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shiny-jr · 1 month ago

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map of heartslabyul

Congratulations! You have just acquired a map of Heartslabyul. Heartslabyul is one of the seven nations, and the first in which you will venture into for your search for a way home. It is the nation that worships King Rosehearts, the Pyro Archon and God of Law.

Choose your path carefully.

Ashen Fells is an area located in Heartslabyul.

This region includes Brunweld Lake, Cradle of Fables, Chesswick, Hobbletide Shore, Mabloch Isle, Pat Port, Tanglewood Shrine, Tatterfell Cliffs. The area consists of shores and cliffs along with rivers and lakes.

♥ Brunweld Lake is a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It's said that this lake was formed by a crater left by an ancient god of chaos. A god that had the ability to forge legendary weapons, and in testing one of particularly astounding strength, they created a depression within the earth’s surface that would become Brunweld Lake.

♥ Cradle of Fables is a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It is just across the waters from Mabloch Isle and the nearest Heartslabyul settlement is Pat Port.

A dense forest where no mortals venture and come back from. The shadows and shade cast by the dense foliage create an intense darkness, making it easy for even the most skilled navigators to get lost.

It is said to be a safe haven for immortal beings, and the birthplace for many entities and deities including the current Archon of Pyro.

♥ Chesswick is the capital and a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

Located in the central part of Ashen Fells, Chesswick boasts the largest city in the world both by size and population. It’s only five hundred years old, but it showcases castle walls and flowing rivers.

❧ Castle of the Court of Hearth is located in Chesswick, Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It is the headquarters of the Court of Hearth and the Knights of the Gavel. Inside are many offices of court members, such as the Head of Investigation and Regent among others. On the same grounds, the castle also houses those loyal to the crown in the Knights of the Gavel.

It is one of the oldest buildings still standing in Heartslabyul, built even before the Fyrosian Palace. When executions occur, they most always take place here or in the palace.

❧ Chesswick’s Market District is located in Chesswick, Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

Located at the gates of the city, it’s a convenient location for merchants and other travelers. The several two story buildings house multiple shops, restaurants, and other establishments but are all strictly kept up to code to avoid punishment by patrolling knights.

❧ Furnace is located in Chesswick, Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It is an underground fighting rink run by a figure nicknamed the Blue Brawler. The location is a closely guarded secret and only heard in rumors thought to be outlandish. Gambling and brawling are high crimes, so this type of establishment is highly illegal. Despite that, it is a very popular place, as many find thrill and entertainment in these activities that are outlawed.

❧ Fyrosian Palace is located in Chesswick, Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It is the home of the Archon of Pyro, god of law, King Rosehearts. Located in the heart of Chesswick, it is a common stop for travelers to marvel at the sight but never step past the towering gates. Knights of the Gavel patrol the grounds at all hours, and they only allow a select few pass. These select few include council members, knights, emissaries, the occasional guest, or a rule-breaker escorted in cuffs.

❧ Monastery of the Divine Flame is located in Chesswick, Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

The monastery is run by the Church of Heart and is used in worshipping the Pyro Archon Rosehearts. It is a holy place managed by the devoted adherents of King Rosehearts who treat his laws as commandments. It is thought by the most zealous believers that sins will be punished by strings of eternal flames which he wields.

❧ Pyro Archon Statue is located in Chesswick, Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It can be found at the plaza in front of the Monastery of the Divine Flame. The statue is in the image of the Pyro Archon, Rosehearts, with a crown and a scepter.

❧ The Teapot is located in Cheswick, Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It is the oldest pub in the nation, even predating Roseheart’s reign, or so they claim. It is one of the best managed establishments, as the distribution of alcohol is carefully regulated by law to prevent misuse. The Teapot has not a single mark tarnishing their perfect record.

However, recently, it seems as if there are shady dealings and whispers of unrest floating throughout the historic pub. Ask around enough without gaining suspicion, and some tipsy folks may let it slip that the Red Thief apparently frequents the establishment.

♥ Hobbletide Shore is a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

A stretch of shorelines along the coast facing east and north toward the unknown. Along these shores there’s some woods, but not much else.

♥ Mabloch Isle is a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

An island technically part of Heartslabyul, but it is inhabited mainly by Havfolk and Hydrians, the people of Octavinelle. While they themselves are not an issue, the Pyro Archon is keenly aware of the shady businesses practically encouraged by the Hydro Archon. That is unacceptable. If there are shady dealings taking place, it is only happening because the island is distant. However, every few years, Rosehearts takes it upon himself to travel there and make doubly sure everything is in order while also punishing those that do break the law.

