i check cc on the app and had no idea until you sent this in, so thank you for singlehandedly and inadvertently giving me the heads-up :(

it’s a weirdly sentimental thing for me, too! i’ve spent so much time thinking about these answers, even and especially when they stumped me, that it truly feels like a loss of something to have that come to a close — even though logically i know i’m just a random incoherent person fumbling through replies to anonymous askers who deserve better. but it was a means of bridging one to oneself for me as well. so. thank you for saying that.

it’s amazing that despite the anonymous nature of the site i rarely received anything that made me want to abandon it for good, and instead got all these chances to reflect on and hear about things i never would have otherwise. the fact that i received so many questions that moved me and urged me to find words for what i would have left unarticulated otherwise, messages that exposed me to people’s kindness about my writing and my thoughts — it’s something precious, and so it really feels like i’m losing something irreplaceably valuable here, even as i share your thoughts about lamenting losing their original form more than loving my own answers. i know i can be rambly and at times unempathetic in these replies, but i also understand that even if i can migrate somewhere else (and i know i’ll do my best to foster another corner of the internet like this), four years’ worth of messages from a small village of strangers deserves to be grieved in its erasure all the same.

anyway! thank you once again for the heads-up, and for dropping by here and there over the years. an end to an era, in some ways, and as silly as that might be to say about a literal broken website of a q&a tool 😭 it was a good run, and i feel endlessly blessed to have had thoughtful and kind people like you on the other end. it’s a comfort to know at least two sentences every few answers could have left an impression. thank you for your time and attention and trust, and for the me you made possible in these messages.

star rail? very much so omg that’s like. the one thing you don’t have to doubt about me right now. i’ve started asking for permission to talk to people about it bc i can palpably sense it’s all that ever comes out of my mouth and i’d hate to be the equivalent of a person whose entire personality trait is their significant other. my phone finally broke down last month and there was no divine power that could hold me back from finding a way to log in regardless. we’re in a trauma-bonded relationship, hsr and i.

idk if you wanted my thoughts on anything in particular — please don’t hesitate to let me know if so! not sure at the moment how with cc closing but i’m ready to yap at any given moment about anything hsr! — but. yeah. i’m chilling. nothing here for me to complain about aside from the usual hoyo-wide bullshit (that you can argue hsr players are shielded from just a tiny, tiny bit more than the sibling games). loved the last arc, wrote mini-essays about it to anyone who let me rant, am maybe even a bit petty bc i’ve seen some people be like “yo the luofu writing is pretty good this time around” and i’m that astronaut meme going “always has been 🔫” ruan mei got one (1) line and one (1) potentially immoral activity, jing yuan was jing yuan-ing, i’m knee-deep in the muck that is sunday leaks. life might suck, but hsr is never the reason.

it always treats me as best as it can, all things considered. if not for it, i probably would have gotten a flip phone as a replacement for the one that broke. but alas. i’m here. i’ll keep being here for a while, very likely. i was already caged from the moment they gave me the high cloud quintet and now we’re about to head into a greco-roman world. they never want to let me leave. one of these days i’m gonna have a manic episode and believe in the heat of psychosis that i imagined hsr bc there’s no way a game i didn’t make up inside my own mind is this tailor-made for all my interests. at this point hsr is my percy jackson lotus hotel.

unless you mean honkai as in hi3 then this is rather embarrassing of me 😭 i do not play hi3 anymore, unfortunately… but i am watching… looking at other people play… liking edits… etc etc

i saw your follow-up message and no worries, i did think you meant “what would i do” by strawberry guy! it’s likely in the playlist bc it was a recommendation, though if i had a dollar for every time someone has recommended this artist in relation to flls, i’d have a lot of coffee money; it’s like we can all feel that the vibes here are very mid to late stage flls, and that’s very special to see.

as for why i placed it where i did in the playlist, i just think it captures the melancholy and wistfulness of maturing in your love for someone. your first love teaches you how love Can end, and maybe that’s what sticks with a lot of people and why first love must seem unforgettable or unending. but flls is kind of specific in the sense that they couldn’t renew their relationship until the first love part of it has ended. it doesn’t mean they stopped loving each other with as much intensity as they used to, just that sometimes a train has to leave before another can pull in. and that’s what this song felt like to me. i kinda see two yuujis and megumis on opposite platforms at a train station. one side has their younger selves, the other has their older selves. the split second they see the other pair for who they are is the moment of truth: looking at older itfs, younger itfs understand that in order to become happy in the future, they have to end it; older itfs know, looking at their younger selves, that they loved each other back then, but it wasn’t a love with a future. and i think there’s that blink where they see each other just before the train rushes in, and once it leaves, the platforms are empty.

this is making No goddamn sense omg my point is that this song is wrapped up in so many feelings that feel emblematic of flls—melancholy, hope, love, the difficulty and ease of that love, the understanding that the right choice is to say goodbye and to trust yourself when the time comes to know that this is it, this is the right time, and you’re here now, and here the love can flourish. this time, as the lyrics say, they can ask the other to stay.

you might have been looking for one specific scene in the story that corresponds to this song, and if there’s one, it’s the scene at megumi’s apartment in ch7. when they’re finally talking about everything. we don’t get megumi’s pov that chapter, but i can only hope we can all feel that a part of him in that moment is how this song sounds: realizing that he can’t let yuuji go a second time, letting himself be vulnerable in accepting that this is it, he’s about to cross to the other side of that first love that ended horribly and he’s not crossing without yuuji.

my gosh. i hope this makes Some level of sense. thank you for dropping by with a question, and i also hope you are well!

oh, it is rather bittersweet to see this upon finding out that cc is closing down, but all the same, if there’s any way for you at all to (and only if you’d like), i’d still love to hear more about arabic poems and poets! it’s such a specific and irreplaceable joy when when people translate poetry and songs for me, especially from languages i’m not able to navigate on my own.

my mental poetry repertoire isn’t super big or varied in the first place, and i’m not proud to say it gets even smaller when i have to think off the cuff like this. the first poets to come to mind include mahmoud darwish, of course, but other poets i’ve also really enjoyed (in translation) are samih al-qasim (my first one from him was “shalom,” and it has stuck to my mind since and even more in the past year), nizar qabbani (i’m very picky about love poetry, but he and nikki giovanni just seem to always get the simplicity required to convey enormity, if that makes sense), ahmad almallah (i discovered “the sky keeps surprises” through poetry foundation and the use of the words bleeding-threading-leaking in it stunned me), and i also like iman mersal, najwan darwish and ines abassi, all of whom i discovered through words without borders.

so. as you can see. it is not very committed, and that’s something i gotta remedy. i’d love to read way more, especially ones that might not be available in wider translation :(

stop oh my goodness this isn’t long or bothersome at all !! if anything i feel terribly guilty at how much i’ve had to become hands-off with fics and really appreciate when people ask me direct questions like this as a reflective middle ground 🫂

in my mind, i see the boys okay and happy. they’re probably stable in their respective careers rn, though it’s still too early to tell if they’ll both continue with basketball and clinic work. i see yuuji choosing to become a coach earlier than people expect him to, just bc he finds more joy in that, while megumi sticks to the usual path of intern to assistant to full-timer and is currently wondering if he wants to be a vet specialist.

i imagine that after living together for a while, they’ve decided to look for a bigger, more permanent place of their own (return of yuuji’s ch7 agent?) and have just moved in 🤔 but that reminds me—i saw someone’s video the other day, where she had to babysit her nephew and put him to sleep in an empty walk-in closet bc no other spot in the house was baby-sleep-proofed. i was like omg that’s megumi the first time he & yuuji had to babysit tsumiki’s first kid. i answered a cc a long time ago about them as uncles, but i think there’s a lot of fun to spin out of megumi & yuuji when the kid’s still an actual baby. i see it so clearly: megumi clutching his hair with his eyebrows furrowed as he scrolls through someone’s advice on dangers to watch out for, and yuuji cleaning out their closet in record speed even though they Just finished unpacking everything from the move. they’re fine otherwise! regular adult worries, etc. there’s a point where things even out and you Know this is it, this is your forever with someone, and i think these are the years where itfs move from hope/imagination to tangible reality.

and haha i’ve always imagined megumi sending songs that remind him of yuuji in a half-teasing way. older songs, mostly, like the final radio song rec in ch7. songs like “young, alive, in love” by flipper’s guitar, “love in the first degree” by wink, “don’t worry baby” by the beach boys, the entirety of angel touch by cindy, which is probably the background ost that plays like hold music in megumi’s head when yuuji’s around. megumi also likely doesn’t consider the lyrics too much to think it’s About yuuji, but if yuuji had just dissected some of these song choices pre-dating… well. he certainly does now that they’ve been dating a while. possibly more than megumi even realizes why he even associates certain songs with yuuji. as if megumi needed any more triggers to tunnel vision on yuuji from mundane triggers 😭

i am all out of space but thank you thank you thank you for caring about these boys, seriously. they’re okay! that’s one thing you never have to doubt about yuuji and megumi in any universe, i think. if it was up to them and the choices they make with the other in mind, they’ll always be just fine.

the last related answer was long enough ago that i can’t scroll that far back without the embarrassment of rereading my own words, so please bear with me as i bumble through this already unforgivably late reply ☹️

hmm i feel like we often expect the progression of one life chapter to culminate by default in the start of what comes next, as if life unfolds in a series of epiphanies like a relay race where the proverbial baton is gaining clarity on something that will let us leave this in-between state asap. but i think clarity is an abstract idea that’s only desirable when it’s a concept; it’s also unreliable and temporary. you never know what could change, tomorrow or next year. there isn’t really one way to get the one true right choice, and even if there was, there’s no guarantee it will lead you straight to the good ending you want, nor that it will Always remain the right choice. career and culture trends change, as do you as a person. all we can do is make sure we equip ourselves with enough that we stand strong in the face of all the choices we’ll have to make in life. so, above all, i don’t think you’re ever under any obligation or urgency to have The Rest Of Your Life nailed down.

it’s mapmaking from scratch, is all. if you don’t know where you are and all you have is an empty piece of paper, then start from nothing. the more of the empty space you do try to chart, the more familiar the terrain naturally becomes. follow your gut, and if your gut is silent, pick a direction at random—seriously. take classes or jobs for the money, or simply for the vibes. you don’t have to feel 100% about something to give it a shot. there’s already an infinite amount of numbers between 0 and 1, and 0.01% is plenty. i think the more you attempt, even if it amounts to seemingly nothing, the more you internalize and cement about yourself and the world. yes, the growing pains of constant new beginnings are difficult, but change will come and the time will pass regardless.

this might sound like a platitude that doesn’t need saying, but truly, it’s no failure on your part to not have more figured out than you think you should. how could you, when current you doesn’t even have access to all the variables that future you might? you’re where you’re at right now bc of the living you’ve already done, and that will be true for future you, too. you’ll make it true.

i can Feel how opaque & unhelpful this is, god, but maybe all i mean is susan sontag saying, “do stuff. be clenched, curious. not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. pay attention. it’s all about paying attention. attention is vitality. it connects you with others. it makes you eager. stay eager.”

i believe you did the right thing listening to what you no longer wanted, and i pray there will be more for you to listen to come what may !! i’m sending you endless well wishes & the same abundance of love twofold 🫂🤍

interesting question! i think it does what it set out to do, and the real poetry lies not in the words that resulted from the blackout format itself but rather the relationship between the two poems. i don’t know how comfortable i am with evaluating someone’s suicide letter as a “work” to begin with, but this is a funky grey area as it is—plenty of writers are buoyed by the legacy of their own suicide, and there is a point where the line is blurred on purpose bc the very act of writing is already a matter of objectifying a thought or experience. it’s an object by the time it is a word, a sentence, and from some angles, all abdurraqib has done is repurpose a complete image of a piece of art and produce his own object. the bell jar has experienced a similar trajectory, as with many writers whose lives become commodified in attachment to the commodification of their writing, especially after a sensationalized death.

this is. a very crass way of looking at someone’s suicide letter. it’s not necessarily a belief i subscribe to. but it’s true that worse has been glorified in popular art, at times for the very purpose of targeting the inevitable dichotomy and/or shock factor. andy warhol’s death and disaster series comes to mind, just as a tangential example. that doesn’t excuse or justify it, and i personally find it a touch distasteful no matter what, but again, i see where the logic was, and the strength is def more in the space between the two works + abdurraqib’s own identity markers as a poet in the 21st century amidst the current sociopolitical climate held up against the light of woolf’s own background at the time of writing. as far as intentions go, there’s something there that is clearly not just wanting to romanticize or subvert a suicide letter. so. i can’t say it moves me on the personal Or thematic level, but it’s mostly bc it’s not abdurraqib at his best. he’s explored and created far more nuanced forms of art, and it feels like witnessing a haphazardly realized idea to see what he’s done here. i think.

ruanliu and (though a bit more recent and a smidge less intense for now) sunren 😓

i probably owe a lot to all the artists who fuel my hunger despite them. you know. having never interacted in-game (yet! but you gotta invest early. just in case.) i find both dynamics infinitely interesting ahhhh something about jingliu & blade being these powerful immortal legends burdened by the very embodiment of Your Greatest Enemy Is Yourself, whereas ruan mei & sunday share the common thread of yearning towards apotheosis as a means of absolving themselves of the “weaknesses” and/or vulnerabilities of being ultimately mortal and of-this-world.

the best description i’ve read of ruan mei is that she’s an addict looking for her next high, even as the part of her that can be stimulated by the same wonder she felt as a child has long been dulled by the ease of her own brilliance and at the same time complicated by how she never fully processed her grief. she still sees mortality as a betrayal, and a matter of someone’s personal failure. that finds a fractured image in jingliu’s grief finding no closure, bc she’s denied a) the proper rites to bury baiheng without her memory being tainted by what happened, and b) any real revenge, when she lost a core part of herself a second time by torturing blade for what he and dan feng did. and just—the potential of ruan mei’s abilities to concoct life vs. life & death always being this open-ended thing for jingliu, plus the fact that there’s hardly anyone in the game that jingliu would ever be weak or vulnerable around, maybe not even an aeon, but even she wouldn’t be able to escape ruan mei’s clinical fascination with the fragility of the human mind and heart, and especially not when ruan mei is fully capable of resurrection and/or mara management if she so wishes.

as for sunren… i’m a stellaron hunter sunday conspiracy theorist until someone ties me down and makes me confront whatever truth is out there, and this pair-up stood out to me immediately bc i must leave room in my heart for a dynamic between someone trapped in their devotion and someone trapped in their godhood. the “heaven for all” advocate with ultimately selfish means and the guy who demands “hell for me” for ultimately selfless ends, even. i think sunday has more to confront about the fact that even benevolence can be cruel, while blade is trapped in this body defined by how merciless “kindness” can be—as well as exemplifies how what appears violent can be gentle and kind. i’d also love for blade to interact with someone who grew up believing in redemption & salvation, who still sees a future worth saving in him when he’s in this cycle of forever atoning for his past. and the idea of sunday often using his powers to subjugate—and what a subversion it would be for it to be used for once to calm blade’s mara—doesn’t hurt.

but who knows. maybe i just like pairing up my fav characters with hcq members.

you’re not tripping! they’re over on the manhwa pseud :) https://archiveofourown.org/users/sejoo

ouran high school host club 🫢 https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1350352647

no but probably terrace house’s boys & girls in the city season, but specifically the episodes where hansan is in the house. somewhere around eps 25 to 32? it gets rather uncomfortable with riko & hayato after that, but otherwise, i think that part is the terrace house section that feels the most lived-in to me. not just bc of the drama going on, but bc the housemates at that point feel like they’ve been living together for longer than they actually did. i like the rapport between the more one on one dynamics onscreen, even the messy ones, and hansan is possibly my fav terrace house resident of all time (though seina is a close contender, for crucial honorary reasons).

there’s also one specific scene in ep. 24 of terrace house’s opening new doors season where two housemates, noah & yui, go on a date to a conjac park, and something about it is so comforting to me despite the fact that everything goes to absolute shit that episode And season. i think that’s worsened even more by how there’s something off in the way the panel talks about the housemates in this particular roster. terrace house had a certain darkness to it even before it was revealed that they were scripting (and evil editing) far more than they admit to And leaving the housemates vulnerable to harassment online at extreme levels, but opening new doors is really just. the season where the toxicity is almost miasmic, both from the hosts and the housemates. i much prefer the dormant discomfort undercutting the overcurated idyll of boys & girls in the city.

i also talked about the chef show a little bit before https://x.com/sleeptowns/status/1645540583350337539?s=46, though i wouldn’t classify it as pleasure per se. i Still haven’t seen the movie that it spawned out of; i think i’ve watched every episode at least three times and still can’t fully tell you why. i guess i like that it feels as if we’re dropping in on days that would remain unchanged by our presence and absence, and that jon favreau is so open about asking questions? it’s refreshing to see a directionless cooking series led by someone eager about trying and failing and finessing things he’s never attempted before. a lot of the episodes do feel like him trying to flex his hollywood business, which i don’t care for nor about, but some episodes like guerilla tacos, hog island & milk bar bake sale scratch an itch i otherwise can’t locate. it’s just an easy pick to put on when i can’t decide what else to watch at the moment.

hello! seems like everyone is back in their hq phase after the movie… i really should watch it and join the collective drowning, but i… fear that not only is this answer very late, it’s also not. useful. like at all. i don’t think i have any Fav fav hq fics, let alone ones from a time after inarizaki was introduced. i’m very sorry to disappoint—i know there are a lot of amazing hq writers out there, even and especially from back in the day; it’s more a wonder that i am mutuals with hq authors whose other writing i love yet somehow impossibly did not meet them through hq 🤔

ao3 is down right now so i can’t even access my bookmarks, but a fic that has left a solid mark in my mind from the years i read within the tag is “close to the chest” by darkmagicalgirl (i believe)... it’s a kyoutani/yahaba fic with an iwaoi sideplot, though it’s really more a canon compliant imagining of yahaba’s path out of the closet. i think i found my way to it bc i saw kittebasu’s bookmark, but the reason i remember it exceedingly well (aside from personal experiences with the hq sphere circa 2014-2016) is that there’s a scene that kinda unfolds like—

yahaba: is there anything i can do for you?
oikawa: buy me milk bread.
yahaba: i meant, like, emotionally
oikawa: buy me milk bread, emotionally

—and that final line has been my bio on LINE for friends since uni. so. i also just think it opened my teenage eyes to the way fics can kind of slot itself against a ready-made spot in the canon narrative, even for characters/dynamics that only got one scene. i’ve carried that with me. i also like several of tothemoon’s fics for subtle but delicious magical realism, and the one that has left a gentle imprint in my mind is one called “this eve of parting.” — i believe, again, and cannot fact check bc ao3 is down :( — but consider this my blanket hug for majority of tothemoon’s hq fics.

i should have picked a better time to answer this question, but my ao3 bookmarks are so disorganized (and from a time After my hq writing pseud) that i don’t know which ones i have saved, if any. i should do better exactly for situations like this ahhhh i know even less about the current state of the hq tag than my younger self could have ever fathomed… and i apologize for being so scatterbrained about this reply 😭 i’m sure i should have more than this usually, but if You have any recs, i’m not at all opposed to reading for hq again and getting it together.

i have! it was really fun? not as emotionally complex as s1, but i anticipated as much and didn’t really mind it to the same degree i might have for another work with a less defined earlier season. i guess i hesitated to watch it for a long time bc i felt like link click just didn’t need another season? there was nothing i could see that would have justified one, at least in a way that would have been sustainable if you wanted to go for even more seasons after that. we had cliffhangers and the overarching plot line, but those were always the weakest part of the show to me—or at least the least compelling. link click at its “weakest” is still a strong idea, but i guess that’s the thing. another season could have only proven the weaker of two next to what i think is a fairly perfect s1. if you know what i mean.

it’s a shame that i wasn’t proved wrong, and what little s2 did give us about the things i was invested in from the first season were barely enough to ground the story in a foundation steady enough to hold its own once you cut away the higher production value and different overarching tone for this season. i appreciated the “darker” spin and technically more in-depth sci-fi—i just didn’t care for any of it as much as our main cast from the first season. by the time we did get snatches of them and developments in lu guang and cheng xiaoshi’s arcs, both as individuals and with each other, all it seemed to do was shock me back into thinking—oh right. this is still link click. right, right.

i know… it sounds like… i didn’t like it. but i swear i did. it always comes from a place of affection, when i talk about link click. it’s just that… s1 was like watching yuzuru hanyu gracefully do a triple axel on carpet, that sense that you’re watching someone who’s confident enough in their control over bodily physics that they won’t stumble. s2 was more like. watching a short distance sprinter have to do a 400m lap and losing steam at some points bc their stamina just isn’t wired towards that. they’re Still an amazing runner, and their form a reminder that being a track athlete takes a lot of endurance and practice, but by the end of an event they don’t usually run in, they’re propelled forward only by their own momentum, and finishes with a lot less grace than people who do 400m on the regular.

am i making sense help i had a great time! as with s1, i was on the edge of my seat for so much of it! my heart ached! the lu guang reveal had me stressed! and the fight choreo was stunningly impeccable!

you sent this a day after after adam’s birthday, which is amazing but also extra insidious on my part with how long it has taken me to get to it... please know that i am going 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️ right back

i always struggle to decide on tattoos inspired by specific things bc i’d rather people think they’re flashes i chose for generic aesthetics and no real meaning — but i have a sticker sleeve all over my right forearm, and the one closest to my wrist bone is a three-leaf stem in fine line for adam. it’s where i had the worst cuts and bruises throughout my childhood, so there is some typical sentimentalizing there, you know how it goes, but honestly i think my reasoning at the time was mostly some spite about how annoying it was in elementary & high school to hide my injuries in those spots since my uniform sleeves cut off right about there. now sometimes the little leaves peek out through my sleeve and all i think about is adam and both of us sticking it out until we were free.

anyway! i hope that’s not. like. tmi. god. my only point is that the tattoo itself is quite lowkey and not overtly adam-y, and what makes me call it my adam tattoo is more a series of jumps in logic. so i understand what you mean with the line about gansey & ronan popping into your mind even with a tattoo that seemingly has nothing to do with them! i mean. some things can’t be decontextualized. i can’t imagine that being a bad thing when it comes to ink permanently etched on you. plenty of things in life you can’t choose to carry the permanent stain of, nor can you choose how to define your association to it. plenty of people in history haven’t gotten to choose what’s branded on them. it shouldn’t be seen as less than the privilege it is that we get to choose And define how we relate to something visible on us. even if it’s a silly, tangential justification.

on that note, there was also this artist who allowed their ley line art to be tattooed (https://tinyufoboss.tumblr.com/post/142324856194/ley-lines) and for years and years i thought i’d get the adam one… but i did end up settling for the one i have now, and i feel like it’s more me. all to say i feel what you feel about adam. thank you for sharing in that with me (and if you ever do end up getting a tattoo in his honour, i’d love to hear what you decided on. only if you’d be comfortable sharing, that is!)

i’m really really sorry for how long it took me to answer ahhhhh i hope it’s okay if i start by pointing to an earlier reply — i find it’s just about the only answer i can give in these situations: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1326521137

mostly, i think... there’s always a reason we can’t write, & it’s often more mundane than we want it to be. for me, the biggest troublemakers are distraction, or the words coming but feeling painful and more rigid than normal. it helps me to be in total solitude, but when my thoughts are tangled, for example, i’ve found that starting a voice memo and talking to myself out loud helps me warm up my brain better. but other ~reasons could be “perfectionism” and/or fear of not doing justice to your own ideas: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1352123604. or maybe there’s a feeling of insurmountableness to the visual of the blank page: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1332656540.

or maybe you just expect it to be intuitive, when the truth is often that the less you write, the more painful it might be in the beginning until you find your momentum, and that (in most cases, not all) is even more reason to still keep at it when it’s not going well: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1327446681

if the only viable path in a maze is blocked, your only choices are to go back the way you came and keep not writing, or put your all into pushing however long it takes until you arrive at a different crossway. even if you have to use your own spit to lube up the edges of the block. with writing, most of the time (not always), you’re going to have to be comfortable with pushing on even when you don’t like how it feels. sometimes you’ll have to fake it till you make it. an angel isn’t going to pay us a visit and award us the divine gift of writing, and even if one did, we’ll still have to find a way to best relay the word of god. it’s not a matter of will or lack thereof to become a writing machine overnight. you have to start with baby steps. there’s no shame in that. if you did two lines a day everyday for a month, that’s sixty lines. in a year, that’s 720. none of those numbers are zero. and if all of them are terrible, then that’s 720 more lines than zero to edit, you know?

in case you might be thinking writing is supposed to feel a certain way (easy, or quick, or efficient) bc that’s how it seems for other people — then i think you’ll find that those kinds of writers are the outlier. even ovens need to be preheated to optimize their baking prowess, & there are recipes that someone has already perfected. craft & process and the end result are the same.

all i know is — the fact that you’re sitting down to try and write at all is worth more than you might realize. i know this is likely nothing you haven’t heard before, but i hope i haven’t been too harsh. thank you so much so for your kind words, and i’m sorry i couldn’t give a better answer.

i hope you can forgive me for taking two whole months to reply to this, holy crap, but your recs had me revisiting the playlist probably for the first time since it was made and it got to a point where i had to sit down and just do a massive clean-up job — which is to say thank you to You and all the others who think of flls music for putting so much thought & care into what goes into that playlist. it makes me want to be even more careful and intentional with what i contribute to it 💗

i’ll get around to adding these ones to the playlist as soon as i can too! i’m just. very much not a person right now. i already love both songs on a personal level but want to sit down with them as flls/skow-centric songs sometime. i think something interesting about flls is that there’s like. an undercurrent of violence in the way they feel about each other. almost as if i had to rely on jjk canon-typical metaphors and rhetoric to externalize their love even in an au. which is to say that the lyrics in “the knife” really captures that momentum in their relationship that will eventually hurtle towards a car crash. just. the language being full of kinetic energy: the knife of insight *tore* its way *in* me, *hit* me *up*, how it all *pours out* — you know?

i adore these recs & the ones before !! it’s getting redundant perhaps to keep saying this but thank you for caring about flls !! not just reading it, but caring about it to such degrees. seriously. thank you.

i seriously need to get a new personality trait bc i feel like it’s the only book i talk about but... franny and zooey 🙂‍↕️ it’s really a short story + novella usually combined into a “novel” format, though. i’ve got some thoughts from my latest reread if you want to poke fun: https://literal.club/regressor/book/j-d-salingerfranny-and-zooey-2cozm

salinger in general has a way with characters that i grudgingly appreciate and still at times aspire to — but maybe it’s just the way i’ve grown up with this book and had it change with me. i fell in love through franny during my first read and through zooey in my latest and maybe someday i’ll outgrow how much i feel for both of them but there’s just so much there that i can’t even imagine it depleting to nothing. i can’t think of a book i feel about the exact same way i feel about f&z. it’s almost nauseating.

there’s adam parrish from the raven cycle as well, but that’s more of a personal feeling and not necessarily wholly of the story. he saved my life more than i wanted to save his (which in a way is saying a lot bc adam’s whole deal is that his friends wanted to love him by saving him, yet it’s not salvation for him if it isn’t of his own making). it’s a mix of both subjective and objective love in this case, intense enough to earn him a tattoo.

and, though also not strictly a novel, the aeneid…? i was spiralling the other night bc my periodic aeneas thoughts decided to strike out of nowhere. i skulked around some classics blogs bc i Know other people must feel the same, and when someone said “aeneas has been dying for ages and then is finally dead in book 12 even when he's still alive” and pointed to “the slow erasure of aeneas' sense of self over the course of the poem, the increase in violence & decrease in tears & other feelings” — felt like i’ve been shot. it never gets old. aeneas, my honorary regressor... no ancient greek hero comes close to the emotions you taught me i could experience.

i have so many other characters i feel for, just maybe not to the same degree of lifelong fervency. characters like frances from conversations with friends, natalie from hangsaman, theo from the goldfinch, cyril from the heart’s invisible furies—to name a few. i’m sure i felt so much for all the characters in le petit prince. gatsby, even. camus’ meursault, whose literary persona i can’t help but be protective of. i’m still very attached to hareton from wuthering heights, though he’s not technically a main character. on some level a part of me can’t help but feel a lot for the narrator of any story i do deeply love, since stories like that have only gotten rarer as i have grown up. some mc loves are over sooner, and it only so happens that the ones i named have stood the test of time.

i can’t outline at all, actually! i’ve tried, but i just do not have the brain for them. i’m more comfortable (and have more fun) if i get right into a blank doc and do everything as the need arises: editing, research, notes, ideas. often, a story is born bc of a Point B i want to get to, but i don’t necessarily know where that point will be in a story. that’s for the writing to help me figure out. sometimes i even abandon the original trigger altogether. i just find it easier to consider multiple possibilities and choices as i go along, even if i must write whole scenes before realizing they’re useless. at which point they will go to a separate graveyard doc so i don’t think too much about slashing it.

i’ve found it’s best to start with what’s easiest to write, which for me would be dialogue. i get them out of the way in the roughest form possible as they come to me. here’s an example:

“There is no pursuit of knowledge that is worth human lives.”

“What about one life, then?”

“Oh, Doctor.” / “You can’t possibly think any of this is righteous. You may belong to a tower with windows but it is a tower all the same.”

this is gibberish. it has no value without context. but it’s something to build a potential scene around, & from here, i’ll add texture with body language & speaker tags, and finally, i’ll get to the plot & introspection, which would be easier bc it’s essentially just commentary on an existing scene. then i can decide what’s worth keeping when i’m editing. (the biggest number of times i’ve reworked a complete draft is around 21, to answer that question… 7 for a single chapter, i think.)

the idea is to go in the order of what you find easiest, so that by the time you get to the one that demands the most of you, you have as much of the story built as possible to support you. what in your outline is the easiest for you to put down on the page? is it the location? one specific character? then when you have these little scattered bits/flags, fill in the connections between them as best as you can. give them a reason to be all together in the story. if it helps, paraphrase the points in what you have like you’re explaining it to someone from memory. working on small parts is a good thing — it just means you’re building. they’ll add up. so play to your strengths. you have them; overwhelm your “weaknesses” with numbers. you don’t have to do it all in order, nor all at once. if a scene isn’t cooperating, that’s not a judgment of you. there are other kids you have to feed. you can come back later and reassess.

i’m out of space and painfully aware this isn’t coherent, but i hope there’s smth here that could be helpful. for what it’s worth, as frustrating as it must be, sometimes it’s not a matter of discipline but the simple fact that pursuit of The Process is ever unfolding. it’s okay. you’ll find it.

and ahhhh that is the cutest little note to end on… i’m honoured to be invoked by the definitive sana part 🥹

it is more than okay to share songs with me are you kidding !! i love getting them !! i love long messages, too, if you couldn’t tell from how i reply. thank you for contributing some life into the flls playlist 🫂

but also you know that scene in midsommar where all the women are gathered around florence pugh sobbing in pursuit of some kind of ritualistic catharsis? that’s how all of these made me feel. like i want to claw out of my chest. devastating. but at least we are in #community.

this part in maybe you saved me goes out to all my flls ch4 rereaders out there:

I watched you crash
I watched you burn
I helped you pick the pieces up
I couldn't give you what you deserved
Sometimes my best ain't good enough

rest assured i’m going to go through all of these and find them their right spot in the playlist order somewhere, but you made me realize that it doesn’t have nearly enough maggie rogers. like — “but [love] is always a reason to risk it all / at least the way that i loved you” ??? “i don't want to leave you even though i have to / i don't want to love you / oh, i still do” ???? a full discography audit might be in order.

oh my, oh my… thank you so much. for this message, for reading my writing all this time. i admit i don’t spend as much time bonding with my canonverse fics so it’s always doubly touching to see them receive such warm, sincere kindness. so it goes especially is the one fic that Shocks me every time with the love it receives, so much so that i might have developed a special soft spot for sig readers. thank you for being part of that.

one of the rnbc wips i had before sig was a time loop fic of the day of isagi’s wedding, inspired by artwork where rin catches bachira staring during isagi’s wedding and (as a callback to the u20 match) tells him, “look only at me from now on.” i was like whoa! rin-chan! but that image amplified thoughts that would form sig: how rin’s life reflects this almost angry begging to be seen, for the effort he puts in to be certified in some way, for someone to hand him a place that he can trust to remain stable bc of how much he can’t help but give to it. yet it’s his misfortune that he asks this of things that already belonged to something else before he came along, and that he has only known love that had to be repossessed. like soccer, like sae. my ideal sophoclean ending for rin will always be early retirement due to smth unforeseen, so i wanted to take that & crank up all his other issues towards one object. if bachira’s arc is about hunger & having to embrace selfishness (and the loneliness of that) to escape scarcity, then how would this catalyze rin’s need to be seen and to have a place that’s his?

my fics do tend to start with one scene in mind, but the path towards that is unbeknownst to even me until it’s written 😭 for sig, the scene that necessitated 60k words was the guernica moment, then i just tried to gather as many of my bookmarked rnbc art to write scenes around bc more themes kept falling into my lap: rnbc’s shared concept of fate, how rin will only ever be bachira’s soulmate by choice, not destiny, & what a responsibility and privilege that is; starting anew in both love and life for people who thought forever would last a lot longer than it did; the quiet of stability after so long in a storm you learned to live with; imagining an older bachira’s relationship with loneliness, etc.

i often wish sig was neater, that i spent more time on it, but smth about it also feels uniquely rin. plus it gave me my fav line to write all of last year with “good. that means it was love, too. between me and soccer.” it’s the privilege of writing that i get to leave rnbc being each other’s unequivocal first after a lifetime of wondering — though even i was surprised how... sunlit? the result turned out to be. it’s always so full of light in my mind, so it goes. i’m honoured i get to share it with hearts like yours, so thank you for letting me talk about it a bit as well 💛

oh, this makes my heart ache so terribly — in a good way. in the best way. heart-shattering like a shooting star cutting through the sky out of seemingly nowhere.

i see writing and language the same way — formulaic, a matter of balancing — and have found it sad here and there that there isn’t really a way to liken it to math without making it seem like i’m clinicalizing or sterilizing it. it is math to me. it is seeing the shape of a sentence and knowing this side of this clause won’t get you the variables you’ll need for the next one. i think that’s part of what makes writing thrilling: the search, the ratios, all these infinite variables you’re holding with each sentence you begin to write, until you reach the moment it all cuts away and you point to the thing you’re looking for. i don’t know if i’m successful more often than i’m not in pursuing that final answer, as you say, but it’s incredibly moving to hear someone say this and understand on such a visceral level what i see in my head. utterly devastating, this entire message. i feel my debt to your way with words in this twinge in my chest. thank you so much.

i feel… so much older than being in my 20s, haha. like what do you mean we’re only halfway there! how much more wisdom is there to learn! i feel like i’ve been 30 since i was 3. like i’ve been 40 since i was 4. like i must be hundreds of years old now in spirit. i don’t know. the years go by so quick, ironically. i forget to find anything to hold onto to ground myself. there’s freedom in that, in a way.

the good part is that i’ve come to embrace my 20s as a period of acceptance. of what and who i am, of the way i think, of what i’m willing to do to preserve this thing i call my self. i’m not especially interested in exploring the unknown anymore, not like i was in my late teens. i think i believed that if i pursued hunger i did not actually feel, that would give my life momentum that belonged solely to me. or maybe i believed the quantity of the unknown made it something worth breaking down. i don’t know if i trust anything to be unknown anymore. i feel like… the world continues on and on, in these cycles that you can see approaching from five years away, and the age number changes but the cycle starts anew when it’s time to.

i have come to accept as well that i have no love left for the world. there’s a very fine line i’m toeing here before misanthropy hurtles me towards somewhere else, but my lack of love for the world now doesn’t mean i don’t want that for other people, or to have something close to love to share with others. i think i’m transitioning into the idea that i’m not seeking to leave a mark on my life, but i also don’t intend to leave it worse than before i was here. if i can leave it better, that’d be great. i’ve done everything i can, and i’m satisfied to know that my pursuit of perfection has been successful enough to leave me invulnerable — to the injustice of this ever degrading world, to my family’s, to whoever else’s. what i sought to protect me will always protect me. as edgy as that sounds, it’s strange to reach a point where that feels true and stable. i know the choices i made when i needed to, and i intend to live the rest of my life trusting what i know and welcoming what i don’t bc i know it won’t change me. i’m prepared to make the hard choices. i’ve always made them, but i wasn’t prepared at the time. now, i am.

i guess that really is it. my 20s have been a period of accepting that i’m prepared for whatever living will ask of me, and i won’t be upset if it turns out there’s nothing left to ask. i have no grief about what i did or didn’t do. ofc there’ll always be thoughts of what i’ve lost, but in the end, getting older is just sinking deeper into the warmth of a lake inside me that i always thought i couldn’t swim within. i hope that doesn’t sound melancholy — it’s a gentle thought in my mind. so are my 20s, now. the water is still.

i can’t say i was expecting to get a pep talk tonight, but consider me thoroughly hyped, dear kind passionate stranger on the internet. i struggle to imagine what i might have written to deserve such zeal (and i promise i’m not ever bogged down by feeling i’m not good enough!) but i do genuinely feel powered up by this, thank you so much for showing such kindness and enthusiasm to my writing ❣️

the way i’m actually giddy that you’ve caught me in a rare instance of having a single, simple answer to this question omg — i work in editorial! my formal title is editorial specialist, if that means anything. it’s just a fancy-ish title for how there’s a common saying in my team that “if you can’t find a fix, that’s for sha to remix.”

i just clock in and look at whatever files and cases of the week are on my desk. sometimes it’s policy review for the teachers’ board, sometimes it’s research and archival work for an art gallery’s exhibition book, sometimes it’s interviewing authors for a promotional campaign to hand over to the publicity department. the nature of the work is technically writing and editing based, which is what i thought i was going to be doing all the time, but in practice i’m paid a lot of money to be a hater and find problems in things then figure out how to fix it and make it look like they were never there. the point of me is to make it seem like there was no me, my manager always says. not unlike a mafia goon. could definitely be way worse.

thank you so so very much !! i’m long overdue for a couple issues i’ve been meaning to write, and it means more than you know to discover that there are still people reading them 🩵

literal.club has been the only site to stick with me! it’s not the most varied database yet (there have been so many titles i’ve had to submit myself), but it’s the cleanest interface of the ones i’ve tried. it does everything i need it to, and the elements i don’t need are not in my face. this is my account if you haven’t been before: https://literal.club/regressor 🍓

i have several issues with goodreads as a site, and while i’d love to use storygraph, it just doesn’t… aesthetically… agree with me. literal’s primary deal maker for me was that they don’t show average ratings of books, but i think it’s also just the nicest middle ground of having a place to log and review some of my books without the extra kerfuffle and cluttered interface of other sites. it looks nice (most of the time), it’s straightforward for me to use and navigate (most of the time), and i am able to use it the way i prefer most social media, where i have just a small space to keep up with what friends are reading/thinking/saying without being overwhelmed. for now, as far as i know, it also has no ties to amazon. this might all change in the future, but right now, i’m pretty comfortable on there and am attached enough that i’d be terribly disappointed if the site were to close down.

this message is so wonderfully worded... like the perfectly round spoonful of ice cream i had at the park yesterday. still thinking about it, as will i this message. thank you so much for this burst of cool sweetness on a humid day 🙁🤍

my journey as a writer hasn’t really been much! i certainly never dreamed to be a capital w writer, and it’s not a priority in my life plans; it more so just happens that writing exists within the toolbox of all the interests i’ve had so far. i wonder often if what people connect with in my writing style is just a natural result of observing my characters like they’re real people. which they are to me, if only for a time. i think of it like this: i’ve loved characters from the moment i realized i could, and the same for language, and that’s how i came to try writing. i haven’t stopped since — only found more characters to love, and more languages, and therefore more writing.

i did study classics & linguistics in uni, though, to your question. i’d be lying if i say i don’t see their influence on my writing style, but it feels unfair to credit only formal education when i know my writing has gone through so many changes and have had to adapt so many times in all the years i’ve been doing it. i’ve been writing fan & personal fiction since i was a kid, sure, but i did also abandon fiction for a couple of years and just did different kinds of journalism. sometimes i participate in my friends’ songwriting sessions, or write screenplays for their short films. i have learned so much from it all, especially the ones i’m not great at, so it’s maybe more that i’m just always searching for the next writing high, and when i find something, i pull it apart so i can lay out all the parts in front of me. i’m more of an eternal student to the real writers, maybe?

this is gearing towards very pretentious, but i think that’s what gives me inspiration — the dissection, & the fun i find in it. i love finding stories that i don’t have prior experience deconstructing! it’s a great day when i find something i don’t know much about yet. it’s games right now, but this time two years ago it was acting. on that front, writing’s purpose is to do the learning with me; it helps me in my willingness to try anything to keep thoughts sharp, as you’ve put into perfect words.

i’m not sure if these answer your questions, but i guess my point to end on would just be that. any life journey is a writing journey. no matter what age or background. writing is a life companion; it has experienced the same things i have, & has its own perspectives to offer to me in return that i wouldn’t have discovered otherwise. i don’t find my writing very groundbreaking, but it’s a writing style (and writing journey) that works With me, and that i benefit from bc of its utility. my writing is my best friend. a thoroughbred horse companion. it can be temperamental, but we’ve done a hundred races together, & will continue until we can’t anymore.

oh, i’m not sure if eclectic can ever apply to me, haha. but i see what you’re asking, though i’ll have to disappoint and say that when it comes to animanga in particular, i’m more a product of proximity than anything else. it’s the only thing in my media history that predates books, so i always think of it as something given to me more than i ever sought it out. it’s the first language of story the world spoke to me in, as bizarre as that is to say about anime. (the first “novel” i wrote was literally based on an isekai anime that came out in 2004. the first fanfic i wrote was also for a 2004 manga. isn’t that funny?)

if there’s any accounting for my current tastes, it’s maybe my continued loyalty to older forms & traditions of anime... so. i’d say it’s less eclectic and more just testament to a lifetime of collecting anime the way i have all the books i’ve ever loved. i’ve had time to figure out what i like and don’t like, with anything. that’s really all. it’s just time. shoujo, shounen, seinen, josei, otome or edgy or disgusting or whatever — i’ve had time to sate much of my curiosity, and time to develop a compass for what curiosities no longer need sating, then i do it all over again with other things. if that makes sense.

i can’t say i’ve ever thought about what goes into curating my media, so i apologize if i’m answering rather indirectly. if i have any advice to give here, i’d say that cultivating a taste compass you can trust is far more sustainable than having a mental checklist of things to go through. be curious, pay attention to what you don’t know (yet), pursue to extremes and specifics. dig and dig. most media i’ve loved, i stumbled upon by accident and simply pursued a feeling i’d be into it. you’ll find that the more of a place you’ve mapped, the more intuitively you’ll find unexplored paths.

as for general media habits, though, i’m an advocate for digging into the older work of an author who blew up for something. i found my all-time favs that way: urasawa’s best work to me is pluto, not monster. i like pizza delivery man and the gold palace, but my way with you is (i think) upi’s best. yonezawa honobu is known for hyouka, but i found that i love the shoshimin series more. i also recommend looking into studios/directors/authors who made the stuff you like, or finding the translation team behind a manga/manhwa you want more of & reading all the series they’re working on.

this is. not an organized reply. i am so sorry. ultimately, i don’t think there’s really any “teaching” taste. people with famous favs might think they have niche tastes, but vice versa as well. i always say nothing is niche bc everything is niche to some audience; if you let your tastes run wild anyway, eventually you’ll find there is nothing you haven’t gotten to before some other demographic does. the only constant is you knowing for a fact that you like what you like.

i previously answered a half-similar question to the first half of your message if you don’t mind me linking it here! i still stand by the dynamics i mentioned there https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1337473097

but now you also got me thinking about the particular potency of siblinghood in the context of sisters… i have neither a sister nor a maternal relationship with my mother (who has So many sisters) though i do have older cousins who have a close yet oddly fraught relationship as a pair of sisters close in age with two separate maternal figures. i definitely see a palpable difference there compared to my experience growing up with a younger brother surrounded by volatile men. my brother’s very vocal about what a huge influence i’ve been on him, but i understand i’m not much of an easy person to be raised by. the resentment goes both ways in my experience of siblinghood, and i guess that has informed my own taste in sibling dynamics. i’m very much shiv roy in the final episode of succession going, “i love you, but i can’t stand you.”

so i tend to like family dynamics/tropes where it’s all… “you’ve influenced me (or vice versa) in some irreparable way. that is your right. i wouldn’t have it any other way. but sometimes i do wonder if i would have loved you without being tied to you by social contract/blood obligations.” or some degree of parentification and growing apart in order to heal. i can’t see myself ever becoming a sibling to my own brother, in the same way my biological parents will always be like distant much older siblings to me, so it’s extra interesting when narratives explore the tricky ground there in whatever way. there’s a lot that goes into the social and gender dynamics of broken/unstable homes, esp when you have characters like zuko & azula or the succession siblings being actively puppeteered by their relationship with an abusive father. they don’t always lead to the portrayals of trauma in azula or the roys. sometimes it hardens you. sometimes you swear never to let anyone take away your independence again. sometimes you don’t want anyone to understand. but a sibling fucks up all of that, bc they were also there. sometimes, they’re even the cause of hurt that continues. so. i like fraught sibling relationships. i like dynamics with differences in worldviews & life paths despite the softness that remains.

but anyway! poems about sisters growing apart… i can think of quite a few about losing/growing apart from a brother and/or siblings in general but ones for sisters specifically… the only one that comes to mind is tango by louise gluck. one of those classic melancholy of sisterhood poems, i guess. maybe two sisters, one thinner, one better dressed by beth ann fennelly. but i’m afraid that’s it, & i’m sorry i can’t offer more specifics, but i do have a tag for siblings-related themes if it might be of some use: https://nswers.tumblr.com/tagged/a%20shovel%20for%20a%20brother

angela carter !!!! oh, that’s some good stuff. i’ve only read her screenplays and short stories, but she has a knack for a particular rhythm that makes it easy to just flow along with her despite the density. when i think about the kind of prose you need to have for magical realism and/or folklore retellings, carter’s style is one of those that come to mind — though ofc that doesn’t necessarily define her work. there’s an illusion of effortlessness to it, and i think part of that is this very clear archaic-ness to the way she writes. it’s a breath of fresh air especially after you’ve been reading contemporary writers for a while.

to that point, i think carter’s narration, at least in her short story collection, is very reminiscent to me of the go-between by l.p. harley. there’s that same instinct about gathering clauses as part of this bigger whole that would become a sentence. heavy and intent on melody, unafraid to utilize adverbs, kinda in that middle ground between talking to you as a reader but also painting on a landscape canvas. i’ve been slowly getting into stefan zweig this year, and i’d throw any of his works in the running. a bit farther out, but also: the invention of morel by adolfo bioy casares, the kites by romain gary, likely anything by evelyn waugh but brideshead revisited especially, and (more of a staccato tempo in their prose, though still distinctly flowy) the sea the sea by iris murdoch + the music of chance by paul aster. if you’re down for more of a mystery/noir/gillian flynn vibe, dorothy b. hughes also has some underrated titles with some of that vintage penguin classics flow.

i also hope you’re taking care! makes me so glad when i hear someone has gotten out of their reading slump, so thank you for dropping by and sharing your reads with me 💗

i hear you :( i decided 2024 is the year i stop being such a staunch summer hater, so i’ve resolved to try being kinder to both the season and myself during these months… but. it’s a work in progress. i think spring and summer will always be a touch too loaded with personal baggage for me, and i struggle to imagine ever missing the sun, but i Have been reading out on the porch more these days. might even go crazy this week and start going on daily walks. i’ve set myself up with a summer playlist and been trying to do summery things more (i.e. literally just drink juice and eat food i associate with the season). it doesn’t come naturally to me — even my attempts to make peace with it feel like i’m just trying to make the time pass until i no longer have to put up with it, you know? — but it’s been helped a lot by the regular rain we’ve been getting in between the worst of the heat. as they say, the time with pass anyway. might as well colour it in with texture and sensation.

i think… summer just reaches me the way starlight reaches us on earth. that kind of melancholy awe-awareness over something that took light years for us to witness and may have died a long time ago. stars are bittersweet like that, and in summer it’s like everything around you is reaching out in desperation towards the biggest star in the sky. which technically it is. but it is a collective revival ritual that makes me wish i believed in the god we’re worshipping. instead summer just feels like living inside an echo of something long gone and might no longer be there if we ever trace it to the source. i’m just not sure what the something is. if that makes sense. idk what exactly i mean, either.

wind breaker is super fun! a friend got me to watch bc they joked that suo is like if you combined the designs of two of my fav characters (murai from blue period & ruan mei from honkai star rail) — but he’s his own character, ofc. i’m predictable and love what little we’ve seen of him, especially how the anime did the “kind, you say? is that the face of a gentleman.” / “he doesn’t even have a shred of kindness.” scene.

more broadly, i don’t love the plot, but i do enjoy the characters. i don’t think i’m the target audience anymore for the feel-good friend group journey to being a hero thing that stories like wind breaker embody, so i’m not really attached to it as a Story story, but i do look forward to weekends i get to catch up. it’s reliable new age shounen so far, which i value on its own right. cloverworks also just does beautifully with the art for the most part, and you can’t really ever remain immune to the Guy Distrustful of Goodwill Learns What It’s Like To Be Part Of A Community That Looks Out For Each Other tropes. all in all a great spring anime to get me primed for my summer shows, and i’ll be continuing to tune in 😊

i hope it’s okay to link an older reply! https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1326638473

among those, for a reading slump, i’d like to double underline cold enough for snow by jessica au & the two works by elisa shua dusapin. i think those two authors have the kind of no-nonsense prose that just brings you on a gentle flow without much effort on your end to hold on, while still giving you enough substance in terms of atmosphere and reflection. other shorter books i’ve enjoyed in the last year or so are the hole by hiroko oyamada, the employees by olga ravn, & chess by stefan zweig, but they all have more of a… presence? idk how to describe it. some books, you don’t have to step fully and disappear into to be swept away in it. they need not consume you for you to consume it. but these three books did for me, despite their short length. the books by jessica au and elisa shua dusapin feel more like sketches of a world, as if someone handed you their sketchbook after they returned from an overseas trip.

i’m looking through my bookshelf and — may i recommend some short story collections as well? shoko’s smile by choi eunyoung, five days in winter by lily king, and either collection by alexander weinstein, were all rather easy reads if i recall correctly. ofc the strength of the author varies from story to story, but i find sometimes that it’s easier to finish a book during a slump when they have clear opportunities for me to take a break. it’s also easier to keep up with changes in what i want to read if i’m just reading from story to story. but anyway. i wish you all the best with getting out of the reading slump, through these recs or elsewhere.

this one really made me think a while — i suppose i don’t really conceptualize reading as a separate act? it’s kinda just. a thing i must do. not like a chore or a hobby, or even an actionable survival need like eating, but like breathing, as cliché as that is to say. i don’t consciously think of desiring it and can trust my body to know what feels right or wrong, but if i were to suddenly stop doing it, i’d notice at once and without it i’ll. you know. die.

ofc it’s indulgence/escapism for some books, & other times it’s a desire to learn more about something, but it’s never like Ah, Now It Is Time To Read. my mother asked me once why i never stuck with other vices, and i was surprised to honestly reply that i’ve never found anything that felt as good as a reading high. i think life will sooner feel like an interruption of time that i could spend reading than vice versa. what i’m reading changes with my moods, by the hour, what language/vibe/locale i miss today, etc. i think maybe it’s more so that i seek a constant flow of words that feel good to witness. sometimes it’s a profile of sofia coppola or other times it’s a light novel in korean — i’ll take anything with a rhythm i can bask in, and the rest depends on my whims. i guess reading is a way for me to feel close to words and/or stories. it’s like prayer in that. which sounds pompous. i know. but.

all this said, i struggle to find anything you should feel guilty for? i find that when people start reading when they were younger, what they develop is the physical habit of it; they’re motivated by the availability and novelty of books as a kid, and maybe that translates to love, but not necessarily lifelong Reading. it’s easier for people who have always read to just start and get into it, logistics-wise, but even people who were young readers yet haven’t graduated from middle grade reading will be outside of their comfort zone their first time reading a new kind of book. i also think engagement with the material — and thirst for knowledge like yours — are a completely separate thing you must hone in its own right. and your 20s is a great time! i’ve loved books as a kid/teen that i loved for completely different reasons in my 20s once i reread them. books i hated before, i love now. there are readers in their 30s stuck in the reading habits of their high school selves, and there are elementary school kids with the reading habits of boomers.

people talk a lot about books bringing us to different worlds, but i think it’s equally true that we take books with us to our worlds. sometimes you have to be in a midlife crisis to access the tenderness only possible with certain stories at that age. reading is a mental exercise much like anything else, and if you ask me, it’d never be something to feel guilty for any more than you would if you were winded after a jog compared to someone who’s been in competitive track and field since they were 9.

i hope you don’t mind if i quote someone else bc i think filmnoirsbian on tmblr worded it best:

“i used to extend it quite a bit of grace for various reasons but at this point conversations about classics/myth retellings/etc have become so oversaturated with undue praise for what is a shallow ya romance at best [...] inspiring a wave of retellings in pop lit which do nothing to interact with or expand on the source in any meaningful way which renders them essentially meaningless, empty husks of what the original stories once were, that now I find all of it annoying.

tags: #i will never begrudge Igbt people who found tsoa at a vulnerable time in their lives and felt seen and reflected by it #but otherwise it is simply not good. imo.”

there’s also an older rant i posted bc of this classics account that i followed closely in uni: https://x.com/sleeptowns/status/1537300512349081600?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw that’s more about the contemporary wave of ~progressive classics retellings than tsoa specifically, but i doubt you can have that conversation without centering tsoa and the generation of readers who revere it.

the thing is, as far as i’ve seen and been part of, classics spaces do not think kindly of tsoa. madeline miller’s books are a joke that gets a giggle and a sneer, which you can argue is partly due to embedded elitism about — like you said, and i agree — an obviously childish piece of work + an antiquated expectation that classics must remain serious and inaccessible. it’s a bizarre comparison to mary renault’s works, for example, which for all their fictionalizing remains properly engaged with by historians and classicists.

with all that in mind, i can’t help but receive tsoa as bad fanfiction written by someone who only watched the movie instead of also reading the book it was based on. it tried to be homeric, in those examples you mentioned and in the mythologizing it thought it was doing well, but i think it’s always quite palpable when the work is biting off more than it can chew by trying to participate in practices and conversations older than they can fathom. there was an attempt. it wasn’t enough to salvage the book, on its own right or with the classics tag attached to it.

all of this is fine. it’s whatever. my only real problem with tsoa is that it’s badly written on top of the broader criticism. shallow characterization, hollow prose, juvenile structuring. pick a struggle. it’s disappointing bc the iliad is Such a resonant narrative, with characters many love and can talk about in all their complexity. there’s also just a pervading atmosphere that bleeds through, and even in spinning it as a coming-of-age romance, you should have been able to capture at least some of that by default. there’s a sense reading tsoa that it was a pick-and-choose situation; the result, i feel, is a book more interested in the bells and whistles than in being of any substance. i prefer to forget it exists.

it depends… silence is preferable most of the time, but it also need not be absolute? with writing specifically, i can usually tune out anything that isn’t at max volume right by my ear as long as i find my momentum. i’ve even found here and there that white/brown noise can be more distracting for me than whatever ambient sounds are available around. i’m with you completely on the no lyrics thing, though! that’s where i’d also draw the line in terms of distraction.

i do keep a playlist for reading/writing music, but it’s more for when there’s something specific i need to drown out: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7lD5mDMUEWabj4Ss9WXrhk?si=c0c4294cf26b4a96 in cases where my focus won’t stay on task and i really need to wrestle it into line, however, i find only math rock works magic on my brain: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0F9N9EdxOZp68B0iF6qWYN?si=7a4b702a597b4fe4

if i just need to search my brain and not necessarily write, i’ve convinced myself that the sound of running water jumpstarts neuron firing. sometimes i listen to waterfall sounds, sounds of the ocean, etc. but they’re for a specific use, & nothing beats “getting ideas organically” (alleged) while in the shower or washing dishes 😭

oh, this is hard 🙁 my thoughts, mainly, are that it’s better in theory than in practice. on paper, it’s everything i should love — multimedia, an unreliable narrative, a story that makes you work for it, all under the hands of a writer clearly and proudly in conversation with bachelard’s poetics of space. there’s nothing here for me to hate from the outset, and having engaged with the book several times now in an effort to cement my relationship with it, there’s Still nothing, technically, that i so much as dislike. i’ve never felt more like the encyclopedia volume obsessed kid i was than flipping this book and turning it this way and that in the middle of the night, and i do think that for better or for worse, nothing will be able to easily displace it in conversation around its specific niche of horror.

nonetheless, i wonder if it’s the most popular within that niche exactly bc it explores yet not doesn’t really contribute to what it emulates/portrays as much as it could be. this isn’t to say that it doesn’t do it at all, but once you strip away everything that might appear novel about it, it is very much a piece of media, evaluated in full, that is defined by its lack more than what it brought to the table. it’s not the first nor will it be the last book that has had multiple narratives layered on top of each other, nor is it particularly special in what readers claim to love about it — that it burrows into your mind and alters your perception of your own reality, that it makes you question things you didn’t before. i can’t say i didn’t find house of leaves fascinating. i still do. but it’s more akin to that one film they put on during a blizzard day at school and everyone else slept through it except for you and two other classmates who were weirdly riveted by this random 80s movie with bad visual effects. the novelty is the strength of its appeal, but the novelty is not substance enough, especially when the questions the book purports to have raised weighs less than a feather.

i’ll always love the idea of “found” media and its adjacent counterparts, may it be blair witch project or mystery flesh pit national park, and i’m admittedly weak to books like trust by hernan diaz or biography of x by catherine lacey that begin to lean into unreliability through metafiction. i feel some guilt that i can’t bring that same enthusiasm to house of leaves. i do carry attachment to it, and often i entertain the way some readers like to say that the book will be far more interesting if it was only the navidson record part — but i disagree. it’s better for being what it is. it’s just not enough.

it’s no problem at all! i don’t know if i was necessarily thinking of one specific song for the night they broke up, but i do want to point you to we’ll be fine by luz, to whom a lovely person here on cc introduced me while flls was still ongoing. the mahogany sessions version is in the fic playlist around the section for their breakup, but now that i’m rereading my description of the piano that night, the music i’m hearing in my head isn’t anything in particular — i was likely envisioning more of quiet background playing, typical wedding reception fare, that then segues into we’ll be fine.

in the coda, they’re dancing to harvest moon by neil young. i have the lord huron cover in the playlist bc that’s what i listened to while blocking that kitchen scene in my head and this version has more swing and brass to it, but i like to think they would have actually been listening to the original neil young song (since megumi does wonder if yuuji listens to this kind of music bc it reminds him of his grandpa).

oh my goodness, i can’t even imagine reading through the whole collection. it means a lot to know anyone would want to do that, it’s truly no small feat 😭 though i feel like i should say — please don’t feel obligated to go the whole way through, especially since the reads are bound to get rougher the farther back in time you get. i’m grateful and touched enough that you’d read multiple works in some of the tags that i wrote literal hundreds of thousands of words for. above all, i sincerely hope you find something to enjoy in the fics you do give a shot :(

regarding fics in progress… there are two fics i want to properly sit down to write for honkai: star rail sometime soon, especially now that i’ve already written and banished several other drafts/wips and can tell when i actually want to see a thing through for this world instead of just messing around and seeing what sticks. but it’s more unclear than reliable right now, i’m afraid. certainly enough not to hold out hope for, nor to play through over a year’s worth of gacha game content.

all i can say rn is if i write anything sometime soon, it will definitely be for h:sr, so please take it easy and read only what you’d like! that means a lot to me as it is, and i’m overjoyed to hear that the jjk and blp works have resonated in some way. i think the blue period fics in particular were some of the most… emotionally involved? introspective? povs? i’ve written. they really challenged me to try a headspace that felt so outside of my comfort zone, haha. so it’s always wonderful to see someone spending time in those small universes.

thank You for your wonderfully kind words, i also hope you’re taking care, and i really am sorry my ao3 bookmarks aren’t more available/organized !!

if only i could give you half an idea how moving it is to know there are people who’d love to walk them down the aisle (in its own way) as much as i do… thank you :( i don’t think i’ll ever write a pairing to such an absolute ending, but at the same time i have full confidence that whatever ship there is to dock has been headed straight for harbour the moment i let the flls boys go. it’s a strange limbo; it’s closure enough for me at the same time. but i’ll miss them forever, and it means more than there are words in the world to know there are readers still keeping this universe alive 🤍

oh no please by all means honkai-ify my inbox! it’s the only thing that makes me feel light these days and it truly brings me joy to talk about it 🫶🏼

i… didn’t think i’ll be spending my birthday weeping over a scene where one character talks like mickey mouse but the final cutscene with misha got me far more than i ever could have anticipated. it’s wild bc i didn’t really cry for aventurine’s arc no matter how much it ruined me; that felt sombre and bittersweet, and i was so focused on the meat of the story itself that the sadness of it all didn’t hit me until i was returning to the same locations later on. but the misha & clockie scene all the way to us unlocking the harmony path — enough tears to soak my pillow. then it happened again during the final fight. i’m still flabbergasted. part of it is my weakness for cyclicality in stories or whatever (which — the beautiful irony of clocks and compasses being the motifs of that plot line, only for us to learn that the person and legacy we’re looking for brings us on a perfect loop), but i also just think hsr is pretty economic with the Hero Saves The Day tropes, so when they finally land, they hit me pretty hard. the robin hillsong era track didn’t hurt as well.

i already forgot whatever i said on twt about the themes of free will and freedom in penacony, but those are probably the obvious ones anyway. i really just enjoy how we find out again and again, whether the topaz arc for belobog or the ghost hunting event, that the path of trailblaze isn’t about being The savior — it’s about giving someone the choice, and standing up for your own definition of what it means to live and survive. 2.2 really dug its claws into that, sometimes a little too outright — firefly & blade’s convo, gallagher’s involvement, the whole debate about whether to cage or leave the bird to live its natural life — but it was lovely to see all the themes they’ve been cooking since the ruan mei-ratio quest finally come together like this. that even a life lived in failure is a life that has triumphed exactly bc it has been lived — and yet, if we could ensure that no one would have to fail at all, wouldn’t we choose the cage? would it be a cage at all?

if you told me pre-penacony that i’d end it with sunday bypassing everyone else as the character i’m most likely to write about, i would have struggled to imagine that bc his arc seemed the most straightforward to me before we even got to know him. it’s not that he’s more complex than i thought he would be, more so that the execution of his arc came as a pleasant surprise despite its predictability. it’s a shame discussions around him seem to either skew towards He’s Bad Despite The Good vs. He’s Good Despite The Bad. offence or defence. it’s all very stale for such an interesting character. but that’s a separate ramble waiting to happen.

i just had a fun time! as always! felt like i was chopped up and poured into a blender until i was purée! also as always!

as in do i have fics in progress for either of these series? none at all at the moment, i’m sorry to say 🙁 fics in general are highly unlikely for jjk, if maybe not entirely a never… i’ll always have affection for the characters/fics i did write in that world, but i have negative amounts of goodwill to spare that series and truthfully can’t see myself sitting down to write a whole fic for it. i don’t mind talking about jjk or hashing out thoughts/hcs about its characters, but the series ran its course with me. it had its time.

for blue period, i’m less sure. i wouldn’t be surprised if i dusted off some of the docs i’ve been revisiting in spurts over the last couple of years, yet there’s no real desire there either. i have thoughts and feelings i’d like to write out, but not to the scale of the usual fics i allow to be published, i think.

i’m sincerely sorry if this is a disappointing answer to receive. fic-writing for me tends to reflect an amount of nagging dissatisfaction with a piece of media and/or a desire to explore what the source material never might, and that usually means that once i get it out of my system, it’s out for good. the chances are never zero that something in an older phase gives me new things to write, but they are quite slim.

it’s like. whatever. i don’t find her interesting at all, and i think her choices in both prose and poetry demand a kind of benefit of the doubt from me as a reader that i don’t really enjoy. whatever goodwill i can spare to the nature and tragedy of her life does not extend to her work, and sometimes the boringness of her language even makes me apathetic to whatever inspired them. my feelings toward her were already digging at full speed before her genuinely problematic stances even become the final nail on the coffin. so. you can say it was just never gonna work out between us.

