#the episodes on depression also hit especially hard for me

[extraordinarilyextreme]

queer rep in 《鸣龙少年》 The Hope (2023)

i just finished bingeing all 30 episodes last night and i thought i was over this, but i'm really not.

Yu Yang (禹洋) is a shy senior in Class 11 with a stammer. in ep. 5, we learn that due to health issues, he took an extended leave from school and thus had to repeat his second year, so he's a year older than his peers. his mother is well-meaning but overbearing, and he was made the target of quite egregious bullying before he joined Lei Ming's (雷鸣) class. throughout the show, we see him become more and more willing to voice his own opinions and set boundaries, esp. with his mother.

(a side point, but i absolutely adore how the show did not pathologize his stammer as a bad thing he had to be "cured" of; it's through unconditional acceptance and encouragement from the adults in his life and his friends that we see him naturally come out of his shell.)

unlike his four friends in Class 11, he doesn't seem to be embroiled in any of their tangled 感情线 / "love" lines, nor does he seem to have one at all—until ep. 21.

on new year's day, the Class 11 CPs are a mess. Jiang Qinglang (江晴朗) confesses to Cheng Yushan (程雨杉), leaving poor Bian Xiaoxiao (边晓晓) who likes JQL and Li Ran (李燃) who likes CYS behind.

so when the fireworks go off, JQL and CYS are togther, whereas BXX and LR are together—contrary to how the show has been pairing them thus far.

then we cut to YY, who is watching the fireworks alone, but about to text someone.

that's a name we haven't seen before! Wu Fan (吴凡), i wonder who that is?

importantly, we see him delete the "I" and instead wish this person "happy new year."

the entirety of ep. 21 was about confessions, crushes, dating/breaking up/moving on, and the innocent and pure feelings we experience in our 青春 / youth.

so it's truly not that big of a stretch for me to think that what YY may originally have been intending to write was “我喜欢你” / "I like you."

then, in ep. 24, Lei Ming takes his class on a trip to Qingbei University in Beijing. and it's there we finally learn who the mysterious WF is.

four years ago in 2015, an older student once stood up for the bullied YY and ended up with quite a nasty beating.

as YY quietly cleans his savior's injuries, they have a brief exchange:

Yu Yang: I'm sorry. Wu Fan: You haven't done anything wrong. What are you apologizing for? In the future, raise your voice when you speak and build up your muscles; I guarantee no one will dare to mistreat you. If that really doesn't work, let's enroll in the same university later on. In the future, I'll continue to protect you.

in the present (2019), YY is waiting outside WF's university. originally overjoyed to see WF, YY's expression drops when he sees his xuezhang with a girlfriend. nevertheless, this might be one of the only times in this entire show we see YY don such a sweet open-mouthed smile.

they grab milk tea together and catch up, reminiscing about their earlier years. unfortunately, whereas YY has never forgotten their first meeting, WF remarks that he would've forgotten about it entirely if not for YY mentioning it now.

then YY asks what will happen after WF graduates.

the camera cuts to a shot of the milk tea brand: 心意 / the intentions of my heart.

this milk tea shop is a recurring setting throughout this drama. it's where one of the main CPs (Li Ran & Yu Chengshan) had one of their earliest interactions in ep. 3, and it has consistently been romantically coded (e.g., a boy treating his crush to a cup of milk tea).

so, effectively, as WF tosses away his empty cup, that is also signaling the short lifespan of his current relationship.

finally, WF encourages YY. only...

Wu Fan: I promised my mom I'll return home to take the civil service exam. After I graduate next year, I'll immediately go back to Xingzhou.

and then, once again, as YY sadly watches WF walk away, the camera cuts to the milk tea cup in his own hands.

in the end, Yu Yang never got to express his 心意 for his xuezhang, and he can only keep it to himself.

but as their Chinese teacher Tan Xiaozhou (谭小舟) remarked earlier in ep. 21 during their class on love poems:

Love is not only in the present tense or future tense, but also in the past tense. Having loved before doesn't mean that the current love isn't real. Loving now doesn't mean you won't love again in the future. If you didn't obtain it, or you broke up—without longing, without resentment—silently remembering the beautiful parts—bidding "Take care" in a cool demeanor: this, also, is love. [...] To me, the most important thing about love is that I can respect your independent nature, protect your lonely soul, and defend your right not to love me.

and so concludes our Class 11 xuezhang's 感情线. for a gaokao-prep cdrama that aired on CCTV8, i honestly cannot believe we got any of this.

here are two more small instances of queer acknowledgment:

in ep. 13, school psychologist Sang Xia (桑夏) leads a lecture on sexual harassment: what it looks like, how to prevent it, how to keep yourself safe. right from the start, she emphasizes that boys can be victims as well—and also that harassment can occur between same-sex individuals.

in ep. 21, when the school runs amok with dating rumors among the teachers, Sang Xia questions why everyone defaults to thinking that it must be a male teacher confessing to a female teacher.

overall, i seriously cannot recommend this show enough. it tackles so many themes (e.g., the premature grief of losing a loved one to Alzheimer's; the importance of destigmatizing depression and mental health overall; the hugely significant role that family/home life has on students' ability to perform well in school; that parents are not infallible and can be controlling/manipulative/abusive, even if unintentionally; that SES so greatly impacts the trajectory of a student's life; how damaging bullying/cyberbullying can be; and that though society is rife with inequity and injustice, it is the responsibility of adults—as best as they can—to create a more just and safer world for all children), and in both a realistic and gently heartwarming way.

[carlsangel]

CARL GRIMES HEADCANONS

(for midsize!adhd!fem!reader.)

tags:fluff! some suggestiveness

masterlist here!

hiii this is for one of my fav moots @elisiassideb1tch ILYY

✦ Carl would watch you stare at yourself in the mirror after getting dressed, rotating back and forth to see how your clothes fit you. He knows how much you can over think and how self conscious you could get and as much as he loves you, he hates it. So, he’ll come up behind you and snake his arms around your waist, pulling you back against him. His hug is tight and loving but he’ll places kisses all over the back and side of your neck as he tells you how beautiful you are.

✦ He would always remind you to take your meds and to ensure you don’t forget, he’ll drag you to the kitchen everyday at a specific time. He’d get you a snack beforehand and when it’s time to take your pills he sits you up on top of the counter. He’ll get you a large glass of water and your meds and stand between your knees as he watches you swallow them, his hands running back and forth over your thighs. He’ll tell you how proud of you he is and kiss all over your face.

✦ Whenever you get really overwhelmed or panicked, he’ll sit you down wherever you are and remind you to breathe. He’ll gently rub your arms or your thighs, just watching you. Once you catch your breath he’ll reassure you sweetly. “You’re okay, everything’s okay. It’s just you and me. Nothing else.” Once you’re completely calm he’ll ask once again if you’re alright. When you nod he’ll hold your face in his hands and place a gentle kiss to your forehead.

✦ If you get irritated at him or any situation, you’ll isolate yourself. He’ll wait somewhere nearby so you know he still cares about you and cares about fixing the situation. He’ll either sit on the opposite side of the bed, maybe the opposite side of the room or the door. He’ll wait for you to come to him first and when you do he’ll ask if you’re ready to talk about it. If not he’ll just sit in your presence a bit longer until you are.

✦ In bed if you guys are relaxing or if you’re coming down from certain activities, he’ll tend to run his hand over your belly. He absolutely loves it. He loves the squishy skin, he loves kissing it and feeling you. He also knows how much you hate it which makes him love it even more. He especially loves doing it when you get cramps.

✦ When I tell you, this man ADORES your thighs. He absolutely loves them. He could be doing anything at all and he could be touching your thighs, holding them, literally anything. Whenever you’re anxious he’ll squeeze them gently, sometimes a bit hard to try and soothe you. He lovesssss kissing them when you guys get really intimate, occasionally he’ll leave hickeys on them too. Whenever you’re relaxing he’ll rest his head on them because they’re like plush pillows to him.

✦ Carl knows you hate being alone, a lot of the time when you’re alone you tend to overthink and he hates it. He’ll drag you with him everywhere. He has to go on perimeter watch? He’ll take you to keep him company. He wants to go to the woods? He’ll take you with him. Even the other way around, if you wanna go somewhere he’ll follow you. He loves to be with you always, you’re his favorite person.

✦ He’s always able to tell when you’ve hit a depressive episode. He thinks of all your favorite things but he knows how much being outside can help you. He’ll help you get showered up and ready to go out. He’ll take you out on walks, especially at night so you guys can be alone. You’ll watch the stars together and he’d tell you how much he loves you over and over.

✦ He’ll always listen to you and never discourage you. He understands how your brain works and he sort of adapted himself to systems that you use to make your life easier just so he can help you better handle your adhd. He almost never tells you no to anything, if he has to put up a boundary he’ll do it very gently and reassure you that you didn’t do anything wrong in any way. He makes sure you don’t feel bad etc.

a/n: MADSSS THANK U FOR REQUESTING you’re request is so sweet and so well put together ilysm >_< i’m sosososo sorry these took forever to get out but they were really fun for me to write!!! i actually am realizing now i like writing headcanons HAHAH okay that’s all bye<3

tag list: @zomb-1-egutzz @lunarnightt @ilikestrawberriesandwomen @hiro--aoki @h00d-tr4sh

[doshiart]

🖤 weekly tag wednesday 🖤

hiiii, pocket friends <3 thanks for tagging me @jrooc @michellemisfit

Name and A03 handle: doshi, snifsnufkin

Current Location: clip studio paint

Favorite picrew (don't have one? you can skip this or do this one)?

there was my top 1 favs ♡ poicon maker ♡ by poika, but i found out that it's removed (deleted or private) 😭

i love a lots...

picrew // picrew // picrew // picrew // picrew // picrew // picrew

What's one thing you want in a picrew?

most likely none of you know that it will soon be a year since i released my own picrew and so after that, i can't be picky and upset anymore if i didn't find the right hairs for me hahaha

i won't say what I WANT, but i love having a choice of cute animals!

and speaking of! hehehe, i'll note every thing you'll write there!!! because now i'm doing a new picrew maker rn and i say nothing 🤭

Favourite thing you’ve created (or seen created) for the fandom?

i love this drawing sm

Why is it your favourite? something in the vibe, dark, tension, colors. maybe especially because it's a scene from the fic and i think it shows their tension quite well?

