bdsprite

[bdsprite]

WOOOoo!!!

AH BUT TODAY IS UROBUTCHER’S BIRTHDAY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

[bdsprite]

[bdsprite]

spending 300 hours developing characters that arent even main characters

liking them more than your main characters

[bdsprite]

If anyone is having a bad day, just spend 15 minutes and enjoy this guy’s wisdom after losing his wisdom teeth.

I guarantee you’ll be smiling by the end of it.

[bdsprite]

As much as I love Kariya, and still probably back him more than any of the other masters in the 4th war, I agree with you. I mean, at first, I REALLY liked him because he felt like the Shirou stand-in for /Zero (hot-headed, self destructive underdog with a single-mindedness that makes him kind of a moron.), and as a Shirou fanboy, I latched onto him immediately. But even my fanboyism isn't so blind to miss all of the nasty subtext that starts showing up almost immediately after we see more than one scene with Kariya. Sure at first he seems like an altruistic underdog type character, but it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that while he certainly does care about Sakura, it's less about saving her and more about winning over Aoi and sticking it to Tokiomi/magi in general.

And I think that's why I was so accepting of his tragic ending despite rooting for him the whole way, because he really brought it on himself. His goal was righteous, but his motives weren't anywhere near as heroic. And his latent selfishness behind that supposedly altruistic goal, is eventually what lead him to darkness, and ultimately his demise. If he was ACTUALLY only in it to save Sakura, he wouldn't have let his hate for Tokiomi get the better of him, which might have allowed him to behave rationally during their confrontation, and he might have ACTUALLY talked some sense into him. And even if he failed, he wouldn't have gone to the church seeking vengeance and wouldn't have wound up getting framed for Tokiomi's murder. And even if he DID, he wouldn't have flipped and strangled Aoi because the whole unrequited obsession wouldn't have hit boiling point. Who knows, if he had kept his shit together and focused on the thing he actually pledged to fight for, he might have even won and got what he wanted, if he played his cards right.And, those are my thoughts on Kariya, despite still being firmly in the Matou boat for the 4th War. He's a delusional, envious man whose selfish motives drive him to do 'selfless' deeds. I don't see him as a good guy or a bad guy really. Just a moron at the end of his rope taking his anger out on everything under the pretense of saving a little girl. A fitting personality for a Master of Berserker, I suppose.

And on Tokiomi, I don't think he's evil either. He's just...'misguided'. From his perspective, he's an excellent Magus and a caring father, willing to put his daughters' welfare and the Tohsaka family name above his own happiness. And indeed, as far as the Magi world is concerned, he IS the ideal magus. The problem doesn't sit with Tokiomi, it sits with the sociopathic 'Magi way' that he was raised to follow like a goddamn religion. Like you said, I think Tokiomi is so set in his ways that even IF Kariya was able to act rationally during their meeting, I don't think he would have been able to convince him. Tokiomi would have probably just convinced himself that what he was doing was still in the best interest of the family. He's not a bad guy, he's just a stubborn idiot with a backwards way of thinking.

Come to think of it, I think pretty much all of the Masters in the 4th War are deluded idiots. Except Waver... Oh, and Ryuunosuke. He's just batshit insane and having a blast.

Sometimes I don’t understand why folks sympathize with Kariya…

"He’s unselfish"

"He is the only one with a pure motive"

"He is actually the only one being heroic"

…

So, those who interpret him as a sympathetic hero, please, please don’t take offense to this. I am really not yelling at you. Honestly. I just have a hard time believing that interpretation. In fact, I’m going to have to disagree with it.

Kariya wants to usurp Tohsaka and steal his family. He is in love with another man’s wife. And he has a weird relationship with another man’s daughters. He wants Tohsaka’s life. Sure, he is originally portrayed as sympathetic. But hasn’t it crossed anyone else’s mind that he entered the Grail War not only to save Sakura, but also to kill Tohsaka?! 

Read More

[bdsprite]

reblogging for Shirou's face.

4m

[bdsprite]

[bdsprite]

and then romeo-kun and juliet-chan inevitably committed the seppuku

[bdsprite]

what do you mean you’re not supposed to choose your favorites after less than a minute of screen time and like two lines

[bdsprite]

[bdsprite]

liking 2,197 facebook pages in 2008 is my biggest regret

[bdsprite]

link0306 reblogged your photo: link0306: From the manga adaptation of the first...

This is from the first Drama CD (or should I say the manga adaptation of that), which takes place from Kurisu’s...