however, i do also have a notable distaste towards authors/poets whose entire claim to art and craft is their personal lore, and as biased as it is, that gets worse and worse when the same artist has a penchant for self-centrism in their work. idk how else to explain it, but it leads to juvenile art more often than not, and a lot of the time bc the writer gets stuck in this ironic cycle of being infantilized by the disconnect between the depth of their own emotions and the art itself. the result is the bell jar being a young adult novel the same way catcher in the rye is one, but the punchline just happens to be more apparent in one. i think plath would be right at home with the contemporary white woman authors we have now, like sally rooney and emma cline, both of whom i’d even argue have a more potent if not necessarily better voice than plath. this reframes for me both what’s good and what’s lacking in plath’s writing; it’s not bad, if this is the wider canon we’re looking at, but what talent and beauty might be there for me to mine is also deeply, Deeply dull and will never have the chance to blossom.

there’s a tangent here somewhere about how she has become entrenched in the modern era’s attachment to eternal girlhood for a reason, i.e. i’m just a girl incapable of any adult thoughts, overconsumption defines my feminity, etc. the bell jar encapsulates how there’s a point where all of this begins to ring as a refusal to grow up, and a refusal to think any more critically about your own otherwise valid emotions and mental health. i understand the circumstances that led plath to writing how and what she did based off her personal life, and i know the limits of her work must have been the limits of her worldview, but it remains that, as a writer, there are moments her way of writing about emotion and personal lives comes across as borderline fetishistic. at which point i’d rather just stick with dull. maybe i’m just cold-hearted.

i’m sure this answer could have been put more delicately if i wasn’t typing it at 5am, and ofc there are people that she speaks to. i acknowledge much of my complaints in fact sustain the appeal of her art. there Are a few lines in some of her poems that i can appreciate objectively, and my feelings against her do not get in the way of that. but you know. give me something here to work with, bc i’m grasping at straws.

he builds me a castle of illusions… in which i do not live… except for few moments… and i return to my table carrying nothing but words :(

this is heartwrenching… thank you for thinking of flls for something that i can feel has been translated with so much care, if this much beauty and emotion remains potent and poignant across languages. i wish i can add this to the playlist somehow, but for now thank you so much for taking the time to translate for me. i’ll be thinking about some of these lines for a good long while beyond just flls.

oh hm. hmmm. so… this isn’t really worth reading but lately i’ve been writing a character who’s never really had anyone to call their own. that in itself should be an archetype i have experience in, but in this particular case it’s gotten very easy for lines to get crossed and for the character to kind of just. see possession/dependence as the only form love can take.

that should be straightforward enough, but i find that what i’m struggling with is how to make tangible the desire to possess another person out of love. i can see well enough that the reason i struggle to take initiative in my friendships is bc i see my reaching out as an automatic intrusion on their privacy and selfhood, which i’d never want to compromise; i can’t help but think how it would feel in their place, if someone were to intrude upon the carefully delineated marks i’ve drawn between me and the world, and i can’t imagine that being anything except a violent wrong. i know it’s not functional to be so averse to anything that might attack my independence / self-sufficiency / agency / solitude / whatever and potentially take these away after i’ve fought so hard for them, but it’s hard to shake off even when i know friends want me to ease up. it’s even harder to imagine, for the sake of this current project, how it is to love someone enough that you’d (dysfunctionally) want to be their only. for the boundaries against the world to be drawn around you both instead of just you, for example.

idk if this is making sense. my only point is that between loving someone to such intense degrees AND seeing (mistaking) possession/consumption as love, it’s two things i just. don’t have the brain to understand by nature. that’s what makes it fun to write, something so unknown, and i know it will click eventually, but i just think it’s funny that even a character i’m building from scratch is requiring me to do some mental gymnastics.

man i kinda feel like... i fell for a trap here. and that i was just supposed to say hi, i hope you have a lovely day, and that may has treated you well. which i would also like to say. this was very sweet of you — thank you for letting me articulate some things that i didn’t think needed unknotting until now, and sorry for actually taking advantage of it to ramble a bit 😭

ooooh i feel like i’ll be cornered into speculative fiction titles just for the utility of answering these, but i’ll try my best to be more holistic!

for plot/plot twist, sea of tranquility by emily st. john mandel and piranesi by susanna clarke come to mind. neither are especially intricate/unpredictable “twists” (a term i already use very loosely here), but i think there’s something to be said about seemingly low-stakes sff making those low stakes work for it. i love when sff comes with a little… jolt? i feel like it’s the only genre that knows truly what it means to grab the mirror inside the story and turn it to you, the reader, in a way that makes you think oh! ofc! i’m complicit in the making of all these layers of story buffeted by The Human Condition! i think that’s what a good twist is. not murder of roger ackroyd or the seven husbands of evelyn hugo, but that sense of the story holding its breath and then winking when you help it finally exhale.

a novel that made me fall in love with a place… i enjoy any kind of location in fiction, even if it’s just hollywood/l.a. in something new under the sun by alexandra kleeman or the seoul we see in kim young-ha’s i hear your voice. but the goldfinch by donna tartt put amsterdam specifically during christmas on a bucket list i didn’t realize i had. i think an underrated part of tartt’s writing are her settings, which at times vastly outperform her capacity to build characters. though this is also the book that gave me boris pavlikovsky, who was an eye opener for me in lots of ways about how even a character that’s mostly archetype — which tartt’s main characters are always guilty of reducing the people around them to — can basically take over a story the way a location can. so. there’s a thought here i can’t connect right now, about the distance that both places and people are relegated to when you have an unreliable narrator.

top pick for worldbuilding… maybe the dispossessed? i’ve never seen worldbuilding quite like how le guin does it here. not in the details of it — of which there are glossier examples in her short stories/other book series — but the specific… mechanism of how she divulges details and builds the world and people here? there’s like. idk. an ambiguity and cyclicality that i find refreshing. i think sci-fi gets often caught up with being clear and stable with the science part that it forgets the universe is your oyster and you can pull off essentially what magical realism is to hard fantasy (which is fine. i also enjoy liu cixin’s world-building.) but the dispossessed is a world of impossible ideas in conflict, and there’s a sense that all these questions at play can only settle for like. schrodinger’s answer. but how to depict that? le guin somehow manages to do it here. it feels like a magic trick i can’t figure out.

i am probably forgetting 98% of other books i’ve read, but these are the impulsive answers my brain decided to churn out today 🤲🏼

omg the au that spiralled out of a corduroy jacket !! that’s a deep cut whoa… thank you for even thinking to scroll back that far 😭

but okay! are we talking flls megumi’s wardrobe or canon megumi... bc i think all the canon characters have had some atrocious sartorial choices and refuse to comment on that. flls megumi — and therefore probably architect major au megumi — fares a little bit better bc he’s not trapped in shounen world, and also bc gojo Expensive Dress Shirt satoru would probably normalize for megumi very early that there’s no shame in paying a lot for fashion essentials. which is all that megumi wears anyway.

i think the coat gojo is mentioned wearing in flls chapter five is valentino lmaooo it was like a little inside joke with myself bc flls megumi probably has a bunch of “designer” clothing items that were a gift from stsg or just. things he thought were normal to get bc for all that gojo and toji are like That, they also have expensive tastes. it kinda horrifies yuuji, who buys his t-shirts in bulk for cheap even after he goes pro.

i can’t remember what exactly i said about megumi’s jacket collection but i imagine he has:

— a corduroy jacket with a removable fleece collar
— a leather jacket in both black and brown (nobara has stolen each of these for an outfit without him noticing bc he’s gotten teased every time he wears these around friends/nanako & mimiko and has sworn off wearing them again)
— a varsity jacket (if strictly flls universe, then i’m sure he’ll eventually have one with yuuji’s jersey number on it, relationship privacy be damned)
— a genuine & expensive sukajan that was a gift but that he’s too embarrassed to wear outside (it’s mostly used by this universe’s yuuji)
— a classic denim jacket that always makes him second guess what he’s wearing just before he’s out the door, but actually led to him and yuuji wearing accidental matching outfits the one time he didn’t take it off
— a black puffer jacket that he only wears twice a season bc it doesn’t ever really get the kind of cold that warrants it
— some kind of waterproof barbour jacket?
— a navy full-length wool coat that probably costs a month’s rent for an average tokyo dweller, but is the one he uses the most bc it’s just easy and good for all occasions.

under these are a rotation of cream/beige/navy sweaters, cardigans, turtlenecks and thermal wear. in my mind, he just looks permanently “put together” even when he isn’t bc he uses lint rollers like they’re meant to be used and does actually iron his clothes. you can argue it’s a kind of armor in itself, though he won’t see it that way, but i envision megumi’s wardrobe as just one of those things he maintains through what he feels is the bare minimum purely so it will be one less thing to be out of place. the result is him looking like he cares more about what he wears than he says he does.

at fanon…? of political texts? :o i hope i’m not misinterpreting some necessary context here, but please don’t hesitate to send me another message if this isn’t what you’re looking for!

i suppose it depends on whether you’d like to start with what’s closer to you (maybe you hope to have your own home someday and want to read more about gentrification and the landlord class) or things that you didn’t even realize was happening (the big businesses behind the opioid crisis, maybe, or the jakarta method). i wonder if it might help to start with publishers/publications whose directive is exactly to invite people to explore more? n+1 (https://www.nplusonemag.com/) comes to mind, as well as verso books (https://www.versobooks.com). if you go to verso’s books section, you will find their catalogue divided into subjects, at which point you can decide what you’re willing to explore first. if you look up “reading list” on their site, it should also turn up blog posts that compile reading recommendations depending on what you’re looking for, such as:

— on palestine’s ongoing struggle for palestinian liberation (there’s a collection of essays here that you can get for free!) https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/blogs/news/5078-palestinian-solidarity-reading-list
— philosophy for when you feel like the world ending https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/blogs/news/verso-philosophy
— reimagining architecture and cities https://www.versobooks.com/en-ca/blogs/news/2478-reimagining-architecture-and-cities-a-reading-list?_pos=2&_sid=21735b094&_ss=r

(some of verso standouts in recent memory are: females by andrea long chu, the emancipated spectator by jacques rancière, & traces of history by patrick wolfe.)

in the end — and i know this sounds pedantic — i think nearly all of nonfiction is political, like jenny odell’s how to do nothing or mark fisher’s ghosts of my life or carmen maria machado’s in the dream house. also, as much as academics lead information and discourse, there will always be an added layer involved in learning, and dangers of seeking information from what is essentially an ivory tower. nonfiction isn’t the only way the political seeps into lives — there are podcasts, fiction, and graphic novels that i have learned about politics from as much as i have “proper” texts, and the key here, i think, is to understand that every breath we take is political. academics observe & study, but we all live and exist in a network made possible by the chain of chemical reactions that happen from the history of your own country to your social media platforms. some people will have their eyes opened by books, but listening directly to lived experiences is not insignificant. it’s important to know your political history, and just as important to see the ways it trickles down to the present.

this is becoming a tangent ahhh i hope this was an okay answer and again i am happy to share non-formal text recs, like specific articles or memoirs, etc.

i do want the songs to give more glimpses into flls! 😊 it’s funny, the more time passes, the more i get confused about which parts of that universe i actually did write into flls/skow and which ones are kinda just. there in my head. for background purposes. or maybe i’d hear a song and a part of the flls world i didn’t think about that much before will suddenly gain clarity. the playlist keeps the universe alive in some way, but i guess it also allows certain perspectives that i didn’t have space for during the story itself, like yuuji’s thoughts preceding the breakup, or megumi’s thoughts during the second person pov section of chapter 5.

as for your questions, though: there Should be a brief mention in the first scene of skow of megumi eating ice cream out on nobara’s balcony after the breakup/tsumiki’s wedding, and i always saw that as being in contrast to how i imagine yuuji, usually surrounded by people, going straight home after the wedding and just. staring into space. he doesn’t cry again, he doesn’t go to nanami, he doesn’t talk to anyone. he just sits there until sunrise. at which point he goes about his normal routine. his morning run, feeding sukuna, his job. the irony of it for me is that it’s yuuji who chooses to weather his heartbreak silently and alone, & him who allegedly returns to a semblance of “normalcy” quicker. he at least knows heartbreak when he sees it, while megumi spends a full month not being able to concentrate and just wanting to tear apart all of his emotions into pieces that make more sense until tsumiki returns from her honeymoon and talks some sense into him. but yuuji just. turns off. maybe bc in some ways the grief of losing someone is familiar. or maybe bc he’ll always feel the responsibility of making megumi say the words the night of their breakup and thinks that this heartbreak is the least he can do for a decision he made. you know. typical flls yuuji thoughts. his compartmentalization/acceptance is as self-destructive as megumi’s frustration.

another irony (and an echo of their love for each other, at least narratively) is that in those moments they missed each other most after the breakup, they acted more like the other. it’s megumi who learns to throw himself at jobs, at opportunities to be out of the house, while it’s yuuji who learns to distinguish solitude from loneliness. in a way, his post-breakup heartbreak gave him a new threshold for the kind of crappiness he would feel some days anyway, and this time, he knows he can’t in fact weather a hookup or a social event for the sake of it. it’s sad that the breakup was the catalyst to them learning new things about how they cope and feel, bc it meant losing each other was also necessary.

i am running out of space but. as much as the playlist is keeping the flls universe alive, so are readers like you, and i’m eternally grateful to receive such generosity for this little fictional world ❤️

cha… is so so sooo cute… like tea 🥹❣️

hmmm the cherry blossoms in my city usually bloom the same week as my birthday, and that has done much in the last few years to help me embrace being born in spring. it’s a weird season for me — though aren’t they all? — with something about the general quiet hopefulness of the season and just my natural disposition as a person leading to a lot of internal conflict. or something. but i like the flowers very, very much. i like the way they bloom almost in defiance after heavy rain. spring rain gets really bad in my city… almost angry. so it’s like the flowers are even angrier about their vitality in return. it’s just a very transient season, spring. maybe that’s my favourite thing about it. the transience. the cherry blossoms are only in bloom for a week here. just long enough for me to turn a year older and watch the branches go bare again in its wake. it’s like a little twinge in my chest that reminds me i’m alive, and time has not forgotten.

tldr: i like that april showers bring may flowers, and that the may flowers are cherry blossoms! i also like the lily of the valleys and bluebells. and thanks to an eternally dear friend, i’m paying closer attention to hellebores this year, too. so. if i can spend the season just drinking tea and reading in a greenhouse (it’s only spring that i try to pick seasonal books to suit the weather best), that would be so lovely.. but a trip to the park to read under the cherry blossoms does the trick just as well 🌸

that’s okay! i can’t promise good answers, is the only catch, but thank you for the courtesy, and i also hope you’re doing well 💌

with dialogue… well, it’s not about whether You would say it, but whether the character speaking would, right? i know that’s probably obvious, and you might have just phrased the question like that rhetorically, but i think it’s important to bear in mind that everyone speaks differently, and that’s why i’m always wary of using yourself as a frame of reference for your characters. sometimes authors get too much into using dialogue as a mouthpiece, or moving the story along, or fleshing out characters through their words, that the dialogue forgets to be good enough to stand for itself.

it’s also not often the content itself but the How that matters. anyone can say anything in any given situation, but some people might be more shy about it, or others might exaggerate with words like “super” or “totally.” some characters say things they don’t mean, and That’s how they end up saying what you want them to say — through the lie or the omission or whatever. if you feel a character might not say something but still needs that thing conveyed, you can translate it somewhere else — an expression, a pause, a word choice, body language. if they can’t say something, what’s an analogy they Would make? what are some pop culture references/allusions true to them? with the right pacing, someone fumbling through a confession, just as an example, can be even more earnest and romantic than a direct i love you. dialogue is just one tool in your arsenal, even if its primary directive is to shine a spotlight on interpersonal dynamics. if that spotlight is best sustained by characters failing to say something, then that’s the best choice for dialogue. if that makes sense.

maybe the question isn’t whether they’d say it or not but whether they would say it Like This — and it’s the job of a writer to sell the reader on why the answer is yes. i’m just yapping now, though. i’m not sure if any of this counts as advice and can only hope at least one thing is coherent, but !! all the best of luck with your writing endeavours !!

ahhh…. i think it’s important to separate perfectionism from fear, first off. i know it must seem like pure semantics, but i like to remind myself that we only get the privilege to be perfectionistic when there’s something To perfect. it’s not perfectionism when you haven’t done anything yet; it’s just fear, which is much easier to push past but far harder to notice. one helps the writing; the other does not.

there’s nothing wrong at all with being scared, but at the same time, fear shouldn’t be mutually exclusive from writing. if you must, write scared. write disgusted. write insecure. write a first draft you hate then tear it apart once it’s done. i laugh at the stuff i write as i’m writing them bc i can’t believe the garbage i’m typing, then i laugh some more as i edit bc i can’t believe the garbage i’m keeping. it’s the best. that perpetual state of disbelief is what writing is to me — that at the end of the day there is enough for me to hack off during the editing stage to make something that looks as if it has looked like this from the beginning. writing is an art form that reveals itself only through failure. oil painters add and subtract, songwriters restructure and replace, but writing above all needs to know what it shouldn’t be before it can truly embrace what it should be. you haven’t even given your writing what it shouldn’t be, my friend.

it’s normal to feel like you’re not cut out for writing. it’s like an exhausting vow you have to renew every time you finish and restart. you don’t need to Not doubt to be a writer, but you can also do the doubting another time. write things you feel like crap about, then ask yourself why you feel crap about it — there’s merit in that. it teaches you what not to do. until the first drafts gets cleaner and cleaner, until you can open a doc and just start writing bc you’ve done this so many times and failed and hacked away at a first draft just as many times. even failure is a valuable resource — why turn it down? if writing is that big of a deal to you, if perfection is really what it’s about, why not endure mistakes and potential failure for its sake?

at least that’s how i like to think of it, but i know i can be extreme. i also really hope i don’t sound too harsh. i mean this all with as much tenderness as i can muster. i understand the impulse here; i’ve heard it a lot, and know for a fact you’re not alone. i know even better that imagining a good and satisfying ending is much easier to do when there are things to move around and poke at. do you look at a pile of puzzle pieces berating yourself for not being able to pick them out in clockwise order? i hope not. the more pieces you lay out in random corners, the clearer the sum of these parts appears. writing is no different. let yourself collect pieces that frustrate and confound you. they’re kind of necessary to the end result.

i’m sorry if this just ended up more burdensome than helpful, but i do hope things work out for the best.

FHSJS DNDNDF NRSKS when this happens one must imagine me as the grant gustin meme where he’s smiling and flashing a peace sign next to a grave.

don’t ever let me worry you, though! but thank you very much for the wellness check 🫰🏽

no, no, i empathize here so much… it feels like the whole world is having trouble with memory, and i wonder often if we’re living in such an unprecedented era of constant floods of information that the collective memory impairment of the earliest pandemic years has just. fried our neurons past the point of no return.

i think of remembering as handing a certain experience or piece of info to my little brain librarian, who commands an army of archivists in keeping memories safe until i drop by and ask for something. the problem now is that our memories don’t even reach the library—they’re not encoded. our little brain librarians are hanging around listless and jobless, bc we’ve fired all the postal workers that deliver the memories. unfortunately & truthfully, i don’t know how to fix that old system. but i’ve found there are ways to drive memories over more manually, so to speak. encoding is the key part in memory, and what we struggle with when we do or don’t remember things; we don’t forget that which has already survived encoding, even if it might slip our mind. lists and timed calendar reminders are especially useful for me, as well as anchoring bullet points in my mind to physical objects around me as a trigger for the remembering. kinda like moving into the next room, forgetting what you came to get, and being able to retrace my steps and re-trigger the thought when i see this plant. that logic is just applied more widely. the brain is very susceptible to tactile/physical/external things like that.

for traditional learning, blunt repetition is the method that has worked the best for me. i keep a notebook where i scrawl paradigms and charts or even the same word over and over again. there’s science somewhere supporting that if you take your body through handwriting motions as you’re trying to remember something, even if you’re not aware of what you’re writing — it can even just be circles — your brain will take that as a sign to encode it. it will be handy to know your learning style and to remember that the key to consolidating memory is to (re)consolidate it until you can’t anymore, to batter yourself over the head with an image, a word, an audio until it sticks.

ultimately, though, memories have never been fixed, permanent, or even consistently true. that fact hasn’t changed just bc it’s even harder to access memory now. hell, i don’t even think the state of the world is solely responsible for My own gaps in memory and difficulty remembering things. to quote sebald, “the older you get, in a sense, the more you forget. vast tracts of your life sort of vanish in oblivion.” it’s kinda just. what we live with. and it’s frustrating that it’s even worse for our generations, but when you do try to brute-force your body to remember, “that which survives in your mind acquires a very considerable degree of density.” i think that makes it worth the effort, though i am very sorry i can’t offer more applicable advice.

you’re entirely justified for that though 🙂‍↕️ i mean. dead poets society… is a movie i enjoyed watching. sure. i may not have generous things to say about its quality as a film, but i think it’s pretty and heartfelt — though not always successfully — and baby ethan hawke doing the sweaty-toothed madman moment was an early lesson for me in managing the energy of a scene. however. it’s everything that dark academia is not, and you can even argue that’s why its central thesis fails to argue for itself. it’s closer in spirit to the holdovers and maybe foster dade explores the cosmos than tsh. that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

people need to learn the difference between dark academia and just a piece of media that could have been set in any new england high school. or any campus built before 1990. what are we doing here. is the mise en scene the definer of a genre now. synecdoche new york and frances ha are both set in nyc and they can’t be more different. i went to an ontario uni scrawling latin inside buildings that overlooked deer crossing snow-covered meadows, and it still wasn’t tsh-y any more than dead poets society is. let’s get a grip here, people.

maybe we’re all just in a massive tartt withdrawal stage. what is taking so long, donna. please. respectfully.

just between you and me, i was guilty of the exact same thing when i was writing flls 😓 itafushikugi’s voice actors had this... podcast? radio show? and i would listen to it while getting into The Mood of writing dialogue, to kinda nail down descriptions of their voices without getting distracted by their linguistic mannerisms and tonal preferences when they’re in character. then it started feeling weird bc enoki junya especially sounds so much like yuuji sometimes even outside of a role — but anyway. not the point of this message. thank you sincerely for sharing this with me. it’s really, really moving and surreal to hear flls can have a lasting after-image like this for someone else, and that those characters felt as (briefly) alive for you as they did for me writing it — though i also hope it has released you by now! i know uchida yuuma especially is in quite a few other fun shows! that’s a lot to miss out on for me as well!

i’m thankful there’s no s2 as well 🧎🏽 i feel like both the manga and the anime are stronger as they are like this, even and especially in the points where they diverge. there’s just something about the anime that feels like a time capsule — it’s a snapshot of one year with the host club, across which we got to know them a little bit and saw glimpses into their lives and fears and insecurities and complexities, but at the end of the day, it’s also a chaotic friend group with unbreakable ties getting into capital s Shenanigans and tugging at the knots that connect them to each other even when it looks like they might pull taut or strain.

that line from the raven cycle that’s like, “in that moment, blue was a little in love with all of them. their magic, their quest, their awfulness and strangeness. her raven boys.” is the ohshc anime in a nutshell exactly bc it didn’t have to choose or narrow down its focus in the same way the manga did. if that makes sense. it’s heartfelt exactly bc it didn’t have room to be more. it’s more a found family story, and the love possible between chosen loved ones, than a traditional one-on-one romance. that alone makes it timeless.

believing that, i don’t really have strong feelings about who haruhi ended up with? i was so surprised to hear from someone online that mori was the original endgame. i’ve always kinda felt like what haruhi actually fell in love with (at least at first) was the host club as a whole, and the beating heart of the host club, the personification that everyone else was also in love with in their own ways, was tamaki. haruhi/tamaki made sense from a thematic standpoint, but i can’t say i’m super into their romantic chemistry. i’m not against it at all, either. it’s kinda just. the endgame that you always knew was inevitable. it brings me the same joy-sadness as the ending of the anime. or like — you know the halloween episode where kaoru’s watching hikaru & haruhi wall away and he muses that ah, this is it. this is the beginning of the moment where the carriage turns back into a pumpkin. this is where the magic that enveloped all of us, together, will have to choose two people above all. you don’t resent that for happening bc of course it will happen, but there’s a bittersweetness to how right it is. i do agree that tamaki & haruhi balance each other out, but more than anything, they were the two who loved the club and were loved by them in turn the hardest — not the best, just the hardest — and the love that circulated throughout all of them would have no other finish line to settle on that them two ending up with each other. like that quote from mike flanagan’s haunting of hill house: “i loved you completely. and you loved me the same. that’s all. the rest is confetti.” that’s it. that’s ouran the series, and i feel like it’s just embodied in tamaki & haruhi.

as in skylar/cirrus lost in the cloud? if so, then yes, i have. i’ve read the first two seasons, and some raws of a couple chapters in season three. it’s… well. it’s alright. i’m not enthusiastic about it, though not necessarily out of dislike. it’s more that i’m ambivalent to the story as a whole, and that ambivalence is what surprises me...? you’ve got characters that appear to be morally complex, a healthy mix of relatable elements and genuine explorations of middle school & family trauma, a relationship that has to fight their way into even ground — the parts are all there, and on paper, i should love it. yet i don’t really care one way or the other about what happens to anyone; i’m just reading and going with the flow.

maybe it’s partly bc the art and pacing veer a bit into a level of melodramatic-izing that edges on rough sometimes, even as i acknowledge and appreciate how the topics and trauma it explores try to remain realistic and grounded. it makes sense, i see the vision, the artist is enormously talented, and i loved the art for the story outside of the manhwa itself, but it just doesn’t work for me alongside the narrative.

as far as all the elements go, it was a lot of gold pieces that didn’t mesh well altogether, imo. lots of potentially interesting stuff, but a bunch of fancy jewelry won’t necessarily look perfect by default layered on top of each other. i think cirrus is a character that the story intends to portray well and with nuance; it just didn’t stick the landing for me. even in objectively heartbreaking backstory explorations and arguably complex but relatable interpersonal choices, my general feeling was just like “........okay.” which isn’t really fair. it’s just a surprising amount of disconnect with plotlines and characters that i would find compelling otherwise, which probably reflects more on me than the story, but cheers to the people that find something in it to love.

oh, my friend, i am a serial non-finisher of things myself 🤕

i do think it depends on the reason, though! sometimes my attention span just doesn’t wanna work with me, and that’s not really a good thing when the desire to finish it is there otherwise; for me, that means i have to switch my approach, whether through reading in smaller chunks or finding something else to read as like… a reward book, almost. as much as it feels really great to experience media that feels uniquely and seamlessly made for you, that just won’t be true for most of them. you have to be open to something as much as it should meet you halfway, and often that’s not really possible for whatever reason. if the incompatibility feels insurmountable at the moment, then i don’t think there’s any shame at all in just putting the book down for now. there will likely come a point when that won’t be true anymore. the book isn’t gonna go anywhere. the best books i’ve read, i only read once i let myself revisit it at a later time knowing the first (or second, or tenth) go-around wasn’t the best time for it.

all this said, i’m just a firm believer that there is a right moment for certain media, may that be books or films or whatever, and that there’s no use forcing it if right now doesn’t feel like that right moment. my moods and interests are so mutable, and i change my mind and engineer new thoughts about so many areas that if anything, i just take it for granted that there Will be a right time for every possible thing, even the books that i feel like i’ll never ever read. so. life IS too short, but life is also in constant flow. that means there’s never a good enough reason not to reach (or search) for a book that calls to you, even if it means abandoning the one that doesn’t.

i promise i’m saying this with the proper amount of gravitas & self-awareness, but it’s the only anime i can probably quote by heart, for better or for worse, and i can’t even tell you why. i have no idea. it’s the only anime i’ve watched more than ten times. singlehandedly taught me that one mozart sonata as a kid, resolved all my gender conflict before they could even arise, probably even aided the development of my class consciousness for all i know. also the only anime i’ve watched enough times in sub and dub that the characters are both vas at the same time in my mind. none of this is an exaggeration. i wish at least one thing was 😭

you can argue it went to the glee school of weirdly progressive but did not age well, but it just hasn’t budged as that one anime that grows more and more heartwrenching to me the older i get with each rewatch. this isn’t even a quality that the manga possesses; it’s about the anime alone, specifically, and it’s not shared by anything else from that era of shoujo. makes me wanna yank my heart out so i can study why it’s doing what it is. sickening. whatever That vibe is, only ohshc has been able to deliver it to me. the greatest friendships of my life replenish their nostalgia fuel partly thanks to inside jokes about fancy tuna and instant coffee. also — fujioka haruhi, beloved of all beloveds until the end of time.

you didn’t ask but my fav episodes are the flashback ones (the door the twins opened + and so kyoya met him) and kyoya’s reluctant day out. i have specific all-time fav scenes from each. but i usually do just rewatch in entire batches. the ones i Have watched more than others aside from those three eps are probably the newspaper club episode and the twins fight, for no particular reason other than 5 and 14 are easy numbers to pick when choosing at random.

say no more ✋🏽 i cannot promise they’ll scratch the itch for you, but these certainly did for me:

— this blade fic (https://ao3.org/works/49867900) is a heartwrenching study in what it means to truly live/be alive, to pay for sins when there’s no one left to collect them & what that means for those you wronged, to find a family in the ashes of the one that fell apart — among other luofu themes. i enjoy what this did with the stellaron hunters, especially kafblade’s dynamic, and the brief interactions we get with the astral express. quiet, contemplative, yet fittingly raw like an open wound that will never heal.

— the ratio & aventurine tag has understandably gone through several identity crises and is still figuring out the dynamic to settle on after everything in like. the last three patches. but while this ratio & aventurine study (https://ao3.org/works/54111646) is not nearly as easy to slot into the canon timeline/history after 2.1, it’s still an interesting and refreshingly nuanced deep dive into ratio’s complex idealism vs. aventurine’s complex cynicism. also features my fav opening scene of any fic, probably. this, on the other hand, is closer to the softer, more vulnerable aventurine of 2.1: https://ao3.org/works/53708335. different facets of the same character explored, and through different perspectives altogether.

— then here’s a yx df jy fic that made me laugh out loud but also take several breaks to regain my composure once the hcq feelings caught up: https://ao3.org/works/50417113. it purports to be about xingyue figuring out their sex life, but it’s just a wonderful, perfect, heartbreaking chronicle of the many dynamics within the hcq, including explorations of dan feng’s longing for freedom, how it must have felt to witness yingxing & jing yuan growing older, the mortal-immortal quandary of xingyue, even the quieter love and innate understanding between jingliu & dan feng. so much love between five people, and yes, it wasn’t enough. there’s merit in the fics that explore how not enough it was. but god, was there so much love.

i’ll refrain from mentioning some rtrn / acheswan / hcq fics that might have some super intense content warnings, but i do want to add that i just enjoy izabellwit’s other genfics for hsr; they make me love this game even more than i already do. anything is a study when you write a character right, and that’s doubly true with hsr.

lastly, here are some au fics where you don’t need to have read the source material, bc i think they comprise their own fully realized world all on their own merit:

— a suburban neighbourhood slice of life story, for jjba https://ao3.org/works/5490503
— a fake dating high school story with so light a heart it floats, for les mis: https://ao3.org/works/2306315
— this (https://ao3.org/works/8498344) and this (https://ao3.org/works/9675044) by my fav vld author. two universes i still sometimes think about to this day, even when i don’t the au they were for. mwah.

you are so, so sweet, thank you so much for reading my work and for responding with so much enthusiasm :( oh man. i didn’t expect this round of cc replies to have anything related to writing so this is. a wonderful surprise. thank you very much.

hehe i do think sae is ruthless, but mostly i feel like he just doesn’t give a fuck 😭 people seem to interpret him taking pleasure in being a cold asshole, but i’ve always felt that he’s simpler in his themes & motivations, in the same way rin is a straightforward character exactly bc it’s so batshit insane that he’s the way he is. if anything, what’s so fun in the itoshis’ dynamic is rin’s volatility and his justified sense of abandonment. they’re a classic case of “am i my brother’s keeper?” no, sae says. yet rin pursues soccer bc of him, yet he’s a shadow that looms over the places that rin’s meant to learn to fill out himself. rin so badly wants to be sae bc he believes the only person sae loves most is himself; he doesn’t realize that even sae thinks that’s not something he should want at all.

that said, idk if it was so much that i’m necessarily drawn to rnbc over rnbcis, though i love them both intensely, or just the fact that rin just had more for me to dig into than isagi or bachira. there’s a level you reach in rnis that just feels like straining against good/interesting characterization, while bcis isn’t the kind of pairing you write for bc they are what they are, in canon and beyond. isagi is also an especially relational character — everything is prompted in him through external means, and he is in motion the most around and with other characters — while bachira is one of the only bllk characters with a complete arc. there’s room to adapt new avenues of exploration in an au like hairpin turns, but in the canon universe, i thought rnbc specifically had a vision i could follow clearly from current canon to the far future. once i thought to myself that bachira would see rin in guernica, it felt like i Had to try that scene. that just ended up taking 60k+ words sdjsks

i can’t take much credit at all for my canonverse fics honestly !! they’re like following a branching path that might not show up on a gps app, yet it leads you down a well-traveled road anyway. the so it goes premise is luckily just my ideal ending for rin; it would be my choice in addressing all his themes and dynamics in one fell swoop. everything i needed, rnbc already had, from their parallels to their individual relationships with isagi to how their weaknesses are made starker by how it’s a strength on the other. i just put it into words, and embellished it with dynamics i wanted to see more of, like sae & bachira’s and rin & karasu’s. it was so much fun, so i’m always beyond touched to hear there are people like you who also enjoyed the fic 🤍

oh! my fav rtrn thing right now is how well they actually work together? it makes sense to know now that penacony was far from their first mission together; if we’re to assume the final victor light cone was their first ever partnership, & that ratio had been aventurine’s partner of choice for a variety of other missions since, then yeah, ofc they know how the other operates and were well within their rights to berate the other for potentially jeopardizing the mission. (e.g. ratio disapproving of aventurine actively endangering himself in leaving the cornerstone vulnerable, & aventurine telling ratio off for following him when sunday could still be watching. ofc ratio knows that aventurine is too ready to use himself as a bargaining chip, and ofc aventurine knows ratio is too observant — and too kind — to not throw away the plan should aventurine so wish.)

their history also explains the way aventurine seems to adore ratio with this kind of boyish wonder while openly relying on him as well. (in case you missed the quest step descriptions like i did: https://www.reddit.com/r/HonkaiStarRail/comments/1bwadzy/if_you_didnt_read_the_quest_step_descriptions_in/) i wish we had more of their pre-penacony missions & relationship. aventurine seems to feel safe around ratio both as a person and as a coworker, and they don’t need to show us what led to the amount of knowing that allowed the mind games they were playing With each other in 2.1, but. it intrigues me. esp the conversations they must have had knowing aventurine will have to die for this operation (that ratio is in charge of) to be successful.

i know aventurine + food is a common topic of exploration in rtrn fics; i do believe he has at least the roman roy habit of ordering indulgent food/drinks, taking a few bites/sips, then passing it over to ratio (which has been Kinda supported by some of the anniversary art). it was nice in 2.1 to see ratio being ordered around, and i can see a latent tendency to spoil aventurine, but i imagine he has some bad habits of his own, like refusing to “indulge in unhealthy food” or staying up late to mark papers despite lecturing about the importance of sleep.

i thought once that the number of explicit fics in the rtrn tag belies how many are studies on sex after trauma and/or an awful history with intimacy — but i think that applies to nearly everything in rtrn. ratio’s older and has a far kinder worldview, but he’s also often naive & stubborn about his routines. aventurine is flexible to a fault, has trouble conceiving of things as his own, & has a million habits that allowed him to survive but aren’t self preserving in any capacity beyond that. the fun of rtrn is that against all odds and attempts otherwise, the other makes them care and shows them what it means To care. there’s a looooot there to explore with their respective backgrounds in mind.

i am. out of space. but i am saluting your rtrn endeavours !!

i wish i had an answer for this one, sweet stranger, but unfortunately i’m on the same boat and might genuinely go cliff-jumping this month just to see if that will do anything to the ennui.

as for more “practical” stuff, though… i have notifications disabled, and have screen time locks on nearly all my apps. if it’s “important” stuff like emails or messages, i have them on time summary notif bundles. i leave space for urgent calls by adjusting my do not disturb settings accordingly. but basically just. anything to ensure my phone is as unusable as possible. it doesn’t have to be so drastic 24/7; it’s the first few weeks of a routine that are crucial, bc my body needs the reminder that no, it’s actually not okay to have the attention span and memory of a goldfish. there’s something deeply, deeply wrong if i remain this way, and i can be bored and unmotivated but i can’t be incompetent at the basic requirements of being a person. i refuse to. no matter how painful it is otherwise, i think it would really kill me if someone were able to say that i’m too afflicted with internet brainrot to be a functional person. like that’s it. i’m done. the idea alone is enough to motivate me into actually inventing things to be productive about.

but it’s also a routine that has been tailored to me and my own inner workings, and i don’t think… it can really help anyone. i don’t even think it’s helping me. it’s just that the more unreachable i am, the more i feel like a person, and the more i feel like a person, the readier i am to do things For that person. for myself. it’s probably pretty fucked to have to imagine yourself as a person you work for, and it doesn’t directly get rid of the boredom or lack of motivation, but it gives me things to do that can amount to some semblance of living. i find hobbies i’m not really all that good at, ones that i won’t be tempted into making into a job. like a mobile game or building mechanical keyboards. i give myself stern scoldings when i feel i need it, bc i feel like if i don’t, no one else will. people tend to say that there’s never been anyone harder on me than i am on myself, and i know it’s not always healthy, but it’s the reason i’m alive. sometimes inventing things to do is the only reason i even experience a day at all. you have to scavenge for the parts to build your life with.

idk. nothing is a bad thing to do as long as you’re not doing it mindlessly. whether it’s watching movies or scrolling through videos, mindlessness is a default setting that will grow to be a virus in your system. it’s easy, it chooses you more than you choose it, but it will leave you rotting from the inside out to be mindless about anything except love. everything deserves to have you fully present, and especially your life. but i also know that’s easier said than done. i know it is for me. i’m truly sorry i can’t offer more coherent and actionable advice.

hmm… listen. i’m also not very forgiving to myself when i’ve been emotionally intense; it’s rare that i let my outbursts get the best of me, so when it happens, it’s something i want to brutally beat myself up over. i see it as a vulnerability. kinda like. don’t let them have emotions so alive, so intense, so singular, bc who knows how that can warp how people see you and what they’re willing to do to or around you. it’s kind of a point of shame for me, to not retain some composure. it’s embarrassing when i lose it even a little. all of which i only bring up bc i have to assume why you’re asking, and it’s bc of this that i do genuinely want to say… there’s nothing wrong with intense emotions?

or rather, i think there’s a difference between intense emotions & intense reactions. intense emotions are their own kind of logic/rationale; you feel them for a reason, even (or especially) when the intensity is ramped up by — whatever. hormones. brain chemicals. it sucks to feel it, but i consider emotions like any other physiological phenomenon. you will feel sadness or joy in the way you might feel cold, or hungry, or tired. why try to downplay them when they’re a sign your body needs to return to some sort of equilibrium? whether it’s finding the right kind of socializing to counteract any intense loneliness, or troubleshooting for why you’re always quick to anger around a specific person — emotions are not an issue that’s addressed by just cutting down the quantity. even if you stop feeling the thing so intensely, you’ll still keep feeling it somehow, until they pile up, until it’s a big emotion once again, and you’re back at square one.

that said, i understand intense Reactions can make certain relationships tricky. with those, i personally just. like to cool off. the things i’m capable of doing and saying when i’m angry are often things that wouldn’t be productive were i to act on them. physical activity has been the easiest and surest way. that sounds silly. but. there’s only so long a body can retain an “emotion” that’s actually a reaction (i think 45mins is the human body’s usual max?), and if you can walk/scream at nothing/punch your pillow it out within that time frame, you’ll have a higher chance of finding your way back to a clearer mind.

in absolute fairness, i don’t know the context of your question, and can only say so much from my own perspective, but my main thoughts are just that intense emotions are a person by person thing. beyond learning to figure out if it’s an emotion or a reaction, there’s only so much someone can do to “not feel” certain things intensely. we’re all better off finding a way to work with how we work than to stamp it down. that’s how people end up blowing things up, literally and metaphorically. journaling doesn’t work for everyone; neither does walking. but you gotta give the right things the right kind of attention. there’s no shortcut out of whatever that means for you. i think.

my thoughts are that i need to be shut down and restarted so that my system can stop overheating every time i think about what just happened. i think i answered smth a couple months ago talking about my interest in aventurine after the topaz quest, and it’s kinda hilarious how much more bravado i had then compared to how being in the dewlight pavilion like normal now feels like having my insides broiled 🧎🏻

here’s a similar answer on the quest / aventurine if you’d be interested in other thoughts https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1349617296

i was honestly a bit wary about this quest going into it bc it was so easy… to make it… too much? not excessively sad or excessively tragic, bc that shouldn’t be possible, but there was a readily available way for them to be ineffectively heavy-handed about his background, motivations & relationships if they just pressed a little too hard on any part of him. it could have easily been a narrative more interested in indulging the tragedy of his life, or a narrative that goes so hard on the nooo don’t kys without earning it that it circles back around and flattens aventurine into a caricature of who he could have been. but it wasn’t either of that. i do think right now that it was all well-done: his mix of anger and resignation at his fate, his resentment of the world clashing with his inward self-hatred, his defiance of fate and yet his reliance on fate being a higher power in a life that has never truly been his. there’s also some genuine work done on the portrayal of trauma, i felt. it was like. ah. i see you know what you’re doing. my bad for being too apprehensive.

but whatever here’s someone who has already articulated it better than i am trying to here: https://x.com/venti_later/status/1773364129308225937?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw

also i think i seriously Was prepared for the worst to come, and to honour whatever decisions he/we will have to make, but what hit me out of left field was having to play in his pov and doing the whole mission with ratio before any of the plot-heavy stuff happened. just seeing/hearing him at work, having normal conversations about whether it’s a nightingale or an eagle, yelling and telling ratio to hurry up, his honest hurt after all of that. i played the quest in english bc i trusted his en voice actor specifically, and i’m glad i did. it feels like the story understood what it had to do for us to be in aventurine’s shoes, truly, and for someone to be equipped with the tools to understand him even if you still somehow don’t give a shit about him after this. i was worried he’ll be written as an easy, half-hearted sympathy check, but there’s a sincere relationship formed between the story and the player in this story, and it was almost heartbreakingly nice. i loved how… quiet? it all was? fragile, but quiet. and real. so i need to suffocate myself with fifty pillows.

this is worded like the most casual and cheerful message that online communication has ever seen and i’m sitting here with a fist to my mouth trying to breathe evenly again so i don’t burst into full on toddler tears

it means a great deal to me to hear this, my god, thank you for coming back to update me (at a perfect timing, too, i might add; i was thinking about that cc not too long ago) !! it’s an honour to be a tiny gear working under the hands of fate for you and your girlfriend and i cannot be happier for you both 🫡

sarah dessen !! she has been my go-to guilty pleasure / cheesy break author since i was like twelve and the crown has not so much as slid a millimetre off her head. all her characters are a white teenage girl with an interesting name and a difficult family history, living in idyllic locales as they process falling in love and coming of age with their respective emotional baggage. everything is neatly addressed, the formula is always the exact same, archetypes cycle in and out, but it’s also to do dessen a disservice for me to deny that she’s basically on par with salinger in the kind of stories that teenage me thought they’d be writing forever.

i should say that some of her books are technically “heavy” as well: just listen deals with sa, dreamland features an abusive relationship, lock and key has a romantic interest with an abusive family and a story that features the dichotomy of life in poverty and addiction vs. the utopia of wealthy suburbia. just to name a couple. but the books don’t really seem all that interested in engaging with them with any real depth? it’s like this odd middle ground of unapologetically realistic about the many lives teenagers can lead, but unable to come at it from any lens except the same one that practically all the heroines return to… which is just. a light-hearted, hopeful, all’s well that ends well life where they’re safe, loved by an interesting boyfriend, and no longer haunted by their overarching problems. for the most part.

i do genuinely love these books, though. like unironically. i kinda admire her ability to use the exact same formula every time yet somehow invent two characters that feel distinct to the book they lead. my personal favourites are along for the ride and the truth about forever; auden and macy are my two fav dessen heroines, and i enjoy the settings and motifs of each book. one added bonus of her work is also that there are easter eggs 😭 you often run into characters/couples from her other books, sometimes even items like the key necklace and social media website from lock and key, and there’s a recurring joke across all the books of hating a band called spinnerbait. it’s the cheesiest goddamn thing. and therefore so so So reliable when you need exactly what the brain-hum neutrality of these stories offer.

i feel like the medieval torture feel would feel pretty good right now. like. i need to be stretched out so i stop feeling this cold hard lump inside the core of my being or whatever. that’s how i’m feeling.

i seriously thought i’d be at least semi-alright. i was like. okay. we have an idea of what to expect from aventurine’s story, i know ratio, sunday, gallagher & acheron will all surprise me one way or another, i know i’ll come out of this quest feeling all out of sorts. i had hopes about how things will end, and certain expectations about how all of it will go down. but you know how people say spoilers don’t matter if a story is confidently told? even when you know what will happen, the execution of it, when done right, takes you by the neck in a way you can’t parry against, and it holds on until you’re out of breath. that’s literally what the anniversary patch did to me. it still has a boot on the back of my neck. gravel is digging into my cheek. i would like to get up.

i didn’t need 2.1 to exceed my expectations — i would have probably been chill with anything bc i mean look at me i’m a luofu enjoyer — so i’m just partly in shock that they did. there’s so many complex characters in hsr in terms of motivations and backstory and desires, and even lovers of certain characters can’t resist the impulse to flatten and over-moralize. which. come on. nearly everyone in the game has been called insane by another character; they kill, abandon, make morally unjustifiable choices, fail, reject, prioritize themselves, deny their own feelings and others’. i love that aventurine is all the most compelling parts of the cast in one character, and that they went all in on his story in a way we can only do in fragments for other characters with their own complicated histories and motivations.

i’ve also… felt that fandom portrayals of aventurine don’t often do justice to how scrappy and defiant he is on top of the self-hatred and lack of self-preservation. he hates himself, yes (the one mission description where his thought process about himself was just “failure discarded selfish useless pointless coward murderer gambler blessed discarded loser chosen-one mother goddess’s beloved crazy murderer” over and over again… jesus), but he also takes some pride in challenging the “luck” that has allowed him to survive. the choice to keep living has never truly been his, or at least he has forsaken his right/privilege to decide in multiple ways, and i don’t think he realized whether it’s life or death he’d truly prefer until this mission. until ratio’s letter and the final conversation with the young kakavasha, even.

he’s just. such a clearly drawn character in a nicely established arc of the story. much more than i ever expected. i’m sure i’ll find feel some way or another about how it was handled once i can look at the whole arc objectively, but for now, i really need that torture wheel.

ahh…. while this is a mystery that can be easily solved with a little clicking around, far be it from me to discourage any ideas you might prefer about how i appear, haha. i will say that the only shock people have seemed to encounter when meeting me face to face for the first time after primarily virtual interactions is my height; i guess there’s never any way to prepare people for someone quite a bit below where their usual sight line is. which has nothing to do with my writing or even your mind’s concept of me. so. all this to say i hope your version of me, different as i am sure they must be, is more up to par than i suspect the real me is 🚶🏻

i do! i’m not sure how you want to define coming of age, but for novels, i usually consider it within the realm of the first few milestones of adulthood. with that in mind, some books i like are franny and zooey by j.d. salinger, the idiot by elif batuman (which also has a sequel), the adult by bronwyn fischer, demian by hermann hesse, conversations with friends by sally rooney, and real life by brandon taylor. which are like. uni age / older young adult gripes. i also like a few novels that aren’t quite about coming of age, but do feature it as a plot element in a story that follows generations and decades in the same life; this includes the goldfinch by donna tartt (personally my fav bildungsroman), the book of goose by yiyun li, the heart’s invisible furies by john boyne (this author is generally one hell of a can of worms, though, if you’d prefer to avoid that), kite runner and a thousand splendid suns by khaled hosseini, and the neapolitan novels by elena ferrante.

for anime/manga/manhwa, i love our dreams at dusk, skip and loafer, sakamichi to apollon, k-on, heesu in class 2, solanin, and insomniacs after school. as for films, where the coming-of-age aspect is a bit more varied in form, the first few titles to come to mind are whisper of the heart, lady bird, aftersun, paper moon, y tu mamá también, moonlight, boy (the taika waititi one), rebel without a cause, stand by me, city of god, monster (the koreeda one), the case of hana & alice (both shunji iwai’s live action and animated films), 20th century women, and — though not Particularly about coming of age — hunt for the wilderpeople, ferris bueller’s day off, pan’s labyrinth, thoroughbreds, and tokyo godfathers… wherein no one really comes of age, yet somehow i consider it tied to my own growing up.

just… to name… a few. i’m sure i’m forgetting so many, as i always do, and i want to emphasize that the majority of these are evaluated more for my personal connection to them than how prominent coming of age themes are in the media itself... in case that is a dealbreaker. a good few of them also don’t end on a happy/light-hearted note. but i find coming of age media are often the most heartbreaking of our whole lives anyway.

i’ve watched and shown others the rondo short so many times that i probably have memorized the tango itself but did you see the light cone too. did you See the light cone. bc the light cone was my final straw. i felt like that infinity pool scene where mia goth is just firing shots all over the room and screaming. the flavour oh my god the spice the kick the flair i’m beside myself ohhhhhhh they’re taking it

literally the same evening the rondo short came out a friend was like hey isn’t it funny that they paired the guy sentenced to inevitable death with the doctor who believes every life is worth seeing through and i sent a dm back like hey wouldn’t it be funny if they also properly paired up the lady who deals and specializes in collecting memories with the pseudo-amnesiac with so many horrors worth both forgetting and remembering. then they did it in the most intense, unignorable way possible. i need to stop being gagged by every trailer/short we’ve gotten since like. ichor of two dragons. bc it’s getting ridiculous. but the acheswan short was just. so far beyond. what my tiny brain could have anticipated. like what the hell do they want from me now.

i was looking forward to black swan for so long mostly out of interest in the factions following fuli, but pairing a memokeeper who handles memories like they’re candy with the unexpected amount of lore we’ve received on acheron when we’ve Just started penacony is crazy of them. Crazy. i think the yummiest thing about their dynamic is this almost perverse interest that black swan has in people’s memories; she speaks of them like they’re delicacies to be enjoyed, in the same way that ifrit talks about wreaking havoc despite the low likelihood nanook will gaze upon them. for her to be faced with memories that for once consume Her, for these particular memories to be out of her control and her enjoyment, and for her interest to change shape accordingly while acheron is out here literally as a vessel for the inevitable, all-consuming pull of nihility — why’d they cook so hard here. sexual tension and power dynamics via memories is a wonderfully deranged elevator pitch for a pair of characters, and i really, really hope we keep getting more.

something i find so wonderful about hsr is how the universe is so huge and its most powerful entities truly, truly omnipotent that it’s hard to imagine what can pull characters to each other. yet they surprise me every single time with the dynamics they manage to form in so many different ways, and for so many layers in each to be available in ways specific only to that one dynamic. like who came up with Hey What If We Did A Sexually Charged Tango Between A Follower of The Remembrance and A [redacted in case of spoilers] And It Devolves Into The Brutal Memories Waiting In The Shadows. the sequence where only their shadows are dancing and black swan is getting dragged around like prey being disemboweled is actual cinema.

no but deadass 😭 i once told a non-canadian mutual (who suggested it about more tasteful things like cronenberg and schitt’s creek) that for better or worse canadian-made films/shows and even online content just have a vibe to it that you can pick out even when you don’t know yet that the creator is canadian. then you find out and it’s like oh! obviously! idk what it is. it’s palpable in even youtubers. but for all we know i’m just hearing a subtle torontonian accent and it has nothing to do with content lmaooo

oh, i know… i can taste that loneliness even now. it’s horrible. even people with friends feel the loneliness that uni brings in some part. you’re all in a new place where the Majority are people you don’t know, and that never really stops being true. it’s easy to be isolated, bc everyone has their own lives to figure out and no interest in everyone else’s loneliness.

whether you really are “shit” at making friends or the most extroverted busybody known to man, the truth remains that making friends means shooting at something you can’t see. extroverts just don’t care that that’s what it is. i think... the main concern in making friends should be the question of putting yourself in positions to meet people. not the meeting / process of making friends itself, but the literal place. whatever your interests are, how can you meet people with it? do you have to get a literal part-time job just to have something in common with one other person? is there one other person in your group project that you kinda talked more with than the others? can you find them on social media? can you fake a scenario to use where you can talk to them? you can work your way up infinitely between “how did you do on that __ midterm?” or “want to share notes?” to the Big Question of asking if they wanna hang out.

if it’s too daunting to hang out with someone for the first time, go see a movie/something related to a subject you have in common. you can spend hours not worrying about the conversation, and have something to talk about after (ideally) over food. don’t be afraid to ask questions that sound stupid. don’t make self-deprecation the majority of the conversation, but don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself and your mistakes. leave questions open-ended, to give them a way to reply with something that isn’t yes or no. the best part about talking to people you don’t know that well yet is that there’s an infinite amount of things to ask. anything is a conversation starter, and anything that feels “silly” in the moment is an inside joke in the future.

god, i’m seeing myself type and i know none of this is remotely helpful to your very personal situation. i hate for the advice to be to Just Put Yourself Out There, bc yeah sha no shit. but most people are going to be desperate for friendship either way; the time will pass anyway, and it will ache to know the desperation could have gone into at least an attempt. you’re only in uni for a few years. some of these people you will completely forget ever existed in a few years’ time, others you will remember forever. you’ll never know which one until you have candidates. i understand it’s not easy to hear that you have to literally insert yourself into places where it’s easy to feel unwanted, but. sometimes the only way to go through is to get there and stop thinking.

i’m sorry i can’t be of more help. i’m sending you all the companionship i can bottle in this one message.

no no don’t worry, i’m sure you aren’t alone in this !!

the trick to it is that the scenes go back-and-forth from past and present. let’s call the main story of some kind of we “present time,” which should be a year after the events of flls chapter 7, with both of them now living in chiba. “present time” includes all scenes in some kind of we from megumi at the grocery store > him coming home to yuuji sleeping > them cooking dinner and dancing > sitting out in the fire escape > going out on the bicycle.

everything else is a flashback, meaning it all happened Before “present time”: megumi telling gojo he’s leaving tokyo > the okinawa trip > megumi getting sick > visiting yuuji’s grandpa’s grave.

with the quotes below pertaining to the specific scenes in some kind of we, it should look something like this arranged in chronological time:

1. the main events of flls chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5
2. first half of flls chapter 6 (the morning of tsumiki’s wedding day)
2. flls chapter 1 (the afternoon of tsumiki’s wedding day)
3. flls chapter 6 (the evening of tsumiki’s wedding day)
4. “Three years ago, Megumi had tracked Ieiri Shoko to the backyard of the Gojo-Geto home and, looking at her through the wisps of smoke between them, asked if she knew any veterinary clinics that would let him work for school credit.” (some kind of we)
5. flls chapter 7, yuuji moving to chiba and finding out megumi lives here now
6. “Their first ever June together, Megumi had spent an entire day convincing a stubborn Yuuji to come along to Okinawa.” (some kind of we)
7. the actual okinawa trip, which begins with “But in the end, Yuuji hadn’t needed Megumi by his side.” and ends with “Megumi, you’re the best thing in my whole, entire world.” (some kind of we)
8. “A month after Okinawa, they had stood hand in hand in front of Itadori Wasuke’s grave, the cemetery cool around them in the tree-lined shade and a crawling kind of hot in the sun.” (some kind of we)
9. “When summer had drifted into fall last September, Megumi found himself walking to class with a stuffy nose and a throbbing headache, and, by the end of that two-hour lecture, the beginnings of a fever.” (some kind of we)
10. present time in some kind of we

that still looks too confusing, huh. a quick tip would be that anything in past tense in some kind of we is in the past; anything in present tense is in the present. also: if a scene in some kind of we has the left facing moon before it begins (☽) then it’s a flashback/past scene. if a scene has the right facing moon moon before it begins (☾) then it’s the present time, with megumi and yuuji’s current evening in their apartment.

i hope… this makes sense. happy to clarify a bit more if not 😓

a housemate once described my diet as being exclusively “pastries, hors d'oeuvres and an infinite line of different beverages” which in some respects i always think was a slight (and deserved) dig at my laziness about cooking, so you can imagine how little i like to do it. i’m Probably not terrible at it — my cooking is apparently commendable enough to get unwanted Your Future Spouse Is So Lucky comments from my mother to my coworkers — but there’s a joke amongst my friends and even family members that the greatest invention mankind has given me is the air fryer, and they would be entirely correct. so. a slight disclaimer about what cooking entails if it’s me we’re talking about 😭

i’m almost never sitting down to eat unless i’m out with friends to do it, so if i can’t eat it from a bowl on the go, and if it’s an unnecessary struggle to eat while reading/typing, i don’t often cook it. this unfortunately rules out soup and porridge-type dishes, which i do love but never make myself, and anything that requires multiple steps over more than a half hour max. that leaves my cooking roster with a series of homemade veggie meatballs, perogies, buns (like baozi and siopao), dumplings, pre-made dips for crackers, etc.

mushrooms are my everlasting best friend, though! i try to put it in anything, from pasta to pairing it with salmon, which i usually bake after tossing it a bit in teriyaki sauce and aioli if i can afford it that month. i like crisp greens, like bokchoy and leeks and spring onions, especially when paired with something textured like a creamy sauce or a well-grilled eel over soft rice. i often default to pasta when i just don’t wanna think about meals, partly bc they have amazing shelf life and make for good discounted bulk-buying and partly bc there’s so many ways to use them. my favs to cook are a rotation of red sauces and the occasional aglio e olio, both with spaghetti. but again. that can get messy to eat / prepare / heat up, so i just make them when i absolutely must.

sometimes, someone’s kindness burrows its way to somewhere deeper than i usually feel it and it makes me feel so much that my stomach hurts… this is one of those messages. thank you, thank you, thank you, for the incredible amount of care and thought you’ve put into this message and towards flls. i think there’s something wonderfully cyclical about how much love people allow into their hearts over a story about love.

but speaking of things that trigger intense emotion !! there’s an early draft of the flls coda where megumi visits nanami in malaysia with yuuji and haibara many years after the events of flls. i thought hey, this is the perfect chance to give megumi a parallel to his conversation with nanami in flls, which kinda reduced him to his youth and his inexperience at what it truly means to love someone. i envisioned a scene where megumi basically asks for nanami’s blessing before proposing to yuuji, and i imagine nanami would try to say something neutral about how yuuji isn’t some object to give away, but he’s touched enough to need to be quiet for a few minutes too long. i figured — all the ways that megumi feels in the flls convo with nanami, about feeling small and helpless and unsure, will also be how he feels when he goes to nanami for his blessing as yuuji’s de facto guardian, but this time it will be for only good reasons. maybe megumi won’t be able to help tears welling up bc i’m sure the depth and seriousness of how this moment has been a long time coming won’t be lost on him or nanami. as you said, megumi was always worthy of the responsibility of yuuji’s heart. nanami knows that. he’s just been waiting for megumi to not only know it, but believe it and commit to it. giving his blessing is as much belief and commitment as nanami and megumi will ever need about megumi and yuuji’s relationship.

unfortunately it felt too far into the future for what i wanted to do in skow, but in my mind it remains a thing that happens in that universe. so. all this to say that i can definitely see megumi being the kind of groom who cries. yuuji will keep joking that he’s the one who’ll start crying before their little ceremony even starts, but he doesn’t actually cry until the morning after, when all of it catches up and suddenly he’s standing in the kitchen waiting for the coffeemaker (is it the same one megumi had in yuuji’s apartment? probably not. that’s a little much. but it’s a nice thought.) and his ring catches a ray of sunlight and the tears hit him so full force that megumi is mildly alarmed when he sleepily walks into the kitchen.

it’s crazy, truly, how fully fledged these two are in my minds. characters always feel this way, but i think with the flls boys, i’m indebted to how much readers like you keep them alive by believing in their love for each other. which is even crazier if you ask me. thank You endlessly for being a blessing ❤️

you know what i haven’t thought even Once about any romantic pairings in this series so this question is leaving my head completely blank… but. i did make a joke once about how the idea of shin and seba (natsuki) dating makes shin and mafuyu’s grudging in-laws dynamic even better than it already is.

now that i’m thinking about it more seriously though i do enjoy how far their dynamic has come in the series and feel like shin and natsuki would be incredibly fun to see together. idk. maybe shin just has this vibe where anyone he synergizes with automatically makes it seem like you can imagine an eight-year relationship between them, where they’re comfortable enough to finish each other’s sentences and shove each other off the couch. i think it’d be kinda sweet to envision a college au with established relationship shin/natsuki, except they’ve been in college for like eight years bc shin’s trying to get a full psychotherapist license and natsuki is on year god knows what of his hellish mechanical engineering degree. they’re like. old people in young adult bodies. they’d be 21 and complaining about all their aching joints and giving each other violent “massages” that they complain about leaving bruises. shin’s the type to fall asleep and drool on natsuki’s shoulder on the subway ride home; natsuki doesn’t notice bc he’s on his phone going over the blueprint he started working on in a manic haze the night before. nothing else happens in this hypothetical story except their day-to-day trying to keep each other alive and fed. mafuyu drops by and complains about everything being dirty. the sakamotos drop by and help with everything. xiaotang and akira drop by and prove to be somewhere in between those two ends of the spectrum.

you literally didn’t ask for an au idea i’m sorry anyway no i’m not really attached to any pairings romantically But while i can’t prove it i fully believe sakamoto, nagumo and rion all did it with each other at least once. tried, at least. was it successful? we have no way of knowing.

i have not caught up in ages, my god, but i love it a lot! it’s an all-time fav for me, and definitely one i feel i can always rely on for the best of the shounen formula. it’s so fun, the dynamics deliver even in bite sized arcs, the art is sick, the characters are cool as hell and as thematically interesting as they can be in a simple and straightforward story. i feel sometimes that me not being able to pick a favourite in a story is a sign of a well-rounded cast; if there’s no one single character i feel passionate about, then 6 times out of 10 it’s probably just that the author has a deft hand working through a really dynamic cast. that feels extra true for sakadays.

i do have my individual favs (gaku & nagumo, among others, so you can imagine the urgency people ran to me with when That fight started) but it’s not so much above all the rest that i’ll be writing essays about anyone the way i would for my fav characters in other stories. i’m happy to spend time with most sakadays characters, and there hasn’t been an arc that felt like a drag. it’s not perfect the way i think of, say, mp100 and fma:b as perfect, but it’s a series i trust with my enjoyment? i can put it on a pedestal and leave it alone for years and it will still be here when i come back, no dust or rust collected.

idk if you wanted specific thoughts about specific dynamics, which i’m sure i have even if none come to mind immediately right now… but speaking generally, it’s just a really lively story. it’s confident in its own zip-and-zap momentum, and without forgetting heart and charm. i do think it’s too hesitant sometimes with huge thematic holes about the nature of being an assassin, and whether that’s a life you can truly consent to and opt out of. in some respects, it’s still only shounen in the end, and there’s only so much it can try to advance about ideological differences between shin, sakamoto, the other association assassins, slur and his group. these are characters who have wronged and been wronged in this world to irredeemable degrees, yet the story is forced to choose a side in moralizing who gets to be the hero. which is a disappointment. but sakadays never purports to be more than what it provides, and on that, to be fair, it’s done a perfect job. so many balls juggled into the air and not one dropped. no sweat on the juggler’s face, either. effortless, strong at its core, level and balanced. and very very fun to witness 😊

so no, i haven’t thought about writing for it, nor can i imagine anything i would want to? no notes here from me at all, shockingly. it can keep doing its thing and i’ll be a happy, satisfied viewer with my bag of sweet potato chips.

no seriously it’s kinda amazing how fictional dreamscapes have a distinct visual language of their own even across stories and mediums. there’s just a specific wrongness we associate with dreams that make their way into everything from alice in wonderland to labyrinth to tim burton to inception. i think a child’s dream & the dreamscape hotel are the penacony areas so far that i’ve explored the most and i just find myself really loving their flavour of eerieness. the abandoned food station, the toys from someone’s bygone childhood, the music box ost… i love how they play with size, tea party decor, the mirrors, etc. in a way you’d see in most alice in wonderland visualizations. it’s a nice route to opt for over embracing a darker, more overtly “scary” aesthetic, especially in this form of a child’s whimsical / fantastical dream-nightmare. there’s a very clear visualizing of what an interrupted / aborted childhood looks like, which i would argue is present in alice in wonderland as well and allows the visual elements to shine the way i like to see them best — slightly wrong, slightly familiar, slightly foreign.

as far as outright parallels go: definitely misha as the rabbit, huh. i’ve seen a few people try to finalize which references are whose, and the most frequent connections appear to be misha as the rabbit and aventurine as the queen of hearts. but i also wanna raise clockie as something along the lines of how time is its own character in alice in wonderland, and i wonder if it might make more sense if sunday & robin were instead two queens, and aventurine was a mad hatter type…? maybe? i’m not too attached to any of those and might feel differently after 2.1, but i suspect aventurine will have a (failed?) execution in his near future. i also wouldn’t be surprised if we get a jabberwock reference in a later boss fight, if the something unto death creature isn’t literally already it.

if you can indulge me for a bit longer, i think… trauma + losing the light of childhood idyll / what makes life worth living are such big components of the penacony quests, down to the npc missions, and it has me thinking about a paper by rachel telfer on how alice in wonderland has no overt traumatic event yet unfolds exactly along the de/reconstructive process of trauma. part of what i love about penacony and the ways it has surprised me so far is how much it commits to “carroll’s emphasis on disorder and chaos [...] not only does carroll push the boundaries of reality, he provides a guide to regaining a sense of self, language, and world through wonderland’s many conversations.” which is just a pretentious way for me to say i love the fracturing of the psyche represented by the fracturing of the dreamscape, & how it’s captured via how alice in wonderland does the same.

suffice to say i am both excited and scared for 2.1 and will be on the lookout for more alice 🫡 i’d also love to hear your list if you’d ever be willing to share !!!

thank you so much for engaging with my work to this extent and depth, whoa. i always say that rnbc / bllk readers have been so singularly kind to me but it really is not a joke at all 🤍

(and let me open a tab on “wanting to want”… such a good headline for the appeal of sports animanga… something about the secondhand hunger and the devotion that arises when you put multiple characters with different relationships to wanting what’s meant to be a shared goal and/or takeaway from this one collective endeavour.)

ahhh i love the so it goes museum scenes so much too !! i continue to be wonderfully mystified by how much warmth so it goes has received but seeing the connection to dear true love is like. ah! a love story between a character so afraid to let the outside world in that instead of purifying their rs with their craft it calcified it until they’re left alone to reckon with what has always existed outside of that. i like visualizing romantic love on the same level as love for one’s passion, so it made sense to parallel bachira’s first love and rin’s love for soccer, and for isagi & yumi’s rs to be what it was. but if so it goes and dtl have a shared sub-sub-theme, it’s that living your life does and should not take away from that which you love. letting the Outside World into what you love does not subtract the love already there. loving is no excuse to forgo living, bc there isn’t one without the other. when we feel burnt out from one, it’s often bc we’re not doing enough of the other.

blue lock (the project) always makes me think... to give so much to this one thing and only this, what will be left once all of it is gone? and how do you hold onto love without a vessel? how do you keep what was still real despite the ephemerality of this container that made you part of a collective history? and when you find that the love that has had one direction to go this whole time suddenly meets only a wall, how do you stop that love from bouncing off and hurting you instead?

sometimes i wonder if falling out of love would hurt as much if it isn’t nearly always a reminder that no matter what, we will always be left in the aftermath alone and only ourselves. love lost is to feel abandoned by the love, even if we abandon it first. that’s the best and worst part of experiencing anything, let alone something (or someone) you loved: that you will always still be you after all is said and done. the search in the aftermath is only ever ours alone. maybe that’s part of what makes it so weird to have to find a way to redirect love somewhere else and to suddenly live a life not dictated by what was once the Important Thing in it. with how irrevocable both living and loving are, though, i do think it also goes to say we need only live to eventually find love again. but this likely isn’t what you sought from a reply, & i can feel the start of an unrelated tangent coming, so i’m gonna zip it.

i don’t think i would, no. or rather... there’s an impulse to say it depends on where you draw the line between belief and practicality/practice. which. i know how it sounds to answer this particular question with that, but despite my primarily anti-government, anti-institution, anti-authority beliefs in everything from healthcare to academia, i also can’t say i wholeheartedly believe that society can survive without some kind of overarching governing body.

what i’m certain of is that with the world being as it currently is, the only ideals i can see myself subscribing to is violent resistance and abolition of all coercive governments and their enablers. especially of the kind we see in late stage capitalism, where even prisons and hospitals are sources of labour central to maintaining the hierarchical status quo. i find that when people argue for a need to keep the governments and systems we currently have bc “it maintains order,” this just reflects to me a naivety about the responsibilities that governments and systems are most definitely Not attending to. my view is that nothing about the current state of things is working: not our code of laws and rights, the ridiculous legal system and “free market,” not the constitution, not the free healthcare, all of which i acknowledge i also benefit from as a canadian citizen. if we could accomplish decentralization and the banishment of permanent authority, that’d be my ideal society, but therein is an element of utopianism and idealism, too, and i don’t necessarily believe we’re capable of reaping the strengths of true anarchy as we are right now.