Did it come easily or was it hard to create? no, at the beginning i didn't get the perspective i wanted, i was interested in this angle with the mirror reflection and was upset when things went wrong because in my head it was perfect lol so i just redrew it

Last ao3 fic you commented on? Workhouse Rock and A Song Only You Can Hear by Deena @suzy-queued I've kinda settled into her page

Biggest WIP heartache you’ve ever experienced? 

idk, probably Your Question Has Been Received by Macy @celestialmickey but i like the way it stopped on their meet and kiss, and also i know that Macy wants to get back to it one day, so it's not exactly a heartache

Favorite trope or head cannon you like included in a fanfic?

slowburn and mutual pining for sure! i love the delving into Ian's bipolar, the emotions and the versions of his depressing episodes hit me all the time. the last time i cried over this was in The Menagerie by @crossmydna

Least favourite? a/b/o. when things happen too fast (i really love slowburn... give me a fic where they didn't kiss until the last chapters and i'll eat it *says hi to Deena and ULAK boys*)

Secret or surprising kink or trope? i have cymbals monkeys in my head not in a kink way of course,,,,

Describe how you feel after you’ve created something new? 

i can finally get a good sleep,,,, i'm dying to share it with you!

Top hype man you have that always helps you get across the finish line: all of you <3

It's been a bad day, you turn to the fandom and you _____?

i'm falling into fics

tagging @suzy-queued @lingy910y @burninface @mybrainismelted @creepkinginc

@celestialmickey @sickness-health-all-that-shit @crossmydna @heymrspatel @gallawitchxx

@energievie @blue-disco-lights @thepupperino @vintagelacerosette @gallapiech

@roryonic @spookygingerr @deathclassic @sgtmickeyslaughter @nymacron 🖤🖤🖤

[crysta1ized]

a theory on ep11’s preview

firstly, if you’ve guessed/ theorized that non was still alive, you get 10 points!

if you also guessed that perth would help him (in that case, thanks to tee) you also get 10 points!

knowing that tee helped non escape, was definitely a plot twist. he basically lives at his uncle’s mercy, is forced to work for him and has to follow every single one of his orders so his father doesn’t die. which is a pretty shitty situation!

we saw previously that he showed guilt after non got busted for the fake accounts instead of him, but to help him escape from that very uncle? you’ll never fail to surprise me, tee!

after that, tee gives an envelope to non and tells him he’ll get him out of there.

now, what is in this envelope? my first thought was obviously money. but i also thought, what if it was a plane ticket? it’d be safer for non to get the hell out of bangkok (or even thailand) to be sure the uncle and his men could never get him. a one way flight, non leaving without looking back.

i think that with the help of perth, tee could’ve gathered enough money to pay a ticket. i mean, that would’ve benefited tee a whole lot too. non forever out of his hair, not causing any more problems. disappearing without a trace. his uncle thinking he got rid of the troublemaker.

but what happened to mr keng then?

firstly we have no idea of the extent of his injuries. we guessed that non’s were only bad enough to knock him out on the roof, but the uncle might as well have killed keng for good.

i mean, he was hit with a car, which is way worse than a few punches. in the best case scenario (for him, cause i want that bastard dead), he only got a few bruises, but the most logical one would be that his legs are broken, as well as a few ribs maybe (depending on how hard the car hit him).

if we assume he’s alive, like non (which i seriously doubt), i don’t think tee would’ve helped him at all. he’s already risking everything to save non, he wouldn’t try saving both, especially because keng doesn’t mean anything to him. he probably never even had a conversation with him.

so in my opinion, we won’t see the teacher ever again, unless he found another way to escape, such as being rescued by the police as his disappearance could’ve been noticed after some time.

now onto the fun part!

white is seen entering the arcade place, where we’ve already seen non & phee meeting up and making out at.

which means we’ll finally get teewhite whole’s backstory!

my depressing theory is that we’ll get a cute little montage of their love story, and they’ll show us how cute they are, with their little puppy love, opposites attract shit just to snatch it from us right after.

mark my words, they’ll make us love teewhite and after those little flashbacks with bright colors that distracted us for a moment, we’ll get back to our depressing and dark present.

4 possibilities after that:

best case scenario: while we get a contrast between the past and how in love they were and acted, nothing terrible happens. tee explains to the group what was revealed to the viewer in the flashbacks, that he ended up helping non and that he’s still alive. he righted his wrongs and while white is shaken up, he’s glad tee isn’t just a bully who guilt tripped a kid into money laundering, he did feel guilt and saved him from his uncle.

same as above, tee reveals everything to the group but white doesn’t forgive him. he feels betrayed and mad that tee hid that from him for so long. in white’s eyes, tee is no longer someone he can trust, or hide behind.

tee dies

white dies

while i believe those 2 last options can happen, i don’t think they’d happen at that moment. tee’s reveal scene will probably be at the beginning of the episode while the following one with phee & new may happen soon after, which is why those 2 options seem less likely to happen then.

new is clearly urging phee on to shoot.

but how? in the last scene of ep10, fluke is the one who has it and he clearly doesn’t want to let it go. he let white out of his grasp and is now pointing it at tee.

but fluke is clearly out of it, and is the one suffering the most from hallucinations, which made him shoot top even though his only principle was clearly to never act, to keep his hands clean of anything that could prevent him of becoming a doctor. too late now!

someone could take advantage of his delirious state and while he’s distracted, take the gun from him, like white, who’s on the ground, kinda behind fluke and now out of his sight. which is when phee could take the gun, as he’s the unofficial new leader and appears trustworthy as he just exposed new.

but who is phee pointing the gun at?

i think it’s most likely fluke. he’s clearly losing his mind and the hallucinations are making him aggressive, like top. which is why they may have to kill him before he kills someone else.

phee clearly wants to make the right decision, surely wants to kill him or just hurt him because fluke is an active threat. but tan just wants to see them all gone! he clearly has nothing to lose left, now that phee exposed him, this is his last chance to avenge his brother.

alternative theory:

phee might be pointing the gun at someone else.

according to how tee’s revelation ends, especially how non’s story ends, something might happen after that.

phee wouldn’t be pointing the gun at someone who didn’t deserve it, who wasn’t a threat to the group.

so why would it be tee? in my opinion, non escaped the country, end of story. but maybe something happened to him just before he could get out. then new would get mad at tee, blaming him. tee fights him. then he would represent a threat. or maybe the hallucinations come back and he gets violent.

then of course new would be happy to see phee shoot tee, who was the whole reason non even got involved with dangerous mafia shit in the first place.

the last scene is new, lighting a cigarette.

why would he be smoking in the middle of all this? like he has time to do that?

maybe it’s just a meaningless scene they’re throwing in the preview so they don’t have to spoil too much stuff.

but, still, new is the only one who's going through with his plan, and he wouldn’t waste time on lighting a cigarette! unless it’s truly chaos, and like we know, he smokes to de-stress.

creepily, when i saw the scene the first time, i thought ‘this is his last cigarette. they’re holding him at gunpoint and they allow him to smoke one last time before they pull the trigger’ because he’s clearly shivering. but that may be way too far as i don’t think any of them would shoot anyone in cold blood if they weren’t actively threatened.

but a more plausible theory would be that they’re forcing him to smoke. in the scene where new is urging phee on to shoot, phee looks at him ‘like, what the fuck?’ like he’s not liking new telling him what to do at all.

maybe then, phee doesn’t shoot anyone, not fluke, not tee, but instead turns on new and points the gun at him. maybe phee really doesn’t want any kind of revenge for non anymore as his brother became too violent for his liking. but phee wouldn’t shoot new.

he could however hold him at gunpoint, and force him to smoke one of the drugged cigarettes, one with an X. maybe so he isn’t an active threat to them anymore, urging them to kill each other and to cause more chaos. they’d be on equal ground as he’d start hallucinating too.

what do you think?

[youryanderedaddy]

i am going to BRUTALLY FUCK ADAM UP (and not in a fun way) FOR ALL THE SHIT HE PUTS HIS DARLING THROUGH. IT'S EITHER HIM OR US DYING, NO IN-BETWEEN. AND EVEN THEN HE DESERVES TO BE PUT IN THE SAME PIT HE DUG FOR DARLING, NO PROPER BURIAL OR ANYTHING. NO SAD BACKSTORY IS GOING TO CHANGE MY MIND.

(I love your work by the way, gives me the fuel to spitefully plan all those bastards demises. This is a compliment)

TBH Adam is terrible and I am not making any excuses for him. BUT HERE IS HIS SAD BACKSTORY (any excuse to talk about his emo ass). Basically him and reader grew up in a very poor area, both stuck in abusive households, and for a while they were each other's only support. They were best friends, and eventually escaped home at 16. They lived in motels for months, running small errands for a while to save enough money to move in together. Eventually they managed to rent a run - down flat (it's a start), but then little by little Adam started becoming more and more paranoid, from over - protective to possessive to boderline abusive. Reader escaped, found new friends and managed to find a normal job, which Adam learns of, and it just gets worse from there.

His deal is that he feels like he only has Reader - he has no family or friends, he has no social skills, he's very rough and hard to talk to, so if he can't be with Reader, he feels like he'll be alone again. He had some sadistic tendendies even as a child, hurting animals and getting into street fights, but as an adult it just got worse. Especially since Reader used to balance his bad side out - and now it's been left unchecked for a while.

The other thing is that he hates the idea of Reader moving on and starting a clean sheet. He knows he can't do that. He can't work a normal job, he can't act like a real adult, he feels totally disconnected from his surroundings. He has no actual skills, just trauma and skillduggery that he picked up from his father. Anyways, he's subconsciously envious of Reader, since she manages to move on from her past and start anew.

Adam is also prone to depressive episodes and unpredictable mood swings. He thinks that if he feels like shit, everyone should feel like shit lol. The grave story is him trying to say "You're not going anywhere, you're staying with me until you die." and in his head it sounds romantic, but irl Reader thinks she's getting murdered (which fair enough I would too lol).

But yeeeah overall he's like a time bomb and living with him is basically living on eggshels. Just a very dangerous and unstable character, you never know what you'll wake up to lmao. If it makes you feel better, in my headcanon he dies at 27 because he smokes and drinks waaaaay too much and Reader just takes all his money (which is not much lol) and leaves, and hits the lottery or something xDD

[btsficsandsuch]

You Don’t Want to Fall in Love With Me

Your best friend Yoongi just confessed his feeling for you. You leave him standing there even though you feel the same way. He deserves someone better.

