#zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Watching the dokibird last night was cleansing. Been stressful with this whole incident happening Monday. Was so nice seeing all the affection for her over the week. Just completely unabashed support for a talent over a corporation. People immediately recognizing how fucked the company was in this situation. It's what should be the default, but the previous time this company terminated a talent, it was a lot messier. That and this prior week there was a bunch of corp boot-lickers that were giving push-back to the fans speaking up about the silence on the situation, downplaying how the situation looked.

Anyways, the 0 resistance to backing doki was just v faith-restoring. And from all of the wonderful stories I've heard of her helping out artists, making sure they get paid where her company was constantly dropping the ball, and being a general pleasure to work with, I think she's more than earned it.

Throughout all of it though, there was this, like, everpresent stress. A worry about what was happening, the need to keep up with any news involved in it, leftover stress from the prior week and initial announcement, etc. And I feel like last night's stream really cleansed a lot of that. She didn't sugarcoat things, definitely didn't pretend things weren't bad, but she was able to give things a little levity. Her laugh is p contagious and she's a total goober.

#dokibird #selen tatsuki #nijisanji #anycolor #zealthoughts #best i slept all year i think

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

I decided to do a favorite monogatari ranking a couple months ago, BUT I had to use emojis and I had to include as many characters as possible. So some of these are a stretch, but try to figure them out. 🦀>🧛‍♂️>🎎>💵>☎️>🐈>🛁>🔍>🐌>🌴>🐝>🐒>🧛‍♀️>🐍>🐦>⚔️>👮‍♀️>😈>👩‍🏫>🦾>✝️>🩰>⛪>🗿

#I did want to use a fan for ougi but I think what i went with works well too #monogatari #zealthoughts #feel free to leave constructive criticism

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Was seeing Katawa Shoujo being brought up more more recently and it gave me an itch to replay it, which I've temporarily scratched by skimming a let's play of it. Said LP was doing some analysis after each route and it brought up the idea that Lilly is more of the protagonist in her route (she drives the plot instead of Hisao) and that kinda clicked right for me.

When I played KS, over a decade ago, the route that definitely hit the hardest for me was Lilly's. Both because she ended up surprising me with being my favorite girl (she was like, my third route) and because I got the most invested in her route. Especially towards the end, the story places you in a hopeless seeming situation where a bad thing is happening and you have no power to stop it and I just ended up having a really emotional reaction to it. A reaction that synchronized with Hisao's and stayed that way all the way through to the end.

Hisao being "fundamentally a reactive force in this route" makes complete sense to me from memories of that big emotional reaction. I felt like I had no control because the story was putting Hisao in that position consistently throughout the entire plot. It's nice. I like when art can make me feel things strongly like that.

#zealthoughts #lilly satou #hisao nakai #katawa shoujo

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

cutesy makima shipping art always funny because that obv would never be a vibe in the show, but it is a fantasy that she'd use on the other character

#makima #chainsaw man #i don't actually have any strong makima ships but #zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Weh, I was thinking of how good of friends Rin and Shirou become in each route and it made me sad.

Not because they're friends, their friendship is good. Shirou had a crush on her (and her him), but, like, as soon as he sees her true daily life self they are ribbing each other all the time, having back and forths. It's pretty nice.

No this makes me sad because it makes me realize again how little we get of Sakura in Fate and UBW. Like she should be the closest person to him besides Taiga pre-HGW and then she sorta gets snipped out until HF. This feels bad because she's my fav heroine (although I think they're all wonderful) and because she seems like she was a significant part of Shirou's life! Like obviously we're still in his head, but I feel like I'm losing out on parts of him.

Maybe's that's just by design, have the MC tangle mainly with 2 people he doesn't know that well for the first two routes as better to start with. Don't really get into the 3rd heroine much pre-final route because her issues are so large that she would take focus away from the other heroines or story. I dunno, but it feels bad. I definitely think there was another way beyond her just not being there. Maybe I just need to read f/HA.

One of my IRL friends always feels bad for Sakura on the other routes because she doesn't get with Shirou and I think that's partially the fault of almost all her screen-time and development being in HF, only where she's romance-able. Like my friend feels bad because she can't imagine Sakura thriving outside of being Shirou's partner. Sakura doesn't get as much non-romance-able context as the other two and I think she, Shirou, and the overall story suffers for it.

HF is still the best route imo, it just makes me want more Sakura. I need more Sakura.