(also. i realize i’m answering this question in good faith that we have the same definition of being an anarchist. i Am cognizant of how much colonialism and overall political powers have done to paint anarchism as synonymous to chaos and complete devolvement into an unstructured society. we’re a society trained to associate anarchist leanings with lawlessness and disorderliness. i know that this kind of propaganda is designed so that we do not question the “necessity” of authority in managing a complex society. i want to be clear that this isn’t how i view it myself.)

the bottomline is i would love a world that has done away with hierarchical decision-making bodies and has embraced the importance of smaller, more local lifestyles over the global profit-and-status-driven collective. but that’s an argument that people have tried to advance for marxism and other adjacent / left-libertarian ideologies as well. in the end, in what i want / can envision for society as a whole, i still believe there are forms of government and communal care that are more seamlessly put in place and more sustainable for all in the long run than anarchism. even if i do consider myself an anarchist in ideals to some degree, i also don’t believe in it in any way as an actionable end goal plan for society as a whole. if any of this makes sense.

honestly there’s probably nothing jjk can do right now that won’t make me go ok lmao 🕴🏼

but also. in the interest of objectivity. there is... still... consistency… in how the jjk world is trapped in these cycles that rely on being preserved. it’s what sets apart characters like sukuna and yuuji and i’d say geto, whose existence deviates from the mold that perpetuates those cycles. there’s an in-canon “natural” order that jjk makes a point of maintaining vs. challenging (kenjaku, mahito, etc); everyone in the series gets assigned accordingly and removed when they try to challenge easy categorizing (nanami, mechamaru, mai, etc).

the whole tragedy of jjk is its world’s misled belief that everything has already been written and to resist its flow is futile; it’s what geto rebels against, what megumi’s entire philosophy & desire to save yuuji stems from, what ends up being toji’s undoing, what allows maki to be her “own person.” the problem is no one ever told gojo specifically that he can deviate, which is personally how i interpret the “are you strong bc…” stsg quote. as far as ability is concerned, gojo Can change the jujutsu world, yet he’s cornered into a position that renders him an idea, a concept, more than he is a person, such that he himself eventually bought into being literally untouchable. but gojo IS the system. he’s the compass with which we can examine other characters. there is still a core point in how gojo was crowned by the heavens, by divine law; sukuna crowned himself; toji (and geto) sought to create their own laws to live by. as far as parallels go, they exist in order to highlight the characters who do deviate from the whole... master plan of existence everyone’s trying to hijack.

my thoughts on gojo’s death is that i hope it sticks. i don’t have any particular complaints about how it happened, surprisingly. what i want for gojo is escape from the story — literal and metaphorical — that caged him. it’d be pretty horrible for him to return from death for the umpteenth time to continue fighting for a cause he doesn’t even believe in and hasn’t for a long time. him seeing everyone in the afterlife or whatever the hell was lame, but it held true to his character. i think gojo the person stayed 17, and the only thing that would sadden me about his death is if he had even that taken away from him.

idk if any of this is making sense ahhh i think the parallels are very much there and necessary bc jjk at the bare minimum needs them for momentum. i’d be surprised if gege even realizes how quickly they like to give the story back ups for the roles it needs filled (todo & hakari, nanami & higuruma, etc.) BUT it’s like. whatever. it’s just such a crowded, over-saturated story that those strengths don’t get to shine and the characters don’t get to be truly themselves. you’re definitely right. it’s a shame. there’s a way to do it well, but the story just doesn’t want to make it available. it’s pretty ironic.

i had zero idea what it was until this had me looking it up but that’s so funny omg ?? i’m not sure if you’d count this, but i guess i technically wrote flls, hairpin turns & the voltron fic through some rock bottom periods of my 20s so far. i have memories of exactly which scenes i wrote while bed-ridden / catatonic / had everything in my life imploding in ways i didn’t think possible / whatever you wanna call it, which is the sort of dramatics you have to find hilarious when looking back at it all. hairpin turns should have been written while working through a death in the family, and igyssr through a loved one going into a coma. my bnha fics were written in libraries during a summer i was running away from someone i lived with. so if anything, i feel like things have happened enough that the connection has to be circumstantial. and clearly none got in the way of finishing fics 😭

maybe i just jinxed it and sent out an invitation to the universe to prove me wrong, but i also doubt these things wouldn’t have happened if i’d only not written. it’s such a funny little thought, though, huh. i had no idea it was so widespread as to be a phenomenon.

ahhhh this is such a kind, thoughtful message, thank you so so much, but i’m not quite comfortable giving written permission anonymously on cc. if you could dm me on twt, or any other platform available to you, i’d really appreciate it and would be more than happy to share/permit what i can !! 💗

i hate to be difficult about it, truly, and don’t mean to overshare, but i might have gotten a sexually inappropriate comment on it and don’t. really. want to revisit that. even if just to delete the comment. i hope you can understand, and i’m really sorry i couldn’t be more lenient about it 😢

you know usually someone says this about their fav character and i’m like no actually i don’t think your sports anime guy would even touch anne carson but weirdly enough i think rin specifically would rock so hard with her tragedies... it’s in line with his interests and hobbies outside of soccer, and i do think both of the itoshis have a natural inclination towards weird shit even if rin will deny it. they both like a little freak, partly bc they are borderline little freaks as well (affectionate).

all this to say that i think rin is a great match for euripides. the vision is surprisingly clear. i imagine the trajectory of it being that he watches some horror-adjacent movie that turns out to be a retelling of a greek tragedy (like killing of a sacred deer, maybe), then he gets curious and starts reading wikipedia entries, before working his way through awkward translations and eventually discovering anne carson’s euripides collection and having a “wait. is this fucking play about us?” maddy euphoria moment. i can identify a lot in him that reflects some of hercules after his twelve labors, and i think anne carson’s h of h would suit him nicely as well.

i think it’s so natural to be scared! i am as well, though i’ve also developed a bit of a distaste for this sentiment — which is not on you at all, to be clear. it’s more the overarching narrative of how the rise of ai art & writing, as in the frequency of this practice, indicates a parallel trajectory in quality. idk if i agree with that.

i saw someone say once that the reason the “good” writing chatgpt churns out is so mediocre & sterile to anyone with a discerning eye might be that the vast majority of english writing/speakers are just… not very good writers. the more people use ai & the more it learns what counts as good writing for the people who use it, the more universal the mediocrity becomes. i find that disheartening, but the worry has never been that ai will write like me. i can’t even write like me. i think what i truly fear is a world of people who cannot write, and a world that only asks this much of its writers. a world complacent about producing and receiving language. if non-writers believe that the writing ai gives them is good, and if even writers believe their writing can only go as far as to be inevitably replaceable by ai, then it’s hard for me not to feel doomed. being confronted with your exact question as an inevitability is what i fear, i guess. again, that’s not on you. it’s bleak out there. i understand.

sometimes i think... there are over 171k words in english. an average sentence is about 15 words. if i’m not totally inept at using a calculator, that means there are around two unvigintillion ways to articulate a feeling. your writing “voice” are the variations you choose. chatgpt is trained by humans, & unless every single one of those trainers is the height of modern writing innovation, most ai language learning models — and i emphasize language here, i’m sure it’s a different issue for visual ai theft — are designed to write like the average person’s understanding of articulate writing across time and all walks of life. it will always be neutral & soulless not bc it’s a machine, but bc there are no governing rules of language learning that teaches a unique writing voice. even the prompt process of ai alone is reliant on a referential, universal language. there may be grammar rules and buzzwords to integrate, but complex words & sentence structures do not equate automatically to good writing. beautiful sentences don’t exist in a vacuum. in a machine, there is only the vacuum.

i am not an optimistic guy, and i don’t mean to be obtuse about your question. but i think, so far, ai art has inadvertently cultivated in people a demand for human, innovative media. i think the moral argument about ai will always fall on deaf ears; we as a depraved society are way past that. but i still do find that people have an intrinsic sense of what art that matters must feel like, and that’s something that will only grow more desirable the more you withhold it. maybe. i can only pray there will still be artists then.

oh man. you know how people say the barbie movie’s “impact” is reliant on how it’s essentially Yay! Baby’s First Feminism! in the same way that everything everywhere all at once is a boba liberal’s idea of a good narrative? that... is how i feel about rayne fisher-quann.

i find her writing forgettable and the scope of her culture commentary limited to neatly addressed points even as she tries to cover more supposedly nuanced matters related to womanhood & the internet, two of the most interesting pools of culture criticism in the digital era. you Can argue her attempts at these are better & more self-aware than having only performative talking points, but i think even she has been vocal about the inherent performance of her role as a pop culture critic in a tiktok age. it’s a tough line to be constantly toeing, and i imagine it’s gotten harder as mainstream media has given her opportunities that are the equivalent of a big pop star giving the opening act of their tour to an artist with a strong indie following but will otherwise never threaten their existing place in the industry.

all that said: there’s this wave of Hot Girl culture critics with self awareness to “balance out” surface privileges and expectations — which i think reflects that there are demographics to whom rayne fisher-quann’s presence and insight is valuable, even outright crucial. knowing she exists and is given a platform is a refreshing deviation from this over-saturated sea of content creators turned culture critics sharing the equivalent of a university course’s introduction reading list in newsletters and fashion magazine features — but she remains nonetheless a part of that group.

i see why she gains traction amongst readers younger than both her & myself who might not be able to form these thoughts and this lens on culture on their own and have to be led to it in accessible forms. i am finding that that’s… a Lot of people, especially on the platform that fisher-quann came to prominence on, and hey, if people need someone to prompt the criticism in their brains to even be conscious of it, then this is someone who does it on a regular basis and does acknowledge nuance (if not nearly always complexity) wherever she is able. kids and teenagers who learn from her are in decent hands, at least right now.

there are worse options in this cultural climate, really. i think internet princess is a fitting title, and i sympathize with having to be an objective critic of the same culture that championed you, but i also think rayne fisher-quann’s appeal is for a specific kind of demographic and self-identified (and maybe misdiagnosed) “critics” & internet media literati.

but also!! who am i to talk!! at the end of the day i’m a borderline illiterate reader of things who also happens to be protective of my canadian/torontonian culture critics, rayne fisher-quann included.

no no you’re good !! no empty messages on my end! but ahhhh thank you for reading so it goes and going as far as to write to me, first of all. it’s such a small, specific fic that i wish i tried more for, and it continues to astound me that more than two people read it bc yeah, you’re right, rnbc is such a rarepair for something with what felt to me was a goldmine of readily available stuff ?? i remember when i first published so it goes and someone sent me a thread about how bachira is so easy to “invent” dynamics for — and it was very much a lighthearted joking tone, but i had a mini crisis after like oh no does it seem like i’ve done something delusional and people are just indulging it out of kindness… do people think i pulled rnbc out of literally nothing 😭 rnbc made so much sense to me, as did the “ending” i gave rin in so it goes. the fic wrote itself exactly bc there was So much canon material, i thought. it’s wild to be on the other end of a whole fic and find that the room on this side is not what i thought it was going to be, but ultimately, i’m just glad to be here with good company.

all this to say — thank you for seeing the vision, and for being so eloquent and tender in writing to me. i don’t often expect anyone to follow me into whatever seemingly out of left field pairing/fandom i’ve tunneled down into now, so it’s always the nicest surprise to find people present and actively engaging. so it goes is by far the fic to shock me the most in the reception it has received; if i’d anticipated that at all, i would have done so much differently. like maybe edited it a bit more. proofread harder. i don’t know. thank you for loving the fic in all its rawness and imperfection.

i most definitely have not done anything to deserve the exceedingly high praise here, oh my goodness, but i am very, very grateful for it all the same. my heart broke a little — in all the right aches — upon reading “a source of comfort in a lonely world.” but you know, i always think that my writing wouldn’t move people if they didn’t approach it open to being moved in the first place, so in many ways, i have my thanks to toss back at you and the loving community that has formed around so it goes. it never fails to warm my heart. thank you, truly.

re: writing for haikyuu, here are two recent cc replies:
https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1339864741
https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1340102761

the tl;dr is that while i do agree there are so many incredible dynamics there, it just doesn’t feel like something i’ll write for as i currently am. i’ll always have an immense love for the series, but i doubt it will ever invite me to write… i’m sorry to disappoint, though i am very touched you’d think to ask me about it !! i hope you have a wonderful week ahead, wherever you may be.

i adooooooore this question... it’s maybe less museum and more cultural centre, but i’d love to devote a space to the showcase and preservation of literature in translation? its history, milestones & controversies; the role of interpreters & translators everywhere, from the role of the arts in early trading to today’s trials at the hague, both of which already present complexities for a curator to navigate; banned books across languages; the deliberate use of translated literature as propaganda, from hobbes being the first to translate thucydides to the harm a single book like mein kampf propagated; or even these really great reconstructions of bronze age music & oral storytelling.

tangentially related but the other day i felt like looking into whether anyone has translated marcus aurelius’ meditations into latin, which interestingly should have been his native language… it led me to a curiosity spiral about all the source texts that has undergone a similar kind of homecoming-displacement. we know that the epic of gilgamesh and the tale of genshi are two notable and indisputable firsts in the history of storytelling, but when were they made “available” in other languages? or... there are museum projects in taiwan & korea working on translation to preserve texts, and i find this fascinating bc what is cultural preservation in the context of the innate disassociation and/or reconstruction that the art of translation demands? i also recently attended an event dedicated to palestinian art and poetry, and was talking to someone about how the destruction has targeted schools, libraries, archives for a reason — a fundamental attack on culture, on records that can immortalize. there is just So much.

i also think… you know, museums are inherently colonial. there’s violence in the act of removing artifacts from the context of the place to which they belong, literal & metaphorical; i remember sitting in this park about three blocks away from the colosseum, fixating on the ridiculous privilege of an ancient civilization that had, however much, secured its right to coexist with its descendants, all while so many countries are calling for the british museum to return items rightfully theirs. whether artwork or ancient relics, there is just no removing an object from the environment it is local to and moving it to an institution for “safekeeping” and “preservation” that isn’t willful displacement, even outside of colonial contexts.

this landmine is unavoidable with museums, yet you can argue all of it, interestingly, about translation as well. both deal with the imperfect and incomplete and inherently violent; both purport to preserve and circulate yet will always remain only a mimetic mirror copy of the original. i think it’d be really cool to present the art of translation somehow in a museum, which you can argue is an institution that matches its energy perfectly. there’s a synergy there that i can’t help hungering to see.

you don’t have to read it, but i answered a similar question not too long ago (https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1344674638)! the tl;dr really is just that i love hsr, but unfortunately just didn’t like genshin at all.

i only made it to AR 50-something? which i realize isn’t very impressive, but i feel like... i did try... to give it an earnest shot... and devote myself to it in that time. granted, i played genshin for 2-3 months fairly recently vs. half a year of enjoying hsr even though the latter has been around for less time and technically has less content than an open world game that’s been out for years. the time frame very well could have played a huge part in my preferences, & i wonder if my game experience would have been different if i stuck with genshin for the same seasonal content that everyone is used to doing and/or interacted with the community to make more out of the canon material.

from a beginner/casual player perspective, a lot of the redeeming genshin elements people wanted to sell to me just seemed to be different ways of. idk. trying to make what’s actually there just work somehow. i absolutely understand wanting the media you love to be more than what it is (i mean, really, what is any media interaction except meeting a thing halfway) and who knows, maybe i would have liked certain things more if i was fed the same level of community activity most players i know seem to be. in the end, i just felt like genshin gave me nothing to work with, nothing to be invested in, and nothing worth staying around for.

you don’t have to read this part onwards but — while i found myself scratching my head at what people find appealing about genshin, that could also very well be how genshin players feel about hsr. i know some people who mainly play genshin seem to struggle with finding momentum with hsr content, and it just makes sense for that to be true vice versa for me. i don’t think it’s ultimately fair to compare the games bc we’re working with entirely different worlds, narratives, writing teams & game mechanics altogether. hsr is also given a variety of unprecedented privileges and resources, from its writers to the integration of player feedback, and the in-game quality of life is understandably much different. i am aware there’s a substantial amount of luxuries i get to enjoy that allows me to “prefer” hsr.

that said, even if you take away the player care, i think i also just happen to enjoy hsr’s gameplay and storytelling more, including the parts of it that are flawed! i don’t have a high threshold for sticking with things i don’t enjoy fully, & i admit i lack the patience to be immersed in a game that i felt was neither challenging/stimulating enough nor especially rewarding. it’s a shame genshin fell in that category for me, bc it truly is a visually beautiful game. there’s a slim chance i drop back in for chiori or playable columbina purely out of love for their designs, but otherwise… i’m sorry, genshin.

oh, i miss it every single day. sometimes i open a page for some masters program bc the missing got to me.

i do think it’s an experience better missed than lived, though; for better or for worse, i’m glad that’s the university life i got to have, that i forced myself into those interactions even though i still know in my heart i could have done better — but i also wouldn’t necessarily relive or redo it, you know? there’s always this sense in the back of my mind that hey, i am now a more well-medicated and mature version of the me that was attending all those classes with students older and smarter than me, so “ah, i wish this is the version of me that university got to have.” i wish i was this well-adjusted when i went to school. i wish i’d been able to absorb more, engage more, apply myself more, than how i was able to back then, & that i know i’m better able to now. but i think that’s true for just about anything in life, not just school. there will always be relationships and dynamics and environments that a different version of you will be the better fit for, and that’s how you know that version was only possible bc of that thing it was once incompatible for. that subconscious awareness tends to fuel the part of you that misses and yearns.

i guess what i mean to say is that yes, i do miss it so badly most days, but the missing usually shows up synonymous to the mourning on behalf of university era me. if that makes sense. i imagine it would feel even stranger for you, since literature courses benefited the most from discussion and that’s not really a dynamic you can self-engineer once you’re out of a school setting. i won’t tell you to enjoy it now while you still you can — god knows i’d just be rearing to get out in your place — but i do hope you are able to form tangible mementos of this particular experience somehow! it’s a shame how quickly memories leave us, but i hope there will be simple things to remember in the future. in my last few months, the things i held closest to heart were the inside jokes and shared exam season delirium.

i was in an especially terrible headspace for my last two years in uni, but no matter what, i also never want to be the kind of person who makes light of and acts with bitter pettiness about the education i received. i might about the institution of university & academia, yes, but i think both educators and students have their own things to be accountable to in this dynamic, especially at the uni level. i know i didn’t do enough on that front, but what my educators did for me, even the ones that other students talked shit about it but i could clearly feel were trying — i do want to honour them as i would any experience. part of that is allowing myself to miss or mourn the part of my life they belonged to.

but i’m just yapping now haha congratulations on making it to graduation !! i hope the rest of your school year passes smoothly, and that you get to celebrate such a wonderful milestone ✨

i suppose it is! though i genuinely don’t know when i would have discovered the song… it’s too popular not to just be one of those songs you’ve been hearing all your life, you know? like je ne regrette rien or fly me to the moon or clair de lune or twinkle twinkle little star. it’s like you’re born knowing the song just bc it’s everywhere before you even knew what songs were. maybe breakfast at tiffany’s was my first encounter with it? but even that already feels too late. i’m honestly not sure, i’m sorry. i do know i chose the title for the substack partly bc of the line in moon river and partly bc of the mark twain connection. huckleberry finn is my fav twain character, so it just lends that line from the song a little bit of heartache.

ohhhh :( i never know if it’s a good thing when people relate to either of the flls boys in the sense that that experience is not something i’d wish upon myself or anyone, but what fascinates me is how there’s this feeling of… wistfulness? almost? in how people describe this level of love. it makes me think oh wow there really is a kind of love that we as human beings give to one another without needing it returned to be real to us — the love will be there either way, and it will be immense and totalizing.

in any case i. don’t think you need to hear love advice from someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about. but i do want to say thank you for trusting me with putting your feelings in writing. i hope things work out between you and her, in whatever form that might take. i think it’s an immense privilege to be able to say “so, so much” about any emotion, and for that emotion to be love, and towards one person whom you can also call a best friend — i’m rooting for you and your heart. thank you for sparing my story even a sliver of the love you give to others 🤍

i have not but you had me at time loop 🤭 oh and it has analog/90s horror elements too? i can’t believe i’ve never thought to check it out before despite hearing news about it; it sounds perfectly like something i’d love. (and i hear you on preferring mcs with their own notable personality.) consider it ready to go on my switch once i finish my current game — thank you for thinking to bring it to my attention!

my anilist is so disorganized my god but to be fair i might as well have never seen pmmm with how long it’s been since i did 😢 but i have seen it and was likely thinking of it at some point in the context of non-human humans! magical girl media is an interesting variation on it bc it’s almost… an advanced form of human? rather than a reduced form of humanity? i see the same element of longing i love, though in this case it’s to be equipped with a form/power that will ostensibly address the vulnerability of being without it.

pmmm’s version of the magical girl narrative is such a specific example of non-human humans bc it posits elevation of the self to the point that you give up humanhood. or at least paying your humanhood as the literal cost of the safety of something that goes beyond just the human/individual level. i Would argue pmmm is about being ultimately human, neither reduced nor elevated from that. whether it’s homura’s motivations or sayaka’s arc or how each of the girls embody grief in different ways, it’s bc they’re so human that the events of the story unfold (again and again) and that they’re used as pawns in a grander scheme of creation. their fatal flaws lie in how they long to be more Than human rather than long to be more human, which you can argue is the same but i also think pmmm explores the question of how... can you really be more than human, bodily, and still be human, emotionally?

i might have mentioned pmmm very briefly in a newsletter thing about blue lock, but like bllk, it’s just a nice example of how some media so subvert the genre they descend from that in doing so, they signal the death of those classic tropes as we know it. pmmm did so for the magical girl era, but in the context of the non-human humans business, this post is always somewhere in the back of my mind: https://x.com/curewiki/status/1180163641070346240?s=20

i think both mecha and magical girl stories benefit a lot from body horror, if not outright require it; mecha tends to be almost clinical with it, while magical girl media can’t help themselves from being picturesque, but there’s a blood cost to being a mecha pilot and a magical girl, both literal and metaphorical. so i always love when people treat pmmm as a horror story; there’s nothing quite as horrific as being trapped in this eternal universal time loop where you are compelled to protect something that cannot quite protect you in return.

idk if i have any similar titles in mind other than revolutionary girl utena is, which — i mean. is probably the only other super popular “magical girl” media “subversion” to be just as singular as madoka. but both pmmm and rgu do have two of the most memorable instances of the dehumanized saviour archetype to me. there’s just something so sophoclean about like. pursuing an ultimate ideal in the name of humane empathy and the cost of that pursuit being exactly that empathy. it’s such an ancient, primordial irony. i love it.

ahhh this is always the hardest writing question for me to answer bc i’ve also been trying for years now to figure out what my writing style even is… it’s something that comes up a lot when people talk to me about my writing, but i guess the answer to your question is that no, ofc i didn’t practice the style itself. or at least not consciously.

i think… i know what feels good to write bc i know what interests me to write in fiction, but stylistically speaking, if i had to describe what i want my style to be doing at its best, it will probably just be what one of my personality typologies describes as “an interesting and layered argument where concepts form together in a pleasing way.” or maybe something that “covers more ground in reasoning, leading to longer arguments: the reason for this is they want to make it easy for the other person to change their mind internally.” i find i like to prioritize clarity and/or coherence of thought, which to be fair doesn’t exactly leave much room for beauty. some stats you have to choose to buff over others in a way, and a pretty/poetic style was never at the top of my list bc too much of it can get in the way of presenting my “arguments,” for lack of a better word. whatever strengths my writing has, i can prob credit to how i’ve tried writing in so many different areas. as a playwright, in a legal setting, as a journalist, film critic, columnist, a podcast scriptwriter, blah, blah, blah. other languages have also likely done a lot in changing my style! especially latin. i guess i’ve had to argue for some kind of point in so many capacities, and i wouldn’t be surprised if all that has taught me a thing or two about how to approach my writing “style” 😓

it’s beyond flattering to think you’d want to imitate my style at all, but a point i do want to end on is just that — i’d say my writing really isn’t very special, let alone beautiful. i’m like if a math theorist was a writer, and i think that’s reflected a lot in my writing. i like working from an infinite amount of variables to make something orderly and self sustained.

i’m not sure how to turn that into proper advice, but the main takeaway would likely be to try a bunch of things! writing isn’t just english literature & poetry. there are so many parts of the formula to balance, and there’s something to learn from every genre: bare bones clarity from news journalism, dialogue from movie scripts, using verbs economically from this or that language. the wider your arsenal is, the more comfortable you’ll be intuitively pulling from what’s necessary to serve your point across the best. if that makes sense.

i think there are stories out there that are made for you and your specific tastes, and hsr is one for me. it is by no means a perfect game; there are moments it holds back when it shouldn’t and ends up a little too subtle, and other times where it just straight up doesn’t commit to The Thing even with the full buffet right there. i understand this must feel unsatisfying to a particular kind of player, especially ones that only care about one region or a handful of characters, but i have had a blast. i have a little note where i write down every theme, device, motif and trope i love that it has hit and i think we were at 51 the last time i added to it? i feel like every mission, big or small, takes me by surprise even when i actively try to feel nothing for it so i can get it done. it’s not always deep emotion, but everything — and i do truly mean Everything — is interesting to me. i just find it a solidly interrogated collection of characters and stories; it’s not often i am pleasantly surprised by the route a story takes even when the boring archetypal trope would have been neater and easier. the game as a whole is just very dear to my space fantasy loving heart, but then you throw in doomed characters and relationships, very cool divinity lore, stories about everyday citizens, found families, torn found families, beautiful stunning breathtaking architecture — and there was no way i wouldn’t give it my whole heart.

i love the lore integrated into game mechanics, the visuals, the endgame content. i also feel… taken care of? as a player? i’ve never agonized over gacha pulling, building characters is both fun and demanding and has dopamine-producing payoff. nothing feels impossible or miserable, and there are so many complex backgrounds in the story to keep my brain very happy and never bored. i thought i’d be using the autoplay option a lot more bc that’s what a friend recommended hsr to me for, since i’m not much of a battle game player, but surprisingly i’ve never wanted to? i love the strategizing & the higher ranked fights. i did wish we had more puzzles, but it seems like penacony is leaning into all of that with dreamspace mechanics and the murder mysteries. it’s So fun.

i did give genshin a shot quite recently! a former coworker hooked me with the wriothesley & kunikuzushi backstories, i gave in and played for a couple months, made it to fontaine, but unfortunately… i fell asleep while playing on more than one occasion. it was that dull for me. which is terrible, and it wasn’t that i liked nothing, but the interesting bits were small, few and far between. mainly sumeru. i found it a low-effort game, not just on the devs’ part but mine as well. even when i tried to meet it halfway and just enjoy the ride, there was no challenge, no stimulation. they’re not trying, i don’t have to try — why are we here, you know? but it could also very well have just been a matter of incompatibility, and i do think it’s a truly visually stunning game.

i saw oh my god i was so surprised !! i’ve only seen people online react negatively to it, but i actually really liked it? i love that she leaned into her rasp at that register, and i do think she chose a good one to cover from the album. she lends the song a suburban nostalgia, which is a nice distinction from the emotion and vibe-building (?) of the original.

this is the first time i’ve been asked actually! not an especially fun story, though: it was just the name of a band i was writing in a haikyuu au at the time, with the lazy reference to the tokyo teams being called city boys by the story. it was just. too much of a hassle to spend time and energy on a usernames. and since the pseud i was using right before i made cityboys had also been inspired by an actual real life band name that i thought was cool, i just defaulted to the same logic when it was time to create a new one 😓

hmm… if i may, and i promise i point this out without any ill intentions, i think the concept of people not being able to stay together universally is its own separate issue, as is you losing interest the moment it’s official and/or committed between you and another person? i think i’m just struggling to find what the connection is — the way it’s worded here implies that you lose interest the moment you say yes to being someone’s partner. i read that a few times to make sure i’m not misunderstanding, but i really do apologize if i’ve misinterpreted your words.

i’m not sure how to put this gently, but i feel like this is less poetic or sentimental in nature and more just. a related matter of some variation on an avoidant-dismissive insecure attachment style. not to clinicalize it, of course, but it sounds — and i could totally be putting words in your mouth — like you go through cycles of being obsessed with people and romanticizing what you could have with them, then feeling bored/scared the moment it becomes Too attached. whether or not you feel this way bc you know most people eventually break it off or get bored is, to me, a moot point. yes, it’s unfortunate, and yes, i am also a cynic about relationships, but i do softly have to draw the line at speaking of potential partners like they’re objects you need around bc of loneliness or societal pressure or whatnot, let alone objects you have to get used to having around.

maybe it’s my naivete or my lack of firsthand knowledge of requited romantic dynamics speaking here, but i do feel like people who haven’t figured themselves out bring volatility to any relationship that they expect to do the work for them. that’s not a bad thing in itself, some people might argue that’s what relationships are for — and yet i just don’t think the onus should be on any future partner of yours to prove you wrong if you yourself are aware of your tendency to lose interest and/or think jadedly about the longevity of the relationship. i think long-term relationships are a choice, for better or for worse. if even one party among those involved aren’t capable of making the choice for the betterment and compromise of both, then ofc the relationship is already doomed. but i think you already know you’re the reason your relationships fail.

i think staying together bc of some overarching powerful force is a myth. on that, i’m on your side — but i also think that means you have more choice than you realize in relationships, always. being robbed of the choice, whether by your own doing or your own history with attachment, means being robbed of relationships as relationships should be before any of them even begin. i think that’s very sad — but again, it’s not my intention to attack you, or to be needlessly cruel. that’s all i wanted to say, really, though i know you weren’t necessarily looking for a response: that it’s sad, and on that much, i understand what a dead end you might be feeling cornered to.

ohhh i empathize so much… i have my fav animanga listed on my anilist if you want an easy way to click and see the summaries: https://anilist.co/user/173cm/ but few (if any) are fixation-worthy, honestly. you know how people say that men need a little ugly to be truly, truly hot instead of just nice to look at? i think that often about media. perfect media don’t invite fanaticism to the point of insane and delusional love. people want to believe it does, that what they’re going crazy over is just That good, but — idk. maybe it’s just me, but perfect stuff has a sense of settled, in-control-of-yourself contentment. but things that are good yet have that one small thing that’s subconsciously off, or just outright terrible media — those make us crazy.

that was tangential, though. sorry. but hmm… maybe it’s time to look a little bit to the left of animanga? like webtoons/manhwa, or danmei, or donghua. if you haven’t watched link click, it has two seasons and i find it’s a good universal recommendation, especially to anyone looking for something new without straying too far from the familiar. maybe a super long novel turned manhwa? like orv? you might have already ventured into both of these, actually. i’m sorry if you have, or if none of these sound like they’re up your alley… i hope you find something to relight the spark :(

i have been drinking so much tea lately. like. so much. three teapots worth a day at minimum. this milk oolong i bought in bulk is so good. idk how i’m doing mentally or emotionally bc it’s definitely low enough for me to be better off ignoring it, but my headspace itself is just. Tea. i want a cup of oolong or a london fog the moment i wake up and the moment right before i pass out. i want it in between meals. in between any movement. that’s the only important part of how i’m doing.

my daily media consumption has mostly been split between my weekly animes of the season and my silly little mobile game. which is how it was last fall. and last summer. i feel like i haven’t really had the time for anything at all recently, and i’ve just been trying to keep up with what i have on my plate. which i promise is nowhere near as saddened/bitter as it sounds. as for work… last week, i had my final day at a job i’ve wanted to quit from literally day one, and it’s both a load off my shoulders and a constant but bizarre reminder of the habits it planted in me that will take a while to unlearn. at least i get to sleep in and focus on only one job for now. and drink a lot of tea without being stuck in three-hour meetings 🍵

i’ve also really come to terms in the last few months with sci-fi being my most favoured speculative fiction genre, so i’ve enjoyed exploring/rediscovering short stories from liu cixin, ursula k. le guin, ken liu, etc. for music, i’ve teetered from songs that put me in the body of a high school senior in an after-school band with the closest and unlikeliest friends one will make in a lifetime (liberators by magic of life, time of our life by day6, ryusei by meychan… i have a whole playlist. it was my first one of the year. it was just that kind of january.) to classic wintertime music (the japanese house’s cover of super trouper, my fav abba song; vienna by the army, the navy; riverside by ann annie, the new searows drops)

writing-wise, i’ve been scribbling out some original manuscript fragments, a little bit of hsr stuff... but i haven’t really written anything properly in months, tbh. they’ve been more like. half-scenes drafted in the notes app/untitled docs. it’s very strange for me to go through winter without writing more than 10k words, but maybe it’s not such a bad sign. i do need to wet the ink sometime soon and find momentum again.

in any case i am sending you all the love and warmth in return !! thank you so much for checking in, and i hope 2024 has been kind to you so far 🩷

around the time you sent in this cc, funnily enough, i think my city was in the middle of a snowstorm… the biting cold hasn’t lasted long enough… it’s february and it already feels like spring is around the corner ahhh

but hello!! this is an interesting question! i wouldn’t really say i’m much of a purist about the basics, actually. i’m of the opinion that any rule, from grammar to genre requirements, can be broken to serve your purpose. i think there’s always a place for Any writing choice — or rather, there’s a choice that will always be, if not the best one, then better than all the others. that can be first person pov, or deliberately messy tenses, or no quotation marks in dialogue, or how trust by hernan diaz was told in four different narrative “formats.” i agree completely that sometimes a mood can only be created with a particular choice. that also goes for certain themes, certain sentiments, certain perspectives. it’s part of the fun in writing prose to go for the unforeseeable. from my experience, it’s when i stray from the original path that i have run into the answers i need.

i also think “good writing” is helped by hijacking the voice inside someone’s head, or (in the case of someone who doesn’t have that naturally) inventing one altogether for them. that generally requires doing away with propriety altogether, not to mention the demands of english are so arbitrary and specific only to itself that any rules there are to play by are not truly codified. it’s kinda like being a knight sworn to the crown: you’re bound by loyalty and duty to whoever is on that throne, and you must serve and guide them, but if that monarch’s interests were to go against the interests of the kingdom, then it’s also within your duty as a knight to do something about that. idk why that’s the analogy i went for — but you know what i mean.

by-the-book writing is often vulnerable to being sterile writing, unfortunately. you can’t be the fixer of something you’re not willing to witness broken, & writing comes down to maintaining the illusion that the words on the page are so raw they emerged exactly as the reader is seeing them.

anyway !! all this to say that ever since sally rooney came into fame, more and more contemporary authors Have stopped using quotation marks and it’s become something of a trend — at which point it’s no longer an authorial choice, and when that’s the case, it shows. it’s a bit unfortunate, though sometimes that or lapslock really is the only choice. either way and regardless, i’m willing to give reading and/or writing anything a shot at least once.

in the end, you serve the story no matter what. that means being down to do anything it asks for. there’s no reason formatting or style or punctuation should be excluded from that. if that makes sense. so if you ask me, it actually makes a writer the opposite of lazy to seek and settle on whatever that right choice might be.

i answered another cc right before penacony but i stand by it after 2.0 😊 https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1341950496

can’t promise anything, and a significant part of me would rather not dip into anything that brings me closer to the rot at the heart of that particular corner of hyv online communities, but the temptation is very much there, and especially now that i have so much canon info and interactions to work with. yet hsr is also my sacred little thinking space and idk if i want to taint that with my own writing, etc. we shall see, but thank you for asking.

just listened to it and omg… flls yuuji… my sweet boy… the quiet pang of that one conversation where he talks about how being with megumi is so good that it leaves him grateful to have the same body he’s always hated for needing so much. my god. not sure yet where i want to place it in the playlist order, but it’s in there… thank you for thinking of this story and for taking the time to drop me a message about the song :(

wait you’re so right !! it’s been forever, huh? idk if you mean my twt pfp or this one (it’s odd, cc hasn’t really allowed pfp changes for me since the last time it went down, though believe me, i have wanted to) but i remember when i would be changing my twt pfp 15 times in the same 30mins… i do quite like this current one! maybe bc i’m not as active on my main twt as i once was, but i haven’t really felt the need to change it for once hehe 🤭

a belated happy new year! i have some mixed feelings about a certain group of… newsletter influencers? pop culture commentary people who have been afforded authority despite generally unoriginal content. so i refrain from indulging in substack-famous ones too much, but would definitely still recommend lists of popular ones on the site.

that said, i have a few substacks named here, if it’s okay for me to link back: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1327590591

i quite enjoy the tone of the musician flatsound’s personal newsletter, too: https://www.flatsound.org/blog. and i have been obsessed with zoe suen since the impressionable age of twelve and have been following her around since: https://floss.substack.com/

happy 2024! oooh that’s a tricky one… maybe not overtly christmas-y, but i spent most of the christmases of my childhood between my grandparents and a school/group home run by nuns, so it was a lot of 4am masses and scalding oregano tea to wake me up and reruns of prince of egypt, which was the only film i was allowed to watch that was. idk. catholic enough?

i really enjoy the yuletide season in teenage/young adult life, though! many perfectly bittersweet memories of bonding with people in the cold and bookstore hopping trips and conversations that last until the streetcars are no longer running. otherwise, i usually just sleep through christmas and nye these days at my biological mother’s place. she always works on christmas and nye and i get to have a house all to myself. the days around it are often busy enough to sustain the celebratory energy: my friends do an annual powerpoint night, i get to visit schoolmates that moved to another province, lots of hot chocolate and fancy black tea and shortbread cookies. it’s a naturally quiet time for a naturally quiet disposition to thrive, so anything within this time period is celebration enough.

a very late happy new year right back to you !!! i am months late to the greeting, but i am also wishing you love and comfort in turn 💗

i honestly just go with the flow, though! i don’t keep track of my firsts and lasts, new year or otherwise. too much going on in my life at any given moment, i think, but i’m probably just not very sentimental about naturally ephemeral things. i’ve tried to be aware of my first read of the year in the past, but it felt a little too much like being more bound to something than choosing it by intuitive attachment so i just. abandoned the endeavour entirely. i do try to listen to up the wolves by the mountain goats at some point at the start of the year, like a little hype song, but not to the degree that i need it as my first song. there are also poems and fragments that come to mind as the year is ending, but i find that my heart is steadier when it lets the natural passage of time act as time does rather than anchor it to equally transient landmarks.

hmm… mostly bc i highly doubt it will ever happen, i think it’s not so much disgust as it is a simpler aversion? of course i would be flattered, and i’m sure i’m not immune to feeling validated and/or gratified by it, but i’d very likely just find a way to make sure i never stumble upon any pages/reviews/press about me even by accident. having the necessary words muted online and only looking at comments when i’m logged in is its own level of emotional labour as it is; i struggle to imagine having to manage that at a much bigger scale. i’m thankful enough right now as a fic writer to know there are conversations about my work that can exist outside of my own experience and accrue dedicated followings of their own via word of mouth, and it’s exactly bc of this that it’s the kind of gratitude best preserved and honoured with distance. that will remain true even if i were to become a “professional” writer. if that makes sense.

i also just don’t like the bureaucracy of having to be a person, let alone a person tied to writing. i don’t like being expected to champion my own writing, or to take pride in it on principle, or to use it in service of some overarching agenda, whether it’s pr/marketing or talking to press or having my info pieced together in a wikipedia page based off all the things i said in other places. being a famous/wikipedia-official writer implies much of that has had to take place, you know what i mean?

i guess i prefer to keep my relationship to craft untouchable — though not out of any sense of purity! or bc i consider myself especially talented, which i don’t, but bc i work best as myself, with myself. i prefer pursuing what i want exactly as i want within my current ability. anything that can intrude on that is unwanted. plus if one hinges their art and/or motivation on finite resources like public goodwill or attention or a self-brand, then the art and motivation itself will be finite, and thereby unreliable. there is only room for two heart-sized entities in a two-person dynamic, and that goes for a relationship with writing as well.

fame — by which people really mean increased visibility — isn’t the sort of thing you should let poison your objectivity and sense of self. if it befalls me, i’ll be grateful and will act according to duty, but it should change nothing with writing itself, nor should being witnessed be motivation if there is no truth in the performance. i’ll take great pains to ensure that, even if it means running off to some underwater cave to write 😓

sorry if this is pretentious omg i’m also gagging

the word limit doesn’t leave me nearly enough space for all the love, gratitude & apology i want to convey, but thank you, thank you, thank you—for minding my boundaries, for the well wishes, for caring about the flls world so deeply, and i am so sorry for taking so long to reply to such a heartfelt message. this means the universe to me. thank you.

i’m not immune myself to thinking about them during the holidays, funnily enough! flls yuuji played off having to spend the holidays with his friends, but i imagine there’s no shrugging off being the plus one, no matter how warm junpei’s mother or nobara’s grandmother might be. the warmth will always be an extension of someone else’s holiday ritual. i think... there’s a feeling of wholeness that comes naturally with ownership. it’s not like yuuji’s asking to be made complete by someone else’s family; the loss of his family will always be an unfillable blank. but having a ritual at all to call your own goes a long way with the flls boys, and as bittersweet as it must be for him to be fully integrated into megumi’s massive family, it’s also the closest he’s had in years to a stable home. that’s why the okinawa trip was so crucial, and why yuuji responded in kind by bringing megumi to his grandpa’s grave; megumi needed to show yuuji that he was wanted & needed by his family, yes, but that this family is also yuuji’s bc it was megumi’s.

megumi & gojo’s birthdays got buried by the wedding chaos in flls, but i like to think it’s a yearly Thing any other december, especially once all the youngest members of the family are living in different prefectures and tsumiki has a whole husband and kid. so the gojo-geto household will probably be bustling for days during the one week everyone can coordinate for time off, with one big christmas party on the 24th that geto & megumi have to emotionally brace for each year. (there’s a blink in flls of maki & yuuta generally hiding from the chaos by chilling in one of the rooms.) megumi & nanako are bickering over tsumiki’s baby, gojo’s eating more than he is helping geto & yuuji cook six dishes for 50+ guests, mimiko’s the only one free to answer the doorbell. the last guest (shoko) leaves at like 4am, at which point itfs are both warm from eggnog drinks, the company & endless food. they get their best sleep of the year before driving back to chiba the next day drowsy & full.

i believe christmas day is more for romance than family in japan (part of megumi’s issue in their flls argument), and it’s probably hard to avoid being reminded of that one fight every year, but that’s also more reason for it to be Their day. they stay at home and heat up something from the mountain of tupperwares they brought back from the gojo-geto home and laze around peeling oranges for each other under the kotatsu. lazy kisses. quiet music. yuuji must have a list of christmas movies he makes megumi watch. which is to say yes, i think you have it dead-on with that final description ❤️

oh! i’ve never considered writing for hsr, now that you mention it. hsr is very, very good to me. every narrative train of thought and/or dynamic i could have turned to fic to pursue, they already pursued for me, even if in fragments. the existing fics in the tag are also surprisingly fulfilling for a primarily genfic reader like me, the fanart is great, the lore is more interesting than i could have ever produced from my tiny little brain. i’ve been having so much fun as it is, and penacony will probably give me even more food.

that said ☝️ i know myself and the lengths i will go to write a non-romantic dynamic i love into an au less monotonous for me than a short and simple study, so if i have to write aventio to put ratio, ruan mei, herta & screwllum in the same room — you know i will. everyone has written all the high cloud quintet i could want. i have a playlist that i tear up to nightly. that’s all well and done. the nerds, though… and aventurine’s potential backstory based on what we know about how topaz joined the ipc and his tattoo… i think i’ll have a lot of fun with that. sometimes you hear a character speak for the first time and you snap your fingers and go — yep. you. you and my writing will get along swimmingly. that’s me with aventurine. i think i literally went “ohhhh you and i could have so much fun together” when we were introduced to him. i have a gut feeling about what vibes are waiting there, and i admit i’m itching to write something i haven’t done before.

i mean, i’d love nothing more than to write the slice of life au where everyone is alive and sane and dan heng is just rich ceo imbibitor lunae’s younger brother who’s in college and rooming with march, stelle and caelus — but i also know myself and the stuff that will interest current me to write. it’s really only aventio i can see fulfilling that prerequisite, i fear. do i like them like that? not quite yet. but with their lightcone and the temptation of a chronic gambler with a survival complex and a well-intentioned but temperamental professor having this loaded, complicated relationship — the fic’s basically written. it’s there. when i say fics emerge fully formed, this is what i mean. there’s fake marriage and guns and terrible nightmares and the difficulty of intimacy when you treat life as something to win and something to teach and be taught, respectively. i am also watching the new mr. and mrs. smith right now.

the tl;dr is: if i ever do write for hsr, it will probably be aventurine-ratio related. with a complicated genius society + ratio friendship. but it could very well be that hsr will have written the story for me by the time we’re done with 2.0.

(also: i liked the hunger games as a kid and still do. many thoughts; none original.)

i am a shameless pirate-r of books haha (zlib, anna’s archive, vk, you know the usual sites), though partly bc i’m also a shameless buyer and borrower. something about it all balancing out in the economic system. which could or could not be true. lately, i’ve been trying out audiobooks as well thanks to spotify offering some free ones. still not a preferred format for me, personally, but the accessibility helps.

is it libby that you use to borrow from your local library? some people have also recommended hoopla, i believe… i’m sorry that i can’t offer more resources for legal access :(

oh no no, you have nothing to apologize for. i must say things like that a lot. yesterday, i opened a fortune cookie that was like, “you have a basic need for solitude.” and i was like. well yes! basic need was a surprisingly perfect way of putting it. i just can’t stand having to be with people in the same way i can’t stand being hungry. i live with quite a few, but my room is in a basement that’s basically a separate unit, and everyone kind of understands that i’ll just never be the kind of housemate that seeks out company. whether it’s going to the movies, concerts, plays, the amusement park — i’ve always had more fun going to things by myself. so in some regard, i might be a more extreme case.

my point is that i fully empathize with where you’re coming from, and let me tell you that — even if you love your family and have a healthy relationship with them — if you have the opportunity to try living by yourself, i would take it. especially knowing you might never get this chance again. it isn’t even a question to me. i absolutely would take it, in your shoes. you ask a really great question, about letting yourself have a taste of something good if a taste is all it will be, but i personally live life seeing everything as limited. there’s always a finite amount of things. the lack of infinity is in itself infinite. to me, that means it’s never reason enough to not pursue something. sure, there will be moments where you have to quit something before it’s even begun bc the end will come too soon, like relationships and career paths, but that’s a matter of resources that might be best preserved if you decline something that would deplete it. in this case, staying with your family when you have the chance to not IS depleting your resources as much as living separately will have its own costs. might as well choose the costly thing that comes with some pros, if you ask me.

there will always be norms wherever you go, whatever you do, and statistically speaking, there’s no way you won’t break a few in your life. you might as well stop tracking which ones, is what i always think. it’s hard, when loving yourself means choosing that love over the duty and obligation we feel towards family, and i acknowledge that that’s a corner of my life that i learned to harden my heart to and can’t speak to your own experience, but on the base level, none of that weighs as much as not choosing air if it’s offered to you after a life underwater. basic need for solitude, right?

some friends have told me they only learned to love their family once they started living on their own, which i’ve always found curious. i wouldn’t go as far as to promise you that. but i do know that experiences will always be limited. that’s exactly why we choose them when we have the opportunity to. you don’t have to help the universe limit them. but this is just what i think; i’m in your corner no matter what you choose, and truly wish you all the best.

it’s wild you ask about these pairings specifically bc i have both of them muted to the moon and back :( it’s weird, you’d think being a rnbcis-ist would make at least rinsagi appeal to me but unfortunately it just. doesn’t. i often think that chemistry / writing characters is a matter of balancing formulas, and i just can’t see a well-written or interesting rnis romantically. kaisagi Does have potential, and there’s a particular flavour of their dynamic i would like to see, but i rarely ever encounter it in the people who like them together. i’ve found it’s just safer to have both these pairings out of sight, out of mind.

i think it’s also that… sometimes you see a popular pairing and can sense what sort of characterization must be driving the popularity in Some part. i personally see nothing in the canon material that generates any chemistry worth pursuing. i see why they have a following, but i just find both… stale? and very, very prone to the kind of mischaracterization that makes me a bit unkind bc if you’re gonna like these characters and ship them bc of that then why are they not acting like themselves, you know? with pairings, boring to write is often unfortunately boring to think about in the first place. i like a bit more friction in my pairings, and i admit i’m very easy to lose otherwise, no matter (or maybe especially) if appealing tropes are involved.

tl;dr: there will always be people who find pairings like these two appealing, and i guess i’m just not very fun in that regard. but it’s not personal. i also don’t mean to sound pretentious or judgy about it. i just… am careful to a fault about the dynamics i circle around, both in my media and the literal relationships and rhythms you gotta be wary of within fandoms. these two pairings don’t quite make the cut, and to prevent myself from being maybe uncharitable about that, it’s best to just have the pairings far away from where i can bite.

oh man i’m sorry to admit i loved algebra 😢 sometimes i do easy practice sets to dispel a bit of the brain fog my meds give me. not that i can talk since i’m like. even stupider than usual when it comes to math.

and haha idk about going professional ever with writing (not bc i underestimate my ability to try hard enough! i wouldn’t say i’m good enough to be a professional writer, but it’s mostly the pitching and paperwork and bureaucracy and publicity of that life that makes me want to curl up into a ball and roll off a cliff at the mere thought) but you’re very, very kind, thank you.

i have not :( i’ve had the first book/volume queued on my ipad for so long now bc my algorithm loves to recommend it again and again (maybe bc sci-fi is one of my most consumed genres…?) but i just. have never gotten around to finishing the final arc of my current uber-long web novel. i also need to read lord of the mysteries at some point. god. so much potentially great stuff to consume, so little free time.

little mushroom is very much on my radar, though! i wonder what about it is so reminiscent of hairpin turns? not that you have to answer — i’ve heard only good things about little mushroom so this is quite the honour, thank you. i’m relieved to hear my first foray into genre fiction can hold up even a tiny bit 😓

no exactly !! one thing about sae is that he will serve !! never seen a character so allergic to not getting what he wants. even if he has to destroy self esteem and a relationship and a half in the process.

sae is like… if the heir to the throne of a nation with much at stake and a history of turning against their kings were to suddenly abdicate the line of succession and decide that instead of putting his genius to governing a nation that feels entitled to his skills, he’ll look for a monarch willing to go the mile for their own people and act as a cutthroat advisor to them. what i loved first about sae is his palpable desire to not be part of the Japanese Soccer narrative; he refuses to belong to japan. they can call him japan’s treasure, they can glorify his skills, but none of these are necessary nor even a testament to his own evaluation of his worth and talent. people read this as secret self-deprecation, but sae isn’t blind to his own competence. there is nothing in this boy’s mind but football; he’s never had a life without and outside of it. he loves the sport, and so he values people who are dogged about their pursuit and love of it.

shidou only warmed up to sae when he realized he didn’t just talk a big game — that sae was actually good, and that he expects shidou to be as well. they wouldn’t accept each other if they were giving any less of their absolute best to football. i think characterization of sae thrives with that in mind: that this is a guy who loves his spreadsheets and his data, bc he wants to know exactly what he’s working with and not the fluff and facades of people’s personal bullshit. he wants results, and he wants them as perfect as you can give, even if you’re not sure of what that looks like yourself. he doesn’t care. he wants it, and you better want it, too. he’s willing to ask for the same thing from himself, and to coach unpolished gems like shidou into giving more of himself bc he Knows shidou can.

idk. i love that sae’s self-preserving above all, and that he’s uncompromising. he’s not immoveable to criticism bc he believes he’s beyond reproach; whatever problems you can levy against sae, he has already foreseen and addressed them. i love that he hates the institution of soccer (in the scene where aiku asks him to give up shidou, his first reply is to make sure aiku’s asking as the u20 captain and not bc of “the adults in the association”) but loves the sport unequivocally. i love that he was about to leave the u20 match after making sure rin is fine, but couldn’t help staying when aiku said he can have his pet demon for the remaining half. it’s not quite freedom if it’s a cage of your own making, but if you ask me, sae seems just fine with his own trajectory. whatever tragedies are there are already set in stone, but there’s a lot of stubbornness in him making sure that the same system that champions players like his brother do not do so at the cost of players like shidou. it’s so fascinating.

i have… a soft spot… for the when harry met sally confession scene:

“I love that you get cold when it's 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle above your nose when you're looking at me like I'm nuts. I love that after I spend the day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it's not because I'm lonely, and it's not because it's New Year's Eve. I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

it’s a flawed movie that doesn’t rank in my top three romcoms of all time (bringing up baby, 10 things i hate about you + say anything), but nora ephron is The romance writer, i can’t deny it. the amount of knowing in that confession. the amount of observing. the implicit “this is who you are to me, and i love you, and this is who i’ll spend the rest of my life with. not bc i’m lonely and you’re who’s available, but bc it’s you.”

not really a confession scene, but since i already brought up say anything, my favourite lloyd line is: “Maybe I didn't really know you. Maybe you were just a mirage. Maybe the world is full of food and sex and spectacle and we're all just hurling towards an apocalypse, in which case it’s not your fault.” and my favourite diane line: “Everything else means nothing to me. If I hurt you again, I'll die. I love you.”

persuasion by jane austen has the ultimate exes dynamic: “You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.”

my all-time fav romance arc is kim gongja and raviel ivansia from sss-class revival hunter, but if i shared all my fav confessions between them, i’ll be far over the word limit. a few are:

— “Perhaps it’s hypocritical, but I wanted to let you know that I’m here, thinking of you and protecting you. If I can just manage that, how blessed would it be?”

— “I’m happy to be with you. It would be an exaggeration to say I lived this life just to meet you, but it isn't a lie to say I'll live for you. What a relief. I could say that without a single lie.”

— “Are you listening? I am happy because of you. I don't want to lose you. I don't want to let go of the time I've spent with you like this. [...] I want to see your days. I want to say goodnight to you. Your days will surely make me smile, and evenings with you will be happy. I want my smile and your happiness to overlap.”

i don’t read many romance novels, i realize... mostly romance movies and manhwas, of which i’m sure i have many other fav scenes. but these are all i got for now, tysm for the charming question 🥰

yessssss i love triads partly bc i find them so fulfilling to read/write, full stop, and partly bc i think they’re a fascinating look at just. the politics and poetics of relationships. insert all the necessary caveats about how a pretence of “polyamory” has been used in harmful ways by individuals in power dynamics that serve them more than their partner, but that’s not what i’m looking for in a triad. i’ve always been of the opinion that no one person should shoulder the onus of being our capital p Person, and that to work off that expectation and need is to compromise what can make a relationship fulfilling in the first place. i mean, obviously, relationships shouldn’t be subjected to asset valuation like they’re stocks, but in a way, they Are chemical formulas to me. you can’t leave unstable ones alone, bc they’ll always be in danger of exploding, of corroding, of being a hazard, etc. but stable chemical equations make up the world we live in, and a healthy relationship should always have the ability and agency to stabilize itself. that’s true even in fiction. sometimes the stabilizing factor is a third person. something you’re both your best selves bc you love this third person, and they love you both, and you love each other through the love only possible bc three people are powering it into existence.

maybe it’s bc i don’t understand romance, i get that, but i think it’s possible to love more than one person. maybe the degrees vary, as does the nature of the love, but i’m just really interested in the kinds of dynamics possible with three people in the equation. rnbcis is such a good example mostly bc canon already makes them a triad. rin and isagi as mirrors of the outer self, bachira and rin as mirrors of the inner self, bachira and isagi as the bridge between all three. once you cut away all the running gags of isagi not knowing how rnbc can have chemistry with each other and the angst of both rnbc and rnis, all three of them have something to learn about love, desire & selfhood in giving and receiving from one another. more, i would argue, than in their pairing iterations. why would i deny them the best that this love could be?

i don’t always think that about triads, to be fair. it has to make sense as much as any pairing has to make sense. just bc there’s more people to divide the work of a relationship across doesn’t mean the work isn’t what it is. that said, i know people say trios don’t work, but is that really the inherent fault of the number or the people in it? love is hard work, everything is a choice, etc. why is being in a triad any different? i think there’s immense fun in seeing love as a bigger circle. when it makes sense, it’s an irreplaceable kind of fulfillment, and an infinite kind of love. at least i think so.

i think… if love for writing isn’t there anymore, and you’re writing anyway, then that must mean it’s not for love that you’re writing — right? is that fair for me to say? bc with that angle in mind, i don’t think doing something without love can ever be an act i would encourage in such totality. there are things you’ll have to do even when they feel like a chore, lives to live where love won’t be enough to change how difficult it is, but if writing doesn’t have to be one of them, then no, i don’t think you should keep trying. or rather, i don’t think you should keep trying to resurrect love that isn’t there anymore. you can’t get back something that has died; it will always be a shadow of its former self, if not like. a mutated abomination. in place of what you think you’re reviving. you can’t ever find something else to be what it was to you, bc there’s no replacing a love that was real under only a specific set of factors. what writing meant to you once, if it’s truly dead — let it go, breathe, and take a step back, is what i would say.

but that doesn’t mean a new love won’t form in the future. that you’ll return to writing someday and find that you miss it, and the missing it is as intense as loving it, and that there’s the beginning of a new kind of love there. writing will never be inaccessible to you. ever. it will be there if ever you choose to return. even when you’re 80 and you find that the reason writing started feeling like a chore is bc the limited attention span and constant screen > page approach of the 2020s got to you — you can always revisit writing then. stories don’t die, whether yours or someone else’s. the less of them we get in today’s world, the more we want them, whether or not we realize that’s what it is. i think that will always be true, bc it’s a truth that will change with us, you know?

i also think that just bc you feel it’s time to let writing go right now doesn’t mean you’re severing your tie to art, nor to whatever craft might mean to you at any point. i know it’s bittersweet to end a relationship where the love fizzled out, but too much love can burn anyone out, maker or receiver. if writing was a refuge and to hold onto it is to stubbornly hold onto the you that needed that refuge — i think writing will be glad to know it’s no longer needed. it’s a difficult stance to decide on, but i’d rather art be unnecessary bc its ability to be a balm is no longer needed than for it to be trapped at our beck-and-call for functions that aren’t natural to it. you should never insist on keeping something with the prerequisite that it must be unconditionally worth keeping.

i know that i should probably be telling you to hold onto writing, that this is the more human, emotional approach to it — but i really do believe it’s fine to let go when you feel it’s time. just as i think it’s okay to be happy, and that it’s okay to have a life beyond the thing that ensure you get to keep that life once. if that makes sense.