Mentions of anxiety/depression

“Y/N I think I’m falling in love with you.” Your best friend just confessed his feelings for you. Your heart wanted nothing more than to wrap your arms around him and pull him in for the kiss you’ve wanted for so long. Your brain on the other hand told you that you weren’t good enough, you’d just bring him down with you, and that he’d leave you once he realized just how hard it would be to be in a relationship with you. You looked at his face for the first time. His perfect skin and gummy smile. His eyes that you wish you could drown in. His hands that you knew had a fandom of their own, holding a bouquet of your favorite flowers. You softly whispered, “Yoongi, you don’t want to fall in love with me.”

You started to run back to your apartment ignoring the calls from Yoongi and leaving him standing alone and rejected in the park where you two first met four years ago. Once back home you immediately fell onto your bed. Your best friend just confessed his feelings and you left him there. You kept telling yourself it was for his own good.

You started thinking back to the day the two of you first met. It was late at night and you were sitting in the park after your shift at work. Something happened that triggered you to have a panic attack so you went for a walk trying to calm down. Yoongi was walking by after also having a bad episode with anxiety when he noticed you were crying. He had asked you if you were okay or if you needed help. The two of you spent the night talking and venting and it quickly turned into a very close friendship.

As time went on Yoongi’s anxiety and depression started to lessen. He still had his days but he was having a much easier time coping and learning how to manage it. You on the other hand were getting worse. No matter what you did you couldn’t shake the thoughts. The only times Yoongi ever put his work aside were when you were feeling down. He’d be over to your apartment in a heartbeat or he’d shut off his computer and hold you close in his studio. He knew what it was like and he never wanted anyone, especially you, to feel that way. You always felt guilty afterwards. You hated that he’d put his work on hold because of you. That’s the big reason why you walked away from him today. You didn’t want to be that burden on him. Even though you loved him from the start you knew in your heart that he should fall in love with someone who was strong, who didn’t need him to be there to pick up the pieces, someone who could be there for him instead. He needed someone that wasn’t broken.

That’s when it started to hit you. The walls felt like they were closing in. The room was spinning. You couldn’t breathe. You sat down on the ground and pulled your knees up. Slowly you rocked yourself back and forth trying to calm down. Normally this would be the time you’d call Yoongi. He’d drop everything and immediately come over but you couldn’t call him now. Not after what happened.

You closed your eyes and started counting back from 50. Something that Yoongi taught you to do. “42,41,40,39…” You were focusing on your counting when you heard a deeper voice join you, “31,30,29,28…” Strong arms snaked around your waist. You looked and saw Yoongi sitting next to you. He nodded as if to say continue. The two of you counted down to 1 and that’s when he helped you up to the bed. You watched him grab your favorite pajamas handing them over to you, “I’m going to get you some warm milk. Get changed and get in bed. I’ll be right back.” You did as he said although you weren’t sure why he was even here after earlier.

Yoongi came back handing you the warm mug, “Here drink this. It’ll help calm you.” After a few sips you placed the mug on your nightstand. He took off his jacket and got in bed next to you pulling you close to him. You started crying once again. You were crying at how gentle he was being and how once again he came to your rescue. “Y/N do you want to talk about what’s making you so upset?”, he said rubbing circles on your back. You couldn’t stop the words from coming, “I’ve been in love with you for years but I don’t want you to fall in love with me. You deserve better than this. You shouldn’t have to waste your time taking care of someone like me. Someone who’s broken.”

By this point you were balling and in full panic mode again. Yoongi started tapping on your forearm, another one of his tricks to help manage anxiety by taking your mind off of it. “Y/N I appreciate the thought but you don’t really get to tell me who I can and cannot fall in love with. You’re not broken by the way. Some people just need extra love and care for whatever reasons and there’s nothing wrong with that. We met because of these reasons. I will be there for you at all times both good and bad. I’m not just falling in love with you. I am in love with you Y/N. ALL of you.”, he said bringing your face up to look at him. He continued, “If you genuinely don’t want to be with me I won’t force you but I want you to know that I’m here because I love you. You think you’re broken but I don’t think anyone is ever broken. I think sometimes we mentally and emotionally receive little cracks but cracks can always be fixed. It just takes a little glue and some time. I’m willing to be that glue for you and I will give you all the time you need.”

He always had a tender way of explaining things to you. You rested your head on his chest for a while just listening to his heartbeat and letting the gentle rise and fall of his breathing calm you while you thought about what he said. “You know you’re really starting to sound a lot like Namjoon with your analogies.”, you whispered. “Yeah I think I’ve been spending too much time with him lately. But he does know what he’s talking about most of the time.”, he said with a chuckle. Slowly you both started to drift off to sleep. “Yoongi, Thank you for falling in love with me.”, you said while peaking up at him. He snuggled you a little closer before kissing your forehead, “I love you Y/N.”

[dreamsy990]

so 358/2 days, amiright? heres my thoughts

this game is just. god its an emotional rollarcoaster

i guess ill start with the things i dont like!! which is mostly the gameplay. i dont really mind the mission structure shockingly (i like being able to roam around but having a clear goal makes things easier for my adhd ass, and i think the miniature storylines are very good for the most part) but i simply could Not get into the combat. especially coming off of kh2 it feels so stiff and unfun to play the only part of the game where i enjoyed the combat was fighting riku at the very end. i think the panel system is okay but i dont like that levels take up space. why did they do that.

story-wise, i dont like the retcons!! a lot of the ones i take issue with are very minor but things like roxas only fighting riku once instead of the implied multiple times (even the dialogue doesnt make sense when you change that, why does roxas say 'how many times do i have to beat you' when theyve only fought once?) are the kinds of inconsistencies that just annoy me.

im also a little bit annoyed at the very concept of this game at all. i think roxas worked just fine as a character without this game. it feels sort of unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. also, xion. i love xion, dont get me wrong, but i dont think she adds anything to the series over all. thats not to say she doesnt add anything to this game because shes a great character and i love her, but shes just. kind of like this game in that if you got rid of her i dont think it would really change the narrative so much.

BUT DESPITE THAT ALL!!!!!!!! i fucking ADORE this game. it is genuinely so full of charm and soul that i just cant bring myself to dislike it. i think this is one of the best written games in terms of dialogue. every scene (at least for me) hit exactly as emotionally hard as i think it was meant to. i was laughing at demyx's antics and crying at xions death and yelling at saix and i think thats exactly how the game is meant to be seen.

days at its heart is a slice of life. its working a 9 to 5 its going through a depressive episode its losing friends its grieving its making fun of your coworkers its living. its a game about life and i love that.

this game really did make me forget that axel roxas and xion dont get a happy ending. i spent so much time looking forward to them making up that i forgot that roxas ran away. hell i almost forgot that xion died.

days is emotional and its story and its characters are just so fucking good. the conflicts all felt very real and you can tell exactly where everyones coming from. the way axel roxas and xion fall apart hits so fucking close to home. but god damnit if axel had any good communication skills like half of this could be avoided

its also one hell of a love letter to axel's character. hes always been one of my favorites (he recently earned first place) and i think this game does him a lot of justice. hes trying to do good. he wants to keep everything together he wants to be there for his friends he wants to make things right but he just cant. its just AUGH its so fucking good

that thing about axel's characterization really also applies to roxas. i dont have much to say about him beyond the fact that i think it does his character very well. also tism. hes so autism.

i kind of like the very limited graphics too. sue me i enjoy low quality games. the hands are not animated and they all have two expressions (blinking and not blinking) and their weapons are flat and im living for it. the very few fully animated cutscenes are good too!!

the (real, i dont count riku) final boss is unfortunately very easy. you can just stand directly in front of her and mash a she wont hit you its too easy but vector to the heavens did mess me up a bit. also earlier scene but "ill always be there to bring you back" with the other promise playing over it? fucked me up man. yoko shimomura is once again killing it

i cant believe roxas didnt get to go to the beach.

i have to give this game a 9/10. its writing is incredible but the gameplay could use a lot of work. its just not fun to play. but again the characters, emotions, and music all make up for that tenfold.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

The Eighth Sense e5 & e6: portraying trauma with nuance

Episodes 5 and 6 of The Eighth Sense have really blown up a discourse bomb in tumblr’s BL scene. I had been putting off watching these episodes because I had gathered that episode 6 ended with something pretty distressing, and stuff like that sometimes hits me pretty hard, especially when it’s left as a cliffhanger. But I was already tempted to rip off the band-aid and watch it anyway, and then everyone has been debating aspects of these episodes. So I just had to see what all the discussion was about and figure out my own take on it.

In case it’s not obvious, the following will have spoilers for the series up to and including episode 6. I have a lot to say about this, because it touches on subjects that have been a major focus for me in my personal life, in my previous work as a trainee therapist, and in my research and writing. But I want this to be a manageable read, so I’m going to put things in bullet form when I can to keep them brief and organized and I’m going to make some section headings to help with skimming or skipping around. But before I launch into the rest, there’s one thing I should get out of the way: I don’t think any part of episodes 5 or 6 are a hallucination, a dream, or otherwise did not occur. I do think that there are aspects of the way the show portrays certain things that indicate dissociation and/or an acute trauma response. I’ll talk more about that below. (Hey, @waitmyturtles, this is the epic TES post I’ve been writing off and on for two days! I hope it’s of interest.)

Here are the section headings I’ll use below, to give a sense of what I’m going to talk about:

Conceptualizing Jae Won: Or, what I think is happening with him

Jae Won’s therapist - comments and interpretations

Jae Won’s therapist - medication management

Human beings’ amazing capacity for self-blame

Interpreting show production choices psychologically

Are the creators of The Eighth Sense going to pull a “who shot JR?” move?

Conceptualizing Jae Won: Or, what I think is happening with him

We don’t know how his younger brother died, but we know that he died in front of Jae Won when they were together, and it’s clear that he blames himself. I would be shocked if he was actually at fault even a little bit. But it does appear to have happened “on his watch” in a sense that lends itself to blaming himself. This is a huge issue, one that I’ll discuss in more detail later on.

Even before his brother’s death, Jae Won was clearly under a ton of pressure from his parents. And his father appears to be emotionally and, almost certainly, physically abusive. This is also far more likely to have pre-dated his brother’s death than to have only developed afterward.

In addition to pressure and abuse, I think it’s pretty clear that Jae Won was a parentified child. This means that he was put in a position of having to take care of his parents’ emotional needs as a child. This kind of role reversal has profound effects throughout the parentified person’s life. 