♥ Pat Port is a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

A port city where most incoming travelers and goods coming from off the continent arrive. It is said that a feathered minor deity now long passed was once friends with the Pyro Archon. This feathered deity was an expert in ocean voyages while the archon detested the waters due to his element. So, Rosehearts entrusted him with the responsibility to handle ocean-related issues and incoming merchants by boat. When the deity passed, the Archon renamed the location after his companion.

♥ Tanglewood Shrine is a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

It is an ancient amphitheater that predates the Roseheart reign, all the way back to the time when the god of chaos ruled. Here is where all sorts of activities took place, such as gambling, drinking, fighting, and even illegal exchanges. It is a dark reminder of the past when the god of chaos allowed forced fights, indentured servitude, and all sorts of other activities.

♥ Tatterfell Cliffs is a subarea located in Ashen Fells, Heartslabyul.

There are a few scattered villages and towns here that specialize in livestock farming.

Brackenreach Highlands is an area located in Heartslabyul.

This region includes Broken Bridges, Feygrass Springs, Foxglove Glen. The area consists of meadows and ruins, and is a region where many beastfolk outside of Savanaclaw dwell.

♥ Broken Bridges is a subarea located in Brackenreach Highlands, Heartslabyul.

Ruins of an empire lay here. There is hardly anything left, it’s so ancient that it predates not only the Rosehearts reign but also the Age of Chaos. One of the only remaining pieces of the empire whose name is lost to time, is a marble inscription within the floor of an abandoned temple just barely standing. The inscription is oval shaped, and appears to be the side profile of a mysterious entity. The only thing known is that they were a god of black and white.

♥ Feygrass Springs is a subarea located in Brackenreach Highlands, Heartslabyul.

A land of flowers, one of the smaller scenic flora areas. There are many fields here that supply the world with bouquets, honey, and other goods.

♥ Foxglove Glen is a subarea located in Brackenreach Highlands, Heartslabyul.

A city populated heavily by beastfolk of all manner, from both continents and all seven nations.

Butterfly Vale is an area located in Heartslabyul.

This region includes Crookedspire, Jaws of the Wildwood, Maze of Madness, Tulgey Thicket. The area consists of meadows and dense woods, and is a region where threats and beasts may still lurk, hidden in the wilderness to avoid divine wrath.

♥ Crookedspire is a subarea located in Butterfly Vale, Heartslabyul.

A city established by the Pyro Archon himself. In the early days of the Rosehearts reign, he faced a fresh rebellion that accused him of cruelty and tyranny. These rebels even utilized an uncontrollable beast in an attempt to defeat him. In response, Rosehearts quashed the rebellion and slayed the beast, building a settlement upon the ashes that remained of his enemies.

♥ Jaws of the Wildwood is a subarea located in Butterfly Vale, Heartslabyul.

Here is where many beasts dwell, hidden by the mountains and forests, as they wish to remain hidden to avoid the searing divine flame of the Pyro Archon that would quickly execute them without trial.

♥ Maze of Madness is a subarea located in Butterfly Vale, Heartslabyul.

It is a natural maze of forests, almost meticulously arranged into a confusing and seemingly endless labyrinth. It was thought that one of the God of Chaos’ subordinates was an entity of dendro that made the maze.

♥ Tulgey Thicket is a subarea located in Butterfly Vale, Heartslabyul.

A strange and odd forest home to arcane individual beasts and people. It is a place said to be rich in treasures, but full of dangers. Many mythical entities and monsters dwell in the dark here.

Crown Ridge is an area located in Heartslabyul.

This region includes Gryphon Spires, Mad Ring of Fire. The area consists of mountain ranges and volcanoes, along with cliffs and ruins. This is the border between Heartslabyul and Savanaclaw.

♥ Gryphon Spires is a subarea located in Crown Ridge, Heartslabyul.

The southern part of the peaks contains the remaining ruins of the city where the God of Chaos dwelled, which was formerly the capital of the nation.

❧ Wonderfall Ruins is located in Gryphon Spires, Crown Ridge, Heartslabyul.

It was once the capital of Old Heartslabyul, ruled by the God of Chaos. After he was executed in an uprising, the rebel who slayed him, Rosehearts, took his place and reshaped the land. It’s been said that Rosehearts gathered all his supporters in Wonderfall during the fall of the Chaos God’s empire, and upon his enemy’s death, Rosehearts rained hellfire upon every settlement that never swore allegiance to him. Only once he burned the enemies to ash, did he lead the people north where they settled to build a new capital called Chesswick.