“i call them dove and i am thankful to be able to” 🥹

hmmm i admit i’m not good at conceptualizing the parameters of being someone’s one partner — but i think your desire for it, no matter how small or latent, is most important. there’s no shame in trying to figure things out slowly. there’s no dominant expectation of intimacy, physical or otherwise, that should be governing your relationship with anyone to the point that you would compromise what either of you feel. what’s real will always be what’s between you two, and that must always take precedence over abstracted things like what you’re supposed to be doing at what stage of what kind of relationship.

i do worry a bit bc i don’t want you to agree with the other party purely bc it’s what they want. not to say that i doubt whether your agreement is in fact genuine !! i just think that when we’re in relationships, we tend to take into consideration other people’s desires when we evaluate our own. that’s good, it’s what makes a relationship “successful,” but only if the other person is doing the same for you. no matter how fleeting or infrequent your desire to reframe your dynamic might be, it’s still worth bringing up, bc the other person won’t know otherwise. and if they don’t feel like that changes anything, or just go along without voicing any strong feelings of their own — then i would consider it a call to reevaluate.

but i Am being extremely hard on your dove. i promise i’m not approaching this with skepticism against them, just that when entering new relationships, there might be things that feel like you shouldn’t or shouldn’t Have To bring up and/or explore with their input. but relationships are always two-way, i’m afraid, and no matter how comfortable or familiar it might feel with someone, they’ll never be able to truly read your mind, nor you theirs. that’s all. i’m not saying to walk in there and voice a desire that isn’t too clear to you at the moment either! i just think you can be forgiven for prodding and testing the waters here and there. (it might also help to get a clearer idea of what love languages you both prefer, giving and receiving.)

re: a tendency towards an avoidant attachment style... when we want to disconnect/isolate, i think it’s often primarily a desire to be left alone. the difference is crucial. do you want to be left alone bc you feel that you’re losing your grip on yourself when you’re always connected to others? is it bc the enormity of someone else’s needs scare you? is it bc the enormity of Your own needs is daunting and you’d rather disregard it rather than go through the ordeal of meeting them? the thing that you feel you’re missing — is it lack, or is anxiety at knowing something is expected of you and you’re not meeting it?

these are questions i shouldn’t answer for you, ofc, and i know i’m spouting out like. basic introspection. but i really wish all the best for you, and i hope this helped even a miniscule bit :(

oooohhh the only book to ever make me actually cry is kite runner by khaled hosseini haha that one changed the trajectory of my life at the ripe age of seven

i don’t know if i’ll cry for it now, though! it might strike me more gimmick-y than it felt when i was a kid. i cried a lot at the end of sea of tranquility by emily st. john mandel, but it wasn’t really about the story so much as having to end that particular reading experience, you know? other books that have tugged at my heartstrings in recent memory were the heart’s invisible furies by john boyne and the employees by olga ravn, the former of which is way too long and the latter (i think) more subjective than objectively sad.

some authors on my bookshelf that i know have invited tears from readers would probably be: mieko kawakami (heaven seems to be a heavy read, but so is anything in her oeuvre); han kang (maybe the white book?); min jin lee (pachinko! though another long read) and ian mcewan (the atonement movie seems to be a big tearjerker, so i imagine its source must be equally so).

that said, i also know people who have cried over books like a little life, song of achilles, if we were villains and seven husbands of evelyn hugo, if that’s your cup of tea… i personally hate all four books, but i do think there’s merit in stories that are specifically designed to make the reader cry, especially if that’s exactly what someone needs.

i’m just. not a good litmus test for tearjerkers. i’m really incredibly sorry.

the fact that you thought of dropping by two years later to tell me this — there’s no word for the exact cocktail of awe and gratitude. thank you so much for taking the time to share with me your thoughts and feelings both as a person and as a reader… i always find myself musing over the things that have been supposedly captured in flls and thinking they were epiphanies i wouldn’t ever wish on someone. there’s plenty of… fascination? in me? to know something so painful can also be beautiful for the people in love, especially at an age where we don’t even know that we Can choose, let alone what those choices might look like. it must be terrifying. it must be heartrending. the fact that people willingly leap for it nonetheless, and that that’s something i can have the privilege of trying to approximate somehow in fiction — it means a lot to me. it never gets old receiving messages like this. i’m glad you are at a beginning of your own, and honoured that my own words could have been a tiny, tiny part of the journey there ❤️

i mean who isn’t !! even writers for the new york times have watched the anime. it sports animanga’d so hard it basically ended the genre as we’ll ever know it. like madoka to the magical girl genre. icon.

about writing, though, i hope it’s okay for me to link another recent answer here: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1339864741

the tl;dr is that i’ve exhausted any desire to write for it through old, old, old fics of a bygone era and unfinished wips, and now i’m just happy to chill and watch the energetic hq enjoyers from my balcony like a parade passing by with my own book and cup of tea.

“two bodies riddled with scars from our preteens” 😢 “i wanna love you ‘til we’re food for the worms to eat” 😢 “til our fingers decompose / keep my hand in yours” 😢

gracie’s verse with “drive slowly, i know every route in this county / maybe that ain’t such a bad thing / i’ll tell you where not to speed” also kindaaa reminds me of one of my tiny, tiny blink-and-you-won’t-even-realize-it’s-there fav parts in skow, where it’s megumi’s turn driving on the okinawa trip and yuuji’s singing to nanako’s playlist and feeding megumi potato chips from the passenger seat. makes me wanna punch my pillow at the casual intimacy. jesus.

thank you for thinking of them during such a lovely song :(

yes ofc! it’s so interesting you say that bc i’d actually say before sunrise is closer to us (the fic) in vibes than to flls, but also — have you seen before sunset? the second movie in that trilogy? it was one of the films i rewatched when i was stuck on the last chapter of flls. idk how strong the influence ultimately ended up, let alone if it’s even palpable to a reader, but even now i can think of some scenes after the timeskip that were birthed by some elements/dialogue pieces in before sunset that caught my attention.

in any case, it’s a huge honour to hear this comparison, especially since before sunset is probably one of my fav films of all time !! to know the vibes are even remotely similar to its predecessor is a big compliment — so thank you, thank you, thank you.

oh dear thank you so much for your kind thoughts, but please don’t say that about yourself omg there’s no objective way that’s true !!

and ahhh this is a weird answer but i think… i already did my time with haikyuu back in 2014 and i’m not really too keen on going back. i know readers from my yuri on ice days managed to track those old fics down in another corner of the internet, and i don’t mind at all considering i still have some hq wips from like. 2020. but as i am right now, while i’ll always have immense fondness for hq, it doesn’t... stimulate me enough? mentally or emotionally? for me to consider writing for it, if that makes sense. plus the fandom is active enough as it is that i’m sure i’ll have nothing to contribute of any value whatsoever.

i’m very sorry to disappoint, but thank you so much for the sentiment 🩷

oh, i don’t know if i would ever go as far as to say that about myself, truly, but you are extremely kind, thank you. how do i put it — you know how richard siken writes, in the same poem, that “to make something / beautiful should be enough. it isn’t. it should be.” but also “who am i? i’m just a writer. i write things down.” that’s me, all the time, except i won’t even consider myself a writer. just a guy who writes. sometimes.

again, thank you sincerely, and i hope winter is kind with your heart 🤍

hi! a lot of lost relationships, reading, and cagy back-and-forth, mostly. i always hesitate to say it was difficult bc i also understand all the caveats of the full umbrella of queerness vs. asexuality/aromanticism and the safety of non-expression, etc. but it definitely hasn’t been straightforward.

i’m terrible at articulating my own feelings, but i guess i’ve always been… what The Communities would call romance repulsed. giving and receiving romantic love / participating in romance in any way came with — claustrophobia? in a way? like being buried alive in a coffin underground. but “logical” arguments were So available that i didn’t initially see the depth of that feeling: is it bc i grew up without love of any kind, let alone good examples of romantic dynamics? is it bc i’m self-sufficient and solitude-loving by nature, and i just find it hard to co-exist with another person in the traditional context? is it bc i’m protective and private with even my emotional energy? is it bc i haven’t found someone i’m compatible with? is it bc i was participating in comphet for longer than i’ve been aware of the parameters of my gender & sexuality? is it all just bc i’m emotionally unavailable?

there’s so much you can psychologize, but also — in a way, it’s always been total for me. that’s not a privilege others have, i realize, but no matter how close i can bring myself with effort, it never traverses that final, crucial line. you could hold a knife to my pulse, give me a lobotomy, and it will still never be being In Love. if it was as easy as wishing it into reality, i would; it would have spared me from an abysmal track record of breaking hearts and losing friends i loved in my own way bc i couldn’t reproduce their version of it. but the what it is vs. what it isn’t was really all i had, and still is. it has helped me a lot to have a method of evaluation. i know romantic love is impossible exactly bc deep platonic love has been. i know romantic attraction is impossible exactly bc i go through periods of strictly physical attraction. i thought i had crushes, but then i sift through what i like about people and always find that romance is never part of the equation. ofc that isn’t always true for other aromantic people, i get that it’s a spectrum, but as with my relationship with gender: in theory, it’s all; in practice, none.

for what it’s worth: if it might help to see your experience Potentially reflected somewhere, here are some manga with aro/ace spectrum characters: https://x.com/nyoomzz/status/1642919362133893121?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw (is love the answer? by isaki uta especially is like. a collection of journal articles in the form of a manga.) i also hear good things about the themes explored in loveless by alice oseman and the anthology common bonds, edited by claudie arseneault.

i’m really sorry i don’t have a clearer, steadier answer. with all my heart, i hope you find a path that makes the most sense for you.

hmm. complete and casual ambivalence? i don’t… really find… either of their characters… interesting. regardless of the nuances of their dynamic together and their respective backstories, that doesn’t really change even as a pairing. i understand why kaiser must exist in the story, it’s nice that his second is a character like ness, and i’m sure people have written treatises on the layers of that relationship, but i am just. snoozing in total tranquility. there’s no shortage of depth among the bastard münchen guys and i respect that, take your time kings, but i’m afraid it’s not an alarm clock i’ll get out of bed for.

oooh how serious are we talking? there’s a newsletter thingy where i ramble a bit about how bllk is built upon a premise that actively goes against the collectivism bootlicking of most sports animes/manga, and how it reflects a shift in the wider genre altogether in a way that has already happened with shounen, blah blah blah. it’s mostly me talking to myself, but it’s here if you’re interested: https://cherrypick.substack.com/p/the-sports-manga-network

as for general thoughts… i think it’s an incredibly fun series, even if it likes a slow burn as much as it sometimes hits you with a full throttle when you just want it to calm down. when it delivers, it comes with an irreplaceable high. plus there are so many unexpected themes to tear apart and poke at. i adore how much kaneshiro and nomura clearly love the cast, how these characters are real to them and they want them to be real to us. it Can at times be to the detriment of the reading experience when there are characters you just don’t care about yet are forced to stay with — but i think i still prefer that than having a full cast of loveable, empathetic characters where no one really colours outside the lines. it’s nice to have such variety in the emotions i feel towards different characters; i think bllk might be the only piece of work on my current roster i can say that about, and i value that much. so many characters i love and want the best for, so many others i make a face at every time they’re mentioned, but i don’t think i’ll have it any other way. nowhere else are characters allowed to be as unapologetically unhinged and still be beloved by the story without some kind of lesson embedded in their backstory. it almost doesn’t matter where people come from, in bllk. behaviours and motivations can be explained, but none of it changes the fact that these are people who have been fundamentally and dysfunctionally changed by their circumstances, and the story itself is not blameless in that. characters are unhinged bc of the story, but they are also in the story bc they were unhinged to begin with, even characters like kunigami. bllk just feels like a night drive down an empty highway, several notches above the speed limit and radio blasting out an open window. there’s a thrill in the chaos of it and in the joy it gives you. it’s just super fun that way, and it’s a special kind of love when i do love it. really just unlocked something in what i find delightful.

sorry, maybe that’s a little too general. i know i answered some pairing-related ccs earlier this year but i also dread scrolling back that far so for what it’s worth my top five characters, in order, would probably be sae > bachira > shidou > nagi > rin, my fav arc is the u20 match, my fav dynamic is the birthday quartet (the itoshis, bachira & shidou) and my underrated fav is maybe karasu.

not at all !! this is so so thoughtful, actually, thank you :( never enough gratitude for all the people who take the time to read through so many of my words, really, but for all that it is worth, thank you very much.

i’m the same, actually — not that i don’t value the product, but it is definitely secondary to the process. i find that it’s difficult for me to love the result if i hated the process, so i spend quite a bit of conscious energy trying to make the process something to love. like a little loophole. so it means a lot to know there are people who would be interested in that. in thoughts that are in-progress, in ideas that have been abandoned, in choices they can very well ignore bc they have the complete end result and have no use for the fragments of what came before. it’s a kind of attention/kindness that i feel is a privilege to receive. so. i know this sounds like me trying to earn an uno reverse, but it’s thanks to people like you that i get to share blog posts like that and answers like this in the first place.

i also hope your winter is being gentle with you and your heart 🤍

this a wild ride of a message omg but you are sooo real... i can’t speak much on the personal benefits of relationships, plus i’ve gone to ridiculous lengths to also hyper-control my experience with sexual intimact, but i am very glad you found someone respectful and that a situation like that (which could have easily gone south tsk tsk please take care of yourself) prompted more reflection than regret. that in itself is more precious than we often realize in the moment, i think.

that aside, i’m just a casual comic enjoyer who loves matt fraction’s hawkeye run. i was super ride or die for the young avengers once, too, but now i’m just heartbroken about the mcu ruining everything they didn’t even have to touch. i have a shelf dedicated to only comics/manga — but majority of them are non-serial works, and will constitute prob a whole cc reply. i techhhnically haven’t checked out anything specific to tim drake, but you’re far from the first person to say that about him (and the batfam, adjacently) which is so intriguing !! it hasn’t happened... Yet. perpetually pending.

i’m relieved at least one tip helped !! as for envy... i actually think it can be a healthy driver. partly bc i don’t think an emotion like jealousy — let alone envy, which i’d argue is much more potent bc there’s something you actively want that is someone else’s — is really up to us to will away. i saw this post the other day where an author was like (paraphrasing heavily here) “the sooner you let go of jealousy of other writers, the freer you will feel.” i don’t disagree, but i feel like — sometimes you envy someone and it functions as a ruler of the distance you have to traverse. you’re aware of the distance now and it must suck, but to be aware of what you are not is to also be given facilities to better shape what will get you to the other side. insert ira glass’ famous spiel about the creative taste gap. i think lack of envy/ability to compare yourself to another can put you in danger of stagnation more than you think.

the real big boss of anyone’s relationship with writing is when you start treating it like an abusive stage parent to a child actor. greedy, strict, controlling, unreasonable, etc. if envy makes you that person, if it becomes a conduit not for a desire to be better, be different, be new, but for unconditional hatred and unrealistic expectations — then that’s its own dead end. idk. there’s that one quote that’s like. let us love our limitations, bc without them, nobody would be left to become somebody. is it fair to ask to whose weaknesses i owe my strengths? whose strengths owe themselves to my weaknesses? even though it’s never in stasis anyway. that’s why it’s important to love the process more than the result. you love the thing that’s ever-changing and you never hate it For changing.

this msg felt like a facetime call tysm i am wishing you the loveliest winter of bookbinding ahead ❄️

HELP i really don’t think a database of all the times i was even more incoherent than i already thought i was is something anyone needs, let alone myself — but you are so very sweet for saying this and for offering 💗

hello! lit recs as in fiction? the immediate ones to come to mind are sea of tranquility by emily st. john mandel, how high we go in the dark by sequoia nagamatsu, this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar & max gladstone, mr. fox by helen oyeyemi, and recursion by blake crouch, though none are exclusively about alternate universes so much as adjacent facets of the space-time continuum and stories separated and/or divided by those. but they all explore time and the possibilities that branch out from one choice, for better or for worse, so inevitably they all pull in themes we might relate more to overt universe jumping. blake crouch also has a book called dark matter, which i haven’t read but has been in the back of my mind since i read recursion exactly bc it deals with parallel worlds more directly.

if you meant lit as in any kind of literature, nonfiction included, i’ve had a mild intellectual crush on dr. michio kaku since childhood and have to jump at the chance to drop his work on parallel worlds somewhere so… my personal fav is his book on hyperspace, but it deals primarily with higher dimensions in physics and only talks about the possibility of parallel worlds closer to the end. he does have one book dedicated to the multiverse theory, where he talks about the everett interpretation and even the potential of us as a species being able to open up a path and travel to a younger version of our universe. it’s super Super cool, and i think more accessible than where he starts us off in hyperspace, even if it is still a work on quantum physics.

idk if these are somewhere along what you were looking for but i hope at least one of them provides a useful jumping off point for your search 😢

this is not a question i ever thought i’ll get omg has the new season been rough ?? i can’t say i’ve thought about writing for it tbh but i hold matthew incredibly close to heart and definitely won’t say no if the mood strikes. i’d have a lot of fun with a sculptor… with lost memories, too, right? last i heard about season two? or something along those lines? but at the same time i’m sure there’s already a fair amount of content from the creator as well as within fandom spaces, considering how famous utgl is; i doubt there’s anything for me to contribute that isn’t already covered somewhere in a lot less words. so. i’m certainly turning it over in my head now, though i can’t promise anything.

no no you are not wrong at all, it’s probably the only trope i know for a fact i’ll eat up in most iterations 😓

there’s this poem by nicole homer that’s like: “i loved someone / and i failed at it. let me say it / another way: i like to call myself wound / but i will answer to knife.” and i think that sums up a lot of what i love about exes dynamics. the concept of failing to love someone, yet to also be maimed by that failure yourself. there’s this redirection cycle of energy that any relationship between two people has, and it isn’t as if this energy just dissipates into nothing once the relationship ends. it just takes on new form, or finds a way to stay dormant without being absent totally; no matter where you go, no matter who you love in any way, there will always be this one person with whom you were under a specific social contract and there will always be a piece of you that was only true within the confines of that relationship for better or for worse. it’s sickening. it’s nauseating. it’s perfect for writing characters, bc no one else knows you like someone you have both hurt and been hurt by. there’s vulnerability there that might not even be fair, but even that bias in perception alone is such a valuable piece to have in the narratives we form about ourselves. when you have to ask: do you miss this person bc you loved them, or can you simply not get over the fact that you were never and might never be able to make it right with them? that someone might always carry “failed”/knife/wound version of you? do you miss the relationship, or the version of you that one dynamic necessitated? is the hatred you feel for this ex about them, or about you, how you fell for it, how they broke your heart, how you can’t put yourself back together and hey, no one person should have this much power over another? there is So much you can unpack in the intensity of that knowing. we frame relationships that have ended as failed relationships; i don’t know if i agree with that, but i do know there is a self we abandon in the end of anything, and there’s a wealth of complexity to dive into in that. it’s a total gold mine.

i don’t love the trope strictly in the romantic right person wrong time way, either. i love exes who know they were bad for each other, exes who had no chemistry, exes who aren’t technically exes but they slept together once, exes whose relationship was so irrelevant in the wider scheme of things that even they forget they dated. it can be itfs or yuuji & ozawa in flls. it can be kmtr or fuji & murai in the idol au, chris & victor in ltmmly, bachira & otoya in hairpin turns. i haven’t had the chance to write exes who hate each other’s guts and have nothing nice to say about the other, but i think that’s partly bc i’m blessed to still have strong friendships with the people that count as my exes and partly bc hatred hasn’t been justifiable in the dynamics i’ve written. but there is so much there. i will love it 90% of the time.

ooooh like official merch? i like to hunt down stuff from pop-up stores on like. the far corners of the internet. i have this miniature version of mori-senpai’s painting & the entire collection of sketchbooks from (what used to be) the blue period museum shop, and the official nendoroids of nagi from blue lock and haruhi from ouran dressed in some custom clothes from good smile. i have the gundam pharact, several pop mart blind box figures, & some stuff from back when i used to buy manga from cd japan and bought merch from comic alley in the philippines, like vongola rings from katekyo hitman reborn and a box of makkachin keychains from yuri on ice.

looking around my room right now and hm… the remaining stuff i see were made by friends, local artists, or myself. i have a mob psycho 100 print from art by pea, an itoshi sae keychain i made for my house keys and this framed polaroid of rin & bachira from blue lock, a ceramic shelf of yuuta from jjk by karen thurler, an orv print and some bookmarks that a friend gifted me a couple years ago, a handful of hq fanbooks (the onigiri miya unofficial cookbook, the final stretch, to name a few) + one voltron comic by sibi. some of those came with their own freebies, like prints and standees, but i unfortunately don’t have much wall/shelf space to spare so i keep them packed away in their own box with some old kpop stuff.

i do !! anything in the playlist after the last flls-related track (“one more time, one more chance” by masayoshi yamazaki, the song request from the last radio caller in flls) is actually for some kind of we 😊

now that i think about it i’m not sure if people usually see the custom order the playlist is in — it might depend on spotify’s default way of showing track lists — but it’s all ordered according to which part of the story they correspond to, and anything from “this love” by taylor swift onwards are songs i associate with the events of the coda, including its flashbacks. my personal inside joke is that lord huron’s “the night we met” makes me think of the break-up scene, and it feels cyclical that their cover of “harvest moon” was the song i had in mind during the slow dancing scene in skow. plus it just aligns with the moon motifs in the coda, which in turn aligns with the theme of itfs’ canon birth date moons, etc.

that said, my radar for skow-related songs is definitely not as attentive as the one for flls (or maybe i just don’t listen to songs about happy endings in relationships omg) so it’s a bit of a paltry collection haha

oh god idk if that opening newsletter is an honest assessment of my character, to be fair :( but i am holding close to heart these beyond kind sentiments nonetheless, thank you very much for taking the time to articulate them to me 🫂🤍

horror to me is… maybe wrongness? i struggle with slasher films as horror, though ofc many of them are good stories & i do feel nostalgic for ones i watched as a kid. but my personal litmus test is whether the horror crawls into my chest. what one finds unnatural does tend to be subjective, granted; some people find death and gore unnatural, others ghosts and ghouls, and i also wonder if it’s bc i grew up with/around a lot of blood and physical injury/violence that these never reach the feeling of wrongness i crave. what i want is to try rationalizing a thing and for it not to matter. a recent one that comes to mind is skinamarink — does that count as analog horror? it combined old tech & domestic spaces, which are two things i am usually more open to finding scary. more so than liminal places as a whole, i like the flavour of liminality embedded in old TVs, old wired telephones, a jukebox that starts and stops by itself bc it’s That old, grainy frank sinatra. there’s liminality that’s comforting, then there’s liminality that crosses over to that literal limbo between familiar and removed from you. i really enjoy that creeping sense of wrongness as your brain struggles to resolve all these pieces but is ofc unable to. i love being cornered into that position; it’s such a novel sensation. nothing else feels like that.

in the distinction that critics make bw horror & terror, i’m probably more team terror. shirley jackson’s short stories are quite good at the horror i love + thematically, stories like “louisa, please come home” and “paranoia” are just so fun to chew on. i also love thomas ligotti, partly bc his style of prose is genre-rare and partly bc we share enough philosophy to overlap in where we find wrongness. i’m reading his nonfiction rn, where he writes that all supernatural horror derives from what we feel should be and should not be. i like when things target the smack middle of that. video games are quite good at it. but i think i just find it thrilling when my brain struggles. lovecraftian in a sense, though interestingly eldritch/cosmic horror is so inherently beyond human comprehension that i don’t find it terrifying. the idea of being adrift in space, yes, but creatures beyond our understanding out there — the awe at how little we know wins.

this got very unfocused, i’m sorry. i didn’t even get to talk about my love for haunted houses and bodies as prisons. but my big answer is that horror is wrongness, and wrongness is personal.

i loved answering this ahhh thank you for giving me a chance to talk about horror !! i hope your exam season is going well + that you have time to recuperate over the holidays. and if you do end up reading flls, i hope you find something in it just for you.

i talk about some gripes so far here: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1336607489 but i do want to add that anime mahoraga was... weirdly underwhelming? not bc they downplayed its scale and power so much as i didn’t appreciate how lean its impact was, if that makes sense. it felt like any other opponent, just extra big and singleminded. toji had more heaviness to his fighting. hell, megumi’s other shikigami had more girth. but i know that’s a personal preference and not really a storytelling critique.

as odd as this sounds, my fav shibuya arc parts in the manga were sukuna and toji’s respective fights. it was like. shibuya arc: all stars. shibuya arc: return of the masters. so i’m relieved that jjk s2 and i were on the same page about most of those. was toji’s fight with dagon total overkill? yeah. but there’s a bastardization to toji that i find so refreshing, and especially in this scene. it’s everything i love about a character — resourceful, brutal, but almost playful in how dangerous they are? seeing playful cloud desecrated in that way has always been one of my fav toji scenes, something about the thematic weight of handling this traditional almost sacred weapon like it’s an extension of his body (which you can unpack so many ways parallel to toji), only for him to handcraft it into the weapon He needs in that moment. mappa was clearly going for shounen coolness, whatever, but they were also hands-off enough with it that i just got to enjoy having competent people onscreen. and his fight with megumi, how they did toji asking him for his name but also how they handled the gravity of the danger megumi was in (loooove megumi finding himself thrown across an entire street and thinking huh? what just happened? bc Yeah ofc) while underscoring that toji truly is the goat of the series. and not just bc he’s a good fighter, but bc he’s all of jjk’s strongest themes mashed into a character who had the privilege of not overstaying his welcome under gege’s hands.

and sukuna’s shibuya fight(s) !! i hate to love it but it has no competition. his first domain expansion in the anime was the reason i read jjk, and i might always love how they describe its precision & artistry. plus suwabe junichi embeds this kind of curiosity in sukuna, in how laidback but vicious & smart a fighter he is. idk how the current fight is going in the manga, but i’ll always be a huge fan of shibuya sukuna being a problem not simply bc has perfected curse technique but bc he knows how to make use of any tool/space on top of being propelled by this almost. respect. for jujutsu. or at least there’s something artistic/academic about how he studies mahoraga and even learns jogo’s technique. i used to wonder if his transformation into sukuna the curse was research gone too far — but who knows with jjk.

overall, s2 has just made me appreciate geto’s fighting style, and appreciate toji, yuuji and sukuna’s even more than i already did. so. the shounen is shounen-ing.

each of the media pieces you mentioned were like stray bullets hitting me square in the chest one by one, which honestly reflects where i stand on sibling bonds in media 😭 i’ve only had the chance to write one properly in 1.5 fics, but they feature heavily in my personal/original writing. there’s no heartbreak like having a sibling, i think. succession Does do it very well, but my fav siblings are prob zuko & azula from a:tla. something about being favoured by two different parents and that reflecting on the other’s judgment of everything that you are (dad saying that azula was born lucky while zuko was lucky to be born; mom loving zuko more than azula, who felt that her own mother thought she was a monster). how it is for the two of you, despite it all, with no love or trust lost, being the only ones to understand the haunted house you grew up in. there’s so much they do subtly but well in zuko & azula’s rs (the ember island house, azula’s manipulations), but their final fight being of grief, with the most lament-heavy theme of the series playing over it instead of some boss battle ost, bc they were just kids and they could have had each other through all these years — but they didn’t. they remain children nonetheless. which is what sibling bonds do. there’s a point where you become older than your parents; some of us never even got to be younger. but with siblings, forever and always, you are a child. you are everything you can’t escape, and so are they.

i also like siblings in greek myth: oedipus’ children, poor things, and agamemnon & clytemnestra’s cursed children. johan & nina, from urasawa’s monster. nox by anne carson, which unpacks catullus 101, the ultimate brother elegy of all time . and most everything in this tag: https://nswers.tumblr.com/tagged/a%20shovel%20for%20a%20brother

some sibling dynamics that aren’t favs necessarily but that i find interesting... rhaenyra & aegon from house of the dragon? stealing what you’ve always felt was only your sister’s birthright even as you receive what you never got from your family through exactly that usurping. or maybe my sister’s keeper the movie? what it means to be conceived as a savior sibling, to know you were born into the world for utility, for someone else’s life, but that life is your sister’s. i do also love lighthearted sibling relationships like in little sister, and grave of the fireflies is one of my fav ghibli movies, but i admit i have the softest spot for the abels & cains. the love only possible when someone has sucked you dry, and you know you’ve twisted a knife in them too — that’s what having a sibling feels like to me. it’s rare that it feels like how love should be. but it can be. it’s nice when media manages to capture that, like in succession. a person who has drunk from the same poisoned cup doesn’t have the antidote any more than you do, but there is comfort in not waiting for death or life alone. so yes. i embrace sibling dynamics in stories, definitely.

oh, that is very sweet to say, thank you. i’m afraid it’s a lot more low effort than the time and thought most people dedicate to their intricate carrds, is the thing... my only real process is to start off with a blank page and a container, to make it neater, and from there, design around one central visual and colour palette. in the case of the earnest carrd, it was the ceramic gifs by jeje constantino, which dictated the center alignment of my text and the blue alternate colour i used for links and icons. i also benefit a lot from using the carrd pages system, so that everything feels organized and simple to navigate. this is really just the “control” function, with the hashtag beside it when you’re dropping elements into a page. anything under a control header is essentially a new page, and you can link to it accordingly, such as in earnest.carrd.co/#links. (“#links” is the name of the control section.)

i’m not explaining this very well, i realize, but it’s really hard to describe what i mean when it’s more a matter of testing different elements on a blank page 😓 i tend to focus on symmetry and minimalism in designs purely bc i don’t have the skill set to pull off anything more intricate, and i mean, i don’t think there’s any shame in that. if i have one tip, it’s to check the mobile view of your site to make sure it looks functional on phones as well. but as long as everything is a coherent colour palette, which i’m sure generators exist for somewhere online, it should look neat and cogent. don’t be afraid to mess around with link colours and hover animations. i believe there are tutorials on youtube/tiktok for more specific templates and/or aesthetics, so don’t hesitate to look things up bc even tutorials that don’t interest you might have tricks to be learned. carrd also has a fairly substantial faq/guide section, and there is no query to small.

there are so many ways to answer this but the simplest is that adam parrish is the kind of fav character that nearly dims all others. it’s funny bc it’s not as if i have any overwhelming affection for the raven cycle as a whole beyond forever loving something you loved with teenage abandon, but even if an unthinkable hell comes for me and my heart is emptied of love for all stories, there will probably still be adam. dogged survivor, complicated lover, cold-blooded murderer, etc. a rare case of a character never having been loved yet not needing to soften and unravel to receive it from people willing to give it. unflinchingly competent and uncompromisingly clear-eyed in a series that badly needs you to empathize with everyone. tender, sharp, vulnerable, difficult about love in both giving and receiving, but malleable. no oversentimentality to his emotion, no overrationality in his intuition. heart on his sleeve, but no one except his chosen people will be able to reach touching distance. poster child of all my loves and hatreds and failures and successes.

murai yakumo & kim gongja come very close, though, both of them unhinged in their own ways, and both survivors of their own tragedies without letting that get in the way of holding themselves accountable to their own lives and futures. margaery tyrell, both of the books & the show. clever and dangerous, aware of every gear in the machine and unafraid to weaponize what she must even at too vulnerable a position. azula, whom i think the a:tla spinoffs actually ended up compromising, as well as all the women of the house of atreus in greek tragedy.

as for themes, i love my regressors (the webtoon kind, the ones trapped in a life/event looped again and again, even if only metaphorically), crown princes (heir to Something, whether an idea or literal authority), & mechanical beings (androids, almost alive/almost human characters, humans raised to be flawless, non-humans yearning to be flawed, perfection like a kidney stone weighing them down and leaving them unshakeable for better or for worse). many of my fav characters are just combination/variations of these, tbh. i enjoy ruthlessness, above all with a sense of decorum, but i like a good enfant terrible as well. i guess i just prefer competence, which honestly just reflects my overall personality. maybe why i tend to gravitate towards antagonist-type characters. obsession, fumbling, and/or being a lovable loser can be sweet, but i’m never fully interested. i’m not a big backstory enthusiast, either, at least not of the flashback variety; i often think it’s not necessary to know what came before the story we’ve been dropped into. it helps, and it should exist, but the present is the story and so the story is the present.

ahhh my mind is whirring so many characters in mind so little space... i am also wishing you tranquility for the remainder of your year, and thank you for this fascinating q 😵‍💫

i love ethel cain so much that i put all her music in one playlist and when i feel emotions about to get the best of me i lay myself down on the floor and put it on shuffle to simulate all the steps of one life and the feelings it comes with

also. i tend to form strong feelings about the concept of inherent “rawness” in art, or at least about associating purity with personal/confessional art, with songwriters “revealing” their lives through music that we receive the poignancy of bc we know the reality they correspond to. here’s an incoherent tangent from years ago, for example: https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1487632795409297409?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw. so it’s just freeing in the simplest sense to be on the same page as an artist about their art being only performance. ethel cain is not a person, though she’s made real through ethel cain the persona and ethel cain the character. she had a whole life and death that has nothing to do with whatever hayden anhedönia does behind the scenes, about which i could not care less, and it’s this fictional entity and the vessels that hayden the artist has chosen to tell ethel’s story with that move me. it’s a clear contract between creator and consumer, if that makes sense. so i get to receive an album like preacher’s daughter without concern for my usual gripes about the creator’s ego/desire to be autobiographical getting in the way of something that could have been more. it’s not a could have been with ethel cain. preacher’s daughter — and all her previous EPs and singles before it — is clear on exactly what kind of narrative it is, and it doesn’t hinge its brilliance on the effectiveness of pathos. which i value, and i would argue is tricky to do in music, where reactions must be subjective to be earned. her sense for melody is also stunning, and her lyrics both beautiful and economic, together heartbreaking without needing to break itself for you to want to look. preacher’s daughter alone wields so many genres to serve its narrative arc, but the grip on the overall medium is unshakeable. drives me insane. it’s rare that i can’t pick just one fav song exactly bc one album is the fav but. of her whole discography, crush, sun bleached flies and western nights probably make my current podium. i’ve also talked quite a bit about a house in nebraska on main, like in this: https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1623783336102567937?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw

anyway. this rant is not reflective of a smart brain, reading it back, but it means the world to me to receive your graciousness in turn, you know. thank you for lending me your ear and your heart so sincerely. like — i ramble, but i also know what a privilege it is to have people not only be willing to prompt my thoughts at all, but to be receptive to them as well. the quantity might overwhelm me sometimes and i may struggle to answer too many quickly, but i really am aware of how spoiled i am, and i am grateful for it.

i keep going over possible answers i may have to this but it truly is just... i usually allot around one to two hours before i sleep to rearrange shoes, towels, the stuff on my desk and my bedside table, again and again. then i do a lap around the house, front to back, to make sure all the plugs are securely in, all the dials in the stove are at zero, all the doors are closed, all the right locks and mechanisms are in place behind doors and windows — which in themselves are not what takes up time more so the feeling of it? it’s a tactile sensation i have to target. i have to feel all of them, and it has to feel right. if not, or if i zone out at any point, i have to restart the routine. if i go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, i have to do it all again from zero. i also often have to wash my hands and feet before i can slip back into bed. i will not be able to sleep otherwise. this persists at hotels, as well as if i’m staying over at a friend’s place. may it be ocd or whatever else, i’ve been doing it since i was a kid, so it has become more ritualistic than anything else. the things we have to do to feel safe, etc.

not sure if that aligns with what you meant, but a less time-consuming but also less frequent part of my sleep routine would be taking a perfume sample i know i’ll never use (but that i like all the same) and using it almost as a makeshift air freshener? also, does it count that i munch on lollipops while writing? i was into katekyo hitman reborn and a series of unfortunate events at the same time as a kid, and that kinda just. combined into my violet baudelaire ribbon of choice being a lollipop thanks to this reborn character named spanner. i just like having something to gnaw on while i type. i guess that’s not really a ritual. i do try to read before bed, but i’m often too tired, and i just try to make up for it on weekends by reading upon waking up.

this is making me realize i don’t really do anything interesting that would count as a ritual, i’m sorry 😓 i’m such a slow creature of routine that they never quite become rituals. i’m neurotically neat, even, from my handwriting to the way i set the table. but i will think more about it! this really is a cute question, and i appreciate you asking so kindly.

wait wait wait is you are in love not in the flls playlist that’s really odd omg did i never plop it in ?? maybe i just didn’t want to use a song that wasn’t taylor’s version, but — whoa. such oversight on my part. it’s in there now. how bizarre.

thank you so so much for sending such a sweet message (and an inadvertent reminder to add to the playlist) 🥹

slight aside, but you are in love was one of the first songs i associated with flls way way way back when i was writing what would become the second chapter. partly bc it was maybe the only one i knew from 1989 at the time, and partly bc i wanted flls to stay an established relationship college age story then. i remember being a little wistful that i couldn’t maintain the innocence and delicacy of those early moments and intentions — but kinda worth it for how satisfyingly full circle it feels to hear there’s still some associations to be made there despite it all. puts a smile on my face in turn, so thank you for taking the time to tell me something so lovely.

yes, actually !! this isn’t meant to be, like, a humble brag or to fish for compliments, i think it’s incredibly over-generous, but when speak now taylor’s version first dropped, a couple friends sent me when emma falls in love to say it reminded them of me — which. i know how that sounds coming from my own mouth. i really do, i promise. again. it’s very kind and generous of them, and i admit people tend to have a more romantic view of me than i know i deserve. but i bring it up to say i have a close personal relationship with that song. associating it with a memory involving two friends lends it sentimental value, though i do enjoy it as a song altogether. its chorus melody is so memorable and effective, even if it’s not the most lyrically intricate; the vocal rise at cleo-[pa]-tra is beautiful, and reminds me of the melody choices i love in the bridge of the story of us. you know the “i liked it better when you were [on] my side” + “if you said you’d rather [love] than fight”? that little vocal pitch? it moves me so much, so of course i’m weak to when emma falls in love’s version of the same technique.

my just-me personal favourite of the from the vault tracks i’ve heard so far is castles crumbling, though! i went right to it after i was sent when emma falls in love bc i saw the hayley williams feature but it just captured me in an instant. i love a vivid and potent viva la vida-esque imagery of a fallen monarch, and the bridge is beyond stunning. it could very well be a middle of act ii song in a musical that i’d eat up. i don’t know if the 10min version of all too well counts as from the vault, but i am not immune to its second half. some of the most lyrically strong i’ve heard of taylor, i think, and not just in isolation; the melody and the words work in total harmony, without relying on contextual support. so fun to shout along to and more intently listen to each time.

i also enjoy the pieces i’ve heard of i can see you whenever i hear it online... oh, and nothing new! i had that one on repeat when i was writing something for blue period, so it also has the same soft spot that songs i associate with friends do. i love the wispy, wistful quality of it. reminds me of the after-heartbreak atmosphere in exile, where taylor and bon iver are exchanging “you never gave a warning sign / i gave so many signs” — if that makes sense. it’s not the same musically at all, granted, but the feeling of that first breath after something has ended for good. the first awareness of the gap that will become distance. i feel like that’s something nothing new captured for me.

otherwise, i haven’t listened to the from the vault tracks from the other taylor’s version albums, unfortunately. but please know i am always open to being sent taylor song recs!

i promise i am hardly a librarian… but thank you, that is so cute :( i think i’ve gotten this question a couple times before and have tended towards recommending authors with an “older” style of writing? donna tartt, patricia highsmith, james salter, don delillo, toni morrison, jeanette winterson, zora neal hurston, colson whitehead, raymond carver. nabokov, kundera, steinbeck, joyce, angelou. but this is more of a matter of intricacy of style, especially compared to the contemporary tendency to opt for shorter, cooler, more detached sentences. if you’re looking for more baldwin in the context of romance/romantic themes, the poetry of franz wright and diane seuss are oddly the closest link my mind is supplying, as is the famous play angels in america by tony kushner. kafka’s more romance-leaning works as well, like letters to milena. nonfiction wise, bell hooks is always a great place to start after baldwin (if you haven’t read through her oeuvre yet). i also recommend the nikki giovanni episode of talk easy with sam fragoso. they talk about a really interesting conversation she and james baldwin had, and i think she offers the sort of gentle counter-stance i like to seek out after spending a lot of time with one author.

none of this are likely to be perfect fits, but i hope at least one set you down the right path to fill the baldwin-shaped space !!

i’ve kept watching, yes! i’m quite cleanly divided about the shibuya arc right now… i hated how they did gojo’s sealing, including the fight right before. i think a lot of my issues have just been with pacing? feels like there’s a lack of cohesion in how to approach those first few moments of the shibuya set-up: do we keep it quiet and suspenseful? light and rhythmic? what dialogue pieces do we prioritize, and how do we arrange the entry and exit of so many characters to serve those? the result felt like it diminished the gravity of gojo being sealed, plot and energy wise, and there was just an overwhelming sense that they were trying to be too artful with something that was meant to be quick and dirty. the beginning of shibuya just did not feel like shibuya, and those pacing issues persisted all the way until toji returns. i know people love the nanami scene with haruta, but my gripe is that you can’t try to make a scene what it’s not and not expect the energy to feel a bit off relative to the story you have to keep telling. there were just these odd pockets that felt less cinematic and more trying to nudge the audience towards a particular reaction when the scene content speaks for itself. you see that same issue with the csm anime and a little of jigokuraku. very unfortunate.

something that has really surprised me though was the choso vs. yuuji fight? the blatant over-expansion and kind of — contrived? almost? artfulness? worked to the benefit of this scene likely bc of the nature of choso’s ability. and yuuji is just a beauty to block for any director, i imagine, bc his fighting style is so dynamic for storyboarding and it shows. stars aligned here, and they cultivated a steady rhythm that i really enjoyed. it was stunning in a way that felt earned and even necessary. that, and amazing use of space! i’ve always had a bone to pick with akutami about maximizing space in fights but mappa has always been good at working around it. the nobara & yuuji vs. eso & kechizu fight in s1 was beautifully mapped, but s2 has struggled with it (geto’s fight with a curse user at riko’s school, the way they used the forest in the first few frames of the toji vs. gojo fight) so it’s nice to see space be almost integral to the animation choices in the choso vs. yuuji fight. mappa has also been quite consistent in using the 8mm/16mm film style for certain flashbacks, so i don’t mind that they employed this in choso’s fake memories with yuuji.

mappa loves toji too much, i would say. but i’m not really complaining about that. i love when secondary characters show up and can’t help generating momentum. i’ve breathed easier about the shibuya arc since he came back — hard not to be dragged into the flow when characters like him are in the story, and it’s funny that not even animation is immune. it almost makes up for how bland they did itfs’ fight with the old man, but we take what we can get (and what the budget/time allotments spare these poor animators).

as a person? vile man, i’m sure. male artists tend to be when given access to power and authority in their lifetime, and i’m sure he’s no different when he served in the military and came out of it disgruntled, disillusioned and disoriented about american life. that serves the ennui of his work, but it must have made him practically unbearable.

as for his work, i like to tout that i’m a salinger-reared writer mostly bc i’m sure his character writing/dialogue/introspection had the strongest hand of any author in whatever personal style i have developed since. i used to think i’ll write the young people of the world forever like he did, but coming into my own has mostly just been shaking off everything salinger taught me to make space for myself. in the end, i do just enjoy much of his work, and i feel a lot for the glass family stories even beyond f&z — which, side note, i giggled So much at you going Yes Sha We Know How You Feel About Franny and Zooey i’m sorry for never shutting up about it 😭

my fav salinger story is maybe uncle wiggily in connecticut? i think stories like a perfect day for bananafish and for esmé with love and squalor (which was my first salinger — i read it thanks to a childhood lemony snicket phase) are popular for a reason, but something about uncle wiggily is just… tender like a years-old scar, and more evocative than any other salinger for me. there’s so much loneliness in it, so much isolation and absence of warmth embedding a deep desire for it even deeper. it’s like stepping into a photo of an empty living room. or a canvas painted in the same colour as its blank state. the abandonment of a space made for living is such a potent sensation, and this story captures that without it even being the focus. this one features a cameo of one of franny and zooey’s older brothers, but more generally, i would say it just contains much of what makes the zooey novella so good. the management of energy, the fluidness of dialogue, the alive-ness of the characters. we Know these people. but whereas zooey felt like the first humid day of spring, uncle wiggily is the bite of a winter wind through a window no one realized was left open in a massive, mostly unoccupied house. my heart caves in to make a little empty concave in my chest every time i think about it.

a few of his uncollected works are also quite good, though the main thing is — i just don’t think there’s a salinger work i wouldn’t recommend, even ones i do not love as much. that includes catcher in the rye, which is definitely one of his weakest, but i think that’s both the length and the narrator choice getting in the way of his strengths. salinger is always doing something interesting with character, i find, even if his themes and undertones remain always familiar. maybe that’s why i’m so partial to him. it’s a rare privilege to have an author compatible with your own writing preferences.

no no it’s okay !! here are some previous replies:

— https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1335125988
— https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1308398481

here is a tweet that was Kind Of about akutami if not solely: https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1514062884241911809?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw

this tweet is not about akutami but is applicable to him: https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1675409509118799873?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw

some current popular shounen animanga wobble in quality bc the mangakas don’t seem to realize that their instincts are bad; they believe that what they’re doing is the story they need to be telling, and that can lead to choices that are not always successful and/or fulfilling for readers. not everyone can be haikyuu’s author playing it safe and having that result in a near perfect work, nor do many weekly mangakas have the same timeframe as monthly ones to let the story breathe and go slowly if it needs to. so what we end up with is a tight timeline, a barely edited chapter belonging to a wider unedited story, and a compulsive pressure to keep readers talking and interested this week and the next, and the next, and the next. jjk (and akutami) is very much a victim of that.

that said, it’s painful to watch a mangaka confidently steer the story to the opposite of the heights it could have reached. there’s a lack of interrogation by multiple parties involved, and what we get is a work like jjk, which is the story equivalent of an idol group that skyrocketed to fame with a concept that worked for them, only for their recent comebacks to completely lose the original thread that made them unique bc the management focused on the wrong element to champion in an increasingly saturated industry. i think akutami knows full well what will make a good story. jjk does have good bones, even if not special ones. it’s in conversation with a predecessor that’s genuinely subpar (bleach) and you can tell gege takes what he liked and didn’t like and applies them accordingly. he just does not know how to juggle tone, plot, art, character, comedy, & heart, and in the process of trying to act like he can, he has dropped all the balls. jjk is currently running purely on its own initial momentum, and even that, akutami is about to drain. he focuses on plot, we get characters we don’t care about. he focuses on light comedy, jjk loses its footing on heart. i said this about another work, but jjk is a story trying to do so much bc once upon a time it almost pulled it off. makes you want to just. tell them to focus on getting one ball from one palm to another. bc at least maybe then we’ll all be sure they can catch it.

sometimes i do wonder what could have been if jjk hadn’t become so popular so suddenly, and it’s not that i don’t empathize with the headspace akutami seems to be in amidst an unforgiving schedule. but. as cold as it sounds, his ego has no place in his story. for its sake, his, and ours.

i do! i absooluuuutely do. it’s great that you ask about balance, bc i do think that’s what it comes down to. escapism isn’t a bad thing in itself, even in extremes; sometimes it’s all we have for a coping mechanism. why want to escape if there’s nothing to escape, right?

i don’t know what kind of escapism you mean — if it’s maladaptive daydreaming or just preferring fictional media over reality or if it’s something else — and i can’t say i have an easy fix as someone who also tends to contemplate more than i execute. but i imagine it’s like quitting any drug. it will take years before it is completely out of your system, and even then there are worse vices than escapism. balance is about indulging in smaller and smaller doses of the thing causing harm, until the neutral is an amount that doesn’t deal so much damage as to inhibit you. i have a personal rule of no escapism/daydreaming/tuning out when i’m around other people. it’s fine if i lose hours talking to myself or daydreaming and doing nothing — though that is its own problem — but if i’m letting that bleed into something that affects other people, even just a stranger at the bus stop, that’s where i draw the line. so no mind-wandering while i’m around another person, and that includes messages, one-on-one conversation, being a passive member of a group or an audience, and sometimes even any time i’m on public. i catch myself daydreaming on the bus? i’ll open a book, and if i find my mind wandering, i will reread every single sentence i was not fully present for. it’s not really about severing the instinct to daydream — again, that in itself is not the culprit of dysfunction. it’s about training other habits in yourself, so that daydreaming is not the only thing it has to default to. you know how sometimes when you’re not understanding a line you’re reading, you read it out loud to yourself until it sounds like a more comprehensible sentence? or at least i do, and always, there’s a sensation of like. returning to my body as understanding dawns. that’s what would be useful to give yourself, i think. just the ability to hone and rely on that switch when and if you need it, bc there will be moments that you will. you don’t have to live your life to the absolute fullest; you just have to be present for what’s there, for better or for worse.

often, too, the more you daydream, the more you escape into something more ideal, the more separate that possibility becomes. suddenly, it’s not just future you you’re fantasizing about, but the you that you could have been. like they are a whole other entity. which doesn’t feel great. it’s nice to leave a path between what’s real and what can still be.

today’s landscape makes escapism So easy, even necessary. it truly is hard to win. i know this a massively broad statement to dump on someone’s no context message, but i hope there is at least one useful piece there somewhere :(

!!!! that’s an amazing development !!!!!! are you kidding !!!! the way my hands are trembling a bit omg dksdjs warn me next time before you snipe my heart out of my chest. good god. it’s been a bit of a difficult weekend and i am extra prone to getting choked up, to be fair, but “i cannot capture the magnitude of the tenderness i feel towards it” just really got me, i think. then ended your message with “and the days, colder—as you like them.” i mean. damn.

listen, anything can be a poem, right? even a forgotten dream can be a poem. a relationship can be a poem. a bird can be a poem. i fully believe that as someone who only ever receives poetry as a reader. at the end of the day, i’m just glad you’re writing, and that there’s a — path? a conduit? towards returning to where writing feels like homecoming. thank you for taking the time to drop by again and update me, and i hope you know that the way you describe feeling about writing, that tenderness, is often how i feel when i get personal messages like these. makes me want to try harder to find the right words, and i really am sorry if ever i might have been too sharp and direct in any of them. i’m trying, too, myself, to be gentler with my honesty. even if it means not being able to answer as many of these ccs in one go. i really do value the time you and others have taken in writing to me, and i hope… i don’t know. i hope people realize that in writing to me at all, you’ve already used words in the way they are meant to be used in my eyes, and conveyed a fraction of yourself that i am receiving with a fraction of mine. that’s worth a lot to me. more than i know how to say.

this is all just a very long thank you + acknowledgement + expression of relief. much love to you as well. i hope that your own words continue to warm your heart as much as they have warmed mine.

have you… read… a perfect day for bananafish…? seymour’s story? it might read a little odd but with context about how seymour passed... it is. a new shade of heartbreak. i don’t blame the older glass siblings for running in different directions in the aftermath, but franny and zooey having to be left at the starting line, where not even buddy will come home — how do you find god & meaning when you’ve been abandoned beyond control? if “love itself is a religion,” are franny and zooey’s search for god not simply their plea to be loved? but not loved imperfectly — loved like they never weren’t, bc you spend so long loving from the head that you don’t even know how to bargain with your heart to accept imperfect love. and franny is so against letting her own standards get the best of her, zooey so protective of his, but they’re both mainly trying to protect what they have left. salinger cinematic universe, when i catch you.

when i talk about loving your characters, i wonder if i just mean not to love them to the point that you make martyrs and saints out of them. they don’t all need happy endings, nor sane justifications for the choices they make and the words they say. sometimes giving your characters more layers that render them believably human to a reader is itself a kind of cruelty. it’s a shame how little writing there is on the absolute perfection that salinger has done with zooey in particular, how well you can see him from the moment we meet him in that tub to the way he sweats through his shirt to the very end, when he admits quietly that he’ll always be in love with acting. we don’t have to know if he even believes that. we just have to be there with him. and we were. and i feel like that’s something we’re starting to lose in this era of isolating references from stories or interpreting what this or that could mean. sometimes to interpret / analyze is to diminish a character or an entire story to a theme, a parallel, a reference. that has its merits, but… it’s just nice to have a story like franny and zooey. what the hell does any of it mean? who knows. who Cares. these are People. why would they stand for anything but themselves?

anyway. i just. feel you so much. i know i said that in various ways in the other reply, but truly, truly, there is so much in franny and zooey and i understand what you mean about it rerouting your relationship with how to view storytelling. i am so glad you took the leap and i am cheering you on loudly and proudly. if you haven’t read nine stories by salinger after franny and zooey, i highly recommend it! otherwise, baldwin’s beale street is another nice little study on how to sketch out characters for the sake of nothing else but character, as is beautiful world where are you by sally rooney and real life by brandon taylor. very few books let their characters stay strictly characters now, for many reasons related to the publishing industry, and it’s the biggest heartbreak of my life.

i am also a kita enthusiast… an atsumu enthusiast as well… oh, but choosing just one is very hard. the first time i got into hq was like. 2014. and my favourite character then was oikawa. he still remains an all-timer, but by the time i got back into hq around 2020, there were just too many favourites across the board.

i think with hq there’s such a set formula in how furudate fleshes out characters, and they never deviate from it; not once does hq waver in sticking to fundamentals, and for the best of the whole cast. it doesn’t subvert or challenge anything, and what you love about one character could very well be what you love about another, just with a few elements swapped out for each other. the magic trick of hq is that everyone feels individual and separate on the surface, such that you will never mistake one character for another, even if the same narrative machinations fuel them underneath.
so i guess it’s more that i love dynamics and moments: the karasuno first years, the tokyo camp gym b group, the captains together, kenma and hinata, hirugami’s backstory, tsukishima’s block against shiratorizawa, a few kageyama dynamics outside of karasuno, kita’s philosophy — you know what i mean? it’s hard to pick one character bc everyone was created to represent the wider hq theses, and it’s those that we find ourselves moved by.

i always joke that hq would be the ideal work to teach in a First Year Intro To Storytelling course bc you can draw the exact lines and mark down the exact reasons for each narrative choice furudate made. it’s quintessential shounen, and that’s why we all love it. hq characters are far too kind and loved, i think; none of them are ruthless, truly, nor are any of them actually, properly flawed, which is typically what would single out one character for me to love. the story loves them all too much, and so i do as well. if that makes sense.

i’m sure i have some past replies that delve more into general jjk fatigue, but here are some recent priv tweets:

1. akutami works the most magic when he’s taking notes from kubo it’s the funniest most ironic thing
2. akutami gege has the timing of a reality show veteran he saw the cameras rolling and gave it his best drama spin and i almost respect the complete inability to be serious
3. ​​i would say i’m amazed at how much i don’t care about the jjk thing but in total honesty i highly doubt 2020 me would have cared either... it’s also such a no shit choice that i probably Would care if he chickens out next chapter
4. akutami’s weakness isn’t that he wants to be contrarian it’s that he fancies himself a contrarian when he’s actually dependent on outside momentum and unable to keep a tight rein on it when he gets it. like a guy with a learner’s permit wanting to speed in a muscle car.
5. at this point i'm just curious how akutami would even think to get rid of [yuuta] which kubo trick will he rip off next to make it remotely believable i wonder

heavy on number 4, to answer your question on what i think about akutami’s writing in general. i have felt that way for as long as i’ve read jjk, and every single new chapter these days just further amplifies that. number 3 is about you-know-who’s death, but maybe it’s unfair to say i didn’t care; it was a long time coming, and i thought i would feel more strongly about it after anime hidden inventory, but the thing about akutami is that he ekes out every ounce of emotion you can possibly feel about something in the execution and leaves you to project it yourself in the wake of that.

it’s not his storytelling choices that’s the problem; it’s that he refuses to let the story breathe, and with it he strangles every available space for the right beats to do what it should. he’s good enough at creating characters and themes, and has the right ideas for who and where to look, but then it’s like shame catches up, or some kind of internal self-consciousness, and suddenly he can’t be bothered to allow his characters too much. which is So bizarre at best, and just off-putting at worst. it’s like he’s in constant disbelief that this is his work and he can do whatever he wants with it, and so he does exactly that and marvels at the mess that ensues. sometimes he even retreats, lets himself have hakari and higuruma after nanami and todo are off the inventory, but that’s another tangent.

that said, a lot of things about akutami make sense knowing he’s a huge bleach/tite kubo fan. but at least kubo excels at character design, if literally nothing else. akutami lets his personal feelings get in the way too much in his desperation to make it seem like he doesn’t have personal feelings to get in the way of anything — you know what i mean?

overall, the developments in the story aren’t what i take issue with. idc who dies if it’s done well. with all due respect, these were not done well.

of course! as much as most people watch wes anderson, i guess. very much a casual thing. one of the first ever reviews i did in my since abandoned career as a film critic was grand budapest hotel, so in a way i do have to credit him for pushing me to that genre of writing, but maybe it’s not a good thing to convert someone from casual appreciator of film storytelling to a teenager angry enough about the lack of substance to a filmgoing experience as to write extensively about it for the first time. idk.

but no, at the end of the day, i don’t really have strong feelings about his work anymore. i’d eventually realize that the feelings i used to associate with him is more of a wider modern cinema problem than anything his fault. i do think he would benefit from having someone else do the screenplay while he directs, though. and that he excels far more in stop motion than otherwise. fantastic mr. fox is probably his strongest film in my eyes, and the royal tenenbaums his most overrated. i did actually kind of like the french dispatch, now that i’m thinking about it. i haven’t seen asteroid city, but would absolutely be down to watch it if i get the chance.

you have no idea how painful it was to receive this and not be able to answer it immediately bc it would be unfair to not go in order omg i am shaking you back !! i know !! i Know.

it’s funny, bc the first time i read franny & zooey, i was around 14 and going through a confucianism phase that would snowball into [insert series of the philosophy and spirituality scouring that you do when you’re a teenager looking for something in place of religion as you form your identity] so its original appeal to me was very much franny’s story. i had like. maybe a mild literary crush on zooey. but the narration style and erratic rhythm of his novella felt secondary to how tangible and introspectively alive and in-the-moment reading franny’s story was. i mean, the restaurant bathroom breakdown, the slowly but steadily growing unhinged-ness of her disillusionment, the eventual catatonia — franny was so knowable, and so young, and so vulnerable. she’s what every teenager needs as a mirror on the page, maybe exactly bc she was allowed room to have what would be easy for us to write off as simple elitism and moral superiority.

so it was interesting to do this reread and realize i’ve moved from my franny era to being completely and unapologetically zooey 😭 i have so much to say about the execution of this novella now that i have more brain cells to spare about writing technique and all that stuff but there’s just something so flesh-and-blood in zooey. franny’s vulnerability — and i mean that as both the character and the short story — was swollen and bare-faced and light-headed and raw exactly bc it’s at the beginning of... something, but zooey’s is all stages of grief at once. it’s anger and denial and the need to both protect And defend one’s self. it’s all the complexity of loving something that can’t love you back bc of the way the world works as well as resenting someone who’s no longer around to make it right and free you from that complexity. zooey was just. he was like a cut that cannot heal bc the person keeps picking at it. maybe even bc he Doesn’t want it to heal.

god. franny and zooey is literally perfect, huh. i have no notes. it’s infuriating. i feel you so much on wanting to write an essay about it. all this to say thank you so much for dropping by to let me know you read it bc there is never a point where i’m not screaming about it in my head. a refreshing punch to the gut is exactly right. it’s a paradox made perfect, that goddamn book. makes you understand why catcher in the rye was all the rage with The Youth when it was released, if this is how people felt about that one. but you know what, life is too short not to be shameless about the books that made you see the exact depth of your human-ness, for better or for worse. this one definitely did for me.

ahhhh that is an extra tricky one 😢 i think you word it really well in phrasing it as an “addiction” to comfort. this is just my personal philosophy, for context, but i’m a today’s pain is tomorrow’s gain kind of guy. i love comfort in my own way, but i also tend to get fixated on how some present pains are necessary exactly bc it will ensure my comfort in the long run. it will pain me More to deny future me comfort, or to ensure Only short-lived comfort. how comfortable can i be right now, really, if i’m inhibiting my possibilities in the larger scheme of things? i can’t be comfortable if i’m not comfortable forever/for the majority of my long-term life. ofc this perspective has its own cons but i’ll put up with a lot if it means minimizing discomfort in the future. even if it’s something like folding clothes i really don’t want to touch right now just so i won’t crash into bed later with that pile still crowding a corner of my room. that’s how life is for me. metaphorically speaking, the less tabs of unread articles i’ve left open, the more processing power i have to spare for other things, and therefore the more comfortable i am. i just wouldn’t call it comfort otherwise. if “comfort” comes at the expense of my future/what’s necessary, that’s closer for me to blissful ignorance and/or willful negligence.

but it truly is difficult, i know. discomfort alone takes more mental/emotional energy than we expect, and it can be discouraging to always brace yourself for exhaustion. that said, i like to think of comfort as a matter of relying on neural plasticity. the beginning will always be the hardest, whether it’s a social dynamic or working out or a job or life in a new city. most beginnings won’t be comfortable — that is just how the life formulas balance out — which also means that choosing to be comfortable all the time can at times train an inability to weather any kind of beginning in life altogether. does this make sense?

insert caveat about the capitalist machine that is the job market, but more simply, more harmlessly, the brain power you use to choose comfort is the same amount you might use getting accustomed to something uncomfortable. it might not feel that way, bc familiarity is unconscious, and of course this rule is Not universally applicable, but the illusion that you’re not using up energy by choosing to stay comfortable in the present can often come at the cost of leaving that for your future self to deal with Anyway. do they not deserve to be comfortable, too?

all the same, everyone has their own circumstances. i’m speaking really broadly and impersonally here. i just happen to be of the casual opinion that it’s far more comfortable in the long run to distribute discomfort in smaller chunks than to leave all of it for just another version of myself to deal with. then again, i have also been told i consider the future too much. so. please take this with a grain of salt. a mountain ridge of salt, even.

it has been on constant repeat since release! it’s always a slow run-up for me when we get a new mitski era, but i know eventually something will click into place and i’ll be 200% absorbed into the new album. i love how each of her albums have had a different — world? sometimes songs feel like colours, and those colours feel like sensations, but with mitski, it’s always a wider more encompassing version. like small planets viewed from a spacecraft. small galaxies. not small cities or images but an entire galaxy. while bury me in makeout creek remains my objective favourite, land is inhospitable was just. everything you want the follow-up to laurel hell to be. laurel hell was suffocating in its heartbreak, but inhospitable is like being allowed infinite fresh air. there’s a bit here that’s echoed between the two albums (buffalo replaced and heat lightning are chord siblings in my head, for instance, in the same way that i love me after you and i guess are thematic twins) but when listened to in the track list order, heaven is what takes the album to a new direction and for the better at that. it’s like… like wings unfurling? that’s the feeling the album gives me. not necessarily taking flight, but unfurling. the weight of those wings tugging at your back, but also the unburdening sensation of having them freed.

this album had so many things i’m weak for: religious themes in the lyrics, a cosmic tone in the production, a cyclical inevitability to each song that makes them more than brilliant even as standalones. star was my immediate favourite upon release, but for a time after the full album drop, i thought the deal might replace it. i don’t know if it truly did? star still moves me beyond describing, and not just bc i love anything celestial, while i love the deal more from like… the vantage point of writing appreciation. or something. idk. the deal sustains a strong narrative in a way i’d love to see more from mitski. i mean, the image of stumbling upon a bird perched on a streetlight while you’re out on a walk and making a faustian bargain to be absolved of the burden of being yourself, only for it to amount to nothing in the end? one of my all time mitski favourites.

this album just contained some of her lyrical best, like the opening lyrics of the frost and even those viral verses from my love mine all mine. when memories snow is also So evocative, and its words play so deftly with metaphors and multiple definitions of the same word. they just feel secure, the lyrics in this album. i think i’m your man is the weakest/most overrated song in the album, but i also know it appeals to a certain subsection of people. so. it has its merits. i don’t like my mind is similarly not as lyrically robust as the rest, but the melody/production elevates it.

all in all another no skip for me from mitski ☺️

hello! i have not, unfortunately… it Was high on my radar, but i saw someone’s neutral review on it and kind of just. set it aside for the meantime bc idk if novels about loneliness and connection are what appeal to me right now.

that said, i have no idea what i even want from novels these days; i feel like nothing i give a shot scratches the itch i need it to, but i can’t locate where the itch even is. so i very well could pick up all the lovers in the night tomorrow or in a year, who knows, but for now, i’m sorry i have no thoughts to share :(

non-human humans, it seems. or human non-humans? or — no, not the best approach to it, actually. hm. whatever you call the category that encompasses automatons, androids, angels, puppets, machines, magical girls, mecha pilots, beings otherwise human yet were raised to carry no more than the function of a machine or an ornament, even heirs to both literal and metaphorical thrones.

all technically in line with characters i usually love anyway, but it’s taken on more shape this year. part of it is bc i was thinking during the spring anime season that i don’t know how much more i can handle of shoujo characters being set up to not think much of romance only to be fixed/cured/changed by that one special person. maybe i’m just bored of the impulse to ~humanize, for lack of a better word, characters who haven’t had that experience/privilege to begin with, or at least to present a love interest as a vehicle for that humanizing. it just leaves a bad aftertaste in its implications, and that led me to thinking about how i might want stories/arcs like this to be told. what’s the alternative to having a Cold, Stoic, Strategic Archetype Who Doesn’t Care About What People Think come alive bc of a “Painfully Human,” Sentimental, Emotional Archetype Who Does Care And Wants To Be With People? but there’s no escaping that narrative. there’s something people find fundamentally wrong about the former archetype, i guess. something to be fixed or nudged towards Human Connection in the only right way there is. as if the childhood they Did have is something to be overwritten completely instead of a fundamental part of who and what they are. skip to loafer is doing a really interesting subversion of that point right now, but i digress.

all the pieces of media i’ve loved recently that fall into all this are the employees by olga ravn and elan ceres from gundam: witch from mercury (which is my fav of the franchise so far, easily, even if i maintain that there was plenty it chickened out of when it shouldn’t have). i’ve also done some revisiting of media i’ve loved for nearly all my life to reevaluate it for this theme, including urasawa’s pluto, of which the anime was incredibly disappointing but a recent reread of the manga delivered even more than i expected it to. urasawa is at his best when his arm is twisted behind his back.

otherwise, not many dominant/fixation-level media obsessions. i’ve been jumping from good book to good book and haven’t had much time in between except to reconsume oldies but goodies. been rewatching some of my all time fav movies, including last year at marienbad, and i finally got around to watching the second season of link click. but yeah. very all over the place these days, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. makes me wonder if i’m finally growing up and away from my capacity to be obsessive in my media consumptiom, or if i’m now finding other ways to channel energy that would have accounted for obsession before. idk.

