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mewtwo24 · 5 months

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I finally finished reading the fourth volume of svsss in full, and thing is--the first time through I only read the bingqiu content because I was ravenous for more of their happy ending.

Turns out that was a perilous mistake.

Because I started reading the airplane extras. And I swear to god. MXTX is trying to kill me

What do you MEAN demon lord Binghe was sitting on his big fucking throne. All stoic and forbidding. Surrounded by his demon generals who don't know shit about human courtship. Asking them what he should do, fully demoralized by constant rejections from sqq, only to have airplane tell him to act more pathetic and needy. Which is already hysterically funny and insane, UNTIL LBH'S RESPONSE IS THIS, KILLING ME INSTANTLY:

LUO BINGHE. WHY DOES HE SAY IT LIKE: "I already tried that, didn't work--nothing works :/ not mean, not maidenly, not housewife, not spicy, not capable disciple. Is doubling down on clingy really all it will take? What's a born hater with only one love in his life to do????"

The dichotomy of him sitting there like 'how can I reach the unfathomable depths of shizun's heart?' A HEART HE'S ALREADY WON OVER, MIND and then in the Holy Mausoleum solving the puzzle without blinking and being like 'oh yeah you just have to hit the acupoints, no sweat.' Literally the comedy writes itself I'm so--

How am I supposed to be normal about this. MXTX understands the juicy quintessential queer joy of a person with the world's power at their fingertips wishing only for love. Willing to do anything to earn that love, when unbeknownst to them it's already been freely given. Totally not screaming and yelling and clawing at the walls

And that's not even touching airplane's uproarious account of events. The way he's like 'lol what's next, lbh and sqq are best friends now? smfh' only to see lbh TACKLE SQQ LOVINGLY. FOR SQQ TO BE BASHFUL ABOUT IT BUT SO SO FOND OF THE LITTLE SCAMP. This when we've been experiencing sqq's constant inner monologue of 'I'm so cool and so dignified about my role, truly the epitome of propriety and poser-level fortitude.' Meanwhile, in their universe:

Airplane constantly flaming???? Sqq and lbh in his observations????? His absolute bewilderment and confusion????? Legendary. No notes every single second of this shit was hilarious.

Airplane's comment that sqq + older adolescent lbh traveling together was just watching a couple in their honeymoon phase. OR the fact that lbh is exceedingly petty and refuses to share their food in the wake of airplane's interruption of their time together, until sqq relents sheepishly and insists airplane eat what's left (ONLY AFTER PLACATING LBH WITH MORE FOOD FROM HIS PLATE, SOBBING)

Watching airplane salivate over Mobei-Jun and acting like that's totally normal behavior. Finding out mbj and airplane got together first. Finding out sqq encouraged airplane. LIKE THIS. WHILE HE IS STILL IN DENIAL ABOUT HIS OWN FEELINGS:

Mobei-jun clearly thinking their arrangement is a forever thing, heartbroken his human abandoned him with all the hapless fury of a scorned wife swept away by false promises of fidelity. Airplane writing demons to be the type to beat up their crush lovingly and still unable to connect the dots about mbj's feelings. Mbj letting him go and respecting his wishes, only relenting when there's indication airplane was poorly processing his own feelings and didn't actually want to leave. Mbj caring for him and listening to him as soon as airplane voices what he needs directly and with clarity. None of these gays are functional and it's everything to me

Unrelated, but I physically can't hold this information in anymore:

I'm still reeling from younger lbh having his sexual awakening from the image of sqq wrapped in the immortal binding cables. Condemn me as you like he was so, so real for that.

And no I will not be taking any comments about how luo bingge couldn't bear to see luo binghe cherished in ways he never got to have and all the haunting implications of that. I will also not be taking any comments about luo binghe's instinct to look for sqq in that alternate universe, only to be shaken to the very core to be unable to find his shizun anywhere. The unspeakable and latent horror of his relentless mind likely piecing together what happened, but unable to say it; to suspect what is true, and live with the harrowing confusion of his double's actions. To blame himself, to assume that he had let his anger get the better of him in that world and result in unspeakable folly...

I also refuse to talk about how heartrending it is to hear Tianlang-jun weakly say "In the end, I really can't bring myself to hate humans." The implication that the foolishness of that hope and bright-eyed fondness--the very thing that put him through such unspeakable agony--couldn't be beaten out of him entirely. To discover that his faith in Su Xiyan hadn't been misplaced, to the contrary: his beloved hadn't scorned him at all, but rather fought to the miserable end to protect the fruition of their genuine feelings of love when she couldn't protect tlj or herself.

How MXTX has sqq deliberately draw parallels between their situation and that of ygy+sj and tlj+sx; desperately wishing it might not be too late for them. The concept of breaking cycles of abuse and harm pervasive throughout the newly devised story, how it evolves for the better only when love takes the place of power, pride, and domination. How the moment sqq chooses vulnerability instead of saving face, the genre shifts to the so-called "cringe" girly genre where most if not every character is more fulfilled, more true to themselves. How the "male-oriented" former genre was aimlessly sensationalized and sexualized, how it was a sustained performance of aspirational toxic masculinity. How men objectify other men without end. All of the unspoken gendered implications that come with that.

Anyways. Going to go put my head in a sandbox and try to process everything I just witnessed because even a second reading is not enough to find a modicum of closure.