It is said that Riddle never burnt Wonderfall to the ground, because he wished for all to see the ruins of the empire he tore down. To see evidence of his past, and never turn traitor unless they wished to meet the same fate the Chaos God and all his followers did.

♥ The Mad Ring of Fire is a subarea located in Crown Ridge, Heartslabyul.

The range of mountains extends from the western most point of the ridge spanning across the entire space and ending only just before the Gryphon Spires. It is speckled with volcanoes that were supposedly formed when there was conflict between the God of Chaos against the God of Strength and God of Intellect.

Fiddlewood Hills is an area located in Heartslabyul.

This region includes Liddleshire Village, Mimsyford, Puddlebrook Town. The area consists of rolling hills and pastures along scattered towns and villages.

♥ Liddleshire Village is a subarea located in Fiddlewood Hills, Heartslabyul.

Liddleshire Village is a small community where there are more animals than people. It’s a quaint and quiet little village at the high end of the hills bordering the woods.

♥ Mimsyford is a subarea located in Fiddlewood Hills, Heartslabyul.

Mimsyford is a city where many new travelers arrive, as it’s the closest to the other nations. It is the city with the most diverse magic users, here there is a wielder of every element and all sorts of styles. From here, most make their way to Chesswick.

♥ Puddlebrook Town is a subarea located in Fiddlewood Hills, Heartslabyul.

Puddlebrook Town is a fishing community settled along the shores. When merchants do not arrive at Pat Port, they arrive here.

#navigation #masterlist #empyrean twst au #heartslabyul

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ducksido · 21 days ago

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Hi! It's me again kskdkd take your time on making this no rush.

Housewarden (+other characters; you pick) with a yuu who's a pokemon trainer, their main pokemon is greninja and pikachu. How would the boys reacts to yuu's pokemon on battle or seeing Pikachu and Greninja for the first time?

Characters: Riddle, Leona, Azul, Kalim, Vil, Idia, Malleus (+Bonus: Lilia, Silver, Sebek, Rook)

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle is instantly suspicious. You’ve brought unknown creatures into Heartslabyul? Without a permit?!

He first sees Pikachu perched on your shoulder during a tea party. “Yuu. That… rodent. It’s not some variant of a Savanaclaw familiar, is it?”

When Pikachu shocks Ace for teasing it, Riddle loses it. “Absolutely not! Electric attacks in a tea garden? That violates three house rules!”

When you explain Pikachu is a "partner in battle," and show him a battle with Greninja, he quiets down… impressed, if begrudgingly. “That frog is alarming. But I’ll admit… its movements are clean. Tactical. Not unlike a Spelldrive champion.”

Despite his complaints, he respects your discipline with them—especially Greninja's graceful execution of Water Shuriken.

Leona Kingscholar

Instantly intrigued. He spots Greninja training with you in the desert part of the Botanical Garden and raises a brow.

“That’s no regular monster. You summon it with no chant… and it obeys like a beast. Huh.”

Leona treats Greninja like a fellow predator. He watches it leap, disappear, and strike from the shadows. “Tch. Stealthy bastard. I like it.”

Pikachu? He’s less impressed. “The little mouse keeps shocking my tail. You gonna leash it or what?”

But when Pikachu zaps a group of Spelldrive players like it's nothing, he gives it a smirk. “Heh. Small and spicy. You’re lucky I don’t add him to my team.”

You may catch him throwing Greninja a meat skewer like a lion giving respect to another apex predator.

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul’s first thought: “Can I market this?”

He sees Pikachu and Greninja for the first time after you help stop a delinquent group of Octavinelle students—your Pokémon made it look easy. “Fascinating! Creatures that battle on command, no potion or contracts? No binding rituals?”

He starts scribbling potential deals—Pokémon showcase nights, battle gambling rings, novelty plushies.

Pikachu shocks him after he tries to toss a Poképuff at it to win favor. “Y-you could’ve just said no…!”

Greninja, meanwhile, unnerves him. Its silent movements and ninja-like skill make Azul wary. “...It’s just staring. Does it breathe?”

Azul desperately wants a full classification of the Pokémon system. You later find him with a fake Pokédex app that Floyd coded.

Kalim Al-Asim

Kalim LOVES your Pokémon immediately.

“Whoa!! It’s like a little yellow camel-electrocuter! And the frog’s a ninja?! You’re the coolest, Yuu!!”

