#we love growth and self-love and experimentation

[monratarot]

Tarot tips and tricks - Best love indicators

Please like and reblog if you find this information useful! 🌸🎀💕

//don’t claim it as your own and/or repost it on other platforms//

THE LOVERS: “I CHOOSE YOU.”

One common misconception about the Lovers, however, is that it signals a new love interest. In fact, it’s more common that the appearance of this tarot card signals a current friendship or romance moving to a deeper level.

Your intentions and desires are aligned, and so you can move closer to each other.

There is a relationship in your life that could soon become more intimate.

The card is a sign that you can make your feelings and intentions clear with confidence that they will be reciprocated.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

THE SUN: “THERE’S SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE!”

In the Major Arcana, the Sun follows the Star and the Moon, two cards that bring hope alongside difficult lessons.

The Sun always brings positive energy. It is the most powerfully affirming card in the tarot deck.

A celebratory event is on the horizon. This could be anything that heightens joy in your love life.

If you and your partner are trying for a child, this might mean confirmation of pregnancy. Are you searching for a house? You’ll close the deal. If you and your love interest have been kept apart, this card is a sign that obstacles like distance will soon disappear.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

TWO OF CUPS: “I LOVE THE WAY WE COMMUNICATE.”

The Two of Cups is a mini Lovers card. If the Lovers indicates a new level for your relationship, the Two of Cups is a small moment of triumph in communication.

You and a love interest or partner may have a conversation or even an argument during which you learn something new about each other.

As a result of your vulnerability and openness, your love will feel newly invigorated.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

ACE OF WANDS: “I CRAVE YOU.”

The Ace is an invocation of new energy. It’s a sexy, lusty card, and you can be sure to feel that sensual energy in your love life.

A new person or event may reconnect you to your sexual being.

It’s an invitation to be playful and experimental with your sexuality, and you can do this in any way that’s authentic to you.

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

FOUR OF WANDS: “I’M IN LOVE, AND I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW IT!”

This card often involves a celebration. In the case of the Four of Wands, the cause for celebration is a romantic union.

You are on the brink of an engagement or deeper romantic commitment. Send the announcement or change your relationship status online.

If you are single and not necessarily seeking a long-term partner, this card can mean you are taking steps to enjoy that life. Go ahead and download the dating app!

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

QUEEN OF PENTACLES: “I WILL RECEIVE WHAT MY HEART DESIRES.”

This card assures you that you have developed a strong sense of self, you are open to supportive love.

Someone in your life is supporting your personal growth. Whatever you want in a relationship, you can ask for it now.

Perhaps you are ready for motherhood, or you’d like to make a career transition after having a baby. Your love can support your needs now.

[princess-of-the-corner]

Was musing on that "Villain Marinette's mock Gabriel" thing and had a fun thought.

There's actually perfectly good in character reasons why a villainous Marinette would be more dangerous than Gabriel without making him look like a joke. I'll be using my Lady Glasswing as a basis for this:

Noroo:

Gabriel regards & treats Noroo like a blend of animal & tool; there's no respect or mutual communication, he does not engage with Noroo at all unless he as to.

Marinette's relationship with Noroo is more akin to "Oh my wonderful, life changing, power granting wish fairy who comforted me in my lowest moment & gave me a path to saving my parents, I love you!"

It'd take a long time for their relationship to sour & before that, & because Noroo as an empath gets too caught up in their handlers emotional state, the two talk and theorize and otherwise collaborate a lot. As a result she has a really intimate understanding of her powers and limits early on.

Though some of her experiments & ideas, and especially results do eventually get Noroo like:

Noroo did not know they could do that and would rather not have known thank you!

The other reasons would be fairly straight forward as well:

Lady Glasswing: I suppose its true what they say, necessity is the mother of invention.

Or in other words, Marinette's not living in a fortress manor, with someone else to take care of all her needs, able to just sit around at home all day and is vastly, vastly more limited by her youth.

This forced her to get creative right out the gate, especially as she knew she'd be going up against a fully trained Guardian.

In contrast, Gabriel's plan for 90% of Seasons 1 & 2 was basically "Eventually I'll hit on the right combo of smart, strong & special to win, why hurry?" He tried a few gambits like the tv stunt, spying on Lila, Audrey.

But overall, it wasn't until Heroes Day & then when Nathalie was dying that he really got experimental with it and we saw how quickly he started doing bonkers shit like fusing people together and & orchestrating Chloe's breakdown. He just didn't feel that pressed to do so before hand.

Nothing left to lose:

The above also ties into a big difference in their approaches. Gabriel, regardless of the nature of his care for his son, Nathalie, nominal friends or fashion empire. Is invested in them,. It could be possessive & toxic, or more nuanced, but he has things to lose.

Marientte?

Her parents are dead or comatose, her grandfather wants nothing to do with her & sucks, her grandmother dips out 90% of the time cos she can't handle grief. She can't even speak the same language as the other side of her family who are not in the same country & she feels isolated & alienated from her peers & humanity.

She's very much pinned everything on "Fix my parents through any means necessary & all will be right again" and if she dies trying? Well she doesn't really care about that does she?

So, even ignoring that this pushes her further faster, it also means she's more willing to get stuck into it. Often joining Akuma in battle or using Familiars, pulling go big or go home schemes are her standard. She really only retreated once there were too many heroes around for her presence to be anything but a detriment.

Meanwhile Gabriel even though he had tons of advantages over Ladybug & Chat Noir, especially early on avoids risking himself as much as possible, Only leaving his base when he thinks he's already won or has no choice and as a result simply has less experience or otherwise, zealous drive by comparison.

So yea, end results?

Communicating with one's Kwami is good for growth.

Limits can foster creativity while no limits can inadvertently stifle it.

A disregard for one's self and others, while especially noble, is a good teacher if you survive doing it long enough.

Notes:

Though I do still like Marinette making a jab at Gabriel-Moth.

Marinette: Limits foster creativity, I mean look at Gabriel's original work compared to the repetitive, sterile dreck he puts out now that he has nothing but time and money.

Gabriel (Seething) What a... Fascinating perspective.

GET HIS ASS

[saintsenara]

now, if you'll excuse him, he has to go and fall to his knees before either dumbledore or voldemort.

ok hear me out why must there be an or. why can’t we have snape/dumbledore/voldemort all at once (in the interest of unhinged ships that really could be rather hinged if u think about it, i am waiting patiently for u to tell me how actually, we very much can have snape/dumbledore/voldemort)

hot.

anon, you are so right that snumblemort has the potential to go really, really hard and i am now entirely compelled by it as a concept.

i back each of the constituent two-person pairings entirely - i've written about snumbledore and riddledore, and i know there's an ask sitting in my inbox about snapemort [which i promise i'll get to].

and, i realise, i back them for exceptionally similar reasons.

both snumbledore and riddledore work because the potential for horror baked into them [the age gaps, the fact that dumbledore was both men's teacher, and so on] exist in conjunction with the fact that there would clearly be the foundations for genuinely meaningful relationships chilling cutely among all the ways in which they're fucked up.

all three men are the only people in the series who can be feasibly described as the others' intellectual equals - and all three share the same outlook on what the purpose of magic is and how one ought to relate to it [even if dumbledore hides this behind his shame at how his belief in the value of magic and magical experimentation as power triggered the whole grindelwald debacle...]. i think there's an immediately compelling prompt for a fic in which the three end up being forced to work together to solve some sort of mystery - the chance to pour over ancient manuscripts in candlelit libraries, or race against time to unravel the base of a curse or a poison, or try to figure out a series of puzzles or clues contained within dark objects would be right up their alleys, and nothing's hotter than a man who takes an interest in your sapiosexual pretensions.

but i'm also really interested in the ways in which snumbledore and riddledore really work as the most plausible pairings in which dumbledore can be made to do some actual self-growth.

his canonical relationship with both snape and voldemort is born of his own self-loathing - when he tells snape, in the prince's tale "you disgust me", he's speaking to the memory of a man whose selfish desire to impress someone he loved was utterly destructive; he is not disturbed by meeting the young tom riddle in half-blood prince until he describes himself as "special", and his loathing of the adult voldemort's obsession with fame and notoriety is evidently caused by the fact that these were both things he once [and still] desired.