#svsss #bingqiu #moshang #i swear to god this series is just 'gay man who doesn't know shit inflicting his delusional reality on everyone else and inciting chaos'#and literally it's slapstick levels of hilarious every single time; mxtx never change #also i fully agree that we did not get NEARLY enough mobei-jun and sqh/airplane content #the amount of mental illness to mental illness communication going on there was astonishing #mobei-jun being afraid of his uncle and bringing sqh because that's the only person he trusts fully (WAILING NOISES)#sqh having a tantrum but running away because for the first time he was honest about his needs + his dissatisfaction with catering to other #how that reflects his narrative compulsions and how he felt forced to warp more creative story paths for the sake of survival as a writer #how sqq's restoration of much of his original intent--as well as mobei-jun's acceptance of his needs--helps airplane begin to heal #how his happiness begins; how just like sqq he wanders in such confusion and denial before he's forced to realize what truly matters to him #SHREK VOICE: STORIES HAVE. L A Y E R S #it feels like modern day shakespeare and when i say that i don't mean it in a hollow elevating sense i mean it more like #mxtx just hits that perfect balance of poignance but also hilarious concentric circles of botched communication and brainworms #okay but real talk for a minute? .........;-;#the way lbh constantly struggles with such a crushing feeling that he'll be abandoned over any little mishap/thing/problem #really hit me where it hurts??? if only because its so clearly an anxiety that stems from original goods' upbringing #the way it becomes even more heartrending when you think back to all the sect leaders clamoring that he should have been killed as an infan #that he should have been aborted as a fetus--insisting right in front of him that his birth was a mistake and a disgrace #over having demon blood in his veins. like my god that scene is so viscerally upsetting i struggle to read it #the way its so easy to see the demons as a manifestation of otherness in precipitated form #how both sqq and sqh are influenced by human rhetoric without evening meaning to--assuming the worst against their better judgment #how both sqq and sqh both struggle with their own otherness in different ways and only find solace when they begin to accept who they are #how their lovers (lbh and mbj respectively) both are willing to navigate those confusing waters with them #how both demons love them as they are--accept them as they are despite how difficult forgiveness of perceived betrayal is for them #ty mxtx for changing my brain chemistry #as i get older i have such a fondness for the messiness of thematic queer self-discovery and growth into self-acceptance #that and how youth can so easily be defined by perfectionistic self-harm and the violence of repression

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vaguely-concerned · 8 months

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Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.

G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.

An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........

#the unwanted guest #the unwanted guest spoilers #the locked tomb #ianthe tridentarius #augustine the first #pyrrha dve #palamedes sextus #this series is going to make me lose my mind completely one day (affectionate)#the locked tomb meta #the fact that ianthe seems to have had some genuine admiration for augustine makes my head spin. of course though.#of course she sees the person who looks the most like he's successfully made himself impervious to the world #utterly untouchable and impossible to hurt because he isn't even really there #and she believes it! even after seeing the john mercy augustine mess at the end! because it's such a seductive idea #when you've stuck yourself in an inevitable ocean of pain to think you could make yourself numb enough that it doesn't matter #it's the emotional equivalent of 'oh there's water all around? well I just won't breathe in then. easy lmao get on my level'#she holds on to that thing from him even when it's been proved to be both impossible and ultimately untrue even in him #because uh. oh I'm about to be kind of sad for ianthe what the fuck is going on. he might actually have been the closest thing #to parental and especially paternal affection she's ever known. certainly known enough to try to model herself after #IMAGINE how fucked up the nine houses must be when augustine the first registers for anyone as a model of psychological survival #ianthe do you really want to be yourself completely so much that you're willing to be nothing. I mean yeah probably but. oh my god #gaining nothing at the cost of everything

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nevarroes · 28 days

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can i be honest i never understood artists getting so mad or hurt about breaking mutuals or whatevr. like unfollowing without soft blocking or actually blocking

#its always giving insta mentality to me #not artist insta private one w the “im not ur fan remove me”#most mutual follows happen because i liked someones art nd they liked mine why does it matter so much if one party stops #like maybe smth u draw just makes me uncomfortable. maybe i just dont fw ur current fandom why do we make it SO personal #u couldnt pay me to care that much unless we actually were friends nd talked before and not just mutuals #im not saying that u cant feel hurt about unreasonable things right but the fact that this is the default idk…. idk dawg #maybe someone just doesnt like the art anymore im sorry why do u always assume its max level malicious #i also say artists specifically because i feel like that? should not just be about the person?#if someone doesnt like my art anymore (without straight up hating ME) I still like theirs like why r u guys always so petty

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greensaplinggrace · 9 months

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I think one of the biggest differences between bangel and spuffy is that angel isn’t a partner to buffy. he’s not even someone she knows that well. he’s not someone she’s ever familiar with, and he’s not someone she can ever fully rely on.

yeah their romance was big and grand and all the things a tragic fairytale romance is. but at the end of the day their relationship is so incredibly surface level. all there is is the idea of love, and not even the real thing.

