#the alienation and the apathy

[betterdr3]

Post-SDR2 Izuru Kamukura HCs!! 🍊🌿

He chose to go by Hajime Hinata before going into the NWP (if not to hide his identity then to make things more interesting.)

You play as him controlling and watching Hajime in the NWP (we know more than Hajime does, like moments with Nagito that Hajime never actually sees)

Post NWP he's back to himself but because he had a player perspective he connects with his past AND his avatar, and decides (after a miniscule amount of socialization with the 77th class) that he wants to try being a real person, and so he actively chooses to be Hajime. This is NOT easy for him, and he really scares the other survivors sometimes (mostly Souda lol), but he enjoys the challenge, and finds engaging with the monotony of daily life far more fulfilling now that he can actually feel.

Soon enough it comes as easily as breathing, but he gets worse at the mask the more fatigued he is. Getting drunk also brings out Izuru, so he tends to avoid alcohol.

He has focus issues and frequent headaches when he isn't sleeping well (which is often because he gets so buried in the work he does for FF) basically he has medically induced ADHD

He still finds many things excessively boring and tedious, but he tends to have a "Try anyways" attitude to honor Chiaki's existence. (many of the things he doesn't like are things he forced himself to do to reach success before the Kamukura project, but he actually has very little memory of life before that point)

He wants to study Nagito like a bug in a cage, which works for Nagito because HE wants to worship Hajime like a GOD. They never get over this and convince themselves this is just what having a close friend is like, for people like them.

He has scars all over his body from the experiments, and is really self conscious about them, sometimes not even believing that they're really there. He hopes if he hides his chest and keeps his hair at juuust the right length everyone can just forget about it and treat him like NWP Hajime. No one does this because they're also scarred (physically mentally and emotionally) from their times as remnants, and they care about his feelings and don't want to upset him.

While the heterochromia is a fun visual metaphor for both Hajime and Izuru being in the drivers seat, its kinda silly that there's already a character from the SAME GAME making fun of the trope... So he just has red eyes actually. I think he wears green color contacts sometimes when he gets dysphoric.

It is not possible for him to have any of class 78's talents unless there were previous alumni with the same talent, so he probably doesn't possess many of their talents (I don't really like to imagine him with ANY of their talents. Make him lose to Hina in a swim contest, also he has shit style! Fashionistan't.)

He LOVES being able to learn new things, though it doesn't happen often. He typically only learns new things about the daily patterns of his neighbors, which he has to keep to himself because it creeps everyone else out.

This is a common one, but I like the idea that he builds a library of self written instruction manuals and textbooks. The idea that someone went out of their way during the tragedy to basically burn informational texts, kill all the people who knew the information, and destroy internet servers is so despairful that it MUST have happened. So he aims to rebuild, and that's his reparation to society, building the library of alexandria. (or Hinata? as it were?)

So reserve course Hajime was a cis straight (bi egg) man. So obsessed with becoming above average it hurts. Pre NWP Izuru was unhuman in a way, rejecting sexuality and gender as concepts that mattered. But Post NWP is aromantic bisexual demiboy I think. Not that he'd put those words to it but that feeling of alienness is still there.

[church-of-crayak]

hes so easy to draw

[speedyphilosopherpanda]

Good grief. Where have all of my desire, volition, and purpose gone? This point in my life, which I initially deemed to be a phase, seems never-ending.

[2nd-coming-of-kamote]

im crying so far all the dead alnst characters got their own songs and mizi and luka's songs are the ones they sing in relation to other characters

[bookshelfpassageway]

i'm gonna be the one insufferable bastard on this earth that liked everhood 2, huh

[boof-chamber]

we happen upon a fellow human being, beat down, tormented, suffering in agony, and we think, “poor thing, hope someone helps them out,” then go on with our day as normal. it’s not our responsibility to help or even to care. the mere expectation that we should care for and about anyone we’re not legally obligated to is seen as exceedingly unfair. caring for and about others is a burden, thankless drudgery, a job someone else should get paid to do for us, someone who is qualified with the proper training and credentials.

those who find themselves in desperate need of others to care for and about them will eventually come to find out that it’s no one’s job to help them or care. so no one does. but everyone they encounter is fully confident that there’s someone, somewhere, whose job it is to do something to help. this unshakable faith that the markets provide an adequate substitute for human social connection allows them to go on with their day, free from any burdensome sense of responsibility toward their fellow human being.

[pyreflydust]

Preferences in induvial non-human animals can be fascinating because people will talk about them like "dogs love this" and "cats love that" but they're just as likely to like or not like the same things as any human.