and he's forced in canon to confront this in his relationship with snape - after snape agrees to kill him in half-blood prince - and to come to regard snape as brave, loyal, steadfast, and trustworthy. he's never - for obvious reasons - made to do this for voldemort in canon [and, indeed, he is strikingly oblivious in half-blood prince to the things about voldemort which inspire harry's sympathy - above all his lingering grief over his mother's death], but i think there are numerous plausible scenarios in which being forced into closer proximity to voldemort could bring this about. the canonical voldemort has an extremely profound - if also extremely odd - sense of honour, and he also possesses the capacity to - in his own little way - be surprisingly brave, and i always think there's something quite moving about fics in which dumbledore has no other option but to recognise this.

and dumbledore having to drop his mask would be good for both snape and voldemort. it's clear in canon that one of the reasons voldemort dislikes dumbledore is that he considers him a hypocrite [especially because he decries voldemort's ambition for public attention while courting such things himself] and that one of the reasons snape dislikes him is that he feels he conceals things from him because he distrusts him, even as he's asking him to risk his life for the order. both of them learning why it is that dumbledore constructed his public mask of benign eccentricity would help them make sense of why he is the way he is.

and it would allow all the similarities between the three to fully emerge. one of the reasons why snapemort really slaps as a ship is because snape and voldemort have so much in common - especially their experiences of childhood poverty, their disappointing fathers who they greatly resemble, and their periphery to the posh, pureblood world they both long to be fully part of and also long to undermine and humiliate. and dumbledore has the shadow of a similarly difficult childhood - and a similarly difficult relationship with his father and his legacy - lurking over him. all three also carry the weight of life-altering grief [even if voldemort is the one of the three unwilling to admit to this]. i think there's a lot of opportunity for the recognition of each in the others that they all canonically use to drive their own loathing to mutate into something which might look a lot like respect...

do i think it would be healthy? ...eh, probably not. all three clearly have really fucked-up views on intimacy and love, for one thing, and i doubt whether any of them really has the potential to let go of their original ways of seeing the others, to be properly honest, or to relinquish the power dynamics established between them from the beginning of their acquaintances.

and yet...

[amyreads]

I had some questions if that's alright with you.

1. What inspires your characters appearance and sense of fashion? All of your characters have such great character designs.

2. Would you say there's a difference in genre between what you like to read and what you like to write or is it the same?

3. And last but not least, what are your favorite genre of IFs to play? Is there a specific genre or type of ro/trope you enjoy?

Of course! I love these kinds of questions! Long post warning!

1. What inspires your characters appearance and sense of fashion? All of your characters have such great character designs.

Thank you so much! I worked really hard to get them to fit a vibe that felt perfect for me. I really wanted them to be fashion-forward since a lot of being fame and being visible is being on top of trends. Characters like G have stylists so G is very trendy. The characters are also very expressive not only with their music but their clothes. None of the characters are very shy when it comes to their sense of fashion was is exciting because I love describing outfits. I know some authors find it tedious and 'amateur' which I kinda see why since it's a bit juvenile but I love love love it.

For G, I was inspired by 80s rockstars with long curly hair as well as Cher in the 70s haha I knew I wanted G to have a very prominent detail and it's their long (straight, in their case) black hair. G's tattoos are sort of a mark of their growth as an artist. When they first started, they were essentially 'pure' in the sense that they had no tats and were very young. As they grew older, the tats also grew in number. Touched by fame. SO poetic /j G is very flamboyant and they are very experimental/adventurous with their clothes.

This goes for Victoria. As a model and actress, she's very fashion forward. She prefers dresses over pants and that's kind of her brand haha ! Her red hair and the fact that her stage name ends in Valentine made red her brand, and she takes advantage of that. Branding is very important for her and G, so it helps when you have that *thing* that reminds people of you.

For Seven, the infamous (lol) bandana was something that just came to me. I also wanted Seven to have a "staple" look and I just think it looks cool! Again, it's very reminiscent of the old age rock stars. If Seven were a cartoon character, the outfit they wore at the party (industrial shirt/red and black striped undershirt) would be their "everyday outfit" I think. It really shows their personality; Seven's oversized, messy look reflects them in a way. The fact that it looks deliberately disheveled but Seven worked hours to look good is very telling of who they are. Seven likes to pretend they don't care but we all know that's not the truth!

August has a very calming quality to them. Very grounding. In a story where the ROs are all messes, August's penchant for silence and calm shines. Their colors are a nice brown, green, beige. Very neutral and low-key. They wear a lot of sweaters and cardigans and linen pants because it's comfortable and cozy. Their clothes reflect their personality the most. Kinda reminds me of pajamas in a way!

Orion is pretty self explanatory. While everyone else considers BOTB and everything an outlet for their creativity, Orion sees it for what it is: a job. He dresses professionally to set him apart from the band and everyone else. He's there to work. He's very clean-cut, and very neat so it shines in his clothes.

Seb is well, I wanted Seb to be very unassuming and just normal hahaha. Everyone else dresses really stylishly and I wanted Seb to be really low-key. It's obvious he has no desire to be in the spotlight and that shows with his plain, basic clothing.

2. Would you say there's a difference in genre between what you like to read and what you like to write or is it the same?

Hm, up until recently I used to only read fantasy. I think one of my first if games was Choice of Rebels, among a few others. Writing fantasy is what helped build up my skill. All I've ever wanted to be was a fantasy author until one day...I just started hating it. I hated writing fantasy. I LOVE LOVE reading it, but I hate writing fantasy. I don't know why. I think it's because I fail to convince myself. My suspension of disbelief is very strict when it comes to my own writing, while another writer can convince me of anything in fiction so as long as it makes a lick of sense. It's weird!

I still love fantasy as a reader but I don't think I could ever write it. I do want to try one day though!

I'm more strictly slice-of-life nowadays, aside from Body Double. I think it's easier for me. I love romcoms. I love romance, which hasn't changed. I find it funny that I'm not very romantic in real life but romance is like a baseline requirement for me in stories.

One thing that stays the same is that I love angst. Reading and writing it. I don't like fluff, it makes me cringe. (There will be fluff in Infamous aha). I don't like power fantasies or any of that. Ah, I don't know!

3. And last but not least, what are your favorite genre of IFs to play? Is there a specific genre or type of ro/trope you enjoy?

I'll read anything! I don't have a favorite, I don't think, but I do love urban/modern fantasy. A mixture of slice-of-life and fantasy is the sweet spot for me.

Specific type of RO I like are the emotionally unavailable/closed off ones or the mean ones haha. I do not like easy romances. I like working for it and I think when an RO doesn't want my character it makes it so much more fun and the payoff is so much more satisfying. I need yearning...longing. I need slow burn!

I know there are readers who like playing games where the MC is important loved but I'm not a fan. I like my MC being a regular person that's treated accordingly depending on the character and the story. I don't want my MC to get special treatment or to be powerful just because they're the MC. It has to make sense to me. For me, the ROs should have a greater purpose that goes beyond just romancing the MC.

I get a lot of flak for making the MC an underdog in infamous, but MC is not meant to be the most important person in the room at the start of the story. They need to earn it, which I think feels better.

My favorite RO from any IF game is Nash so <3 I guess that says it all hahah

I hope you liked my answers! This was really fun for me lolol

[pigeontheoneandonly]

Sometimes We Get What We Deserve

AO3 Link

She doesn’t look how Jack expects.

She’s tall, for one.  Jack’s not. But then, she was fed so many experimental diets as a kid, so many whacked-out theories about whether high protein or fasting or which micronutrients would enhance her biotics, and then there were the hunger strikes and how she learned to make herself throw up on the scientists as one of the few options for getting even—well, it wouldn’t shock anyone if it stunted her growth.  But still, she’s tall, this woman sitting in the docking bay.  She’s going to be looking down at Jack when they talk. Unless Jack sits down, too, so she stays sitting, and then they’ll both be sitting down and that’ll make it worse if Jack bolts.  Jack’s the type who always wants an exit strategy.

Her hair’s brown and cut in a tight cap.  Everything about her seems tight, closed-off, wary.  Jack respects that even as her stomach flops over the littlest bit in recognition.  Green eyes. Freckles, everywhere.  Thin mouth with a coating of nude lipstick.  Jack touches her own bright red lips, and then drops her hand, angry.  She loves the way she looks.  She loves that it scares people, better armor than anything Hahn-Kedar ever produced, loves how it tells her story in a way only the people she wants to read it can understand.  But she’s self-conscious now.  Angry to be worried what this woman will think, angry that she wants, desperately, for her to like her.