#btvs #spike btvs #spuffy #buffy summers #anti angel #anti bangel #just in case #tbh I’m usually a multishipper when it comes to this sort of thing but…#b*ngel comes across as so surface level to me #there’s no real force or depth to it #even disregarding the weird vibes angel gives off about buffy’s age and his condescension and when he first fell in love with her #and all the ways he keeps her hooked by refusing to leave her alone after breaking up with her #a choice that he makes ‘for her own good’ - which he seems to do a lot #it’s that he has no real impact on her as an actual person/slayer with interests and complexity and depth #while he hurt her and affected her #sometimes it feels like he barely made a scratch at all to what actually represents her personhood #anyways I don’t hate him or the ship really and I get why people like him #it’s just to me it’s kind of ridículous that people #say he was it for buffy #when he was barely even a partner #that’s high school romance not real bone deep love #myramblings

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vristrogen · 4 days

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something about people calling vrisrezi "toxic yuri" always puts me off. i understand the lack of words to really put their dynamic but like you know theyre in a relationship thats largely good for them right. they arent dating because "it sucks but it would be worse without each other" they genuinely really love each other a lot

#just as a baseline understanding here i am outright stating that their moiraillegance is a romantic relationship which includes kissing etc #if u cannot meet me on that level i dont think i really want to discuss vrisrezi with you #anyways its just so weird to me i dont know. i dont have a super great way of articulating it #they do Need each other they are codependent and its not necessarily healthy #but unhealthy does not equal toxic #they dont hurt each other on purpose they make each other so so happy and they do so much for each other and thats what makes them worse #because as much as they are universally destined to be together by the Laws of Paradox Space they are also universally doomed #and i mean straight up like. terezi is vriska's fp i feel like this is a given with the almost unambiguous bpd coding of vriska #and that isnt a type of relationship that vriska serket and terezi pyrope are exactly going to understand or manage well #but i also think that calling a favorite person relationship toxic by the nature of it regardless of who specifically is in it #is really gross? and harmful? and it doesnt make you sound cool when you talk about vrisrezi like that #ok wow this got really really out of hand. vrisrezi isnt really “toxic” if you read the comic thank you good night #vriska #terezi #my posts ::::)

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dragon-cookies · 4 months

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I'm so immensely frustrated that the turning point for Charlie forgiving Vaggie happened while Vaggie wasn't even in the room. I want to see Vaggie tell Charlie herself that she didn't want to break her heart and reveal she used to be an exterminator. I want these girls to actually act like a couple and talk things out together god

#hazbin hotel critical #i kind of already talked about this in my review of ep 7 I posted literal seconds ago #but as a sapphic Charlie and Vaggie's relationship just irks me on such a personal level #I want to give a shit about these two so badly #but they do not belong to the right person to give them the writing the deserve #it's fuckin painful to see so many people basically mourn the potential of characters they KNOW could've been amazing #but got trampled down by shitty sex jokes and bad writing #it fuckin hurts man #dc talks

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zeroducks-2 · 3 months

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"Dick is so smart and cunning he can easily hurt the people he loves with just one sentence"

Yall do realize that this is like. Extremely easy. Hurting someone's feelings is a walk in the park once you get to know them, like even superficially. Talk to a tumblr mutual twice and you're likely going to know what to say to piss them off or make them upset. Your close loved ones? Yeah that's even easier since you hold the nuclear codes to their insecurities and most likely know a good chunk of their secrets. Even hurting them by accident is easy.

When Dick hurts people with his sharp tongue it's not a testament of how smart he is. I mean you can choose to see it like that I guess, but to me it only shows that he has been raised by Bruce and he's been taught that every bit of knowledge he has can be used as a weapon. He rarely ever does it anyway because he's a very good person, unlike his mentor.

#idk folks this feels like one of the classic 'mean behaviors are a symptom of intelligence' tropes which are pretty dumb if you ask me #hurting people doesn't require high level of smarts #sure witty comebacks tend to come from smart folks but being witty and emotionally intelligent are two very different things #'oh but he can easily hurt people because he's emotionally intelligent' that's not how it works #being emotionally intelligent is what allows him to UNDERSTAND people support them be a good leader #Bruce says things that hurt people ALL THE TIME and he's the emotionally dumbest person alive #anyways #Dick Grayson

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skunkes · 5 months

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ok posting it here bc im not sure if its going to stay in the doodle page

#delete later #deleting soon bc eyes on me #for those of you who kept asking about Something last year LOLLL #sorry this is too entry level vent comic ykwim i jst needed to get it out #im over it in the sense that like ok yeah whatever #but not in the sense that i came out worse than before. i was already Small. ive been further Smallened #i was a rebound and lied to and discarded...which thank god i was Set Free but wow!#all my personal fears reinforced. it is embarrassing for me to want and need...i get it neow. i was a stepping stone i am an npc #idk that i could do it again! im not sure its worth trying i am too much of a...project.#as i was told from day 1 but still ran directly into it #and i was too much of a coward to leave myself. if it happened again i wouldnt be able to leave then either.#im happy that i dont think it could get much worse than all that for my first experience but it was also exhausting #and weirdly at the same time i dont think i cld ever expect better #its almost been a year since its been Done and the words and treatment linger <3 #this is also why i had to enlist talon as imaginary bf number 2 LOL need extra reinforcement and love #cringe as fuck but it rly will never be as good as whats in my brain...i know that neow. i will spare everyone the trouble #and remove myself from the dating pool (<- implying he was ever even in it)#i dont even hold any ill will toward em bc they were right...its just hurts ykwim

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ride-a-dromedary · 6 months

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Alright, the jack in the box is wound, and the coherence is coming to me. Halsin and the dryad, I was talking about his response if the PC indicates that he is most comfortable after a supper large enough to induce hibernation:

"Mindless gorging...? No, that is not right. I did not realize you thought that of me."