I was just about to do that actually. Thank you for showing me that this was a thing.^ ^

[bdsprite]

I was never too fond of Nakabachi as a character. Felt far too two-dimensional and shoehorned in. Mostly because he's barely present at all in the story and we're given no time to develop thoughts for the character. Even though it breaks from the mold of having the whole thing take place in 2010, I really wish some scene pointing this out was included in the original story. It would have added so much more meaning and depth to Nakabachi's character.

From the manga adaptation of the first Steins;Gate Drama CD, and a reminder that Kurisu’s dad used to be similar to Okabe.

[bdsprite]

No problem dude.^^

We clearly come from different backgrounds and are bound to have differing opinions here and there, and I enjoy a good discussion, regardless of whether it's something I agree or disagree with.

And like I said, I definitely agree that characters without flaws or issues to overcome are just as bad as plots without complications. Flat, and in most cases just plain won't work at all. I was actually going to bring Superman up myself as from what I've read there are some excellent arcs that have some really good moral dilemmas for him to deal with, rather than having to deal with Lex Luthor's brand new kryptonite oriented death machine of the week. The only reason I didn't was because my knowledge of comics is rather spotty, and I didn't want to come off as some ignorant guy ranting about stuff he doesn't understand.

Anyway, good talking to you, man.^^

I feel like this has been a long time in the making since I get asked this so frequently both outside and inside of Tumblr.

Why don’t I like the classic “nice guy/good guy/white knight” character? SnK references ahead because Marco and Jean the prime examples of what I dislike and like in characters.

Read More

[bdsprite]

Brief Disclaimer: I wound up ranting and going off the rails quite a bit here, as I do. Whoops. So yeah, this is pretty long winded. Also it's 3:30 in the morning so I'm tired. So things may have been misinterpreted, misspelled, poorly conveyed and so on. Also, I'm going to sleep like, right now so I won't be able to reply for a long while.

---

Interesting perspective actually. Allow me to respectfully rebut. And I do mean respectfully. Let me be clear, you seem to be a pretty damn cool guy from what I've observed and I'm not knocking you here at all. But I'm pretty much completely opposed to your point of view on this subject, save for a few of your points.

Firstly, let me just say that from what I've seen, society as a whole has come to find generic, nice-guy/white knight characters dull, uninteresting and boring. And in fact, in my opinion, it's the cold-blooded, the flawed, the angsty, and the antiheroic characters that are the tired archetype that everyone flocks to these days. And for that exact same reason I find them rather dull. I can't relate to them as well, and I'm getting tired of seeing them everywhere. I mean, obviously as far as flaws are concerned I can relate, all humans have flaws. But, I don't know, I just identify better with characters with a well defined sense of honour, humanity, justice, moral code etc. Whatever. Just a well developed superego, I guess.

But then again, in that regard I suppose I'm rather atypical myself. I won't go into personal details as I could go on for ages if I get myself started. But, long story short, I was born and raised a cold and bitter cynic. By the age of 8 I already thought the idea of marriage, funerals, religion and such were all pointless and ridiculous. EIGHT. I was a no-nonsense kinda kid.^^

Then only recently, in the past two years or so, after various, complex perspective-altering events, I started to find value in all the cheesy, happy goodness in the world. I'm still only really agnostic, as far as religion is concerned, but outside of that, I'm basically all about all the things I used to call stupid and pointless. To put it bluntly I guess a cold-blooded cynic matured as a virtue-obsessed idealist. By some weird-ass miracle.

And yes, I'm actually one of the few people obsessed with being nice purely for the sake of being nice. I actually did my Year 12 research paper on Altruism. Through rigorous introspection, I've come to learn that I simply want to be selfless and kind because I've come to enjoy both the praise and the warm fuzzies I get from doing so. As well as the spiteful satisfaction I get from rubbing it in the faces of cynics. To the point of warranting doing things purely for the sake of said fuzzies. I desire no compensation really. Having been a very hedonistic person all my life, I'm not ashamed to admit my motives are this shallow. And by the same token, I wholly accept this side to me as an integral part of my personality. Basically: I am nice because I've learned that being nice feels nice, and since being nice is nice, why question it? That sentence makes sense, I swear.