Today I introduced Munchie to the scent of the (carefully wrapped and protected from a distance) bucket of soft peppermints and he recoiled like it was the worst scent he had ever smelled. Honey used to try to get into the bucket and sniff all the peppermints and I had to be very careful eating them around her so she wouldn't actually get into them.

Similarly, he hates the smell of toothpaste. She would jump on the counter just to sniff your mouth after you've finished brushing. My boy just Hates Mint Things I guess.

[voidcharms]

i kno i shouldnt hold my breath but i hope the average lib voter is at least beginning to realize that the dems and kamala harris' campaign Especially are ratcheting towards fascism + continuously conceding to right-wing framing on Multiple issues at this point

engage in lesser evil voting all you want but if the extent of your political participation is just showing up to the polls once every four years vote blue no matter whoing thru the primaries w no concern for differences in policy between two dem candidates bc "theyre both blue they cant be That different" then like. brother u got no place to be wokescolding leftists for just tryna ring the alarm bells idk

the prospect of another trump presidency Is terrifying thats not smth i'd ever deny, but the closer to nov 5th we get the more terrified i am of the long term, slowburn dmg kamala's presidency may bring. we're unfortunately pretty fucked either way at this point

[oglegoggle]

My brother graduated today. I’m proud of him. I wish I could’ve been there. Nobody… nobody cheered for him in the video of him crossing the stage while the students before and after both had uproarious applause from their families in attendance. Our parents didn’t cheer for him. He’s legitimately the first high school graduation they’ve attended because I refused to do the ceremony because I didn’t feel like it was an accomplishment because they didn’t treat it as one. Their other four children are all dropouts. And they didn’t cheer for my brother.

[potatoesandsunshine]

elsie is sooo sweet and adorable she just occasionally says things like "well when the world gets destroyed we're gonna be the ones that did it, not these assholes" and everybody says aww that's funny. but she means it. it's a matter of professional pride

[elodieunderglass]

changes and trends in horror-genre films are linked to the anxieties of the culture in its time and place. Vampires are the manifestation of grappling with sexuality; aliens, of foreign influence. Horror from the Cold War is about apathy and annihilation; classic Japanese horror is characterised by “nature’s revenge”; psychological horror plays with anxieties that absorbed its audience, like pregnancy/abortion, mental illness, femininity. Some horror presses on the bruise of being trapped in a situation with upsetting tasks to complete, especially ones that compromise you as a person - reflecting the horrors and anxieties of capitalism etc etc etc. Cosmic horror is slightly out of fashion because our culture is more comfortable with, even wistful for, “the unknown.” Monster horror now has to be aware of itself, as a contingent of people now live in the freedom and comfort of saying “I would willingly, gladly, even preferentially fuck that monster.” But I don’t know much about films or genres: that ground has been covered by cleverer people.

I don’t actually like horror or movies. What interests me at the moment is how horror of the 2020s has an element of perception and paying attention.

Multiple movies in one year discussed monsters that killed you if you perceived them. There are monsters you can’t look at; monsters that kill you instantly if you get their attention. Monsters where you have to be silent, look down, hold still: pray that they pass over you. M Zombies have changed from a hand-waved virus that covers extras in splashy gore, to insidious spores. A disaster film is called Don’t Look Up, a horror film is called Nope. Even trashy nun horror sets up strange premises of keeping your eyes fixed on something as the devil GETS you.

No idea if this is anything. (I haven’t seen any of these things because, unfortunately, I hate them.) Someone who understands better than me could say something clever here, and I hope they do.

But the thing I’m thinking about is what this will look like to the future, as the Victorian sex vampires and Cold War anxieties look to us. I think they’ll have a little sympathy, but they probably won’t. You poor little prey animals, the kids will say, you were awfully afraid of facing up to things, weren’t you?

[libraryofbaxobab]

February 1, 2024:

The first manned flight to Jupiter finds a whole entire regular American city in a bubble on one of its moons, complete with national chain restaurants and populated by real people who disappeared from Earth. With a premise like this, I don't know how you could make it so uninteresting. The book spends so much time focusing on the personal "us vs them" of asshole frat bros on the ship and yeah I hated them obviously, but I didn't find anything to necessarily like about the anthropologist main character either. I guess she's just supposed to shine by comparison, but she's pretty bland. Once they get to the city, it's a pretty standard baby's first leftism of showing off political corruption, voter disenfranchisement, propaganda, and centrist apathy. Not exposing it in the world of the story, just accepting that's the way it is and everyone politically active knows it. If this was written like 10 years before, I'd be like "wow" but this released in 2022, so it's more like "bud, we know, we've all been on twitter." Maybe that's too harsh, but I just think the setting was kind of squandered. The ending was good though, I liked the ending.