He’s constantly offering Pikachu dates, honey, or spicy curry. Pikachu is wary of Kalim’s chaotic energy.

Greninja silently blocks anyone too close to you—Kalim’s startled but delighted. “It’s like a personal ninja guard! You have your own bodyguard?! That’s so RAD.”

He asks to ride Greninja’s back like a surfboard. You… firmly decline.

Despite the chaos, Kalim genuinely adores them and tells Jamil he wants a ninja too now.

Vil Schoenheit

At first, Vil is skeptical. He thinks they’re messy and too cartoonish for his aesthetic standards.

“The mouse is… squeaky. And the frog has a scarf made of its own tongue? Hm.”

But then he watches a Pokémon battle. Greninja’s speed, control, and elegance win him over. “Its style of combat… fluid. Artistic. Like ballet meets warfare.”

Vil still insists Pikachu gets “groomed properly.” You catch him brushing Pikachu’s fur while muttering about texture.

He eventually develops a grudging respect, calling Greninja “the Gallant Shadow” and Pikachu “a spark of chaos.”

Idia Shroud

Idia IMMEDIATELY makes the comparison:

“Yo, yo, yo, hold up. This is just like ChronoMon—that one retro game with monster companions? Except... your guys look way cooler.”

Idia asks a million questions. How do you train them? Can they evolve? Do they faint or die? Do they lay eggs?

“Greninja’s got that stealth assassin build. Glass cannon type. I’d run him in PvP. Pikachu’s like the mascot type—very ‘main character energy’.”

He programs a game mod so he can simulate battles with your team.

Ortho is obsessed with Pikachu. They develop a “chu-to-chu” bond. Sometimes Pikachu rides Ortho like a flying mount.

Malleus Draconia

Malleus approaches Greninja like it’s a forest spirit. And Pikachu? He stares, silent.

“What realm do these familiars hail from? They are not of this world.”

When Pikachu shocks him accidentally, and he remains unfazed, you fear he might turn it to ash. But instead, he chuckles softly. “It bites. How quaint.”

Malleus recognizes Greninja’s shadowy nature and respects its strength. It reminds him of ancient magic warriors. “A shinobi of the mist. You are well-guarded, child of man.”

He offers to show them the fae forests of Briar Valley. You politely decline after Sebek nearly faints from the suggestion.

Bonus Characters

Lilia Vanrouge

“Oh~ what delightful creatures! That frog reminds me of the shinobi I fought in my youth!”

Lilia adores your Pokémon. He’s especially fond of Greninja’s ninja aesthetic.

“Back in my day, I used to vanish like that! Here, let me show you—poof!” (Cue him hanging upside down in a tree.)

Pikachu responds to his chaotic energy with playful static zaps.

Lilia swears he used to have a pet just like Pikachu, back in the “Ancient Beast Wars of Yesteryear.”

Silver Vanrouge

He’s startled when Pikachu zaps his hand while he sleepily reaches to pet it.

Greninja’s silent movements both impress and slightly unsettle him—he never hears it coming. “It’s… loyal. Strong. Like a knight in the mist.”

He treats Greninja with quiet respect and keeps a safe distance from Pikachu after learning it's “shock-happy.”

Sebek Zigvolt

PANIC. PURE PANIC. “A BEAST! A BEAST AT THE HUMAN’S SIDE!”

Screams when Pikachu glares at him. Immediately tries to defend Malleus. “I SHALL STRIKE IT DOWN!”

Pikachu shocks him once. He collapses theatrically. “I-I have failed… my Lord Malleus…”

Eventually, he accepts them as your "battle squires." Begrudgingly. While shaking.

Rook Hunt

“Oh là là… such curious prey!”

He adores Greninja. Says it is like a phantom cloaked in moonlight. Tries to follow it to test his own stealth.

Pikachu is cute, but not his type of hunt. He compares it to “a spark of divine mischief.”

He one hundred percent calls Greninja “La Lame Silencieuse” (The Silent Blade) and insists it is “the perfect prey... and protector.”

