I let this answer rot I'm sorry, because I didn't want to answer it in a way that might feel mean, but I think I will submit to answering it ... in the only way I can think to.... which is also going to be very [walking around in circles]

What you are describing is, how basically any work made any time other than the past few years works, generally (not that there aren't still new things coming out that are good, but that the skew is kind of unfortunate)..... Twilight is this, seriously. Most works take their own perspective to heart and believe in the delusions of the characters, because that is generally how storytelling works .... you can listen to entire DISCOGRAPHY about devotion, stalking, possessiveness, and they won't take the unartful time to be clinical or pause to use therapyspeak!!! Because MOST ART IS PEOPLE EXPRESSING THINGS THEY FEEL OR THINK AT THE MOMENT OF CREATION!!!!! EVEN if they are scary, make no sense, or sound completely deranged! Most stories want to live in their own fantasy of the events taking place! Or in the reality of their own mind's understanding of a situation!!

Like, I actually think the amount of media that is weirdly outside of itself or commentating on itself, is bizarre and new and an extremely immediately recent epidemic bore from the sense of self-consciousness we are experiencing as a culture from social media (and perhaps just constant increased narrative consumption?), and then from the inevitable conclusion of corporate (un)creativity ala Disney & ilk... while I don't like the concept of 'heteropessimism' on the whole lol [I literally don't think this issue is in any way linked to any sexuality, and think queer people exhibit this foible presently AS MUCH AS straight people...], there's a bit of an article I feel conveys something I've felt well, at least:
"you actually end up having this very heavily mediated experience of the world, where everything that you experience is kind of always being played back into this meta-narrative that you’re getting from social media.”
^ some people not only experience this in their own dating lives, but also uncontrollably write from this hindered, self-observant perspective .... you see it a LOT in modern fanfic, where it's as if the author has to pull back for an entire chapter to reassure the reader, "I am aware of all the things happening here and how bad or weird or convoluted they are!", and sometimes that takes the form in something like an intervention or a bizarre therapy session between teenagers mid-fic.

This doesn't happen in the VAST MAJORITY OF MEDIA, but it's definitely an issue in a lot of modern romcoms, webcomics, animated series, action flicks, etc. There's definitely a sense of cringe which prevents the story from continuing on its own terms with its own logic, to all the extremes that may lead to. The moment a media starts doing this, I feel so frustrated haha, I just can't handle it at all. It makes ME cringe....

I think that, a good writer cares about everything in the world being diegetic ... saying yes to the limited perspectives and experiences of the characters, and then writing from it. Just to pull a pop-culture example, basically it doesn't matter if you or anyone can say Edward is being Actually Really Creepy or Stalking Bella, her own understanding of the situation is romantic; we don't need to pull back and say, "but it's not really romantic!" or "but this isn't reasonable!". Within her own experience of this story, it's a love story .... there's a very recent sense in writing, where people feel a need to say "but I know it isn't really romantic!" or, "just so you know, I'm NOT writing a romance story", and sometimes also enforce that onto the characters, who aren't allowed to just experience what they are earnestly from their limited perspective ...

When the Omori fanfic pauses for Hero to explain Grooming to Sunny, I feel like I'm going insane, I feel like the author just wants me to know they know what grooming is. HOW and WHY does this kid in the 90s KNOW these terms, who TAUGHT them to him?? It's not diegetic at all!! They might as well all pause to discuss the 2024 US election because the author is anxious about it. This happens in cartoons on television, now .... it's absolutely bonkers... but it probably depresses me the most that it's happening in fanfic. I understand why people in LA feel self-conscious of what they are writing under the observation of their peers, but I'm very sad fujoshi have to.

It's not entirely new in that I think creatives like .... .... Andrew Hussie, or Jhonen Vasquez, suffered from a sense of self-observation of their works that causes them to kneecap themselves and pull out a metaphorical fart piano whenever something gets too sincere or expresses something they really think and feel. Sometimes you'd see people express this in the form of taking a lot of unnecessary time debasing or insulting their main (actual self-insert, deep down) every so-often to say "don't worry, I know he sucks ass!" or "don't worry, I don't expect you to like him!" or "he's being irrational right now, I know, it's embarrassing!!" ..... I think, coming from people who, say, use somethingawful or 4chan, or even just a very gossipy indie comicsscene, you got the same result in the 90s/early 2000s, just without the therapyspeak or er, pathologizing... I won't say it is exclusively modern.... the same shape of shame and meta-eye-view. It's pretty sad that this has extended outside of this kind of person (typically just some fussy cis guy lol) and into just some poor teen girl's fanfiction honestly, it's kind of devastating to me on the daily to watch it happen ._. it honestly has depressed me to the point of being unable to engage with most western fandom or fanfic, it's like soulcrushing for me ....