I think the thing that allows me to be so unabashedly confident and frank about my cheesy white-knightness is unlike most people, who began as naive and eventually grew out of their innocence; I never really got the chance to be innocent, having very pragmatic, cynical parents who drilled cold hard reality into my poor infantile brain from the very beginning. And right around the time most of my peers started to get really weary and cynical, I was just beginning to find my uh 'innocence', so to speak. So I don't see it as a foolish naivete, but rather an enlightened perspective from someone who's seen both sides of the fence. I mean, that sounds quite arrogant, but it's no different from how most cynics my age sound. They're equally sure in their practical, realistic attitude because they spent the majority of their life being idealistic and they found it inadequate. I'm the opposite. Equally hypocritical perhaps, but that's my perspective, regardless. I've experienced the pros and cons of both a cynical mindset and an idealistic mindset, and right now I consider the idealistic mindset to be more rewarding as a whole.

ANYWAY. Tangents, fuck. because of this, I actually actively LOOK for selfless, white-knight protagonists because I find them more compelling and relateable than the typical modern antihero. That's actually how I got into Fate/Stay Night (I'm going to use lots of Fate/examples because that's our most well established common ground) and the Nasuverse . Through reading about Shirou, of all people. Without knowing ANYTHING about Fate or the Nasuverse, I happened upon a small character summary of Shirou, and thought "Hey, this kid and I seem to think along the same lines!" and then I checked out the Visual Novel out of curiosity. And to this day I identify with that kid more than any other protagonist I've ever encountered. Which is really awkward because for most he's a very vanilla, stereotypical character, and I can definitely see where they're coming from, don't get me wrong, but still, it's eerie how much I identify with him nonetheless. And explaining that to people either ends in complete failure or such a long winded spiel that even I'm lost by the end of it.

And that's why I didn't enjoy Fate/Zero as much as /Stay Night. Like you, it's not that I dislike antiheroes, and in fact, I could definitely see the extreme idealism lying behind Kiritsugu's actions, so I don't even really see him as a fullblown cynic. Cold, ruthless and pragmatic perhaps, but in the end he's just as idealistic as Shirou. He just...expresses it differently.^^

But it's just, the whole time throughout Fate/Zero, I just reaaally missed having that white-knight character to cling onto. I mean, you had shades of it between Kiri, Saber, Iri and even Kariya. But well. Then the plot happened and stuff. And from what I've heard, this is the same thing people say when asked why they prefer /Zero over /Stay Night. People miss that brooding, pragmatic, cunning protagonist they had in Kiri, which was switched out for a very bullheaded, illogical kid like Shirou.

Now, onto the point I actually fully agree with. Characters need flaws to be compelling. That's like a pivotal part of characters in general. It's like having a story with no complication. It's just flat and stupid. And yes, a super lightside, mary-sue type character who makes it through the whole story thanks to the power of light and friendship or whatever, is stupid and dull. I fully agree. But, honestly, outside of kid's shows I really can't think of a protagonist who was genuinely this shallow. I mean, I'm not all that well-versed, culturally speaking, but still, none really come to mind. I mean, Shirou obviously has his flaws, and like many point out turns out to be just as much of an antihero as his dad, in his own twisted way. But I can't really count him, as he was written to deconstruct the whole ideal hero thing. But yeah, even characters like Luffy from One Piece. Now that's one of the big three Shounens. FLOODED with stereotypes, cheesiness and such. But even Luffy is shown to actually have a pretty nasty side to him here and there across the series. His overly aloof and naive attitude leads to all kinds of seriously bad trouble that, if he didn't star in a Shounen, would have probably resulted in the deaths of dozens of thousands of people. Yay. Our hero, right?^^

The part I don't agree with here, is that strengths can't be entertaining or interesting. When applied correctly, having a character triumph with their strengths at the right moment is excellent, finally proving the villain wrong, outlining the underlying message of the narrative etc. A story purely built on flaws can only end in tragedy. Although, this is actually super entertaining in it's own right. God I do love me some schadenfreude.

But anyway. I digress. I digress A LOT. In short, my point is, I see where you're coming from, but I completely disagree, on a personal level. Where you value antiheroes, flaws and such, I value idealistic white knights, and strengths rather than weaknesses. But that being said, I seem to be kind of an odd-duck as far as personality is concerned in this day and age, so it probably doesn't count for much. The only thing you said that I believe to be objectively wrong is that most people flock to the nice guys and the white knights. On the contrary, I think that modern society as a whole is rather grim and angst-ridden in its mindset, and most people these days prefer the cool, broody antihero with a tragic edge. And any character with a white knight, idealistic nature to them would be completely shat on by most people, if they didn't have some kind of darkness or angst looming over them to appeal to the masses.