#fate #fate spoilers #fsn spoilers #matou sakura #zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

The level of canonocity of Kill la Kill ships seems heavily dependent on which ships the speaker prefers

#kill la kill #zealthoughts #this obviously comes up for everything but still #this always seems to be the breaking point of why people can't agree

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

I like :9 as a face, just figured out I could do that yesterday. I always wanted something like it, but :d didn't have the right feel.

#zealthoughts #it has the right amount of TEHEPERO

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Koyomi anxiously going through some kind of vampire feminization (don't question it) and, one time after sex, a bedicked Hitagi makes a joke about trying to get him pregnant. She then has to console him and promise not to try to get him preggers (she keeps fucking his ass, just not with breeding intent)

#zealthoughts #don't question it #this is how it works I'm sure

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Thinking about new years resolutions. I usually like making a list with the caveat that I'm not beholden to it. I feel like having exact goals and forcing myself to do them often doesn't work, it just sorta makes me feel worse when I can't do them. I'm self aware enough to feel satisfied about doing something I want without making it a hard goal. So anyways here's a more nebulous ramble of stuff I wanna do in this new year. Less I have to do this and more a direction of what I know will make me happy C:

I wanna cut out the dead time in my schedule. Not like the time I need to rest and do nothing or have pointless conversations with friends; I've learned those are kind of necessary to life. It's okay to not do anything when you feel bad, especially when the reason isn't tangible. No I want to cut to the chase when I'm lollygagging on deciding what to do with my free time, I wanna cut out stuff I just do to pass the time; when I'm not shutting down or not feeling it, I want to intentionally be doing the stuff that I know I'll love. I'm old enough that I know my tastes, I know what I'll like and I should just do it.

I wanna actually get through some of the games that have been on my list for a long time, the classic vns, the recommendations from my friends, etc.

I wanna get back to reading manga. It's a medium I've neglected a lot for the latter half of this last decade. And that's a shame because it's a medium that, when I like it, I'm fucking ravenous for. Shit is so easy to consume, I can do it right in bed and stay up for hours because I'm obsessed.

I wanna read at least a little bit more text. Reading books has often been a struggle for me because of attention issues (always losing my place and reading the same paragraph 14 times, not being able to shut out distracting noises so I have to idle until they stop, during the day I'm too antsy to read, and when it's too late or too early reading isn't stimulating enough for me to not drift off to sleep or get distracted). But there's books I want to read, books I know I'll love, books that have been on my shelf for 5+ years that i just haven't gotten to. Mainly I wanna start actually reading the monogatari LNs. I feel like it'll give me a greater appreciation of the series and open me up to parts of the fandom I feel like I've been cut off from forever. I consider it my favorite series so I wanna embrace every part of it.

I wanna watch anime for myself again. I always feel like I'm not watching any anime, even when i do. I've doing that tried-and-true trick of just watching anime with friends every week for like 7 years that I employed to keep myself from wasting away when i was in that post-college, retail job deep depression. But I've fallen out of watching stuff consistently on my own. I do it sometimes, but its usually when its a show i can obsess over a show w/ my online friends together (love you dis and mattie), but when we don't have that I often don't have the motivation. I wanna watch old stuff and new stuff and my friends' fav animes. I'll finish Aria one day and eventually start watching Lain.

I wanna post my feelings more. I feel like this site has enabled me to do that more than twitter (this itself is kind of an exercise in that), I just haven't gotten into the full swing because I've had poor time management and am still getting used to doing it. I want to express myself more to friends (both new and old). I feel like I'm so bad at managing communication with online friends; never reaching out to hang or initiating conversations. I can sometimes get intrusive thoughts born from jealousy or inferiority that make me feel insecure about some of the closest people I've ever known when the root of the issue is often just being bad at reaching out to them when they're usually free. Also, I just wanna play games w/ my friends more, even if I'm bad at it.

This is a new years resolution, but i wanna work out more. Specifically i wanna get back on that lower body routine I was on. In general I just want to boost my ass and thighs (my ass was never that skinny because i played hockey growing up, but there's potential i could be better exploring) and maybe trim my tummy a lil. I'm not actually all that dissatisfied with where I'm at now: soft at rest, but puffing out my chest will just barely give me that slightly buff look (for a guy) where the chest sticks out a lil bit further than the belly. My ideal is to sorta to be able to do both. I'm not too ambitious in going further than that, but I think I can reach that (or at least maintain where I'm at) if I can get on that basic lower body + cardio routine. Plus it'll get me more excited about cosplaying.