[sits down] anyway. I'd just recommend like reading Inuyasha or something, idk. Like just enjoying an older movie or piece of media. This kind of straightforward storytelling exists in droves too infinite for me to innumerate.......................... read, Red Dragon, stream Hospice by the Antlers, I don't know ... sobs

JSHK is the definition of this, or I suppose I would say all of AidaIro-sensei's works as a whole. Complete shock & awe as the Red House arc came to pass... everything in the far shore between Akane & Aoi also completely floored me, and THEN Sumire/Hakubo ... it's incredible for ME personally, for a work to contain THIS MUCH thorough exploration of... characters who don't understand their own emotional capacity, who have a self-belief in being emotionless or unable to experience things (and aren't maudlin about it or really sad about it?) (whether that is from a sense of mistrust and misrepresentation of self, like Aoi, or having never been invited to imagine otherwise, with Hakubo... or from a sense of being past/over the ability to inhabit interactions fully, like Amane). I really didn't expect it at all!!! I love how forceful love is upon the bodies of people like this, forcing them to behave unexpectedly to themselves, or able to be cornered with it. I love how right it is to force it upon them, be relentless with it ...

And then Narisokonai Snow White was just an absolute gutpunch, what a piece of art.

LN2 also really did this eh .... I really didn't expect there to be significance to the world itself I guess (horror doesn't often need a whole lot justifying its environment?)... or just how precious and passive Six would be. Since LN1 doesn't need to justify the Maw, I didn't think the Pale City would be composed of a poor kid's psyche. Very endeared by the endless loop of a boy deleteriously committed to saving a girl.

You would think me insane but Ed Edd n Eddy is a very early example of being really pleasantly amazed by something that didn't have to be so comprehensible. And not just the movie for bluntly exposing abuse in Eddy's life ... the school season is so er, good at giving a context to Eddy's neurosis, he's so fucking miserable and tortured at school! He'll do anything to not go back. You even understand why double dee is more confident then him in ways, if he spends most of the year way more in his element .... able to feel ah, successful. It's not just Eddy though, I think EEnE does an impressive job giving you a solid answer to why all the mains are the way they are, if you pay attention. Ed isn't just dumb, he's criminally neglected haha, you know? That kind of thing. I... honestly think a lot of cartoons now are, way too cowardly to couch a kid's psyche in as variable poorly home lifes, lol, despite pretending they care about trauma as a concept. (Well, I think they're also afraid of approaching it without offering some kind of reconciliation of it... it's less permissible to just be ambiently, unfixably bad)

errr what ELSE... GOD the Moomin novels, they start out very kiddy and simplistic of course, as you'd expect, but the final couple of books really really knocked me downnnn me, at a time when I really needed it or didn't need it LOL (I remember being inconsolable for weeks). Everything Snufkin went through was so painfully real for me, and a , kind of lesson I, needed, to observe. I feel kind of at a loss with broad fandom's romanticization of his lack of attachment; I really love how the later novels explore it as a fear response for him (he's AFRAID of attachment, he CHILDISHLY rejects GOOD things at times, he is FUSSY and UNNECESSARILY COLD), and also, of the consequences of his lack of (openly) appreciating how he is accommodated, loved, which results in him being left alone, trapped with people who DON'T accommodate or understand him, in Moominvalley in November. I really loved his desperate search for Moomin's letters, the belief that "Moomin would NEVER leave without giving me a letter", his own ATTACHMENT to MOOMIN'S ATTACHMENT!!! which he took for granted, because Moomin loved him so consistently, even if Snufkin failed to reciprocate, or was lazy in writing him back.... He could feel so devastatingly let down by a lack of love on the other end, though his own attitude made him constantly show a lack of love, and therefor propagated an eventual abandonment ... why would Snufkin care about being abandoned? He's 'not that type of person'. He'll 'be fine'. Of course he won't be ...