Jae Won’s self-blame about his brother’s death means he was always going to be predisposed to stay stuck in the chronic version of the acute trauma response instead of moving through the natural healing process. In other words, he was almost certain to develop PTSD.

This is less clearly shown in the show, but my impression is that Jae Won has a deep-seated depressive tendency that existed before the loss of his brother. This would make sense for someone who faced the family-of-origin difficulties that he did. 

When he did develop PTSD, as I have no doubt he did, Jae Won’s existing challenges were going to make him even more likely to develop the depressive symptoms of PTSD than others. We’ve seen some of these in the show already:

feeling alienated from others, unable to form meaningful connections with them,

anhedonia (an inability to feel positive emotions), and

negative beliefs about himself, other people, and the world.

All of this is happening at once. He’s dealing with PTSD, but he also still has all the same habits and beliefs he had before due to the parentification and training in people-pleasing, so he’s supposed to bottle up all of this pain. And if it’s his fault (in his mind) that his brother died, how much more does he owe his parents than he ever did before? This is a distorted, unhealthy way of thinking about all of it, but these kinds of maladaptive thoughts and expectations happen all the time with trauma survivors.

Jae Won’s therapist really sums all of this up very well when she says, “All your worries, not doing what you want to do because you do not want to let your parents down, and trying hard to be a good person to everyone because you do not want to disappoint others. Don’t you think it might be all because of your younger brother? Your younger brother, who got into an accident while with you. Your younger brother, who you couldn’t protect. And you are struggling to live your life for him as well.” 

Jae Won’s therapist - comments and interpretations

I went into this series feeling nervous about its portrayal of therapy. I was very excited that therapy was being portrayed at all, mind you! It’s horrifying how seldom we see therapy mentioned as an option, much less shown, either in BLs or kdramas, and I’ve hoped for this to change for a long time now. But therapy  is shown in an inaccurate way so often in media. And often, we see therapists and other mental health professionals breaking ethical rules. So I was on my guard, big time.

There’s one thing I really take issue with about Jae Won’s therapist, and it’s somewhat of a small thing: her office is way, way too dark! I just don’t think that kind of low lighting, with a lot of the illumination coming from her aquarium and other tinted light sources, is professional or conducive to therapy work. Of course, it’s obvious that her office is lit in this way because it looks cool and sets a certain mood for the show. And that’s fine. It’s a very stylized show in a lot of ways. But it makes me a little tweaky to watch it. 

Some of the things she does in the therapy space with Jae Won are a bit open to interpretation, and could be debated. But I view her in a fairly charitable light, and I found that a favorable interpretation wasn’t difficult to justify at all. I ended up viewing her (so far, at least) as a very skillful and effective therapist.

I loved it when she joked, in the first scene after the credits for episode 1, “For God’s sake! Just tell me what your worries are!” Jae Won isn’t great at sharing. He’s been trained from early childhood not to show his messy, vulnerable emotions around authority figures. Jae Won is not an easy client by any stretch, so she may have been showing a mild version of some real frustration with him when she began that comment with mock-hostility. But he seems really sensitive to criticism, real or perceived. Coming at him directly about this could be risky. Using humor is a good way to get around this sensitivity pretty effectively. It’s worth noting, though, that I wouldn’t endorse this kind of move by a therapist unless they knew a client very well and had built a solid rapport with them.

The comment I quoted above (”Don’t you think it might be all because of your younger brother?”) connects so many of Jae Won’s interpersonal difficulties to the loss of his brother in a skillful way. It was very astute and well-put. But there are some things I would quibble with about it.

First, I’m kind of surprised that she is only saying this explicitly this far into therapy with Jae Won. It seems rather late to make such an observation considering this constellation of issues has, without a doubt, been in place the entire time they’ve been working together. This could definitely have been done sooner.

At the same time, paradoxically, it’s delivered abruptly, as if she blurted it out too soon. Actually, the abruptness comes from the fact that there’s not sufficient lead-up to the comment in their discussion beforehand.

Though the show’s treatment of mental health is strong overall, I think this part of this scene suffered from flawed writing. If I had written this scene, I would have made a change that I think would have resolved both of these issues. Instead of introducing this insight as if the therapist has just voiced it for the first time, I would have presented it as something she and Jae Won have touched on together more than once during their work together. Anyone who’s been to therapy knows that the same ideas, which appear as shocking revelations at first, often have to be returned to many times and worked through before we can benefit from them. She could have said something like, “This is that issue we’ve talked about before, right? It seems like another case of your beliefs about your brother’s death causing trouble in other areas of your life.”

Even better, she could have been shown quoting some kind of metaphor or shorthand Jae Won came up with himself when they’d spoken about this previously. For example, I had a client once who used to talk about metaphorically carrying around a giant, heavy book where he wrote down all of his failures. He described it in a similar way to “the catalog of mistakes” (I’m not going to share his actual wording, of course). Whenever I would use his wording, saying “the catalog of mistakes” or even “the catalog,” all of our prior discussion of that issue came into both our minds immediately. It also served as a reminder of our rapport and the importance I placed on his perspective.

Jae Won’s therapist - medication management

There’s one other area of Jae Won’s interactions with his therapist that is a bit hard to interpret. The exchange he has with his therapist about the amount of medication she’ll prescribe to him certainly seems important, but it’s hard to tell what exactly it means.

One thing that complicates this is the fact that he is receiving therapy and medication management services from the same provider. In other words, she seems to be a psychiatrist who provides therapy services. In most parts of the United States, this is rare (though that wasn’t always the case). I haven’t been able to tell whether this is more commonplace in South Korea.

Because she’s a prescriber and a therapist, asking for three weeks’ worth of medication instead of two also means waiting longer before having another therapy session. Maybe Jae Won really is just busy and trying to cut down on demands on his time, but this doesn’t seem too likely. It’s also possible that he’s seeking a greater quantity of his medication for some purpose, such as abusing it or using it for self-harm or to end his life. But he also could just be trying to put off his next therapy session to a later date because of his difficulty talking about vulnerable topics, something he demonstrates at multiple points in his therapy session. Similarly, when his therapist says she can extend his prescription to three weeks but not a month, because, as she puts it, “I need to do my job,” this could be in reference to the medication or her therapy work. Part of her job is keeping him from having access to too large an amount of medication at once, while another part is having therapy sessions with him (that are frequent enough to be useful). It’s hard to tell which of the two she was referring to, or whether it could be something else entirely. So I don’t think there’s one clearly correct interpretation here. But I do think we should be attentive to the possibility that he might be medication-seeking, possibly with the aim of using the medication for self-harm.

Human beings’ amazing capacity for self-blame

Even if you have experienced trauma or have been close to someone who has, unless you’ve spent time with a sizable sample of trauma survivors, it’s hard to understand just how readily people blame themselves for traumatic experiences. I had had personal experience with this as a survivor of intimate partner violence before I ever did any training in trauma therapy, but I was still totally floored when I observed firsthand just how often this happens and how unjustifiable every single instance of self-blame I encountered in clients turned out to be.

This is actually a big area for me as a researcher so I’m going to try not to go off on a massive tangent, but I think this is important. When we experience trauma, one of the most frequent responses people have is to blame themselves. I used to describe this to clients as a “deal with the devil.” Blaming ourselves allows us to feel like we have control over whether such things will happen to us (and/or those we care about) in the future. If we tell ourselves, “the trauma only happened to me because I did something bad, or something wrong,” then we can also tell ourselves, “but I’ll never do the bad or wrong thing again so from now on I’ll be safe.”

It’s very tempting to make this bargain, but it is an extremely bad deal. Self-blame is one of the biggest reasons some people get stuck in their acute trauma response instead of completing the healing process, resulting in PTSD. That feeling of control isn’t worth that. But human beings are so tempted to make this trade. When I was doing trauma therapy as a trainee, I saw example after example of folks who did seriously remarkable amounts of mental gymnastics in order to justify blaming themselves for their trauma.  I’m going to talk briefly now about a client I had many years ago, without giving any details that could be remotely identifying. This person had witnessed the death of a close friend when they were in combat together. I did prolonged exposure therapy with this person, meaning he had to tell me the story of his friend’s death again and again and again. When we do this type of work, it usually seems at first like the client is telling the exact same story again and again without any real change. But little changes crop up gradually and accumulate and after a while, you find the story has made big shifts. And occasionally, a big change happens.

This client started out telling his story in a way that looked for every possible reason his friend’s death could have been his fault. And wow, was he ever grasping at straws. It was almost as if he had said something as nonsensical as “I had oatmeal for breakfast that day and maybe that’s why my friend died.” Every miniscule decision he had made that day could, in his eyes, potentially have caused his friend’s death in some mysterious and imperceptible way. It would have been absurd had it not been so sad. But thankfully, as we continued the exposure work, his story gradually changed and these justifications for self-blame started to fall away a little at a time.

Then, one day, a crucial detail was added to the story that blew me away. After weeks of telling the story in the usual way, my client mentioned for the first time that just before his friend was hit, he had called out a warning to him, which the friend had ignored. He’d mentioned countless ways he might be to blame--none of them remotely justified--but had never told me about the one very clear way in which he had tried to prevent his friend’s death. When I pointed this out, my client was shocked that he had never mentioned that detail before. We spent a lot of time unpacking what all of this meant. It was the single biggest turning point in his therapy. So, yeah. People have an amazing capacity for figuring out even the slimmest of pretexts for self-blame, and it’s abundantly clear that Jae Won is exercising that capacity big time. I’m pretty certain we’ll find out that he has been blaming himself a lot for what happened while having no real justification for doing so.

(Side note: I have tons more thoughts about trauma, self-blame, victim-blaming more generally, and other related psychological constructs--these are all longstanding research interests of mine--but I’m going to stop here because this thing is already ridiculously long. But if anyone reading this ever wants to discuss any of this further, please feel free to hit me up! I love talking about these things.)

Interpreting show production choices psychologically

Let’s review where we find Jae Won toward the beginning of the show. I’ve talked about how Jae Won had a lot of psychological difficulties before the story started. His family of origin situation was damaging even before he lost his brother, and then he had to contend with trauma and complicated grief. After that, he went through a breakup (possibly due to his partner cheating on him), completed his military service, and then had to make the transition back to civilian life, which isn’t easy under the best of circumstances.