I wanna get more fem clothes and be more comfortable dressing fem around actual people. I want stuff that actually looks good together. I want to be confident enough to go outside in it and feel nice even if people are weird about it. I only went out once in a skirt and it was at 3 am walking down my street and back and i was basically just at critical-level-paranoid the whole time despite there being actually nobody else. It's something I've been interested in forever. I wanna be good at coordinating outfits in general; it's always looked fun, but depression, anxiety, and expectations about nerdy guys have always held me back.

I wanna get more fuckin sex toys. This is not in a down-on-myself-way, but, oddly enough, I'm a little ashamed that I'm a guy so late in my 20s that's explored so little of what I actually do to my body to get off. I should be a pro at rearranging my own guts by now. Like I'm confident in saying masturbating is kind of a hobby for me, I would do it even if I didn't have a sex drive that compels it because it's actually just fun for me. So I should treat it like a hobby where I actually learn about how to better please my body (as well as train it).

I wanna bake more. I can make bread now, I wanna be making that shit almost every week. I wanna bake more cookies. Cookies are one of the foods you can actually send through the mail so that means I cook actually send food out to friends and they could eat it. I could be actually making food for people and not be cagey about it! gotta learn what stuff they might actually like. But also for me. It's so satisfying just to be able to make the things you like, to be self-sufficient in that kinda way. I wanna learn how to cook more in general. There's a sense of control and power where you can just make your favorite things.

I wanna actually try writing fiction/fanfiction. Even if it's gunna be bad and cringe. I envy those who can do it even if it's written like a joke or done badly. I'd love to write stories, either about my own characters or just about my favorite ones from media. Specifically this year I've kinda learned about how good fanfiction can really be even when its sloppy or improvisational or the author doesn't feel good about it or all of the above. It's similar to cooking and baking where it feels like a magic power that you can actually learn how to do in this world.

#long post #anx-i-e-demons #zealthoughts #lel vent tag because some of this is definitely tmi #there's probably more I'm not thinking of but this is the jist of what i wanna work on this year #maybe try learning languages? #at this point I feel like I'm more likely to improve on that if I DON'T include that in my new years resolutions post #also looooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong #please don't read this it's embarrassing

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

What if Kyubeys actually do also manipulate boys (or other demographics), but they've just been able to keep it completely under wraps. I mean magical girls are already basically a secret society, whose to say there isn't a secret kamen rider society that Kyubeys have balanced so that they never meet and question their Deceivers.

#pmmm #zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

In case my stance was ever unclear, self-shipping is cool and amazing actually. Done it plenty myself over my life and find it satisfying (kind of like a romantic masturbation).

I've just never understood the, like, not wanting others to have the same love interest part of the way some people handle it. It always seemed kinda goofy. Like, you're giving up sharing your interest in a character with others, when imo other people are one of the easiest ways to find new ways to love your fav.

It extra confuses me because I only ever see it come up in like negative circumstances (distresses the person or causes them to avoid others). But maybe this is the wrong way to think about it. For friends that know, are there benefits to this or is it more like a base requirement for this kind of person to enjoy it? Is the fantasy ruined otherwise?

I don't think it's inherently bad or anything, just goofy. Probably not always something you can control. I just may poke fun when I think it leans into the more toxic elements.

#this is not just about you type i swear (love you) #but talk of yumejoshi reminded me “oh right I do that don't I” (at least casually) #I guess I'd be a yumedanshi but like #i don't see that get used a lot for guys #it more gets rolled up into waifus #but anyways as someone who partakes its something that's always been on my mind #zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

I wish there was a word for, like, when someone criticizes a group of people for two separate behaviors that seem hypocritical, but those behaviors could be coming from two totally separate subgroups and thus there's not actually any hypocrisy present.

You this anywhere when someone is shitting on a group, but for a relatively tame example: "People on Tumblr are asking for more messy queer relationships, but they were calling Shera problematic"

There's much worse examples of this (especially in politics), but the style of diss always kind of annoys me because it's often, like, yes, those are hypocritical positions. That's probably why nobody holds them simultaneously in that group.

#is there a term for this? #maybe just generalization #zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Got thinking and hmmm if Rin was actually able to summon Saber successfully, would they get along?