#twst #twst x reader #twst wonderland #twst yuu

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fumifooms · 1 year ago

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The Nakamoto household - facts & theories masterpost

Table of contents:

the hierarchy & general situation

The parents

The Maizuru situation

The siblings

The other retainers

Izutsumi

Toshiro

Conclusion

I also made tldr summary charts here. This post is about collecting facts about the setting and characters, but it’s gonna be a lot of analysis on what it means through the lens of Toshiro as well, his relationship and place in everything etc etc. They have entangled drama the scale of Daltian Clan. Things are so interwoven it’s hard to keep topics neatly in their own section, because of this pictures may be relevant at several point of this but I mostly won’t be putting them in twice, you might have to do some scrolling up while reading if you want the visual proof to accompany statements. Unlike with Chilchuck’s family there’s less ambiguousness and more intricate details and implications so it’s less theorizing & headcanoning and more stringing together all the crumbs canon gave us. I also dig into some cultural parallels, especially since characters from Wa are the most culturally coded in the series. Also disclaimer that I’ll be calling Shuro Toshiro through this whole thing because that’s his actual name & Shuro isn’t even a nickname he’s shown to like, for accuracy’s sake. The servant girls have real names but are always called by their code names so I’ll call them as such, except for Izutsumi who was named Asebi which I won’t be using.

The general situation

To start off, what’s the situation in canon? All three kids of the head of the house, the three sons (Toshiro and his two younger brothers), are sent out on a vague mission to find something interesting for his father to pick the heir. Each son is thus on their own journey, out with their own group of retainers for an unsure length of time, during canon it’s been 2 years that Toshiro left the house for this mission, and they seemingly all drifted towards dungeons. It’s important to remember that this state of things is the exception and not the rule, and before this the sons lived at home and had different uses of their time, and the retainers had other jobs than care after them. See the next paragraph.

The household offers ninja services, no exaggeration or misuse of the term, mostly spyint but also "covert maneuvers" which could include anything including assassination of people high up. That’s the job of their servants/retainers at least, the heads themselves are more like managers probably, possibly samurais themselves though especially since as we see with the heirs (besides the samurai armor) they also got trained in fighting as their skills showcase. I need to dig into the history of samurais more before I can draw the parallel confidently though. The Nakamoto household is noble/wealthy, distinguished as the Adventurer’s Bible puts it, but it works for and puts its service at use for "their local lord". It buys servants, but also has families who have served it for generations like with Hien. The comic shows that there aren’t only women servants, it’s just the ones we see all happen to be because Toshiro’s retainers are only a small team of all of Nakamoto’s servants.

Above, in a page showcasing characters’ relationships with their party leader: 父親の部下を借りている状態なので、距離がある。Doubtlessly there must be a translation of this already somewhere but I’m lazy and impatient so I turned to machine translation instead, this translates into: "Since he is borrowing his father's subordinates, there is a distance between him and them". Calling the servants retainers is what most of the fandom does and it’s accurate so I’ll be calling them this.

Hien and Toshiro were childhood friends which means the servants do have some degree of contact not even just together but with the heirs too, or maybe just specifically Hien, since both their parents were ninjas for the Nakamotos she ended up getting raised there and they let her play with him as an exception? They did end up drifting away as adults as their relationship got more professional, so it’s possible. The servants eat and sleep in shared spaces, separate from the masters, though Maizuru has her own bedroom, if the room configuration at the in is to be believed + it’d make sense since she’s governess/head servant. I’m hesitant wether to say it’s implied that this group of 4 retainers was always a bit of a team or it wasn’t and got formed for Toshiro specifically. We know that Benichidori had little contact with Toshiro before they were sent out together for example, but we do see all three girls with Izutsumi in Inutade’s extra when they were younger, and them eating in the same japanese styled room etc. The inn they stay at on The Island is western styled though they do have futons rather than beds (there’s only one bed in their shared room and Hien has it because of her rank).

From Izutsumi’s Adventurer’s Bible profile: "Maizuru, who was also Shuro's governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. After Izutsumi was taken in by the Nakamoto family, Maizuru forced her through a harsh training regimen of speech, common sense, and fighting skills. Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn't touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." "

Maizuru, called a governess, is the one training the girls, at least some of them, we know for a fact she was the one to train Izutsumi for example, and in general she’s the one in charge of the ninja girls we see. She was a ninja herself but retired from frontline missions, but has a central role managing the servants instead. Inutade for example is strong but not stealthy, and it’s said that it’s Maizuru’s job to choose how to train her and what role to give her in consequence. Her training includes manners but fighting as well, notably kunais and martial arts. Hien is shown to use bombs and Benichidori is implied to be good at disguises, Inutade uses a bold weapon like a club but it’s implied with "ogres and clubs just go together" and Maizuru not knowing where to put her to use that it’s uncommon for Nakamoto servants to use those. Their board game artworks also show their specialties neatly. When brought into the household, the servants are given new names and their whole lives become devotion to the house and their duties. The names might be intended to act as code names due to them being ninjas? It’s implied that they never use their non-code names anymore once they start serving the household. Maizuru’s training also contains language and "common sense"… Critical thinking? As well as implied etiquette. This isn’t surprising, as she was the one put in charge of raising not only Toshiro but his brothers as well.