3.5/10 #WhatsKenyaReading

[waffled0g]

Everyone gets “The 90s” look wrong and I hate it

Couple years ago I saw these two board games at the store back to back. Well, not saw them per se, but ya know. Spied them out of the corner of my eye. And for a moment without reading the text, I couldn’t tell you which was which decade at first. Funny. Either they were in a rush to get these out the door or they wanted their throwback trivia game boxes to look uniform. I didn’t think too much of it.

Only, from then on I started seeing it MORE. Every time someone markets a 90s or 80s throwback...

Goddammit they’re identical! What??! How did we let this happen? As a 90s survivor and a designer, this drives me up a wall.

Look, I know I’m late to the party to complain about “the 90s look” when we’re just starting to get sick of the Y2K nostalgia train. But c’mon, the 90s were not The 80s: Part Two�� 

Trust me when I say that we weren’t all wearing neon trapezoids up until the year 2000. The 90s look being peddled is so specific to the tail end of the 80s and an early early part of the 90s - a part of the 90s when it wouldn’t stop being the 80s. This is Memphis design being conflated with the wrong decade.

Keep reading for a long ass graphic design history lesson and pictures of old soda and fast food.

Specifically, the look is Memphis Milano, self-named by the Italian design house Memphis Group. Starting in the early to mid 80s, they made all sorts of furniture, fabrics and sculptures that were like a Piet Mondrian grid painting under heavy radiation. Their whole deal was defying the standards of existing industrial design up to that point on purpose. Chairs had weird arches, bookcases would be in strange alien colors, unusual materials like plastic or elastic were used in place of metal or wood, that sorta thing.

Memphis quickly became the signature look for the decade. You can tell something’s influenced by Memphis design from it’s telltale trademarks:

Clashing, neon colors.

Use of diametric shapes.

Contrasting patterns like zebra print stripes, confetti squiggles and checkerboards.

It wasn’t long before Memphis Milano-inspired design was everywhere in 80s pop culture:

It was a special time, yes.

I was a kindergartener at the tail end of the 80s, so I knew Memphis mostly through the lens of kids media. Toys, clothes, games, tv shows used it like candy colored catnip. Cable channel Nickelodeon more or less adopted the Memphis aesthetic as their signature in-house style and practically built a monument to it at a Florida theme park:

I think this is why folks mistake what decade Memphis is representative of - 90s staples like Nick, Saved By The Bell, Fresh Prince - they all stayed around much longer than the design trend’s expiration date. 

Couple that notion with the fact that companies are slow followers to design trends. Something gets popular and they want to get on the bandwagon? Gotta wait for the ink to dry, gotta wait for the production molds to be made. It would take a few years for them to completely work Memphis outta their system.

Now, this is not to say Memphis is bad! Personally I’m a fan of the aesthetic, if my neon-drenched artwork wasn’t a tip-off already. But it is a trend, and trends never last forever.

So what took the Memphis Milano look down for good? This part’s up for debate, but I personally think it had something to do with this dude:

It’s that grunge music from Seattle that’s so popular with the kids these days dontchaknow.

Once Smells Like Teen Spirit hit in 1991, the Nirvana tone drove the rest of the decade. Clean geometry became weathered, grainy and organic. Bright neon pastels became more bold. Bubblegum pop music sounded fake and manufactured. Attitude and apathy was authentic. Whatever.

Things got grungy. Things got grimy. Olestra was invented.

I think the best way to visualize this transition is how Cherry Coke entered the decade and how it left it:

1992 Memphis on the left, 1998 grunge junkie on the right. Fitting that the 90s would end with a design that looked like Darth Maul’s lungs.

Okay, so what should 90s retro design look like?

Continue on to PART TWO! Spoilers: No VHS filters or vaporwave needed, but maybe bring an antacid.

[critterbitter]

re: your thoughts on legendaries (which is very cool and based) what’s your take on the differences between legends:arceus giratina and platinum giratina, especially since you defined them as hating the world? specifically the bit where giratina (at least seemingly) actively defended the world from cyrus trying to destroy it, after trying to do the same thing with volo’s help centuries prior?

Weird ghost worm upon yee (AND MORE ART BELOW CUT!)

Anyways, here’s my mad ramblings about Giratina and Arceus’s backstory.

Tldr: Giratina’s a conglomerate of angry souls scorned by Arceus.