And why this keeps catching in my mind is not necessarily what he says, but how he says it (so I am commending Dave Jones' voice acting here). The rest of Halsin's responses to incorrect answers are generally even toned and corrective; firm, usually, but not inherently overly emotional. Much like a teacher correcting a student. But this one...he sounds genuinely surprised and taken aback that the PC would even suggest that. The "no, that is not right" is even firmer on its heels. And the last part...the last part, his voice is smaller. Less forward. I would not go so far as to suggest hurt, but it is approaching that territory. It comes so fast after his firm no, that it almost sounds like something that slipped by accident. Like something that was meant to be muttered under the breath, but it slipped from him because the surprise was so organic.

Alone, it doesn't mean too much. It's a slight offense to an obviously nonfactual statement. And that's likely all it is. I'm about to read too deep into this, I am aware.

But combined with the other things spread throughout Halsin's dialogue, particularly the implication that he is otherwise used to people making commentary on his physical appearance or the physicality of his being, it suggests an extra layer of hurt. An extra layer of: "I did not expect this from you, of all people." Not quite a betrayal, but approaching one.

What makes it particularly catching, is that one of the things you are able to wrench (and I say wrench because getting Halsin to share mundane personal details about himself is a production - and it makes *sense* it's a production if a. We keep in mind that Halsin himself doesn't seem all too sure who he is beyond his preoccupation - which elves are prone to but Halsin also just has...a lot on his plate that have evidently stunted his identity formation - to the point where he even claims he was forgetting who he was, and b. If he is used to questions concerning himself and his experience leading into questions regarding his sex life or his physical activities, see: the companion banter with Wyll and Karlach, he likely...doesn't really keep ready details about himself personally on tap anymore. He's so unused to people being interested in Halsin, that he's taken aback when they are. It becomes the "In the moment, I forget everything and anything I like to do for fun" mentality - no one really cares about what I like to do anyway - if you will. He even goes so far as to joking that the PC may be a doppelganger because *why else would they want to know these things*) out of Halsin when you ask him about himself is that he has a sweet tooth. That he likes honey, and people find that amusing. He chuckles, but his face falls, evidently prepping for the PC to make a similar comment (and he attempts to beat you to the joke about that, though a PC can still call that "on the nose" to which he responds that there is little point in denying oneself if it doesn't hurt anybody - indulging isn't a bad thing). If the PC instead chooses that he should pay little attention to what others think, he gives that infamous: "sometimes I think people look at me and imagine my feelings can't be hurt" line. Which implies - regardless of whether he verbalizes it or not - things in this thread hurt his feelings. Comments or assumptions about his body and his person hurt his feelings. He won't say it, but they do. The PC is likely aware of this by this point in the relationship.

Halsin does not otherwise bring up eating or food to any level of significance or directness - the sweet tooth comment was the only time (you could assume outside of canon interactions that they've had other conversations between them and that perhaps this was brought up, but we are going to base this solely in what Halsin reveals in canon). He brings up hibernation, but specifically the sleeping part of it. Nothing else.

So, the PC then potentially goes ahead and makes an assumption of him during the dryad. How'd they arrive at this conclusion, as it obviously surprises Halsin that they did? It reads, very much, that the PC is making this assumption based on the comment about his sweet tooth, his comment on indulgence, and his physicality (note: the ha ha bear and hibernation thing almost seems like an afterthought - Halsin latches *very* quickly onto the "mindless gorging" part). All things that he has shown very evident discomfort (which is ironic because the question is when he feels most comfortable) or hesitance towards (he claims there is nothing wrong with indulgence, but never seems to indulge himself beyond sex, if that. Gee, what does that remind you of?)

Halsin entrusted this individual with this information, as frivolous as it was, potentially revealed that it hurts his feelings when people make assumptions of him, and this individual then went used that information and made the assuming connection: "So, this is a big man. He said he liked sugar, so he must like to eat and indulge. It must be his favourite thing to do because look at him." I am going to essentially ignore everything else I could have possibly heard, and make a bear hibernation joke that has nothing to do with sleeping being a comfort, but emphasize the eating part.

So, yeah, he's a little taken aback - incredulous, you might say. A little hurt. Resigned, almost. Because at that point, you can make a very logical assumption that Halsin came to a very quick snap realization that perhaps this person was not so different from the others as he thought. That it always eventually comes back to that. What else was he expecting? When has it ever been any different for him?

#BG3 Musing #Halsin Posting #does this make sense i don't think it does but it's like...jumping from a - z based on assumption and you know what they say about that #note: this isn't actually this deep i am just making it this deep - also yes i'm aware it probably means none of this #i have a degree in bullshit #but this is also why halsin should have had a legitimate bear like build of a body #i understand why he didn't - but this is *verbatim* what fat individuals receive as assumptions on their person #*all the time* that oh you must overindulge yourself you must eat a lot you must you MUST #and in that thread of thought of halsin's relationship with his body #there's also something to say when halsin says 'my ears are all yours...any part of me is yours should you wish it'#because he *begins* by offering his sympathy and understanding...but follows it up with 'but if i am more valuable to you in this way #then that's fine too - i'm used to that'#almost parallels (inadvertently) astarion's:#'i think i'll enjoy having halsin around not for his wit or wisdom he'll just make an excellent shield if we're attacked'#he's self aware #and in regards to how halsin sees his body as a separate entity - a. body dysmorphia and b. i don't think he truly does #halsin claims he sees his body as a vessel to serve nature and wrinkles his nose at vanity - but i feel there is enough old hurt in him #that this can never be true of him even is he so desperately wishes it was #does he have a level of confidence in himself? obviously he does - but it is marred - it's an exchange #there's always going to be that little voice in the back

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illegiblehandwriting1 · 6 months