Oh yes I want to mention that all the retainers’ "first deaths" are in the dungeon during canon, considering our main cast we’re used to death being permissible because dungeons make resurrections possible, but it’s relevant to remember that these people never died before. Never. These girls are professionals, ninjas with a sometimes very dangerous job. Messing up means death, permanently.

From what we see and with who we see, the hierarchy is:

Father (head of house, his word goes)

Mother (has status which puts her wishes above others’ and give her some control over the house, it’s unsure how much though, but hierarchy wise she’s very much above the rest but below the father)

Maizuru (governess, in charge of (at least some) servants and raising Toshiro. Two dots)

Hien (leader of their squad, trained servant from a family devoted to the Nakamotos. Two dots)

Benichidori (trained bought servant. Two dots)

Inutade and Izutsumi (bought servants. Power wise from their rank it’s unsure just how much the difference between Inutade (who has one dot), Izutsumi (who has none) and Benichidori (who has two) is, since Hien is team leader between the four servants at least that’s measurable. Inutade gets some janitor duties, and Izutsumi has a curse put on her so she doesn’t run away I suppose. Power wise it’s unsure, but socially/role wise Inutade and especially Asebi are treated worse.)

I didn’t add the sons because I’m talking more generally about the power structure and it’d depend on each sibling, like Toshiro’s wants and directives during canon trump Maizuru’s, but Maizuru is also his nanny and manages the girls so she has a lot of importance and sway even on the final decisions.

The parents

I am so pissed I forgot that we know Toshiro’s father’s name, Toshitsugu, from these panels showing the progression of the family tree. I am so pissed I’m adding this halfway into writing this whole thing, I am not gonna go back and replace every "the father" by his name atm.

The father is the part of this puzzle most important yet most shrouded in mystery, or rather a lack of details. What we do know paints a pretty full and vivid portrait: impulsive and cares mainly about his own entertainment. Maizuru calls him a fool, his sons are exasperated and go "This again?" when he summons them saying that they’re boring/dull, everyone knows he’s having an affair and he often has undignified demeanor, but what he says goes so yes Maizuru will take Izutsumi under her wing, yes the sons will be going out right away into the world to find you the 8th world wonder, yes whatever you want lord. He seems to have little care for how his action affects others, like crashing into Maizuru’s room at night and asking she take care of a catgirl, or sending out his sons suddenly with kicks to the butts. He does what he wants hen he wants and others have to comply.

Like we see with Izutsumi and Inutade, he tends to take a liking to slaves here and there and buy them on the spot, usually at entertainment places, like sumo wrestling matches for Inutade and a freakshow for Izutsumi. The Adventurer’s Bible states him acquiring Inutade as "By coincidence, Shuro's father came to see her first match; he liked her and bought her for the Nakamoto family." and Izutsumi as "She was on display as a "cat-girl" in a sideshow when Shuro's father took an interest in her and bought her." In Maizuru’s extra, he calls Izutsumi a "souvenir" he got for her, and he’s drunk so it could well be assumed that buying Izutsumi was a drunken whim, and that he mitht be alcoholic. You can’t really say that he picks them out because he sees potential in them to be a ninja or would be useful, since with Izutsumi she had no fighting training and Inutade doesn’t fit the skills they seek like stealth and she has trouble fitting in. You could assign noble goals to him like maybe wanting to help or relating to the misfits, but I think with what we see of him it’s more likely that he likes to pick up "oddities", like a catgirl at a freakshow or an ogre, especially since one of the only things we know of him is he wants his sons to bring back interesting trophies from their travels. Toshiro, about his father buying Inutade, says: "People in power desire ogre as servants, and ogres are chosen as opponents in tests of strengths or military exploits. My father bought her for similar reasons."

Also from this we can infer that he goes out to events often, like circus and sumo wrestling, again mostly for entertainment from what we see. I like to think it’s implied that he used to travell maybe still does, due to his own liking for it as a test and because he visits various places like the sideshow, plus his forearm scars in Toshiro’s extra… But him being a samurai in service of a lord could definitely explain that.

