#there are more eloquent posts out there

[airi-of-hearts]

ooc: just something I wanted to say. This will be short and sweet (or thereabouts):

I am not new to fandom, I've been a part of different fandoms for almost a decade. However, I am fairly new to RP.

I am a fic writer, so working "alone" is what I'm used to. That said, I've never felt more creative than when I started writing with other people, so I am enjoying this rp experience very much, and I will always be grateful to the lovely person who made me join the rp side of the aib fandom (I'm not tagging anyone, but if they're reading this, you know who you are).

If you feel left out or excluded, my advice is: Don't Take It Personally. Because 99.9% of the time it's not. There are real people behind every character, with lives outside of tumblr, and they have good days and bad days and all sorts of reasons why they might have missed your posts.

I am only talking about my experience and how it is for me: I am shy, a textbook introvert. It took me forever to reach out to people, because I felt intimidated (and I do want to clarify that I made myself feel like that, it wasn't because of anything they did or posted) and guess what? They were nice and welcoming and overall amazing people.

So.

Curate your own experience. If you want to interact with someone, don't be afraid to reach out. If you don't get the response you expected, don't take it personally and don't feel disheartened. If someone is actually rude to you, block them. Fandom is meant to be fun.

And to the fantastic people who organize events, who send memes, who comment on posts, who create art, who write... thanks for keeping this fandom alive.

[witchspeka]

I dont think Mob is naive as much as he's socially unaware, like the reason why he trusts Reigen so blindly is a bit more complex than just him being naive

Cause Mob reached out to Reigen because he was desperate to find someone like him, someone who understood his psychic specific issues, someone that could truly know what he's feeling and going through and give him guidance and support

Post incident Mob's thinking process was something along the lines of my powers hurt people -> my powers are bad -> my powers (my emotions, my instincts, myself) cannot be trusted

So he lost all confidence and trust in his own actions, resigning to being as passive as possible to avoid any further damage to anyone else, thus he started doubting his own perception of reality too

He's a kid already struggling with being ostracised for being socially inept, who just got traumatised and all of his insecurity increased by the tenfold, he doesn't know how to process what he's going through. He needs help.

And here comes Reigen, seemingly reliable, a responsible adult in a child's eyes, someone who claims he can understand him

Even tho Reigen doesnt. But it doesn't matter, because Mob finds comfort in his words and takes them to heart

Even if Reigen doesn't fully get it, even if he doesn't see the bigger picture, even if his advice isn't always the best

Eventually, Mob grows up, realises Reigen isn't as honest as he seemed through his 11 year old perspective, but like most things, he refuses to acknowledge it on a deeper level

Mob knows, but never tells Reigen, never thinks about what all those lies mean to him (ofc until he forces himself to face those doubts regarding Reigen, to properly acknowledge both of their flaws and accept them as they are, I should scream into the void about Confession Arc more God)

Due to his lack of trust in himself, Mob has relied on Reigen for years now to shape his moral compass, his thoughts, his decisions

Because well, Reigen lies, sure, but he isnt a bad person. When he hurts Mob, it isn't intentional or with ill intent, he still wants the best for him, what's the issue?

Except that it stunts Mob's growth. He doesn't develop as a person, doesn't have goals or wishes or ambitions, can't make choices on his own, he doesn't even let himself acknowledge his own emotions, he refuses to let himself exist

But Mob realises in time that he wants more than that, he wants to become better and be independent and feel again

Still, he puts the acknowledgement of the lies on hold for as long as he can, unwilling to question the way things are

This can make him feel a little naive, he constantly relies on Reigen and trusts his decisions and raises questions rarely until separation arc when he finally puts his foot down

And I do think that moment is the most resounding proof we have that Mob knows and allows himself to be used by Reigen, not wanting to shake the status quo, until he gets fed up

I mentioned the social ineptitude at the beggining but idk if I should even elaborate on that, you've watched the show, you know what I mean

He's blunt and can't read social cues or tonality that well and can't speak in front of crowds and is overall pretty awkward and I do think some people conflate that with naivety