I’M GLAD. I’M SO, SO GLAD. relieved that my nonsense could offer direction but also just glad on a personal level. i know it’s been a while since you sent this in but i hope writing has continued to be kind with you… or that you have continued to be kind to writing. if more conceptual writing advice is helpful to you and you’re looking for something to read here and there to get the spark going, steering the craft by ursula k. le guin has been the only “writing book” that has had me all [drake pointing and smiling meme] instead of 😐

slightly related, but an animator friend of mine was taking a class once where the instructor dedicated a unit to starting a new sketchbook and how this often comes with a feeling of “preciousness” — this sense of oh the first clean page of this sparkling new sketchbook needs to look a certain way. which can be a paralyzing mentality, enough that people often don’t end up just drawing, whether badly or well. the instructor suggests a bunch of things — start from the middle, open to a random page every time, throw the sketchbook at a wall or beat it up a bit so the cover/spine doesn’t feel so uncracked and pristine — and that advice really stuck with me in my own process, even if there isn’t quite the same physical material of having a sketchbook. so.

i’m an advocate for bastardizing craft, i always say — or at least i try not to hold the writing process to any sort of purity. maybe i’m disillusioned about any actual power writing may have, or maybe it’s just that i don’t think it’s something for me to take pride in, but either way, i do believe perfectionism of any capacity needs a target. cioran wrote once that failure is a very pure idea, and therefore a valuable resource. immediate success can’t give you direction; it can’t even tell you what it is exactly that you did right. i think that applies to writing, too.

thank you for updating me!! cheering you on and wishing you nothing but an attentive mind and an active page 🤍

no rnbc for now confirmed, yes :( i almost cracked after the halloween event thing, though. thank god rnbc lore unfolds mostly behind the scenes since they’re not in isagi/nagi’s radars in the current arcs and both bllk universe stories are told from their perspectives alone, but if something reanimates me now that rin and the other pxg boys have come home — we will see! i’m feeling rusty and need a quick warm-up. if rnbc is available, i might be there in a heartbeat.

everything’s formally been abandoned, but if it’s of any interest, this is the full list of rnbc wips i had going for a time! feel free to ignore, etc.

1. time loop canon verse fic set during isagi’s wedding and inspired by this: https://twitter.com/ninsstosa/status/1631721056364015616?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw (parts of it were repurposed and moved to so it goes)

2. so it goes in bachira’s pov. this would have just ended up a dump of headcanons,especially since so it goes rin didn’t leave much room for reflecting on their actual history pre-injury.

3. college student bachira does odd jobs around campus to fund his severe wanderlust and through a series of events and thanks to mutual friend isagi bachira is hired by acclaimed actor rin to pose as his fake boyfriend at a dinner with sdse and basically give those two as much a headache as they give rin. ofc things don’t go according to plan, bachira’s themes of insatiable hunger come into play, maybe there was accidental marriage that i never got to in the second chapter. shidou is a formula 1 driver and sae is a retired actor turned wunderkind director. plus another attempt at sneaking in aro nagi. this was overall a fun universe… pre-2020 me could have finished it

4. vampire bachira attempt # 1, exes rnbc, gourmet cuisine universe. bachira is a sommelier bc the idea of a vampire being a wine expert is a gold mine of imagery. they had a hostile, immature break-up (a rarity in the cityboys cinematic universe, i thought) before bachira was turned and now it’s up to rin, five years later, to put whatever their relationship was worth back together.

5. vampire bachira attempt # 2, exes rnbc again, but this time bc i just wanted to write really rich young adults chasing each other across the globe while their pr teams and bodyguards run around in panic. everyone is a rich nepo baby here, except bachira, who came upon wealth mostly bc of yuu’s art taking off. wanted to explore some bits about class and commodity here, in the context also of the commodification of literal human beings when they become something to feed from.

6. vampire bachira attempt # 3, established relationship rnbc, danseur bachira in a production of giselle not realizing he’s been turned. my fav of the vampire attempts, and inspired by the deal by mitski. highest likelihood of being resurrected from the gdoc grave.

you are a genuine trooper omg thank you for the absolute patience with my rambling that this would have required… i was thinking the other day that i should pay someone to organize all my answers into a carrd/page so i had like. a table of contents. but then i almost started writhing on the ground at what a horribly self-aggrandizing idea that is. i’d throw up if i had easy access to some of the stuff i was going on about three years ago on here, probably. some of the writing in those ccs… i don’t even want to think about it. thank you so much for putting up with 800+ answers worth of word vomit.

CRYING don’t worry you weren’t missing anything big !! i got a cc once that was like. hey. love your writing but god do your titles have to suck that much. which was such a mundane item that i posted about it, prompting the person to come back for a second round and let me know that the number of hits on a fic is not a marker of its quality, etc. which is. obvious. ofc. but the whole situation snowballed into basically a misreading of how invested i actually am in [waves at statistics and popularity politics and moralizing/absolutism/what-about-ism of the echo chamber that is fandom] hence the wink wink nudge nudge joking that has cropped up here and there since. it never was and never would be that serious. even my housemates still joke about that cc without knowing the full context… it’s just too available 😭

when i finished trust by hernan diaz i thought nothing else will come close for the rest of the year in how it reanimated something dead inside my brain but i’m in my olga ravn era right now and the employees gave me open heart surgery. both trust and the employees played into my thematic fixations of the year, to be fair, so i’m a little biased, but. i think you can sum up my current taste in stories with this section from the employees:

“I know I’m only humanoid and that it’s not the same. But I look like a human, and feel the way humans do. I consist of the same parts. Perhaps all that’s needed is for you to change my status in your documents? Is it a question of name? Could I be a human if you called me so?”

coincidentally, my work by olga ravn (which i paused reading bc it was going too well and i was feeling slightly drunk off it) contains echoes of my fav section in trust. full circle obsessions are at work here. here are my thoughts on trust if you’d like to give them a read: https://literal.club/regressor/book/hernan-diaz-trust-vo7mn no obligation to! it’s quite incoherent. and my review of the employees is essentially just a short journal entry: https://literal.club/regressor/book/the-employees-6qa3y

jane austen… queen of the exes trope to me… this is a massive honour, genuinely, and too high a bar. thank you, thank you, seriously. i’m glad there’s something in how my characters? narratives? convey love that can resonate across all the things each reader carries. like, what a crazy notion!! what a crazy reality. love ricocheted across different people. insane. thank you for taking the time to write to me, and for your sweet words 🩷

oooooh i feel you a lot on this! i try so hard not to be disillusioned with my current job situation bc — idk. i refuse to give them the satisfaction of breaking me down. i refuse to be one more person that the corporate grind has oiled up to a shine before adding to their assembly factory system. but i do seethe plenty. at times maybe even unfairly. i’m lucky, really, to have the work and financial situation i do. i can say that bc i’ve been in a position much worse, and the life i have now, even with debts that aren’t mine and all, would have seemed like a dream to the me of just two years ago. but it also feels sometimes like that’s something i’m just telling myself so i don’t clatter to rock bottom and realize i’m just sustaining a lie.

i guess i just mean to say that i understand. coping mechanism or not, should your work/financial life be something that requires coping in the first place? no, right? and like. this is easier said than done, but are there any avenues that can be just yours? i know sometimes we start falling into cycles of My Life Sucks And There’s Nothing I Can Do About It and spiral into the things we Could have been doing if our lives just didn’t suck, but often that blinds us into seeing faults in that bulletproof truth. it doesn’t make it any less true, bc yes, life under capitalism sucks so, so much, and all our arms ARE tied. but make sure it’s never a choice, to truly have no other options. i often think — if you have to meet your older self, and they ask you, “did you really do your best?” can i honestly say i did, even if only for the sake of pride? can i sneer back and say “you have no idea how hard i was trying” and not only mean that defensively?

i really am sorry, sei. i know i can be blind to how hard life can feel for others, if not outright unfeeling, but for what it’s worth, i’m proud of you for sustaining yourself and the demands of your life despite everything. i’m sorry it has to come with despite. i won’t pretend like i’m offering solutions that have any weight. but i’m squeezing your hand. i hope there’s someplace you can put it all down.

on my end… i have fallen in love with olga ravn’s work, and have been rereading some of thomas ligotti’s short stories. but no, i haven’t listened to the new hozier, actually! i usually wait for the pull of interest to check out new things from even artists i enjoyed before, and it hasn’t happened with this one yet. i’ll keep this rec close to heart, though, as i will you saying “your voice is so clear sometimes. i hope you keep it safe.” my heart squeezes every time i reread that. thank you for the clarity of Your words, and for trusting me with something inescapably personal.

p.s. if i had to pick between 9 or 4, i’d go for 4 🙂

no but this actually means a lot considering i think i cornered that person into an unwanted crisis. or exacerbated one, at least. i sounded maybe a bit too much like i’m playing devil’s advocate. that’s a privilege, too, to be able to offer input with more scope than the person experiencing it. the luxury of being on the outside, and seeing more. no such thing as objective truth, though, etc. rationality is the weapon of someone who hasn’t lost anything in the battlefield or whatever.

but no, seriously, thank you, saira. for your update and for everything: all your comments and replies across the years, for this. i hope all continues to be gentle with you. i can’t deny a part of me is like. i’ll fight her for you. send me in, coach. but that’s not fair to you or to her. all that matters to me is there is peace in your life after all this. that there’s a self you can continue to preserve. so. cheers to saira’s life !! 🥂

that’s an indispensable trait, i think. to welcome harshness from your friends. often i think there’s no trust quite like the ones you develop for people who can see the shape of you and your life enough to make evaluations/judgments of it, let alone criticism they can trust to remain constructive on your end. when you’re the type to seek out things that feel like knowledge — may it be information, perception, even absolution — there’s a tendency to rule out the possibility of subjectivity, when any objectivity coming from one source is still by nature subjectivity. maybe, even, we expect that if we cover all our bases, if we find terms and evidence to support the conceptual, the abstract, the emotive, we will not have to be put under the microscope ourselves. it’s a weird paradoxical existence. makes me wonder whether we want or don’t want to be witnessed. in any case, i caution at the danger of self-flagellation becoming the opposite of self-awareness, but i did wanna say that i really, really admire your embracing of the vulnerability that comes with… you know. putting yourself out there. out here. putting into words as many angles to one truth as possible. i’m a big believer in narrative as performance by default. so. again. mark fisher post-truth moment. to choose a truth is vulnerability in itself.

(slight aside: it’s interesting you bring up gayitri spivak here bc i actually was introduced to her philosophy at one of my first jobs of all places)

i find that, with my own capacity to be unkind, as you phrase it, the most i can do is to really just. not let anything fester. it is so easy to. a part of me always thinks of ways parts of me and someone else can be used, weaponized, weighed if ever a conversation comes up that would need to be won. but that’s not how you do relationships. you don’t “win” relationships. you express what’s true to you, and they theirs. that’s all there is, for better or for worse. i think hurt that can ruin relationships isn’t in the inflicting of the wound; that, we can’t avoid. hurt is in the wounds we let get infected. that’s what’s truly unkind to me, to ourselves and to the people we love: when we think a relationship is worth an infection and no more. that’s the only thing i can apply broadly as someone who has ended relationships in every possible way.

the important thing to me is you’re happy, and that you’re not happy bc you’re deliberately not seeing certain pieces about what happened. that you live knowing what that life contains. work that’s all you, in the end! so! give yourself due credit!

i know (now) that we’ve had other interactions since and outside of this situation, but i’m still oddly grateful that you thought to give me an update 😭 idk. a lot of the time any “advice” i give on cc feels very… hierarchical? like i’m forcing someone into the position of a supplicant and they have to just take any words i throw at them without an opportunity for discussion. i know it’s just inherent to the format of an anonymous inbox, but idk. it feels sometimes like i’m making a choice that i should never make for another person. so. it’s nice when there’s continuity. to the interaction. if that makes sense.

all that said, thank you for taking my “advice” to heart (i keep putting that word in quotes bc i really do hesitate to attach any weight to it that seems like i’m taking credit for anything here) but oh my god. jesus. i mean, you bring up radical vulnerability in your next message, and we can talk about that there, but i think it’s interesting how there’s an impulse here to… not intellectualize, exactly, but there’s an impulse to arrange and rearrange the facts in the aftermath that to me reflects how intense they must have been in the moment. bc i truly feel as if… if you had seen all this then, if you had known exactly what you were dealing with before, you definitely would have known how to use them. you say that you were faced with how unkind you could be, which i relate to greatly enough as to be biased about it, but i think it’s less lack of kindness and more just an act of trying to find compromise where once you did not have enough details. i’m glad you’ve found transparency with yourself and reflected on a tendency to sort of interpret people for them and without their input, but i also think that’s a far less unkind instinct than something you must consider yourself cruel/cold for. human beings wouldn’t assume things for other people if our interactions with each other didn’t rely on assumptions to be interactive at all, you know what i mean?

i guess i’ll end this part of the messages with saying that i think it’s perfectly fine to apologize for How you approached something without having to apologize for the something at all. hurt isn’t mutually exclusive, though ofc the challenge is when we encounter people to whom the enormity of someone else’s hurt seems a threat to the validity of theirs. but anyway!

oh dear. oh my goodness. i... think it’s isolating enough as it is to graduate the year you’re “supposed” to, that it gets worse the more years you feel like you miss — but early is its own thing, and i can’t even imagine what that must be like. we place so much value in shit like. being wiser than your age. being gifted and “ahead.” but i think certain things in life are expected to take this or that amount of time exactly bc that’s how long they take at minimum. as impressive as it is for you to graduate high school early, there’s a reason people are usually x age when they enter a period in life. it’s a huge ask of yourself, to adapt completely, and through no fault of your own. so i just… am sorry, to start, at how it must feel right now.

a lot of the time the only thing we can do in a new environment is to keep busy. you don’t have to be a social butterfly, or to have a bunch of extracurriculars and networking opportunities if that’s not the kind of person you are. filling is not the same as compensating, bc the latter attaches a responsibility to an otherwise harmless thing. but sometimes you just need to help the days pass by until they start doing it on their own. college seemingly presents so many natural ways to meet people that we intrinsically expect those ways to fall into our lap, but everyone in college is concerned only with their own self journeys of becoming a person. you gotta nose yourself into opportunities that traverse the gap, open yourself up to the trial and error of the social environments that work for you, bc everyone is too busy with their own selves. you all have self-centred reasons to seek each other out, and you’re in a perfect microcosm to explore solutions to isolation. that, and college is the perfect time to fuck around. not only is Everyone fucking around, everyone is so caught up in their own fucking around to truly pay attention to someone else’s. it’s the most alienating kind of freedom there is, but it’s still a kind of social free-for-all that you won’t get anywhere else.

there’s always stuff going on at college, even when you don’t seem to hear about it. there’s always some guy watching a movie in the lounge on thanksgiving weekend while everyone else goes home. it’s a small city, college, and that includes the edward hopper loneliness of the moments in between the loud ones. there’s a niche for you somewhere. it’s cliche to say you’re not alone, i know, and it’s rich coming from someone who didn’t do anything about their crippling social anxiety until third year, but i also know that sometimes, in our isolation, we end up furthering it by caging ourselves in.

i’m sorry that this isn’t great advice, but. there’s no way to expedite a version of yourself, only a way to keep feeding the spinning wheel more thread until it makes enough for a coat. stay safe, and let your self-making take the time it needs to unfold. i’m truly cheering you on.

oh, this is cool !! i Must have a few, but. i also find that i’m very particular in general about how my pairings are written and you can argue all of them are shipped under Very Specific Circumstances, technically? is that obtuse of me to say?
a notable case would be triads, bc it’s about balancing an equation, like rnbcis from blue lock or even the main trio from orv. but for example: itfs needs an established dynamic and a thorough renegotiation of roles bc that’s just how their relationship is. it’s built into the people they are, and it’s in fact those qualities they trust most about each other. kmtr from blue period has to acknowledge at some point the slight disproportion in their knowledge and experience with life; murai is pathologically incapable of letting himself be vulnerable, let alone around and to yatora, who in turn has a tendency to default to letting himself need advice/comforting, and has canonically struggled with not knowing how to comfort murai when it’s his turn. that kind of thing. even in an au, it won’t matter what tropes you use if it doesn’t even feel like them anymore, all bc you couldn’t spotlight the crucial core parts of who they are. some pieces about dynamics are what makes it. why change those things about a pairing when that’s exactly what we love about them?

i almost lost my train of thought there i’m sorry… i’m sure i have some for a few other older phases, but all i can think of right now are bllk pairings since it’s freshest in my mind. like kiis or ngbr. if that means anything. but i think that’s bc no one in bllk is in a stable emotional / mental state, and it will take a lot of balancing to make some dynamics work like a pairing should and not just. two characters in the same room made to carry out the routine actions expected of them in a silly little romance fic. very uninteresting to me, personally.

if i like a pairing, it’s probably for very specific reasons. so. never underestimate how insufferably strict and selective i am with characterization in fanwork 😞

can i… cheat a little here… and link a previous answer with some of my fav newsletters? https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1327590591

i don’t know if there’s any continuity across all the times i’ve answered this question, but my response right now — and i’ve probably worded this a bunch of ways or attempted a different angle altogether before — is that there’s no such thing as an end to human connection. for a connection between two human beings to exist, for two entire systems of being-ness to interact in any way (whether or not the result is meaningful in the larger scheme of things) is to always exist at the beginning, forever within that initial stage of perpetual unknowability. to connect with someone is to sign up for being a mutable being around another mutable being. there’s no real way for a relationship to remain static or stagnant unless everyone involved has stopped living, literally or metaphorically, but not even death marks an end in most cases. the point of that opening section is to preface that when you choose to love someone forever, what you’re really choosing is a life with them. a life of knowing and unknowing, learning and unlearning. it’s a promise of learning to love who that person will become, and them loving who you will become. to love someone is to embrace the hard work of understanding them exactly bc it IS hard work, and to allow love all the space to evolve and reshape itself.

at least in the context of romance! i don’t totally subscribe to those thoughts myself, though, to be fair. i need to start adding a caveat to that opening section bc as grateful as i am that people take my work seriously at all, i realized too late that some readers don’t catch on to the fact that it’s mahito ranting... it’s just. a spin on his ridiculous philosophizing in jjk canon. the name of the newsletter is literally the bleach zine that akutami gege wrote in, like, middle school. not to devalue having that newsletter as the thesis statement, of course, but it’s one of those scenes that has gravity insofar as the story it helps bookend.

the way that my emotional core has been so swollen and tender all week that i had to take deep breaths over this just to recenter myself… thank you for this moment of meditative, quiet warmth, sweet stranger. genuinely. thank you for receiving my words, and i hope everything is golden with you as well. i know i’m spiritually digging into the food you made 💛

i should probably look for the other cc i answered on this and reference it to make my thoughts easier to pin down but i think the gist of it is that i believe in a god but not necessarily The god. i guess i’m agnostic? idk if that’s quite right. i believe in creation, in something bigger than human life, but it does not necessarily have to be moral or divine. god can be whatever wondrous, bigger-than-life thing led to the big bang. god can be whatever connecting factor there is in nature. god can be whatever overlords are supervising this simulation we hypothetically live in. it doesn’t matter. i don’t agonize over which one it is, is the point. it’s just that i can’t ever be sure there isn’t a god. objectively speaking, i believe there is a tier above where we humans are, bc obviously there is. humans are imperfect and juvenile creations compared to what’s out there in the universe, whatever it might be. we don’t know, but it came from something and somewhere, just like we did. god could be a single molecular reaction. god could be a tadpole. i would still count that as a creator.

i also believe in the sanctity of creation, and i believe in the responsibility of a master. i believe in the necessity of the masses being given the concept of a god (not religion, necessarily, and especially not the corporate systems of secular religion) bc the truth is plenty of people don’t know what to do with a completely blank slate in place of their free will.

what i don’t believe in is an entity up in the heavens judging the weight of my soul and which afterlife i deserve, let alone that this being is some perfect, morally pure version of a powered up human. i don’t wholly preclude the possibility of that in my thoughts, sure, but i’ll never be diehard about it, either. i also don’t believe in moral expectations outside of my own self. i was raised extremely catholic, and i love and miss catholic rituals, but i’ve never subscribed to catholic beliefs for better or for worse. i pray, but it’s the repetition and rituals i do it for; i have my superstitions, and i believe in ghosts and spirituality, but it’s never to the point of guiding religious ethos. i think it’s a flawed attempt at inducing order in your life and the world to moralize any one way just bc some god told me to.

i suppose my actual answer is an easygoing shrug? or at least it’s that line in trust by hernan diaz that’s like. god is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions. it’s such a dead end of an answer, the traditional idea of a god. it’s not that i discount it altogether, but it ranks very low in my generated mental list of the godhood that produced life as we know it.

I AM SO HAPPY YOU’RE BACK I WANTED TO GIVE YOU ANOTHER SUGGESTION

the xuanhuan web novel lord of the mysteries recently released the trailer for their donghua, which is how i discovered it, but since the show won’t be out until 2025, i figured i’d throw the novel into our conversation here. it’s complete and so, so very long (as web novels often are) but its wordbuilding comes highly praised, and i have to admit i’m tempted by the steampunk mystery alone. i mean. all the stuff we said about social commentary and keeping the energy of a thriller deftly going — i imagine that translates well to steampunk. reviews seem to be really polarized, though, but i should say a lot of the criticisms appear to come from people who prefer strictly action-packed web novels. so if you wanted to check it out, the title is lord of the mysteries / guimi zhi zhu / 诡秘之主.

as for link click, i do have plans to binge now that the entire season is out! i don’t know why i’m so reluctant to just dive in. i guess i’m worried it will fall short after season 1? i think link click’s strength was that it kept its focus narrow but its possibilities broad, and when you expand the plot as season 2 seems to have no choice but to, there’s danger of picking a side out of necessity. i hope season 2 did okay on that. i’m kinda scared to find out.

i’ve wondered a lot what my fav link click story could be, and it’s a close one, but it’s probably the basketball team case. emma remains one of the only times in recent memory that a pilot episode has taken me completely aback and i cherish it so much, but the basketball team arc is (i think) the first instance of a case taking more than one episode, and i’m a sucker for how simply it balanced stakes and character-building so early in the series. there’s just so many difficult things in conflict there — ethics vs. psychology, lu guang’s objectivity and cheng xiaoshi’s subjectivity, all of which exacerbated by the fact that as much as lu guang makes the impossible happen, technically, it’s still cxs who has to be there and experience it and in the end wrestle with the aftermath. there’s a fundamental difference to both their goodwill as human beings and their approach to the job. when your role is to offer closure, what happens when that comes at the cost of you achieving closure yourself? is that a sacrifice you have to make, and if so, why can’t a change of the past be a sacrifice someone else should make? who decides what has to be sacrificed? who has the right to choose which emotions to ignore and allow to leave unanchored, and which lives to leave up to “fate” — when even time / space itself doesn’t hold them both to absolute rules?

i really should watch season 2 soon ahhh but thank you so much for coming back, and i’m glad my answers made some level of sense. i hope you’ve found something to enjoy in your recent media, and please know i’m always happy to hear whatever people are down to share 🤍

is everyone revisiting the iliad this fall or something... it’s intriguing how many people i’ve spoken to recently are on the same boat

but the translation i’m most partial to is fitzgerald’s, funnily enough! it’s not really known for its faithfulness to the greek; people usually go for lattimore’s on that, i think, and i’ve heard people advocate for verity’s as well, though i wasn’t a huge fan of either and hated fagles outright. fitzgerald was the first that didn’t make me feel like it was trying so hard that i wanted it to be over for both of us. some translations Reek of desperately wanting to capture the original voice of the source, and while i’m a sucker for staying grammatically faithful / encompassing, i feel like the task of a translator only begins with grammar. a text is still a text, even in adaptation. it should stand on its own. plus ancient greek is an intricate language, with elements we don’t have in english, and i feel like it defeats the point to try and batter english into a shape it doesn’t naturally form.

fitzgerald is a nice example of someone who i feel captures the vibe of the original greek and wields english liberally to convey it, even if it means forgoing some of the traditionally homeric elements of the language, like the epithets for the olympians... which i find so... lame... in english. we don’t need to hear about “swift-footed” achilles any more than i want to read a novel that keeps referring to a named main character as The Blond. pretty as it is in the greek, with how many constructions of ποδ-something actually make up the varieties of swift-footed to fit the meter, english can only allow for one version of an adjective, and i think a translator should account for that, as anne carson does in her own translations of the tragedians. otherwise, it’s corny enough to be a dealbreaker for me.

i did hear emily wilson recently released a translation, and it seems to be well-received. i’m glad she’s translating, god knows we need more women translators in classics, but as groundbreaking as the opening line of her odyssey was (“tell me about a complicated man”), and as much as it invites new engagement with the text, i’ll always be partial to fitzgerald’s approach to homer, which translates that exact same odyssey opening line as “sing in me, muse, and through me tell the story / of that man skilled in all ways of contending.”

but all this is based purely on personal taste and preference, especially what i consider a deal breaker. it’s about writing style, about individual attachment to the greek, about how much of the story you want to leave up to interpretation. there are even a bunch of decent prose translations up online for free. it just happens that i don’t love the post-modernist, contemporary sparse style of prose / poetry, but all robust translations, as do all styles of writing, have merit to them. so do take my opinions with a grain of salt !!

rafaela !! i’m so late to this that it’s like. nowhere close to summer anymore. but it remains very endearing to hear you spent it neck-deep at one point in gracie abrams music (and might be, still) ☀️

the first ever gracie song to leave an impression on me is stay so i have an eternal soft spot for it :( i also love unlearn and mean it. from this is what it feels like, my favs are rockland, for real this time and feels like. i was writing a bunch of different romance-heavy stories around the time these songs came out, to be fair, so that might have played into my attachment to these songs. but i do genuinely think rockland is gorgeously produced, and i’m always struck by how much i feel for the songs in this is what it feels like whenever i revisit it after a while away.

good riddance took a long time to grow on me, and i’m not sure the entire album totally has, but right now is unequivocally my fav song on it. i also really like the blue. i’d say good riddance feels like the older, more mature version of this is what it feels like, in that the narrative-building is much stronger and more grounded, but there’s a young, open rawness to this is what it feels like that’s hard to beat. i also prefer the vocals in this is what it feels like a lot more, though i do enjoy some lyrics on good riddance, and when the melody lines are right on the money, they land strong, like the chorus of i should hate you, or feel unexpectedly cathartic, like full machine.

i looooooooooove this question yes i absolutely would !! two of my manuscripts are horror. i guess the severity of the horror elements themselves vary, but an anxious culture is a superstitious culture, so horror is rendered almost always necessary in narratives of colonialism, abuse, control and lack thereof, etc. sometimes the thing haunting the narrative is an actual haunting. sometimes to be subjugated is to be made into an immortal creature that never had the chance to escape the cycle of being both predator and prey. and sometimes you can’t truly talk about the separation you feel between yourself and your body unless you put a foreign presence in there with you.

my point is i’ve been trying to write horror for [insert however long i’ve been working on this iteration of manuscript # 1] but i keep doubting my footing on it instead of just committing to freefall. i’m in this odd little limbo after my most recent au fic where even the thought of writing the same contemporary / slice of life i’ve always felt grounded in writing is yawn-inducing, but to go onwards and upwards is daunting exactly bc it’s so new and exciting. blue lock kinda turned a key in me and now the door won’t swing back shut enough to click. it’s a shame how easy it is to make jokes out of characters like bachira, rin and shidou bc the thematic weight of all their breakdowns have such horror potential, not to mention whatever the hell is going on at bastard münchen. but now that bllk has opened up access to the part of me that hungers for that sort of stuff, i’m left reflecting on some sections of hairpin turns / perfect machine and thinking to myself oh, you could have gone much bloodier with that. or oh, you let some undefined softness win here instead of the objectively better if more unsympathetic route. i think when you love your characters, no matter how terrible they are, there’s an impulse to have a reader love them the way you do. which is not always perfectly compatible for horror, or really anything that counts as a dark theme.

but that’s exactly why i’m so eager to do it with my own characters :( there’s a fair bit of reluctance when it’s characters that belong to their own canon world, but it’s much more comfortable pivoting to horror when they’re your own. the problem is that it seems i have... no functional sense... of fear and survival. i’ve done research on everything from horror films and books to all the popular horror podcasts to youtube short films to the depths of subreddit true stories, and even now i’m like. damn. there’s nothing in my code programmed to isolate what’s so scary about these. and not even in the juvenile haha scary movie funny way. it’s more like my compass for understanding human nature is going haywire
and i need to find a way to recalibrate. it’s a work in progress, in any case.

the short answer is yeah! i’d love to write horror in any capacity, and i do wish i had space to explore darker themes way more in a fic.

oooh excellent question 🤔 i think much of writing a story is management of rhythm and tone. the craft part of it feels like vivisection; you know what you’re trying to gauge, but it might need a little gore and mess to be sure. but the actual writing is like running. you won’t reach top speed at once. you can try, but it’s nearly always better to get a walking start, gradually up your momentum, and when it’s time to stop, account for the fact that there’s no natural way for the body to just abruptly halt forward motion. when you’ve been running at top speed, stopping will be a process of slowing to a walk, and your legs will have to keep moving to burn off the momentum until it can actually physically stop. that’s what “completing” a story feels like. burning off all that energy until it depletes itself.

to get there, the story Has to have momentum. writers like to advice that stories have to feel inevitable, but i think what they mean is that it needs to have that running momentum. when i write the first draft, i tunnel vision on only thing, which is to keep it moving. i’ll do whatever it takes to do that, even if means leaving marks to return to later as i take stock of the hypothetical chess board.

i always do revision on my phone, partly bc i do so many of them and it’s more comfortable to lie down when a single round can bring one scene from 1k to 5k and partly bc there’s less of a temptation to focus on more than edits. i’d say the most “crucial” part is the first round of filling, for wherever i just dumped dialogue and left a slash to indicate that i’ll need to add speaker tags / more introspection / body language. sometimes i’ll also dump imagery markers like [snow, melancholy, quiet] and save the expanding for the revision stage. read-throughs are otherwise holistic in service of tone management. is the reasoning / pace of the dialogue hard to follow? does it make no sense for one of them to say this, or maybe there’s a different way this character would say / think the sentiment i meant to convey? is this word choice too mild for the reader to get a grasp of what this character is feeling? is it too severe? do we need an emotional break here so the reader can breathe / brace for what’s coming? revision is never just any one thing, which is why you need to be ruthless with it. once you have a story to tear apart, stitching it back together can be anything from reordering paragraphs, choosing a different setting, deleting a sentence that calls so much attention to itself that it disrupts the staccato rhythm needed for a tense scene, kicking a character out, or even scrapping the scene altogether.

as for whether a story is ready to share, though… i guess completion is the only criterion there? i need to send a story off and never think of it as solely mine again to make it final and wrap it up in my head, but sharing is more an add-on discounted service than a goal.

fascinating !! though i don’t know if i do... the first one to come to mind is ode to a nightingale by john keats, which has a stanza dedicated to the narrator fumbling in a dark forest (?) and trying to name the flowers around him by smell and/or touch. it’s not explicitly about the death of a flower so much as death and ephemerality bc. you know. the romantic poets are like that. and also keats spent nearly all his life around the same illness that took him too young. which has always made me wonder what the idea of forever must feel like for someone like that. when you barely have a chance at true mortality, what do you conceive of when you imagine immortality, you know? is beauty achieved through the unachievable, like living long and comfortably, or is beauty achieved exactly bc longevity is impossible? so stanza five in ode to a nightingale has always struck me as an interesting in-between of all of that.

neruda’s sonnet 17 is also a fun subversion of the romanticism of flowers:

i love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

damn i can only seem to retrieve famous poems from my high school brain tonight :(

as for a way i’d enjoy that story being told — between you and me, the rose in the beauty and the beast has always left an impression 😭 hear me out though don’t you think there’s something both so fantastical and so pitiful about beast keeping the rose in this glass dome? as if that would do Anything to the countdown until he keeps this form for good. that’s not how you keep a rose alive. the Point is that that’s not how you keep a rose alive. and to have this flower attached to the concept of beauty literally caged, held hostage as it holds You hostage, and the imagery of the petals falling as the beast remains unloving and unloved year after year. it works.

there’s this tulip in the manga pluto that’s similarly held under a glass dome, but this time it’s symbolic of the last remnant left after total war-torn wreckage of the meadow it was planted in. what if a creature borne to create life becomes the harbinger of death and hatred and revenge? what if a tulip remains of that original raison d’etre, alive after years and beyond the laws of science, hinting at the remains of the original heart inside that creature?

like. a lone flower is such effective imagery. i can’t say i’m sick of it or even immune. even hunger games knew what they had to do with rose symbolism.

but anyway. i hope this answers at least a tiny portion of your question. i apologize if it doesn’t. i’ll have to give this one more thought to have a coherent answer ready.

i talk a little bit about it here (https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1602573181612605442?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw) and here (https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1680728536015929344?s=46&t=jt2CClqVrHmFBOpfmaTUJw) but ​​i guess my opinion is that the phenomenon is far, far, Far more interesting than the execution, which is kinda just. there. i think a good multiverse media can be evaluated through How they execute this quote from tatami galaxy, whether or not it uses the same thesis: https://nswers.tumblr.com/post/728503600273391616.

i was talking to a book publicist a few months ago, and she was saying that the next big trend in publishing seems to be isekai, which i think poses a related tangent in terms of how we’ve graduated from a culture obsessed with the potential of possibilities and pivoted to escapism altogether, but it made me think that multiverse media isn’t really going anywhere bc it was never gone, either. it’s gotten mainstream appeal bc of marvel and everything everywhere all at once, but time loops and multiverses — which i feel are both reflections of the same desire to explore all the different ways you can do something until it yields direction towards the “right” choice — have always been useful devices exactly bc they lend themselves well to that exploration. successful and/or happy people with nothing to want will never be the focus of stories like that. whether it’s evelyn from eeaao or doctor strange or the protagonist from 13 going on 30, the very act of considering an alternate possibility and/or the weight of potential already humanizes a character the way you need a main character to be humanized. at its core, the themes of multiverse media are a shortcut to the way we all think anyway, the what ifs and the i would have or should have and the i wish i could [insert choice]. multiverse stories just wrestles that existentialism under an ordering mechanism. it’s made for easy blockbuster stories lately, but i think that’s more bc the science of multiverse worldbuilding is far more accessible now that people don’t have to be walked through quantum physics to get the general gist since they already watched two films on it.

i mean, it’s fun! let it be fun. bc there’s such a human element, multiverse media relies too much on the sentimentality of possibility, and while i do love and am guilty of a good “in another life…” moment, it’s fatiguing to be inundated with so much blatant pathos. in the end, if a piece of media uses the multiverse as the plot itself instead of just a device to introduce more layers through, then there’s only one way you can resolve that to get the story to its end, which is to have a character choose the life they started with. so. i want them to make the journey worth it, bc that same inevitable final choice itself is running out of innate merits of its own.

oh this is so, so, so, So kind. wow. whoa. velvet underground has one of my fav drummers — minimal but steady, straightforward but hard-hitting when it matters, innovative without being intrusive — so this is an honour that goes beyond just being a writer on the receiving end. thank you so much.

i hope you know this sent me to a different plane of existence when i first read it. bc that’s actually crazy. that’s insane. like — never ever? really? god. that’s beyond amazing, i don’t even know what to say. i hope my works have had some sort of reading value as they are. thank you for giving my writing your time through nothing but faith. i can only hope to have been deserving of it, oh my goodness.

oh i am so sorry about that! you should be able to dm me now, i believe? i’m not too comfortable sharing it widely/not being able to keep track of where i’ve shared the links, so if you won’t mind dropping me even a short message, i’ll send it right over.

brandon taylor’s is the first one to come to mind: https://blgtylr.substack.com

one of my fav podcast shows also has their own substack: https://articlesofinterest.substack.com

i also occasionally enjoy:
— https://ignatz.substack.com
— https://www.evilfemale.blog
— https://literateleah.substack.com

some inactive ones i still think of fondly:
— https://intimacies.substack.com, though larissa pham since wrote the nonfiction collection pop song, and also runs a new newsletter dedicated to slow living and flora/foraging/nature: https://yieldguide.substack.com
— https://katy.substack.com/archive

one of my favourite ones has unfortunately deactivated/purged itself from the site, but the author seems to still be active on medium: https://medium.com/@mobydickenjoyer

you have nothing at all to apologize for, oh my gosh. it wasn’t meant to attack you, and i promise i wasn’t reading ill intention in your words. just — the world is big, as are words, and you are a layered and nuanced human being. so i’m gently flicking your forehead against for calling it your “faulty” way of thinking. it’s just your way of thinking to me, full stop. it means a lot, for you to return after reflection and still engage in dialogue with me after that last reply.

i mostly agree re: fiction being better than self-help books; i think self-help books have a tendency to encourage people to spiral into their own faults then leave them hanging. no matter what tools you can equip someone with to “better” themselves (which in itself is a neverending process that capitalism has hijacked and that no one else can hand to you), it’s still the equivalent of talking to an audience up on stage, telling them what to fix and how to, then walking off. memoirs and fiction, i would argue, offer more genuine connection with something you’re wrestling with.

but to be completely honest what i see is not an issue of objectivity vs. subjectivity but a tendency to be absolutist. when you make a mistake, it seems you disparage yourself heavily for it. when you feel disconnected from the world, you feel it as total aloneness. of course i’m working off conjecture, but… is it fair to say it won’t hurt to be more aware of all the shades of gray in the language you use to and about yourself? it’s So easy for the brain to encode habits of language. it takes work to unlearn the default ways of thinking your brain relies on as an immediate reaction. i know that. i think you feel everything deeply, that it’s hard for you to find a medium/neutral level to the things you experience, and that causes you to tunnel vision on what you’re feeling — which is human and understandable! what you’re feeling is big! there’s only so much of a big thing that the body can focus on in one go! i’m not telling you to change that about yourself. i feel like — there’s a lot of curiosity and want for connection in you, but sometimes, when you react to something, there’s no harm in interrogating if you’re truly allowing that reaction all the nuances possible. are you considering more than one possibility? are you maybe being extreme to yourself by calling something a failure at first try? are you catastrophizing about the worst possible scenario when there’s also a chance it might be good?

i just. feel a lot of tenderness for you. what i really mean to say underneath all this is: be kinder to all your dimensions bc it means being kinder to other people’s. but i understand internalizing this expectation of absolutes/perfection/certainty, and i apologize if i spoke out of line here or been unfair in speaking so confidently after two messages. i truly am sending you all the warmth and well wishes. i hope you are taking care as well.

i’m tugging you gently to the side where we can whisper bc between you and me blue lock hasn’t released its writing chokehold on me even as the source itself has and it’s starting to concern me. usually, when i wrap up a fic, it’s like blowing out a scented candle. like. the overpowering smell of burnt wick and the scent of the candle itself, but also the leftover smoke dissipating gradually. it will be gone in a second, give it room to breathe. that kind of thing. blue lock is not gone. or at least it’s taking a while to leave me.

that said, if i had the time and energy to write the fics of my dreams, and if i wasn’t so irrationally against writing povs that veer too closely to my own, i would love to do:

— the nagi-centric spinoff to hairpin turns, exploring how lacuna/lethe came to be and his own relationship with romance. or lack thereof. idk. there’s a lot of juice to wring out from his and reo’s so-flawed-it’s-not-even-funny relationship, and it’s interesting to me where they end up in that universe and why. sometimes you write a world and it hurts to be the only one to know it and love it in totality, in all the parts of it that exists, bc some exist only in your head. that’s especially true with the hairpin turns universe. that, and there’s also so much in nagi’s ennui both canon and off that echoes in me maybe too much + i once saw someone allude to nagi’s aromantic leanings and it hasn’t left me since. but this would be too personal to write.

— a murai study, particularly on his history and relationship with physical intimacy. the hiroshima arc gave us two details that i’m mad i didn’t have when i wrote igyssr, bc there is So much i would have wanted to do with it and now i can’t bc i don’t want to do an igyssr 2.0 when everything in it still holds true to canon. but man… the fanon image of murai is So. of course i get why people are attracted to characters, and why this one, but that’s exactly what i find so interesting about reveals of murai’s history

— vampire bachira. merch line was insane for that. i toss and turn over it everyday. it’s like whoa! it’s as if his whole character is defined by a bottomless hunger that he can’t acknowledge in himself so he visualizes it as a separate entity that he can’t rein in nor satisfy all by himself! and i’m here with my hands tied!

but these are more thoughts that Could be fics, really. i can probably have fun writing a little canon study of any character in any series, and these three are persistent only bc i already had a taste of their sources.

overall, it’s hard to say. i said so it goes was my last fic at least until i finish this manuscript — which i do want to abide by. who knows what i’ll get into in the future that will have me writing for hours at a time. we shall see. but thank you for asking! i appreciate the interest, genuinely.

that is a highly generous bar, wow. thank you. Whoa. (though funnily enough, straightforward is also how i’d describe my writing.)

i can’t recall if i’ve fretted over my writing voice not… voicing. 17 is the age i started writing on cityboys, and anything that’s changed since hasn’t had much to do with the words part of writing. i guess i don’t rank “uniqueness” too high in isolation when it comes to what makes good writing. i think uniqueness in prose comes alongside other pieces, bc a work is not monolithic. words have no inherent quality to them, not even beauty or truth. it might seem like they do, bc the best sentences are what james baldwin would call clean as bone, but for every perfect word at the end of a scene are other things in the background working away so the words can lead you to where the work wants you to be. with that in mind, i don’t think it’s a bad thing at all to have straightforward prose.

what matters to me is that my writing is capable of handling the story i want to tell. i think i have a journal entry somewhere saying that if i had to visualize my writing as a creature, it’d be a barb horse. sure-footed, reliable stamina, quick to learn. it’d be nice if she was pretty, but in the end, i just want to be in a carriage and not worry about being pulled forward. there’s a huge difference between being a perfectionist and a purist about what makes good writing; i would argue that the former shows you how to improve, while the latter hinders you.

this might be groan-worthy, but. getting your writing to feel intuitive can just mean... spending so much time with it that there’s no point worrying about it. to do that, you have to write. write until it doesn’t matter if you do it terribly or well bc your writing as unshakeably grounded as it is mutable. write until you can snap your fingers and tell your writing to go and it does. it’s like kita from hq!! saying that nobody gets nervous about sleeping, and it’s the same for volleyball. whatever results he gets are the side effects of the things he does everyday. i feel that way about my writing and any “improvement” i’ve seen. someone read my writing commentary on tumblr and asked why i’m so hard on myself, and maybe this is why. i’m not an extraordinary writer, but i don’t think that self-deprecatingly any more than i think i’m hard on myself. i just do what will make the rest of it easy and straightforward, and i keep finding more to tackle so i can stay in love with the process. sometimes that means diving into a genre i was sure i couldn’t do bc i can’t know what About it is daunting until i’ve done it. and i think that’s all that the path to improvement has been for me. experiencing the very absolutes of my limits, then confronting them. rinse and repeat.

i’m sorry if this is all. conceptual. and unhelpful. in the end, i just think that if i’m going to be perfectionist anyway, i might as well have something to bludgeon into perfection, and an empty doc is not that.

i haven’t really listened to much elliott smith 🤔 no songs come to mind, really... say yes appears to be in one of my playlists, so it must have come on shuffle at some point/been recommended by someone. i like it, now that i’m listening to it! it’s very lua by bright eyes/we’re going to be friends by the white stripes/that era of slow arty tumblr songs that you crave here and there when you’re listening to productions that are too busy. i can get behind it. i’ll give him more listens. i’m already vibing with what i’ve heard of either/or so far (is the title of this album a nod to kierkegaard or is it just. the phrase either/or.) i’m sure i know more than one song and just am not aware that i do, and i will like a few more by the time i listen to all his albums. i can feel it.

it’s actually just <small> !! so for example, if i want to make “cinnamon toast crunch” into a smaller size, i would type:

<small>cinnamon toast crunch</small>

i looked up to see if ao3 has a page dedicated to what html they support, and they do: https://archiveofourown.org/faq/formatting-content-on-ao3-with-html?language_id=en but if that’s a bit too messy to navigate, i also found this: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5191202/chapters/11961779

html is a fairly well-known way of coding text, so anything you need, it should take only one google search. and if you’re not sure whether you have the right command, there are sites like w3schools.com that offer straightforward support for nearly all the coding languages.

this cc took me so long to get to that summer is basically over, but thank you for asking, first of all. that’s very sweet. summer… has felt near exactly like calla by wave to earth? kinda like. that tak-tak-boom beat. the vague nearby sound of the waves, even though you can’t really feel anything but the occasional breeze — which is still too humid to cool your face. there’s an element of like. walking barefoot down the beach at the end of a really hot day; the sand is still too warm, and it stings just a tiny bit to walk, and you’re deliberately falling behind your friends, who will notice you slowing down, they will, but right now, for the next couple of seconds, they’re occupied with talking about their whirlwind romances of the summer and dwelling on the collective rush of not being the only person in your friend group to fall for someone and have their hearts broken within weeks. isn’t that interesting? that people can find a thrill in even failed romance? i think it’s so fascinating. maybe mostly bc i’m metaphorically watching all of it while all i can feel is the warm sand and the humid breeze. and that tak-tak-boom. a little swaying motion. both the suffocation and the freedom of being able to control your presence and participation. that kind of vibe. it hasn’t been totally unpleasant. august was one of those months that tasted like only things you’re close to surviving can taste. if that makes sense. it probably doesn’t. too abstractive. idk how else to describe it. i guess there’s comfort in seeing everyone return to school and the fall season start at work and knowing that’s another summer you lived through. yeah.

no no wait — you’ve been here for that long? thank you for being here since flls was ongoing. that’s incredible. my god.

ao no sumika… my enemy. i wish i documented how quickly my face fell while i went from head bobbing to having to inhale sharply bc of “また会えるよね.” idk how official lyrics are doing it but my brain’s first parsing was “We’ll meet again, won’t we?” and it made me quietly livid.

that said, i think ambivalent is the best word to describe how i felt for hidden inventory in the manga; it wasn’t that i hated the arc, just that it was more for plot purposes than anything intrinsic to the characters and my investment in them. i can understand a person and still not love them, and the same for characters. a part of me was superficially like, “was it that serious…” about geto’s spiral in the manga, though mostly bc gege has that new gen shounen curse of Whoa Not Too Much Let’s Keep The Usual Vibes Going. i can sympathize and empathize, but my first opinion on canon stsg has always just been that — it’s done, you know? the world never gave them a chance to be anything but representative of two different worlds, but it has already happened. it was a burden they were always going to have, no matter what was different. classic tragedy of yes the love was there but it didn’t change anything. it couldn’t have, when you’ve got two people both championed by the system yet left on the outskirts of it. you can’t teeter on a thin line forever. toji was always on the clear outside, and lifelong exile became his strength. indecision became gojo’s weakness, and the need to choose became geto’s. that’s just. typical thematic juxtaposition in jjk. stsg are so deeply embedded into the plot that they’ve always just been that to me. the plot.

i still haven’t isolated where mappa added the kick, bc i thought the pacing of the middle episodes of this arc got wonky + there was a point where it felt like the animation team wasn’t on the same page as the others, which is primarily my issue with some of s2 so far. s1 was so tightly paced and divided, and s2 is very much not that, even as it experimented with a few more things that worked amazing only here and there. but all the tiny details they added to geto’s spiral worked for me at least, and i’m left with a different texture to how i’ve always felt about stsg. yes, classic tragedy. yes, it was always inevitable. yes, they Are the fabric of the story. yes, they were just kids. that was always objective truth and tragedy to me. but i do feel more willing now to be irrational with… couldn’t it have been different? couldn’t they have gotten a chance? couldn’t they do it all over again? maybe not be better people, but better young people with each other? that’s probably why those lyrics hit hard.

i’m out of space but mostly i still can’t believe we’re at shibuya already. i’ve been saying “when they animate shibuya…” for so long that this is surreal. i do not have a single thought processed.

i have not 😞 if an opportunity falls into my lap, i absolutely won’t say no, but it’s not something i’ll actively seek out, either. i’m more a greta enjoyer than otherwise; she’s a writer and/or actress in quite a number of my favourite films of all time, and her two directorial projects are in my tiny little list of media that moved me bc of… recognition of the self or whatever you want to call it.

(slight tangent that you can ignore: i know people dismiss lady bird as a white suburban girl’s story and little women as this hyper-tender sisterhood story — which they both are — when almost entirely by accident, saiorse ronan’s roles in each movie are also the most i’ve seen my sensibilities onscreen? somewhere between going to an all-girls catholic school and lying about where you live bc you’re ashamed of your home situation to wanting to get away for uni to even having a nurse as a mother. and greta’s jo march being. you know. people generally read jo as not being attracted to men and that ending being complete fiction, but in my biased view, she has no attraction to anyone at all, period. her gender is another thing, and i do like that greta played with how jo has a boy's name, laurie a girl’s name, and they're each other's half-sketched half moons in that way. but i've always read jo as not being interested in romance whatsoever. my interest in her has always been in her seesaw-ing from her need for independence to her intrinsic loneliness to this internalized understanding that she loves her sisters and loves laurie deeply as her best friend but she just cannot be IN love with anyone. so. accidental mirrors onscreen, is what i’m saying.)

all this to say that i’m wary of the approach greta has taken with barbie, and that wariness is doubled by my relationship with her old work. bigger and more deliberate very rarely means better and more relatable, and while i’m glad people were having fun with barbie, it honestly just doesn’t seem like something that will turn off my brain. which isn’t to say i won’t enjoy it! i promise that’s not me sneering at the barbie fun. i loved toronto in barbie mode. it’s just that there’s a certain flavour in media like everything everywhere all at once and barbie that i fear is getting in the way of the storytelling part in service of the collective audience, who are in turn willingly lulled by the same things they claim to criticize. there’s a worrying quickness with which the same people who disparage the mcu embraced literally the same marketing style just bc it’s been repackaged in the barbieheimer iteration. idk. i get it, but that’s another tangent.

anyway you didn’t ask for a pseudo rant on capitalist realism i’m sorry it was literally a yes or no question. no, i have not seen barbie, but i’ll be so down to watch it. mostly i’m just relieved barbie + oppenheimer seem to have delivered for a lot of people. i was legitimately worried the movie event of the summer might end anticlimactically.

there’s this post on tumblr that’s like. do you ever just get asked for your favourite things and feel like an alien pretending to be a human being. that’s how i feel whenever i get asked to list my favourite anything, so i’m just gonna projectile vomit a bunch of films i love, if that’s okay: la notte, minding the gap, umbrellas of cherbourg, bringing up baby, roman holiday, the talented mr. ripley, kramer vs. kramer, say anything, 5cm per second, ferris bueller’s day off, the handmaiden, whisper of the heart, us and them, sherlock jr, lady bird, last year in marienbad, aftersun, paper moon, 20th century women, shiva baby, the dreams anthology by kurosawa. god. a bunch of others, most possibly.

a good many of the songs in this playlist count as all-time favs: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7j1a4n1LrOyhfMPxjCJDQn?si=221c593451a848fc and this one as well: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7mmg8IkbwLWp8qj6GyPch2?si=3cd114279e53464f. but some standalone mainstream favs are heaven knows i’m miserable now, lover you should’ve come over, taro by alt-j, white ferrari by frank ocean, a case of you by joni mitchell, youth by daughter, wild heart by the bleachers, love lust luck by schoolgirl byebye, drown by boy in space, j’ai demandé à la lune by ghostly kisses. a few musicians whose entire oeuvre i love also include alvvays, galileo galilei, for tracy hyde, meenoi, mitski, the national, hoppipola. uh. my fav composer is probably szymanowski bc i like anything that sounds like him. i like chopin and poulenc in moderation as well. i like a whole bunch of ost by akira kosemura, ryuichi sakamoto, hiroyuki sawano.

this is a horribly malnourished list i’m sorry i’m genuinely awful at narrowing things down on the spot ☹️

interesting! if we’re being honest, someone called me a chronic opinion-haver once and i don’t... think... they were wrong? there is likely very little i can’t talk about for ages. maybe not necessarily Well but. you know. if you put me on jimmy fallon’s wheel of opinions segment, i might do fairly okay. maybe.

BUT a mutual pointed out the other day that the first base of knowing me is how much i love penguins (a different tangent altogether, but honestly i have no reason for loving them except that i do), and second base is knowing how passionate i can get about… chairs? though really i guess it’s more that i love timeless, function-and-form, non-digital technology/engineering. like mechanical keyboards, swiss knives, violins, headphones, analog wristwatches, the bialetti moka cup. you get the idea. i’m not a big subscriber of the idea that practicality means a utilitarian aesthetic, or that looking good means letting feeling good take the backseat if it came down to it. i think it’s a failure on the inventor’s part if beauty compromises function and/or vice versa. whether that’s related to fashion/styling or furniture or tech — i’m pretty set on resenting the contemporary world’s tendency to favour mass manufactured, ease-of-access production over things/brands that take the time to streamline form and function. idk. that’s a whole rant that includes many things from shein to the absence of personal style in a culture of everything being billed as an aesthetic. so it’s just very comforting for me to experience timeless things that look good and feel good. like some herman miller chairs, or owlabs keyboards. i love things that feel like investments and know how to justify their cost, though i also just love anything that takes careful structuring/engineering/handiwork with people in mind.

with all this said, maybe soft cities — cities designed for walkability and therefore for people-first safety/health/access — are the culmination of all there is to rant about in those things i listed. david sim has a great book on it, though, so i’ll probably just be parroting what he said if i rant about it now. but yeah. at the end of the day, i just like people-first design. that’s my answer. i can talk about people-first design for ages.

this is getting me so choked up, oh god. this is one of those messages that makes me wish i can emboss it permanently into my mind — but that will probably make me way too conceited. i’m glad my rambly cc replies/posts can seem thoughtful and balanced when i always feel out of depth trying to articulate things. you’re very, very, Very sweet, thank you so much 😢

every day i resist the urge to. Every Single Day. i have a whole lineup of rnbc wips that i keep writing a little bit for here and there. they are So tempting. there is still so much to unpack, which is insane considering how many words i’ve spent inside rin’s mind. plus the official merch team gave us vampire bachira and it’s soooo perfect considering his themes and i need badly to write it — but i can’t. i shouldn’t. i don’t know.

thank you for asking and being interested ahhh i can’t promise anything but i will say that if the day comes that i do, it won’t be surprising at all. the wips write themselves. the vampire fic is already complete in my mind. it’s There. i’ve written scenes, just not the wider story. i know i’m Busy busy bc i haven’t sat down and caved in.

that Thing Deep Inside You is not wrong 😭

i wouldn’t say i’m a big aa enjoyer Now, but the original trilogy is one of the few game series i’ve played the whole way through, which counts for a lot. i bought the remastered version when i first got my switch, and i do want to replay it now that i’m older and can evaluate it better, but between a few other games i've been playing, i just haven’t had the time/desire to revisit it since i already played all three games. but no you’re not wrong at all omg

this is a tricky question! blue lock argues that if someone attempts something easier than is proportionate to their skill level, they will feel bored, but if they challenge something Above their skill level, they will become anxious. i think having “no motivation” comes down to either of these, too. when you do want to write but can’t, i’d say there’s a chance that the problem is simply that you can’t find momentum with writing. you force the words out but you get a sentence or two out and find that that’s it, you don’t have more. it’s hard if finding words feels like pulling teeth, which is usually why i find momentum crucial in writing. i’d even go as far as to say that once you unlock the ins and outs of how you personally generate momentum as a writer, you also unlock your process. blue lock would also call this the necessity of being able to enter flow state at will, which i’m a huge proponent of. not every writer has the capacity to write a novel in two weeks, sure, but nearly every writer knows what it feels like to have momentum and clarity in writing bc we also all know one time we had it and one time we didn’t.

i can’t diagnose your exact situation with zero particulars, but i feel pretty comfortable saying it’s never some baseless, divinely awarded thing, a lack of “motivation” to write. it always has a reason, whether it’s emotional by way of fear/uncertainty or mental by way of too many distractions. something has to be causing that block, whether or not you’re conscious of it. is it bc you’re trying to write something you’re not capable of producing Yet? is the last thing you read fresh in your mind, and you have a subconscious desire to replicate the idea in your head? or are you trying to write something beneath your skill level, and find yourself unable to be excited about the same old boring thing? are you trying to rework something you’d written before and therefore don’t know where to start?

maybe you don’t know what you want to write, or maybe you’re not being realistic, or maybe you’re not challenging yourself enough by trying something you haven’t before. it could be anything, i can’t speak for you, but lack of motivation to write is not impossible to tackle. the idea is to give yourself actionable tasks to do; unless you know for sure you’re the type of writer who can open a doc and get started with nothing at all, then you have to give your brain specific instructions/prompts until you get to a point where you can just weave in and out of flow. sometimes it helps to tackle art like you would an athletic exercise. don’t attempt something you don’t have the stamina or running speed for, bc that’s the fastest way to your body associating impossibility with the thing. but if you pay attention to what it needs — whether it’s running 100m before you can attempt a lap, or needing to stretch first by doing whatever counts as a warm up — i think it might help you at least diagnose a solution. if this makes sense.

whoa hello i’m so glad a) that you’re able to find comfort in my ccs but also b) that you felt comfortable reaching out !! i take small eternities to reply and it’s horrible, but i truly am grateful to hear from people, so thank you for dropping by 🤍

that said, i actually haven’t watched any other donghua except for link click, i think. not even tgcf or mdzs. mostly bc i don’t venture much even in anime beyond adaptations of series i already know i like. i know i’ve tried a few titles, but none of that have clicked past the first episode, so i can hardly offer recs. but i totally agree with the strengths of chinese media that you outlined! i’d even argue that this is especially true not just of donghua/manhua but specifically of chinese sci-fi/speculative fiction. you see glimpses of it in link click’s humanistic approach to what would usually be billed as an action-packed urban fantasy/magical realism story in a more saturated genre like anime, but you see variations of the same exploration in work by the three sci fi generals (i think the definition of who these three are usually changes with the times, but for my purposes, i mean liu cixin, han song and wang jinkang.)

i know it’s not quite donghua and/or manhua — i seriously need to get started on manhua recs from housemates — but i think liu cixin’s the three body problem series is the pinnacle of all the things you mentioned. the tny writer jia tolentino said something once along the lines of how that series makes the futility of the human race and the unknowability of life seem so spiritually exciting and alive, which is not a conundrum you can usually balance so seamlessly in western fiction. i also want to throw in the little mushroom series by shisi, which is a bizarre little light novel (?) sci-fi that i’ve been rationing to finish when i know i’ll need restoration of faith in reading and writing. again, none of these are donghua/manhua, i apologize, but these were genuinely the first to come to mind when i read the part of your cc outlining the unique strengths of chinese media. i will keep an eye out otherwise!

oh it’s very sweet of you to be interested 🥺 it won’t be very interesting/aesthetically pleasing, i’m afraid, i really just toss everything into an organizer and shove that into a bag before running out of the house… but yeah that should be quick and easy to do !!

HMM i’m more a thick and hefty book person myself so i don’t really know a ton of titles, let alone ones more niche/hard to find, but the first books to come to mind were: cold enough for snow by jessica au, the pachinko parlour + a winter in sokcho by elisa shua dusapin, ms. ice sandwich by mieko kawakami, mr. salary by sally rooney, the white book by han kang, dept. of speculation by jenny offill, bluets by maggie nelson, asleep by banana yoshimoto, love speech by sherry huang, females by andrea long chu, and i guess i can throw in franny and zooey by j.d. salinger and after dark by haruki murakami but that’s mostly bc those are the only short books in my list of candidates for favourite novels of all time 🤔❣️

for poetry books/collections, crush by richard siken is an obvious one, but also prelude to bruise by saeed jones, soft science by franny choi, anybody by ari banias, vintage sadness by hanif abdurraqib, bright dead things by ada limón, and bc she doesn’t have any collections out yet as far as i know, for now just anything by elisa gonzalez: https://www.elisamariegonzalez.com/publications

oh! if you only mean the one chapter i posted before, it’s been here for a while now: https://sleeptowns.tumblr.com/post/709266543548252160/a-year-or-so-of-fics-in-retrospect

(just scroll down the section for that fic and click on the title — it should open to a pdf! the readers i’ve heard from told me you can download the pdf, but if you run into any problems with the link at all, i’m happy to send the pdf over myself. otherwise, the fic has been deleted completely off ao3. i don’t private/orphan, unfortunately. so it’s totally gone. it was just cleaner and easier that way.)

if you meant to ask whether i’ll ever repost and/or continue... i think it’s highly unlikely 😢 the jjk fics/readers tend to be a world on their own, and i do often think the only thing that makes them still mine is having the technical cityboys label at the top. flls is flls, you know? it’s like what sofia is to clairo and what heather is to conan gray. the song people know from tik tok and the reason they attended the concert even if they might not know the rest of that singer’s discography. i remain endlessly grateful for it — and thank you, sincerely, for being one of the jjk readers and holding onto even this one — but if i deliberately deleted/abandoned a thing, then it will very likely stay deleted and/or abandoned. it’s still nice to think about what that world could have been, though, definitely.

