#kittycity

SO much to talk about okso firstly, apart from the visual mastery of the show and how fucking gorgeous everything about it is (like seriously the cinematography and artistic direction are hands down phenomenal it felt like every frame took my breath away god i love ART and ANIMATION!!!!!), i think it resonates a lot with me on a narrative level because at the end of the day, i am someone who holds a lot of guilt and shame and insecurity . for the sake of this discussion let’s ignore whether or not these feelings are warranted or rational because i would hope they Aren’t and i’m not actually an irreparably damaged human being, but i can’t help it like i genuinely do have this bone-deep belief that i am not a good person. im not saying this to farm pity either lmao i am being so objective when i say that i have a lot of self-loathing and generally feel very . isolated and fundamentally flawed for some unknown reason ..? maybe it's the religious trauma idk i just go here . anyway all that to say that i find a lot of beauty in shows and characters that mirror that degree of self-hatred and inability to see oneself as Good or Worthy, not because i find it empowering or inspiring or like i want to see them succeed, but because it makes me feel seen in my own sorrows . i don’t need them fixed i want them down here with me 

i’ve actually brought this up in conversations w friends lmao but i’ve noticed especially in this past year (which has been a Very emotionally taxing year, more on that in a bit), that a lot of my comfort content tends to have very explicit themes of resistance to change and the fleetingness of youth and connections (read: night in the woods, free!, now tshd) . as someone who copes very poorly with change and the loss of the familiar with the passage of time, content like this rly moves me bc again!! it’s cathartic to Also see characters struggle with these same issues  !! love seeing my guys Also feel alone and lost and like everyone is leaving you and everything is changing or has changed already and you can’t catch up :’> oh to be seen by a piece of media <3

building on my previous point, this year has been very hard for me for. many reasons lmao and tbh it's got me thinking more about the turn my art has taken since my cat passed back in late january .  there’s no way to know for sure whether my art would have always moved in this direction Regardless because i was already getting back into free! before daisy died lmao but it is interesting to consider,, like i’d taken somewhat of a step back from jjk and immersed myself in old comfort content with the aforementioned themes and significance to my life, so i think in a way it makes sense that tshd was the logical next step from free! iwatobi swim club in my journey to cope with the loss of my childhood cat in this essay i will