Mob is still a child, he doesnt fully understand how the world works at the ripe age of 14 years old, but some folks take that as him being inherently naive/innocent/whatever which I don't find true

[thiefnessman]

i know im being annoying about the princess in slay the princess but like. this is so sexy of her

[eikichi-supremacy]

and they were singin', bye-bye Miss American Pie // american oldie i think kuwabara unironically listens to

(low effort lyric edit im queueing here in May cos im probably gonna forget it exists otherwise)

[gjsxj0]

mindless rambling in tags don't mind me

[sammy-the-boyking]

something to be said about how frequently sam drives the impala in s1 versus how little he drives it every season after. somebody else wrote very good meta about how dean doesn't really see the car as 'his' until s2, and i do think that's part of it. but i also think it has to do with john placing responsibility for sam on dean's shoulders at the end of s1. in s1 sam and dean are on pretty equal footing but thereafter dean accepts and internalizes this role that john has pushed onto him. he's responsible for sam, he has to watch out for sam, he has to keep sam 'good'. literally and metaphorically dean is in the driver's seat from s2 onward. he's the one in control and sam is the passenger

[i-heart-hxh]

Hi again! I've had this thought in terms of hxh meta that I personally have not seen discussed, so I'm gonna dump it here for you! There's an underlying theme I've noticed of characters throughout the series being one that lost their other halves. Like, most obvious, Leorio and Kurapika lost their childhood best friends. Melody lost her friend to the devil's music. We see Nobunaga lose Uvogin, and so on. So Killua saving Gon instead of letting him die after CAA seems to be a "breaking the cycle" so to speak, although I'm not sure what that would even mean! Nothing much to say besides those details I've noticed, but I wanted to know if you had thoughts? Or perhaps it's just an interesting background detail that is up in the air in terms of being significant?

Hello, thank you so much for sending an ask again! I've put some thought into this topic as well, so I'm happy you brought this up! How I'm answering this is both somewhat abstract and far-reaching in the series so it's a little difficult to summarize and express simply, but I hope you and others might get some meaning out of it!

I strongly believe that one of HxH's great overarching themes is the transformational power of love and how it grants people second chances in life. In this post I'm referring to love in a broader sense, not just romantic love, as of course many different types of love are portrayed and have deep importance in HxH. We see the theme of transformative love in so many different relationships and instances that it's difficult to even summarize them--a few examples are Gon and Killua, Meruem and Komugi, Meruem and his Royal Guard, Ging and Kite, Killua and Ikalgo, even in less major character pairs like Ging and Razor (Razor: "Ging taught me it took only one person, one person in the entire world who will trust you, to save you.") and Kite and Koala, but that's only scraping the surface. I reblogged a previous wonderful meta that pointed out the domino effect of Killua's act of kindness towards Ikalgo, which ended up changing the ultimate trajectory of humanity's war against the Chimera Ants. This is a great example of this theme in action!

But of course, while meeting and loving someone can transform that person's whole life, so also can losing someone significant. It can set someone on a completely different life track than they would have been on had they not lost them--Kurapika, Leorio, Senritsu, the Phantom Troupe (especially with their flashback in recent chapters), Gon and Kite, Kacho and Fugetsu (though this hasn't played out all the way yet) come to mind, but there are many more throughout the series as well. Not all of the losses that fit into this are someone losing their other half/most important person, but there's a solid enough percentage that it certainly seems to be a trend Togashi is establishing and exploring.

It's difficult to explore one of these themes in depth and with honesty without the other--love happens, loss of loved ones happens, both are deeply transformative, and both can ultimately be placed under the broader umbrella of the transformative power of love. After all, if losing a person causes someone's entire life path to change, chances are they loved them a great deal and the force behind the change that occurs in their life is the love and grief they still feel after the loss.