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frankly i think the best way to differentiate fanon sky and canon sky is to take a look at groose's redemption arc. both forgive him for the bullying but fanon sky says "he didn't mean it!" Canon sky says "i deserved it"

(for reference, canon sky is sky as shown in the game/inferred directly from sksw)

#chicken scratch #smoke & ashes #lu sky #linked universe #would like to say that this post came to me about a hypothetical ghirahim redemption arc #and the post very nearly works albeit at a more extreme level (because yknow. the Murders)#but the problem is that groose antagonized link specifically #but ghirahim didn't give a shit about link he was just fucking around the first time you meet him #he only plays with link because he's in the way of getting to zelda #so link doesn't matter to him he just wants to hurt zelda #and that's the difference. theres why a ghirahim redemption arc would never work #sky doesn't give a shit about himself his low self esteem takes care of that #but as soon as you go after his loved ones it is over #sky is such an emotional person #he loves quickly and it's so easy to weasel your way into his heart #and it takes a very special kind of antagonization *cough hylia cough* to make him hate you forever #UNLESS you come after his friends. shortcut to being in the bad books forever.#he will kill you for one (1) corn chip #his low self love plus his high emotions and love for his friends equals this disaster of a man #and is why canon sky would never say i deserve it about ghirahim #he fully believes ghirahim is an asshole (which is true) and NOTHING he does is deserved #in skys mind nothing ghirahim did to him matters #it's the fact he wants zelda that means all bets are off and ghirahim's fucked #it's not about sky it's always about his loved ones #but i have indeed read fanfic where fanon sky is like oh this is ghirahim he tried to kill me it's all good now #so yea fanon sky would still say he didn't mean it #ok but like twisted ghira redemption arc where he realizes demise isn't the allpowerful master he thought #this god was just beaten by a pissed off teenager yknow what a fucking joke #anyway #ghira ends up thinking a lot about it being like so demise wasn't the right guy to follow

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hadesknockedupintheunderworld · 4 months

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Okay, but like

As someone who personally disliked the fandom characterization of Mangey as a child who is basically a wild animal

Which of course meant that (even though this standard was not applied to other equally feral boscage maze characters) if you even dared to have ships involving Mangey it was considered "beastiality"

Season 3 was so vindicating for me. Like as someone who always characterized him as selectively mute/largely nonverbal and with less palatable autism, it was so great to see the proof in the pudding that he is just as capable of being more than just the group dog thought like any other mobian and the hilarity of him being surprisingly adept with technology. Like god those few Sails/Mangey interactions were so so good

#Yes I believe S3 could have been better if it had more episodes but there is also still some GOLD there #Nothing like a single episode to make me committed to the possible relationship dynamic between Sails/Mangey (even though I already liked #the idea of shipping the variants together)#What's funny is that I've been considering doing a breakdown of why I think fandom unfairly characterized Mangey vs the others in the #Boscage Maze gang and why I personally characterize him the way I do #but instead I watched S3 and posted this instead😂#Also on the point of topic I would have killed for more Tails variant interaction #When Sails and Nine saw each other at the end of season 2 the gears in my brain turned hard #And like are we not gonna mention Nine's 'there can only be one' in S3???#Like the level of insecurity he's at where he just has to be the only one of him but also HOW HE LITERALLY MOVED TO KILL MANGEY AND SAILS #BECAUSE HE KNEW JUST HOW MUCH IT WOULD HURT SONIC #You jealous identity crisis having fox you😂💖#sonic prime #sonic the hedgehog #mangey sonic prime #miles mangey prower #mangey the fox #sonic prime s3 #sonic prime season 3 #sonic prime s3 spoilers #sonic prime season 3 spoilers #i just be ramblin

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hxhhasmysoul · 8 days

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Hello, hello, have you seen the newest update of JJK? I'm so proud of my best boy, Yuuji....

Can, I ask, why do you think Yuuji is one of the character that is so underated in JJK? He is the mc, but many people (in fandom) treat him like a side character? At first, I don't think so, but I love many shounen, and somehow Yuuji is one of the mc that is underated in their own story....

Sorry if I'm wrong, just I love Yuuji and want him to get the spotlight he deserve....

Sorry it took me so fucking long to reply to this.

If you think that the story doesn’t focus on him enough then I don’t really agree with that but I don’t think it’s wrong of you to feel like that. But I’m not sure this is even what you meant, I just wanted to move this out of the way. And the following paragraphs will explain that a bit. That will be the nice part of this reply.

JJK isn’t a story that mainly follows one character and the plot happens only where that character is. For example, as much as I watched of Demon Slayer (I think up to season 3 and I have no interest in picking it up again ) or read of the Chainsaw Man (first part, I got bored a few chapters into the second), made me think that those stories are too focused on one character. Villains did villain things on the side but the story always came back to the main character and focused on him in the end and plot usually happened where he happened to be, and he was the one to kill the bosses. In JJK even if the story lines feed into each other, they have much more independence and it doesn’t feel that Yuuji is the centre of the universe and the story just waits for him to move. And my personal preference is for the JJK kind of story, as I said CSM and Demon Slayer didn’t manage to hold my interest.

It’s just a matter of preference. And If you’d like the story to be more streamlined around him there’s nothing wrong with that.

That being said, I think that the JJK story still strongly centres around Yuuji.

He’s connected to all the most memorable and important villains of his time (aka those that didn’t die before he became a sorcerer). He’s one of the linchpins of Kenjaku’s plan and the only one of their experiments that they seem attached to, he’s Mahito’s obsession, he’s Sukuna’s nightmare and now also obsession.