Of all scenes in an earlier novel too, Moominvalley in Midwinter, I really love when Moomin longs to climb the mountain, reach the other side, get to Snufkin... but fails in his attempt, and remarks... that he could do it, if only he knew Snufkin was on the other side, waiting for him. But he can't, because, he isn't. I like how pining for Snufkin works ... loving someone this ah, obfuscative, this avoidant of love itself. When I read about Atos, the decade-long lover of Tove's who Snufkin was based on, I felt a very rare human connection, to someone who had so casually hurt someone else despite being present, for so many years. Again it was unexpected but a kind of lesson I needed. Consequences of my personality disorder lol.

Though honestly there are also works where I just simply have so much interest in the creator behind it, that I can't exactly be 100% disappointed by it, because I'm interested even in that voice's foibles or its feeble attempt at making an ending, or telling a story. Sometimes even when a work is disappointing in what it can achieve, it conveys the helplessness or limits of a real human mind; a world presenting itself as hopeful or maybe even funny, but with a real human hopelessness behind it, an inability to imagine better. A lot of the time I would call this sort of thing a good playground, 'suitable for my needs' for sure ... a lot to try to resolve, to use the pieces present in a new way, to show this world what can happen to it, with the right touch. But I don't necessarily want to say names of work that does this for me, wwwwwwww.... it's a little out of pocket to be too direct about it I think.....

awe yeahhhh, we like to RP different ages and AUs for them.... I really like thinking about those inbetween stages, all squishy.... prone to flopping over ...

the swim form is fun to think about, like Harpoon and Ruki goofing off in swim form in the lobby, him swimming over her ???? grazing her entire body with his weight... I think a lot of frivolous things can happen under the guise of swim form, you don't think so hard about the human gestures or implications, throwing these things around... I see Harpoon as having no hesitation towards Ruki's tiny little swim body, willing to reach into her ink and grasp her in his hands, throw her, hold her down, feel her squiggle and struggle. I don't think Harpoon would ever like to be smaller than Ruki though LMAO, what a normal boy in this way. I like both in swim or only Ruki in swim...

I like drawings of couples cuddling with only one in swim form. I like the rare exploration of sex this way, too ... I've seen a very lovely comic, of a girl fingering her girlfriend in swimform. I like the size difference.... how intense it would be, to grab that tiny, squishy body, in one fist, and drive fingers in with the other hand. I could imagine Harpoon really liking to do that, though Ruki would likely be shy about it at first, or surprised he could have such an interest in her (she's self-conscious at the best of times). I think treating the whole body like a kind of fleshlight would be appealing... very dehumanizing in a way haha. easy to contort the entire shape over cock...

I also like agegaps in inkfish, very rare to see, but some day I would like to explore a couple with this centrally... it was actually loong ago my first interest in Splatoon world at all; when I wondered "what kind of inkfish would I like to see if I was here?", I liked the idea of someone with a distinct penchant for that stage. I think the look of what would be nice. I like that, hair feels so culturally important, as a very fashion-obsessed species, being into anything before or in the middle of formation of that, would be very strange! genuinely not SUPPOSED to be attracted to haha...

In general, I do love theorizing on their biology, we spend a lot of time discussing this, haha. Ruki herself is quite stunted, a premature girl, so she has some unusual traits for an Inkling her age (part of what makes her pretty unattractive to peers, by and large) ... from her size, to her larger ears (cutting a more baby-faced silhouette), a soft beak that didn't quite develop properly, and many dead photophores in her tentacles (product of Harpoon popping/hospitalizing her when she was still in early development), resulting in her patchy white colors (eventually, she'll probably be entirely white, due to his abuse) (overall, the white patching reads kind of 'unwell' or 'sickly' to others, not too disimilar to a person who is rashy or something, I guess .... when baring in mind that a lot of fish and squid lose their color when sick or dead, HAHA, so she has a kind of unpleasant appearance). I think all these things, Harpoon really likes ... because he fell in love with her when they were toddlers, really, even if he doesn't remember her, his hindbrain itches over the neotenous features she retains.

