Angyo

I'd say leaning on a friend for relief from dangerous reality is quite real, & compared to the alternative a very stark improvement. You can't just wave everything away, it can take a long time to be disentangled. But you can build a foundation for a better future

(also sorry if it sounds like I'm calling your friend a meathead, I mean moreso the shock vultures)

It feels like the "structural criticisms" are just not reading deeper. I think a crit that could be made is that the storytelling is too subtext heavy for the audience of meatheads it's found, but if we can't make art for more than the lowest common denominator art'll suck balls lol, fuck the lcd

It's gendered bc this is a story set under patriarchy that is about girls instead of boys. They could've stated outright that shizuka didn't inherit manipulation for the audience that hates women, yet it's still clear she ain't even trying to manipulate naoki until he teaches her how easy it is

pretty clear implication of her own struggle. There's def subtext I missed bc I'm not familiar w/ the japanese welfare or child support systems, but she's neglecting shizuka bc she's always at work & she's visibly not doing well for it. Yet her dad can afford a tokyo apt while she & her mom starve

health struggles w/o any recourse, mad at her for not fitting his expectation of a wife. Expectations then passed to marina as her mom fears her turning out the same is very visible subtext. I do think they could've more directly clarified abt shizuka's mom not being evil bc SW, but there's still

spent a bunch of time fleshing the parents out as characters to look the audience in the face & say out loud "patriarchy caused this", it's very clearly saying that in the subtext & this ain't abt the parents. Marina's dad isolating & abusing her mom, worsening her clearly longstanding mental-

It's not that simple, esp not for a kid. What you can do is talk, & maybe you'll find a shoulder to cry on & smth to look forward to. The anime isn't giving you a solution to domestic violence bc it's not that simple & acting like it was would be insulting. Also while they technically could've

before time turned back, takopi being a friend to shizuka on the run did more good for her than any of its gadgets. They aren't in situations with easy solutions & saying there's one would've blown it all up. You can't just stop being poor or disentangle from an emotionally incestuous mother

Their material conditions haven't changed tho, Marina still has her scar. They've just been able to confide in e/ o/ rather than be isolated so they're emotionally better. And it's not that takopi didn't intervene, it's that it stopped rushing in w/ gadgets & facilitated discussion instead. Even

There's more but I ain't writing a full essay on bsky lol. I'll do that on a better fitting platform one of these days. Takopis's def not perfect but it's very tightly written. I'm certain there's good crit by ppl better at it than I, but I haven't found those folks. They're prob all on JP, ah well

The ending is also pretty clear cut. It's the moral of the story, written out for you: Talking brings happiness. It's a simplification, but the entire show is showing the nuance before restating it, like an essay. It can't solve everything, but it helps & for helpers it's imperative to listen too

To say that it's pathologizing these kids is false. They're not crazy and they're never stated to be, they're desperate. They understand reality as well as any child does & their decisions make logical sense from their pov. They're not stuck bc they're crazy, they're stuck bc they see no way out

I understand if it doesn't resonate with you, but what is missed in this article is egregious. While the shock fandomizing is similar to DDLC, they're not very comparable as stories. Not plot, themes, or writing quality. And it's funny there's so many comparisons but Doraemon hasn't been said 1 time

NEW MANGA ANNOUNCEMENT: Shino & Ren

The tomboy and the quiet girl. They don't seem to have much in common at first glance—but Shino and Ren are absolutely head over heels in love with each other! Between Ren’s aggressive flirting and Shino’s adorable personality, sparks are sure to fly!

This whole review is awful lol but for a start, takopi does not pathologize these kids. In fact if you put yourself in their shoes, think abt the info they have & the pov of a 9 year old, they're acting logically. eg Shizuka can't live w/o chappy so ofc she's going thru every possibility b4 that

wdym they're gonna drop a half hour program where Ricochi talks about her out of body experiences as Doloris and nonsense like "I sing KiLLKiSS like there's blood spraying everywhere"

prez attempts to suck thorn off. thorn is talking (and thinking) about shogo again. thorn: didn't he look unhappy? he looked so... fucking unhappy to see, me... thorn: how is he with you, lucid? is he miserable? as he, ah, should be... thorn: ah-- lucid, stop, your teeth--

mind palace #nsfw

Proving my Revue Starlight love

i’m too lazy to use this but i feel like i’m cooking here

Every time haruyo expresses affection for her she looks like she's in pain for a second before giving in

ハロウィンAver苺

Rereading dear flowers, and noticing more than my first read just how many problems kasumi has with emotional regulation. It's subtle if you aren't thinking about it, but poor girl is struggling a lot. Smth definitely happened w/ that friend that died

But alas, takasora's mom doesn't even mother her own daughter & has no interest in supporting her gf's daughter even tho she's in a perfect position to do so. She only wants umi's mom lol

Saving umi from shiho would be hard, but financial support and actual unconditional love could've done it or at least kept her from isolating herself completely. Takasora just had the same wants as shiho but while poor lol. Takasora's mom could've helped umi if she tried to be a good mom to her tho

Of course I'm not saying that she's evil or a full on incel during the events of the story. But she has the kind of selfishness that is VERY easy to imagine becoming what she became without a good role model (and she had a very bad role model)

She's not against shiho's relationship with umi because pedophilia is wrong. If she was, she'd have been trying to get umi away from her even if it meant umi would hate her. She hates shiho because she's jealous

She thinks a lot in that kind of resentful "what does SHE have that I DON'T! I deserve pussy!" way that leads into incel ideology. I remember catching it a lot too, like "hm that's not a great way to think about your crush takasora"

Takasora thinks like an incel and that's why it's not surprising she changed how she did lol

prez is undressing, thorn is recording. prez: thorn.... you're going to use this to blackmail me, aren't you? prez: if i misbehave, it'll all be going up on gossiper, along with every other detail about me... (some increasingly unhinged mumbling appears in the background, but it's hard to read, behind other speech panels.) prez: so i'll have no choice but to follow whatever commands you put me to if i don't want my entire life ruined beyond repair... how terrible! (h-haha...) thorn: ...it's exactly as you think.* *was just going to jerk off to this later but would rather die than let prez know that

mind games #nsfw