not his regular suit he'd still be really picky about making sure that it doesn't get dirty, so he'd always find some way to sit out whenever he's marching in a parade or something.

(Notice I didn't put trombones as a head canon for any of them. That's because the trombones suck. Jk, I love y'all but I have been hit in the head with a slide one too many times.)

Just wanna also say, when I say hip shifts, I mean feet face either the left or right of the audience but the chest is still facing the audience. I hate them, they are uncomfy (especially going backwards) and make me want to die and this year my halftime performance is like nothing but hip shifts.

Thank you for reading my caffeine fueled post and have a lovely day. If you don't have a good day I will force you to have a good damn day

[nataliesscatorccio]

S3 hopes or predictions?? mostly for the teens

thanks for asking and thanks for waiting while I re-watched to answer! i'll keep the list short and sweet without (much) explanation because I'd love to expand on some of these later while we fill the time between seasons.

Predictions:

1. A Tai-for-president with Shauna-for-VP antler queen campaign. I think we'll see dissension over Nat's leadership in light of the cabin burning, but also Shauna clearly wants it and Tai has already been "nominated" by Van. Just like in girlhood the power dynamics stay shaky. Queen for a Day etc etc

2. Shauna is going to sleep with Travis. Travis knows Jackie in an intimate way Shauna never can. Shauna knows Javi in an intimate way Travis never can. The flesh is gone they can't consume any more of the person they love and the person they killed. I think they're going to get carnal about it.

3. Someone will refuse the draw (also, how do they still have the cards after the cabin burns? My guess is that's what Van stayed back to save after getting Tai out... or maybe they don't burn oOoOo)

4. Callie will (accidentally?) kill Jeff re: Shauna's "if you cum inside me I will raise the baby out of spite to become a killing machine and hunt you down." It wasn't on purpose but I think she might have succeeded anyway. Callie on her Mommy issues shit but also on some Shauna killing Jackie shit, another way to bind them inextricably.

Hopes:

1. I would be over the moon to see Akilah wear the pink converse from the Pilot. I don't believe anyone has yet?! I feel like it's a detail they're saving, and I hope it's being saved for Akilah so we can see her wear them and know she makes it to pitgirl/rescue

2. Personally I'd love to see a few new background characters introduced! I think Yellowjackets has historically done a great job developing background characters into focal characters (Mari this season, maybe Gen next?) and I don't mind to play the "yeah they've totally been here all along" game because, well, they have! 18 girls at the burial etc etc.

3. Saracusa death please 🙏🏼

4. In a completely different tune to my predictions for season two, I hope Ben lives.

Okay turns out I did not keep this short or sweet. Take them all with a grain of salt, but here's hoping! (Hoping I'm right? Hoping I'm wrong? Not sure!)