I want to some time go completely off book though and like, make my own stupid evolutionary chain for Inklings .... the canon one do nothing for me.... how and why they became this way, and then what culture influences (like how human cooking culture altered the evolution of our jaw muscles, soooo dummy weak compared to other apes now)... I really like the development chain though, no notes rly, would only love to spackle the in-between stages.

nah not at all. I had a grandma who was constantly pressuring me to be more feminine (and not crawl around on the floor and dig for bugs in the yard), who would try her damnest to force them on me, but I always stripped them naked and repurposed their clothes as beanie baby accessories ... (I didn't really 'get into' femininity as a concept or my own girlness until I was an adult, honestly).

I had a Pretty Pretty Princess gameset for the same reason, and I loved to put the clip-on earrings and bracelets, necklaces on my stuffed animals to make them beautiful :3 everything winds up on some sort of little beanie baby cat or something....

I only really got into humanoids for any kind of imaginative play, LARP or RP when I was in my teens. I had the opinion "I'm already a human, why would I want to pretend to be a human or play with humans? I deal with them every day..."
even so, when it did come into some interest, anime/manga captured me, and more narrowly lolisho. I didn't daydream about any kind of doll... fashion, budget, custom, or otherwise.

However as a fan of toy history in general now, there are a few doll channels I like to watch, and see people discuss their opinions on. But I still actually have no real opinion on things like Bratz VS Monster High or Rainbow High or LOL or American Girl ... (I like to watch BECAUSE it's so curiously alien to me, what is valuable or praised VS razed). Aesthetically, it's still a brand of femininity which does nothing for me, and the range between historical American Girl or urban fashion Bratz still doesn't encompass girls or styles I'm attracted to. I have never seen them evolve into something particularly interesting to me.

These days I do like looking at people's custom dolls, BDJ etc.... though I can't ever see myself being invested enough to pay $$$ the price. Like puppetry, I just like seeing something realized in physical materials and rotated.

I'm going to be honest with you, I have never been in your position and I'm not familiar with how people wind up in this position..... but I also don't really have an IRL friendgroup outside of my roommates (who are similar to me as artists).... I don't have normie friends because I don't have an interest in normies or acting like a normie or getting to know normies ... it must be a result of other things that I don't have going on in my life.... I'm not fit to give advice on it probably. I think whatever in life lead you into this predicament is just not one I have or could ever wind up in .... maybe don't talk about normie things with normies ???????????? is that how it works? Why would normies be talking to you ? Why would you talk back ? is it a coworkers thing or peers in education ?? professional ?? I'm trying not to be mean or presumptuous!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sorry I don't know how this works

The 1 thing I will say is that saving and paying (or splitting) for my 1 horny friend to come visit me personally was 1,000,000 times more valuable than knowing 5 people who were in my vicinity.... like what, in HS? and they were honestly also not 'normies', or at least my behavior (????) fosters people discussing porno with me, so we would browse /d/ together on my friend's Wii ... I was discussing shota doujins with my IRL friend group even in MS/HS TT_TT ?? when would normies have gotten into my fold I don't know .... I don't engage normieness except to a cashier or doctor.... I don't do that in my free time ....

I also think conventions are a good place to meet people IRL and test the waters with less safety risk than inviting people straight to your house. While I met Bird online, I met him IRL on my way to a convention, and we hung out at that con together, for our first IRL experience. Then we knew the chemistry was good, so we shifted to direct visits. Even if I could only afford once every 4 months or something, it was much more valuable than anything else I could have been doing....

I'd just uhmmmmm foster a strong presence online that is earnest and reach out to people like you and ghost everyone who won't understand

Interesting to do a view on both!!