HxH has many tragic elements and Togashi certainly doesn't shy away from the heart-wrenching and long-lasting results of loss, but I think it's fair to say from the 400 chapters we have so far that HxH's themes are not ultimately tragic and hopeless on this topic by any means. In HxH:

Death is not always insurmountable, i.e., Kite, the Chimera Ants in general

The life path one ends up on after a major loss need not be a tragic one, i.e. Leorio deciding to be a doctor and help children in poverty as a result of losing his friend

Death in itself can be an act of love, i.e. Meruem and Komugi, Netero and humanity

Even if one ends up on a dark path as a result of loss, that doesn't mean they can't be saved by someone else's love for them, i.e., Gon and Killua, this could also end up being the trajectory for Kurapika and Leorio potentially?

With Gon and Killua, their whole relationship is based on them transforming each other and giving each other second chances:

Gon saving Killua simply by not judging him, befriending him, and showing him another life path

Gon retrieving Killua from the Zoldyck family when Killua's resolve broke down because of Illumi

Killua pulling the needle of out of his head out of sheer love for and desire to protect Gon

And of course Killua not allowing Gon to die, simultaneously saving him and transforming Alluka's life.

(And Killua's ability to save and help Alluka is of course, a direct result of the kindness Gon extended to Killua and the love Killua has for Gon.)

There's no way to know for certain what will happen in their future, but I definitely think their relationship has one more transformation in it at least, in the form of a reunion and reconciliation.

So, in summary, I think these themes of someone losing a person who was their other half and how one continues to live after that are another way of exploring the broader theme of what it means to love someone and be transformed by meeting them, which I see as a primary theme of HxH. I also think some of these relationships are intended to be comparisons to or foils of Gon and Killua's relationship in a sense (especially Kurapika and Pairo and Kacho and Fugetsu, but others as well), expanding on the themes of their relationship and how a love that deep affects people, both in beautiful and in deeply painful ways.

[fox-guardian]

oh I love reading bad takes so early into a show's life (sarcastic) (I'm dying) (god save me)

[sun-marie]

Another bg3 thought dump but I've been thinking about this all day. I think a big part of why I love the Boat Scene in Gale's romance (or at least the version I've played), and really Gale's Romance in general, is bc there's so much potential for nuance.

My Tav, Zephyr, isn't particularly faithful to any one god or the gods in general (though she does enjoy studying faerunian theology), and so in theory she's not against opposing and maybe even deposing Mystra. But she knows that many of the "gods" of the modern era were once mortals, and until the cycle can be broken she doesn't want anyone, least of all someone she cares about, to take that risk and lose themself.

When I first got to the Boat Scene, I couldn't help the feeling of dread I got bc I was sure Gale and Zephyr were about to break up. Bc I knew how strongly Gale wanted this and for (mostly) the right reasons, but I also knew Zephyr wasn't going to budge. And I feel like in many games, that would be that; characters disagree, they break up. Even though Zephyr would be against it for Gale's sake, bc she loves who he is, not who he could be.

But the dialogue is so interesting bc it actually lets them argue about it, while also giving the player to stay with him anyway.

"This doesn't have to be the end for us."

"But I could be so much more to you."

Now true source of Gale motivation is revealed. He feels like he's not enough. Which allows Zephyr to reiterate that he is, and they stay together and even grow closer!

It just makes both characters feel very real to me, and I appreciate that they can talk and argue until they get deeper and deeper into why the other one feels this way. It's almost like how couples actually are in real life!

[spoilerqlert]

new favourite creature <33

spoilers + body horror tw under the cut:

look at them they're my sweet baby angel

[chaosmax]

More on: “I’m so surprised more people don’t evaluate and compare & contrast Kaiba and Diva in relation to each other more often”

I'm looking at these pics side by side and either KT just straight up has a type of fav character design that he can’t shake himself out of OR this was on purpose to draw parallels between the two making them seem like shadow figures of each other/rivals/foils--

Both have a sleeveless coat, high collar, dramatic coat tail, pendant (or at least, I still solidly believe that KT just forgot to give Kaiba’s his, or perhaps you could argue that it missing has a symbolic reason or maybe to contrast with Sera and Diva who both have a small triangle pendant, turtleneck

Kaiba: silver/gray metal arm bracers, nothing special with hair sans when he’s dueling the duel gazer/headset is on his left, kneepads, belt, and his coat has the little spikes at the waist creating the flair of the spikes at his waist

Diva: gold bracelets, decorated hair with the longer strand on his right, wrapped fabric at the waist, spikes/flair at the end of his sleeves Also, nice framing with them literally in an inverted stance toward each other. And while on the Seto’s side it’s just himself and Mokuba against the rest of the world on Diva’s side he has all the kids that have joined the Plana at his back.