“and i’d k*ll someone with my bare hands just to hold you tight” is so !!!! i’ve been adding a few more to that playlist myself recently but it still floors me anew whenever i get a rec for songs to add, so thank you so much for thinking of flls and sending this over. i’ve plopped it into the ch6 section :(

not weird at all !! but to me, hate and criticism are antonyms. hate is unproductive, nonsensical, therefore pathetic. i’ve gotten people being incredibly stupid about inane details, like the way i title fics, or my vocabulary, why i tweet diary entries. and i mean. all of them are useless, you know? it makes no difference to the fact that this is how i am. i tweet this or that bc that’s how twitter works, my titles are from songs that other people wrote, my vocab is like this bc it is. i’m a shrug and delete person, though ofc i do get petty sometimes, too. i poke fun at them with my friends. but i don’t internalize feelings that hate give me bc they haven’t earned that from me.

criticism is more nuanced. i’m lucky never to have received harsh criticism on my writing, but when i do get feedback at work, i try to give it as much of me as possible without taking it personally. then again, i’m pretty selective about who gets to talk down to me. if they have terrible writing, or they’re not a respectable person, then why would i be the least bit fazed by what they think of my work? someone can tell me i suck and get a reaction only if they can provide productive reasons. if someone’s like “i don’t like your titles” it’s like… alright. why would it matter to anyone if one random unknown doesn’t approve of their preferences? it changes nothing in mattering. until i know i love and respect someone’s tastes, why would their input make a dent on how i view myself? i know i can be dismissive about illogical things, but that also includes unconstructive and/or inactionable criticism. if it will help me get better at something, sure, but if it’s an empty opinion, then dwelling on it is time and thought wasted, even more if it won’t change what i want to do or have already done.

i think it’s normal to have a reaction to criticism, though! i’m sure harshness is awful to experience, and petty hate may be more difficult to process Exactly bc it’s nonsensical. my view is that criticism has to be earned just as much as my respect for someone does. if they have done nothing to show me why their criticism would matter — then it doesn’t. simple as that. there is so much that needs my attention and they will only take up unnecessary space. that’s what you don’t want. in any case, it’s true that some people need to be better at phrasing their feedback, no matter how useful. but criticism is never about you. ever. it’s about them, or it’s about the thing they’re criticizing. that’s all. it’s never attached to you. unless you attach it to yourself. i don’t really know how to tell you to… not. bc i don’t understand. i know i don’t. i know this is me fumbling through not understanding. but. i think criticism is best evaluated in a place separate from all the rest that defines you. Then you can choose to integrate it. don’t let the initial reaction to Being Criticized decide how you feel about the criticism itself. i think. but i know that’s easy for me to preach.

i haven’t read it in english at all yet omg how are you liking it !! i feel like the art style has changed a bit and i’m not really feeling it…? it’s lost some of the gentleness/soft realism that i associate with upi’s art, and the general atmosphere has shifted towards a direction i’m not sure i’m vibing with entirely. maybe. remains to be seen, though, and i wonder if i’ll feel differently about some of the plot details once i’ve read the context in translation.

that said, this doesn’t change how much i missed them during the hiatus :( i appreciate the continued back-and-forth between woowon’s difficulty receiving gifts and seo an’s inability to Not show his love through material proof, and how they’re genuinely meeting each other halfway. i remember being like, “has someone told seo an about the swimming? will someone Please tell seo an about swimming?” then he pulls the pool thing and i was like man i’m sorry for doubting the most efficient lead in the history of romance media 😭 kdrama chaebols have nothing on kang seo an. i’m so serious. it’s ridiculous how efficient he is. he has a plan in place at all times — and all while balancing his panic disorder and social anxiety, too. you will never catch this man without a strategy. it’s amazing. i’m so happy he got the [beep beep beep] he has deserved all series so far. no one has needed it in the upi universe like he has.

i also have a lot to say about seo an’s relationship with his two siblings — but again. we’ll see. i have yet to pick up since they ran to the hospital but i definitely will soon.

oh god… i don’t really keep track of all articles i’ve read, i’m afraid… i’d have to catalogue A LOT per day if i kept track of everything i read, i think. i’m remarkably lazy. but i remember there was… a really cool article on the eye as a weapon in baldwin’s if beale street could talk. another one on buster keaton as a “bewildered equilibrist”? another one (a few, actually, unless it’s all one big article i’m remembering) that was in defense of goneril and regan from king lear. another on horace and virgilian mimesis. though none of these are necessarily favourites.

i also don’t know if i got these from jstor but some recent pdfs i still haven’t cleaned up off my laptop after reading are:

✧ “The Death of Dissent and the Decline of Dissin’: A Diachronic Study of Race, Gender, and Genre in Mainstream American Rap” by John P. Racine

✧ “You bet she can f*ck” Trends in Female AI Narratives within Mainstream Cinema: Ex Machina and Her” by Sennah Yee

✧ “Intimacy Beyond Sex: Korean Television Dramas, Nonsexual Masculinities, and Transnational Erotic Desires” by Min Joo Lee

✧ “Whose Hand Was I Holding?” Familial and Sexual Politics in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House by Tricia Lootens

again, i wouldn’t say these are my Favourites favourites, but i do think they’re cool nonetheless !! i’m sorry i couldn’t give more definite recs :(

the film? i remember looking forward to it bc i was struck by timothee chalamet in his small interstellar role and that was the only project he had coming up at the time, so i read the book and was just. let down. but a part of me still looked forward to the movie.

but the age gap debacle aside (though not to devalue it, i just think it’s a no shit moment, considering the general atmosphere and themes andré aciman loves), i guess i just didn’t see the things people liked about the film. i found it Barely beautiful; it’s only the setting that saves its “cinematography.” the music is disjointed, and often it felt like they just wanted to cram another entry in from their list of curated pieces. there was absolutely no chemistry between elio and oliver, even if that’s what you wanted to use to argue For the age gap. people praise the acting — but where? the formulaic nose flare and wobbly expression? set jaw and empty stare? and that acclaimed monologue with michael stuhlbarg? why…? what’s so good about it? it did push me to live in italy for a bit, but i found the italy episode of normal people more moving with that in mind.

i know all of these details are pieces people felt for but the whole thing just felt like hypercalculated artifice. even the final scene. especially some of the “emotional” scenes and monologues. idk. maybe i’m just too heartless for some films. but i don’t like having to bring my tenderness to a story. i want to be given it or invited to meet the story halfway in producing it. cmbyn just felt cold and emotionless. friends were crying after and i was just stunned. felt like one of those moments where i understand why i’ve been called a particularly lifelike robot. i wanted to love it and feel for the film, and i do very much enjoy the two songs sufjan lent to it. but idk. i couldn’t produce any human emotions for it at all.

ofc !! carrie and lowell was my introduction to him, though, so i was pretty late to jumping on that wagon, and still truthfully don’t know his Entire discography super well. one of my first… partners? i guess? if that’s even what it was? one of the people i was seeing in the last years of my teens. they were a big fan, so i mostly got to know his music through standalone songs that were sent to me. the songs i do know are strong all-time favourites though, even if they’re on the basic/mainstream end! if i had to pick a fav album, maybe either illinois or carrie or lowell?

omg wait i’m so glad you were able to find what you were looking for in my regressor core tag !! like so so glad !! i felt so unhelpful last time bc it seemed like you were remembering it verbatim, so i’m relieved you found your way there. and oh, this one really is insane… my god. what a gut punch in a way that lingers harder than the impact.

oh interesting !! i’m never sure what counts as a lit mag (so excuse me if these aren’t quite what you meant), but my fav magazines are granta, n+1 and uncanny 😊

allowing myself some brief honesty here to say that there’s this line in the last section of trust by hernan diaz where a character’s diary entry simply reads “nuit sans fin.” that’s how summer has been, to spare you the finer details. it’s been a night without end. though maybe that’s not fair bc i like the nighttime. it’s been a jour sans fin, then. it’s been endless days upon endless days. a long sunday afternoon, with the melancholy compounded on top of each layer it builds up the further we get into the season. which is very dramatic but i am just not at all a summer person and i never shut up about it. the world feels meaner. stickier. clinging to skin that doesn’t want to feel anything. i don’t want to be outside. i don’t want to exist. the thoughts are getting bad again. but this happens every year. it’s like clockwork. there’s a quote somewhere that describes summer as a slow plague, and that’s really it. winter is a brief reprieve from the illness, but summer always returns to where i don’t want to be.

all this to say that i can’t wait for summer to be over. that’s all. it’s more accepting than it might sound, i promise.

i do, actually! i really appreciate you asking, but as long as there’s no distribution and/or financial exchange/profit happening, since it’s not my work to be allowing distribution for, then that’s absolutely fine. More than fine. i have a pdf file i send people who ask, which has the formatting of the print copies my friends made for me, and if you’re comfortable dm-ing me, i can send you a dropbox link — but if not, also totally fine! whatever works best for you. i’m honoured you’d want a physical, personal copy of flls. thank you so much for holding one of my stories close to heart like this. it means a lot.

oh !! whoa !! thank you ?? i don’t think i’ve thought much about how i do my graphics. mostly they seem to benefit from being… low effort? i make them rather minimal, just the title and my pseud and/or a short one-line summary. i also like to use the same photo for both parts (though this is more out of laziness about finding a photo), which ensures clean continuity. so i’d say just make sure the colours complement each other, and that our basic internal rules of graphic design apply as far as typeset, colour pairings and symmetry go. i’m not very creative/imaginative with my graphics, to be fair. i’ve kind of given up on posting them since hairpin turns. so really, i’m glad someone finds them cute, and i’m sorry i don’t have more substantial tips to give 😭

here’s my longer review, if you’d like to read it! https://literal.club/regressor/book/singshong-omniscient-readers-viewpoint-cx07w

the general gist is that i thought it was okay! like a solid 2.5 to 3 out of 5. a passing grade, at least. i don’t not feel for it. some days, it hits me hard. but i’m also not at a level with it where i think: oh yeah, that was Good. you know? i used to think hmm i wonder if i would have liked it more if i read it before su*cide hunter (time to yet again link this post https://bidokja.tumblr.com/post/665008165291802625/i-remember-ages-ago-you-told-me-sssrh-was-better and this post https://bidokja.tumblr.com/post/659260435172818944/what-does-sssrh-stand-for) but no i think, evaluated by itself, i would still feel the same way i do now. the writing struck me as shoddy and haphazard, and not just bc of the translation. but i’m just reiterating what i said in the review. so. if you’d like more detail, i promise it’s not as lengthy as my other reviews 😞

again, i do feel tenderness for orv, but a part of me feels like reading it was time and energy i could have better dedicated somewhere else. it’s an odd middle ground. i’m glad i understand the fandom ins and out now. but that’s never reason enough.

hello! fic/lit recs for… what? as a whole? bc i don’t have any. i’m never quite sure how to approach giving recs if the question is just "hey. recommend me something." something what? though to be fair this isn’t a criticism of you! just that there’s no such thing as universal recs. what i like aren’t necessarily recs i’ll just throw out.

also, writing tips for what? fiction? nonfiction? fic? my honest to god only tip… is to just do it. i know that sounds incredibly blasé but i feel like a lot of writers who don’t yet know how they work think exploration is a piece of The Process and The Craft that’s separate from the writing — which i don’t think is true. do you really know that you work best relying on one of those really big writer templates for all your ocs or did you just see other writers working with those and are forcing yourself into that work process? writing can’t be given to you, is the thing.

there Are some tenets i like to parrot, like how 1) if you’re new to writing, there’s no shame in imitating. not plagiarizing, but imitating. it can feel taboo to acknowledge that most writers start with imitation, but i say it’s good to imitate though mostly bc 2) being a good writer can depend a great deal on being a good editor. there’s nothing more valuable in writing (to me) than being your own first editor. that said, when we’re unhappy with the work we produce, a lot of the time that’s bc we have an intrinsic understanding of what’s good, and we’re just not meeting that. and that traps people into spirals of oh, i Have to emulate this to get good. but 3) you can always revise. but you won’t know how to revise well if you don’t know yet what makes something good. language is like music. not storytelling, but the words themselves. it’s tricky to do it well if you’re tone deaf, or at least if you don’t know what note is what.

all that said, though, 4) the rules suck. sure, you have to master language to a degree before you can throw it all out the window, but in the end, the rules just suck. the typical structures, tropes, all of that. every rule has as much a caveat as it does truth. like adverbs, for instance. they tell you not to use them, and it’s true, bc it’s horrendous when ill-used, but have you ever seen a well-placed adverb? mwah. but again, how will you know what makes a well-placed adverb if you can’t single out a badly-placed one?

in the end, the irony of all this is that i don’t know much about writing and should not be using so many Have Tos and Needs in this reply when even i know they don’t matter. i only know what works for me, and my writing is the way it is bc i’ve never been taught or advised to do it a certain way. so if i have any real tips, it’s only to absorb, apply, revise, rinse, repeat. again and again. then abandon all of it. i know it might not be helpful at all, but these are genuinely all i’ve got 😢

i feel terrible arriving at this cc after i just (lovingly, though idk if it came across that way, i really am so sorry to that anon) chewed someone out in the last two cc replies oh my god but this is so lovely, thank you so much :( this made me tear up when i first got it, and the last part was just icing on the cake. i know i can be wordy and too much (and make no effort to change it), so this really means a lot. thank you. truly. truly, truly, truly.

oh god i feel so bad bc this is such a sweet message and i truly am touched, but also i’m not done being blunt, so let me continue my thought in the last reply —

where was i. no, there’s no way to control how you’re perceived. there is no correct perception, not even yours of your own self. but our end of an interaction, we can control, and that’s what makes words worth it. you seem to be projecting a lot of self-centric (not narcissistic, but centred around your literal self) assumptions about the world but making no effort to meet it halfway, or to try harder for it to understand you. but even that is an assumption i’m making about you. it might be fair, or it might not be. or maybe you’ve tried and been burnt. i understand. but is there a chance… the divide is there Because you don’t want to cross it? or maybe you don’t like that it takes effort to cross it, and don’t like knowing that even when you’ve tried your best, other people still have their own agency and perception of you beyond your maneuvering. maybe you have projected smth true for another thing to your wider worldview. Maybe. it sounds like you want to be witnessed in being yourself without the vulnerability or equivalent exchange that comes with, bc even running away for you is branded as “social exile” instead of “freedom.” there are a lot of self-concepts here that you’ll find are reflective not of a lack of connection with the world, but a lack of desire to change that except to grieve the fact that it’s not easy. which, nonetheless, is fair.

i know i’m being too sharp. and again, i could very well be making unfair assumptions you. i’m not going to be like, how dare you position me as wrong? how dare my perception of this or that NOT be correct? i think there are certain personalities, perhaps such as yours, that find subjectivity to be the objective way the world is… but often that’s just not true. you’re still someone who has their own agency, and there are too many factors that go into every single minute of your life for you to make final statements. or at least that’s what i think. writing isn’t in the initial outpouring from mind to page/voice. it’s in the revisions you make after. it’s in how present you are in each word you’re saying. if you open your mouth already frustrated at how lacking you think you Know it will be (but you don’t know this, not for a fact, i promise), have you not already denied yourself the possibility of otherwise?

i don’t know. thank you so much for being so kind in your words here, and i know i’m highlighting the very thing you’re frustrated about by targeting your choice of words. but the inbox is right there, and you are always free to add more, amend the things you said, correct me if i’m wrong until we get it right. and that’s also true of life. even if it might be difficult to be willing to do. but i have been indelicate enough, and i promise i didn’t mean to be cruel. i’m squeezing your hand over this cup of tea gone cold.

hello. okay. this will not be my gentlest reply of the night, but please know i mean all of it with sincere eartnessness. if you said all of this to me in person, i would have sat you down and made you some tea not only as a stilted method of comforting but bc i’m about to take up an hour minimum of your time just poking at some of the language you use here. there are a lot of ultimatums, to start: i “can’t” hide anymore “bc i’m 22.” to be “correctly” perceived. “only” a “deeply wounded” person would want a “social exile.” my mind to mouth connection is “irreparable.” see what i mean? where are these finalities coming from? bc none of these are to me universally the way things are. you’re throwing a lot of conclusions at yourself and i don’t know where to even find the first argument / evidence supporting it. ofc i don’t know everything about you and i can only tell that you Have been trying, but there are a lot of hurtful things you’re tossing out here, not just to people to whom these big assumptions apply but also, most importantly, to yourself.

while we’re at it, let’s examine the verbs you use. “realizing” implies that what you’re seeing is fact and not simply one possible interpretation of where your thoughts differ from what you say. what does it mean to “hide”? to be “perceived”? to “sabotage” chances at life… forever? i’m not making the connections, personally. so let me gently say that none of these compute bc they aren’t concepts that exist, let alone ones that are set in stone. why are you an exile if you start finding different ways to communicate? what about the people who Do communicate differently? are they deeply wounded for something they were born having to accommodate? since i personally choose solitude, and since i prefer to write more than i do to speak, is that a consequence of me being deeply wounded and not simply a choice i make to accommodate my own comfort and ensure i communicate the way that serves me and the people around my best?

i’m sorry to play the “what about…” card, but again. so many ultimatums. are the words you find lacking incapable of being revised? rewritten? it doesn’t sound like words failed you, it sounds like you gave up on them bc they weren’t born the way you wanted them to be. i’m sorry if that’s not fair to say. but this is my perspective on it. it also seems like you feel as if other people don’t experience the same divide you do (or maybe it is that you believe they don’t have as much internally to convey externally.) what comes out of our mouths IS only ever a fraction of what we think. there’s no way to change that. but when you find something less than what you want it to be, you don’t compensate by doing even less. you try more. you add more words. which i am running out of space for so i’m so glad you sent other cc hold on i’m not done 🏃

yes !! it’s funny, i actually had to do a hot ones type interview once for a local election, and i was just so sad at how un-spicy it was that it kind of rewired my relationship with the show even though theirs must be much, much better. but also. i find that sean evans is one of those hit or miss interviewers that get away with being hit or miss bc he has a team that digs out more “obscure” questions, but if you really examine some (not all) of the questions he asks beyond that initial “whoa how did you know that?” sometimes he’s not really asking… anything? he asks really broad questions that are more reminiscent of high school reporters than, say, other new talk show hosts like hasan minhaj who know how to open AND pursue a line of thinking and keep his foot on it. sean is also often unable to follow up beyond the initial research-informed question, and for the depth of the info he has on hand, he defaults to the most uninteresting / blatant segues. it’s infuriating to me sometimes. so it tends to be more satisfying when the other person takes charge of the interview and gives great answers even based on the worst leading questions. matt damon was an unexpectedly great recent guest with that in mind, and i love that he treated sean’s questions with the same decorum and overly serious answers that he would any other part of the press junket. i loved his little answer on the materialism (?) aspect of the film industry, bc he had a unique perspective as someone who’s been on set for so long and in so many roles. jacob elordi was also surprisingly charming in his episode; i think this is the only interview i’ve seen of his where i was like, oh, i see why people find him attractive. he Can be quite charismatic. elizabeth olsen’s energy was also great, though i think she’s just a fun person to encounter doing press in any way.

all that aside, my fav episode is easily padma lakshmi’s always always always i loved her poise, i was charmed by how she genuinely evaluated the flavours of the hot sauce, and also just — it’s interesting to have a food personality that isn’t gordon ramsay or guy fieri, bc weirdly, hers felt the most informed by love for food when she isn’t even technically a chef. she came across as one of those people for whom food seems to represent its own culture (and i liked her docuseries taste the nation, so at least it wasn’t just a one-off for this particular interview) and it was just a breath of fresh air to have her on the show. it also felt like sean was a tiny bit more flustered and eager to please in this episode, and in that more willing to react and do a back-and-forth. so. definitely an episode that hasn’t been replicated since.

i am so late to replying to this that the season has long started airing — but i Have been tuning in and will continue to do so! i had a meltdown and ensuing crisis after the first ep bc the opening got me emotional (as does the colour of the heart you chose), and i did very much enjoy some of the direction in that ep, but everything after has just been. eh. and has restored my indifference to jjk. though i Am surprised at how much renewed tenderness i have been feeling for gojo, especially when i have very sparse recollection of the technical parts of the hidden inventory arc now 😞

the jjk anime has always been a rare kind of series in that the adaptation is (to me) undeniably better than the source. s1 at least had an understanding of story beats and plotting that i felt akutami didn’t consistently have, whether that’s in the relationship between characters or in the blocking of fight scenes in motion. it’s very palpably missing in mappa’s other recent work, though, including some bits of jjk s2 so far, so it could very well be that stars simply aligned the first time and we’ll never again see the magic of that reproduced. just bc i hate the manga and its author doesn’t mean i don’t objectively stand by the strengths of the anime’s first season. it’s easily the best new gen shounen adaptation for me so far, and i say that as a mp100 enthusiast. csm and jigokuraku — oh, don’t get me started. but to be fair, you didn’t even get me started on my thoughts on jjk. i’m ranting now. i’m sorry. omg.

i named a few things here https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1321747556 but a few days after that i realized i didn’t mention inception! how could i have missed that! it’s The ultimate media guilty pleasure for me… so many plot holes, so many things that didn’t have to be as it was, so many gripes i can have and dwell on, but it’s just unequivocally my main comfort watch aside from ferris bueller’s day off, which is objectively just great if you ask me. i think i talked about inception only once but: https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1555053884061749248

hmm... objectively bad… i mean. i like a lot of things questionable in quality in a wider context, but idk if current me is truly capable of Love-love for something that’s objectively written badly. i think nowadays when i love something i can always advocate for its good-ness somehow. whether the good-ness IS how wonky it is. but younger me was a different story, and i do try to honour the stuff that meant something to them as much as i can. i was a kpop fan throughout the 2nd and 3rd generations and genuinely found all the music from that era enjoyable even if i might criticize them now. more recently, i did enjoy the manhwa red candy, which — don’t even me get me started on how indulgent and over-the-top it is. ridiculous. yet sometimes bigger than the whole sky comes on shuffle and i’m hit by all my feelings for it. if i had to fantasize about adapting any piece of media into a full-fledged show, it would be this one. it’s like a really chaotic and melodramatic kdrama. which leads me to also virtually any tv adaptation of the hana yori dango story, minus maybe boys over flowers, which i didn’t even bother to watch. i still love the tv show with matsujun and inoue mao, but the original meteor garden is one of the earliest pieces of media i’ve ever consumed, alongside stairway to heaven, autumn in my heart, love story in harvard, full house, etc. i wasn’t allowed to watch tv or play with friends when i was a kid, so these really campy kdramas were my main exposure to media culture through a non-family member before i started elementary school. i still hold a soft spot for that genre now, questionable and badly written as they all must have been.

in music, though, i have no discerning taste whatsoever. this week, i’ve been listening as much to the zom 100 opening as i have been looping sarah tuan’s set in the 18th chopin competition. so i can’t make a judgment about what’s objectively bad. send me whale sounds and i will give it a listen. that’s why i find it good to consume things outside of my usual purview, bc music and paintings… what do i know about what makes one objectively good or bad? i just know how it makes me feel, and that’s all the basis i need for whether i like it or not. it’s not like books or film, where i can critique the storytelling comfortably. it’s nice to be quality-blind to things, but anyway. that’s a whole other tangent 😓

oh, you are very kind !! and isn’t it fascinating !! it’s something i’ve been preoccupied with in recent writing projects. this thing i’m working on has it, but before that, there was this character in the series blue lock who has a “monster” inside him — kinda like this creature who embodies his ideal of the soccer player he wants to be. and this character’s arc is mostly about realizing there’s no monster, there’s never been a monster that wasn’t him, that he can’t keep playing as if his body isn’t his. he has to be accountable to his own life, to his own love for soccer. and when i was writing a fic for bllk, i wanted to experiment with the idea of how… what if you lose your memories? what if you come into consciousness in this life that doesn’t feel like it’s yours bc you don’t even remember it? what does it mean to be haunted by memories that aren’t there? what if you had to be Told what you used to love? what if the things that feel like instinct/intuition to your body just feels like someone else’s instincts and intuition, bc are you even the self you used to be?

and now, at the new job i just started, i’ve been working with this memoir called when my ghost sings — it’s not out until fall but you can read the synopsis here and see why i bring it up: https://arsenalpulp.com/Books/W/When-My-Ghost-Sings

(of course waking up in a foreign body is also a sensation that echoes how it feels to experience certain mental health situations. it’s a phenomenon you’ll find very often in nonfiction about dissociation, depression, DID, schizophrenia — which aren’t really what i meant in my tweets.)

i Have been thinking recently that so many possession stories i’ve read seem to parallel pieces similar to scenarios explained by mental health 🤔 come closer by sara gran is the first title to come to mind, but i’m also thinking of dark places by gillian flynn, which is less about the foreignness of the body and more about whether you truly perfectly remember something that all your life you thought you knew well. who gets to tell you otherwise? the manga hikaru ga shinda natsu also offers some interesting points about what constitutes a self when the original owner of the body has been compromised, though ultimately it has little to do with the complexity of it so much as it just. is there. more philosophical than eerie imo.

this got very long and rambly but tl;dr: when my ghost sings, come closer, and dark places have elements of something a little similar. otherwise, the thought mostly came from my current writing fixations, so i admit that as of yet i’m not super well-versed on it beyond like. philosophy about consciousness. oh, but on that note (tangentially related), i do recommend the most recent episodes of the podcast philosophize this! stephen west practically raised me but ep 179 onwards has been covering consciousness specifically, and as always, he’s amazing at survey introductions to particular schools of thought.

i think it’s totally normal to feel lost! i like to think of it this way: there’s something about not knowing what to choose that means, technically, anything is possible. if a choice was clear, for instance, if you really only had one choice to the point that it’s so obvious and set in stone, then that means all others doors are closed, you know what i mean?

you have worked so hard !! you have so much to be proud of !! i think that each day we live that isn’t the one before is us working against all odds, and especially so when you have had to rely on other external factors just to keep the life you have stable. but i do completely empathize with the worry of being homeless… two years ago, around this same time, my debit account was $500 in the negative, my credit cards were all maxed out, i had to take a freelance job paying $300 instead of my usual $1000 bc i just needed money for bills fast. i did acting jobs. i was a barista for a bit. then i got the job at what was once my dream workplace. not to say that dreams coming true are what will make hardships worth it — i think often, suffering is just suffering, and as much as we want it to mean something, that just means we’re playing into the tunnel vision it wants us to have. but that’s exactly it. i think the most we can do in life is to not tunnel vision.

otherwise, idk how useful advice from me would be since i really just. live day to day. and that’s really all i can offer you. i know it must be overwhelming, but i think that’s also partly bc it sounds like you’re looking at the bigger picture at all times. sometimes, it’s okay to let small actions be small. you don’t have to make every choice in life only after weighing it for whether it will bring you closer to The End Goal. bc then what if you don’t get the end goal? what if you do everything right and your neighbour’s apartment goes up in flames and accidentally brings you along? does it devalue all the work you’ve still put in? i don’t think so. i think rigidity, or the need to be right every step of the way, can make us fragile. so sometimes it can be a good thing to not be immediately sure. what i do know is that there will always be a way somewhere, just that you have to meet it halfway by being as malleable and open-minded as you can be. steady on your values and your selfhood, flexible everywhere else, as i like to say about my fav character in blue period. then again i have my own biases about these things.

in the end, if you ask me, i think you’re doing more than fine. you’re doing really well, from what i know. trust yourself a bit to figure it out, come what may. you’ve already been doing exactly that, to come this far.

📚 richard… they can never make me hate you. they can never turn me against you. all the poets that have been worshipped only in fragments through twt parallels and tumblr web weavings then ripped down from the pedestal bc the more recognizable bits of their poetry have gotten tiring and overused — i might never feel that way about richard siken. his poetry will always hit me hard. his poetry will always remind me what simplicity of language and the rhythm of internal thought can do in the relationship between words and reader, and his style carries a balance i love seeing even beyond poetry. the three newest poems did take a while to simmer in me but now they make me ache. just. so many poems of his i know parts of by heart but even so, they never get old. i love that man’s writing. if i could protect him from people’s over-humanizing of the poet over the poetry, i would.

💿 i share some thoughts on the record here: https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1321226883 and so far they haven’t changed!

💼 interesting! i think the rise of tote bags in the fashion industry is more symptomatic than anything of its rise as cultural capital — which i only use in this case to mean the cultural/aesthetic goods we like to be seen with in order to attain some degree of standing out in society (ironically, it functions as a tool to conform/assimulate.) like luxury bags, yes, but also the books we read in public, the trends we adhere to, etc. when we want to be seen as “educated,” what aesthetics do we subscribe to? when we want to be seen as “cool,” what are the pieces we buy to be markers of that cool-ness?

so with tote bags, i think what we’re seeing is less a fashion-related rise (though ofc it’s adjacent; fashion is prob time’s oldest cultural capital) and more an extension of what we saw happen with book tote bags, for example. here’s an article from my old workplace that covers the general idea: ​​https://thewalrus.ca/tote-bag. but certain totes mean you are a certain type of person. that in turn is related to the rise of the “off-model” look, which in turn is related to how famous celebrities like to eat cheap pizza and hotdogs in their grammy or oscar ceremony formal attire to achieve a relatable visual.

all this to say that i think it’s a lot of things at once — fashion, our current over-awareness of the aesthetics we subscribe to and how/why, the over-exposure to what other people are using via what items gain traction online — for which totes are the perfect piece. you start advancing something accessible as having inherent value of its own and people start mistaking it for access to individuality. like the boom in popularity of sanrio, miffy, snoopy, sonny angels. or vinyls, uniqlo crescent bags, headphones. each one of these products are tied to the popularity of aesthetics. nothing is immune, and tote bags are one of the earliest examples. which isn’t to say that some people don’t just use totes bc they find them handy, ofc!

this is… so, so sweet… and i’ve been thinking about it a lot since i received it, so thank you so much for the sentiment :( i’ll try! i can’t promise anything right now, and fair warning that i’m just. not all that interesting. or at least i don’t Do anything interesting worth taking photos of. my actual personal life is very, very quiet. everything that happens to me are just other people’s lives happening and roping me into it. the me part of the living just doesn’t have that much going on. maybe that’s why i don’t have an instinct at all for taking photos / “documenting” anything (that, plus i think good things are best allowed the freedom of ephemerality if they so wish), but i do definitely want to try! let me chew on this a bit more and see what i can do.

a few episodes! maybe half? i needed more go minsi after seeing an interview for marie claire, but it wasn’t streaming on any of the subscription services i had at the time so i just kinda. gave up on streaming through secondhand sites.

i didn’t hate it by any means, though! setting a love story during the days of the gwangju uprising was interesting, i found the premise and atmosphere charming, and the main couple’s chemistry served. nothing incredibly wrong with it, really, at least from what i watched. it was just. a drama. it’s mostly that tragedy where the tragedy IS the premise/establishing mood is already a pass for me from the outset. so i’m not sure if i’ll pick it up again.

the last one i went to must have been before the pandemic omg… my calendar says it was a COIN concert in late 2019, but that wasn’t really out of my own interest. i mostly come along to concerts if someone wants a plus one; it’s always a nice chance to be a curious newbie to smth interesting. otherwise, i’m not much of a concert person. i get irritable and overwhelmed in loud crowds, which is like. what a concert is. i almost got into a fist fight once in a wolf alice + the japanese house + the 1975 concert at echo beach.

anyway. my most memorable concert was troye sivan in 2016? i’ll see him again in 2018 (?) but the night of that first concert was also the same night as the 2016 u.s. elections. the texture of that charged atmosphere is still vivid. we were all checking the vote count in between songs, even troye and his band. a girl in the crowd proposed to her girlfriend during “heaven” and it was that song that kind of finally broke me when i was going through videos the day after. there’s a strange companionship in going through something that uniquely, encompassingly traumatic as a collective; there’s camaraderie in the resignation you were all feeling together, this sense of joint grief that felt at odds with songs from troye’s album youth and yet not. i’ll always think of that evening as the exact moment the reality of my coming of age clicked into place.

but my all time fav concert was… the kpop group got7. it was the concert i was talking about in the quoted post here: https://huckleberry.substack.com/p/letter-six-right-now-and-always but they were my main guilty pleasure in my late teens/early 20s, and i always knew they wouldn’t be renewing with their agency; even if they didn’t disband once their contract was up, they’ll never again be a group enough to tour where i’ll get to see them. i spent a sum that hurt to be on the floor by the stage, only to be too short to properly see them — but this kind security lady noticed and escorted me to one of the vip sections where i could see the stage perfectly from up close. i still think about her whenever i pass the stadium the concert was held in. a stranger’s observation and kindness helped me enjoy to the fullest what was essentially a funeral for my fan devotion. it’s weird for an ending to also involve serendipity and celebration. there was grief there, too. it was as much my swan song as it was theirs to me. plus no one holds concerts like idol groups. period.

i also loved the high of lorde’s melodrama concert + it introduced me to mitski. alvvays is now one of my fav bands, but i got into them bc my friend’s tinder date had a ticket to spare. had a mundane interaction with snail mail in the bathroom at that concert too. and i have a fun little inside joke about a friend and i thinking we were seeing summer salt but it turned out they were only opening for turnover alongside the band mannequin p*ssy.

this is so unbearably kind... whoa. Whoa. thank you ?? very much ?? i’m not sure if many of my friends online and off will agree with you honestly i’m kinda. probably not suited to being with people. if i’m much of a friend at all, i’d be like. the dad friend. instead of the mom friend. my love language is quiet protectiveness and long late night conversations where either lore is abruptly revealed or emotionally stunted advice is offered in place of inability to comfort through physical touch. i just. am not a very energetic person. and i think that’s reflected in my relationships. but it’s very touching to hear this, so thank you, thank you, thank you.

sarah dessen novels, las vegas rolls, and sped up songs by the weeknd 😐

like slight tangent excuse me but i guess technically i don’t believe in guilty pleasures bc if it gives you pleasure then why feel guilty about an emotion that others wait all their lives to feel for even a moment, you know? plus the guilt really has more to do with being witnessed in that pleasure, doesn’t it? which to me defeats the purpose of the moral righteousness that tends to inform the pleasures you’re meant to feel guilty about. if you only feel bad about it bc you’ll be seen doing it, then it’s not about moral values—

but anyway. with that in mind, definitely those three things. i know the exact list of the weeknd songs i like and they were set in concrete until all of this stuff with the idol made me unable to even look at his face. but it’s there. it’s a thing. sarah dessen novels are so… does it not exhaust her to write the same archetypes of white suburban life? but she did teach me how to write coming of age stories in the way salinger did. and with sushi i’m usually happiest with salmon nigiri and some yam tempura maki but a las vegas roll has all the flavours and textures i love crammed into two bites max. it shouldn’t exist and yet it does and it’s heaven.

i will be brief [insert a 14k paper]

no but it’s hard to answer this when you don’t have context but also just hard in the way that it’s hard to talk about things that are truly, truly good. there are things that are so good i pick it apart and marvel at how all of its pieces have been handled so well, but then there’s the tier above that, where everything is so inevitable as a unified whole, and so seamless in every sense of that word, that i can’t imagine it any different or poke at it and find a place that will give even under momentary analysis.

that said... i love our protagonist. i love that he exemplifies what it means to be a flawed, insane human being in a flawed, insane world, but his self-sacrifice/self-hate is never positioned as self-aggrandizing. i love that he can’t resist empathizing and sympathizing, that he doesn’t wield his own internal issues irresponsibly, that he learns and grows but remains grounded in a sharp, steady moral compass while also never losing sight of how there are things he can’t know unless he listens to others and accepts all the nuances possible. his selfishness is never about ego, and even his petty spite isn’t set aside to make him into a martyr or saint. this is someone who understands how much violence it takes to be kind, and someone who has seen people in power not assume the accountability and responsibility of being at the top. this resentment alone fuels him, but it’s reason enough to learn to be good. he has no need for pity, only trust and faith that he’ll do the right thing. he’s logical, but above all, he’s intuitive and flexible. he’s generous with his desire to do good by others, and he knows there’s no such thing as right or wrong, only power in hands that should be prepared to make choices befitting of having authority over how reality will bend to its most dominant ruler.

i love all the arcs and resolutions. i love raviel; the very unconventionality of her archetype and her rs with gongja deserves its own paper on romance and theme. i love the quiet subtlety and simplicity of the story mechanics, bc it’s with respect to their individual roles that intricacy in storytelling is given room to expand rather than forced into unnatural momentum. i love how unapologetically insane everyone is. i love how it takes a certain kind of necessary insanity to try and try again until no one and nothing has to be collateral damage, how it’s worth all the labour to ensure everyone retains their right to humanity, even those that have been cast aside in favour of the dominant narrative. i love that sssrh feels like both love letter and critique, but it’s also its own, indelible thing.

also: if you’ve read orv and are wondering how sssrh compares, tumblr user bidokja has worded it much better than i can here https://bidokja.tumblr.com/post/665008165291802625/i-remember-ages-ago-you-told-me-sssrh-was-better and here https://bidokja.tumblr.com/post/659260435172818944/what-does-sssrh-stand-for

right !! makes me spiral every time !! definitely not one of mine... i think. but it could be so many other things. i wonder if you’re thinking about “someone has to leave first / this is a very old story / there is no other version of this story” from richard siken’s the worm king’s lullaby? it’s also a very common theme in poetry and greek tragedies. like “this was always going to happen / she's been dead since the beginning” from robert icke’s agamemnon adaptation or anne carson’s antigone translation. all three of these have been circulated quite a bit and have gotten popular enough to be equal possibilities, but they aren’t what you’re looking for, i have a tag for this concept that Might point you to a better direction than i can? maybe? https://nswers.tumblr.com/tagged/everything%20is%20about%20the%20carousel%20baby (sorry if i don’t have a definite answer, but i’ll keep an eye out for this exact iteration)

oh gooooodness thank you so much 🥺🤍 like genuinely so, so much. what the hell. if i can share my original writing with anyone who might be interested in the future, i absolutely wouldn’t say no, but also — i know people are only here for fics and not like. for me. or my writing as a whole. yet here you are. thank you for believing in my writing, and for finding your way to my ao3 stories and to me in the first place.

god, i sound like i’m giving a very cliché oscar winner speech, but there’s no denying how much i owe to the readers i’ve had over the years. like. it’s practically impossible to separate all of you from my own writing ~journey. in the end, i know i’m lucky i got to write for people like yourself. so. thank you. endlessly.

i liked it a lot! i wasn’t expecting to get attached to it, mostly bc i feel like a lot of boygenius songs aren’t made to be in an album; there tends to be a palpable sense of whose lyrical/composing voice is strongest in one song, so to have them one after the other can feel as if the album is one long concept of a mashup of all their styles. it’s not a bad thing, but it does make it compatible for just picking the songs you like without evaluating the album itself.

but the record definitely felt more like a record. there’s more synergy to this album, in that it felt like a boygenius album more than a phoebe + lucy + julien album. their first ep was best in how it felt like the songs were in conversation with each other, but most of the record felt solid and concrete, like the conversations were happening inside the songs themselves, so it felt like it had proper arcs and catharsis and completion. as pretentious as all of this to say.

i liked true blue and not strong enough during the pre-release period, but we’re in love was the one that got me to put a hand to my mouth during my first full listen. the storytelling! the deceptive softness of the melody! the way the whole song sounds like a long question peppered with smaller ones asking for permission/assurance (isn’t it enough…? will you let me…? will you find me?)! and i’m always a sucker for the idea of “if you rewrite your life, may i still play a part? / in the next one, will you find me?” and “there is something about you that i will always recognize / and if you don't remember / i will try to remind you of the hummingbirds” as the first statement of intent. it’s such an interesting take on the “i will love you in every life” theme, so ofc it plays into my weakness for time loops/parallel universes/regressors, but also there’s just something eternal about knowing someone with understanding so bone-deep it’s built into the very vulnerability that makes all of this so bittersweet. which is honestly just a recurring theme in the record i enjoyed.

i also really liked letter to an old poet… such an interesting song to end the album on, ugh. the lack of structure, the diaristic free flow of it, the way it comes at its subject with hurt after hurt until it tires itself out. how love tinges anger with hurt above all, and this just loops in all other things that come with: regret, resentment, yearning to be happy, to be free. “i wanna be emaciated / i wanna hear one song without thinking of you” is so simple yet so efficient. it’s very reminiscent of all their other solo stuff, and not just bc it’s a concept that shows up in their respective songs. there’s something here that’s a return to form, so it feels like relief and release to end the album there.

these thoughts might change, though. i’ve found that my feelings about the album has shifted with more and more listens.

i haven’t seen it, i’m sorry! but also i’ve been so wary about movies getting momentum among my circles since all the everything everywhere all at once hype set me up, so maybe it’s for the best that i don’t see it yet while everyone’s excited about it. but i loved the first one as much as the rest of the world and went to see it a couple times with different people so i’d love to at least see the sequel. there’s just no urgency at the moment, and it’s fun enough just seeing people talk about it like the most seamlessly united collective in recent memory.

i’ll get there eventually, but for now i’m sorry to disappoint 😞

weirdly enough, this is one of the questions i’ve gotten the most. like this has to be the fourth and fifth time, and at this point, a part of me is wondering if maybe it’s a sign i Should get into naruto. so fascinating.

but honestly, no, i haven’t! i’ve definitely passed the window to become invested in the series as a whole — though it’s still fun to absorb what’s going on from people who have been consuming it since they were kids. i think that’s also partly how i know that it’s just not for me. i’ve never felt the urge to get into it, and the more i learn about it, the more sure i am of that. it’s nothing personal or negative. it’s just not my arena. some stories you just know is not your cup of tea.

though now i’m a bit curious why it keeps cropping up 🤔

it is more than okay! i think donna tartt’s style actually emulates older authors much more closely than anything contemporary, so it makes sense why you’re finding it tricky to find ones reminiscent of her prose. if you haven’t tried the goldfinch, i highly recommend it if you liked donna tartt’s prose in tsh. only she can do what she does, after all. plus her second book the little friend is forgettable as a whole, but if you just want to absorb her prose then it definitely delivers on that much.

hmm, what else… i’m so hernan diaz-pilled right now, so his book trust (which i’ve been raving about to everyone who would listen) is the first one to come to mind. brideshead revisited by evelyn waugh, light years by james salter, the bell jar by sylvia plath, maurice by e.m forster, demian by hermann hesse. maybe east of eden by john steinbeck, if you’re up for a longer read. a lot of these have coming of age themes in the way that tsh and the goldfinch are both coming of age in a way, but i’m mostly evaluating based on how closely they resemble that neo-romantic prose style that donna tartt uses. you don’t see it often in recent lit. authors seem to be geared towards less dense writing/more staccato sentence. sometimes it works for me, more often it does not.

in any case, if you haven’t read the goldfinch, that’s a great next place imo! i actually like it more than tsh. the only other author who manages such a them-only mood in their writing for me has been haruki murakami, and i barely like the guy. his novel wind-up bird chronicle is very adjacent to donna tartt, too, now that i’m thinking about it. otherwise, definitely look to older authors or authors with an “older” style for the same cadence in prose, or (like i did in hs) check the list of recent pulitzer prize winners. you start sensing a pattern after a while, but thankfully that means easy recs every year.

trying to find a way to word this gently, but honestly? that audience in your head? that perpetual voyeur? shoot them down. with cannonballs. rain hellfire down on them. they don’t matter. so much that when all the smoke and flames disperse from the scene, you’ll see they were all faceless mannequins and you’ve been trying to please and belong with nothing but wood and ash. even the real people whose approval you want are just. projections of concepts onto actual human lives.

i know it’s easy for me to say this bc i’ve never wanted validation on what/how/why i write/think/consume, let alone needed it. i can only imagine how agonizing it must be for you to feel like you’re missing out by not being part of the majority. to me, you already Are missing out by constantly needing to be seen enjoying a thing. that’s not enjoyment. needing to be seen will always just be needing to be seen. it’s almost a caricature of enjoyment and consumption, the things people default to needing when they want to belong. it’s not fair to anyone, to always be so afraid, to need to Not be denied the Full Experience of everything. but aren’t you tired? and isn’t that reason enough?

i don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting a community when you enjoy something. i think that’s wonderful about humans. how we want to share our loves. it’s natural to want to belong. but do you find maybe that you distrust your own feelings? kinda like, “surely, my enjoyment can’t be real if it’s not enjoyment someone else feels the exact same way”? bc the high of being seen is not the same as the high of the emotion itself. do you even have the emotion enough to share it?

maybe being online has convinced us that the opinions of 1000+ people matter all at once, or that there’s one way to feel something. but neither is true. the fact that you’re even asking me this means you’re looking for a right way to love smth when the right way doesn’t even exist. there’s no universality. the people you want the validation of ultimately have no say in how you live it, and not all enjoyment is going to feel like another. it’s okay to consume things and think, “well. that sucked.” or even just “lol ok.” not every reaction has to be big to matter, and not everything has to reach many to count. often, you have to be a person to yourself to be a person to others, and it’s okay to take your time finding out who that person is. god knows that’s hard enough in itself. you might as well listen to the parts of you that agree or disagree to this or that, to accept your own reactions, to be present in the minute you’re living. there’s too much of life to waste only on forgettable things like approval as the end goal instead of genuine memories to collect long-term.

i know this tirade probably wasn’t helpful, but — i’m sending you the word equivalent of a hug. you won’t be crucified for having a self, you know. being alone does not equal rejection, nor is it reason to distrust what you feel.

oh, i know it sounds like i’m being self-effacing/deprecating, but i do genuinely think all i ever offer is the bare minimum of what people deserve !! like, yes, we are all little guys, and i was no more special for any reason online than anyone else, but more so than that, i also just think (to loop back that thought in the last cc about language) that language deserves respect from us, and that includes the back-and-forths we have with each other. stranger or friend, online or off, work friend or friend friend. of course i’m cognizant of me being older and the different kind of responsibility i have to a teenager telling me about their relationship with art and poetry — but age doesn’t at all devalue the insight i could only get from your messages or from anyone younger than me. there is so much to learn from everyone around me who’s willing to arrange their thoughts into words for me to receive. that’s sacred to me. whether from a sixteen-year-old or a six-year-old or a sixty-year-old. i don’t think you were weird about it at all! trust me, i’ve had people shipping me with other ao3 writers in multiple different fandoms. i like to stay away from conversations about me mostly bc it’s beyond my emotional jurisdiction; what people tweet or say about me, it’s beyond the parameters of what is mine and my work’s. that’s theirs. i have no claim to it. but the words that people take the time to write about directly To me, whether in comments or ccs, whether long letters or just a “this song/show/art reminded me of you/something i thought you’d like” — again, that’s sacred. if anything, i count myself lucky to have people from all kinds of backgrounds, with their own loves and interests, would consider my little inbox worth the care and energy of sharing their thoughts. not to sound all saintly about it at all! i just think — i consider this cc a privilege more than you would expect. i mean, a space to hear from people and a space to share my thoughts over things i haven’t even reflected on? it’s a dream.

all this said — it’s an honour to finally make your acquaintance, zaynah ❣️ if there’s a word for how it feels to hear from you again after all this time, i still highly doubt it would be enough to share. all my warmth to you, always, always, and thank you for remembering me and taking the time to reach out with so much thoughtful effusiveness. a lot has changed with me since we last spoke, and i can’t even imagine how i was at the age/mental state i was then, but i truly wish you all the best in these upcoming chapters of your life, and please know my thoughts are always with you.

(if you want to drop your email in another cc that i won’t publish, i can email you from my own! if not, i’m not as inundated with messages on tumblr @ nswers, and i can share my email with you there, if you’d like! no pressure either way!)

the audio job is still here! i have three jobs right now, but summer doesn’t typically find me in high spirits and it’s good to be busy. i’ve been working on a personal manuscript that’s ostensibly about a haunted house, but haunted houses are also one of those things that you can very easily spiral about dissecting so the manuscript has assumed like. fourteen incarnations by now. it’s driving me a bit crazy, but it’s always good to be driven a bit crazy by something writing related. overall i’ve been interested in soul/essence/feeling embedded into body/place/time/memory, but that’s a whole tangent i have no space for here oops

ahhh as i talk about myself it’s always as if i’m just approximating who i am as a person and then doing a subpar performance of that approximation. people never believe me when i say i’m not very interesting. but writing — writing is always safe to talk about. i think that’s partly how i’ve come to accept in the last year or so that i Am a writer. maybe not an artist, but a writer, at least. though maybe it’s never been about deserving the label for me. i’m aware of the standards and criticisms i levy against myself and my writing, how it’s solely my own approval i need to earn but what a steep hill that is to cross. it’s good, bc no one else can tell me i’m terrible if i feel like i’m not; someone can tell me a project is subpar, but if i know what i set out to do with it and it served its use, then what anyone else has to say about it holds no sway whatsoever. it won’t even make a dent. it’s not even in my mind. but that also means no one can really tell me i’m good and have me internalize it. if i don’t think i’m good, if i don’t consider a work fine, then it’s not. no matter who it moves or impresses. it’s freeing, to not need anyone’s validation. it’s lonely, too.

but i digress !! everything is language !! absolutely !! language is the currency upon which human reality is made concrete !! with that in mind, i do believe you can’t unlock the full depth of language if you approach it with a hierarchy in mind. you can’t ask language to come to you just bc you’ve proven yourself to some sort of rubric, or bc you’re good at what you do with it and that means it should submit to your hand. you serve writing, though not as its servant. you remain loyal to it, you respect it, you honour its layers with eternal curiosity, and sometimes that means defining what it means to be an artist before you can even think about earning being one. all this to say i understand what you mean and am nodding alone 😓 there’s nothing more infinite than language. not even money. it’s wonderful. i’ve been reading trust by hernan diaz recently and loving it, and i think “infinite conceptions” truly is the best term for all of it, you’re so right.

where to even start, oh my god — i feel like anything i come up with runs the risk of cliché, but i think that’s just a default when it’s been so long since you last spoke to someone, and especially with the slightly unconventional pen pal dynamic we have. all this to say that i brightened up so much when i realized it was you messaging !! you were one of the very first frequenters of this inbox, you know. you’re never far from my mind whenever i think about the early days of this cc, in the same way you’re never far from my mind when i listen to luz. for what it’s worth, and with both the openness and the distance of our back-and-forth, i owe a lot to the foundation you helped make concrete in letting me get accustomed to not being apologetic for how i talk about my writing and how i answer ccs.

but anyway !! i’m absolutely not important here. happy birthday! i can’t believe you’re 18! it’s been that long since we last spoke? congratulations on graduating high school and transitioning to uni, too, my god. and socio/anthro sounds so, so cool. some of my fav classes in uni were both, and it’s funny you mention how we used to talk about archiving/oral history, bc i’ve also been reflecting lately on how much more rewarding it would be to work in archives/libraries/museum backrooms than the people-heavy work i’ve been doing lately. i’m finding lately that saying i want to be with people, that i truly love people, is sounding more and more like a lie — though i wouldn’t say i’m being particularly misanthropic, either. there’s nothing negative about it. i’m just struggling lately to find a reason for wanting to be with the world, and to share parts of me that feel like… i’m just handing away. not much more is left inside me. but it’s strange to say that bc it sounds so morbid, or alarming, which isn’t what i mean either. i don’t know. i’m not disillusioned per se. i still love writing about people. i’m just not very endeared atm to the whole Being A Person Among People thing, is all. but that might just be the transitions going on in My life. so.

it’s tricky finding the right words to wish you well in uni. i know you have a lot of transitory years ahead of you, and i don’t know what to wish someone for whom both the violence and rewards of coming of age will gather more and more momentum moving forward — but above all, i think i just hope that you never lose sight of how important it is to be curious, to cultivate your interests, to pay attention not just to what you love but what you can learn to love. something something susan sontag’s vassar college speech. i’m not worried about it, though. you’ve always had a palpable sense of direction in your emotions and reflections, so please never forget that you have someone on this side of the ocean believing like hell in you on as you evolve and evolve and evolve ☀️

oh, that’s a massive honour to hear, thank you! honestly, for itfs… never say never. i can’t promise anything, and who knows if i’ll ever feel a desire to dust off some of my unfinished wips, but the thing about jjk is that i never would have written so much for it if it the source material didn’t leave me so dissatisfied. there’s definitely more stuff there that i could write, but whether or not i get the urge to depends only on being invested in the series again to the point of writing fic for it. which right now feels unlikely, but it can totally change when, for example, jjk ends. that sort of thing. so again, no promises, but it’s certainly not a hard, definite no :)

oh no not silly at all! it’s a Great question, but there’s nothing profound to it, really, i just prefer to keep everything on my end of ao3 business as minimal and no-nonsense as possible. tags, summaries, even author notes. my general reservations about tags aside — if i can get away with not tagging at all, i would. my compromise is to just try fulfilling my basic duties with only the tags that are absolutely necessary, and that doesn’t really include character tags. since i can’t really think of any benefits to tagging more but the opposite is a win-win situation, i choose the latter. doesn’t hurt that it’s also just nicer to look at when there’s no clutter in the tags or notes sections. not having to spend time on which characters and tropes to tag before i send the fic off + a neater look without them = happy sha 🌟

a couple anons in the past Have suggested that i should tag more so more people read my fics but that’s not really who i am, you know? people find my fics when they do, and i’d like it to remain that way, whether by word of mouth or just by complete accident. i prefer to be as hands-off as possible with the finding readers thing. it’s more pleasant this way. whatever preserves that best beyond taking my fics down from search engines is the avenue i’ll choose.

the bottomline is that i tag so minimally half for shallow/superficial reasons and half to save myself the trouble. that’s really it. i’m sorry if this is a more disappointing answer than you expected 😥

listened to it just now and ohhh i can’t believe i didn’t put it in the playlist before this :( it’s interesting bc flls feels so alien and far away to me now, more so than any other fic, but there are still artists that i associate with it alone whenever their songs come on shuffle. i never expect to miss them bc flls got such a neat ending that i Know they’ll be fine and there’s nothing more to write, but then a song like see you later by jenna raine or i knew by lizzy mcalpine comes on and it feels like i’m back there, a couple years ago, writing chapter six on my old laptop. to have a world feel so real to you when you’re writing that it feels like you truly physically left it behind when you finished it — it’s a privilege that never gets old to be reminded of how special that is, so tysm for sharing this thought with me.

ahhh idk if this is a serious question but i do have a semi serious answer here if it is https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1319273167

otherwise — maybe! maybe not! it’s really, really hard to say! one can never be sure with me and my whims 😓 there’s so much fic i still haven’t gotten to write, and who knows, maybe i’ll get into something in the future that plants an itch that will need scratching, but right now, i just have the feeling it’s time to step away from fics at least for a while and actually get serious about writing. not that i have a great track record with that, but again. we’ll see where the next few months take me. in any case, thank you for caring about that little tweet.

it is an original work, yes! but no no there wasn’t like. an epiphany or anything. i just think there’s a point where it feels like the right time to start a project, and it’s felt like The Time for the manuscript since i finished hairpin turns. it just happened that i started another fic on a whim and it went on for longer than i expected it to. i’ve always had the feeling that blue lock was going to be my last arena for a while, and even if The Manuscript wouldn’t be keeping me occupied in the meantime, that probably would have still been true. blue lock gave me so much room to sit with as many of my most urgent thoughts as possible and to get all the fundamental writing warm ups and experimentation out of the way, and beyond that freedom, there’s nothing i’m itching to write for right now.

i also think... my time writing fics for blue lock is perfect to end on in a lot of ways. the kind of too neat and too right i can only dream of. i’ve had the absolute best time writing these fics, and i’ve been lucky to hear it has come across and that i get to talk about writing with bllk readers and just soak up their thoughts and energy. i’m very grateful. my bllk fics and readers have given me the fic author experience of a lifetime, so maybe i just feel protective about this love between me and this particular era of writing. i want to bottle it up and keep it where it can never be tainted. if this is the last i ever give of me to fic writing and they the people to receive it — that’s amazing. i wouldn’t want nor need anything else if this happens to be my last ever. there’s closure here if i need it.

thank you so much for saying you you’ll support me either way, but i promise there’s absolutely no expectation nor obligation to be here for anything except what you came for, whatever that might be. just know that i already owe a lot to readers like you for being around at all for my silly little fics, and that’s worth more than enough to me, truly.

there’s a chance that it might not be ever !! it’s hard to say !! but definitely last fic for a while. there’s nothing i want to write fic for at the moment, and my blue lock fics + readers fed me so well that i don’t think i’ll be hungry for anything any time soon. so. maybe more of an indefinite hiatus…? i didn’t mean to alarm anyone by sounding a death knell with that tweet :(

oh gosh not at all... years ago i wanted to work in forensics/criminology/law, but i found myself with no financial support by the time i was 16 and kinda just. made strategic choices. i know that sounds cold but i figured it wouldn’t matter if i studied biochem or philosophy as long as i had a diploma to slap onto a buffed cv, so i just ended up picking what interested me most and would thereby encourage me to truly apply myself bc that way i can get the best loans/grants/scholarships and focus on beefing up my portfolio on the side. for me, undergrad was an investment that would turn up profit if i bet on my stocks well. i was of the opinion (and still am, lowkey) that paying a school to teach me something i’d pursue on my own time just fine was a waste of my already limited resources. i thought school was a good as much as anything else. i didn’t see a reason to pay for it AND dedicate time and money to it in the same way i don’t go to a restaurant and ask them to let me cook my own meal. i chose a double major in classics and linguistics bc i felt like those were two things i’d never be able to cover myself quite the same way, but also bc both encompassed everything i would need for any job i could imagine wanting to do. classics covered the humanities side, from languages to art conservation, and linguistics covered everything from neuroscience to anthropology. plus they gave me time left over to work for the school newspaper during the school year and at a magazine fellowship in between semesters as well as as a research assistant for a professor in the classics department. that left me with quite the work history by the time i graduated, and academia just felt too indulgent as a next step. if i want emotional fulfillment in pursuing what i love or to finish a project or to get the credentials/experience, i can just. do it. i Do just do it. i wasn’t thrilled about the idea of paying someone to give me permission or guidelines to do what i love.

but i’m not saying i’m too good for academia !! god no. i miss school a lot these days. but its costs render it a luxury, and one that i feel i can make my way contentedly without for now. i’ve been so blessed to get work in sectors that people do school/internships to have on their resume, and it’s led me to the slightly unexpected jobs i’ve had. i just got a position as a copywriting lead for a literary agency, but before that i was working for my dream publication. i also work as an audio producer for two magazines. it’s always more fun to do things that feel novel and challenging, i find. last year, i had both an actor era and a barista era, so who knows, maybe i’ll brush off those research assistant roots and try academia someday! that would be nice. it just feels like a lot of idle time and too much commitment rn.

my point is — i’m less of an intellectual and more restless traveler always looking for a new high. but i do appreciate this cc and i’m so sorry for going on a tangent 😭

i wasn’t familiar with it before this cc, so thank you for thinking of me! i thought the premise was right up my alley, so i ended up reading it right then and there. y’all know i love my exes/second chance romance dynamics, and the lovely art didn’t hurt.

i’m also always intrigued by relationships with a… class divide? for lack of a better term? k-media love their rich/poor tropes, but i’m also thinking of normal people by sally rooney. how does a romance between people with fundamentally different understandings of money and power navigate that difference? especially in stories like spring, the color of love, where one half of the pairing is a chaebol, how do you reconcile one of you having inherited wealth while the other has defined survival in a way the other will never have access to? i know that’s reading too much into it, but it’s such an unavoidable part of situation imo. the rich one can throw money at the rs all they want, and there is a lesson for the other that not everything has to be a fight and they can just accept gifts and kindness, but realistically, how do you make that work?

this manhwa started off strong with cheongsoon: he made sense not just as someone who’s the victim of how “poverty has a way of being passed down” but as someone who wasn’t emotionally available bc when you live like him, everything comes at a cost. yet the way the story set that up as a realistic core then shuffled it to the side in favour of this… i wanna say underlying attitude of disregard? towards that theme, but also the characters towards their jobs, their social roles in the company, the few women in their lives — i think that’s where it lost me in the end. so many of the later plotlines felt contrived even with slivers of realism, which was disappointing bc it had all the facilities to be good and nuanced and still portray a love for the ages. i love a romance that’s about selfishness and choosing each other no matter what, but the love here just felt standoffish rather than selfish in the name of love, if that makes sense. kinda like. they really couldn’t give a shit about the realities of the world they live in/the people around them, and not in the way that’s fun and touching to see. also. i saw someone in the comments say “dear author this plot twist sucks” about the brother thing and — yeah.

sorry i’m like rambling a litany of complaints but the fact that i read it all is a good thing !! don’t get me wrong !! the expressions were drawn so well, and the manhwa was at its best when there was no dialogue/narration. i loved the casual intimacy; it’s rarer than it should be to see couples in romance just be Comfortable like that. the strongest conflict for me was cheongsoon’s uncle. that was when i was like. oh, okay, they haven’t forgotten about the differences threaded into who they are and how they’ve learned to want things in the world. and the final scene where it’s revealed what the last thing he left behind was is quite nice.

the manhwa, i usually read here: https://mangadex.org/title/4a973243-952e-44d7-a50f-883b4b7c9cc2/sss-class-suicide-hunter but i did literally almost fall down the stairs yesterday after someone told me the new season has started updating on https://sssclasshunter.com/

if you mean the novel, though, i got my ebook from zlib back when it was up but if you don’t have the tor browser, this link and file should function much the same https://annas-archive.org/md5/2b0aeb60b5bb6011fe46bb6d25d9b0c7

not to go hehe but hehe it makes me so giddy when people ask about sh and i really hope you have a good time with it 🤍

funny you say that bc sae is unequivocally my bllk favourite and i find it a shame that i can go on and on about sdse around friends/on priv but only got to write them for real in one hyperspecific au, so i’m incredibly glad to hear that the fic was alright despite that... thank you so so much for taking the time to write to me here with such sweet and earnest words 🥹💗

hmm i don’t have that many fics in my mental bank in general, to be fair, but not bc i think i’m too good for them omg i am definitely not it's just. a bunch of other things combined. all the gold in the rnbc tag was a genuine shock to my system, for example, bc the stars don’t align often in terms of my pairing preferences, the characterization i like to see, etc.

for sdse, the only fic i have in mind is this outsider pov that i basically know by heart by now: ao3.org/works/43583449. this author Does indulge a lot, so i feel strange advertising this primarily as a character study, but including all their other sdse fics, they’re really the only one i’ve seen handle sae… i don’t want to say Well, bc that implies my view is the only right one and i’m not willing to entertain alternatives, but with all the nuances that align with the ones i see in sae, at least. i’ve had to accept from spending time in the tag that sdse is just. hard to pull off. it’s easy for a story not to feel like sdse anymore if an author isn’t careful. when you portray shidou as someone at sae’s beck and call unconditionally, for instance, you run into a risk of making him not completely shidou. yes, he defers to sae, but he’s not truly submitting to him. he calls sae out for going easy on rin, negotiates when he can’t get what he wants outright. control is so specific to sae’s everything, on the other hand, but it’s how that plays a part in his rs with shidou that leaves him consciously vulnerable to him too. shidou likes it when sae is rough with him, but it’s the same for sae. sae needs shidou under him, but shidou also needs sae above him. it’s constant power renegotiation, and not every kind of fic allows for that, understandably. but this author does a lot of wonderful balancing on that regard esp in this fic (e.g. how a lifetime of being wanted has taken its toll on how sae sees desire vs. how he Does get off on being owned by shidou as much as he does owning shidou). sae is just. a seesaw of a character. simple physics, but it takes effort to balance both ends. this author might be indulgent but to me they also just get the sleight of hand of the canon sdse dynamic, their unique dialogue and body language, the vulgarity and perversion of their attraction to eo yet the necessity of mutual trust for them to work at all. that, and outsider pov is just the best trope to use for these two bc they’re terrifying and awe-inspiring and really goddamn inscrutable yet the only thing that makes sense for the other. this fic is like a winning bingo card to me.

that brings me back whoa i had the most insufferable beats phase in my last year of high school bc of k/ll your darlings 😭 looking back i didn’t even love most of it, just that it was the sparse but urgent writing style i aspired to at the time. i loathed kerouac then and loathe him now, but i think some of his best work is in the essay collection lonesome traveler. i also really liked bob kaufman’s poetry and used to recite pieces of “a terror is more certain” in my head during situations i didn’t want to be mentally present in. the book of martyrdom and artifice was my fav ginsberg, but i also encourage anyone interested in him to look at his later work in life; i find that his contributions to conversations around american participation in drug production and the vietnam war highlight his views as much as howl does. other than that, the lasting impact of my beat phase was mostly in how it led me to an even worse susan sontag phase and a teenage devotion to franny and zooey by salinger… which are their own thing. but my memory from that time period isn’t very good/reliable, and i’m sure there was more i liked if i was that insufferable about it and just can’t recall now i’m sorry :(

on that note, sontag + andrea long chu are the only two essayists that i would say i love In General-in general these days. that, and i have a soft, soft spot for kyo maclear’s work. brandon taylor i feel shines more in nonfiction, whether his newsletter or magazine essays, while jia tolentino excels more in her new yorker pieces than in a themed essay collection like trick mirror. maggie nelson has as many hits as she does misses, larissa pham comforts me even when she doesn’t excite me. anne carson defies the traditional structure of all genres she writes in that in my head she’s a translator before she is a poet or an essayist, but i think she writes with her trademark acuity even in works like eros the bittersweet.

and as for how i am… it’s alright. like. i’m alright. certain symptoms always get worse around this time of the year, and i’m just trying to manage them. it’s hard not being able to sleep well, mostly. summer is always incredibly difficult. otherwise i’m alive and alright and not giving anyone any trouble — but tysm for genuinely asking !! i also hope you’re taking it easy !!

absolutely omg i think it’s been this gradual shift of birthdays being a whole internal process in the years between 16 to 20, a kind of emotional and mental recalibration of the age and self you now are after each one, then 21 and 22 was full of this sense of urgency and over-awareness that i’m not doing enough/running out of time. which i don’t believe is true now, but this year is also the first year where i’ve felt like. ok. another year older. cool. there’s neither joy-grief nor existential dread. it’s just another day. there’s a reason to hang out with friends and have cake and receive wonderful cards and letters, all of which i’m thankful for, but it’s also a stage of life where the truth that grounds me is that things will go on no matter what, even if it’s a bad day or a birthday.

i guess that’s what getting older is to me now. when you grow up aware of the things you’ve had to live through or survive, you also have this awareness of what you can’t have/what you still don’t have. which i feel like i’ve finally shed. i know that i am one year wiser and more equipped for the future than i was a year ago. that’s all that matters, even if it might not be ultimately true. i’ve experienced more anyhow. thought more, had more conversations, written more. i can’t ask for much else.

but i do think you’re allowed to feel somber about not being 19 anymore! you put so much work, whether conscious or not, into growing into your 19, 20, 21 year old self, and now you have to shed that and start over. it’s not straightforward or comfortable, even if it’s a more subconscious process for some than others. not to mention these are the years that will come with the most transitions for a lot of us; for most, that means these are also the years to come with the most loss. change means moving away from things, starting over, which are its own wells of grief. anyone should be allowed that.

people tend to get discouraged when they check themselves every year and find that not much has changed, or that they might be doing worse somehow than their “better” years — but what i do know is that this is rarely true, and there’s no perspective quite like the one you have when you’re 23 and seeing how young your 13 year old self was, and i assume that will only grow more and more true the further you go into the future, until you’re 33 and thinking wow, what a baby i was at 23. such is the bitterness of the shifting nature of life, but also its sweetness? these days, i think it’ll be cool if you can look back at more than just the last year and know that if you sit with the you of, say, 10 years ago, maybe more, you can have a conversation with two drastically different approaches to the same topic despite being the same person and even if you agree on some pieces of it.

but anyway! i have rambled enough. a late happy birthday to you, and i hope 22 is gentle with your heart 🌷

this a tricky one hmm the mech community is... finicky. the better engineered a board is, the more it costs to manufacture; the more a board costs, the longer it tends to ship out and the more exclusive the group buy will be. quality boards are produced on an interest check > group buy > aftermarket system: if there’s enough demand for a board pitched on geekhack, various countries will open group buy preorders and note an estimate on which quarter of what year it will ship out. once it arrives for those who bought, there will be slim chances to grab a kit yourself until another round of group buys happen, if at all. however if a board has great resale value or if the person who got one didn’t like it, you’ll see some go up in places like r/mechmarket or the keebsforall marketplace.

some find it a pain, honestly. but recent years have seen an uptick in lower end but affordable mass-produced keyboard kits, and there are people who are happy with cherry mx switches on ajazz/feker/epomaker boards, which are dirt-cheap and does the job if you just want any kind of mech keyboard. if you want to experiment with building your own, sites like kbdfans and novelkeys have kits that can help introduce you to the basics of the hobby. they’re… not amazing, but if someone’s starting out and isn’t particular yet about what they’re looking for, they’re useful budget beginner keebs. you can pick your parts and even have keebs built for you, and from there explore keycaps and cables, which have their own systems. i’d say that right now mode designs offers the best balance of beginner accessibility and quality. my personal fav keyboards from them are no longer in production, but only bc they changed business tactics to now offer the sonnet and the envoy; both give you good enough room to experiment with plates, designs and diff ways to build a board without relying on the group buy system, plus there are multiple build videos from yt channels and even mode themselves to give you an idea of how to go about it all.

i guess the place to start would just be the fundamentals of a build. i recommend looking at youtubers like alexotos, who’s the only good big name in the hobby imo, but :3ildcat and rice cloud have cheaper builds while filledtypes has a good mix. off these, you can familiarize yourself with the parts of a keeb: keycaps (comes in a few diff profiles), plate (a big spectrum of materials), pcb (can be either hotswap or solder; i advise against soldering as a beginner), and switches (comes in three diff types, all of which have their own idiosyncracies)

really, you won’t know what you like until you’ve tried them all. between you and me, if you just want to try building a keeb, then a bluetooth hotswap one or smth from kbdfans/mode will do just fine. no need to get into the nitty gritty. it’s a consuming hobby that’s drastically different for everyone, not to mention the costs can get ridiculous. so. i hope this provides an idea of what to expect 🙁

oh wow wow wow… this is a longwinded preface feel free to skip to the next paragraph but it’s funny bc i do wonder often if i come across as ingenious or inauthentic from the way i use… words? grimacing as i write that but i think i always brace myself to be called cold and/or pretentious (which i don’t consider wrong; i do probably have a tendency to be too objective or detached), yet inauthentic is one of those criticisms that feels unfair and reaches me in a slightly more childish place. in an “oh, bc i have to think about how to say things, my thoughts and emotions are too calculated to be authentic?” kind of petty way. which. i also understand that being careful with words translates to what others might see as inauthenticity for a reason. nothing i can do about that. in the end, i’m just not a terribly emotive person.