from a viewer perspective, external from the Asriel mind: POINTS AND LAUGHS AT HIM!!! he's such a stupid animal, isn't he.. I love that Asriel's imitation of Chara is only skin deep, it is a roleplay, it is a silly performance, it is only something he THINKS he can be... he does not truly share Chara's philosophy, or emotional spectrum. He's Asriel, to the core... he's a coward, he's needy, pathetic, he is unable to follow through on anything, he can't commit, he can't keep a promise, and he does not think things through (again he is stupid). He's attempting edgelordism as a spectator and fetishist of it ... his chaserism... the object of all of his affection, his obsession, he is trying to Become it, but in truth, he is a fearful little thing. I adore how ill-prepared he is. He really goads and goads and goaaaaaads Chara, and you can definitely feel that desperate ramping up of anticipation, adoration, submission, shrinking to something more and more simple, childish ... as Chara is Chara, he becomes more Asriel, he becomes a sycophantic pet... returning to simply wishing to be with Chara. You can really tell that the extremes of things, are just a facade... oh he's like a sub begging their dom to go harder, and then screaming and crying when the flogger comes out. It's a kind of charm point of his ... Chara is, utterly familiar with him, aren't they? Oh Asriel ... you can't finish anything ... in his heart, he wants simple, sweet, soft things. But there are things that cannot be in this world ... Undertale is a game with no 'good ending' (if you care about Chasriel). But, I think the no mercy route, is much more satisfying, for them. I like that Asriel gets some catharsis in some sense, able to describe his experiences to, his beloved ... how he's changed ... he wants to, be, impressive, interesting, captivating, to Chara, like Chara is to him ... I don't think he thinks being Asriel is captivating at all HaHa ... well, he looks like a little boiled egg, doesn't he ...

from the Asriel perspective: this is so humiliating ... searing, awful, painful, endless disappointment, you can live so many lifetimes and make the same stupid mistakes of your personality over and over and over. Can't be what I want to be, can't become anything like Chara, can't touch what Chara is, will always lose faith and grip, will always fail Chara!!!!! Will always walk us step by step by step, according to Chara's lead, Chara's example, desperate for approval, and will always be the one who trips, who can't manage aaaanythiiiiingggggg!!!!! USELESS meaningless, die die die die die die die .... should be grateful to be killed by Chara, BUT can't be, feel scared, why so graceless, why so disloyal, why so unable to do anything impressive ever!!!!!!! THIS IS WHY EVERYTHING WILL ALWAYS BE BAD FOREVER!!!!!!! MY OWN LOVE IS SO IMPOTENT!!!! It can't alter anything, Chara's can alter everything (amazing) (terrifying) ... it's difficult to reflect on the sheer unbearable amount of failing, I don't want to accept it but with so much repetition, it can't be changed, it can't be fixed ... the most merciful thing to do is kill me, so I won't perpetuate dumbassery into infinity ... useless, useless, useless.

The asriel mindset, it's so terribly displeasurable ahahaha, so awful when he's at the wheel, he's so unhelpful in every single way, he truly shoots himself in the foot ... there's so little positive effect ...

SEE YOU IN THE NEXT HELL!!!

I do, a leetle!! I'm happy anyone is becoming intrigued by it ... all my hard ... work ... practicing fully colored things....
https://retrospring.net/@weepingbo2lbrush/a/112770714329392397 <- I answered about some color composition thoughts here...

I think the sticking point of it is starting from even 1 axis, and moving everything else from there. I wouldn't say any of it is intuitive, it is entirely practice and throwing color at the canvas!!! It is through a lot of years of playing that anything emerges ... as one builds trust with own decisions and jumps from those sculpted ledges.... But I think fun happens instantly.... coloring is fun

The thought process... I always suggest looking at a lot of photography, and even the lighting around you on a regular basis, and saving photos that really stick out to you. Sometimes an individual photo will make me go, "WHOA" and think about color in a wholly new way.

I like to stare at Bird and I's skintones in different lighting, and how the discrepancy between them grows and shrinks. The contrast is always shifting, the barrier between us stark or barely perceptible. Internalizing ... how imaginary color is, such an ill-defined thing, might help feel more freedom in playing with it more wildly.

I would say for one piece of small saltiness and antiadvice I guess, I don't think those pre-made 'color palate' websites help at all-- I used to play with them as a young adult, and I don't feel it actually did anything for MY conceptualization of color, I wasn't learning anything, it wasn't an exercise, it was just a sort of game at best (nothing wrong with that). I think really forcing YOURSELF to CHOOSE colors is what will get you farther... its that self-confidence with decisions thing again... trusting that it will be good to substitute white for light green in the lighting.

and, thank you ><;;; I love art... I love the concept of art...

Ouuughhh I can't really begin to comb the hundreds of chapters to give you an exact number, but it was during the "10 Years Later" arc, which was vol16 in the ~130 range....
It was a scene where Yamamoto essentially scolds Gokudera, that being loyal to/loving Tsuna exclusively, only puts the pressure on Tsuna & makes him essentially a burden. Chastises him for his exclusivity & obsessiveness.... so cartoonishly anti-Avvy sentiments. How dare you .....