This all paints an interesting picture doesn’t it… The Nakamoto’s lifestyle is super encased in rules and social propriety, duty and hierarchy. Old noble man who’s been surrounded by propriety all his life and just wants some spark of interesting stuff happening amongst the humdrum of his lavish cushioned life at home, and is shitty to people around him in consequence and due to his privilege allowing him to. He’s despicable, but from his 3 appearances he becomes an interesting well-fleshed character, at least proportionally to the screentime he gets…

We also know that the affair with Maizuru is well known at least inside the household, so there’s no genuine secrecy around the topic. Makes sense that the wife would hate her guts.

Ahh yes the mother. Little is known about the mother, except that from Maizuru’s profile "Shuro’s mother can’t stand the sight of her, to the point where there are areas on the property Maizuru is forbidden to enter. Maizuru, however, is impressed by his wife’s strength of character." From this I glean that she does have enough power/respect in the house that she can make rules like where Maizuru is allowed to go. Also the implication that otherwise Mazuru would have access to EVERYWHERE in the house despite being only a (high-ranking) servant is a bit interesting. Wether the mother’s "strength of character" is overt and hot-headed or understated and cool-headed is unsure, but I imagine the latter more. I could see Maizuru’s angle in many ways, from being able to tolerate "that fool" aka the father both just in general and with knowing that he’s cheating on her, to knowing how hard it is to be respected as a woman and admiring her putting up with it all and still being able to have sway in the household. This is I think the only mention of the mother anywhere. Doesn’t seem like she is an important figure to Toshiro at all: in fact we hear about her on Maizuru’s profile, and seeing all of this we can see the importance of her in Maizuru’s backstory and life, moreso than Toshiro’s. I imagine she’s a bit of a recluse, which is part of why Maizuru not being allowed to roam the full house is important, because them running into each other at the house is high.

It’s unsure how much contact the parents have with their kids. What we know is that they left the principal tasks of raising the kids, or at least Toshiro, to servants. Toshiro’s profile says that he’s more attached to Maizuru than his parents, and that’s the phrasing. From the comic where their father summons the sons, it does seem like they’re more or less used to interacting, with the sons’ "This again?". So it’s not that they’ve only interacted with them few times enough to count on fingers, but how meaningful were those interactions? From Toshiro’s profile we know he has a complex where he thinks he’ll never get recognition from his father or be able to measure up to him… But is that more born out of secondhand gossip and expectations, or from direct interactions with him that made him feel that way? Likely a mix of both, especially since the father does seem to be very dismissive, uncaring and insulting with his sons. Oh, but it’s definitely notable that in the Hag monster tidbit (below in Maizuru’s section) six years old Toshiro runs to his father scared shitless for help against the shikigami, and his father casually helps him without batting an eye. Toshitsugu knows how to deal with Maizuru’s shikigamis, and he does so efficiently and without any sense of worry or urgency. Although the event traumatized Toshiro and he was very scared, it doesn’t seem like his father offered any comfort, beyond just helping getting rid of it and letting him cower behind him without comment. Toshitsugu gives hungover vibes in that one imo haha. It’s shown he was already training as a ninja, perhaps this event only reinforced Toshiro’s complex, seeing his father, the samurai the achieved man who has expectations for him, so unfazed and uncaring like that.

The Maizuru situation

Let’s establish a timeline first. It’s left vague how much time she’s served the Nakamoto family for, or how she came to be in their service. The central point is that "She was put in charge of raising their children at a young age". If straight from his birth, Maizuru started taking care of Toshiro when she was 15 years old. If from toddler age, then 16. It’s uncertain if when she stopped getting front-line espionage missions, but we know it’s late rather than early despite having kid raising duties. But well, since she’s also in charge of the ninjas she’s definitely has a multitasking role even now.

The dad prob has around 5-10 years more than Maizuru, I’d say. We only see half of his face and only a good few years in the past, around ~3 years ago probably with the shuro quest and a good 7 years with Izutsumi as a kid, but visually those are the vibes I’m getting. From Toshiro’s birth, it’s possible that the father was 15 when the baby was born too? But conception would have been closer to 14 years old then, and yeah I don’t think they marry and have kids that young. Toshiro is 26 years old in canon and is unmarried, and the heir hasn’t been officially picked, so marriage and kids don’t seem to be in the family’s priorities. Even if Maizuru do say that the father would love if Toshiro brought back a wife.

Now the elephant in the room: she has an on-and-off affair with the father and it has been si for many many years, at LEAST 7 years since that’s when we see that comic of him going into her chambers about Izutsumi, and in the comic above, Hien in that panel has an ambiguous age. Regardless it’s definitely implied that it’s a long, long-standing thing. Hien’s phrasing above makes it sound as if it’s not purely physical, as if feelings are involved, "he’s head over heels for his confidante", and who knows if this relationship is part of why Maizuru was chosen to be the governess, or even hired at all.