Yuuji is also strongly connected to all the major JJK themes: weakness vs strength, human connection vs loneliness, the value of life, bodily autonomy, humanity vs dehumanisation, oppressive systems of power, tradition, gender stereotypes, drive and agency, jujutsu world vs the normie world, family, love and friendship, new vs old.

I think only Kenjaku also really connects to all of these to the same degree as Yuuji does, though some of the other characters are close like Sukuna, Maki or Megumi. Gojou or Nobara aren’t that strongly connected to some of them. And characters like Getou or Yuuta are even more tangentially connected to some of them or not at all. Yuuji really is the one who brings it all together.

Here ends the nice part of this answer. Everything that follows will be rather bitter and unkind towards the JJK fandom. Because I’m really fed up with it as a larger group.

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So why does the fandom treat Yuuji like shit? There are a few reasons that can be pointed to and they apply to varying degrees to the behaviour of individual fans.

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Part 1 - This fandom is the fucking pits

The fandom in itself is absolute fucking garbage. Like interacting with it will make you lose faith in humanity and give you brain damage.

Casual fans

JJK is a fairly popular title in the west and the fandom is quite big and loud. It’s an ongoing title with a hype anime and there are a lot of casual fans. It’s full of:

People who also like many other things and don’t really follow the story closely and don’t really know the lore.

People who read/watched JJK once and haven’t really taken the time to understand the story and its world.

People who as @/cursedvibes says have issues with object permanence and don’t remember what happened a few chapters earlier, and who feel that if the character isn’t in the frame that means that they are dead and/or forgotten and/or were always irrelevant.

People who don’t really like stories like JJK but have never understood the idea of saying “this is not for me” and moving on. Instead they take it as a personal offence that this popular title doesn’t cater to their specific tastes. And they often have the delusion that their personal taste is the mark of objective quality.

People who only want flashy fights and/or power scaling.

A lot of these people feel that they need to shit out content about JJK on social media because that’ll get them into the trending tags. And since they don’t really have any opinions of their own apart from not being satisfied with JJK they find some cold take that sounds clever to them and regurgitate it over and over again until a new clever-sounding cold take becomes popular, rinse repeat.

Those people should be ignored, blocked or muted. They’re just riding some pathetic bandwagon and clout chasing.

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Righteous Haters

The cold takes the casual fans regurgitate usually come from people who just thrive on criticising popular things. Those divide into:

The “Intellectuals” who think they are better than the plebs who like popular things. In their mind popular things can do nothing right and are by default shallow and stupid.

The “Enlightened” who will jump at any opportunity to call something problematic and emerge as the morally pure person.

It’s hard to tell whether these people actually read the story and know it well. Their takes are usually very divorced from the text and I’m always on the fence whether it’s due to genuine lack of reading comprehension or willful misinterpretation.

If you engage with these people they will argue with fucking manga panels, like they will not accept the text even if it’s presented to them. They are honestly a joke. But a lot of them will die on the hill of discrediting Yuuji and spread that opinion around wrapped in pseudointellectual language. Some of them will even put on the airs of academia without knowing how to academia a text in any of the many possible academic analysis ways. Or how to academia about social issues. It’s an intimidation tactic that makes me disrespect them.

Among the JJK enlightened you will find a lot of terfy pseudo feminism. It will be very conservative flavoured and really misogynistic, usually not overtly queerphobic but the vibe will be there, and it will aggressively bring up the general fandom opinion that Gege is a man (which may even be true but Gege doesn’t officially gender themself) to attack and discredit Gege and their work, according to the terfy belief that all men are dangerous and evil. There will also be a lot of intellectualised transphobia especially in relation to Kenjaku, but also Uraume, Tengen and Kirara. And all so funny homophobia about how in their opinion Gege is attracted to their male characters.

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The thirsters

JJK surprisingly aggressively caters to the female and queer gaze in ways that most shounen just don’t. I once wanted to make a joke post titled “The Masculine Forearm, the true main character of JJK” just consisting of panel after panel that is angled in such a way to put the skillfully drawn male hands and strong forearms front and centre. (The masculine hand and forearm are often mentioned in relation to the female gaze.)

I gave up, there’s just too many of those, simply look at the covers. It’s really funny because Gege does not hide the forearms of Yuuji or Megumi, but at least in the earlier manga that I analysed from that perspective, the forearm angles of those two are much tamer than for example when Sukuna or Nanami are shown. It almost feels like Gege knows or subconsciously senses that the forearm is thirst, is fanservice, and Gege is very consistent about not sexualising the teenage girls and likely also the boys.

The forearm is of course the tip of the fanservice iceberg. Everything about the JJK men is very that to the point that JJK is widely known for its sexymen. There are people, including fan creators, in the fandom who have never read or watched JJK, they just learned of the sexymen thirsted hard enough to join the fandom.

These are the people who usually won’t actively attack Yuuji, they will just flood the fandom with the posts about their favs and make it seem that few people care for Yuuji.

There are also Yuuji thirsters but there aren't that many of them.

Yuuji is 15 years old in canon and some people just draw a line at thirsting over a character that is underage in canon. And as long as they don’t insult or harass others about that I don’t give a shit what they do.

But also even if Yuuji was of age, Yuuji is not a prime thirst object. He’s for a slightly more refined palette. And he becomes more desirable if you understand his character better.

On the surface Yuuji is a himbo, a dumb jock with a heart of gold and a cute face. There’s no mystique to him, no edge. This view of him is very widespread. For some thirsters that is enough but it’s not a popular thirst worthy type.