It's such an out of pocket thing for Yamamoto of all people to say-- barring that it's 10 years later-- like, just a normal happy popular goodlooking boy Yama, to Gokudera, a bastard child born into the mafia, who is attached to Tsuna for saving his life ... it's such a meanass thing to say to someone who almost kills himself out of a sense of uselessness in previous arcs, like he doesn't need that, not how I'd get through to him... in a previous arc Tsuna has to basically talk him down from suicide by the temptation of getting to see fireworks together .... a better way to deal with Gokudera's issues ... give him a sense of value.... not .... call him a burden..... what kind of cruel sting... actually you're hurting the person you love most by loving them ...... what lizard wrote this .... ALSO,, IT'S THE.. STUPID MAFIA, THAT IS YOUR BOSS, IF HE'S THE RIGHT-HAND MAN THEN. YES HE SHOULD BE EXCLUSIVELY AND DOGGEDLY LOYAL TO Him,, i would say that is the entire godforsaken point... perhaps even a huge boon ... and as a kid raised around that stuff, those priorities make sense dude ... the talking cheese delivering a takedown out here... I've been mad about it for almost 20 years .... also just from a standpoint of what makes any character recognizable or amusing in a threadbare shounen with 200 characters and a new band of 7 every few months, what the fuck is Gokudera without the single-minded obsessive puppy behavior... why did we open this arc with him crying at Tsuna's grave ... of all things why would we even try to correct his way of being, and why would it be Yamamoto doing it, so inconsequentially in the middle of a very boring stupid fight with a nobody ... worse yet big win for the YamaGokus, my sworn nemesis... the fire burns in my soul to this day... the worlds most repugnant NOTP... in the days when that word meant something...

But like, Gokudera was always gonna be a joke n fodder, he's like just shitty & emotionally volatile, that's his archetype ... delinquent meme... Yamamoto would always be the author's idea of a good and honest boy... this kind of thing is er, exactly what JSHK is kind of healing me with, since it puts its stock shounen boy (Kou) thru the ringer... and is trying to teach him how to be insane...

Anyhoo. I liked the early shenanigans , the daily life arc stuff at the beginning, as a teen, but it's on the whole just a very worthless fodder schlock slop shounen, without much purpose or direction, you were right to not pick it up, and I can't even say Tsuna is likeable to me ffklgklfklhjk... but there will always be a cell in my brain going JUUUUUUDAIME!!!! JUUDAIME!!!! JUUDAIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! . I think I was just a Gokudera kinnie before I knew that concept existed. out of my hands. and when I see him its like a very embarrassing middleschool photo of me. there can be no peace or serenity ... RIP ...

hmmm the mileage and expectations vary depending on the creator of the media, how much control any one voice has over it, production woes, and how much I went in knowing I have varying beliefs or like, fundamental differences with the creative voice. Or how much I went in knowing it was going to be a product first.

Let's look at FMA-- I knoooow I fundamentally don't agree with Arakawa on like a lot of philosophical things, so when things in it fall flat in the end, it has no real effect on me... in this situation I don't feel a need to distance from the thing or characters... I already know I am going in with my tinker tools in hand. At the same time its not like I'm kin with anything from there... the level of investment kinda matches the media. The disappointment is already managed. I don't need to pack my things and go home.

For something like ... OK KO, I went into it knowing I had that kind of a discrepancy, so I had a liiittle bit of "meh" armor, but.... in the end I felt Dumb for letting myself give it an inch. In this sort of instance I'm mostly mad at myself for not listening to my instincts when this happens-- like sometimes you walk into a room like, 'well I can manage expectations', but as I go through life I'm like 'you know what... I'm not going to walk into rooms like this anymore' fdlghfk... I had this experience with typical Shounens a few times, too. I'd say completely distancing myself from characters in that instance is like, "fuck me for ever being here" more than "fuck this piece of media" ig. Like it's my job to not eat food I am allergic to. What I think is 'right' is literally not the MO of the media. I'll never be 'right' and it will never be 'right'... you know.