And then he meets Ji Hyun, and his feelings for him unsettle the precarious set of strategies that he’s been using to get by. Ji Hyun makes Jae Won feel tempted to let his guard down and be himself. He places a degree of trust in Jae Won that challenges his cynicism and makes him feel tempted to trust Ji Hyun in return--to trust him to an extent that would normally be out of the question for him. Ji Hyun shakes things up, and while this is mostly a very positive thing--there are a lot of things in Jae Won’s life that urgently need to change--it’s also rather destabilizing in the short term. 

Then the shit starts to hit the fan when Jae Won wakes up after staying out late drinking to hear his father pounding on his door. And the makers of the show start to play around with cinematography, editing, sound design, and other aspects of the show’s production to evoke Jae Won’s inner experience. After his dad pounds on his door, the way the show is shot and edited changes.

This disjointed editing and other distortions of typical filmmaking at this point in episode 5 have reminded some folks on here of a dissociative state, and I can see why. I would agree that it has a dissociative flavor. There are two prominent types of dissociation (which can happen simultaneously):

derealization, a feeling that the world around us isn’t real--it may feel empty, strange, or just plain wrong; and

depersonalization, in which we feel like we’re seeing ourselves from the outside, as if the person we’re observing isn’t us.

It’s tricky to talk about either of these in the context of tv/film because as viewers watching a fictional story unfold in a TV show, we are by definition:

perceiving that the world the characters inhabit doesn’t seem real, because it isn’t

looking at the characters from the outside, because they aren’t us (and they aren’t real)

But there are conventions of film and tv production that give us a sense of realism and of seeing things from characters’ points of view, and when Jae Won is dissociating we see those conventions get suspended or distorted. For example:

Conventional editing creates a flow of time that feels realistic (partly because we learn the “language” of film from a young age and interpret it that way). At important moments in The Eighth Sense, the editing breaks the rules of conventional editing, often messing with the viewers’ sense of time. Contexts change abruptly, as when Jae Won suddenly goes from being at home to being in his car. At other points, dialogue also goes out of sync.

Shot-reverse shot techniques help to approximate seeing things from the characters’ perspectives, situating us in the story so that we don’t feel like we’re observing from a distance. The most notable moment when this rule is broken happens when Jae Won is upset about his camera being damaged. We see him telling someone between sobs that the camera was a gift from his younger brother, but that person (assumably his dad) isn’t shown at all--not even a shoulder or the back of a head.

There’s also a lot of use of shallow depth of field (something the show uses in other ways as well), putting Jae Won in focus while his surroundings become a blur, making the world around him look hazy and unreal.

The sequence where Ji Hyun and Jae Won kiss in the ocean puts their dialogue way out of sync. On my first viewing, this just seemed like an interesting choice, one that gave the scene a sort of dreamlike quality. I’ve seen this strategy used before, as well, without any reference to mental illness, usually in art films. The first example that came to mind for me was from a Godard movie. It would be a valid option regardless of mental health-related content in a show. But after what immediately follows, I think that scene is portraying a trauma memory. Sometimes benign events that happened just before something traumatic become encoded with trauma memories rather than our usual type. (To put it briefly, trauma memories are encoded and stored in a different part of the brain from our everyday memories, and this is why they “behave” differently and have a different sensory quality from typical memories. Trauma recovery often involves some degree of re-encoding these memories in a more normal manner.)

Basically, the show sometimes puts the viewer into an approximation of a derealized and depersonalized state, particularly relative to what we’re used to as TV watchers. At other points, it shows characters’ experiences as if they were traumatic memories.

Are the creators of The Eighth Sense going to pull a “who shot JR?” move?

All this being said, I think that Jae Won’s dissociative moments, while very concerning and doubtless extremely distressing for him, do not point toward any sort of severe dissociative disorder like Dissociative Identity Disorder, nor do they make me concerned that his reality-testing (his ability to effectively distinguish what is and isn’t real) is impaired. I also don’t see any signs of cognitive impairment that would create a similar degree of confusion about reality. As a result, I don’t think the show’s use of signs of dissociation suggests that entire sections of the story will later be shown not to have happened.

Here’s the thing about dissociation. On paper, it sounds like an extreme symptom that approaches the kind of severe mental illness that includes symptoms like hallucinations and delusions. But the vast majority of the time, it’s very different from psychosis. And it’s also, in my opinion, more of a spectrum than we care to acknowledge most of the time. When we look at it that way, we can see that in a sense, Jae Won is at least a tiny bit dissociated a whole lot of the time. But frankly, so am I. It’s not uncommon for trauma survivors. It’s very different from something that would result in impaired reality-testing.

It’s possible that the show will end up revealing that Jae Won’s mental illness has resulted in him imagining entire segments of the show. These types of symptoms are often portrayed in media, for a couple of reasons: 1) people just find psychosis fascinating, and 2) these types of symptoms are very handy for creating plot twists and other interesting narrative devices. It’s not hard to think of examples of this. Fight Club, Black Swan, Shutter Island...the list goes on and on. But these portrayals are almost always inaccurate and exploitative. So far, the folks who make The Eighth Sense have shown a great deal of nuanced awareness of and sensitivity toward mental health matters, so I don’t think they would use this kind of cheap plot device. But they might. If so, I’ll find that pretty disappointing.

There is one thing the showrunners are doing that is somewhat sneaky in a way that could look analogous to that. Others have pointed out that Jae Won and his therapist are wearing the same clothes in every therapy scene, suggesting that we’re seeing the same therapy session interspersed with the other events of the series. In other words, the therapy session operates on a very different timeline from the rest of the story. We don’t know where to situate it relative to the rest of the plot. But I don’t see that as tied to the show’s portrayal of Jae Won’s mental health, nor does it seem exploitative or out of left field.

To sum up:

So far, The Eighth Sense has been remarkably accurate regarding psychological matters and has portrayed therapy and the use of psychotropic medication in a mostly positive and realistic light. I get the feeling the writers/directors/etc. have had some experience receiving mental health treatment. I really hope they maintain this level of quality throughout the remainder of the series.

I don’t think Jae Won’s PTSD (or his depression/anxiety) are sufficient for him to experience psychosis. I don’t expect entire segments of the show will be revealed to be an elaborate lie or hallucination, and if they are, I would consider that to be an example of poor writing and an unrealistic and potentially harmful representation of mental illness.

[jariten]

My Favorite Manga in 2023: Part 2

Like in part 1 I will skip the titles I already covered in previous roundups.

女の園の星 (Onna no Sono no Hoshi), Yama Wayama

初恋、ざらり (Hatsukoi, Zarari), Zaku Zakuro

うちのクラスの女子がヤバい (Uchi no Class no Joshi ga Yabai), Seiko Erisawa [Ichi-nen Ichi-gumi omnibus edition]

インターネット・ラヴ! (Internet Love!), Kiko Urino

レイニー通りの虹 (Rainy Doori no Niji), Keiko Fukuyama

葬送のフリーレン (Frieren: Beyond Journey's End), Kanehito Yamada & Tsukasa Abe

Yama Wayama appears to be on a continuous upwards trajectory as the manga comedienne of the reiwa era which I got to confirm for myself with the hit Onna no Sono no Hoshi. The episodic comedy about a teacher daily terrorized by his students and coworker. And with the scanlation well on its way I just want to say please experience it for yourself.

Uchi no Class no Joshi ga Yabai I had eyed ever since I started learning Japanese and the new omnibus that coincided with the ongoing sequel series gave me a great reason to finally pick it up. Box of Light by the same author was on my list last year and I not only liked the premise of it but also loved the anthology format of the story. For similar reason I really liked Uchi no Class: In the world of the series high school aged girls may experience the activation of powers.... that are completely useless and troublesome. We follow the students of year one class one, a class infamous for always having the highest concentration of useless powers. Dreams projected into the sky, X-ray vision that turn everyone around you into terrifying anatomy models is only the tip of the iceberg. I can't resist a gimmick premise done successfully and the variation of characters and powers kept the premise fresh like older characters who haven't yet "grown out" of their powers or a trans girl storyline.

Hatsukoi, Zarari follows the young woman Arisa diagnosed with a light intellectual disability and autism. Living between jobs and having a hard time turning down men who only want to have sex she has always struggled with her own self worth. This is until she falls in love with an older coworker who is charmed by her personality and quirks. But will things change if she opens up about her diagnoses? Zaku Zakuro has made manga and shared online about living with ADHD and asperger syndrome, giving this story a very personal and different perspective focusing especially on how stigma around developmental disabilities can be what causes the most friction and pain.

Internet Love! is a love story for the social media age with a budding romance that goes across borders. Bisexual nail artist Tenma has for years been a fan of a completely ordinary man from Korea named Uno who appears to be addicted to posting his life on instagram, daily filling up his story until the posts are lined up like dots. Thinking he held nothing but a healthy distance of "standom" for Uno, but he instead hits rock bottom when his insta favorite posts a girlfriend reveal. Tenma no longer able to bring himself to open the daily insta stories sinks into a depression, but Uno takes note that a certain someone stopped checking up on him... I was instantly charmed by this and was especially taken by how their clumsy attempts at communication without being able to speak each others language or no lingua franca was portrayed and the personal styles and fashions of the characters I just adored the whole thing.

[estrophore]

Signalis Post (barely coherent thought vomit)

So I finished signalis on Monday and i think ive just about recovered enough for me to make a gush post about it on tumblr dot com, which i think i have to do cause i dont think any other game has really hit me as hard as this one. Spoilers obvs.

Being pre-transion, with that associated depression and closing off from oneself, ive always found it difficult to get out my feelings, even in private with just myself, and yet signalis has filled me throughout with its beautiful romantic melancholy and left me genuinely sobbing for the gay robot and her space girlfriend (almost worried that if id played this game on estrogen it might actually have just killed me on the spot). the only other times i can think of where i really cried were playing We Know The Devil near the beginning of the year, which really fkin hit the part of me that struggles to accept myself, and that time i rewatched the last episode of she-ra after reading the ‘Word War Etheria’ fanfic, which brings the characters so much more to life i fell for them all over again.