Like, I’m not an artist or visual director but all of these things are almost so 1:1 I highly doubt that we WEREN’T supposed to draw these connections. This seems to be visual cues galore.

And then for the meta/story side because I am first and foremost a story and writing evaluator:

When you really stop to think about it Diva and Kaiba are remarkably good character foils of each other with a lot of the same yet different methods, actions, flaws, weaknesses, and goals/motivations.

Motivations/Goals (those outside the main conflict of the film): Diva wants to create a new perfect dimension, a Utopia collective consciousness that the Plana would create and guide others to (this is more explicitly stated in the sub). And the Shadi and revenge thing, but more on that later.

Kaiba, (again most explicitly stated in the sub with Kaiba’s pre-tournament speech about how the new Duel Disk is meant to bridge the gap between people of all race/country/creed/etc. and the Transcend Game Manga) is trying to achieve a similar thing with his games and the duel disk. He states how the body is like a prison and these barriers between people lead to bloody useless wars. His connection via games is meant to escape that. He has a bunch of kids as the beta testers for their minds are the most imaginative. Kaiba is reaching for his own collective consciousness here but in a very different way.

Methods: Diva has complete confidence in the power of the Plana. He’s been told by Shadi about this great power and has seen it in action before he even receives the Quantum Cube himself. Diva and the rest of the Plana has seen that utopia the power of the Plana can provide (and Sera even showed Yugi a glimpse of it) but there is still that level of uncertainty in the creation of this new dimension. Sera states after Diva has gotten corrupted by the ring that the Cube has the power to create a new shining world of light, but if one drop of darkness gets in there the whole thing can be corrupted.

Kaiba has complete confidence with his tech. It is a simple equation of A + B = C. It may take it a while to get there, but there is a steady and succinct step-by-step process in his mind on how to get to point A to point B. And if he runs into a roadblock one way he explores another solution--as seen by when the Dimension Ascension had its safety limits in the World of Duel Links his focus became entirely on the puzzle, and then from the puzzle to the Duel Dimension System (it’s not a time machine i s2g if I see that one more time I will sCream. Atem recognizes him. He wouldn’t if it’s a time machine. It’s the darkside of dimensions, not the darkside of time travel). Kaiba’s methods are calculated and testable. There’s a scientific process to his approach.

Actions: They have very similar goal when it comes to the wider global scope, and yet intact that goal in different ways, despite both believing they are right in their own solutions even though this point never came up between them (but did between Diva and Yugi). Diva has seen paradise and that’s all he’s interested in until Yugi challenges him about building that paradise with everyone instead of gifting it to a few.

Aside from that conflict point though, Diva and Kaiba are pretty similarly ham-fisted when it comes to their actions once the plot of DSoD kicks off. Kaiba stomps around Domino City as he sees fit, he faces his challenges head on. And he is pretty clearly 100000% done with magical things running his tournaments and creates a counter for both of Diva’s Plana powers without much of a snag.

The Duel: Then of course they duel each other. And in this direct challenge they are pretty evenly matched. Kaiba, who the audience knows is a powerful duelist at this point dishes out powerful attack after powerful attack and even has new, stronger monsters to fight with. Yet Diva finds a way to avoid or redirect those attacks, even being bold enough to have an attitude that feels like he’s toying with Kaiba. While few others can go toe to toe with Kaiba in a duel the match was heavily going in Diva’s favor until Seto managed to summon Obelisk by picking up with the trace memories/wavelengths in the tomb.