Angry that she’s been standing here ten minutes studying her face to avoid looking at her hands, which are twisted around a small rainbow quilt in her lap.  Jennie embroidered on the corner.

Jack’s not Jennie. And she’s angry because it’s better than being scared that this woman will need her to be.

Finding her wasn’t simple, not with the war on and communication in tatters across the galaxy. Jack had done all the legwork herself. Just like she always did everything herself.  A little private project to distract her from how her kids kept getting hurt, ignoring that it was those kids who made her start in the first place.  That and those Shadow Broker files Shepard silently passed her way.  Fuck Shepard, anyway.  

That’s when Jack almost walks out.  But nobody, not the fucking Cerberus scientists, not the prison guards, not any of the people who tried to subjugate or use her up along the way, none of them ever got to tell Jack she was too scared or too helpless.  She doesn’t even get to tell herself that.  So she squares her shoulders and walks across the concourse.

All she told her was new information had come to light concerning her daughter’s death.  She wasn’t sure she’d even show up, not for a baby dead since she was three years old.  She sure as hell didn’t expect the goddamn blanket. Maybe Jack will just leave it at that—tell her she died in Cerberus custody as a child.  Because maybe that blanket means she’s not strong enough, not like Jack is.  

But the choice is taken from her.  As she comes into her line of sight, their eyes meet.  Just for a moment.  And this woman—this stranger clutching a twenty-year-old handmade quilt that says Jennie—leaps to her feet and screams.  And Jack goes rigid with terror.

And that only makes it worse, fear feeding on fear, because she doesn’t freeze.  She always, always acts.  But she’s paralyzed.  And that woman screams like her life is getting sucked out through her toes and everyone in the concourse turns to stare and Jack can’t move.  

Out of the corner of her eye, some opportunistic bystander pops open an omni-tool, recording the drama in hopes of cheap hits on the extranet.  Jack wants to break his arm.  That feeling is normal, familiar, and she wants to feel normal like lungs want oxygen, so she turns her head and so the woman with the blanket gets inside her personal space before she can do anything about it.  Her fists light up blue without any conscious intent.

But her hands, this woman with the freckles and baby blanket, her baby blanket, clutched under her arm—her hands are lifted to Jack’s face, hovering over her skin in little grasping twitches, like she knows she can’t touch her and it’s just killing her, every second, but she doesn’t touch.  Her eyes looking down at her are crazy.  Jack recognizes that, too, in the same way as a singularity opening in the next room sends skitters down her nerves like ants.  

Every instinct she has is ringing alarm bells at top volume.  If she calls her Jennie, she’s going to punch her—

Then her mother says, voice breaking, hands cupping the air around her cheeks—  “Your dad had tattoos, too.”

And Jack breaks. Her face falls into her mother’s shoulder like it remembers exactly what to do, and her shoulders heave, and her mother’s arms are around her and her cheek is in the strip of ponytail on top of her head, and for a moment, the woman who never had a childhood gets to be a little girl.

[littlelonelymuse]

I usually do not engage in fandom posting on this blog but I feel the need to address the recent situation regarding Halsey.

I am a huge fan of her and have been for quite a long time. The fact that she has to come out with such a (rightfully) tired statement about the disgustingly childish and dehumanising behaviours by self-called fans of them that she has had to endure is utterly unacceptable.

There's a huge, bold and thick line between constructive criticism, which is a fundamental part of one's personal artistic growth, and straight-up hate. Insulting, threatening and harassing Halsey won't make them change a song they have already released. As already stated by herself ina now deleted Tumblr post, it's okay to not like everything a musician or singer puts out but this doesn't give anybody neither permission nor right to flood their DMs and social media with hurtful comments (especially considering the artist in question has been extremely open about their challenging health conditions).

While I myself am not extremely fond of the way her newest single has been promoted and of the single itself (despite it growing on me the more I listen to it), I do not excuse taking a person to such a point of exhaustion.

I understand you might be frustrated with the rollout of this album but we are talking about music. Express your opinion as a normally functioning human being and stop behaving like an asshole just because you have a screen in your hands and a internet connection.

To Halsey, I love you and everything you are doing. Your experimental side is what makes your discography one of the most unique of our generation's pop and mainstream scenes. Try, maybe fail and maybe try again, but never feel sorry for trying. I am looking forward (as so many others are) to whatever this new project will turn out to be.

@tiredandlonelymuse

[hashashafashasha]

HLAGE FINALE SPOILERS

Alright alright I know nobody cares but I wanted to put my thoughts down so I'd be able to say "I told you so" if I'm right which i'm probably not BUT

I think the reason the gnome had so much power of the real world is because Wayne broke the 4th wall so much while talking to him. In HLVRAI Wayne makes little to no mention of the world outside the game, it's mainly coomer that acknowledges the 4th wall, and so Benrey has no effect on the world outside the game. Maybe

ALSO I think there's someone behind this. At the beginning of the first HLVRAI stream I believe he says Valve themselves sent him the "experimental copy" of Half-life but in the description for the videos it says he "discovered" it, and in the description for HLAGE Episode 1 it says that Wayne was linked a workshop page for the gnome, and goes on to say that Gabe Newell himself told people not to mod the code of the Gnome Run due to the "Myth". This is a new edit since the finale released too, and due to it's insistence on nobody else EVER playing the true Gnome Run, I don't believe whoever linked this mod to Wayne was just some random hacker.

The intelligence of the gnome is another matter. One thing that Benrey and the Gnome have in common is that, as Wayne gets nearer to the end of the game they become more and more reluctant to continue. Benrey doesn't want to hurt Gordon, or at least part of him doesn't, and the Gnome insists that they need to stop and go back repeatedly in the final act of HLAGE, but once Wayne reaches the Peppa Pig Movie (jesus christ I love all this bullshit) the gnome's tone is quite different, obviously leading to Wayne getting Gnomified. But during the Gnome's musical number he yet again sings a different tune, so to speak. I believe the combine did take his memories of his and Gordon's time together. We see him warming up to Gordon and some real character growth in the final act, but once Wayne makes his way through the vault the Gnome seems to be back to his old, derogatory way of speaking. As for the musical number i'm not quite sure, but perhaps seeing gnomified wayne and being in wayne's shoes causes him to change his mind and remember what they had together.

The person creating these mods is still a mystery, but if we connect this to the greater RTVSCU there are a few options. Tucker, the creator of the I. M. MEEN disc for example (not sure about this bit) not only shows the skills that he would need to do something like this, given Meen's AI and the ending, and he would know where Wayne lives, making him an actual threat. Wayne also breaks the 4th wall numerous times during the stream, which supports my previous theory. Of course, that doesn't answer how Wayne escaped from The Shining painting at the end, but this part of the theory is flimsy so it's fine. The most powerful AI character we've ever seen however, is Homer. The fact that this man constantly gets kidnapped by fictional characters is amazing to me. I'd have to rewatch the Simpsons stream, but I believe this metric of power could be important.

TL;DR Wayne breaking the 4th wall may have effects on the power of the self aware AI, somebody has got to be behind the Half Life AI mods, and this could extend into the entire RTVSCU as a whole

[carbon8tion]

Garshield, Kageyama, and Kidou

I feel like Kidou (Yuuto's adoptive father, who I will be refering to as "Kidou" throughout this, and Yuuto as "Yuuto" to avoid confusion.) isn't exactly a good guy. That's obvious, given his status in society and connections to Kageyama, but I never really see anyone talk about how much influence he has, and still does, on Yuuto- or what his actual goal may be, and who he's working with.

He and Kageyama are close- and that's a probelm since Kageyama had been working with Garshield ever he sabotauged the bus to disqualify Raimon 40 years before the events of the OG season. I shouldn't have to elaborate on who Garshield is, i'm sure you all know. When did the two meet, I can't help but wonder- perhaps Kidou's a Teikoku alumni, but... I think it's a bit deeper than that. I think Garshield is a far bigger threat than we thought, and has influenced the events of the plot, and the life of one of our most beloved protags- FAR more than we could ever believe, and i'll be elaborating on it here.

Kidou's father trusts Kageyama enough to let him take his son on trips around the world to see how other cultures play soccer, (this was flavor text in IE3, I cannot find a screenshot of it.) In Everyday+ both Kidou and Kageyama state that the whole reason Kidou's with Kageyama is so he can learn leadership, learn to rise to the top.