Like the gut answer would be "Yes", but that's more based on their development in F/SN. In a big way, Shirou being his specific kind of mess forces Rin and Saber to take down their defenses and let their feelings out around each other.

Like obviously they'd work well on a business level. Saber is an ideal servant and Rin an ideal magus AND they're both quite focused on genuinely doing the HGW from the get go. Rin kind of has this tendency to fall into the bad parts of being an ideal magus when someone isn't pushing her into doing the good thing (which is what she actually wants to do). In this case, Saber might fail to do that and later regret it considering her past as a servant. On the other end, Rin can also fail to question Saber's "Shirou-ness". Rin would readily accept Saber taking a hit for her, as that's second nature to the master-servant relationship. Given the circumstances of a normal summoning, Rin may not be able to recognize and question Saber's internal flaws.

Rin has such big expectations for Saber, how would she handle Saber losing a fight? Would that drive a wedge between them? A fanfic I'm reading where they're minor characters has that such a situation pop-up and that author's answer was this awkwardness between them from Rin's guilt of the situation (what inspired my thoughts on this, especially since the fanfic hasn't touched on it much). I could see it going the disappointment route too with her, at least considering her attitude towards Archer at times.

Just funny to think about considering how well they get along with each other in F/SN. They're often thought of as the dream team, but would they be?

#tohsaka rin #saber #fate #zealthoughts #unrelated: sakurin is better

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

That Love, Hope, Capitalism post is funny because I feel like people just really often mistake elements of a story as what they're about. I mean what a story is "about" is nebulous so I'm just going to say it's the message of the story. But ye, Love is the most egregious one of these for me so mini-rant: Love really is in almost everything under the sun, but stories are rarely about Love. Even if something doesn't have a character Love a person or thing, then some form of Love still went into creating it (or driving the creation of it). So it's, like, easy as pie to find Love in any piece of media, but it's a pretty big stretch to say a work's main message is about Love. It's more like a method. Like almost everything uses drama to move the plot forward, but those works aren't about drama.

Also, since it's so ubiquitous, saying something is about Love is just very vague. Like is it about loving yourself, is it about how Love can be harmful, is it about how everyone is deserving of Love, etc. There are more accurate words for these kinds of messages. You could say Little Witch Academia is about Love, but it'd be more accurate to say it's about idolization (and even more accurate to say what it actually says about idolization). "Love" is almost always not a satisfying answer.

#zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

Finished showing wotakoi to one of my friends, and its still funny to me that the younger brother character's romantic matchup is basically a smaller version of his older brother (and also a woman, not that he's noticed). He's even surprised when she helps him through games 'cause he assumed she was just like his brother. Older Brother vs Love Interest

Technically they're not romantically involved yet, but it's def framed like they're the 3rd couple of the show. Makes you think.

#wotakoi #wotaku ni koi wa muzukashi #zealthoughts

[zealsoughtsequesterustanxiedemon]

It's funny, I like to go through my gacha games friend lists every so often and trim them down. You can see how long ago someone's not logged in for and sometimes there's this odd appeal to keeping people on your friend's list who have quit the game. Like, they're never going to sign back in, update their units, etc. They'll never get help out of your own units again. There's no social or gameplay benefit to keeping them on there, but still It's like you've captured a part of someone in time. No one who isn't already friends with them is going to see this account again. You've got something exclusive. I don't keep a lot around, but I keep a couple because they tell a story or are good reminders. Most of them are just friends who played for a bit or for a while and then quite for one reason or another.

But today I noticed an interesting one in FGO.

(They had a pretty generic name so I'm not too worried about posting) I originally friended this person because they had all the male knights of the round grailed and leveled to 100 (Arthur, Gawain, Tristan, Bedivere, 2xLancelot, Merlin) and that's kind of rare to see. I like friending people who put a lot of effort into their account and invest a lot into unique favs.

What's interesting here, once i put it together, was that 85 days ago was the NA server release of Lostbelt 6 Part 2 and so was also the first banner for Percival, the latest new knight of the round table (and maybe the last). So this person dropped 800SQ and couldn't get the Rate Up 4 star, couldn't get any SR or SSR units, and then immediately decided to quit on the spot despite everything they'd put into the game. This isn't to say they made the wrong decision or that it's a super rare occurrence in this game, but it's just a story that struck me, especially because I caught it in the wild. I'll always have this story in my back pocket (or as long as FGO NA stays live).

Plus, it'll be kinda cool if they ever end up coming back.

#zealthoughts