ALL THIS TO SAY that i really want to be honest. in my interactions, in my writing, in my relationships. i know it’s not always possible, or successful the way i want it to be. so it means a great, great deal to hear you say this, is all i want to say. and that i don’t think of it as surrendering, to pause writing right now. ofc you never know if or when you’ll return to it if you take a step back right now, but in my eyes, giving yourself room to breathe and to find other things to love just as much if not more than writing is a pursuit that has no cons. you as a writer goes as deep only as far as you the person. i believe that wholeheartedly about artists. you as a person comes first bc it will only ever help sustain your craft in the end.

and i mean. your emotions Are unique exactly bc you’re more human than accident. accidents can only be statistics, i’d argue. even if the thread of the emotions we feel runs the same through multiple people, it will always be unique to the individual in the end. that doesn’t mean you should see yourself as a villain or a failure for feeling what feels unique. i don’t think emotions themselves have inherent moral value, especially if they’re reactionary, and that’s what makes your feelings more than a statistic. if this roundabout logic makes sense.

thank you once again, and i also hope your days have been nothing but gentle 🤍

sha is a short version of my first name! it’s a nickname that irl friends and biological family also use, etc. i’ve heard people interpret my full first name with everything from noble to thirst to prophetic/persuasive, but oh, “salvage” is such a singularly wonderful sentiment that blows them all out of the water :( slight tangent but in jojo’s bizarre adventure there’s one character with the ability to create life from nothing and another with the ability to fix things that have been broken, whether to heal or to repair, and it’s always meant a lot to me that it’s the latter whose power the story highlights as the “kindest of all.” creating life is one thing; it’s another to salvage. this reminded me of that, so although it’s not my full name and one can never be sure how well it applies it to me, it moves me incredibly that you took the time to share so thank u very very much 🥹🤍

that’s a question i’ve asked myself a lot, too, honestly, but i guess the best (longwinded) answer i have is that i get restless at the idea of only writing things i already know, whether in plot or worldbuilding, etc. ofc there are exceptions, but i’ve always thought it will severely limit the stories i can write if i had to had to know things first to write them rather than open myself up to the discovery process as i write/be as open as possible to learning as i go along. speaking as Just Some Guy trying to approximate a human life in their stories knowing it will never be perfect, it’s not as if i had to survive a war and raise a daughter myself to try my absolute best writing detour, or have an unfulfilling career in film to take a shot at writing a 27-year-old retired actor.

it’s the same approach to me with writing characters in love? as a personal preference, i’m not super comfortable making characters act as megaphones for my own feelings. i think that’s what my nonfiction stuff are for. whether it’s parenthood or ptsd from being an idol/pianist/artist or being in love, what i consider my job as a writer is to drop into the lives of the characters. i can’t speak for others, and ofc plenty of writers write from inside themselves as much as some actors work complete magic while method acting — but for me, writing happens to be a chance to take on roles that can’t be more different from me and satisfy some curiosities that way.

i think maybe that’s why i love writing romance and characters not the same age/gender/nationality/personality type i am. i won’t be able to experience what they do otherwise, and the joy of writing is that i Do live with them for as long as i am writing their world. their longing is my longing, their love is my love, their lows are my lows. all that. it’s arguably easier for fics, bc the canon source gives me an existing character who sees the world in a specific way for specific reasons, and as long as i approach them with the intent to understand, the hope is that i’ll also come to understand the way they might or might not love another person.

i try my best, at least. i don’t know if i think about making my characters likeable/relatable, though i hope to make the story as comprehensible yet complex as i can. that’s the extent of how i consider the “what are they going on about…?” thing you mention. from metaphors to introspection, i’d say i just work with the assumption that it will Always be too specific to be universally relatable. i guess that lends me its own lens, nudges me to chase more, specify more, add colour or whatever. i never know how successful i am at it. that any of it ends up relatable to readers shocks me every time.

this has gotten too pretentious oops but the tl;dr is that my not knowing isn’t exclusive to being in love. i don’t know anything, ever, when i write. it’s my fav feeling in the world. i just try my best. the best attempt is what both i and the reader end up with.

no no, don’t worry, but i’m afraid i’m not the right person to ask for this... i wanna say it takes quite a lot to anger me to a point beyond damage control, but once that threshold has been abused, i’m not much of a forgive-and-forget person. so. i’m unsure myself how to answer.

i think… the most important of any apology is to be sincere and accountable, and to know that reasoning is not automatic justification. if i were to apologize to someone, i think the best i can do is to know and acknowledge the ways i might have hurt them, and to not word it in such a way that the onus to prove the reality of the hurt is on them. so no “i’m sorry you felt hurt…” or “i’m sorry that you took it the wrong way…” bc if you’re the one who inflicted the harm, then you don’t assign the responsibility to the other person. lowering yourself also isn’t the way to uplift them, meaning that “i am such a terrible person for doing this, i keep doing things wrong, no one likes me” is not the same as “i know i did a terrible thing to you.” with that in mind, i think whenever we have to apologize, we must also do it with the awareness that the other person should not be cornered into the reply We want. you don’t apologize just so you’ll be forgiven, and we have to accept that people have the right to not forgive, or the right to move on and start over without necessarily accepting the apology. so as far as telling you how to apologize, i think a crucial chunk is not to get ahead of the other person. you don’t get to tell them how they need you to make it right.

i guess the main points of what i’m trying to say is: be direct and honest about what you did wrong, and acknowledge that your reasons for doing it does not make the fact that you hurt someone any less of a truth. you give the other person space to do what they want with the apology, and if they want to talk more, be open to that. don’t be a doormat, either. own up to any damage from you without turning it into a whole talk of how you’re the worst person in the world for even thinking to do it; that has nothing to do with the thing you did. if the other person did something wrong to you, be as honest and direct about it as you are in your apology without framing it in such a way that it’s like an eye for an eye (i.e. “i hurt you bc you hurt me so now we’re even.”) that’s not an apology.

i think apologies are like rowing a boat with one other person. that short, upfront, back and forth motion. but i also don’t know the exact situation you’re working with, and it could very well be that i’m being too prescriptive to harmful degrees. i think the main thing is just. to make space in the big conversation for as much of both of you as possible. if that makes sense.

i hope this can be helpful in any way at all ahhh i am wishing you the best of luck and i hope things go alright in whatever way that might mean for both of you 🙁

you are never in danger of sounding pretentious To Me of all people omg

hmm i think when you have a certain rs with this idea of what fullness feels like, you run into danger of being more aware of emptiness. you get the instinct to hoard, to gorge. you see an absence left behind and the only thing that matters is how different this is to their presence, and how surely this means no one else will be able to satiate the hunger there bc only they were able to bring fullness.

and maybe all of this is true. idk. a lot of my own life feels like feeding myself a spoonful i’ll enjoy but from a meal i won’t finish with any sense of satisfaction. i have my anger and my frustrations, and i hate people and love people in moments that don’t always persist beyond that one pocket of time. my memory is horrible. i think often that i live like a ghost. intangible and unreachable.

but that isn’t always true, and i think i’ve reached a point in life where that’s the thesis holding me together. nothing is ever Always [insert word]. someone on tumblr said that the main lesson of their 20s is that Everything changes beyond recognition. i think that’s true, including your writing. if we stick to the food analogy, do we eat a meal we like and think, darn, i’ll be hungry again later today? or oh, that instant oatmeal was not as good as the fancy pasta last week?

maybe. i get seeing what’s not there — happiness, fulfillment, improvement — and thinking that gluttony is the answer to such emptiness. but i also think the way we live now is so permanently against a wider backdrop. everything we consume, we want to place somewhere in our internal museum of things. the present tense is attached to “used to” and “could/should be” without any chance at being only itself, ephemeral and forgettable.

all this to say that i’m biased towards ephemerality bc it’s the only life i’m able to live these days, and i won’t pretend to understand what coming of age in the zeitgeist you belong to is like. but from the way you words things, i wonder if it truly is solitude you have rn and not self-imposed claustrophobia. it’s hard to live with absolutes without feeling suffocated, yet it’s as hard to grow up without absolutes to ground you. i know. but — to say this as mildly as possible — sometimes literature doesn't bring you joy bc you don’t bring joy to it. i think books and writing can feel it when we hate them or want them to be something they never signed up to be. to your question, i have no direct answer except that for me, there’s freedom in "crappy" books and genres i’ll never write. in venturing as far from my own style as possible and feel safe in gorging there. for me, it took years of translating super vulgar latin poetry and reading unedited tumblr novels before i could stomach novels and my own writing again.

i doubt any of this is helpful, but please know i’m sending you all the warmth and fresh air in the world, literal and metaphorical :(

the serotonin that Pumps through me whenever i hear someone getting into sh omg… but no, i think the manhwa adapts the novel amazingly, actually! it preserves a lot of gongja’s introspection and in some parts even amplifies the impact of his thoughts and choices — plus picking up the novel after you already have an image of what he’s like in the manhwa is a pro rather than a con, i’ve found. granted, i was a manhwa-first reader myself, so i might be biased towards my particular experience, but i think the manhwa is very much in conversation with the novel and loves gongja and his story just as deeply and earnestly.

the manhwa → novel transition is also uniquely positioned rn in that the latest manhwa arc is by far its strongest/most involved one so far, and if you read all the way to that Then move to the novel, you’ll just have a small little arc as a breather before jumping into another really strong, big, full-with-so-much-love arc. so. if you ask me, there are virtually no cons to starting with the manhwa and just picking the novel up from there 🤔

oh this is interesting! i love them dearly as a pair, and i want to say i tried my best to capture my view of their rs in hairpin turns, but i also used to joke on priv that canon isbc are to me like two hs sweethearts who were each other’s first love but went to different colleges and broke up midway through their first year there for no reason except they’re becoming different people. i think they’ll always be a comforting balm to each other, that they ground each other whenever the other runs into danger of flying forward too fast, that they’ll always support each other no matter where they end up. but in some ways they had their time with each other, and yes, they’ll always love each other, they’ll always pick up when the other calls, but there are different things they need from the world and if we really get down to it, those things aren’t really things that the other alone can provide. they’ll always love each other in a special way, but that’s a truth that also means that this same love is the first anchor they need to lift from shore to set sail to who they’re meant to be.

i always find that when people talk about isbc it’s in direct dismissal of the fact that bachira’s love for isagi in the early blue lock days wasn’t… entirely good for him? either of them, really? they found each other in a setting where you weren’t supposed to find another person to help you and it served them both up until a point, but there’s always been a sense of taking-for-granted that isagi had about anything soccer related prior to u20, bachira included, and a sense of wishful thinking in bachira’s relationship to soccer prior to the 4v4. but bachira let go first. he wasn’t abandoned like he thought, nor did he abandon isagi. i think he just realized how right rin was about him playing a soccer looking for someone, and what a fundamentally different thing that was to truly wanting and going for things.

so this audre lorde line i’d probably attach to either of the itoshis more. with bachira, i think his desires tend to be so big that the only way he can envision them into reality/fruition is to give them shape Outside of himself. it’s easier for him to invent an ideal of what he wants, the absolute most perfect form of it, and attach that to something external than come to terms with the fact that he wants something big and demanding that he’ll have to work for all by himself. bc that’s so lonely, and he’s tired of wanting and working for things alone. but he got over that by Being the monster he wanted to see in either isagi or rin. i think always about his convo with isagi after he tells him why he chose spain. more than bachira being scared of what he wants, to me it’s more his arc has been realizing that doesn’t need/care for permission or assurance or even any confirmation that he deserves it. he trusts himself to go for it. and i wanna say that’s what he’s doing now while isagi is navigating how to do the same at bm.

hello! ahh i never seem to be any good with remembering recs on the spot and also — i’m realizing this only as i type it — i’m afraid i don’t seem to have contemporary lit recs so i apologize if you’re looking for something more slice of life? my most memorable sapphic reads i think have been more in the fantasy/sci-fi/horror/graphic novel genres, so if you’re open to that, these were the first ones to come to mind: the chosen and the beautiful by nghi vo (all her works are mwah but this is a magical realism great gatsby retelling so i’m a bit biased); she who became the sun by shelley parker chan (i believe the sequel is coming out in august so now’s a good time to get into it); on a sunbeam by tillie walden, which is still The soft worldbuilding space opera to me, though i think some people would advocate for her other works (all sapphic) being stronger; laura dean keeps breaking up with me by mariko tamaki is so personal to me but if you ask me why i’m not entirely sure; the horror (?) novels our wives under the sea by julia armfield and paradise rot by jenny hval, both of which i started and enjoyed enough that i stopped reading immediately bc they’re both also short and i have an irrational fear of good things that i can’t draw out for a good while.

you probably have already checked out more famous titles like this is how you lose the time war and the price of salt. never read either in full, but i’ll throw them into the running anyway since i love the author of the former and like the movie adaptation of the latter. i have a soft spot for devotion by hannah kent and written on the body by jeanette winterson (with whom i otherwise have a rocky relationship) bc i find that their prose in these particular books clears my head when it’s too clogged to write. god i’m sure i am missing So many. i should also maybe say that i’m not typically… a reader of novels on the lighter, fluffier side. not in the pretentious way (or at least i hope not) so much as in the attention span sense. so always take my recs with that in mind. my preferences definitely lean towards more loaded stories/denser prose and sometimes that’s not really synonymous with novels worth recommending in the general sense. but to cap things off, i’ve enjoyed both books by carmen maria machado. her body and other parties is a short story collection with some stronger than others while in the dream house was a tougher read of a memoir but in all the right ways.

in any case i hope there’s at least one title here you find to be helpful to what you’re looking for :(

oh god the other day i was talking with a friend about the rnis dynamic i love and tried my best to write in hairpin turns and i just went quiet for a second when i remembered my reply to your cc and i just. i still truly am sorry. for having to fumble through wording it with such finality. but thank you so so So much for following up and for being so kind and understanding and i hope you have the best possible rest of your may 😢💗

ah... this seems to be a season of endings for a number of flls readers and each new message like this is making my heart feel more and more like a fist has crushed a half-full soda can in its grip. i’m really, really sorry to hear that — which i know is stupid and inadequate to hear from me, but i really, truly am sorry.

i think, whenever any kind of relationship reaches a close, there tends to be this instinct to feel personally responsible. like, maybe if i can just not be me, this wouldn’t have happened. but at the same time, i think it’s special when we have someone like that in our life. someone who makes us think: i can be someone else if it means i get to keep you. but that’s not really fair to ourselves. it’s not necessarily right, or even healthy, though it does reflect a certain type of love that hurts all the more to lose. i don’t know. i think we try the best we can at the time. whatever faults we committed or whatever we Are responsible for — knowing that doesn’t ease the grief of going through an ending.

all this to say that i am squeezing your hand very tight in solidarity. thank you for being so emotionally open to my words in a tiny lil fic, and thank you for taking the time to drop by and write to me despite everything going on. i wish you nothing but peace and gentleness for the remainder of the year.

that is such… a good question… i wanna say this weekend? but i also think it might be a three-chapter thing…? i have been too busy with work and bday celebrations to sit with it but as far as ch 2 alone… it’s there… it’s in the drive… the question is whether i’m willing to set it free (but if i do, the answer is this weekend at the earliest) thank u so much for reading and being interested enough to reach out 😞

i am always into the enneagram! hmmm my gut instinct is to lean towards a heart type for you, just with how you phrased this message — which isn’t to say that any of these things are necessarily markers of any one type. i’m mostly leaning more towards 4w3 > 3w4 bc i assume two different tests gave you those two results? which would make more sense under interrogation than the outlier 5w4.

but since you’re exploring the enneagram from a workplace environment rn, i’d start with the question of… what do you find draining about this gig? are you putting up with this work in pursuit of some measure of success — success that you find valuable, success that you tie to your sense of self and self-worth, success that you feel will define you for better or for worse? or do you find this gig draining bc a corporate setting does not allow you to feel like an individual, and there’s nothing fulfilling here that will serve you in things like. knowing who you are. what your goals are in life. what will make you happy. god, this sounds like such a rigged litmus test and again none of these things are inherently exclusive to 3w4s or 4w3s but although 3s are a heart type, they actually have less of a prominent rs with their emotions than 4s are. 3s are about values and productivity, about the tasks that will lead to accomplishments and the accomplishments that will lead to a certain image and sense of success. 3s tend to disregard their own feelings in service of that success, whereas 4s would find that career success can ultimately feel impersonal, even inauthentic. 4s are concerned with what feels real and good to them, and when something doesn’t feel that way, they tend to struggle to connect with it. 3s can be focused to a fault, to the point of disregarding all else. 4s tend to lose themselves in an ideal alternative to the current reality. if you feel 4-ish but some of the 3 bits resonated with you, i do think there’s a high chance you’re a 4w3.

a 5w4 has the same 3 instinct of disregarding emotions, but 5s to me are defined by hunger. some enneagramists call it greed/avarice, but 5s are… hoarders? they’d be in a corporate gig bc it’s hella interesting, or bc it’s a job that allows them to work independently, to keep their circles small. that’s working off a 5 stereotype, but in any case, i’d suggest looking into the instinctual variants of all three types since there are some key differences there too, and 5s most of all.

my main thought is: all three types would Not make sense for you if you were either 3 or 5. that leaves me to guess that you’re Maybe… a social subtype 4w3? that’s where my instincts are pointing rn — but ofc i have the bare minimum info and i absolutely cannot speak for you. but i hope these help point you in a direction that Can help better :(

thanks for coming by again, sei. sending u warmth and well wishes with work and beyond, and thank u for your endless kindness to my words 🤍🤍

no, this is a great question, and i appreciate you being so mindful!

hmm... this is only my experience, but the way i always talk about both my gender and sexuality is that on one hand it’s All, but on the other hand it’s None. yes, i can feel physical attraction to just about anyone, but i can’t fall in love. yes, i’m fine with all pronouns, but i don’t really feel as though she, he OR they apply to me either. “they” is the most chill, but i’m not Against she or he. there’s a kind of. nebulous middleground there. in high school, i presented mostly as what you might call masculine: short hair, “boy” clothes, "boy" name. i did my time, see if that felt comfortable. it did, but it also didn’t, just as what you are highlighting as “feminine” works now but only Sometimes.

it’s been much trial and error to even come to the conclusion that it’s both all and none, but i think — and i say this gently — smth you have to internalize vs. the thoughts you outline in this msg is that absolutely nothing about presentation is Inherently gendered. i saw this workshop video where the attendees were asked how they knew they’re the gender they are, only the answer cannot have anything to do with genitalia — and the truth is that if you pursue the thought, the markers we traditionally turn to for “gender” (clothes, hair, etc) are just. arbitrary. nothing labels any of my pinterest stuff as innately feminine except what you have internalized, which in turn is bc someone at some point decided long hair and lace was For The Girls and we just ran with it until it became a norm so concrete that it formed one end of a binary that we just accept without questioning.

i mean. ofc gender is still an ever shifting process for me. i yearn violently sometimes to just be “masculine” and wish often that i can climb out of a body built like This. but the idea is that gender has been beyond binary-dependent categorization since antiquity, and there’s nothing at all innate to human beings that carries gender innately. not these reproductive machines in our pants, not clothes, not even pronouns. a person can use he/him pronouns and still dress “feminine.” and so. i think moving forward with gender, even if you end up finding you like she/her most, also just means deconstructing the flawed way we tie an abstract concept like gender to markers designed to serve problematic systems. there’s a sociopolitical tangent there, but my point is: it’s your body. whatever helps make you feel like it’s that instead of just something subject to rules that very questionable systems put in place — that’s what your gender is. everything else is whatever you want it to be, with the only caveat being ofc if it compromises your safety.

but i know this is easier for me to tell you than to internalize, so i can only hope some of this made sense within the word limit. please don’t hesitate to pepper me with questions for clarification any time, and i’m wishing you a great day ahead as well 🥲🤍

omg yes !! not a terribly long list, i’m afraid, but i just finished they’re going to love you by meg howrey and it felt very aligned with what i loved about those two novels. not quite as long or multi-generational, but there’s substantial overlap in themes and general… vibes? less so with less by andrew sean greer, but i’ve always thought there’s a sharedness in spirit between it and the heart’s invisible furies. the idiot by elif batuman and its sequel are also very theo decker, and anything by lily king sits in that comfortable corner just a few blocks adjacent to the goldfinch.

but if you’re looking specifically for something Dummy Thicc and reminiscent of the kind of multi-decade bildungsroman that the goldfinch and the heart’s invisible furies are, i’d look around novels like pachinko by min jin lee, cleopatra and frankenstein by coco mellors, at swim two boys by jamie o’neill, city of girls by elizabeth gilbert, the lessons by ian mcewan, or tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin.

HELLO. GOD. SCOTT STREET IN THE BACKGROUND, TOO. i’ve associated this song with another fic so much that i didn’t even consider applying it to flls. thank you so much for thinking of me and of my little fic and sending this over :(

i like rilke! i think he’s been flattened a lot in the era of self-help and brain pickings and sites like on being, but in a way i get it bc letters to a young poet is such a titan in conversations around introduction to and love for craft.

that said, i just tend to favor elegiac poets (my keats and catullus hyperfixation phases went for so long in hs and uni that i’m surprised i still had friends after), so i’m a bit biased towards rilke’s work in that realm. duino elegies was my first proper rilke work, and i don’t think it’s ever been dethroned by any of his others… and like. i guess i gotta lament sometimes how translations seem to not quite fully capture the intensity and packed-ness of the original german, but that’s par for the course with poetry in translation and is probably a shove towards me just sucking it up and finally learning some german. but. my point is. rilke tends to be received as a poet who was a bit capital r Romantic in the keats sense, yet to me he was more what byron wished he was. grittier, more frenetic and tempestuous. translators seem to take the mystical, almost whimsical route with duino elegies in particular — which. not sure how much i agree with that, since there’s definitely glimpses of something… edgier, if not quite jaded either, in rilke’s work. like what midnight mass did with the concept of angels? that really gave off the same vibes as how duino elegies felt to read, in retrospect.

rambly musings aside: i like rilke just fine. very vibey. very distinct voice. thumbs up.

oh goodness i don’t know how many times i’ve answered this question and i don’t even know if my answer remains the same each time either, but… to quote ursula k. le guin, i think love, like bread, has to constantly be remade. i think that when you love someone, you have to constantly, constantly, Constantly make the choice to keep loving them, even as they change, as they grow, as they become a different person from the one you fell in love with. as you learn new things about each other, as strengths become flaws and flaws become strengths, as you experience hardship and successes and all the many, many things in between. there is no such thing as filling up love to the brim the way you can collect other things. it will be from scratch each time — or rather it should be, bc i always think it’s not sustainable to expect love to be complete and stationary. that’s impossible, bc people will never be complete and stationary.

so i guess when i say that being in love with someone means you’re always at the beginning, what i really mean is that Being A Person means you’re always at the beginning of the person you’re becoming. you’re always growing into someone new, and experiencing new things added to the unique-to-you cocktail of what makes you who you are, and that’s what i mean about the beginning. you’re always coming of age to an age you never were before and never will be again. and when you love someone and they love you, when you love each other in everything that encompasses, you love the very ever-changing nature of love itself, too. that places you in the beginning that both of you are eternally in. you say — i love you now, and i’ll Keep loving you, and this love, we’ll have to keep remaking between us as we become different people. the love will change with us, bc it’s a love that’s worth giving room to grow and change. it’s a love that we can always gift a different beginning bc love is at its purest when it feels like a start between just us.

you know that one anne carson translation quote that’s like “it’s rotten work” / “not to me. not if it’s you.” i think it’s Bullshit in half the contexts people use it. bc loving someone IS work. who wants to be at the beginning again and again? there’s no winning that shit. but love isn’t a competition or a race or god forbid a checklist. it’s work, and the point is that it isn’t rotten bc it’s them and it’s you and this is the love between you both. the work is the work, but it just comes with loving this person and them loving you back. this constant return to the beginning is just more and more chances at renewing that love and remaking it like bread.

not sure if this makes sense, and tbf i know i have only an outsider’s perspective on love and the kind of relationship that this quote bookends. it wasn’t even meant to be serious, that advice column opening. it was meant to be goofy and pretentious — but it’s still the thesis of the whole story. so. this is the best i’ve got 😅

ooooooh i love that so much… i was kind of familiar with (외)적친밀감 (idk if i’m spelling it right but i remember encountering it in a manhwa? i apologize if it’s wildly off) and it makes sense that (내)적친밀감 would be its inverse… oh i adore that. filing it away in a mental folder immediately.

and i can definitely empathize with having winter as the backdrop of so many of the hardest periods of life :( i think part of the reason it’s taken me so long to come to terms with being a winter person is that it feels a little like i’m being in love with something that allows me to hold onto pain and suffering to the point of overindulgence, which is absolutely not the person i want to be now and moving forward. but you’re exactly right in how you word it here, too — that sometimes it’s a relief to wither away in a season where Everything is withering away and it’s far too much work to pretend otherwise. i might try again in spring, but for now, i get to be small and cold and cocooned without needing to explain or be anything else. in the enneagram typology system, they have an instinctual variant called the self-preservation subtype, and i think that’s something that winter allows to come naturally, and might even encourage. that preservation and thereby protection of the self, especially if you don’t have the facilities at the moment for anything more than the bare minimum, like the science of hibernation. katherine may has this book called wintering, and i believe she did an episode with the on being podcast as well — neither of which i’ve touched, but there’s value in seeing those wintering periods as a necessary part of life. i won’t say i’ll go that far myself in describing my relationship with winter, but i just value that it asks nothing of anyone, not even definition. during winter, it’s less of a burden to feel like your Self is a burden… in some roundabout way.

all this to say that it’s really heart-settling to hear that letter not only resonated but also offered even a slight sense of companionship, which i also just think letters are always uniquely positioned to do. i find the format comforting myself, and it has revived my love for letter-writing in other areas, so i’m really just [infinite string of heart and nature emojis] to know it has rippled to something much more real and concrete than how it can feel when i’m typing away on my laptop.

anyway! thank you for taking the time to send me this lovely message, and to return your sentiment — worded so beautifully that it feels like a little prayer — i hope spring finds you in a similar place of happiness 🤍

ah... i really don’t. i really, really don’t. a lot of the time i find the reply as i answer, and although i try to be as transparent about it as the character limit allows, i think i also just... owe a great deal to the questions themselves for nudging me towards reflecting on opinions and ideas that i never would have articulated my own thoughts about otherwise? so. i definitely take as much away from some of these ccs as i can only pray people do from the answers i give.

REAL. GOD. like. listen. i love bachira and isagi’s dynamic. it’s astounding that we have something so unflinchingly and unfailingly healthy in a series that has every attachment style you can imagine. but at the same time i live in perpetual drought of all the other bachira dynamics we can have. i like to think i deserve more bachira and shidou interactions. more nagi and bachira. otoya and bachira? i’ve been onboard the moment i saw them together for the first time in fc barcha. hell, bachira and sae? let’s make that a thing. spanish league subunit.

i’m giggling at our implication that i pulled rnbc out of thin air like i did half of these dynamics, which is so fair and i forget that i don’t talk about fandom-y stuff on main but. with rnbc, even i get surprised at how dear they are to me. maybe not more dear than rnbcis, but very, very dear nonetheless. i just perpetually do the pepe sylvia routine to my poor priv audience, who i can only hope ignore them as much as i want to believe they do. god. the rnbc thoughts that plague me in the middle of the night. i have an app counter on my phone to keep track of how many times i have genuinely cried over rnbc. i’m holding onto the thematic weight of the rin-bachira-sae-shidou quartet for dear life too, and some nights their canon birthdays give me hope. then i remember we haven’t seen the pxg guys in like. a year.

but truly, thank god for bachira being such a seamless fit into any dynamic you can imagine. a blessing to all writers. a dream character to fit into any scenario. also thinking about how this one bllk writer has singlehandedly populated the rin/bachira/nagi tag and every time i see them in the rnbc tag i’m like damn. there they go. they have one agenda and one agenda alone. by the time that tag hit 10 works i was just. sincerely blown away by the resilience. the loyalty. the commitment. so much respect to them for knowing the fics they want to see in the world and getting to Work with bachira’s versatility.

i name a handful here https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1300765574 and i Think my feelings largely remain unchanged but honestly if i had to pick only one to recommend it’d have to be sss class su*cide/revival hunter. no hesitation, no competition. to be fair i don’t like to advertise the things i like as recommendations necessarily bc like. taste is subjective and i don’t think i should be relied upon for recs about anything. so. take this with a grain of salt as with all things i say. but su*cide hunter has a special place in my heart, and sometimes i do wish someone understood why i go insane every time dear reader by taylor swift plays and spiral about a character from sh. but anyway. before i ramble even more. if there’s really a single single single webtoon to my liking specifically, it’s this one.

i do! definitely, i do. i try to be conscious of when i’m not in the best mood for doing replies justice, which happens a lot more than i’d like. sometimes i’m just testy or extra low energy but other nights, like tonight, even though i have the free time, i’m just not. articulate. at all. i’m not making sense in this batch of replies and i can feel it but i’ve also left so many of them unanswered for so long and the guilt is winning.

so i guess it’s not even that i get tired of answering ccs bc i actually do love all of these so so much; while they’re not too different from the sort of conversations i get pulled to irl, having the anonymous one question one reply element is more freeing than it is restricting. if i have a concern at all, it’s that sometimes i’m just not the right person for these replies, and i feel down and burdened when i can’t do them justice but have no choice but to send off my best. which a lot of the time is hardly even good. there’s guilt there, too, especially since i only have one chance to give a reply and there are moments that another answer will pop into my mind weeks later.

it’s tricky !! i have to like. psyche myself up before a round of replies. and give myself little incentives and rewards to not put them off bc there are real people on the other end of these messages and i’m grateful they took the time to write to me and i should show that gratitude by. you know. actually replying. then i just do my best and hopefully there’s at least a tiny something that’s worth trusting me with the original message. but it’s definitely always more hope than certainty.

i talked about csm here https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1284051338 and here https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1296132191 but ooooh that’s interesting! idk if i have a favourite anything, character or dynamic or whatnot. no hold on that’s a lie i do love aki as an individual and therefore all the dynamics that involve him, from denji & power to even makima, whose general concept and depiction i also love and is one of the main reasons i’m not a big fan of the anime adaptation.

but yeah, i guess aki is my fav csm character? i’ve never thought about it until this moment but omg the more i type right now the more that love pours out. whoa, have i kept this repressed?? this might be the first time someone has asked me about my fav csm anything 😭 this checks out, though... i love characters with a particular relationship with revenge, the more complicated the better, and all the notes i’m usually wary about in terms of tying vengeance and desire to live to each other, aki managed to cover. there’s also about how… nearly everyone in csm got the ending their storyline deserved, and i’ll always defend aki’s end as a storytelling choice bc his was the most perfect to me. wow i do really love aki, huh. i remember when i first read csm and my friends were expecting me to come out of it depressed and bogged down but i just felt really. invigorated. by it. which is a pattern with fujimoto’s work but that first time with csm, i think i owe primarily to aki’s arc.

god i’m sorry this is very inarticulate i’m really not in top shape with these replies tonight and i should stop but i will leave you with this far more eloquent and poignant post sjsdks https://nswers.tumblr.com/post/705762659246751745

honestly i still have no idea and between you and me i’m debating on whether i should have let it stay deleted and that was a sign but for now i’ve reposted the chapter here if you’re still interested 🫠 https://ao3.org/works/46552396

i don’t mind at all! but i’m afraid it was a birthday gift around two years ago…? my friends were kind enough to give me multiple copies, and i’ve kinda just shipped some copies to anyone who’s expressed wanting it in the last year or so. i don’t have physical copies left, but i do have the pdf file of the interior if you’d be comfortable dm’ing me so i can send you a link? if that’s something you’re interested in, at least! no worries if not. you could just be asking out of curiosity 😅

oh i hope it’s okay that i’m just linking another reply to this one i am not in my best form tonight with responding to ccs it seems and i don’t want to leave any of the ones remaining unanswered :( https://curiouscat.live/sleeptowns/post/1311258945

i promise i’ll get to tristamp very soon !! i can feel it !!

ON A SCALE OF NO TO YES IS SO CUTE I FEEL SO BAD BUT. LISTEN. i’m really sorry to you and everyone who has asked. genuinely. but the answer is a definite no 😭

(i’m really really sorry you can stop reading this reply now if you’d like my elaboration below is just there for anyone who wants it)

oh my god i feel wracked with guilt to type that out bc it’s never a definite no usually, but i think rnis is just. outside of my wheelhouse. so to speak. in terms of writing for it. they’re a little too…. how do i say this. there’s nothing there for me to write. or be too interested in. canon’s already doing the extent of what can be done with their dynamic, i think. i love them both as individual characters, and y’all already know i’ll ride to the sunset for rnbcis, but rnis is just. not the kind of pairing i’ll write in the same way that i’ll never write bcis by themselves either. one has no particular flavour i’ll enjoy writing, not even the rivals / enemies to friends to enemies situation, which imo is WAY more a rin situation than a rnis problem, and the other has settled into a long-term dynamic for a while now with nothing left for me to write. again, i love them all, and i don’t mean to show writing favouritism for rnbc just bc i like rnbc best for no reason. some pairings, i can’t really find intriguing or exciting to write. plus kaneshiro hasn’t done anything with rin for like. a whole year. and rnis is still such a nascent dynamic. i’m steering clear of it until that changes in the future, is all. right now it’s a no, and i am just. squeezing your hands so tight in apology.

i have never. in my life. heard of this anime/manga. so i am so intrigued that you sent me this rec bc i don’t know if it’d have ever found its way to my radar otherwise. i am a bit ???? at the synopsis for the anime but reading the reviews seems promising, and i do love a hidden gem with equally hidden layers. the art also seems unexpectedly delicate and lovely. i’ll see if i can give the manga a shot now that i’m semi caught up with my ongoings 🤔 tysm for dropping by and thinking of me !!

4TH REREAD? OF THE FULL 100K+ WORDS? oh my goodness ??? that’s an immense honour, it really is, but also — i am both glad that it gives you a reprieve from aloneness and saddened to imagine that to have read it four times, there must have been a number of moments you’ve had to turn to it. i’m sorry to hear that. and none of this is dramatic at all, it’s all free real estate here in my cc inbox, believe me :(

yk i’ll be honest i’m Still always in disbelief when i hear people talk about flls. sometimes it’s like — are you sure? are you Positive? MY flls? that college au? that little thing i banged out during one of the hardest summers of my life for the last animanga that should have gotten a slice of life au out of me? that one? so if anything i’m really grateful that you took the time to write to me. i guess i tend to lose track of what flls’ appeal for people is, especially bc the irony is that i haven’t and probably will never have the romantic context, experience and perspective that i wrote about in flls. it will always be more personal for other people than it is to me. so it’s easy for me to be like. hm. are you Sure you have the right flls. are you sure This is the fic you want to say all these things about. flls has had such a wide range of readers, and a lot of them have made me feel a bit like flls was the equivalent of a song i made for a tiktok trend, so it’s always just so so Nice to get messages like this and know that at the end of the day there are people to whom flls means something personal. and that’s really all i can ask for as the writer. that the story means something to someone, and that it’s taken on a shape far beyond what i had the ability to give it before i sent it off to the world and into other people’s hands.

but that is me rambling about my relationship with flls. the bottomline is that i’m eternally grateful to readers like you, and even more for you taking the time to send me a little something 🥹💗

hello hello hello thank you so so much for your kind, kind words 🤍🌷🔅

and hmmm interesting… i think i joked once about becoming a booktuber except i read and review all the fics i’ve written since i was like. twelve. and another anon said i’d have to do it for my bnha fics, so i’ve considered it a lot here and there since then. i’m definitely open to doing it for my older fics, but my main concern is that… i’ll probably be quite brutal on them? idk how to phrase that without sounding snooty and pretentious about my own work for god’s sake but i do have a lot of impersonal criticism for my bnha fics in particular, yet it also seems to me that across all my cityboys work, the bnha readers have the purest emotional connection with the fics. i imagine it will take a lot of balance and generosity to not infringe on that and make it sound like i’m stepping on fics that means something to others. not to overinflate the worth of my fics, of course, but i guess i just don’t want to trust myself too much to be careful only to end up devaluing a scene or storytelling choice that i may not like now but still has value to someone else. i don’t want it to be personal, but stories Can be personal, and i just don’t want to get it twisted at the expense of someone’s innocent attachment to a work that frankly isn’t even mine anymore. am i making even an iota of sense omg

also i think i dropped bnha so so So long ago, you know? it didn’t have the following it has now, s1 hasn’t even finished, and so much has happened in the manga that i don’t know for me to accurately judge my own choices and perspective relative to canon characterization and events. that, and my bnha fics are also just. very simple and straightforward. i wonder if i’ll have anything of use to say about them that won’t just be “oh, i see why i did this, but that’s actually Very Not Good. if i was doing this now, i’d try something like…” which honestly would probably be pretty helpful to me, but again. i have doubts and reservations with regards to my own capacity to be a capital w Writer. i think i’m yet to be one. that i’m yet to earn the ability to talk about my old Old work with poise and clearmindedness. or my newer work, actually, so it means a lot to hear that my words were palatable in some way to you despite. thank you, and i really, really appreciate this.

the tl;dr is that i Have considered it and am continuing to consider it. it’s certainly not an impossibility, and i’m very grateful that there are people who’d be interested. but hey. my fics tend to no longer be mine the moment they’re out there, and i want to stay mindful of not intruding on that after all this time. if that’s not too roundabout of me to say. i hope this made even an iota of sense oh my god i’m sorry

ooooh you might mean the 2019 fruits basket, which i’m afraid i haven’t touched 😞 i’ve only seen the 2000s one, and i had a high school friend who’d make us watch the whole thing every time her bday comes around… actually, i’m pretty sure i also gave one of my oldest friends the nickname she has bc she really liked kisa when we were growing up and her name is jessica. anyway my irrelevant tangent aside i think it’s generally agreed upon by people who have seen both versions that the 2019 version is far superior so dkjsjs i absolutely cannot speak to the strengths of furuba at its peak and my opinion does NOT count

it’s really heartening to hear you loved it, though! i think it’s always invigorating when you consume something that’s been done with care not just out of storyteller perfectionism but out of sincere love for characters, and you will always find that one way or another in shoujo, josei and seinen. shounen def tends to prioritize presentation over meat, which tends to mean that often there’s more spectacle than there is enough time spent cultivating certain elements of the story. but shoujo very often has little else to do but spend quality time loving its characters, and i think you see that shine in furuba, which iirc really makes sure no one’s humanity is left unexplored, even the characters positioned maybe as antagonists. it’s required shojo reading for a reason, and to me part of why is how unapologetically but firmly it centers love and gentleness in the face of adversity/harm as being synonymous with resilience. this sense of being able to love someone Through something and ending up on the other side hand-in-hand, bettered by the ways you can make each other more loved. kinder. softer. happier.

something i also liked about furuba growing up was how it presented love through these small acts of seeing and knowing, which looking back was extra interesting bc it places this limiting element on itself — not being able to touch, or having to hide your feelings and/or relationship — and makes something special out of it. it’s just one of a kind, fruits basket. to be very very honest i can’t recall if i connected with the themes and messaging too much when i was watching it, and i’m not too sure i will now, either, but it really is something special, period. i’m not blind to that at all. i’m so glad it exists. that, and i imagine it’s truly a breath of fresh air after a lot of heavy shounen; it feels like i’m taking that breath with you to hear you talk about having a good time with it, so i’m really grateful you took the time to write to me about it. i also hope you’re doing well 😊💖

omg i was about to click the link before i even got to your description, but i’m glad i didn’t bc you spin the energy and imagery of the piece so beautifully and it was its own pocket of shared knowing? almost? to have that in mind as i read the actual poem.

my modern greek is just about nonexistent, so i can’t speak too much as a consumer of only the translation, but it Did make me think… when i was writing this one fic around a month ago i remember wrestling with whether to name a memory erasure experiment lacuna as a nod to one of the characters’ fav movie, but also as a word that in my head showed up as emptied little compartments. not empty but emptied. as in something was there and in its absence, you’re even more aware of the presence that preceded it, OR if i should just call it ameles / lethe, which i thought was on the nose and too universal bc. you know. greek mythology. but in the end i settled for lethe bc of its relationship to αλήθεια (idk how to add breathing marks on keyboard oops) — i believe truth is the same word in modern greek still, just pronounced differently? i hope i’m not talking out of my ass here. but My Point Is: it’s always been interesting to me that by adding the alpha privative to λήθειν — that is to, negate the word for that which has not been hidden/is in plain sight — we get the word for truth. and for λήθη to mean forgetfulness, a single letter away from truth, it’s almost like. without truth, there is oblivion. and yet it’s With the abandoning of the past, we can see more clearly that which is in plain sight.

god. i hope i’m making sense. your message is so articulate and i’m blabbering all over you. but all this to preface that i wholeheartedly agree with the bittersweetness you highlight, though i also love that there’s almost this sacrosanct quality in how it centers νεράκι / νερό at the heart of each line water is mentioned, which makes sense bc the water of the river is a purifying / erasing element, but also: νεράκι right before στάξει in the next line, and νερό right before mention of the λιβάδι' απ' ασφοδήλι bc water is needed to till the fields even in hell… i love that. you’re right, the poem is overall deeply melancholy, kind of rife with this resignation to reality, but the sweetness for me definitely comes from the use of such simple but deliberate nouns and verbs. no pain that water can’t wash away, water as the element of life and eternity, etc. that’s why the final verse hit me the hardest, i think. weeping on behalf and For the people whom the water of forgetfulness can’t touch. i love it so much. sweet but sour is exactly the word for it.

thank you so much for thinking of me and sharing this, rafaela. been thinking a lot about lies and memories aiding in comfort, and this gave me even more to chew on.

i wish you all the sweetness in the world this spring 🤍

i think i managed around five eps? i def want to pick it up again sometime in the future bc the 1998 version was one of my first animes as a kid and i do appreciate how distinct the new one feels… i just don’t think i was in the mood for it when i gave it a shot. didn’t seem fair to a show like that to watch it just to watch it, you know?

i guess i feel some indiscriminate hesitation towards remakes/continuations of media i hold a lot of nostalgia about from when i watched them in childhood… which i should really do something about. it’s just as unfair bc so many of these new “versions” — trigun stampede, the hxh remake, the furuba remake, the new bleach season, the slam dunk movie — are arguably needed and/or novel improvements upon the original i know, and there’s a lot there i want to enjoy more than i have, and all out of what, some stubbornly irreplaceable nostalgia? there’s bias here that’s just me making it unnecessarily difficult for myself 😅

but i did like what i’ve seen of trigun stampede! i love what they did with everyone’s designs but especially vash and nai being the anchor of the story right from the opening scene of episode one, and from the talk i’ve heard about the finale, that will only reward me when i do pick up the rest of the season. the animation took me a second to get used to, and i’m not against it so much as i haven’t gotten comfortable with it Yet, but i’ll get there. the colours and music were lovely, and the fresher, more interesting elements of trigun’s sci-fi worldbuilding seem to shine even more with the animation choices made in stampede. so. lots, lots, lots to love. enough that i knew it would be pretty disrespectful if i just Forced myself to watch it. some pieces of media, you have to soak it in when it’s the right time. i have faith that will happen for me sooner rather than later with tristamp, but i sincerely am sorry that i don’t have much for you at the moment :(

oh god it’s been long enough since you sent this cc that i’ve posted a couple of fics since… that’s so unacceptable, i’m so sorry. i’m trying to catch up with ccs tonight 😭

i think around the time you sent this i had around four to six fics on the grill? which was far too many and more symptomatic than systematic for my need to write so i figured i had to put my foot down and make the call on whether something should be finished or trashed. and now here we are. all the wips were bllk though haha but thank you for being interested, it means a lot more than you might think.

oh, i don’t think this is silly at all. not just in the way i don’t think anything that someone has taken the time to articulate can’t be silly, but i do genuinely believe there’s something meaningful in what you’ve put into words here, and i can’t imagine it can be any more well-put than “i guess it’s just a bit unnerving to think you’ll always be hungry.”

yeah, it certainly is unnerving. the hunger is an ache. nothing laughable or pretentious about that. i mean. if anything, the way i see it, that hunger, that ache, is what we look for when we seek to define the human condition, you know what i mean? i think — you’re right, in that we will all probably always be hungry. the truth of that doesn’t make it any less unnerving to realize and feel in your gut. that hunger makes us do things — chase after external sources, compact into ourselves, feel reckless and restless — and i can’t speak for people that it has driven to desperation bc i don’t. understand. not truly. but i find it freeing myself, to know there’s no real way to satiate that hunger. maybe that’s bad, but you know i’m a big believer in how, as far as living goes, real knowing is in the not knowing. and i don’t mean we have to be content with not having answers. that’s like telling someone to learn to see starvation as voluntary fasting. but living is to me whatever stops you from dying, and when you live a life privileged enough to be liminal, i think that just looks like… a perpetual awareness that you yearn for life. i think that hunger is what propels us from moment to moment, bc human nature also dictates that we escape hunger. no amount of knowing that’s futile will stop us from wanting. i think the greatest luxury of being creatures who are able to think about ourselves is that there’s no end point. we will always know less than the most we can know. and i think that goes for the joys of life, too. we will always think, what if just—?

so. yeah. diaries and screaming is not enough. it’s so crazy to be aware of the extent of your existence via a desire so small yet so unshakeable. i always find myself thinking that, too. it’s weird. life is well and truly strange. i don’t love it, but i can always admit it is strange.

for how little it’s worth, and i really didn’t mean to talk incoherently At you for this much, i’m with you in spirit on that middleground of knowing-not-knowing. thank you for taking the time to write to me with such thoughtfulness. i hope your april treats you kindly, and i’m sending you nothing but warmth and things to fill your days ☀️🪴

i gave some fragmentary answers in the other cc (https://curiouscat.me/sleeptowns/post/1308349940) but i also promised you proper novel recs — and at least now i know it’s okay to include darker aspects of it — so here are the first few to come to mind:

- burnt sugar by avni doshi
- hot milk by deborah levy
- breast and eggs by mieko kawakami
- the lost daughter by elena ferrante (a film recently came out as well)
- sharp objects by gillian flynn (and its excellent hbo adaptation)

also not really about mother-daughter relationships per se but the ~horror novels motherthing by ainslie hogarth and just like home by sarah gallery contain elements that i would say are at least adjacent. i’ve also recently started reading they’re going to love you by meg howrey, and it centers a lot more than the narrator’s relationship with her mother, but so far i’ve found their dynamic quite compelling.

i hope you are able to find something to like in these (if you have yet to read them, at least) 🤍

omg live your truth !!!!!!!!!!! write the royalty itoshis you wish to see in the world !! sae’s such a good prince character like my god he really is so remarkably well-suited for it in all his concealed insanity

thank you so much ahh that’s very kind !! i... would love to finish my one sdse wip in the same universe as the rnbcis but these two are such a handful (in a good, exhilarating way) that sometimes it’s literally physically taxing to keep writing so who knows if i’ll ever finish. but anyway.

i did read this one actually! with divine timing too bc i think i happened upon it after learning that shidou’s first name wasn’t ryusei as in shooting star like i thought but ryu as in dragon + sei as in pure/holy, which i should have guessed but also found ironic considering sae calls him his akuma/demon… and so very fallen angel coded. then i saw this fic and was like. the bllk hivemind is real. “i won’t bow to any god but you.” and “my holiest angel, my heavenly god.” changed lives ended careers reversed the earth’s rotation ugh catholic imagery recontextualized in this capacity is always fun but it’s extra fitting for these two

this is going to sound like a joke but i… can’t watch it bc i find bojack’s design terrifying. that’s literally it. for a time though my bigger worry was that it will be… triggering? i guess? especially with my own history. i was concerned overall that it will be too nihilistic to be anything but a watch i’ll regret, and there’s nothing i hate more than people delving into nuanced subjects with ultimately un-nuanced portrayals. but i did give it several earnest shots, and i have fav lines from it and know which episodes are my friends’ favs, and now it’s not so much any big reason as it is that i am just. unable. to watch it. if there’s a way to consume it without watching it, i’ll be right there without hesitation, silly as that sounds.

i do not have good taste at all! do not ever trust my taste! that part alarmed me so much that i have to lead with this thought! but in all seriousness i always love hearing that people enjoyed blue period, so thank you so much for taking the time to share this with me :( it’s def one of those works that means something different to everyone, and it’s nice to know that innately whenever i hear that someone else has picked it up and connected with it. it’s like ah i’m glad you found something in it. i’m glad there was love waiting there for you. that sort of thing. i owe a lot to the cc anon who nudged me to finally read it after i hesitated over the first volume in my shelf for so long.

and no omg it’s totally okay not to read my fic! no obligation to that, ever. i’d rather people read whatever is in them to read and when. really, thank you so, so much for your unbelievably kind words about My words, and for putting so much care and labor into writing to me despite the rough night. i hope there have been gentler nights since. i’m wishing you a warm and peaceful spring ahead.

not at all! i generally just ignore anything aot, i’d say. i did give the anime a shot when the first season was airing (i.e. i watched an episode), and i’m not totally ignorant of what the story is about and who the characters are, but it’s exactly bc of this that i’m pretty content just writing it off as one of those pieces of media i have zero interest in. mostly, i’m more surprised than anyone at just how well i’ve been able to dodge something so bafflingly beloved. it’s like having noise cancelling headphones on while everyone else is having their ruckus in another corner of the room, so i totally understand why you asked 🤔

BOOKMARKED. i think a mutual Might have sent me screenshots of this, actually? can’t remember what in reply to now i talk a lot about sdse that i had to finally use circles on an already limited priv account so no i love this tysm for thinking of me 🤍

oh dear god what a year it has been for you, and we’re only how many months in. i’m genuinely very sorry to hear about all this :(

but no, i completely see where the frustration and loneliness is. though i don’t necessarily think you should beat yourself up for “wasting” all these years in uni, bc i think some things you just don’t know are possible the way they are until it’s happened, if that makes sense. and it’s more normal than not, actually, to not make friends you’re close to. i mean, imagine if we got close to every single friend we make. it’s a nice idea, and i know it’s hard to see people who are really social and not yearn in some way for the closeness we imagine they have with so many people, but it’s still a statistical impossibility. it’s a miracle and a blessing to have close relationships, if anything. that’s what makes them so valuable. but i know hearing that doesn’t make any of this easier to experience.

you know, what i think is — this is your final year of uni, right? and as cold as this might seem for me to say, you’re about to enter another period of your life with its own ups and downs. people you’ll meet and love and befriend, or maybe a new kind of loneliness, a new kind of obstacle, a new kind of joy, whatever it might be. and having people in uni you’re attached to, a lot of the time, is just more people to lose as you grow up even more. i can’t find a gentler way to put that, but i really don’t mean it meanly. i think people that you meet at liminal stages of your life tend to be the ones to fall off first as you all grow into more concrete people and lives. you can love them all you want, but it’s also one of those… what a miracle it is that our lives ever even overlapped at all moments. some people are lucky to have college friends that last for life, but again, it’s not the expectation, and there’s no pressure on you to have that. i think you’re doing just fine, even if it doesn’t feel like it. none of this is your fault. you certainly didn’t Fail. absolutely not.

the way i see it, you’re about to finish uni. that’s one hell of an achievement. you made the wise choice and broke up with someone you only liked as a friend instead of staying with him just to have someone. that’s another hell of a thing to be able to do. i don’t know where graduating will take you next, and i really am sorry it’s all bleak and lonely right now. but i have absolute faith that you’re moving forward and i truly do hope there is connection in lots and lots forms in the near future for you.

i’m wishing you all the best, thi. sending you the sentence equivalent of a tight hug.

i am… tired. i think that’s the only opinion i have. at first it was funny in a disbelieving way, a bit like How Did It Get There… then it was sobering bc it became clear How it got there, but now i’m just tired and want the series to end for the sake of the characters and the mangaka and the audience. i’m sorry if that’s heartless to say about a series with characters i still do adore, but it’s terrible witnessing characters and storylines you spent time with struggle on life support it didn’t agree to. i indulged jjk’s flaws while i was writing for it bc that’s exactly the fun of writing — and also i thought it’d be over by now. it isn’t. idk what akutami’s waiting for. they clearly hate writing it. can’t imagine how good the paycheck must be to keep doing this, honestly.

i think i’m definitely harder on stories these days, and maybe jjk doesn’t deserve so much. but it just gives me a headache to hear about what on earth happened this time. if there’s any emotion that the sukuna megumi thing stirred in me, it’s hope that we’re almost to the end. i just want akutami to let these characters go, and vice versa. i’d have genuine criticisms to say if there was genuine plot happening, but even the story seems to be exhausted. but idk. maybe it’s different for people who are still IN it for jjk. my only opinion is that i think a goodbye should be imminent, if nothing else.

hello !! i just saw your later cc but to make up for my lateness i’ll (try to) see if i can answer both… i really am so sorry 😞

the first thing to come to mind was the anthology what my mother and i don't talk about. it’s edited by michele filgate, but it features a lot of renowned writers from alexander chee to carmen maria machado. the second thing to come to mind was the mother’s day episode of this american life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/159/transcript. there’s also this story, which was featured on longreads when it was still on medium but i’m only able to find now via this site: https://mymothersworld.com/ (i don’t quite remember what i thought of it, but it’s still worth checking out) and there’s a poem called “mother” by erica jong, and the context is a bit messy and a lot of things come up when you look up erica jong as both mother and daughter, but this is a link to the poem: https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/mother-365/

which reminds me of the movie mommie dearest (which i hear is hilariously bad for people with no experience with parents like this but is ironically quite realistic for those who do), and i distinctly remember watching a video essay on it from the channel be kind rewind but can’t seem to find it. here is a great substitute: https://youtu.be/nCi19sYugIA (i also recommend looking into the background and history of this movie and what it's based on if you'd be interested in some complicated real life mother daughter relationships)

i realize none of these are particularly happy, but i hope there are blinks of joy in the anthology and in the this american life episode. i’ll give you some novel recs in my next answer, i promise!

i absolutely did not know !! like it’s hilarious how many times i’ve drastically changed my path in life. i was changing what i intended to do with my degree up until graduation, only to swerve and end up in something i never even studied. personally i think knowing who you are from the very beginning and doing everything right to fulfill that vision is a myth. a scam. bc not knowing can be a good thing.

i approached my education with full awareness that i’m not bound to whatever i choose on paper, so i didn’t really choose my classes with any thoughts except oh this one sounds cool. when i didn’t think anything sounded cool that term, i just picked the one i thought i’d do well in without trying too hard. which. i know how that sounds. i wish i could tell you that there’s a way to maximize your time in school such that every class you take will be fulfilling and life-changing. and i Did have fulfilling classes. but they were the minority, and i don’t do anything with them in my current jobs. so if nothing is calling to you, i don’t think there’s shame in just picking the ones that are compatible with how you study or attend (or not attend) classes. my diploma remembers that i’m summa cum laude, not that i took a polisci class one term bc the only evaluation was a big paper. it’s only an added plus that i still think back to what i learned from that class. pick classes you’re likelier to go to. i was a serial class skipper, but i always enjoyed the classes i went to regularly. if you’re not passionate about a class, pick one with a prof who is. some classes i picked bc a friend was in it. some classes i picked bc i was likelier to go to a 2pm class than an 8am one. whatever major that amounts to, then that’s the one.

i only picked my degrees bc i liked latin. that’s it. in some ways, i put up with the parts i didn’t like bc i already chose. that’s all it takes sometimes. not really any kind of bone deep knowing or passion. sometimes the vaguest curiosity is all you have, and there are ways for that to be enough.

however: just bc you can switch doesn’t mean you should, and just bc something is difficult at first also doesn’t mean you should drop it immediately. uni is hard to figure out bc it’s all intuition but people tell you it’s life-dictating. but whatever stops you from giving up on education you deserve IS the education you get. whatever you have to romanticize, however you have to strategize — that’s the stuff that will equip you for life, not the fine letters on the degree you get in the end.

my baseline note is that it’s okay to not know, but not knowing is not an excuse for not doing. there’s a middleground there that gives you all the room to work with, and don’t let anyone tell you it’s not enough to be in that in-between spot.

oh it has been so long since i responded to ccs that it is almost april. this is mortifying. i am so sorry. and to such a thoughtfully crafted message, too. thank you so much for taking the time to write to me with such care and intention :(

hmm… this is a hard question, bc i think human connection is one of those things that we can’t truly be objective about. if we don’t have enough of it, it’s easy to tell yourself you chose that, and if we have too much, it’s easy to say we’ll be just fine without it. but every case is different, right? we can prefer being alone at a movie theatre but still want someone to hold our hand before we get a flu shot. and i think when people imagine being fine with solitude, what they truly imagine is independence, which always ends up being trickier.

only speaking for myself, i’m an adult with adult friends who have their own lives, and that’s a different framework of social expectations. nearly all my friends i see in person once every few months, and i’m also not very good at sending short frequent messages. it only works bc my friends have their own partners, or live in other countries, or have research papers and jobs to keep them busy. i’m more of the friend people come to see when they want a pause, which also means people only need me when they need that pause. but something that’s worked for me i think is just… to be generous with what you Are able to give. you don’t have to like or love every single person you meet, but you Can be present when you Are with another person. i get being stuck in your head, and i know it’s tiring to be around people, but i also know i can always recharge and go at the rest at my own pace. if i’m hanging out with someone, it usually lasts the whole day. if i’m replying to a message i’m late to, i hope it’s in a way that allows the conversation room to continue (though i’m also guilty of giving people room not to have to reply) or at least affirms that i understand their thoughts and am all ears. physical exile doesn’t have to be emotional exile. sometimes a “this made me think of you” goes a long way, and that’s smth you only learn to collect bc you’re present with people. i think genuine human connection isn’t picky about its environment. i don’t know if it’s enough, but the people i do love — i want them to know. i can’t offer much, but very often, people need less than you think. and also, it’s okay to take your time finding your people! definitely don’t shut yourself away from the world, but you also don’t have to put up with people who don’t respect certain boundaries just to Have people.

i realize none of this is very helpful as i’m rereading it, but i think my only point is quality over quantity, and to surround yourself with people for whom this is also true.

i got to this message while my housemate was sitting next to me and we both gasped and agreed that this is one hell of an honour to hear. like. my god. i’m done. i’m closing up my inbox. this is peak.

but all (sincere) joking aside, i love adrianne lenker and big thief! masterpiece is possibly one of my fav albums, and her solo output in particular has its spot in my personal hall of fame bc her discography is this fascinating balance between rich imagery and a slew of deliberate verbs sung with even more deliberation. so many of her songs are mid-motion, mid-action, mid-moment. yet the production of the songs themselves feel grounded, and never like it’s doing too much or too little. it’s to the point, but the point is never dull. it’s really, really nice. i like her style a lot, so again, i’m truly beyond honoured that her lyricism could at all loop towards me 😞

oh my goodness what a lovely message… thank you for taking the time to read the newsletter and write to me :(

and no, i think you ask some really good questions. it’s not straightforward, definitely. there isn’t much out there to acknowledge people for whom solitude is the very thing that brings what is brought to others by having company. there’s no easy way for me to tell if i’m someone who has always loved being alone or if it’s something that naturally came about bc of [waves hand] factors in my life. but there’s that louise gluck quote, about remembering one’s childhood as a long wish to be elsewhere, and i always thought that i remember mine as a long wish to be left alone. the same even now. if ever i found alone-ness sad, or lonely, i don’t think it was ever by virtue of being alone. it might have been bc i had nothing to fill my life with, nothing to feel anything over, or maybe there is too much i’m feeling and i’m all alone with it — but i don’t think alone-ness itself is the Cause of any of these. and that’s a crucial distinction to me. needing people so you’re not alone with yourself at the end of the day is not the same as wanting people as yourself. it delays the necessity of reckoning with who you are and the parts of you that you don’t want to be alone with, but it doesn’t erase it. so i think i just tend to be skeptical about what people advertise about the pros of being around others all the time.

i mean, i know this isn’t really a good answer, but to me, as long as solitude is a means of loving yourself and embracing your needs and not an excuse to deny yourself love bc at least being alone means you won’t have to be forced into vulnerability — then that’s all anyone can ask for from the things you keep around to bring you comfort. i find that it’s much cleaner, too, to ask for something like that from a state of being rather than from others. some people talk about their friends or significant others or pets or Kids like they’re meant to be tools to solve the human condition for them. but you can’t subtract something in your life by adding. you subtract by subtracting. you add by adding. i don’t think it has to be more complicated than that. sometimes something feels natural for no other reason than it asks nothing of you. i think a lot of us could do with a lot more of that in this world, and if solitude is that thing for someone, then far be it from me to discourage it.

sorry for the roundabout answer ahh i hope you have a wonderful week ahead, and thank you for such a gently articulated and thoughtful message

oh that is so so sweet to hear !!! i’m glad you found your way to gracie abrams !!

though hnnn i don’t think i have any strong feelings about it, necessarily… which is kind of a strong feeling in itself, possibly. i’ve only listened to the full album in one go once when it first came out, and nothing really jumped out and punched me in the face. i think a part of me is disappointed, and the other part is trying not to be bc that means i had expectations, which i didn’t even realize i did bc i love gracie but i doubt it was to the point of expecting a full length album to knock me off my seat. disappointment feels unfair of me.

what i can say, though, is that… the problem with this album is that it takes all the parts that are usually so good and heartfelt about gracie’s music — the confessionality of her lyrics, the nuance of the dynamics she paints in these relationships, the gentleness of her whisper singing — and flattens them until they’re worth next to nothing. it’s not terrible, bc those good qualities are still there, but it is very stationary, and that makes it repetitive and empty when you’ve got twelve tracks in the album that could have been swapped out for each other. the strong and intimate moments lose their strength and intimacy when the whole thing is one big neutral chunk, and i think it would be different if there was any sort of momentum or direction or even just one slight peak in the writing or the singing or the production. but everything stayed at the baseline. it got quite tedious, and the lyrics also started losing the ability to hit hard bc some metaphors are like… first draft similes? i feel like when you write about personal things, it’s always better to go more specific than be universal and risk not only ubiquity but softening the impact of your own confessionality. the same with production. mixing and production can do so, so much, so i’m also surprised to know aaron dessner did most of the production. i think the haziness of gracie’s voice is well-preserved, but its emotional weight became invisible about halfway through. it’s just. an album that could be and should have been more. is what i think.

but if i had to pick a fav part of the album, i’d maybe choose the final three songs? right now was the only song to make me go oh that’s pretty nice, and i think that’s worth a lot considering it’s the very last in an hour’s worth of much the same vibe. if i listen to those final three now by themselves, i think i’d quite like them, but right now seems a good balance of all the best this album has to offer. idk. all of this is subject to change, as always. i def need at least one more listen to have an opinion worth someone’s time.

in any case tysm for thinking of me and i also hope you are doing well 🌟

this could not be more vague and i have no idea what the specific context for this could possibly be but for what it’s worth no i don’t think so 🤔 i’m not a big believer in purpose — which isn’t to say i don’t think things should have purpose! i do have strong feelings about what’s necessary and what isn’t, but my general feelings about requiring purpose to live is… meh. bleh.

i guess i’ve never really thought about it. or if i have, i must not have found any of the answers i was offered worth ruminating over for too long. it’s useless to me, purpose, and i don’t mean that snidely or derogatorily, i promise! i just mean that i have no use for it, literally. i don’t start writing something intent that the end result fulfills some sort of purpose and only that, and i think i live life with much the same approach. i do reflect and examine and weigh options as i go along, but purpose as a concept is just a big why in my head right now. it does sometimes concern me when people get too bogged down about stuff like that, bc there’s always something they end up neglecting. it’s like how i see writers plan and plan and plan and never actually write anything. or maybe they talk about the big themes they want to explore, the big things they can do, but you read the result and you see the more it could be but it just… isn’t that. bc they stuck stubbornly to the plan or got too caught up making the notion page pretty and packed or was too sure of what they’re capable of to leave room for experimentation. that makes me sad, especially bc these people work harder than i have in my writing and deserve more in their output.

seeing people live life that way is much the same. that’s really all i mean about not believing in purpose. it’s good if you have it, and of course of course of Course it’s valuable to have. but as for me, purpose has never really earned or demanded a place in who i am and how i operate. for all that i like to make fun of my life, i’m not totally blind to having specs — or however you wanna call education and career and portfolio or whatever — that anchor my life into what others consider to be achievements. so. i acknowledge i’m plenty spoiled by how i’ve been able to get to where i am by just going with the flow, to wherever life takes me next. i just happen to have the luxury of ignoring and discarding what i don’t find interesting or necessary, but a luxury is a luxury. in the end, i probably shouldn’t speak on what i’m lucky enough to not find important.