Signalis is a game that calls back to a lot of classic horror like resident evil and silent hill, which i havent got round to playing any of yet, but i think nostalgia works both ways sometimes and i’ll be playing them sooner now. sometimes horror gets stereotyped as all death and violence, some games fill themselves with skulls and corpses, and big ugly monsters and basically shout ‘DEATH!’ in your face repeatedly and it all just comes off as a bit garish and ridiculous and not actually very scary really. Signalis sits at the other end of that scale (with some of my other fav horror games like soma, cry of fear) where its environs are most usually just… quiet. Still. Muffled. Sad. just as often as theres tension or creeping fear because of this i find theres a strange kind of comfort too. Maybe its just that in most other genres of games theres so much of music, UI elements, pickups and interactibles with vibrant design. Here, theres room for your mind to just occupy the space. A soft fog. A dimly lit room. An empty train. Snow out a window. Liminal spaces that dont expect anything from you.

Signalis is a game thats just simply, unapologetically gay, and i dont think i would have been quite so invested in Elster and Ariane’s relationship if they were a straight couple. Its why representation is important, if art’s way for us to explore our emotions then its important to have media that we can relate to. Even Adler’s role isnt typically masculine. Our replika characters are manufactured, designed for certain roles in the base. Notes from the tough Stars and Storchs in the shooting range, the dollish Eules with the fairy lights and music player in the dorm. I couldnt help but think of groups of Eules sat around chatting, together, and im yearning for that feeling of togetherness, of understanding a friend that closely. I somehow missed the couple in the mineshaft (next playthough, ill find you v_v ). Despite the harshness of life in the Eusan nation (especially for the gestalts) the characters in it are defined by their feelings of belonging and hope. With the obvious parallels to east germany, i think of posters of cosmonauts and space travel from the time. Propaganda, sure but also made with the genuine belief in something greater. When the events of the game take this away, well, we find the last Kolibri, whod rather lose herself than lose her [ah. Im not sure theres a word here to properly describe the relationship they embody]. Its a game defined by loneliness.

We dont lie up at night scared by some corrupted android. We arent stuck with horror at the flesh everywhere, not on its own. We lie awake thinking about Elster and Ariane’s love for each other, the horror of their decline, the futility of trying to hold on forever. Its existential horror done perfectly. It shows an ending postponed and stretched far beyond its limits, and so squarely reminds you that you do, in fact, have to die one day. You’ll break down. One day you’ll say your last words to the people you love and you wont even know you have. Ariane’s final few diaries arrive with the full force of the narrative behind it, like a spear through my heart. For the record, I got the promise ending. Im still sad. It's a game about raging desperately against an unfair ending. I might think about this game for the rest of my life. I would sincerely say its an artistic masterpiece, by the sure definition of video games as art.

I like that the story leaves a lot open and abstract. I think it makes the emotional themes takes centre stage more. And i havent had nearly enough time to sift through it and come up with my own takes, we’ll need a few more playthroughs for that. And theres so much more to say that cant go in just these few paragraphs! Signalis is a game about two girls who had to run away from everything to find someone they belonged with. The universe may be cold and bleak, but you have to try, you might just find something beautiful, even if it doesnt last forever. I think if anything, we should all have the chance to find love and happiness like that, and we shouldnt have abandon a world that doesnt work for us to do it.

[ran-orimoto]

Sometimes I watch this episode and I sit on it, on this scene in particular , think about it so hard because its simplicity holds such a … Subtly tragical tone I ended up catching on my second rewatch (of thousand). And, you know, on my third rewatch it kinda started hurting.

Looking back at the whole season and the way Junpei and Izumi have been written in their arcs and their resolution, I think Junpei eventually remains the loneliest of the lonely between them and it just sucks how Izumi got to open about her solitude to him, then she got support from everyone else and truly felt included in a family, whereas Junpei just had to put up with his struggles on his own, fighting against his own shadow throwing mean truths at him.

This scene in particular is really harsh on him and in my opinion it kinda needed a sort of continuation in the form of a parallelism. Junpei and Izumi are the Frontier relationship that got most amount of those, especially in the bridge from ep 4 to this episode. They got a very linear development always making it clear how they are different sides of the same coin, how they are a mirror to each other and can grow up thanks to looking at the most uncomfortable masks of themselves through each other. So, it’s absolutely a shame the writers allowed Izumi to get away with that.

“Don’t talk like you know!”

Izumi, you just don’t know anything about him.

Still, the most bittersweet and, again, extremely tragical detail is that back then, Junpei didn’t even know he was as lonely as her, either. He just lies down on the grass, staring at her while letting her viciously vent at him. He’s concerned about her outburst, but doesn’t really realize he’s as miserable as her, if not even more miserable, because tell me if it’s not just sad to be a kid believing to have thousand of friends around him, be totally blind about the greyness your life is actually dominated by. He can’t acknowledge the reason why he followed Izumi on the train in a first place was connected to how lonely he felt she was. As lonely as him.

You can laugh about this statement of mine but, seriously, they pulled a sort of Mr Gatsby character here.

On a brighter note, though, I also like wondering if what Izumi says in the very first drama isn’t a hint about how she eventually understood that as well. “You have got lot on your mind but like keeping it all inside”. Maybe, just maybe, she also came to feeling all the stuff he concealed behind his magical tricks.

Honestly, how depressing Junpei’s backstory is. We just got to see a little of it and it still hit home.

[bronx-bomber87]

Happy Saturday everyone. I always forget Eric’s wife had a spot on the show. Every time I get to this episode its a reminder. Also fair warning he’s gonna make me extra feral in this one. He is in a suit and yummy street clothes in this episode. Gimme gimme all day. I blame Eric for all my reactions in this ep for how he looks haha This is also a shorter review like last time but good stuff in it none the less. Off we go.

2x16 The Overnight

We start off with our lovely ship at American Idol auditions. A guy is getting arrested giving out meth smoothies. Lucy has to go back for his backpack. As she does she gets roped into an audition because it has his audition sticker. I’m surprised there wasn’t a gif set of her singing. It's such a good scene. I did my quick made one above with my phone. But a really good set should be produced. We get to hear Melissa’s wonderful voice again. It's in a much better context this time. Not a soul crushing and depressing way. She chooses a song from Aretha Franklin. 'I never loved a man'. She CRUSHES it.

I hope she gets another opportunity to showcase her voice in the future. The ending of this cold open cracks me up so much. The judges are impressed by her audition. Ready to give her that coveted golden ticket. Lucy hears Tim’s voice and bolts LOL Him bringing her back to reality. Their 'No no no' is so damn funny as she runs towards Tim. I love it so much. Tim having no idea what just happened. Thinking she's just running behind for no reason. Such a great cold open.

I love this scene for quite a few reasons. First and most importantly we get Tim Bradford in a suit. Sweet baby James. What a visual to start off the episode with. I need more this is my life. He should go to court more often. Honestly should be illegal to be that damn fine. *fans self* Second I find it very sexy he donates blood so often. I mean of course he does. To quote Lucy. Most Tim Bradford thing I've ever heard heh Tim as a person is just so friggin attractive.

Lastly I adore Nyla giving him a hard time. Doesn't waste a second before calling him a machine LOL Tim's face in that third gif is too cute. He's commending her shot and only shakes his head. How far Tim and Nyla have come. Reached a playful joking stage I love it. You know Lucy is enjoying someone else giving Tim crap. The proud wifey smirk of hers when he gets tossed his ball. I love them.

Lucy is running the front desk since Tim is off at court. She meets a reporter Valerie Castillo from the Herald asking for public arrest reports. She is looking for a scoop on recent robberies at 5 star hotels. Asking if Lucy has heard about them? Lucy says no. Valerie goes on to say she is trying to get away from Hollywood stories. Do something more impactful. So she can be taken seriously as a journalist. Lucy being her empathetic self wants to help her out. Lets her know the reports she’s looking at don’t have enough info. Tells her she wants CAD reports instead. Valerie asks what those are?

Tim comes striding in with the answer. Looking like sex on a stick in that suit. Good lord he can wear the hell out of that thing. Look at that fit on him. Thank you to his tailor. *chef's kiss* But I digress…Tim is clearly not a fan of this woman and what she is asking of Lucy. His cop gut going off and not liking this interaction at all. Tim instantly distrusts her and doesn't hide it.

Does crack me up they wrote Ros in as a character he can’t stand LOL I’m sure they had fun with this. Tim clearly doesn’t like the media especially her paper. Says her paper has a bias against cops. She bites back ‘Like the bias you have against me?’ She’s not wrong ha Tim says that's cute but isn't buying what she's selling.

Tim tells Lucy to get those reports back from her ASAP. That they’re gonna hit the streets as soon as he’s changed. Ooh lord the way he unbuttons his jacket and barks out his instructions on the move. Mercy. It shouldn't be that hot and yet here I am always a puddle. Ever the model just as much walking away as he came in. My god he's attractive haha It's truly not fair. Valerie says Tim shouldn't talk to her like that. Lucy is bemused by this statement.

Says he's her T.O. and its just his style with a smile on her face. (We all know she loves his style heh) I do love how this scene finishes out. Valerie saying ‘If ass is a style...but he sure can wear a suit’. Indeed madam indeed. Then proceeds to watch him leave LOL Checking out her own husband as he exits the scene haha Cracks me up. He does look damn fine in that suit. I can not blame her.

Tim instantly tries to steer Lucy away from Valerie. Telling her she’s bad news. Saying reporters always have an agenda. Lucy tries to be snarky and replies 'To get truth? Sounds Horrible.' Tim continues on despite her snark and says they aren’t to be trusted. Lucy being her sunshine self wants to see the good in Valerie. That she’s doing this to help the victims of these robberies. Tim thinks she’s being naive with this woman. Lucy battles back he just doesn’t trust anyone. Well that’s not true. He most definitely trusts you Lucy. With his life. But she has earned it ten fold out of him which is why she has it.

I’m with Tim on this one.(No surprise there I know ) That trust is something to be earned. I am the same way. It’s not something I just hand out like candy either. You have to prove to me you are worthy of that trust. Once you're in you're gold but you have to earn it first. He knows how trusting Lucy is and he doesn't want her to get burned by this person. This is his way of watching her back and trying to protect her from a potential disaster. Lucy doesn't heed his warning and it shows in her sassy face she gives him above. Lucy is so sure she is the right one in this situation. Like she is humoring him by listening.

They get a report of this idiot trying to use his snake to get out of paying for his car repairs. He pulls it out as a threat and It backfires pretty badly. As he waves the snake it bites him... (Like I said an idiot) I adore Lucy taking command of this situation. Also her heart for any living creature. I’m not a snake girl myself but I do love her taking the snake's side over this guy’s haha

This is our marriage scene of the episode. Tim says EMTs won’t step foot in here till the snake is neutralized. Tim says he’ll flush it out and kill it. Lucy is against this plan and tells Tim he can’t kill it. Their banter in this scene is primo. He is sassy right back asking what are they gonna do? Snuggle it? LOL Lucy ignores his sassy jab as she hops down and decides to do something herself. Tim isn't a fan of this plan since the snake is venomous.