I'd also like to point out that I don't really dislike any character/mood/message. I think they all have their merits. It's just, it seems that unlike you, I lean more towards the idealistic side than the dark and cynical. And, finally, I just want to reiterate that I think you're a pretty cool guy and this in no way knocking your perspective, I'm simply expressing my own. Different strokes for different folks. (god I hate that expression)

Geez, to think I could have just used those last two paragraphs and saved myself all that time and effort. Oh well. Too late now.^^

Oh, and that last statement of yours couldn't be truer. Seriously. Being kind to people is the same as being cruel to them. You'd be surprised at how effective a weapon an overly good nature can be. Whether it's throwing off assholes by greeting their comments with undying cheerfulness, eventually filling them with shame and regret over tormenting such an 'innocent' soul, creeping people out with that smile that never seems to go away, softening them up with light fluffy kindness only to suddenly expose them to cold hard reality, or manipulation via guilt trips and lulling people into a false sense of security. You really can kill people with kindness. ^^

I feel like this has been a long time in the making since I get asked this so frequently both outside and inside of Tumblr.

Why don’t I like the classic “nice guy/good guy/white knight” character? SnK references ahead because Marco and Jean the prime examples of what I dislike and like in characters.

Read More

[bdsprite]

Holy crap guys. I just realized that in Heaven's Feel, Shirou's last words to Kirei are pretty much identical to what Kirei says he's going to do to Shirou's dad, Kiritsugu, in Fate/Zero. I wonder if this was intentional? Most likely.

Well, having actually gotten the screenshots, they're actually kind of different. But, if you understand the context they're the same. Kirei decides in /Zero that his role is to crush the Holy Grail, and in turn, crush Kiritsugu's dream. And then he actually comes into contact with Grail and realizes it's the only thing in the world he actually wants for himself. Having discovered his true calling as the villain, the man who spreads destruction and suffering. And the Grail being the ultimate tool to fulfill that wish. Then at the end of Heaven's Feel, just like in /Zero, it ends with Kirei and an Emiya, fighting to the death as the Holy Grail begins to overflow right next to them. The difference is here, the roles are switched. It's Kirei's wish to obtain the grail, and Shirou who ultimately decides he's going to mercilessly destroy it, having discovered his true calling as the hero, the man who beats the bad guy, and saves the world from destruction. And the Grail being the weapon of mass destruction that needs to be thwarted.

I love all the parallels and juxtapositions you can make in the Fate/series. Especially the warped dynamic between Shirou and Kirei. They're so great.^^

[bdsprite]

Also Hi Again

Yeah, I'm actually posting stuff all of a sudden.

That's something I should address, I suppose. Since I've actually managed to gain some followers somehow. By the way, hi all you people! You're all fantastic! ^ ^

So. I'm not dead or anything. I actually have Tumblr open on my computer 24/7. And I check it like, all the time. I started this blog as a means to channel all my rants on geeky stuff. Anime, Visual Novels, Video Games, TV Shows (Expect some Breaking Bad spam when I get my hands on the second half of the fifth season.) Whatever I'm obsessed with at the time.

But, I need to be in a certain mood to rant. And even then, a lot of the time I'm just satisfied ranting to my IRL friends. But when I'm not. If there's excess rant, or if the stuff I want to rant about is a little too uh, 'iffy' for real social situations. Or just too complicated and long-winded (Holy GOD it's impossible to rant Nasuverse wild mass speculation with normal people. I'd probably have an easier time explaining astrophysics.)  Then I'll rant here. Or if there's just something awesome I want to post, like the strange MMD things just now, then I'll do that.

So I'm only in a talkative enough mood to post here every now and then. Add to that the stressful life of a Year 12 student with a lazy disposition and WAY too many things occupying his free time as it is, and yeah, I'm not a very active blog.

BUT. I am not, nor will I probably ever be, completely dead/inactive. Like I said, I still check/reblog stuff fairly often. And there WILL be times, god knows when though, when I get in the mood and I just spam three or four walls of text. Not to mention, once High School is done and dusted, which is coming to an end fairly soon now, i'll have a lot more free time on my hands. At which point I'll probably become a lot more active. At least...until University happens.^ ^

At which point I anticipate you'll be seeing even less of me. So apologies in advance for that.^ ^

Nevertheless. Rest assured, I'm always here, and you will see things from me every now and then.

But for now, I'm going to bed.