Death and grieving: Both of them are trying to deal with the fallout of the death of someone that played a big role in their lives, but how each of their plotlines resolve for this are opposite at the end. Despite Diva’s actions to try and get rid of Bakura being against everything Shadi taught him and the rest of the Plana kids and even Sera and Manny trying to talk him down from it he doesn’t listen. Diva gets so caught up in the pain he’s feeling instead of what he knows. He’s eager to be able to blame someone for Shadi’s death he’s ignoring that Ryou Bakura is likely not the same as the ring spirit. But when confronting Ryou and realizes the truth he can’t ignore it anymore and he lets Ryou go and the glow of the cube fades. (Remember, it was the appearance of the corrupted Manny that caused the banishment of Ryou, not Diva himself, I see this getting mixed up quite a bit) And then he is able to start to fully move past his fixation on revenge.

But Kaiba hasn’t been able to make that progress himself. Even after Yugi reassembles the puzzle himself and shows it’s empty Seto keeps hounding Yugi, spitting cruel words and still refusing to believe that Atem isn’t still within Yugi. Then, even after Atem temporarily returns that isn’t enough for him to complete his grieving process, he finds a way to travel across dimensions for one last duel.

Flaws: Seto and Diva share some weaknesses in their ambition, ego, and arrogance yet at the same time it’s a situation of the pot calling the kettle black. Due to their own respective power they both think they’re invincible. Diva shittalks Kaiba’s egotistical actions of taking over Domino City and creating his own version of a collective consciousness within Duel Links. But Diva is doing a similar thing himself by how he’s dictating who should have the right to exist and even erasing people just for standing in his way like Jounouchi. Yet at the same time Diva thinks the power of the Plana is unstoppable and plain incompressible to anyone who is not apart of it--something that he gets a rude awakening for when Kaiba deflects his attempt to distillate him in the tomb and then later when Diva gets captured.

And then Kaiba gets knocked down a peg when his duel with Diva is a close one and then again when he has to team up with Yugi in order to defeat Diva’s corrupted form.

The character paths Diva and Seto are on through dsod are very similar. The characters are alike, but different. They have plenty in common to draw comparison to yet also differences that foil each other many steps of the way. And I just find this neat ™ and am surprised there isn’t more talk about these two in relation to each other when there’s so much crossover and they’re honesty the main two opposing forces of the film. Like there is so much going on here  TwT

[miss-allsundays]

seeing blitzø again was an experience. i got reminded all over again WHY he’s my favorite i love him

[nsfwitchy2]

Tbh sometimes I see those posts that are like “I thought we promised not to shit on kids!!” And like they are CORRECT and we should NOT be shitting on kids

But istg I’ve seen at least one or two reference things like “Sephora kids” and “claiming gen alpha can’t read” as shitting on kids and….. idk who you’ve been talking to about this but everyone I’ve seen talk about this are almost exclusively shitting on the parents???

Also those aren’t like. Shitting on kids. They’re legitimate concerns about the way technology and capitalism are affecting childhood and parenting, in my own experience anyway?

[badnew2005]

dennis’ shirt in gets romantic . do you remember hoodiegate. blue and arguably stripey (simply because of how material works) a core emotional dennis motif. but these aren’t bold stripes. it’s The material that makes it seem stripey, all blended together, unending stripes, you can’t tell where one ends and another beings, it’s continuous, but still landscape. you don’t know where he is emotionally, and he doesn’t either. just come back from north dakota. pretending everything’s the same. knowing everything’s different. macs out. and he left. and came back. there are blue stripes.

then THE blue stripe dennis emotional shirt. big and bold. it’s got a different neckline than break up’s shirt but it’s essentially the same pattern. following the narrative of the episode. dennis is out (of the plan)… but he won’t leave. hearing mac set up dee and greg. the wink. confusion and then acceptance. “what do you mean the plan is in motion for me, i thought i was out” setting dennis up with lisa. maybe teddy was a platonic friend from highschool that makes greg jealous. maureen kicking mac out of their apartment after getting married to dennis. “so i’m still your leading man” the big stripes. big emotional arc. calling lisa “my roomie” when he has to flirt with her. drinking wine. helps when your sad. still got big blue stripes. you miss teddy and no one can replace him. macden coming home singing the boys are back in town. maureen couldn’t replace mac. i don’t love you maureen (looks at mac) i never loved you (maureen). blows hitting on lisa purposefully. if he really wanted to sleep with her “sex, banging” he wouldn’t have been that forward, knew it wouldn’t work. big blue stripes. i’m still your leading man. mac thinking that went great. i find you annoying this whole thing is annoying. i’m leaving (to mac’s room). you just have to trust the structure. Just Trust The Structure!!!