That in itself is self-explanatory, as to why Kidou's left Yuuto in Kageyama's care. Kidou put's an awful lot of trust in Kageyama, enough to where, even when Kidou transfers to Raimon and Kageyama is arrested for his crimes- he CONTINUES to sponsor him and the school in Ares, because Kageyama's methods get results. Now, Ares is a seperate timeline, but alot of the lore of Kidou Zaibatsu established in it carried over to Everyday+, such as Hakamada, and Kidou Zaibatsu owning multiple companies, so it's safe to assume everything that Kidou does in Ares, he'd also do in the original timeline.

When Yuuto asks to transfer to Raimon, Kidou allows it, because he loves Yuuto, and is proud to see him grow into someone who can forge his own path. That's a great quality in a leader, to break past the influence of another and overcome them. Despsite Kidou not being a very good person in my personal opinion, he still loves his son, and that can't be ignored. Kageyama has taught Yuuto all he can, and now it's up to Yuuto to continue honing his abilities. (And Kidou himself, and Yuuto's personal tutors.)

Kidou shows upset at having left Yuuto in Kageyama's care, having not done much to raise him on his own. There's alot that Yuuto needs to learn to be a successfull heir, he brings Yuuto to enough company functions and has him focus on his studies, hire tutors for him, and encourages growth to where he can be without Kageyama's help- but... that's the problem here.

The company functions. The parties, they go to them often. In Ares it's revealed one of Kidou Zaibatsu's companies is Kidou Heavy Industries- lots of vehicles, lots of.... gas.

Lots of... oil.

And who's s aid to be the #1 supplier of oil in the world, who just so happens to be Kageyama's employer?

Garshield.

Garshield is very interested in soccer, and had Kageyama use his experimental program on Demonio- who he turned into a copy of Yuuto. Perhaps that was just Kageyama's own influences at play and not Garshield's, but... Kidou was likely employed under Garshield as well. He needs that oil, and he plays along with Kageyama, and shows interest in soccer. Kidou, like everyone else, wants to be on top, to succeed- so he'll work with those who will help him achieve that, which is why he adopted Yuuto, because of Garshield's weird plans to take over the world with soccer. Yuuto's skills in the sport were the main reason for his adoption, after being scouted by Kageyama- it wasnt based on IQ, or behavior, or personality, or even family- it was soccer.

He even gave Yuuto an insentive to play, taking him away from the only family he had left, Haruna. He and Kageyama knew that the only thing Yuuto had to connect with his family would be soccer, if they took him seperately, so they did- that way he'd have that much more motivation to play. By the looks of it, since Yuuto never tried to contact Haruna, he may have not been ALLOWED to contact her, so that he can become more and more invested in winning, in soccer, in developing those leadership and sports skills.

With how important Kidou Zaibatsu obviously is to Kidou, and how important it will end up being to Yuuto... In GO, he's letting Yuuto play soccer in the pro leagues. You'd think Kidou would have pushed him into the family bussiness by then, with how adamant he was about it in his teens- but he's not. Because that's not the only way torwards success in this world Akihiro Hino created. Soccer has become politics now, and Yuuto's not only a big name in the soccer world, with keychains of him canonically being sold in stores, he's got his foot in the bussiness, financial, and even political world too now, with the Resistance and Kidou Zaibatsu.

There's only one person I can think of who wanted to make soccer politics, and had the money, power, influence, and people to make it happen, to have the insane idea to try and take over the world using it....

Garshield.

Garshield sowed the seeds, and even though he's not the one reaping the glory, theres still people out there carrying out his mission, because that's where all the money is, and thats where the POWER is- in soccer. Laws get changed because of soccer, children are turning into mutants because of soccer, like Garshield predicted when he started experimenting on players, he knew the potential this stupid little ball game and it's players had and wanted to capitalize on it the best he could. He isn't completely out of the picture, either- his people took Kageyama's life.

The question of who gave Kageyama's life back, however, is lost on me, but I have a theory that it may have been the man who he worked with to create his "ultimate creation".

To sum it up: Kidou Yuuto is a direct product of Garshield's vision. He has the potential to be a very, very big threat to the world. Garshield's dream of taking over the world with soccer is very tangible, and the impact of soccer can be seen in Chrono Stone and soccer being the one thing deciding the fate of the galaxy in Galaxy. The UNIVERSE is literally based on soccer, Earth was just REALLY late to the party. (But truth be told, i'm not thinking that big, i'm more concerned about how the people on earth are being affected in our original trio's lifetime.)

With that said, I think our beloved protag Kidou Yuuto ends up having alot more to do with the politicalization of soccer in his lifetime than we think, he has the money, he has the power, and he has the influence of people who didn't have very good intentions with the sport.

....Thank god he has Endou to keep him on the right path.

Victory Road is a sequel to GO, it's considered canon, I believe. We don't know any of the story yet, but if Kidou Yuuto doesn't play a part in it, i'm going to be very dissapointed.

[cherubchoirs]

I feel like V2 would like living in Heaven, it was made for peacekeeping/security and Heaven is probably still unstable from the councils destruction so it could use its pre-programmed expertise plus it went through its own personal growth which would allow it to adapt better to the needs of the angelic citizens, the fear of machines may be offset from just how V2 embraces fully its 'human' programming. Which really is where V2 is superior to V1 who has an uphill battle to get to where V2 naturally starts (V1 doesn't care about that but shhh let V2 have this).

Micheal or more likely Raphael could sell it's inclusion in Heaven as it being an experimental angel-made model (not mentioning the 'fallen'-ness status of the angel who 'made' it) thus lacking the bloodthirst of its human-made predecessors (V2 has self-control) and that Micheal will be keeping a close eye on it. It could also act as a symbol of Heaven's new direction of being more forgiving and probably helps to later cover for Mike's accidental Ferryman promotion, 'the machine was a positive addition so we are now trialing repentant sinners, yes this was absolutely planned beforehand, don't worry.'

AUUUGHHH I LOVE THIS....i've definitely thought about v2 at least going on visits to heaven with michael, and i do have the idea as well that if things settle down enough, the archangels are left with picking up the pieces of what's left of heaven and where it might go. so v2 getting to be an asset in that adds a needed dimension imo - it understands humanity and could help much further integrate the human angels with their true counterparts. like honestly...the scenario is kind of ideal for how i characterize v2, with its ever present, ever ephemeral dream of achieving peace. heaven is destabilized, quite similar to a world recovering from war with the remaining leadership more than a little adrift - raphael and uriel, while commanding angels, are suited to direction rather than planning, while michael has the capacity to govern but is obviously dealing with an overwhelming amount personally. in this, v2 could finally find its place the way it wants to. these people need peace, they wish for security, and all v2 was ever trained to do was to establish and maintain those exact goals. on its very first visit it sees so much that it could help with, so much it could improve, its mind rampant with ideas that it's sure to rattle off to michael in great detail but...this is heaven. it's angels. it knows they would likely reject it and so it couches everything in hypotheticals "i'm not THAT invested, just thinking out loud"...but it gets a response it didn't expect

michael tells it that they need assistance and that v2 might be the one to provide it. he wants it to finally have its chance, he knows its passion and how much it wants to make the peace its held in its mind all this time...and he's humbled himself enough to admit that he and the other archangels left don't know the proper way forward. so let them handle their public, let them educate the angels about its purpose and see what it can do for them (LOVE raphael doing the spin because again, he's....he's a bit of a little liar when it comes to maintaining harmony) while it worries about the real work. and like weirdly. v2 gets to experience what it had thought it was cheated out of forever, it begins to see its potential, so long in stasis, actually come to some kind of fruition. michael, though stubbornly reclusive at this point, is still now the highest authority in heaven and so his word goes a long way in establishing acceptance among the true angels, while the humans are proud to see their work embraced by the heavenly host. it's not exactly EASY nonetheless, but michael is viewed as the last bastion of god's will, so he's difficult to dispute. and he sees v2 really begin to shine fully, when it can hearken to its nature and facilitate peace rather than force itself into hell's mold. after all its given him...it's nice to be able to give back to it.