THIS MADE ME GIGGLE first of all thank you very, very much for the kind sentiments, but second, i do just tweet whatever though! i Have used a fancier pfp or a nice poetry quote as my header in the past but shuddered at it eventually bc it’s so. non-casual. when my tweets are very much the opposite. i have mutuals who are much more artist-minded than i am. i have literal Poets as mutuals. but i most definitely am not one and have no interest playing at being some kind of capital r romantic artist.

idk. if people are turned away bc they assume a pinterest-y pfp means thoughts with no substance — sounds like an exclusively them problem, tbh. like i keep turning that thought around to check for what part of it is my business to worry about, but i just can’t find any angle that makes it so. people are so concerned with having icons and posts that are super in line with what aesthetic they want to reflect, but gosh, what a bother it would be for me to worry about whether i’m adhering to a particular look. i use this or that pic bc i think it’s minimal looking and plain enough to not be all up in my face, but more likely bc i suddenly got sick of the one i had and just picked the first simple one to catch my eye somewhere. otherwise, i tweet my tweets and peace out soon after. they speak for themselves however they do.

above all it ultimately doesn’t matter if people follow me or not. it’s baffling to think it would. what bearing would it have on my life or my thoughts if someone is turned away from my account? would it stop me from eating or sleeping? if a tweet gets no likes, would it make the thought i articulated un-happen? no to all of the above. do i tweet and expect ah sha you are such a Serious Hardcore Thinker, you should have Legions of followers who worship at the vermeer painting you have as your pfp? god — imagine. i’m laughing again just thinking about it. no one would expect me to be a cult leader. i don’t even rt or have a name or a bio bc it’s all too much of a bother. somehow people find their way to me, and i’m thankful as is. some miscellanea i just find unnecessary to maintain, and in this particular case, i just hate when things are taken too seriously and/or decidedly. that includes myself. the ultimatums of social media is what i find corny. reminds me of academia. it’s often the elitist ones that concern themselves too much with flaunting social and cultural capital that you’ll discover to be hollow and not very interesting once you get into actual discussion. it’s disappointing. and so un-fun to fall into the trap of participating in.

i’m sincerely grateful you’d think my words would be worth more than what you perceive to be lacking 🤍 but i just — don’t, personally. or rather, the worth isn’t worth poring over and externalizing for other people’s sake. but thank you, really.

hi hi so sorry for the delay in answering ccs and i also hope you’re doing well !! i’m just not too sure i have recs that perfectly fit the bill, though it is an interesting point to think about and i wish i had more to offer… i know rené girard must have written a bit on the imagery of blood, just that it’s def more on the sacrificial/religious side. there’s also aspasia stephanou’s inhuman materiality in gothic media, which again has its own genre lens and isn’t quite about the eroticisim/intimacy of blood specifically, but it offers some nice points on it.

ahhhh the thing is i think it’d be difficult to find something on a subject this broad without another specific marker associated with the blood — could be the eroticism/intimacy of blood in the aftermath of violence, for example, or the eroticism/intimacy of the consumption/exchange/offering of blood, of which i’m sure there are quite a few written. if you know what you’re looking for, or if you’re not looking for anything specific and just want to see what’s out there, i think there’s no harm in looking into subgenres first and hopping around from there. i’m sure papers on vampire folklore and literature have a lot to say about the erotic qualities of blood, or there must be studies on catholicism’s practice of making mass-goers drink the “blood” of christ. it doesn’t have to be your endgame reading, but sometimes it’s nice to read more specific theses and visit the citations/footnotes of any points that might be closer to what i need, if that makes sense :(

oh my god i saw this while having a semi ryusae meltdown on priv and i thought to myself: holy shit?? i’ve always believed my bllk cc visitors are lowkey telepathic and this proves it??

but no there really is so much potential in an itoshi brothers royalty au !! a rin who’s unexpectedly made crown prince would further spike his complicated bag of feelings towards sae in canon… though sae has a remarkable compatibility with the kind of character who’s been raised to be king — calm, impenetrable, the kind of presence the room falls silent for, vicious and efficient in both words and actions — whereas rin has all the pitfalls of being the younger brother to such a person, unable to quite shake off his hero worship, not seeming to realize that his very need to surpass his brother also positions sae on an unreachable pedestal by default. sae has already been broken in by the world, and it’s made him cold towards hints of vulnerability, while rin just oooooooozes a need for approval. there’s a bleeding heart-ness to him that would make an interesting combination with having to suddenly assume sae’s role as crown prince, a mix of determination to do better than sae yet a sense of. why did you leave me with the weight You were supposed to carry, you shitty older brother. add to that the fact that i think canon post-spain sae actually thought he was doing rin a favour by doing a 360 on him. a way to teach rin the ways of the world bc at least he’ll find out from him first, and that’s his responsibility as an older brother that spoiled rin enough that he’s helpless without sae’s guidance.

THAT SAID i prob lightly touched upon some of these in hairpin turns, but just to consider all my possibilities, i fear canon rinsagi doesn’t give me much to work with right now in terms of a whole au… yet somehow rinbachi would be made for it? smth about a rin trying his best to be cool headed and indestructible like sae, then in comes bachira — who insists rin should have Fun between his boring administrative work, who’s perfectly made for royal etiquette as much as he is capable of shunning it, who comes out of lessons with his tutors with sleeves stained with ink and knows all the palace staff by name and is so desperate to love and be loved (see: rin’s need for approval) in a place where family has always meant duty first.

and smth similar in ryusae, where the prim and proper crown prince is rumoured to have a batshit insane right hand man orbiting him, and people can talk all they want, each new story more drastic than the last, but only sae knows that shidou is as loyal as he is unpredictable and equally vicious and never Ever too far from where sae needs him to be, and it’s the closest reprieve there is from the monotony of royal responsibility.

i feel on the verge of mania actually god sorry for rambling but tysm for this moment of telepathy and for your kind words 😭

hmm there is no other life for me except one where i write :) i’m on record saying i could be stuck in a deserted island and it wouldn’t matter whether i had food and shelter if i couldn’t at least find a way to carve words against tree bark to get as close as i can to writing. and i did mean it. it’s out of the question to not write. i will die. not hyperbolically. literally. it’s not even a matter of me living and breathing writing day in or day out. it’s like having a consciousness inside of you, so intrinsic and indelible that you’ll feel halved if you lost it. even in a life where i’m a chemist or a dancer or a hitman or a politician — i don’t there will be a relationship with any of those fields without writing of some kind. sometimes it feels like writing isn’t even a craft i chose or a tool i use. it’s not even something i live for the way you might for life’s small joys, or something i need to live in the same way you need food. i’d already be functionally dead the moment i have to choose writing to have it.

god anyway that sounded too intense and pretentious for the tone of your cc yikes i’m so sorry one of my housemates jokes that whenever i talk about writing i sound like a sports anime mc monologue so feel free to laugh at it too :( i bastardize writing too often myself to be so serious and earnest about it honestly

and hey, listen, i think reading in your 20s is different from reading in your childhood — which is def useful when it comes to fostering a lifelong love for it, but the things you take away and the things you even like to read and why are completely different with a 20-something brain. even things you read and liked as a kid, you’d interpret now in ways you wouldn’t have the facilities to back then, and like you said, it’s better than never. so i don’t think you should beat yourself up too much about not reading endlessly in childhood !! the world is infinite, and so are the stories in it, and that will never change no matter what age you start consuming those stories.

all This to say thank you so much for your kind, kind message !!! sorry for getting unnecessarily serious on you, i hope you’re taking care as well, and i’m cheering you on in all your reading and more 💛

it’s not strange at all — and in fact got me to tear up a little. i can’t think of any other colour association that will move me more than this one did, and not just bc blues are my fav colour family, or bc i like winter and the sea, though all of that plays a part 🤔 i think it’s the range of shades part that really got me; something about being able to move through the gradient and for that to come across to readers is really special to hear. so thank you so, so much for sharing this with me.

hi!! aha hmmm… hmm…. to be perfectly honest… i wouldn’t recommend it? i can maybe say it’s worth reading insofar as it offers some cool trains of thought about the ways that mary shelley’s frankenstein remains relevant and significant as we move forward with today’s technology and continue to have increasingly nuanced conversations around artificial intelligence and really just artificial life and what we consider “anatomy” / which organic parts of our lives you consider to be against question, but as with most of jeanette winterson’s work, the execution is questionable in the very act of — executing, i guess. i think her prose is consistently beautiful in its own way, and whenever i feel stuck and unable to produce my own voice, i read a few passages from some of her other, more palatable books to kind of wet the ink, but she just. does not know how to write longform. not that i have any authority to say that. i’ve read some of her shorter work + her small nonfiction pieces and they have been much stronger, yet her novels have this tendency to prioritize a kind of personal conceit, and it just feels very much like the author is looming over me waiting to choke me out if i dare criticize what the book is arguing for — and not in a good way. whatever cool thoughts frankisstein offers are also just… not entirely novel or creative, and a few are resolved in a way that leave a sour aftertaste. again, not in a good way.

i Am a little conflicted bc her approach to retellings is most def still better than a lot in the market rn, and again, her style is popular in writing circles for a reason. but. i mostly included frankisstein in flls bc megumi is implied to get the rec from mahito’s newsletter, and it seems exactly like the sort of thing that someone with mahito’s tendency to hollowly philosophize would like (derogatory). i do like the stylistic beauty of the particular snippet i included in chapter 4, especially as it highlights megumi’s relationship with words and what we’ll see is an inability to Express his love to yuuji in the right language, and so he must borrow them in this case from a book he didn’t even discover himself — but i don’t have a lot of kindness to spare for the novel itself, unfortunately. ofc anyone is free to pick up the book and like it if it’s up their alley! it just wasn’t for me, and i can’t rec it with a clean conscience 😞

p.s. thank you so much for rereading flls and for wanting my thoughts on frankisstein !!

i haven’t listened to it before this cc !! thank god for you leaving me this bc it’s exactly the vibes i tend to like in chill songs, so this has been a nice little thing to put on loop while i cleaned my room yesterday. plus the flls connections! you’re so right :( i’m wavering where in the playlist to put it bc it’s so chapter 3 to 5 of them, but there’s also some of the two years timeskip in it. just so much longing and conflicting back and forth wrapped up in some lovely production... tysm for recommending it 💗🌼

easily my fav song from nj !! really the only one to hold me attentive to it, but that’s prob to be expected. it’s funny bc i don’t usually watch mvs, but i thought i saw choi hyunwook (who plays a lead character on one of my fav shows from last year) in one of the gifsets circling around and i was like… ariana… what are you doing here… my point is i watched it totally not expecting what i’d find and now i can safely say that this is a huge, huge honour, so thank you so much 🥺

as for my thoughts on the song / mv in themselves, i do kind of lament seeing the choreo bc it changed the vibe of the song completely for me? the title of the song is so reminiscent of the movie 동감 from the 2000s, which was like. old school kimi no na wa. and i always love a good Were They Even Real twist in kpop mvs. but what felt melancholy and haunting in the song at my first few listens just seemed cheerful in the choreo, and ofc that’s perfectly fine, i just wish i didn’t see it and now have the image of the dance in my head when i hear the song. i personally find the cohesion of this comeback messier than nj’s debut, though i think i just have a bone to pick with how kpop tends to aestheticize the Coolest imagery in their teaser concepts and then drop an mv and overarching comeback concept that is so. expected. by comparison. i wish groups leaned into the aesthetics and styling that they started the era with. if ditto had been the title track for promotions instead and the dance had been more chair-based / b-side esque or at least consistent with the coming of age vibes of the ditto mv taken straight out of ea coming of age films from the 2000s — that would have felt much more novel to me than what omg ended up being, i think.

there’s nothing wrong with kpop being… pop, but i do have a pet peeve insofar as so many groups try to market concepts that aren’t emblematic of the industry’s wider discography then end up defaulting to that with the actual title track in the end. i just really thought nj will have more of that bittersweet, nostalgic essence to this comeback, but now i’ve mostly reverted to an “ah… of course. that’s fair.” feeling. i do still like to listen to ditto and concoct my own vibes for it bc. that’s how music works. i know that. i’m not trying to criticize kpop for being kpop. but just felt like that was a necessary caveat to my love for the mv, which is to say that i liked the mv so much (and am therefore so moved by your comparison!) that i’m pretty disappointed we don’t have more of the vibes we thought we were getting when it first dropped.

there’s actually a royalty/kingdom au for jjk somewhere… but it wasn’t very substantial, to be fair. i’m not the most attached to settings any older than the ~modern era, whether reading / watching or writing — but i do like modern royalty !! one of my dream fics to write is an au based on the kdrama goong, but there hasn’t really been a pairing that i’ve found perfect for it. i considered one for orv, but i’m not attached to any of its dynamics in a way that doesn’t simplify itself in the end. so many characters i’ve loved recently are crown prince types, yet i feel like i’m still waiting for the moment that a dynamic drops into my lap and it clicks that it’s time.

(although — as i write that and as i reread your cc, i do think either of the itoshi brothers would make a perfect burdened prince. but ahhhhh idk i want to write bachisagi but also to write rinbachisagi again in a modern setting but also a rin made crown prince after sae abandons his post as heir for Reasons but the thought of perfect prince sae having to make space in his life for shidou, who cannot be more of an antithesis to royal perfection — i’m on my knees banging a fist against the ground and that’s barely hyperbole. not to mention the hairpin turns world tempts me to return sometimes, with all its background dynamics. but that much is not new with any of my fics.)

all this to say the itch / urge to write for bllk again is very much there. thank you so much for saying this about hairpin turns — i smiled so wide when i read your cc, it really means a lot !! i might have already said this somewhere, but there’s something in hearing kindness about hairpin turns come from someone who’s read more than one or two fics from me that just moves me differently. i think a part of me is like — would someone be able to notice what i felt writing this? would anyone be able to tell how different this one feels from the ones before it even though technically the rest are my usual tastes? i know what i say about readers not really knowing writers just bc of one work, but there’s a sense of trust and connection i especially feel towards people who have read a few fics from me and kind of… know my work, in that sense. so thank you so, so, So much for reading five (!!) of my fics, and for being so thoughtful in sending me this about hairpin turns. i Did have lots of fun with that fic, the kind of fun i can still feel thrumming in my hands every time i think about it, and i’m incredibly delighted and touched to know it came across to at least one reader.

anyway. i’m sorry for rambling at you. i got super giddy and excited, but i really do mean it. tysm — and we’ll see about another bllk fic. it’s def not an impossibility. i also hope you are staying warm 🤍

i love how you just dropped the most concise and heartrendingly kind message i’ve gotten about flls in a while and then said peace out omg but — listen. it really moves me to hear that. that’s what it comes down to. thank you so much for taking the time to read flls, to remember and return to it, and to write me a message with something so lovely and generous. i also hope you’re well.

hello !! honestly, i finished hairpin turns and was sure that’s all i’ve got for blue lock, but lately i’ve been wrestling with the temptation to write for it again — so i have no idea what to do right now 😓

it’s not impossible, though, for sure! i had a lot of fun writing the sci fi au, and there still has to be more to chew on. but all i have to offer rn is… we will see.

i actually have not! it’s the only one of the shounen big three that i didn’t do time with at all, oddly enough. it’s not even a case where i gave it a shot and just didn’t like it. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a whole episode, and it’s never been on my agenda to. i guess i just wrote it off quite early in life as something not quite for me? or maybe just something that was for my friends and others more than it was for me.

see, this is an interesting question, but please remember that i do have a limited scope of how to answer in specific relation to naruto! my main thing is that i feel conflicted between my belief that anything queer people can read queerness on is queer coded enough bc of that dynamic alone; i think a thing needs little else to be queer than for queer folks to interpret queerness based on what it has given them. someone brought up this point of how the horror movie with the megan doll had unintentionally resonated with a queer demographic more so than billy eichner’s movie bros, which was marketed to be upfront about being a queer story — and there’s an intriguing thought there about what sort of “queer coded” markers queer viewers will actually connect with. with that in mind, i think the classic friends-rivals narrative in naruto (and to be fair narusasu is quite the emblem of that, even amidst hundreds of others in pop culture) is queer coded purely bc a queer demographic has decided that this kind of dynamic reflects elements that we claim. full stop. that’s it. i think there’s enough validity in that.

at the same time… shipping comes in all forms, right? resonance is on one end of the spectrum while fetishization is on the other. but there’s a wide middle there, and to me that means that a piece of media offering up the potential for shipping culture’s taking does not necessarily qualify that media as queer coded, nor even necessarily makes it queerbait. sometimes a dynamic exists between coding or baiting. do some pieces of media take advantage of that hazy middleground to earn the attention of demographics that otherwise won’t pick it up? yes. you can argue shounen owes much of its pull to how audiences would rather invent upon a dynamic between two men than, say, take an explicitly queer shoujo romance between two women. but i don’t think we should equate the reach of transformational fandom as deliberate queer coding on the creators’ behalf. that includes naruto, no matter where naruto & sasuke could have ended up, whether or not kishimoto intended for them to be this or that. but i also don’t think that erases what fans see in that dynamic, in this series, and especially not the queer demographic. i think there’s a way to juggle all of that at once.

am i making sense? i hope i am. i’m happy to elaborate more, and ty for indulging my thoughts 😞

oh this is so interesting !! i was thinking just the other day that only recently have i really gotten into a pattern of having characters more similar to me as my favs, which overall i’d say reflects well on where i’m at in terms of self-acceptance? i think i’d always stay extra self-critical, but there is a part of me that embraces my own personality and disposition a lot more these days for sure.

in fics, though, i tend to avoid characters similar to me, actually! the more i have in common with a character, the less likely i am to want to write them. it kinda just. muddies the writing process for me. one of my biggest personal no-nos is writing a character and losing the plot bc i was subconsciously projecting onto them — which to me defeats the fun of writing. deciding what to write next for me these days is a bit like an actor taking on roles they’ve never done before / roles with careers and lives they would never try otherwise.

but also to be very fair a) i don’t experience romantic attraction / can’t fall in love and b) i can see why people would want characters they mirror to be a proxy for a path towards love, whether as giver or receiver. so i love this for u !!! i imagine it’s a bit like how people like to imagine happy endings for fiction based on their real lives, and i think it’s neat taht writing can offer catharsis that you otherwise won’t have within your control irl. so truly, truly, truly, it might feel embarrassing for you in the moment, but i hardly think it’s silly. if anything, i’m glad that avenue is available to you. like, loving yourself through the love you imagine possible, even if only on the page for now? i think it’s an incredibly valuable perspective on your own qualities.

but i will say that i tend to only like pairings where at least one of them is my fav character. i guess that’s the closest i have to what you describe. sure, the fav character in question likely has little in common with me or else i wouldn’t feel comfortable writing them, but still. the fic acts as a sort of vehicle for everything i love about this character through the lens of a dynamic i find interesting. that’s why fic is fun and necessary for me, i think. it’s everything i can’t fit into a tweet or explore in just messages. i know fic is a complicated corner of the writing world, but i also know it’s taught me a lot about how to love characters through the act of writing them. all of which to say that i love that it’s also made self-love possible in your own experience 🫶🏼

ISN’T HE SO GOOD !!! that whole album is just great god but roadkill is the perfect first song proper… i’m so so glad to hear you like his music too tysm for taking the time to drop by and let me know :(

i have heard about it! it’s funny how many messages i got of just Did You Hear About JJK, no clarification. and like. i’ve said some blunt things about jjk and i stand by them. even when i was writing for it, i had no idealisms about it, though mostly bc i know from experience that pieces of media need to be less than mindblowingly unique and great to attract huge active followings. the transformative nature of fandom relies on it. fandoms will rarely form around things it can’t invent over, if not outright improve upon. i’m the same. i don’t think i would have ever written fic for the series i did, including jjk, if i didn’t think man i adore these characters, i adore what they give me to work with, and it upsets me that the story is doing nothing with them (or at least, from my biased perspective, not exploring them to their full potential.)

but the specific thing about jjk is that it feels directly hostile? it’s not just a mangaka who doesn’t know how to love their story, their characters, the world they’ve built — it’s a mangaka who seems to actively hate all of these, and it shows in the writing. idk what akutami’s personal situation is, obviously, and i know they didn’t want to write jjk and it’s a shame it blew up and cornered them into writing a story they have no ounce of delicacy or care for, but my point is that it makes complete sense why people would be so hurt. i’ve seen people so carelessly be like jjk was never that good anyway real shounen should be like [insert name of other flawed shounen manga they want to champion] and while plenty of work ARE better than jjk, i think the hurt here goes beyond just a matter of quality writing. it’s not just oh we’re really doing this — but oh we’re doing it Like This. with These characters. in This way. add to that how all of this comes after so many storytelling choices that feel careless at best, and it’s like. i am giving you this hurt bc i love these characters, but you did not Earn this hurt. and that makes me hurt even more.

all this to say that no, i personally don’t really feel anything, but i do feel protective of the people who continue to love yuuji and megumi — and gojo and everyone, even if not jjk as a whole. there’s a secondhand level of defensiveness i feel on the existing audience’s behalf, but also a lot of like. writerly disapproval, if not disgust. so if there’s a name for the emotion you feel when you stand in solidarity with someone’s hurt even if you don’t actively feel the hurt — that’s where i’m at. though i prob have no right to it. but no matter what i bid my own itfs my best goodbyes some time ago. the sincerity of that will never change.

thank you so much for being so so thoughtful and considerate about how to approach asking this question, and for your kind words. i wish you a gentle rest of your winter 🤍

YOU JUST REMINDED ME THE YOUTUBE CHANNEL EXISTS WITH THIS MESSAGE, OH MY GOD. HOLD ON. RAN OVER TO LOG IN AND CHECK ON IT BC IT HAS COMPLETELY SLIPPED MY MIND. SOME OF THESE LINKS ARE OUTDATED. JESUS. I NEED TO DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS SOON. ANOTHER CC HAD TO REMIND ME ABOUT MY NEWSLETTER TOO. GOD. HOW MANY THINGS HAVE I BEEN NEGLECTING.

anyway more importantly — thank you so much for checking it out !!! it means a lot that you took the time to watch so thank you so much for your attention and kind words. i know i can be quite the lethargic and dull speaker, so i’m really, really glad the thoughts reached you nonetheless !!

and oooh it’s interesting you say that bc one of my official jobs is actually in podcasting !! so for what it’s worth it it’s a space i have a relative amount of comfort in? i Have thought about it briefly, especially with the boom of podcasts during the pandemic outbreak, but to be honest with you i just don’t think i have the sort of interesting personality that can sustain a podcast…? structured video essays are one thing, and i know people have hosted podcasts with less, but i’m not meant for any kind of performer/entertainer role, i think… not to say this hypothetical podcast is of that scale — but you get what i mean. i’ve always wanted to try being a late night radio dj, though. or at least incorporate that format into a podcast. play some songs. answer some quick anonymous queries. play more songs. but i think that’s just my attachment to late night radio growing up speaking. there’s music copyright stuff to think about in the podcast format, etc. but it’s a very fun idea for sure!

this is just a long-winded way of saying yes, i’ve thought about it, and it makes me feel very endeared that you did as well. no plans on podcasting outside of my irl work at the moment, but it means a lot that the thought crossed your mind — and i just appreciate the support endlessly as a whole. thank you, thank you, thank you. i hope you have a wonderful february 😕💗

i was just thinking that my hairpin turns playlist was lacking some lizzy mcalpine omg uncanny timing… and you’re so right… you’re So right. erase me from the same album also has some of the vibes of that au but with hate to be lame in particular it’s about not needing the other two but wanting them anyway to the point of need. so much that you’ll lie, that you’ll get rid of the “baggage.” oh, i am so sad about them. in a meaningful way. i really just mean that i miss them already and it’s so nice to hear you associate them with a song that i also like so tysm for taking the time to tell me this. i also wish you nothing but days filled with warmth 🌱☀️

hmm i was just telling someone the other day that i wish people signed up for uni only when they’re 25 and older. i feel that too often people are expected to know what to do with their lives when they haven’t even Lived, and what does a 19 year old know about the real world, and how could that knowledge ever arm them with the facilities to know what kind of education would be most fulfilling for them? every single young person i’ve been around, it always seems so obvious what’s plaguing them, what’s making them so restless or angry, but you also don’t want to invalidate that very real feeling of being young and not knowing what the hell is meant to be going on to make all of this bearable. sometimes i wish people in their late teens / 20s understood themselves more, but the truth is that they just never do. even the most ~intelligent ones, even the ones that grew up too fast, they never have the right answers for themselves. why would they? we all still have so many years of realizations and wake-up calls ahead of us. the hope is that we grow up and Realize, then do it all over again. some people will never get there, but you hope nonetheless.

all this to say, if you’re too unsure and listless to cement what you’d like to do in uni rn, i think it’s more than fine to take a break. dropping out is such a final thing to say, but it doesn’t have to be. idk how it is where you live, but where i’m from, uni is expensive. too expensive to be paying an institution for time to figure it out. i understand the fear of dropping out and it not amounting to anything, but. too many people use school as an excuse not to figure anything out bc at least it’s smth to fill their days — but it doesn’t have to be school until you feel like it really has to be. there are workshops, one-off classes, internships, mentorships. you can explore writing under a diff name, can pitch and submit to mags. you can take on jobs to sustain you in the meantime. it doesn’t have to be school, but it doesn’t have to be nothing, either. people tend to think that if something is overwhelming them, then the only alternative is nothing. but i think. living will always feel like performing if life feels like a costume, but you won’t know your measurements until you put yourself out there to measured and learn how to tailor and sew to what you need best.

i know this isn’t very helpful, but all i can say is — don’t choose something just bc it’s better than nothing, and don’t choose nothing just bc it’s better than the something you have rn. if that makes sense.

in any case, i’m sending you all my well wishes. take care of yourself 🤍

oh god thank you so, so much for writing again and checking in with me !!!! i’m so glad to hear all of this !! it’s such a special thing to be proud of one’s work no matter what, and it’s comforting beyond words to know my reply was good for something. i hope your days are also gentle and devotional and endlessly kind, and please know i’m always cheering you on.

i don’t, actually! i’m not a fan of having my focus compromised when i read or watch a thing, so i don’t have a lot of patience for pausing to take notes down or annotating or highlighting. it ruins the experience for me if it’s not as low-maintenance as possible, and it’s only since i got a literal account that i even started keeping track of what i think about the books i end up finishing.

but i sympathize with your situation completely, and i don’t think your sadness is unfounded at all. i just think… we place too much onus on ourselves to remember, is all. i’m not sure why we always think it matters less bc we don’t have full recall of something, as if it calls into question whether or not we felt for a piece of work in the moment. i don’t think it does? it matters enough that you felt for something in that present moment. it doesn’t need to be immortal or infinite, that feeling. if anything, i think it will be a joy to have things to revisit anew only knowing i loved it once. it’s enough to have loved something once, however briefly. i think emotional memory and permanence naturally aren’t meant to come hand in hand, and so it’s a rare but wonderful thing when it does. maybe i’m just coming off hot from a fic i wrote about exactly that thought, but if i’m sure of anything rn, it’s that our culture’s obsession with recording and documenting is a futile endeavour that only compromises the one thing you should know: that this thing might have happened once, and that’s all. you read this book once, and maybe you felt for it, maybe you didn’t. you can try to note it all down, every single detail, every single emotion, but would that change the fact that your memory is subject to fading and at some point, you’ll look back at this perfect record and still only see details that mean nothing?

all this to say i think you’re too hard on your memory for something that ultimately holds no power over you. i just feel like. nostalgia is heavy, looking ahead to the future is too faint, but the only thing you owe the present is to be present in it. that kind of thing. you don’t need to record the now for your future self to remember. that much i know. i think you’re doing just fine, especially considering that the past three years, scientifically speaking, has been hard on everyone’s ability to encode memories. you’re entitled to feel sadness to memories you know you’ve lost, but i also think there’s value and meaning in that transience. so. i’m sending you all my warmth and well wishes. i hope you find even more books to love, now and ever.

hello hello helloooo thank you so much for coming back i’m very charmed by all the questions you’ve dropped 🤍

must reads are… tricky. i think all the books i cherish deeply are also ones i read at a point of my life made for meshing well with it, and that renders my relationship with those books personal in such a way that makes me hesitate to recommend them universally. the heart’s invisible furies by john boyne, for instance, is technically not an intricate book at all, nothing impressive or even believable, not to mention its author has a terrible record with his other novels, but i treasure it a lot for reframing my view of the kind of stories i might love to consume and write. i feel very indebted to both it and the kite runner by khaled hosseini, which is like. the book that opened my eyes to the potential of storytelling. i’ve yet to reread it properly, and i’m kinda almost afraid to bc i feel like i’ll have a lot of cold-hearted criticisms about it now, but it remains a novel that’s irreplaceable in my mental hall of fame nonetheless. and quite recently i reread franny and zooey by j.d salinger (i know), which was a book i was Obsessed with as a teenager, and if i cemented anything this time, it’s that this might be The Book. my favourite book of all time. the book i hold closest to heart. the book i feel the most known by. all of which are sentiments that make me gag a bit bc you know. imperfect vulnerability. or vulnerable imperfection. but i’d also be remiss to answer this question objectively in any way. it really is these three books that come to mind first, personal and specific my perspective on them might be.

in any case, i wish you kind, warm days in turn, and thank you for all your generosity in my cc inbox !!

oh, interesting! thank you so much for thinking of me and keeping that little detail in your mind. i’m really not particularly well-traveled, but i do have my favourites among the cities i’ve visited, so i’ll def note this idea down. there’s something i wanna talk about when i write another huckleberry letter while we’re still in the beginning of the year, but def the one after that would be nice to dedicate to some places… anyway i’m just thinking on the go now but tysm for dropping by to say this !!

ahhh unfortunately i had it changed totally through luck — i ran into some problems when i was making a literal account and when i reached out to them about it, i just jumped on the opportunity to get my username changed. so sorry i can’t be of more help :(

i am as well as an unwell person can be these days, kind stranger, thank you very much for asking 🫶🏼

oooooh i do not have essay recs off the top of my head, unfortunately, but i do have:

◦ cain/caim by josé saramago, which is like witnessing someone confront the parent they resent during a much anticipated ted talk, and i mean that with no small amount of wonder. this novel mostly covers big events from genesis to deuteronomy-ish and it has been some time since i read it, but saramago’s brand of… anger? bitterness? spite? towards the biblical god is something i think about a lot even now. it feels only fitting that he wrote something following cain, and while the cain and abel part is only one segment technically, it does inescapably ripple through. lots of good bits here about cain and abel, though i’m biased bc this novel was foundational to my own fixation on cain as an essential figure of myth (but also just. you know. most founding stories are just stories of fratricide. brother on brother crimes everywhere.)

◦ this poem https://thebaffler.com/poems/genesis-mort

◦ this piece ugh https://www.triquarterly.org/issues/issue-149/murder-ballad-land-nod

◦ this interview with karvl ove knausgaard https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2015/04/karl-ove-knausgaard-on-the-power-of-short-stories/391658/

◦ “the robot bird tells me how it is i am in hell” from this set https://granta.com/three-poems-mccrae/

and a couple honorary mentions:

◦ this poem by orpheuslament on tumblr https://orpheuslament.tumblr.com/post/686967767175446528/text-id-two-brothers-in-a-field-are-enough-for

◦ this poem from substack https://divineauthor.substack.com/p/cain

i know it’s not a terribly thick or helpful list and i’m sorry for answering this while i’m feeling especially blank but this made me feel very tickled we love this question we love cain and abel we love talking about the old testament god

oh whoa thank you !! i always feel like i’ll be cursing myself every time i talk about a project too much while writing it but a) it’s mostly superstition, one of the few defence mechanisms turned rituals i have while writing and b) it’s funny that i bring up talking too much about a project bc half of the time i genuinely have nothing to talk about until at least majority of the thing is done, so what even will i be cursing myself with

but those bits aside i am? technically? working on both an original thing and a fic? i mean the original thing has been on off on off for like half a year now, and it’s just me chopping up and shredding and dicing and sauteeing this manuscript i wrote when i was 18 to 19 and i hate it now but not the idea of its story so i am in the middle of trying to make it a better, more me kind of frankenstein’s monster. which is a daunting task if i’m honest and it doesn’t help that everyone i’ve talked to about it (one person. one person literally contracted to listen to me talk about it.) has just been way too indulgent and trusting that i’ll figure it out eventually by myself so. i have taken time i could be putting into that and started this blue lock wip instead. don’t know if i’ll ever post it, since it’s a bit too unlike my previous work on cityboys and i don’t really wanna throw it at people whose days are better off not interrupted by a notif where my own personal reaction would be “they wrote what for what?” BUT i did see the other day how many unpublished fics i have that i just left with a finished first chapter and nothing else so i’m feeling very sobered by that discovery. maybe sobered enough to finish this wip just to be contrary. we shall see.

but thank you for being interested enough to ask and i’m sorry for rambling at you! i am on the go right now and so my mind is as well! i hope all is as well with you as can be!

hi !! i hope your day has been kind as well 🤍

and hmm i… have given it a shot a couple times. i felt a bit lukewarm on it from the outset, but each episode i’ve tried has just discouraged me more and more. though i don’t think it’s Terrible necessarily? i really love her work with park chanwook, so i was looking forward to this since her one other drama didn’t land too well with me and i thought it might have just been the subject matter being too close to real life for me to see it as favorably as i should. but unfortunately this one was a miss as well.

with two examples to look at, i do wonder if i’m just not a fan of seeing jung seokyung’s writing expanded into your average kdrama structure? i think it’s a totally different ballgame than films, and i find that the work of otherwise strong writers can feel oddly bloated or sensationalist when they have to adapt their style and approach to a 40-50min one or two eps per week structure where the focus is on having a final moment — a cliffhanger, a reveal, a twist — that will linger until the next episode comes out. not saying little women is guilty of a little makjang, but it also could have used some restraint, at least from how much of it i’ve watched. especially when you’re dealing with themes like this — class systems, power to the little people, money is the real god, etc — i find that subtlety / allegory go much farther. you can’t write a story about the people who are burdened by system and then just string those characters along in the narrative without giving them the agency to decide for themselves how the plot will go, you know? that just defeats the purpose for me. but that’s kind of a tangent. actually all of this is a tangent whoops you can stop reading any time now if you still are

but my point is: kdramas as a whole are guilty of not trusting their viewers to catch on or keep themselves invested, and whatever conversations went behind the scenes that led to jung seokyung adapting to that in her own way just… didn’t work for me. which is a shame bc i do think it’s gorgeous. the symbols, the blocking, the composition, even some of the music were unexpectedly lovely. it just felt like they were serving a totally different story than the plot writing itself did. i hate being bludgeoned to death with story and coming out on the other side expected to say i had a good time just bc i sure did have A Time. so i guess you can say i’m also a bit biased against the kind of drama little women turned out to be.

all this to say — not for me. but i stay loving jung seokyung’s film scripts, and i’m glad she’s getting the attention she’s due for decision to leave.

hi !! i love that this is my last cc of the night bc it feels like such a curveball after the last couple ones. just — i’m seriously grateful for all the thoughtful questions people leave on my inbox. but anyway.

(did you watch/read bones and all, by any chance? i feel like i’ve had a lot of conversations lately about cannibalism but they’ve mostly been with people who went to see it.)

ok fair warning i’m not read up on cannibalism at all beyond like. anthropological rituals and such. so i’m probably not the best person to ask. but some pieces that came to mind are:

lithub.com/cannibals-or-ghouls-the-elusiveness-of-language-in-bones-and-all/ (this is more an article than an academic/literary essay, but there’s some really nice thoughts here about personhood and the eating that they do in bones and all:

theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/03/why-female-cannibals-frighten-and-fascinate/519276/ (read this some back now and it’s more about the archetype (?) of the monstrous female character especially in the french film grave/raw, but i think no conversation around cannibalism is complete without examining hunger in the context of female desire)

https://youtu.be/dkAUYv3Mv0c (video essay on the movie i mentioned just above)

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/23/style/cannibalism-tv-shows-movies-books.html (on the rise of cannibalism themes in recent tv, movies and books, very surface look but i’m linking it in case one of the references quoted catches your eye)

https://amchoreo.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/hc3a9lc3a8ne-cixous-stigmata-escaping-texts.pdf (pdf for helene cixous’ stigmata, which is honestly kind like reading someone’s rambling diary but you weren’t there to find the inside jokes funny. not linking here for the full thing, only one specific section called “love of the wolf” that is Kind of about the physical consumption of that which/whom we love. it’s not exclusively nor explicitly about the act of cannibalism, but there’s some juicy ruminations there about the nature of love and the hunger it perpetuates, like “for us, eating and being eaten belong to the terrible secret of love. we love only the person we can eat. the person we hate we ‘can’t swallow.’ that one makes us vomit. even our friends are inedible. if we were asked to dig into our friend’s flesh we would be disgusted. the person we love we dream only of eating.”)

wow i’m so sorry this is not a robust list at all… most of them are just. magazine pieces. really shows you what i read most often 😭

i know it’s groan worthy when someone starts a reply with a personal anecdote bc then it’s like. wow. this is a cringy find jesus ted talk. but. i stopped writing from 2018 and 2020. i won’t bore you with the contextual details, but i tried other things for a bit and it was total soulless crap. i just didn’t want to be honest with myself about how much i hated writing so much that reading made me sick too. i looked down at how easy it is for people to bang things out that others will think is good even when there’s no love in it. that makes someone disillusioned, & very aware of the fact that your own aspirations in writing — to be read, to be loved for what they read from you — is so Goddamn superficial. you don’t want to write. you want to write something that will be loved. and i’d think, those are the same thing, but they’re not. it’s not even about writing for yourself vs other people, it’s that writing is a fickle, egocentric creature, and it will not come when it knows it will be used as a tool. if you want writing to come not only so it will be beautiful, but beautiful from Your hands specifically, then is it writing you love?

i think… writing, being a writer, loving writing… the ugly crap, the soulless crap, the impossible days, the two year break are all part of it. i missed writing during that break but i hated it more for not being what i wanted it to be. that’s Such a toxic relationship, you know? like only loving a daughter when she’s perfect, when she’s beautiful, when she does what she’s told. like falling for the idea of someone and lashing out at them for not being that someone. it just exhausts both parties, bc how can you sustain a relationship wanting someone to be something?

i think you’re burning yourself out wanting to make something beautiful, my dear stranger. i’m sorry if i sound like i’m berating you. i really am not. i have all the respect and empathy for what you’re going through. and i know i don’t know your life, only what i’ve gone through that might be similar. i can’t tell you if you need a break, or to try writing scripts instead, etc. but i don’t think you’re done with writing either. i just think you’ve hurt it quite a bit, and hurt yourself in the process.

i love writing more than anything in the world. i’m sure you do, too. that love makes us very desperate sometimes. but we shouldn’t take it out on writing when it’s all we have. it’s done a lot for us. let it be ugly. make mistakes, bc the real act of love is in fixing it — in editing, in trying again without beating yourself up for making the mistake in the first place. it’s very fun, writing. but you have to let it breathe. you have to let yourself breathe.

i hope this makes sense :( i’m sending you my deepest, warmest well wishes.

no shame At All in that. do you know how many people just sit there and read something without even thinking oh i should probably critically engage with it? but you did ask at an uncannily good time, bc i saw this post on my dashboard a few days ago. i haven’t gone through it, but i thought it was an interesting list: https://northwindow.tumblr.com/post/705391261040902144/reading-on-reading (for your purposes in particular, i’d say try "uncritical reading" by michael warner?)

but the truth is that i don’t really read and remain critically engaged at the same time. like, i don’t open a book and experience it while actively thinking about my problems with it. i feel like i wouldn’t be able to enjoy anything if i did that, and i don’t expect anyone to be doing that all the time, either.

i think critical thinking can happen outside of the immediacy of experiencing a piece of media. how can you analyze if you have no personal feelings about something? what, exactly, will you be analyzing then? the prose? which you can, obv, but a lot of analysis starts with thumbs up / down / neutral. ofc you won’t know what you don’t like if you don’t know what you like. that’s why it’s so dangerous for people’s tastes to be decided by trends, bc a need to conform deprives people of deciding for themselves what they like or dislike, and the lack of ability and opportunity to do that is why we have people who can’t consume media critically. you think this part is cool? why? is it bc this is a scene you’ve been waiting to happen for 200 chapters/pages now? this part made you cry? why? did it accurately capture something you’ve experienced? did this part not sit right with you? why? is it bc it feels unearned by the story, or is it bc it isn’t consistent with how you’ve understood the character until now? i think you run into danger of not thinking critically when you want to analyze in the moment. what would you see about something you’re only seeing this current fragment of?

so let yourself enjoy (or not enjoy) and Then work out those analysis muscles. critical media consumption is still a muscle that you have to get into the practice of using before it becomes second nature, and i don’t think you or anyone should be humiliated about seeking out how to get there. it’d be even weirder if i just woke up one day being like I Will Critically Analyze Now. no, people start as consumers with opinions. and just bc i have takes doesn’t mean they’re always right or not surface level either. the point is that we acknowledge this and not take media for granted. that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy things for what they are, either.

i’ve rambled at you enough, but hey. there’s no textbook guide to critical analysis. you just become a critical consumer first in the most basic of ways. at least if you ask me, but i’m sure there’s smarter syllabi out there for media criticism.

thank u so much for your kind words !! here’s a cc i answered on mp100 (if it’s of any interest) ✨ https://curiouscat.me/sleeptowns/post/1286043641

i won’t ever Dream of writing for mp100, and i say that genuinely as a mark of just how good it is. i have never read or watched it and thought… ah. i can/should do something with that. bc it’s never once given me anything that it didn’t handle itself far better than i think any other series in its position could have. i think mp100 is unique in the sense that it’s reliant on the genre it subverts, and yet it also delivers a story that is so, so simple and yet so, so pitch-perfect. it’s just so reflective to me of how a story need not be bombastic to have depth and stakes and a sense of closure by the end not bc the big bad of the plot has been resolved but bc we’ve spent time with characters whom we love and want the best for. i do think the final arc is the weakest, but it’s a sign of how great the arcs that precede it are that the point where it all comes together is the weakest.

but !! s2 is my fav season, but i think it’s unfairly stacked against the others considering it had the mogami arc, the separation arc & the world domination arc. this was also one of the best small scenes in the whole series: https://youtu.be/nPN5R9RQHbU, and i Love the composition of the s3 scene where teru realizes he’s being brainwashed. my fav standalone ep is the post s2 ova. it makes me laugh So much. teru isn’t the character i have brainworms about, but he’s prob still my fav character, primarily bc he’s so ridiculous and yet so earnest about his own character development. i wasn’t expecting to get choked up during his fight against ???% but i should have known bones would cut through the drama of the battle itself and adapt that fight into what it is: mob’s quiet journey alone towards the goal he’s had since the beginning, all the while wrestling with the part of himself that he’s tried to lock away for so long now, and how that parallels reigen’s own self image and his final desire to be truly himself for this one kid whom he’s never wanted to see him as anything but someone worth seeing as a mentor.

running out of space ahhh i can talk abt it forever but i just love that mp100 is a story about finding yourself, whether you’re a teru or a ritsu or a tome or a reigen or a serizawa or a takenaka. it’s adapted to a world that contains so much more, but underneath it all, it’s about selfhood and its complexities and challenges & rewards. it comes down to what each character wants, and it’s a real treat that the story answers, in the end, with the ursula le guin quote that’s like “we’re each of us alone, to be sure. what can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?”

is it a copout if i just link you to my newsletter thing on one specific arc/scene https://cherrypick.substack.com/p/kieta-hatsukoi-its-not-a-big-deal

no i’m kidding i quite liked kiekoi !! both the drama and the manga. i think it’s made with a lot of heart that feels reminiscent of the romance and slice of life animes i grew up with — i’m thinking loosely of kimi ni todoke, toradora, lovely complex, even comedies like hyakko and azumanga daioh, that sort of thing — so there’s a sense of delicacy and nostalgia that i’m really pleased to see in a love story with a character like aoki at its centre. i think everyone is so so charming, and nothing is ever too heavy-handed, from the premise to aoki realizing he has a crush on ida now and not hashimoto, even the arcs i’ve read post-ida and aoki getting together. there’s a sense of comfort to it, at least the chapters/episodes i’ve touched. and i love that it’s a shoujo! there’s just something about it being a recognized winner in the genre that feels just right, like an evenly-frosted cake that doesn’t leave you feeling bloated or like you shouldn’t have eaten it after a big meal.

hello again !!! thank you for dropping by another time, i found myself thinking about how you were doing the other day but i cannot for the life of me remember what prompted it now but ahhh i’m glad at least something from my last reply was worth highlighting :( it really is difficult, i think, bc we can say that some relationships aren’t worth it/aren’t what we deserve all we want and sure they can be true but it still wouldn’t take away what you’re feeling. it’s a moot point, in the aftermath of a relationship. and sometimes it’s a bigger burden to hear it bc then you’re forced into a position where you feel like you’re meant to feel this way and since you feel differently, it’s almost like you’re wrong for still feeling the way you are. which you’re not. no one is. even the people meant to love us, like our parents and whatnot, can hurt us in irreparable ways, but it’s also true that sometimes good people will hurt you in a way outside of either of your control. and that’s hard and bizarre, especially since he was the ~first in many respects.

and you know, this isn’t at all to be doom and gloom about adult relationships, quite the contrary — i think we carry all sorts of people in all sorts of ways throughout our lives. there will be relationships you’ll have to let go of, and even selves you’ll have to shed. i’m at an age rn where it’s really difficult to clean my room, bc i always find a gift from someone i no longer talk to, or a letter from someone who fell out of my life after they got a significant other. and it’s easy to say that we can smile bc it happened and that’s better than not experiencing it at all, but — my point is. everyone you’ll meet and love will be a first in some way. first friend to make going to the movies your official go to hangout, first partner to like cooking for you, etc. if you lose them, going to the movies or cooking won’t be the same. i think a life lived is a life full of first loves, even crappy ones. it’s not a bad thing, and you’re allowed to grieve them if they have to go. but i think people are onto something when they say the heartbreak is also part of the love. with obvious caveats, but hey. you have to have loved something pretty bad to grieve losing it. whether or not it was a good person or a friend or if you deserved him or not… it’s all confetti. the emotion is what you had, and the emotion is what you’re left with. and that’s okay.

anyway. i stand by what i said in the last cc, is the tldr, and i’m glad there are things that have gotten easier with time. i wish you so many more of them until the end of time 🤍

hi hello i know you just sent over that follow up cc several hours ago but i just wanted to say that i didn’t find this intrusive and unnecessary at all :( god no. i'm not sure if i can answer it well, but i’d still like to take a shot at answering it. but you don’t have to read on if you’re not comfortable revisiting the subject!

i think it’s fair to feel as if going between the labour of being around people and the labour of having to be a self is like being the ball in a game of ping pong. there’s no real winning here, and i empathize a lot with what you call this cheap version of independence as a facade for hesitance towards vulnerability. but the way most people understand independence is it’s the opposite of external dependence, as in rather than depending on other people, you depend on yourself. which is a pain for me too honestly. i’m definitely going against the etymology of the word rn but i personally like to define independence as a kind of anti dependence. and that includes dependence on yourself and your coping mechanisms and your safety behaviours. i think selfhood is only possible when there are no factors you Rely on to be a self, and that includes what you define as safety if it means placing the burden on yourself to actively ignore what’s making you unsafe. running away from what’s unsafe doesn’t automatically equal safety.

i do often feel confined by myself even now. i still go quiet and isolate myself when things feel unsafe, but rather than berate myself for that instinct, i’ve tweaked it a little to do things like. telling people i don’t feel good about this situation atm, but it’d be nice if they can give me a few days or weeks to step away and think through what i Am comfortable sharing. it’s a bit like finding a compromise between still being responsible for my relationship with another person, bc i’m forced to still find a way to share what i’m able to, even if it’s not always Complete vulnerability. but i still am given my space.

you don’t owe people what They define as vulnerability, but you shouldn’t be entirely dependent on yourself or your own evasion tactics either. solitude shouldn’t be a burden. i think the point of solitude is that there’s no need to be dependent on anything, and no demands to be one particular kind of individual. it shouldn’t be something you choose so you can run away from something else. that’s not solitude nor independence. that’s just running away. there’s agency, then there’s running away from when you Have to take agency, from when you have to be an individual. i think that what you’ve described is actually the opposite of independence. it’s self imposed exile.

rambled a lot here but i am sending you all the warmth and kindness in the world, whether or not you ended up reading this reply. i empathize with your situation deeply. i truly do. i hope the year ahead is infinitely kind to you.

I STILL HAVE NOT SEEN IT. I KEEP GETTING RECOMMENDED SCENES FROM AND INTERVIEWS WITH THE CAST BUT I FEEL SO SICK EACH TIME I THINK ABOUT STARTING. BUT YES, PLEASE DO KEEP ME POSTED IF YOU HAVE SEEN IT BC I HAVE SEEN NO ONE TALK ABOUT IT AND I CAN'T TELL IF THAT'S A GOOD SIGN OR NOT.

oooh fav shows are a tie between the bear and weak hero class 1 hands down. i’m convinced the string of lacklustre media i’ve had to watch since i finished those two has been punishment for how much i enjoyed both.

movies, though… hm i think the only movies i finished this year were nope. decision to leave. dune. matt reeves’ batman. the menu. everything everywhere all at once. that might be all of it wow ?? i started a lot lot lot more but. waves hand. i have a lot of weary thoughts about films that people in my circles enthusiastically recommend to me/tout as their fav — nothing against them for liking the film as a person, but it does make me reevaluate where the bar is for today’s films, sometimes, when i’m feeling bitter about media consumption. sometimes i feel like people just watch films to participate in the culture of filmwatching — which, what does that even mean, sha? idk. there’s that part in the menu where he says he had a rare day off and he spent it on a disappointing movie, and that’s how i’ve felt about films people have nudged me towards in the last two years. i can’t believe i used to be a tiff regular. i’m not even trying to be contrarian here and be pretentious. i don’t like film enough to be pretentious about it, that’s the main problem. i wish i had Fun crappy watches at least. but no it’s just [redacted bc i feel mean now but i also can’t redact the part where i am still very very weary]

anyway. i did love nope. jordan peele’s best one so far, imo. decision to leave was quite great, but it wasn’t park chan-wook’s strongest. that’s the extent of my list of fav movies of the year. i am so sorry for rambling at you. i just realized how i felt about films the moment i started replying. did not mean to dump that all there i hope you skipped to this paragraph 😭

the way that it’s been so long since i sat down with my cc inbox that this is from around christmastime 😭

of her books, i’ve only read all about love, and the others i’ve had to consume in sections for a class or a work project. i… remember being devastated when we lost bell hooks. i think she’s an invaluable figure in any conversation involving race and feminism and gender, and especially re: how no true discussion around these are complete without the difficult nuances we must force ourselves to confront in order to truly be intersectional. a lot of the time removing ourselves from one system of oppression means in turn feeding into one that oppresses others, and i appreciate how bell hooks’ body of work encompasses all these while remaining rooted in the simplicity of love and its many forms, and how at the end of the day there is a kind of rebellion in allowing ourselves true community and the vulnerability that comes with deep love — for ourselves and for each other, regardless of what those systems of oppression want to convince us of.

that said — and i’m being very careful here, bc far, far, Far be it from me to refute bell hooks of all people — i don’t always agree with how she applies her philosophy to real world examples, for instance, or how it has adapted to this current sociocultural climate. i also find that bell hooks herself is not immune to participating in the systems she criticizes, or at least to falling into analogies or rhetoric that might be outside of her regular areas of discussion. i’m thinking specifically of her conversation with laverne cox* not too long ago, which i remember watching a few times bc of one conversation point where they discussed femme / “feminine” expression. it was def a more tense push in the talk, but that’s exactly the kind of exchange that is so valuable, and i respect how candidly they both handled it. and lastly, i think all about love is best read when you’re still a bit younger, when it still has the space to guide your perspective as you come of age and reassess all its themes; i feel like i read it at a point where none of it really Hit me as new, brain-rerouting information — which i think is a really, really good thing, bc there remains the fact that bell hooks is an icon in these conversations for a reason, and that’s thanks in no small part to how she put all these experiences to words and we now as a culture can read it and see where we’re positioned in terms of what we already know and how much work there is still left to do.

* i looked up that talk just now to make sure i’m not misremembering the memory and came across this them article. i just skimmed it for now, but i think it’s a great summation of how i feel about bell hooks: https://www.them.us/story/bell-hooks-laverne-cox-feminism-2014-new-school

i downloaded mine from zlib before it got torched ahhh you can try the links here: annas-archive.org/md5/2b0aeb60b5bb6011fe46bb6d25d9b0c7

the available files on that site are usually a great alternative, but if they don’t work, let me know and we’ll figure something out :)

i really love how you phrased this !! with a perfect academic environment being a component to a memorable time in uni, i mean. i totally agree.

but hmm when i was choosing universities and majors, i think my main intention was looking for the smallest possible class sizes? partly bc i hate being in crowds and busy cities, but also partly to kind of hack how i learn best — which is to receive direct feedback and constructive criticism from as close to the source as possible, with the source being the prof or the prof’s assistant. i hate faceless, soulless criticism; if i’m doing well, i’d like to know why, or else it won’t matter to me, and the same if i get lower than what i was expecting. i felt like you can’t really have that experience in bigger classes, where the exams are multiple choices on scantron sheets and you’re like a hundred people in one room where the prof has to use a mic and participation points are counted from a device. it’s a funny thing considering i had really bad social anxiety and should have liked the facelessness, but it just felt like there was no point to learning if it feels like i’m just being handed the thing to do and i’ll get a check mark if i do it. it’s not very stimulating, and so to loop back to your question, i’d say stimulation is what makes a perfect academic environment for me. my pattern throughout my first two years of uni is that i’d skip all my bigger lectures bc you can pass them without problem if you just read all the material before the midterms and exams, which i regret bc some of them were still interesting subject matter. but compare that to how wholeheartedly i did the work for my smaller classes, where i know the TAs and profs know me whether or not i want them to and it will make me more anxious to be constantly incompetent at a class i literally chose to take. i also hated the concept of office hours, but i found that in classes where it’s like ten people exchanging thoughts and talking about the work we all had no choice but to do unless we wanted excruciating silence for two hours, i didn’t need to seek out the input or stimulation i needed. it was just there, in the class, so i never skipped them. i think i was even sorry if i ever had to miss one. those are the classes i still remember, and the subject matter i (mostly) retain.

the tldr of this answer is that i think it’s good to know how you learn best and what makes learning stimulation/interesting for you, and for me it was smaller classes in a city quieter than the one i spent my teenage years in. i was also grateful to have found memorable extracurriculars and on campus jobs to pursue, but that really was just luck, whereas strategic class selections shaped what you might call and what i’d consider my perfect (ish) class environment.

no i think you’re absolutely right on !! something something that one famous einstein quote about how physicists know there’s no distinction between past, present and future. and you also mentioned newton’s laws. when people say time is a construct, what they really mean is what we understand to be time, as in these boxes and slots of schedules — but time very much exists, just that it’s not what we’ve made it. thinking of that one npr segment called resetting the theory of time.

and i love what you said about sisyphus! sisyphus the original regressor fr but to be fair it crops up a lot in greek myth. prometheus. even tantalus, in some way, down to the rest of the house of atreus. it’s interesting that the looping is The element that makes something eternal. compare that to how time loops are seen in hollywood, like an obstacle for a hero to triumph over after the necessary lessons have been learned. there’s no such neatness in greek myth, and in manhwa, the idea of the regressor crops up in all sorts of iterations — a mc with stubborn unhinged empathy, a mc keen for vengeance, the protagonist of a novel subjected to different versions of the story, an antagonist who did try his best in the beginning to not be the villain. how many times can you make someone loop before the circularity is no longer synonymous with inevitability, right? how many times can you loop before the loop itself is the catalyst for the change?

but i’m digressing so hard again i think sisyphus is a popular figure these days bc life feels like boulder pushing. wake up, doomscroll, clock into work or go to class, doomscroll, numb yourself somehow, sleep. repeat. people often bring up “one must imagine sisyphus happy” but like. does sisyphus even know each day is a repeat? i’m always torn between “everything in life and history is circular and there’s no escape” vs. there’s no such thing as a repeat. of anything. ever. not snowflakes, not day to day routines. physics wise, something will always be different, and it’s only time as a construct that demands we see our days in such small, separate increments in the first place.

which is all to say that i do absolutely think you can reincarnate in the past. media like sea of tranquility and the tv show dark have done this really well, about how tying the past to the future makes the present makes the past makes the future and so on and so forth. and i think that’s what i really mean when i say time loops. bc hey, maybe time isn’t even a circle. maybe it’s a whirlpool. or penrose steps. maybe the oscillating universe theory or the ancient concept of the eternal return are it. if the stars we see are from the past, then can we look at the past and see the future?

this is starting to sound pretentious as hell i’m so sorry i’m extra garrulous these last set of replies and i should call it a night but tysm for your ccs and i hope you have a great day as well 🤍

HELLO AGAIN. AND RIGHT? LIKE. IDK. i’m biased bc i’ve preferred a lot of the things in my life to remain transitory, but i really do think there’s merit in allowing things to remain in a shape you can be nostalgic about someday. i think that’s really what people mean when they say that sometimes to love someone or something is to let it go. that there are moments when letting go is an act of love bc it’s the thing that will ensure the love remains after the thing ends.

in any case, you’re too kind, thank you for indulging my looping/regression fixation and i am definitely, Definitely okay with you returning whenever and however much you’d like :(

also, yes, i actually do highly recommend rewatching nge with (so to speak) a bigger adult brain! it’s one of those things i watched as a teen for like. cultural capital. so as an adult i was often like ha it’s not that deep. but recently, i’ve been like… yeah it’s not that deep but that in itself is the depth of nge. especially the rebuilds, which to me is a really fascinating look at how a creator can revisit something he wrote and directed at a more tumultuous time of his life and only much, much later become capable of giving it an ending that is properly final. and for that ending to be hopeful and so unlike what the original was on track to become. someone on crunchyroll’s yt channel also did a video on all the nge timelines, and it’s a hot mess, but somehow everything the video guy said is essentially codified by the last nge rebuild movie so cheers to that bc regressor kaworu is a fun thing to think about

anyway i feel like i’m throwing so much at you and i just wanna say no obligation to pick up every single thing i mention but i am more than happy to hear your thoughts on anything you do check out — so on that note i will see you in the next cc ✌🏼

my book thoughts are usually on literal! here’s my review on sea of tranquility https://literal.club/activity/cfa6a510-bed1-11ec-8080-80012c9664d9

review is a loose term though... my literal stuff is my word construction at its ugliest and i’m trying to work on it with each new book i finish but just. you know. beware. this prefacing isn’t out of self deprecation like the warning truly is necessary in this case 😞

also some of my increasingly sentimental tweets when i was reading sea of tranquility bc idk how but they’re tidier than my actual review:

• https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1515827275534635012?s=46&t=n0uF3uDI2I9VpYi2veZoLg
• https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1515903912007585796?s=46&t=n0uF3uDI2I9VpYi2veZoLg
• https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1515908799684657152?s=46&t=n0uF3uDI2I9VpYi2veZoLg
• https://twitter.com/sleeptowns/status/1516188081245888526?s=46&t=n0uF3uDI2I9VpYi2veZoLg