Tim looks very concerned as he watches her. The way he raises his gun ready to destroy this thing if it goes after her. I love his face as she talks to the snake. Calling it by it's name, telling it she isn't going to hurt it haha He is wondering what she’s going to do with this thing. Then is impressed af when she traps the snake in a tire. What a bad ass moment for her. Snake whisperer can now go on her list of skills on the job ha Lucy proudly walks back to him with the best reply ‘Not his fault his owner is an idiot.' LOL I love this.

Valerie catches Lucy on the way out for the night. Claims she got her story about a Murphy scam. Rich men hiring sex workers then the sex worker has a partner. They rob and steal from them. The victim can’t report the crime without copping to their own. Says she came by to thank Lucy with a drink. (Mmhmm....)

Lucy is hesitant and says she shouldn’t…. You know that cop gut of hers is telling her it's wrong. Valerie asks 'Is it cause Tim wouldn't approve?' Lucy looks behind her like she can sense Tim’s disapproval from afar. Valarie sweetens the pot telling her she can be her inside person. Lucy concedes and decides to go. This can only end badly Lucy….

They make it to the hotel and Lucy quickly realizes they’re not there for a just a drink. Valerie has tracked one of the women who’s been scamming these men. Lucy is upset and feels betrayed. Says she can’t arrest people on her own. She’s a rookie. Valerie notices the man being scammed is a big time movie producer. Says this will get her a killer story and her a high profile arrest. You can see the regret written all over Lucy’s face.

Lucy tells Valerie she is texting Tim. I love this. She knows she’s in over her head at this point. So she is going to reach for her lifeline. Tells Valerie as such letting her know she could get fired as a rookie. That she needs a senior officer on scene. Also she really needs him to rein this in TBH. This has gotten way out of hand and needs Tim to come help her.

Tim arrives and Lucy thanks him for coming. (Like he wasn’t going to come and bail his girl out.) Doesn’t even have to say I told you so. This entire moment is doing it for him really. Lucy doesn’t fight or deny the hot water she is in. Not even a little. Just says ‘I’m in trouble aren’t I?’ His sexy Mm-hmm will do just fine for her. You know she’s just so relieved he's there to get her out of this. To save her from herself in this moment. The way she looks at him like he is her saving grace. Makes my heart happy. Doesn't even care she is in trouble just relieved he is there. So much said in such a small scene.

He looks sinfully handsome in that denim jacket *oh my lord.* Valerie says she’ll write a story about Tim if he punishes Lucy for this. Lucy panics and tells her not to do that. Tim isn’t phased at all by her intimidation of a story. The cocky way he walks into the room. Takes control of the situation. Says the cup against the wall trick doesn’t work. You know Lucy is rooting him on while he does this. Tim makes a joke about there being an app for that. Valerie believes him cause he walks in so confident and says that so damn smoothly. She can't help but reply 'Really?'

The way he says ‘No’ to her LMAO I'm dying. He is having a little fun in this moment messing with her. I love this man so much. Why is he so damn attractive in this moment? I actually know why ha. He's protecting Lucy and trying to do damage control at the same time. Also by taking control back from Valerie, by putting this situation back in his court. Tim calls in backup to help them if the accomplice even shows up. Tells Valerie she’ll be far away from the action if it comes to that. Not gonna let her get her story after potentially endangering Lucy for it.

The accomplice ends up arriving and Valerie has a ‘See’ look on her face. Thinking she is validated in all she's done to this point. Getting to watch Tim in action and in street clothes? Don’t mind if I do. They’re about to go after the guy when they notice Valerie is missing. She’s gone out on the balcony to get a photo. Clearly back tracking on her 'Killer Story' that'll get her taken seriously for a paparazzi shot instead.

She ends up getting her shot on the balcony but slips and Tim has to rescue her. She is refusing to let go of her phone as she hangs on to the railing. Lucy tells her to let the damn thing go. The guy sees them rescue her and takes off. Tim gets her up and takes off after the guy. Leaving Lucy with Valerie while he does so. This is the last we see of our handsome hero him in this ep sadly. The accomplice ends up getting arrested by a grumpy and tired Lopez in the lobby of the hotel LOL

Lucy’s SL wraps up with Valerie signing her statement. I love Lucy telling her like it is. Letting her know how wrong it was to take advantage like she did. Lucy is inclined to trust people and it bit her in the ass this time. (What he was trying to protect her from.) Unfortunately for her Tim was right on this one. She did have an agenda. Tim didn’t rub it in her face but also didn’t say she wasn’t in trouble for it haha Lucy has a mic drop moment with her. Telling her instead of going for the serious story she sold her on she went for the cheap shot. Gets up and walks away from her. Boom. Once again not a ton to content but still enough goodies ❤️