also SO incredibly real for the ferryman incident too lmaoooo there would definitely be a less strict air about things in heaven, with michael trying to reinstate a more luciferian rule and v2 bringing a humanity to heaven, which all nicely lays the groundwork for any uh. new plans. because this IS all on purpose. the damage control is something v2 finds VERY amusing, especially considering the circumstances ("you ACCIDENTALLY blessed a guy???? you barely talk???????? HOW LMAO") - it does kind of think that mike could use admitting to the mistake, but it also understands his ego can probably only take so many hits at a time. v2 doesn't hold the perspective that this was a technicality though, since it doubts even an angel of michael's position could bless or damn as he pleases and the only thing that kept the ferryman bound was their condemnation from god rather than their true morality. it's just. not entirely sure if the angels are ready for that conversation

[genlossneg]

Any short film or media project can be submitted to film festivals pretty much off the bat so long as you appropriately own all the copyrighted material or have permission to use it

There's hundreds of smaller film festivals that ranboo could've submitted genloss too, including film festivals with focuses on experimental media like genloss is. But ranboo ran straight for an Emmy, the cream of the crop and literally nowhere else

It's both a mix of a massive ego and ignorance. Obviously I go to film school so this information was given to me by professors and it was discussed pretty extensively in class, but if Ranboo was genuinely trying to make genloss into anything, I don't think it's crazy to assume he should've submitted genloss to these film festivals that are much more in the lane of what genloss is

Also what peeves me off is because film makers have a crazy stupid amount of passion. I'm surrounded by them in my classes, my profs, we learn about them. And most of these people also have huge egos, and honestly what I've found is that very rarely can this ego be backed up by any substance.

But at the very least, they have an ego and they're trying to do something with it and actively putting in so many hours

Ranboo quite simply hasn't put in any time to make genloss, much like his extraordinarily misplaced budget, he didn't use his time where he shouldn've (don't worry one day I'll jump into your inbox and talk about the incredibly misplaced budget)

The way my particular program works is we all produce a short film at the end of each semester. We get a crew and actors and locations all on a college student budget and one of my classmates actually submitted their work for a film festival and got nominated for their category (very proud of them)

I didn't because I know my film wasn't very good. Am I proud of it, yes! I'm insanely happy with how it came out. But I have the self-awareness to know overall, it isn't this amazing thing that everyone needs to know about

Ranboo lacks this self-awareness, which along with any art, is absolutely critical for growth. Ranboo has never spoken about how he wishes he had done genloss differently or any regrets he had (aside from time crunch or things they couldn't make work) and that's how I know he didn't actually learn anything from this first run of genloss

Because the reality is, genloss wasn't good. And like my film, Ranboo can be proud of what he did as well as critical of the final product

An artist should always be their own worst critic because then they can see what the did wrong and then try and improve

Ranboo's biggest problems from my very limited perspective is a lack of understanding of how to tell a story, the lack of a backbone. He rushed genloss for an arbitrary reason. The production management was a joke too

To go for an Emmy, you're saying you think you are good enough for the highest prestige and that you believe that you've put in the appropriate amount of time and hours and that your work is worthy of gaining international recognition. And if Ranboo submitted it for the meme, that makes it worse. It shows his complete and utter lack of respect for the craft

Now, do bad movies exist, yes. Do I love some bad movies, also yes. But never have you heard of these directors hyping up these movies the way Ranboo has. And yeah, sometimes movies are cashgrabs. But again, the attitude ranboo carries as the director of genloss rubs me and so many other people so wrong as well as the attitude of boobers who think genloss is peak media. I can easily admit a movie I really like is objectively terrible but I still find enjoyment but boobers would flay you for daring say genloss isn't good (shout out live action Scooby Doo movies. They're absolutely terrible but they're fun to watch and I have fond memories of them from my childhood)

Apologies for the essay

-film student anon

film student anon this essay is wonderful. theres so much here i don't think i could reply to it all, and i really appreciated your takes on film festivals and passion projects vs the emmys. some of my favorite bits:

There's hundreds of smaller film festivals that ranboo could've submitted genloss too, including film festivals with focuses on experimental media like genloss is. But ranboo ran straight for an Emmy, the cream of the crop and literally nowhere else

To go for an Emmy, you're saying you think you are good enough for the highest prestige and that you believe that you've put in the appropriate amount of time and hours and that your work is worthy of gaining international recognition.

so big brain here. i would just keep quoting your ask in my reply because you make a ton of great points of effort not equaling quality.

i think the thing that gets me is that your first try of something is never going to be perfect. even with all the practice in the world your first try always is a bit messy, and that's how you get experience. but by submitting it for an emmy, it implies this first try was perfect, or at least close enough to be considered for such a high award. and like.. it wasn't horrible but it certainly had flaws.

i'll be so curious to see what happens with all this when the nominees get announced and what the fandom does with whatever happens

[knowlimitations]

The Awakening Human Allegory:  The Cyclical Patterns We Bind To

The human life cycle, from birth to elderhood, is a microcosm for the journey towards self-awareness, individually, and collectively. At the explosive inception of the cosmos [Big Bang], his seed represents pleasure, generative power, initiation, creation, and order, setting the stage for life's unfolding narrative. Her womb represents creation and serves as a portal of life, receptive, nurturing and expansive, preparing the vessel for a soul, the process embodies the epitome of their shared love and sacrifice [Duality].

In infancy, we are pure, unconditioned souls, entirely dependent on the nurturing love of our caregivers for survival [Government]. We cannot fathom existing separately from our guardians as the ego or self is not yet developed, though gradually, through interaction and experimentation [Evolution/Science], perceptions of the world begin to take shape. In the toddler stage, we enter our path of self-awareness, gaining mobility and setting goals, yet often unaware of the complexities and dangers of the world [Advancing Technology]. Testing boundaries and encountering setbacks are inherent in this phase [War]. Progressing from toddlerhood to childhood, we gain knowledge about our surroundings and develop trust in our intuition. Contemplation of our existence begins [Philosophy], and we learn essential survival and social skills [Diplomacy]. Though heavily reliant on our parental support, we gradually cultivate independence and resilience [Establishments].

Transitioning into adolescence, hormonal changes and our slipping innocence introduces rebellion, as we strive for independence and identity [Revolution]. As adulthood approaches, we grapple with the complexities of self-awareness, navigating the balance between ignorance and enlightenment [Religion/Spirituality]. With sexual maturity comes contemplation of procreation and societal contribution [Population], which echoes our role as members of society, we navigate moral dilemmas [Law] and the pursuit of purpose. We become susceptible to external influences and can take its toll on our self-identity [Idolatry].

In our latest years, we slow down and reflect on our life journey [Meditation]. Profound self-awareness is attained, accompanied by an appreciation for simplicity, wisdom and honoring the inevitable mortality that cycles into eternity [Societal Collapse]. Despite the vessel slowly breaking down, elders hold the key to collective memory and insight, guiding humanity towards greater understanding, compassion and acceptance [Ancestral Wisdom].

Upon reflecting on this allegorical journey, it leads me to ponder my own level of self-awareness. I have come to realize that we possess many levels of awareness across varying dimensions of our experience.  As we each navigate our personal voyage of self-awareness, I can’t help but wonder whether we are collectively undergoing a similar process? Our individual progression through self-discovery may offer insight into the broader evolution of our species. After all, as we strive to understand ourselves better, we contribute to the collective growth and development of humanity. So, are we experiencing this awakening on both an individual and collective level simultaneously? It's an exciting contemplation on the interconnectedness of our personal and collective journeys towards expanded consciousness.

[vital-information]

“As I understand it here, the social relation of friendship is not predicated on a lack that must be redressed, but rather begins with the plenitude or creative capacity of two people to engage in mutually transformative exchange. Feminist and queer friendships are one place where two (or more) people clear space for each other to inhabit and perform desire, intimacy, affect, kinship, and attachment in countless new ways. Friendship, then, is a deeply unpredictable space of experimentation precisely because one reveals oneself to another, only to have one’s self-perception reworked and potentially dismantled through their eyes. As [Tom] Roach [in Friendship as a Way of Life: Foucault, AIDS, and the Politics of Shared Estrangement] underscores: ‘the friend’s role is actively to enhance the other’s potential, to push the friend to become-other. Betrayal is one practice through which this occurs; it instigates an ethical relation that care little for historically determined identity.’ In this sense, queer and feminist friendship is corrosive to the traditional concept of care, altering the very definition of caring for something or someone from a practice aimed at remediating systemic harm to a form of radical honesty based in intense dialogic back-and-forth, one of whose outcomes is the cultivation of resilience and skill at coping with change. This is a type of mutual forming or taking shape in concert with others. Thus, the greatest betrayal to feminist and queer friendship is not the enactment of social injury, but the refusal to engage or talk out conflict.