third and final dennis shirt. still blue. it’s checkered But the more prominent stripes are facing downward. a Change. the emotional blue stripes are still there but there’s new stripes, going in a different direction. horizontal stripes shown in closeted dennis moments. the macden story and frank and charlie’s stories mirroring eachother - as they once did in fights gay marriage/gets divorced. straight is gay. the stripes have changed. the whole worlds upside down and the emotional dennis stripes have twisted. stops trying to set dennis up with a woman and moving the focus to setting mac up with a man. it won’t play in middle america but we’ll jam it down their throats till they enjoy it. mac coming in and out of the closet like a yoyo. so you’ll help me. i will. emotionally charged macdennis moment. mac let’s go find you some romance. the stripes have changed. this cat is coming out of the wall. to get him out you introduce another cat and they get codependent then that second cat will come out and hopefully the first one will come out soon after. episode before gets romantic was mac finds his pride. Just Trust The Structure. the framing of dennis, with his horizontal and vertical stripes, standing behind mac (hoodiegate). if you just give us a chance, we could tell a love story for the ages (chuckles softly) (dennis is out of frame) a gay…. gay-ass love story. sunnys relationship with its audience and the media. greg i don’t know what you’re talking about … back to dennis. and his stripes. you can barely see the horizontal stripes. they’re mainly vertical. he’s changing. this is a turning point. it was me, it was always me. lisa’s here, focus on dennis. lisa as maureen lisa as mandy. he doesn’t want lisa here. now dennis and his stripes are out of frame again. moving away from the love story, teddy reveal, someone smarter than me could talk about father son relationships here. dennis isn’t over macs shoulder but we still go back to him. you can see the checkered shirt so clearly but the vertical stripes seem even more prominent up close. director glenn. trusting the structure. dennis shots isolated from macs “love story” until the reveal it wasn’t romantic. dennis ready with the speaker. that’s not romantic or comedic. i guess we’re not gonna get that romantic comedy ending after all. mac and dennis’ story mirroring charlie and franks’ Again. the stripes have changed. the cat is coming out of the wall. and i am trusting the structure

[starryjkoo]

Alright, not to get too caught up in the MHJ drama, but I’m crying because I just reread my now deleted post-Golden rant complaining about BSH, SB, and my issues with their strategy and I got to this part

😭😭😭

No but I was right. Say what you want about MHJ, but NewJean’s was truly HYBE's only other major success outside of BTS and it had nothing to do with BangPD and it turns out that it absolutely did piss him off LMAO. I knew it. You don't have to believe everything she says, but the elevator thing was basically confirmed and there's no normal, well adjusted adult who would ignore young girls like that if they weren't an immature, petty asshole.

Not to be messy and reopen this can of worms, but it does make me think it's even more likely that he might have been a little bitter over LC hitting #1 considering he couldn't take credit for it. He had that whole article in billboard that came out around the same time talking about how they were going to get the next #1 through their connections or infrastructure or however he put it, which was clearly referencing SB & HYBE America. I think he was trying to make it seem like this whole Scooter A&R strategy was ingenious and vital to Western success based on how hard they kept pushing and talking it up. So if MHJ was telling any amount of truth about his attitude and how he acted towards NWJN's, I just can't help but feel like he must have felt at least a LITTLE negatively about LC hitting that #1 right after he was talking such a big game about how his system (that he spent a billion dollars on) was going to be vital to that next #1.

LC was a Korean song Jimin made with a small in-house team so it must have been a little embarrassing for him to say all that to billboard (and probably investors lol) and have it be immediately invalidated. And LC so clearly demonstrated that BTS and the members could still pull off these big feats without him or his ideas and massive investment and personal involvement. And yeah, billboard did target LC right after that to try and smear it's success, but I think this argument still holds up. Especially because if LC was given any extra care or support it could have kept charting. And what billboard did in it's second week was insanely dirty.