Osomatsu-san is totally also a worst case scenario, a "I should not have walked into this room" DESPITE THAT IT DID GIVE ME MY BEAUTIFUL BIRD, for the mostpart it really didn't deserve my time or attention, or the sincerity with which I expressed things upon it ... I was too good for tit. it was always going to be a moneymaking franchise with no soul, the literal pilot made fun of people like me, it was never going to remotely take any of its own development even 2% serious and would just have fun yanking around its surprising fujo fanbase for money. Like the ship crumbs were always going to be meaningless and arbitrary in this kind of environment, thrown out condescendingly or resentfully. Inevitably the extent of this carelessness became clear (it should ought have always been). I'm actually wrong and stupid to feel anything is 'right' or 'disappointing' like, I'm wanting a McDonalds apple pie to provide me the nutrients of a home cooked chicken. I'm delusionally turning it into a succulent chicken...

For something like Adventure Time, I can and will always love the early seasons, and I don't feel newer editions retconning or screwing up things I love has to effect the original appreciation & eternal fondness, because at the end of the day, the entire team has now changed; so it's logical the voice of the series has changed into one I don't vibe. I WOULDN'T have walked into a Fionna & Cake or Distant Lands... and I didn't. I walked into Pendleton's funny little cartoon. This is another aspect of a 'franchise' I guess, or just anything that changes hands (like Little Nightmares!).... the integrity of the original thing I liked is preserved within my heart, so I can't be disappointed by new material in a way that makes me feel stupid for my investment or ashamed to have been there. I know why I was there & I still am.

I GUESS RICK & MORTY IS AN EXAMPLE??? I was actually writing fic for the earliest stuff, and I just kinda watched it get annoying to me and tedious in real-time. In that case distancing myself was like "uhhh nevermind, maybe I don't have much in common with these voices". But I went into it with no real background knowledge of the voices making it, so that's fine... I don't have such attachment. I don't have any reason to have fondness or go back though, or even mention it typically... such an arbitrary thing.

Maybe a more incensed case was Gravity Falls...? But I think I was just dumber back then & didn't have such a grasp as I do now on, who is making what and how or why that is important. I kind of don't give myself to Disney products anymore on the whole... what I wanted out of GF, it just wasn't ever going to be, which was a slow sorry disappointment as it aired, until it finally perpetuated lessons about uhhh gender essentialism or whatever that I found like, abhorrent enough to finally throw it in the garbage. Bird and I both still have some odd attachment to what the Pines twins Were to us at one younger, innocent point in time ... but I think I have more armor against getting that kind of attachment now. Rick & Morty and Gravity Falls actually have such a commonality of "ouhhhgh goddd the people writing this find things So Super Cool which I find BORING AND BASIC!!!!!!!" im gonna be subjected to some blockbuster action movie Badass moment with an old man or something.... GET ME OUTTA HEEEEERE!!!! Both GF & R&M are like, "well I couldn't have known"... I didn't go in knowing who Hirsch was, you know. Now-a-days I'd like, be able to read his twitter and go , no thank you LOL.

So I guess "what makes you distance yourself from characters" is typically a kind of self-awareness of the greater voice of the media being Bad For Me, allergy. It's often more like... "oh, this was made soullessly actually" or "oh, this was made with hate" or "oh, this is a money machine" or "ahhhh the creator is annoying". Often the situation of "its not right" is, as I said... my stupid ass was here for the wrong reason, with the wrong expectation. And the concept of the thing I liked simply doesn't actually exist anywhere but my own head ... a delusion... which means I should leave. It is acting according to its nature and it is I who did not properly read its body language. Or EVEN who ignored it.

I do love Ponyo (: I watched it in theaters when it first came out...! I remember it getting a lot of flack when it came out, for being a simple childish romantic story, and not understanding the problem with this.... not sure why it can't exist; but well, Mizugumo Monmon is a biiig favorite of mine, I admire artfully conveying something so simply sweet.
It's definitely one of my favorite Ghibli films, I probably rewatch it the most often... there was a point in time I used to rewatch it over and over to calm down. If I'm idle and it's in front of me, I'll be like "oh... sure" and then wind up watching it all the way through, even if I intended to just have it on in the BG....

I loooove the BG design, the scratchy colored pencils, very inspiring....! It's a total feast with sealife, really really glad any Ghibli movie would represent the ocean so centrally, and it goes all-out. I love stories with kids this young... Sousuke is such a good and charming boy. Like the dynamic with mom too, she's a welcome presence. I simply love it (: a perfect movie... no notes