(Here’s the playlist. It’s all about worms.)

How it Started.

The original one has chosen favorites over the passage of time. Heroes, legends, protagonists…

Arceus intervenes for those it loves, and the consequences of a god touching the mortal world is devastating in its entirety. One act of divine intervention causes entire civilizations to collapse. One whispered suggestion drives an entire legacy insane.

So Arceus, paralyzed by its love for the mortal world, acts very little, learning from its mistakes. Apathy soaks through every motion. And thus is the way of the world.

But people love the Originator. Religions are born from Arceus’s rare deeds, and generation on generation taught its benevolence. Imagine spending your entire life chasing after that golden light. Imagine knowing its real and there, and it loves you.

Imagine begging it for help, and seeing it turn away when you need it most.

I think those people would feel very abandoned indeed, if they spent their lives worshipping, and receiving no response at all.

Giratina is born from the abandoned, the lost, and the angry. They’re a hundred thousand souls who’s adoration turned to spite. They’re an entity who demands for Arceus to look at them, so they can finally rest.

Arcues can not look at them in full, because if it does Giratina will fade.

(Scio, beloved. For I can not let you go.)

So the Original One banishes the Unwanted Beast into the distortion world, and Giratina seethes, and starves, and screams.

(Here are two truths about the Beast Between Dimensions—

1. Some part of them still loves Arceus. Arceus is their anchor, after all— the sole reason why they exist, why they are. But Arceus can not love it back in a way that matters, and that hurts.

2. Giratina is made of a thousand voices. Some of these voices remember that there’s a world above. They miss it.)

Why Giratina attacked Hisui in PLA:

PLA Giratina’s not a new god, but they’re very, very bitter and barely coherent on a good day. Volo serves as a conduct to help unite the broiling mass of ghosts against Arceus, and thus Giratina’s hatred overcomes any flickering affections they have for the land.

It doesn’t help that Arceus intervened for Hisui, sending Akari to directly stop Volo from summoning Giratina.

(As for Volo, well.

Imagine being a child who was thrown into the future due to Palkia and Dialga’s fits, who learned his people (his world) no longer exist beyond a shadow in the history books and a single, bitter lore keeper.

Volo doesn’t remember his original culture beyond vague imprints and singing praises to Sinnoh, but he knew he was loved, and he knew his family is dust four hundred years in the past. There’s a special sort of rage in him that echoes Giratinas.)

(Why did you abandon my people, Arceus? What kind of god are you, to leave those who love you so callously behind?)

(Maybe some part of Giratina recognizes Volo, beyond a feeling of kinship.

Maybe some part of Giratina grieves because it recognized the child Volo was.)

When Volo gets his pound of flesh, (when he realizes Arceus is not beholden to him, that the inherent alien morality Arceus holds is not a personal slight), Giratina will finally rest.

Anyways what I’m trying to say is: Arceus is never a person, but a nebulous embodiment of the connection shared between pokemon and humans. It tries to experience what it’s supposed to embody, but millennia of watching people be and cease has given it choice paralysis, apathy, and a hoarding issue. If something lasts forever next to it? Good.

Giratina was once a person. (Correction, a LOT of persons.) They don’t think very linearly either, but they have context on mortal matters and are thus the more benevolent and malicious of the two. One day, time will smooth them into something like Arceus. We can only hope the two keep each other in check.

THE DIFFERENCE OF LEGENDS ARCEUS GIRATINA VS PLATINUM PEARL GIRATINA

If the ancient version of giratina is an angry conglomerate of ghosts scorned by Arceus, the modern iteration of Giratina’s a creature that’s more settled in its skin and more assured in its duties. Giratina still has beef with Arceus, but they unionized into one being who’s love of the mortal world has triumphed over its ancestral grudge. One might even postulate they have shifted their anchor from Sinnoh the god, to Sinnoh the place.

((We call this character developement. Good for you, weird ghost worm!))

(((FULL DISCLOSURE, VOLO BEING FROM THE PAST IS INSPIRED FROM FOXFALL. You know. The fic that got me into this fandom. Please give it some love.)))