(I’m not saying he was MAD about it, or that he didn’t talk it up to investors after, or that he sabotaged Jimin like a vengeful cartoon villain, I’m just being petty and speculating and saying I don’t think he was thrilled about it considering the circumstances)

Likewise NewJean's released music that did have a good chunk of English but was still Korean, and they managed to break a bunch of girlgroup billboard records as well, and that's ANOTHER project that BSH didn't have his hands on at all. In fact it was one he didn't believe in. Yes, ILLIT broke their record for getting their debut song on billboard quicker, however BSH followed the formula that MHJ created and apparently didn't even consult her or give her any credit while creating a group that was clearly inspired by her work (I genuinely love ILLIT and think they have their own identity! But they do follow the formula that MHJ popularized). So it's not like he got another group on billboard with his genius, it was again just following a formula someone else created (Magnetic was a bop and I loved the whole EP, so I'll give him that!).

I honestly don't even know what SB brings to the table that's so helpful because all they need for a pop song to succeed is basic charting tools like CDs and remixes and playlisting, which they could get before him, and basic decent promotions for visibility. And he's not doing anything interesting or helpful for the non-pop releases even though there's a massive market here for indie, alternative, R&B, and rap. Why wasn't CBTM on college stations? He's useless because the pop releases don't even need much to be successful. And none of JKs promotions were new or unique or something they couldn't have gotten before SB either. And if he's doing something else behind the scenes, I don't think that's worth it either.

JK did have more GP tuning in, but his solo debut was still heavily carried by ARMYs who took advantage of every provided tool, so nothing revolutionary they couldn't have accomplished pre-SB. It wouldn't have worked for anyone else like I said before either, a good example being TXT and their Jo Bros collab which flopped. BSH was all overconfident (top 10 on billboard lol) about it because he thought the secret to success was simply - western producer, western collab, english - but their fans didn't care for the song and therefore it didn't do well. So yeah, at the end of the day it's about good music and/or having a big fandom willing to carry (and that very rare charisma the BTS members have). Not whatever stupid synergy strategy BSH thought he unlocked. Honestly I wonder if he's really that stupid to think that they could get a hit with just those things, but I'm starting to think so. Genuinely what good decision has he made lately that wasn't just following trends?

Won't rehash everything again but this MHJ drama did make me look back on all this discourse even though I swore I was done with it. I'm not as bothered by all of this now, I just think it's interesting to look back on and compare some of her criticisms of HYBE & BSH to many of our own criticisms and speculation. While I take her words with a massive grain of salt, I do think there's a lot of outside evidence to back up some of her claims about the company and their issues (and I'm not her fan or excusing her actions or saying she's always truthful either).

Of course I could be totally wrong, just my thoughts. I'll go back to looking forward to Jin returning and upcoming projects because at the end of the day the BTS members are the ones responsible for their own careers and they have to be the ones to advocate for themselves and deal with their company, but the plus side of this situation is that I hope at least some K-ARMYs are approaching the company with more scrutiny and hopefully holding them accountable for certain things, although I won't hold my breath. It was hilarious seeing HYBE's quick response to their complaints about Jin's hug event though. I wish I-ARMYs would stop being such company stans (you can criticize HYBE/BH without being a manti you know) but not getting my hopes up.

I just sincerely hope that this whole SB creative strategy won't carry over into BTS music, or any more of their solo work. I wouldn’t care if the quality was there, but imo it’s too inconsistent (I definitely enjoy most of Golden! Seven is a bop, SNTY is 10/10). It’s not about creating art or good music for them, it’s about trying to design a song that they think will chart. And songs like that will almost always lack in some way. So I hope this doesn’t become a pattern and the members retain their creative freedom and recognize that they definitely do not need to rely on those people for a hit (ofc unless the want to work with them).

[sysig]

Totally unaffected by this gesture of affection, definitely (Patreon)