...

Friendship’s promises, on the other hand, are local, intimate, and open to revision, rather than cosmic commitments to ensure a utopian future for a vague political collective (oppressed people everywhere). It is for that reason that they frequently withstand the sheer unpredictability of social movement politics, living past the last consciousness-raising meeting, zap action, or march. Indeed, anyone who has cultivated sustained friendships, especially feminist and queer ones, knows that the trust forged between friends through their dialogue creates extreme latitude for harms done, a space for humor, irreverence, and offensiveness coupled with an equal measure of accountability and letting go....

Friendships of the kind I am describing, then, ones that carry the spirit of inventiveness and experimentation described by [Audre] Lorde and [Michel] Foucault, are exceptionally capable of handling conflict, because a genuine equality between the parties (that is nothing like sameness but has to do with two people equally valuing one another) means that both are actively engaged in the construction of the bond. This is why friendship can never function as the application of a rule (you must care for me in this predetermined way as a condition of our speaking) but rather takes shape in the doing of it, as the mutual creation, and continual renegotiation, of shared criteria for dialogue (we will speak, again and again, in order to figure out what conditions best enable our mutual growth). This model of sociality leaves far less space for victims and perpetrators, accusers and accused, because of a sense of mutual involvement, a complicity of the best kind not unlike Lorde’s conception of ‘the erotic’ as a force that animates a shared creation or ‘invention’ of new social forms between two people. It is also a description of the kind of interaction that incites people to change, to relase destructive or oppressive logics like homophobia, sexism, transphobia, and racism, not under ideological duress, shame, or demand, but in the surprising encounter with others who shift the ground beneath one’s feet.

...The need for friendships to model ideological structures of unity often signals their death, substituting political purity for productive interpersonal discord, blind loyalty for loving honesty, recognition for mutual transformation, and frankly, mind-numbing dullness in place of friendship’s special brand of hilarious, ribald, juicy surprise.”

Ramzi Fawaz, “’Something Else to Be’: On Friendship’s Queer Forms” from Queer Forms

[lazyyogi]

New Year's Resolutions for 2023

We can use any day of the year to set goals, resolve to make life changes, and grow ourselves. Yet the perspective afforded by the liminal period between one year ending and another year beginning lends especially well to such projects.

That's why I like making New Year's resolutions. And I encourage reflection, contemplation, and experimentation for anyone walking a spiritual path. It is the yogi's equivalent of the scientific method. This is just one of endless opportunities to do so.

My focus isn't on hitting certain targets in the upcoming year so much as reflecting on how I've changed in the past year and the manner in which I would like to guide new growth in the coming year.

Reflecting on 2022 and the years preceding it, I feel that my sense of love, camaraderie, and passion have been obscured in a few ways. Much of this is due to the rigors of my job, the day-in-day-out cycles of adulting, and the resulting mind-body imprints. Yet the weariness of samsara is but a dusting upon my heart-core, obscuring but not diminishing its innate radiance.

Therefore my theme for 2023 will be Heart ❤️‍🔥

The following shall be my starting point.

It is said that there are many qualities that support the path to enlightenment, such as devotion, peacefulness, discrimination/contemplation, non-attachment, and clarity.

However there is one quality that if lacking, then enlightenment will remain ever elusive. And if present, then enlightenment will be inevitable.

What I am speaking of is the Desire for Liberation.

It is my desire for liberation that led me to where I am today.

"The desire for Liberation functions as the fuel for one’s spiritual practice. If all sorts of spiritual attributes are present...but there is a lack of desire for Liberation, actual advancement, as determined by the degree of freedom from misidentification, will be slow, if at all. If, though, the aspirant would have none of the other requisites or beneficial attributes, but was endowed with an intense desire for Liberation, the other needed requisites and such would manifest in due course of the practice..."

"...all the force of the desire for happiness that drives the person’s life while caught up in illusion becomes the intense desire for Liberation, as that Realization alone is full satisfaction, the fulfillment and the end of the desire."

-- Master Nome

"Your constant flight from pain and search for pleasure is a sign of love you bear for your self, all I plead with you is this: make love of your self perfect. Deny your self nothing--give yourself infinity and eternity and discover that you do not need them; you are beyond." --- Sri Nisargadatta Mahraj

Desire for liberation, which is the desire to be peaceful, happy, and free without conditions or endings, is born of the Heart. Every desire we have ever had and every happiness we have ever experienced is a small reflection of that mighty light, similar to the way the moon glows due to the sun's luminosity.

My prayer for 2023: May we all marinate in the limitlessness of our original nature and find this new year to be a temporal advancement toward the recognition and enjoyment of that timeless Reality.

Much love and happy new year to each and every one of you!

LY

[skinzchoerim]

instinct pt.1 and instinct pt.2 stOryline analysis

I've spent a lot of time in the past year thinking about these two albums. I found it curious that the first three songs mention women, skinz says gender doesn't matter and the rest of the songs are gender neutral while the MVs are gay. Since today is instinct pt.2's first anniversary and it's an album that changed my life, here's the story I've come up with (based purely on the lyrics and descriptions, not the MVs).

We can safely assume that the bOy wearing cOmme des garçOns, our main character in this series, is meant to be bisexual. From what I've gathered, it's common for bisexual people to realise their attraction to the opposite gender first (since it's already expected and easier to explore) and get the full picture of their sexuality later. libidO is about exploration and experimentation, and I always thought the line "girl, I just wanna know" was referring to exactly that - experimenting and starting with the "safer" option first, but still being aware of your blooming queerness in the back of your mind, accepting and understanding your libido as a whole through this first experience.

Next is yOu can tOuch it if yOu can't feel it. In libidO, he wasn’t acting on his desires yet, it was all an internal monologue about things he feels and wishes to take further. The longer he didn’t act on it, the stronger and more uncontrollable it became. After accepting his libido as an internal thing, in instinct he explores it further, no longer questioning and thinking, but acting on it with another person. I really like the line "Why the hell were you drawn to my wandering?" because it highlights that this is just the beginning of his journey of self discovery. He found someone he's attracted to and he doesn't question that, but he's also aware in the back of his mind that it's not the end, he's still lost and has more questions than answers. For now, though, he chooses to focus on this moment and this person.

Another line I find interesting is "I don't want your love tonight because it hurts." A lot of OOO's pre-instinct era songs' messages give me the impression that in order to have a full, satisfying, healthy relationship, the subject needs to grow up, understand and accept himself. Even in relationships with women, he can't just suppress and not think about his queerness, because in the long run, it'll become poison to the relationship. It's a vital part of his nature and not exploring it at all is doing himself injustice and stopping his growth as a person. I'm not here to say whether this is true or not, but it makes sense to me with some of their songs.

Moving onto byredO - since it's his first relationship and "the emotion of love of the boy, who is yet to become a grown-up, is quite impulsive and fickle", it turns unhealthy and obsessive. The interesting this is, hOly week is the previous track, not the next like one might expect. It's because he's been slowly turning away from god and he turns his worship elsewhere, letting his desires consume him. He doesn’t see his lover for the person she is, only focusing on the physical aspect of their relationship and putting it above anything else, her scent his new god.

tear Of gOd is repentance for following his impulses. He feels the promised paradise slipping away as he realises he can no longer reach it, both because of how he acted in the relationship and because of the constant awareness of his attraction to men. He begs for forgiveness and tries to feel closer to god again, but it's not the same anymore. His indulgence in pleasure already put distance between his faith and himself, and going back just causes him to feel more guilty, so he takes a different approach.

I called it yOu but it was actually me is a curious phrase that's been torturing me since I first saw it. The description says:

Confession is a word with both a religious and secular meaning, and the “low-lying voice” always makes me imagine him on his knees in a church. However, the phrase itself is very "call me by your name"-esque, which relates to the idea of being two halves of a whole, seeing yourself reflected in another person and seeing them in yourself. It's not physical, but emotional and intellectual. So, perhaps, after confessing his sins and not getting a response, he comes to the conclusion that people are closer to him than god. He used to believe he was created in god's image, but “i called it you but it was actually me” indicates a realization of inherent connection between god’s creations, people finding their reflections in each other instead. The boy stops seeing other people as separate from himself and starts looking into their shared humanity, hence, under the_ comes next.