There are some thirsters who actually know the source material and know who Yuuji is but those are people who are in the JJK fandom for more than just thirst.

Generally I don’t have a problem with thirsters but the more ignorant ones contribute to the general fandom idea that there’s nothing interesting to Yuuji.

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Gojou and SatoSugu fans

I ranted about those people a lot and everything I’ve written about them holds up. A large and loud subset of them will spam all the tags, will create posts that boil down to “JJK is about Gojou (and Getou) actually and everything that happens in JJK is about him (them), regardless if it happens to other characters”. If you don’t actually block them on sight, wading through the main JJK tags is nigh impossible.

Gojou really won the internets and is truly the “strongest” of the JJK sexymen.

The overabundance of content about him exposes a lot of people to the “meta” his fans produce in droves. I put it in quotation marks because fuck, so many of these people are allergic to canon and what they write is deranged fanfiction tagged as meta or discourse. Gojou exists in the western fandom more as headcanon than canon. And to people who aren’t really invested in JJK, he seems like the main and most important character.

There are both shippers, thirsters, casual fans and righteous haters (they hate everything about JJK but Gojou (and Getou) in this group.

And of course they influence the perception of what JJK is, including the perception of Yuuji.

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Sukuna fans

There are some of them who will spread takes that reduce Yuuji to Sukuna’s skin suit and will generally treat Yuuji as a function of Sukuna, not a separate character. Interestingly enough, Kusakabe is one of them but he pretends to be a Sukuna hater.

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People who think Kusakabe speaks the truth straight from Gege’s brain

Because the reading comprehension in the fandom is very poor, there are people who take whatever Kusakabe says at face value and will ignore everything else that has happened in the manga thus far. They also haven’t picked up on the fact that Kusakabe has always been deeply biassed against Yuuji.

Why is Kusakabe still alive?

And honestly not only Kusakabe, to them any character that discredits Yuuji is always correct and spot on.

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Megumi and ItaFushi, SukuFushi fans

There is a subset of those fans that despise Yuuji with a passion. They think that Megumi either should be or is the main character of JJK. They think that Sukuna has been obsessed with Megumi from the start because Megumi is special and has incredible potential. They will pretend that the main JJK storyline revolves around Megumi, they will often ignore Kenjaku completely and pretend they are not the main driver of the story. Because admitting that Kenjaku, not Sukuna was the main villain of the story, would just by itself completely discredit Megumi as the main character, because Megumi barely any connection to Kenjaku, only through Tsumiki and Yorozu, and has only a weak, practical, plot related and not thematic connection to Sukuna. He became Sukuna’s escape plan and a tool to kill Gojou.

He has no connection to any other major villains or antagonists in current day JJK. He’s only connected to Touji and Naoya, but it can be argued that Yuuji had more dealings with Naoya than Megumi.

Yuuji’s connections to Sukuna are:

Practical - being Sukuna’s vessel and cage.

Plot related - he is Kenjaku’s way of controlling Sukuna and being Sukuna’s vessel influences everything about how Yuuji functions in the story and how he relates to other characters.

Emotional - they both harbour strong negative feelings for each other, Sukuna even more than Yuuji.

Familial - they are related. Yuuji doesn’t know and would just likely compartmentalise it. Sukuna pretends he doesn’t care but it’s clear he cares very much actually.

Philosophical - Yuuji by merely being himself challenges Sukuna’s whole worldview.

Thematic - strength vs weakness, sorcerer vs normie, humanity, value of human life, family, love, connection and loneliness, tradition, new vs old, bodily autonomy.

If those Megumi fans are shippers they will often push the dumb himbo stereotype on Yuuji. There are a lot of fics in the ItaFushi and FushiIta tags that will treat Yuuji as the necessary evil but you can really feel that the authors dislike him. Finding fics there from his POV or at least exploring him is a fucking chore. And that is or at least used to be the most popular ship tag for Yuuji. Pages upon pages of stereotyping or downright character assassination working hard to replace the canon Yuuji with the fanon one in the general fandom consciousness.

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Part 2 - People say one thing and do/think another

Basically a lot of people are not really self aware or are hypocrites or just repeat things they read and never put any thought into them.

You will see a lot of people criticising shounen tropes. That shounen is formulaic, that the shounen main characters are all the same, that shounen battles are all the same, that shounen main characters are overpowered… and so on and so forth.

Those same people will latch onto Gojou and crown him the main character.

Because faced with Yuuji … they have no fucking clue what to do with Yuuji. They finally got a shounen main character that at first glance might seem like the same old shounen main but very quickly it becomes clear he absolutely isn’t that.

So there are three reactions to that.

Denial

No, Yuuji actually is a stereotypical shounen main. He’s got colourful hair, he’s strong, he fights with his fist, he’s super dumb and kind of a pervert but nice and everyone instantly loves him. He gets power ups and learns everything too easily and too quickly, fights the bosses and breaks the story. And of course he has a sob story and is related to the villain. And his mum has a braid.. She doesn’t, well she does have a ponytail, kinda, in two of her bodies anyway…

And that’s it, there’s all there is to him, there’s nothing more to see.

Faced with canon they will reject all arguments or block you.

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Rage

Yuuji is so fucking weak, why is he so weak? Why are there other characters in this story that get focus? Why is everyone more powerful than him? Why doesn’t he power up and destroy all the bosses, what kind of fucking shit is this? Well at least there’s Gojou the fucking GOAT, let’s go the strongest!!!