That wraps up 2x16 for our ship. Thanks as always to you all for your likes/comments and reblogs. Forever appreciate them. Can't believe we're almost done with S2. 6 left to review in this one.

~~~~

Side notes- Non Chenford

Always enjoy Nyla’s SL’s. When I first watched this ep wanted her to her back with Donovan. But glad she didn't much better fit with James but we’ll meet him later down the road.

Wopez engagement ❤️ They so cute. I love them. Happy for Angela and Wes.

See you all in 2x17 :)

[fandomworld9728]

The Life of the Morningstars - Chapter 7:

"Maybe it's time."

"No."

"To ask."

"Don't say it!"

"Your dad."

What was this mess that Alastor had walked in on? The princess seemed to be lacking sleep and extremely stressed. The cork board a mess of ideas. Not to mention that odd reaction over asking the king for assistance. Was he that much of a neglectful father?

"Charlie, I know you don't want to. But we need every advantage we can get."

"But this is my project. I don't want to bother him with it. I know he said he'd help with whatever I need, but he's also been really busy since I told him about the Extermination Day move up. At least I hope he's busy with that and not having another bad episode... especially since this type of work involves him talking to Heaven. No. Wait! I can show him that I can be the best alpha for a pack ever! Invite him over and show him all the hard work we're doing."

"Seeing this place and all your effort might have him offering his help so you don't have to ask."

"Yes! My thoughts exactly Vaggie." Taking out her phone, Charlie hesitated to call him. She didn't want him to feel like she was coddling him. The alpha didn't need another stern but caring lecture about how he was the parent and was supposed to take care of her, not the other way around. But they had always taken care of each other. Even before mom left.

"What's the hold up? You got daddy issues?" Husk asked even though he could already see it in everything the princess did. It was like she had a neon sign following her around telling everyone about it.

"What? No. We just... He doesn't like when I try and take care of him. Even though he's been depressed since mom left and broke their mating bond. He throws himself into his work or passion projects so much that he hardly ever calls me. I'm usually the one to call and check in on him. Which scares me... I don't want a repeat of the last time." As she spoke, Charlie felt that nagging feeling in the back of her head telling her that something was very wrong. That she needed to rush over to the palace. Now.

"Daddy issues."

"Well, I'd like to meet the big dick in charge."

"The ultimate bad boy~ I bet he's scary."

Trying to ignore Niffty's manic laughter, Charlie finally gave in and hit the call button. "Please... please, please, please pick up."

~

Lying in bed, Lucifer shifted and groaned at the sound of his phone. How long had he been asleep? Why was it so dark? He could have sworn he had kept the light on to work. He didn't even remember crawling into bed. Maybe Beel or Ozzie stopped by and found him asleep at his workstation again. Grabbing his phone, he was surprised to see who was calling. "Daughter- daughter?! Daughter calling?! Oh fuck. When was the last time we spoke? Did I go too long without contacting her again? Oh, she must be so worried."

Quickly answering, Lucifer tried to make himself sound awake and perky instead of dead tried. No matter how much sleep he's been getting lately it never feels like it's enough. "Hey sweetie."

"Hi dad. I-Is everything okay?"

"Yeah. Everything's fine. I just woke up actually. Uh... h-how did it go confronting that Overlord?"

"...It didn't go well- Dad is that the last thing you remember before your nap?" Fuck. She sounded worried. He didn't wanna lie to her...

"Y-Yes."

"Oh fuck..."

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[elialys]

Channeling positive energy for 2024

I have been very listless for at least the last couple of years (if not since 2020 and the whole pandemic mess), resulting in a pretty rough depressive episode that peaked this last November. It's hard to feel motivated to do anything concrete to improve your own life when everything around you is just...bleak. And this world does suck so much, so often, in so many ways.

But then I remember how I innately believe that most people are good, and that I am good, too, and that the one thing that always makes me feel better when I'm low is to do something helpful for someone, or to just be kind if I don't have the spoons for more.

(Putting this big ramble under read more)

I think I've mentioned it here before but I've made the decision to try and get into a new field of work, which involves at least two if not three years of studying. Let me tell you, I'm about to turn 36 in a couple of weeks. It's scary as fuck to do something like this. But this job, if I get into the school I need to get into, will be perfect for me. I'll be helping people who need guidance and compassion basically every day.

The bond I got to build with my students was my absolutely favorite part of teaching, but I got overwhelmed by everything else. I burned myself out in less than four years because I became a workaholic who worked 70 hours a week, never took a breath, tried tried tried, yet never felt like I was doing enough. The pressure was incredible, the 'I have to be around hundreds of people every single day', performing in front of entire classrooms full of kids 6h a day'...it just wore me down. Loved my kiddos to death, loved my science team so much, but then the pandemic hit and I lost a few family members within a few months, and I realized it was time for me to go home after 12 years abroad.

The meanest part of my brain likes to tell me I've spent the last four years being basically a useless human blob, but realistically, I know I wasn't. I had been working my ass off since 2011, when I was in America nannying two young kids all day long then going to school full time at night/weekends, before being hired as a teacher in England for 4 years.

I needed the break, I needed time with my loved ones. I needed to help grieving family members, especially my little sister with ASD, who had to learn to navigate life without her mom, who also developed epilepsy on top of everything else while our father pretended nothing was happening. I needed to spend time with my grandmother, who did so much for me when I was young and who's all alone, now. I'll even go as far as saying I've been working on fixing things with my mother this past year living with her, which was not an easy thing. Still isn't, but it's so much better than it used to be, and she's trying, too.

But I'm ready to get my life "back on track", or at least, to get busier , more proactive, more helpful to others who aren't in my inner circle, because I know that's what I'm good at, and why I'm here.

So, yeah, channeling positive thoughts for 2024. I'm not only going to work on getting into that school in the next few weeks, I also just received an email a couple days ago from an editor I used to work with. She's a writing director somewhere else now, and they need writers for a new webcomic project; she told me she immediately thought of me because they'd always been happy with my work, so I'm going to test for that, too, because why the hell not. Actually getting paid for the stuff I was writing a couple of years ago was the most surreal, rewarding experience of my writer life, and I wouldn't mind that happening again.

I want to give the biggest shoutout to my best friend & other butt cheek, @melusine0811, for helping me navigate those last four years, for always believing in me, and for being so fucking courageous when life is just so damn hard. Lauren, you're the bravest person I know, and forever my Donna Noble.

And because I'm sappy this weekend, awards and all, I'm also sending my thanks to my Australian unicorn, just for existing somewhere out there, for being a role model to me from afar these last thirteen years, for being another perfect example of people persevering no matter what, doing the things they love, while always trying to be kind to others in the process. I don't believe in much, but I believe in karma. You do good deeds, good things will happen to you.

Be kind to each other, my lovelies. Always be kind.

[gx-gameon]

Episode 39

Okay one thing I really love about Gx is it hard commutes to the idea of a duel spirit world. I didn’t realize just how early that commutes to it. Like it’s mentioned in DM. But I love that all the different archetypes in Gx have like their own mini part of the spirit world and how much the Spirit world is crossing over. (Again this school is on a ley line)

Atticus is moving

The fact that all the dark scorpions are just hang out on campus and have been doing jobs there is actually really fun

Chazz sleeping with ear plugs is such a move.

Chazz going detective mode is so fun especially since he used his Ojama cards as spy’s. I love that the weak spirits he was so embarrassed by are now helping him and he’s proudly declaring it.

Anytime someone plays ‘themselves’ cures my depression. It’s so silly. All these people just ran into the field.

They also just attacked Chazz with real weapons

They all just ran off the field. This is so ridiculous

The Obama brothers just chilling on their field so they can’t run back out.

And the first time we get Ojama King. I love how much Chazz has taken to the Ojama cards

“Chazz seemed concerned. Wonder why?” It’s because he just gained 5 new roommates which explains the earbuds.

For someone who is so embarrassed by taking to spirits. He sure takes in a lot of strays. Like these were Shadow Riders he could have thrown them down the well but he kept them and gave them a home.

It’s a crime this isn’t the Chazz we have by season 3 (he hasn’t changed he just doesn’t get to shine) having him Jaden and Jesse running around with spirits would have been an event.

Oh well that’s what post cannon arcs are for.

Episode 40

It’s the Egyptian Pharaoh episode

The little hand drawn pictures of Yugi and Seto in Professor Banner’ official presentation to his class made me laugh so loud I scared my dog. Like my dude there are so many pictures of them you could have used. Why did you hand draw them?

Jaden had to listen to his class thirst for his dads and uncles and aunts. Some kid just called out Mai Valentine and Jaden has to be rolling his eyes so hard

They just brought up ancient Egypt and the ‘best duelist’ and Jaden is ready for Atem’s name. The Ishtar family had been working hard to reveal the true history of Duel monsters and Egypt so his Uncles first life had gotten some fame to it.

But they pull out Abidos, someone Jaden has never heard of, and say he was undefeated? Jaden is absolutely texting Atem later to ask about this guy.

Okay Jaden and Chazz are brothers. Chazz just sassed him with “sure and then you’d beat Yugi and Kaiba to.” And Jaden just played it straight and teased Chazz till he gets put in ahead lock. This is peak brother behavior

Alexis and Zane are still each other confidants. I wish this continued on later seasons. Their season 1 relationship is so cute.

They were just attacked by mummies.

Never mind he doesn’t have to text Atem because he and his friends just got spirited away on Abidos’s spirit ship.

Sigh…Why does everyone have to make a sexist remark to Alexis.

Jaden instantly volunteering to duel.

Chazz “ya ya it’s not our first shadow game.” And the. Throwing Jaden Syrus’s duel disk. (Once again peak brothers)

Jaden is being so disrespectful. He grew up around a pharaoh. It’s hard to look at a Pharaoh as a god on earth when he’s seen Atem when he’s sleep deprived and isn’t processing anything. He knows they are human.

He just stabbed Jaden with a spear.

Love all the H.E.R.O. Cards in this duel.

Jaden is so happy to be playing. This man has talked down to him the whole time and just got his deck mocked as weak. But hes just here for a good time and a challenge

Which Abidos is not providing. “You can’t attack me!” Oh baby no one ever actually played with you did they? Flashback confirmed.

Jaden, you sweet boy. “Let’s start your first real duel right now!” He’s so nice to him.

Ohh Jaden just got hit hard.

Jaden compliments him and his dueling right before he beats him.

“I was thinking you could come back with me. Your to good for this place. Come back with me to my kingdom (the afterlife) and I promise you power and fame.” All while holding his hand. Abidos met someone who finally treated him like a regular person and wanted to play and proposed to him because that is what that is.

(Chazz’s only concern being that he can have Jaden’s room. Absolute sibling coded)

Jaden absolutely called Atem after this and told him everything that happened. Atem knew off Abidos. He is older than Atem and he had heard all about the dueling fake from his father and court. It was a cautionary tale to the royal family to always make sure their strength was true. Abidos was luck to rule at a time when Egypt was peaceful.

Hearing that the man came to this world and fought Jaden is concerning but no more so than any of the other shadow riders.

No the concerning part is that this man proposes to Jaden and offered to take him to the afterlife. If he had the magic power to get to the realm of the living he could absolutely drag Jaden to the afterlife. What would they have done if Abidos didn’t take Jaden’s no as an answer?

Atem reaches out to Mahad and asks him to seek out Abidos in the afterlife. Wanting to make sure this won’t be a problem later.

Abidos is in the Egyptian afterlife but his time period is in a different spot than Atem and his father. (They’re like neighboring kingdoms that way all the pharaoh family’s kinda have their own setup.)

Abidos is sitting there pinning and wondering how he can insure that Jaden will come to the Egyptian afterlife. He doesn’t want to speed up his friends journey through life or shorten it. But he doesn’t want to make sure Jaden chooses to come to the Egyptian afterlife.

Mahad and Mana’s visit is the best possible thing for him. They know Jaden? Jaden has a connection to Egypt? Jadne has family in Egypt? This is the best news ever.

Long story short Abidos starts hanging around with Aknamkanon and Atem’s court. They all watch over Jadne together. Aknamkanon and the court are thrilled to have someone around who has met and dueled Jaden. Abidos is pumped to have people who know Jaden and to have a way to watch over him. He also starts learning how to duel from Set, Mahad, Mana, and Aknamkanon. He wants to be a challenge for Jaden when he arrives. He has the time to train and he’s going to use it. (He might also need to challenge some people to a duel for Jaden but that’s another conversation that won’t matter till the Gx cast is dead)

Episode 41

Finally an Atticus and Alexis episode!!

Baby Alexis and Atticus designs

Sigh. Alexis has been kidnapped again.

Zane cradling Atticus is wild. So cute.

Crowler thinking this is happening because he never paid titan. This is great.

Alexis is back. She’s dueling for her brother memory. I love seeing her shine finally

Titan is a real shadow duelist now and Alexis is surrounded by darkness so she can’t see his field which is a nice gimmick

We are in episode 41 and it’s Alexis’s first Shadow duel. I love all the Jaden content but can we let the other cast members do something??

Atticus reaching for Alexis because they can’t see her as Jaden supports him. Very sweet.

Alexis don’t just give up. Thank you for calling out Atticus. Love the sibling dynamics

The shadow creatures that come to eat him are super disturbing and the kids all just watched that and were like ya that just happened… moving on.

They bing up the other missing students in season 4 right. Because like Atticus just said he went with several students but he’s to only one backs

Also the reveal that Professor banner is in on the madness is a great reveal.

I will say this episode is another on that really highlights the differences between GX and DM.

In DM when the gang couldn’t see Yugi’s duel against Pegasus they used their ‘power of friendship’ to protect Yugi from Pegasus shadow magic. Which is silly but like at least they did something. The Gx cast will just stand there and make witty banter or talk crap. About Jaden about the opponent.

In battle city when Mai and Joey had their shadow games Yugi/Atem did everything they could to be present and supportive. Atem even used his own body to block the blast from hitting Mai and Joey. so to see Alexis in a dark bubble and all of the cast just standing there like ‘well wait this out.’ Is a super different vibe. There isn’t a lot they could do but they are also not really trying anything. Tristian ran into the shadow bubble to try and get to Yugi.

It’s just different which is a good and bad things.

The bonds in Gx just aren’t as strong as the DM cast of the 5Ds cast. Like it’s no wonder season 3 happens.

I am happy that someone beside Jaden finally fought and won against the shadow riders. Way to go Chazz and Alexis

[sad-drake-lyrics]

about: my nezutan fanfic progress

i feel this is a good time to mention what's going on with my nezutan fics (the curse of us sinning & healing; kintsugi), since there haven't been updates for a while now.

obviously, these fics are not forgotten—let me say that right out the gate—especially S&H, because it's the big one.

there's been three things going on: one is that i struggle with disabling mental illness, and i've been in a pretty bad depressive episode for a while where i really haven't been able to write much of anything; two is that nezutan has been my passion (and still is) for over two years now, and i have poured my heart and soul into these fics, however have reached a bit of a point of burnout where i needed to step away from the ship for a bit; and three, following that, i have also been working on stories for other fandoms that i also really care about, and so when i am hit with inspiration to work on them, i don't want to lose that—since any writing i do is important practice and growth for my ultimate goal, which is to be a published author.

i am beyond shocked and honoured how popular S&H in particular has become, and i do apologize for the long wait for the next chapter; i understand it might be frustrating for those invested. still, the fact is life is life, and fanfic-writing is not my full-time or even part-time job, as i don't get paid for all the hard work i do lol.

all that said, i DO have progress on the next chapter, and i am hoping that season 4 of the anime airing now will get me all hyped up to really get back into working on nezutan stuff. my goal is to update S&H within the month—and even if i don't, the story is definitely not ever going to be abandoned.

thank you to readers; i will continue to do my best not to disappoint you. xog