"Emotion beneath innate nature" suggests more focus on the inner feelings, letting go of the fear that love will hurt and opening up to an emotional connection. For all that I know, instinct pt.2 makes no mention of the boy, but it's safe to assume he's still our POV character. In this album, I'll refer to his lover as "he", because although all the songs are gender neutral and the idea of the album is that gender doesn't matter, there's an implied "maleness" in suit dance and gaslighting (with Nine and Kyubin's lines responding to each other) and it makes sense within the larger narrative.

The songs on instinct pt.2 all correspond with a song on pt.1. skinz, like libidO, is an internal monologue of acceptance. He understands that gender doesn't matter to him and he should stop looking only skin-deep. He now knows that in order for a relationship to work, he needs to look beneath the physical and see the person inside. It's desperate and slightly aggressive because he's still young and impulsive, and there's this whole new side of him he's been suppressing that's just waiting to get out.

I haven’t read the book this title comes from, but from what I’ve seen other lyOns say, la nausee relates to the idea of individual choices and how they create a person. The description shows that there's someone new in his life that he’s beginning to have feelings for.

suit dance is, in a way, encouraging someone to come to the same conclusions he did. It focuses on physical aspects and wanting the other to act on his instincts, but there's also an element of helping him find identity and freedom in it (“time to cut loose yourself”, "focus a bit more on yourself"). It explores similar ideas as instinct, following someone with his eyes and wanting to be close to them so they can both act on their desires.

Now, the line "What do your eyes in the mirror want?" makes me think of “I called it you but it was actually me”. I'm a bit confused by who is who exactly in this song, it might be a translation issue, but it's hard to tell apart the "me" and "you" sometimes. They seem to blend together and I think it's part of the idea. They're both wearing suits and admiring themselves in the mirror, but also see a reflection of themselves when looking at each other.

gaslighting, just like byredO, is deeply toxic as he gets addicted to his lover and wants to be controlled. In a way, it's kind of religious as it shows a deep and unhealthy devotion one should not have towards another human being as it also reduces their humanity. He still feels the need to put someone on the pedestal, which, although not from the boy's story, goes back to angel. Growing up religious made him feel that there needs to be someone above him, someone more holy than him he can answer to, and once he steps away from religion, he fills the god-shaped hole (sorry, I find that phrase hilarious) with other people.

snapchat honestly baffles me a little, but the description says:

Perhaps the idea is that they're realising the instability of their relationship, that they're continually missing each other and they don't know how to communicate properly. All they have is small moments that become good memories, but even they disappear without a trace.

ultimate bliss is a rejection of all that was influenced by religion in the boy's life. He still dreams of paradise, but this time he wants to build one for himself and his lover. He's ready to let go of the ideas he'd been brought up believing in and there's catharsis in leaving it all behind. He accepts the things he's done wrong and doesn't blame himself for them, doesn't apologise to god anymore.

"Are we being punished, or are we dreaming" confuses me a bit. Dreaming in general is used a lot in OOO's songs, it's a pleasant state and an escape from reality, which, if you indulge in too much, stunts your growth. I think in this case, it means that it's hard to tell whether this love they have is good or bad. He's conflicted because it's both painful and pleasurable, and religious people really like to force black and white thinking. The boy is just beginning to learn that some things are morally neutral, not everything that hurts is punishment, not everything that feels good is a beautiful dream.

"Would you come with me?" means that it's not just him, but his lover as well who has to let go of these things. If we interpret this song and gaslighting as being about the same person, perhaps the lover's religious upbringing also made him feel that he needs to be more controlling. Since their relationship is forbidden, he needed to feel like there's some aspect of it that's up to him in the face of the great unknown and placed himself as the god. As a side note, my grandparents were once reading me something about god filling people with light if they put their trust in him and I was reminded of this line in gaslighting:

If we see it like that, ultimate bliss would then show that there's still hope for the two of them if they get rid of all these messed up ideas and stop feeling like there needs to be a higher power involved in their relationship. Neither of them is god and neither is the follower, they're both Adam and Eve who made their choice to bite the forbidden fruit and leave.

As a sort of epilogue/glue to the next project, there's undergrOund idOl #0 with the description:

It reminds me of the description under be free:

Both of these are about overcoming hardship as long as they can rely on each other. It also reminds me of angel and Mill's line "to me you are faith, sometimes hope", while in skinz he had the line "belief is toxic to me" (and the word used for belief in Korean also refers to belief in god). This just reiterates that they're letting go of the idea that they need to put someone on a pedestal.

And lastly, we have re-bidO. I'm not sure if it means that if he were exploring his sexuality again, he wouldn't make the same mistakes? It's normal to look back on your journey and wish you'd done things differently, but these words imply a lot of regret. Maybe he's not fully content with where he ended up, maybe he's imagining a version of his life which is better, easier. Maybe it shows that his journey isn't over just because the album has ended and he still has a lot of guilt, so he's back to square one - accepting the natural parts of himself. It's a bittersweet ending and that makes it feel more real. The road was rocky and just like at the end there's catharsis, there's also reflection.

[floralseokjin]

⤑ 9 months to fall in love 18 replies.

@juju-227592 replied: It’d be so sweet if he buys her house without telling her and put it under Glob name

That’s a cute idea but as we find out in chapter 19, Oc is fussy 🤣

@sweett-nightt replied: “Please, the big softy will love it.” yuna representing us all 🤣, and the JK meeting too i’m so waiting for more interactions between them

Seokjin is SUCH a big softy 🥺 and don’t worry, more interactions between Yuna and Jungkook to come!! 

@0funsite0 replied: Love this!! And I always get sad that I have to wait 2 more weeks for the next one, but then I remember you have a consistent upload pattern ans schedule, which I'm extremely grateful for ❤️❤️❤️❤️

Thank you! I’m very busy lately so it’s been hard to find time to write but hopefully during Christmas and New Year I can get a bunch written and post weekly next year 🤩 

@8loominghell replied: Thank you J for doing the Lords work 💜💜💜 I read it as JK & Yuna pulling their heads in a bit because the day isn’t about them

Thank you for reading! and yes! that’s a great way of looking at it! The day was about Oc! they can bicker next time 😂

@firesighgirl​ reblogged and said: Jordan!!! I've missed 9mtfil couple and their little bubble of happiness so much🥺 it was so funny and sweet how she started screaming for seokjin to rush and feel their daughter kicking and rolling and punching!! Such a sweet bonding experience! And I'm pretty sure that even tho oc's body is getting bigger by the day, they will find new interesting ways to have sex and enjoy themselves!Don't get me started on the baby shower,,, Yuna should definitely be a party organizer, she's amazing! I snorted so loudly with the glob spelled frosting, glob globby globette globbina🥰 and the anticlimactic yuna-jungkook meeting versus the overdramatic jimin-jungkook instant bonding🤣 Yuna watch out for your man, you have competition!!! And I loved all the presents oc got and the slow and steady growth in her relationship with her father (and who hasn't received an accidental blurry selfe by their parents?)What a bittersweet feeling of oc deciding to sell her house and move in with seokjin. It was due time for it to happen, but still I totally get her. I hope the new house has enough rooms for both their gaming room pt.2, the in home offices, the library, globbina's room and rooms for her future siblings🤭

I missed them too! and I think you’re onto something! There’ll definitely come a time when Oc just DOES NOT want to do anything remotely sexual, but until then they can get experimental lol! That’s so funny you said that about Yuna, because originally I was going to make her a party/event planner!! If she gets bored of her job she at least has a back up 😅 and OF COURSE Jimin and Jungkook would become insta best friends. I agree, they really needed to move in together, but house hunting while she’s in her third trimester is so stressy LMAO lucky for Oc tho, she has a super rich boyfriend who can speed up the process by buying a home with cash 🤑🤑

@jovanaprime reblogged and said: This post was so statisfying to read Jordan , at every page break I kept thinking oh no I’ve reached the end but it just kept going .Now why did She scare Jin like that by screaming , but to know it was their cute baby worm , wriggling about about , makes me so sappy .  Her telling Glob to kick him in the nose , so funny . This is Jin , this is DJ (me) and we both have an pregnancy sex kink ? Wow the revelations I am making here , lol . The sex scenes are nice as always .Random side note do you think you could/would ever direct an adult film or write the script .  I would support your endeavor if you so choose to do so. I don’t get how OC sees clearly how much Jin wants to be accepted and liked by everyone else but thinks it’s doesn’t apply to her and their relationship . But I like that Jin in pushing forward and voicing his wants too .Thanks to Yuna for being the annoying yet loving push BabyMama need to move forward with moving in with Jin and possibly selling her place . Thanks you for posting I had been looking forward to Season Three!