[kerink]

for me, a corrupted ford would be evil not in his cruelty but in his apathy. he wouldn't revel in the party or violence or torture like bill and the henchmaniacs would. he wouldn't be using the new powers bill drip feeds him in order to remake reality his own.

he would care more about learning, about exploring, using his powers to change things not because he wants to change things but because he wants to study what he can do. bill would give him access to all the libraries in the multiverse and he would read and read and read. he would explore the wastelands to study the anomalies, he would sketch the strange ways objects and animals and humans have been twisted.

he would avoid people as he travels around gravity falls not because he feels sorry for the survivors, not because their pleas and gurgling cries or grotesque appearances make him feel guilt or shame or empathy. but because he doesn't want to be bothered while he works. he's made more uncomfortable trying to have conversations than by the content of said conversation.

he would still just be ford. wide eyed and eager and adventurous and socially awkward.

ford gave bill the world because he believed it was better off in bill's hands than in humanity's. and he was right! ford spent his entire career (maybe even his entire life!) trying to get people to see and understand that aliens and monsters and magic were real. and with bill in charge, now they know. everyone's eyes have been opened to the truth he has always seen. bill able to give ford this, something he never got for himself.

ford would be evil in that he just wouldn't care. the madness sliding off him like water off a duck's back. he's going to support whatever bill thinks is best, it just so happens that what bill thinks is best also aligns with what ford has always wanted: a world where humanity lives side by side with the strange and mysterious and grotesque and monstrous. ford doesn't see the humans as suffering, or he sees it as an unfortunate but inconsequential side effect. like how they all saw his suffering.

[saintshadow]

“ URANIAN ASPECTS & PEOPLE

#001 sun & moon

Author’s Note: This is a deeper breakdown of my own personal experiences as a uranian individual and what I’ve witnessed in others with this aspect.

I’m starting w a couple of general observations, things that have REALLY stuck out to me pattern wise.

I’ve met so many ppl strongly influenced by Uranus & I rlly feel like it’s bc uranian ppl tend to flock together 😹

Bc I’ve noticed that in a friend group or in real electrical stimulating connections you’ll find that most people share the energy. I believe it’s simply because they tend to share a deeper sense of camaraderie especially because it can be a very alienating energy.

Another big one is violent outbursts, hysteria, or outright instability. Feeling threatened by authority, or being perceived as a threat by authority.

Bi-polar disorder is something I’ve seen be pretty common amongst those who carry this energy. Being vilified, outcasted, exiled, abandoned, or running from commitment are also super common themes.

I don’t inherently consider Uranus to be a trauma indicator, because while it is chaotic and can be difficult it ultimately is an incredibly potent & powerful energy. In my observation it has the most difficult time and is the most difficult in childhood. The “trauma” is usually alienation, abandonment, or some kind of rejection or exile from social groups even including adults, teachers, and general authority figures.

Uranus - Sun : HIGHLY intelligent people, very outgoing and eccentric depending on the signs. For fire you see someone who is very flamboyant & who can become very aggressive if they are challenged. We also see someone who naturally goes against the status quo- The attention it brings depends on the individual of course; but what I find with Uranus is you just tend to be polarizing. Some could feel offended, upset, confused, or even challenged by you. Perhaps being torn down by the father or having a father who does not take well to being challenged. I find that uranian people are often plagued by the expectations and desires of others.

On the flip side, people might admire you for your uniqueness- you could be ahead of your time. Humorous, even very optimistic and perhaps a bit flighty or restless. Ive seen tendencies towards ego mania, as well as complete isolation- being disliked being judged, accidentally TRIGGERING others. Something about Uranus just pushes not only the natives but others to the brink.

Uranus - moon (mento illness aspect frfr)

But either way, HIGHLY intelligent ppl, very erratic tho. Can be nonsensical or prone to hysteria, can become obsessed with patterns/symbolism/imagery. Very visual feelers in a way, they may also have highly fluctuating sleep schedules.

One month you’re waking up at the ass crack of dawn the next year you sleep almost uncontrollably to moon.

Instability in the childhood or in the mother, mood disorders, bipolar, psychotic delusion, you name it- but in other cases it can look like extreme apathy- detachment from others. Deeply introverted existence for some, can be driven to emotional outbursts if healthy expression isn’t found.

Children w this interaction can have meltdowns akin to that of an autistic person as a child if they are not taught emotional regulatory skills. Common sense may be harder to grasp, and there can be tendencies towards unpredictable behaviors, emotions, and internal worlds.

Very creative, very psychic, prophetic visions, telepathy & psychic phenomena

Uranus is CONFUSING, outsiders & natives themselves often can’t seem to pin down or label themselves accurately either.

Blessed with extreme intellect, and seemingly otherworldly gifts and ideas. Many uranian people can feel trapped by their humanity, their emotions, identity, etc and struggle to feel comfortable or safe in the world around them. Uranian people can tend to feel as if they are at the whims this cosmic roller coaster, however the energy can be wielded. 🫶🏻