Gojou died? Why? Didn’t he say he was the strongest? Why the fuck is Yuuji there? What can he even do? He wasn’t powering up and bodying opponents so we didn’t really pay attention to whatever was happening with him. This is some fucking ass pull.

They also can’t accept that the final battle isn’t a one vs one, that there’s actually a plan with many aspects and contingencies. That the characters are trying to be rational about this thing, they aren’t driven by their egos and desire for glory, well apart from two, and they just want to do everything they can to get rid of Sukuna and stop Kenjaku.

This is not acceptable. If it’s not hard hits and energy flashes but plans and strategy then it’s not a real shounen fight. Gojou vs Sukuna was kinda a fight like that, of course Sukuna was not doing it right because he was scheming too much. But it should’ve ended there, Gojou’s energy balls should’ve concluded the manga.

If you try to suggest to them that he’s just a different kind of character and JJK isn’t that kind of shounen and that it's actually okay for it to take a different route, the rage will spill. They will not accept that shounen can be many things but they will complain that all shounens are the same and predictable.

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Condescension

Yuuji isn’t what they want him to be and that’s “objectively” bad writing. That’s it. They will actually list how Yuuji should’ve been written but more importantly how everything should’ve been written and generally Yuuji should’ve never been put forward as the main character because he really doesn’t make sense as one. Gege is just a bad writer and it’s all mid and doesn’t make sense.

What’s even the point? Is there even a story in JJK, what is it even about? The magic system surely doesn’t make any sense, who even understands that? Everyone who says they understand is lying.

Sure, there were some interesting parts in it, so people got hyped, like the Hidden Inventory arc and Shibuya but only until Gojou got sealed, everything after that is just boring and awful and did I mention bad writing?

And all those deaths of fandom sweethearts, pointless. Either they are just for shock value because there was nothing absolutely nothing in the writing that suggested that they might die, od Gege just being mean to the fandom and hating their own characters and Gege should honestly *insert violent ideation*. Or the deaths are too predictable, generally everything is so predictable in JJK, and stereotypical.

Why do people even care or like it, they are objectively wrong if they do. Because hello the writing is so fucking bad, people have no fucking taste honestly. Who even reads that shit anymore?

Why are those people still in the fandom? Fuck knows.. They will spam the tags though, incessantly. The world must know how much they are better than JJK, Gege and those losers who have anything positive to say about JJK.

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Honestly there is no winning with any of these people. What they claim they want is not what they are ready to embrace or even tolerate. They can’t also accept that maybe JJK just isn’t for them. There must be something wrong with JJK and with Gege because their tastes are universal and objective.

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Part 3 - JJK may be a shounen but Yuuji is a shoujo main character

I’ve written about it before (some of it is a bit outdated now due to what was revealed in the manga) but I will always stand by this. Because it really explains everything.

Yuuji isn’t a typical shounen protagonist but if you look at shoujo protagonists you’ll see his type of protagonist. He is of course a mix of both and in the recent chapters he’s leaning a little more shounen but not too much.

He’s not indulging Sukuna, look how little he even speaks in this fight. He’s not revelling in this fight like Gojou had because he’s not fighting for himself. The outcome, not the fight matters. He’s still not ego driven, still two of his win conditions apart from his fighting abilities are his personality and strength of convictions that so deeply unsettle and upset Sukuna.

Recently everyone in the story, apart from Chousou, Higuruma and Toudou puts Yuuji down, discredits all his accomplishments. He even is starting to believe it. Sukuna is continuing to take everyone away from him. And yet Yuuji is still fighting because this is not about his ego. This is about removing the threat that is Sukuna and hopefully saving Megumi. He really puts himself last and isn’t even given the space to feel bad. All of this will just be there to crush him later.

And the fandom just takes every single insult hurled at Yuuji by the other characters at face value, as if the jujutsu world hasn’t always been hostile to him, treated him as less than human. As if those characters were impartial and haven’t been showing their bias towards Yuuji. They don't pick up on the fact that the jujutsu world is rotten to its core and Gege has consistently used the story to question the values of that world.

So lastly the fandom can’t stomach that Yuuji isn’t 100% stereotypically masculine, that his arc isn’t an alpha male power fantasy. That he isn’t written to perfectly embody the conservative gender norms. This is what the weakness accusation is all about, even if the people hurling it would swear up and down that they aren’t misogynists. Because Yuuji isn’t only accused of losing but also of crying, of breaking down, of being scared. This slight proximity to what is considered stereotypically feminine is a vice. One that for many discredits him completely, makes him not worthy of being the main character.

And if you think that I’m reaching with this… It’s a pattern that repeats itself in the fandom. You will see criticism of the JJK girls for not being soft enough, girly enough. Any proximity for masculinity will be zeroed in on and criticised under the guise of “feminism” with the terfy sentiment that female characters can’t be girly anymore. But girly characters like Hana or Yorozu will be hated for their proximity to stereotypical femininity because that’s considered feeble and shallow and unworthy. And just look how the fandom reacted to Megumi having an ugly and hysterical mental breakdown. To him showing weakness and not manning up. To him showing his emotions in such a visceral way.

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These are the three main reasons why I think Yuuji is so underrated and why so many people will go to great lengths to just shit on him.

#answering asks #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk spoilers #jjk manga #itadori yuuji #this fucking fandom hurt me today deeply on a personal level #so well no holds barred #jjk meta #my ramblings #fandom wank #but also i say nothing new here #it's just a compilation of my greatest hits

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