The sex scenes are an added bonus! There hasn’t been many this story and there won’t be one until the epilogue now, but yup, Jin has definitely gotten used to having sex with a pregnant Oc hehe! I can’t imagine myself ever writing or directing an adult film, I would be too prudish 😅 which might sound strange considering lol. I think both Oc and Seokjin have their own separate insecurities that have gotten better over the months but still peek out from time to time. Moving in together is a big deal, but it needed to be done, and I think they are more than ready! Thank you for letting me know your thoughts, I always love to hear them! I hope you enjoy season 3 🥰

@jjungcookie​ reblogged and said: Aaaah Glob moved for real and Seokjin felt it!! That was such a soft moment🥺🥺 By the way with the amount of time they are calling the baby Glob I bet they are going to be calling her wrong for a while hahah or maybe they could keep it and it would become a nickname! Yuna is a force of nature. Planning a baby shower in the midst of her own wedding preparations, what a woman hahah. Jungkook and Yuna meeting was a bit anticlimactic yeah but I feel that's because they felt there was a lot of expectations on their shoulders and they were pressured. It's good to hear jk and jimin hit it off though hahah. Also, who even thought to mention Seokjin ran away after finding out he was going to be a father when the mc's father was in the party🤣🤣🤣 wrong move hahah thank goodness for YeonjaAnd they are going to be living together!! They are going to choose a house together and move their things there and they will be with each other aaall the time I can't wait to see the preparations for that! It was a great chapter as always and I will be patiently waiting for the next one😊

Glob is eager for her 9mtfil debut!!! and I love the idea of keeping Glob as a nickname! I can see them doing that. Yuna is amazing! How does she do everything?! She must never sleep! Oc’s father belatedly finding out about Seokjin’s hospital escape was so evil of me LMAO but Yeonja was there to save the day! I just know that Oc and Jin will take to living together so easily! Thank you so much for reading!  

@munirecs​ reblogged and said: my parents are back 🥹i’m so happy to see their relationship progress! everything seems so calm and collected ,, am i toxic for anticipating chaos? ………. can’t wait for them to move in together! can’t wait for globby to be born omgggg … give me the complete MILF AND DILF ERAAAA PLSSSSS 

They are 🥺 you are most deffo toxic LOL There won’t be chaos as such, but something will happen soonish. But for the most part this season is very soft and sappy 😘 Can’t wait for MILF and DILF era! 

[maychild]

mini-reviews of bl dramas watched (part 7)

A MAN WHO DEFIES THE WORLD OF BL 2

here's my issue with this whole BL: it's.so.boring. like does anything happen?? NO. it's just mob and his internalized homophobia. (why does he not want to be in a relationship with a boy so much??? is it the phobia and stigma that comes with liking someone of the same sex?? LIKE WHAT IS THE REASON?? maybe i'm just not watching this show closely but fuck it; it shouldn't be watched closely.) also, YMMV and everything but there's no charm to it like in Cherry Magic or Old Fashion Cupcake. it's just mob and his No Homo all day everyday.

they are trying to cram character growth and romantic development into three very short eps and, imho, i don't think it works?? yes, it pokes fun at BL tropes, but i think that's the only good thing it does because i just don't care about these characters. well, that's not true, i do care about kikuchi and mob but then i'm inundated with all these minor characters that we're wasting time on when we could be focusing on kikuchi and mob. i just want the freakin' show to focus on them, but it doesn't and so i'm frustrated. maybe i just don't like self-referential shows?? this bl and I didn't vibe and that's okay but i feel like some people rate it more highly than it should be. (also, i don't remember what happened in either season, that's how much this bored me. well, i remember mob was in the hospital for some scenes but that's all...)

i do love the beauty and the beast-esque instrumental music and the opening/closing themes so very much tho. 6.5/10

CHERRY BLOSSOMS AFTER WINTER

so beautifully filmed and happy and fluffy. this isn't a drama that says a lot, or is deep in any way really, but taesung and haebom were adorable (there is a bit of Drama with the mother--the sole guardian/parent of these two boys--not approving of their relationship at first, but she comes around, and i do like that that part is realistic). a simple story told semi-realistically (there was no dreaded last minute break up, thank goodness, and it seemed to avoid most cliches found in kdramas).

the chemistry for these two is so-so for me; it wasn't necessarily bad, but i also didn't really buy into their relationship. here's my whole issue: besides a couple of almost steamy kisses, and romantic touching, this isn't a show that focuses a lot on the physical side of things. and that's okay! some loving, romantic relationships don't revolve around sex at all, and to each their own, but well, it just seemed to me that this show erred too much on the platonic side of things (the show really tried to tell me that these two weren't horny for each other at all, without explicitly also stating they were asexual, which i might've bought if they showed the two leads having any kinda conversation about sex, even while sleeping in the same bed, but they didn't so i didn't buy two college students being so very chaste in their relationship). 7.5/10

THE EIGHT SENSE

this was very beautiful in the story line and cinematography and everything, although the choppy camerawork grated on my nerves at times, and so did the jump cuts (i get that it was an experimental style of filming, but up to this point all KBLs have mostly been very polished pieces, except for certain parts of blueming as well, so it's jarring to see it in a piece that's been afforded a much longer run-time. also, for example, some scenes were quite noisy where i expected it to be super silent, so this felt very realistic in that regard, but again, so jarring). these are very, very minor quibbles in what was essentially a bl so beautiful and pure and amazing, tho.

the slow burn of it all was wonderful as was the chemistry between all the character. there was one drunk kiss between the leads that they never talk about again so the whole bl is them becoming friends AND then becoming lovers so i appreciated that while they both had a connection with each other right from their first meeting, it wasn't only about the lust between them, but about how these two different people came together when they needed each other the most and provided a safe harbor for each other. jaewon's therapist harped a lot on jihyun being jaewon's refuge and safe place but i think he was the same thing for jihyun and i think that's why they worked so well together considering they came from different backgrounds.

the minor/supporting characters were also a delight to watch (esp. jihyun's group of friends contrasted with jaewon's friends who felt very fake and like they were only jaewon's "friends" bc his dad was super rich--excluding yoon won who was the best).

i did wish for more beautiful, tender, cute boyfriend moments (seriously the latter half of the show was so much angst topped with angst and i understand why, narratively it made sense for a character like jaewon who had so much trauma in his life he was trying to live through every day), but i also really loved what we got.

i would definitely love a second season or even the two leads appearing in another bl (i know korea doesn't do branded pairs/fan-service like other countries but it's also not entirely out of the realm of possibility). 9/10

OUR DATING SIM

i was initially hesitant to start this bc the summary made it seem so cringey and gave me secondhand embarrassment re: the rejection and then ep 2 clears everything up: IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. and then we enter the miscommunication era that lasts a whole seven years. sigh. it's a good thing i don't mind the miscommunication trope.

this was so cute and fluffy and adorable and overall we got a lot of the story told in flashbacks, which i like, when the flashbacks are utilized in a good way and they definitely are here. this is a combo of friends to lovers and high school romance combined with office romance and the tropes are delicious. lee wan does the chasing at first, then the miscommunication happens, and then shin gi tae does the chasing in their adult lives and i like when it switches up like that. the two actors' chemistry is very believable and it's easy to believe they are totally in love. the series was short of course, but, the upside of that was that it forced shin gi tae to be very straightforward and direct with his feelings; of course he was playing games for the first four or so eps because he was justifiably hurt by the abandonment of his best friend but once he leaves behind that hurt, there was no stopping him from pursuing lee wan. and lee wan also had to take some time to get used to the fact that shin gi tae liked him back, so it felt very realistic.

the pacing of this story was stellar too; nothing felt too rushed, there wasn't any filler, every scene moved the story along, and the conflict came from having to choose different paths, and miscommunication.

this was a kbl that didn't disappoint in any way (besides only being about eight eps and 15-18 minutes long). 9/10

PART 1/???, PART 2/???, PART 3/???, PART 4/???, PART 5/???,PART 6/???