It’s in the feud with his father that we learn about maizuru’s affair and how after learning it he started shutting her out emotionally. It’s left vague when Toshiro learned about it, Hien made it sound as if everybody always more or less knew but I don’t think Toshiro started shutting her out when he was still pretty young. Regardless, the two are implied to be linked, his dislike of his father/complex and how he stopped getting along well with Maizuru/being emotionally open with her. Is it that he now feels as though Maizuru is actually on his father’s side and not his own, that after all if she had to choose she’d pick him over Toshiro too? Or is it that, because his father’s known to be a self-centered frivolous jerk, that knowing she lets it happen, "can’t seem to shake it", he respects her less? He has an irresponsible reputation and she does give off the vibe of needing to clean up his messes, so that wouldn’t be unplausible either.

On the flipside from her perspective, since he learned she was his dad’s mistress he emotionally shut her out, which can partly explain why she’s SO fussy with him and happy at the slightest hint of happiness or compliance, like when he listens to her and eats, or maybe even being happy that he lets her help him dress and keep tidy (imo this is supported by how they interact in the page showing him interacting with all his party members). She wants to regain that closeness they once had and for her baby chick to be alright as he’s slipping through her fingers. Man so sad to think about him rejecting her when he’s the only thing in her life. She’s raised him for 26 years, no wonder she’s so attached to him, the only thing in her life she feels true unconditional attachment for. Maizuru says that she thinks Toshiro’ll be a better head of the house than the father, too. The respect and care is somewhat onesided, given freely from her side but repressed from his end. When she cares for Toshiro is when her demeanor immediately and drastically softens. She gets easily carried away when it comes to him, rambling enthusiastically or smiling widely or tearing up. Her tendency to ramble or tell anecdotes about Toshiro is shown making Hien and Benichidori go "Here she goes again…" twice through canon.

With Izutsumi’s timeline we see Izutsumi was taken into the Nakamoto household at 10 yo, and since in the comic with Maizuru and the dad she’s shown as stinky and all I imagine she arrived there the same day, so Maizuru was in charge of her since she was first here. In fact if we assumed that it’s the same day as when he bought her at the circus show, then we could assume that buying her was a drunken whim like mentioned.

Since Izutsumi was taken in at 10 and she’s 17, this would mean that Maizuru is 34 years old here. She looks younger without makeup, but lower than that is mathematically impossible besides maybe 33 if Maizuru and Izutsumi’s birthdays line up just right.

Time for the second elephant in the room!!

Maizuru’s magic

Maizuru is the only person in the Nakamoto household, anyone from Wa really, who we see using magic, I doubt she’d be the only one who can use magic in the household but as the governess it wouldn’t be unplausible I suppose. From what we see, the magic is estimated by Marcille to be an "appropriation of gnomic magic" with an eastern script. For my analysis of written magic (though with only a brief glance over Maizuru’s magic), see this post.

If you scroll up and read the little section on Maizuru’s profile, Ninja art: babysitter: "One of the curses put on Izutsumi is Ninja Art: Babysitter, which manifests as a terrifying hag shikigami. Unless Maizuru touches the victim within a set time frame, this terrible curse makes a hag appear and chase them around with a carving knife. Maizuru originally created it in an attempt to keep Shuro from getting lost, but it ended up traumatizing him…"

From Izutsumi’s profile: "Maizuru, who was Shuro’s governess, is the one thing Izutsumi fears. […] Since Izutsumi refused to listen to her, Maizuru set a curse on her that would activate if Maizuru didn’t touch her within a set time frame: "Ninja Art: Babysitter." It was put on her when she was 12. Since Toshiro had it as a kid, presumably the curse can be lifted off rather easily, Marcille was confident on reverse engineering it as well. It’s unsaid what the time frame is, it’s kept vague everywhere and Izutsumi herself says "who knows" how long it is. Izutsumi ran away despite the very real risk of it killing her. Essentially, Maizuru can put people in a timebomb collar

… MAIZURU WHAT THE HELL

As we might have expected, Maizuru being given the task of rasing a child at 15 did not go perfectly. This, a babysitting technique??! This comic happens when Toshiro was 6 and so Maizuru was 21. Interesting to note that Toshiro didn’t even know it was Maizuru’s doing before this conversation during canon, and he doesn’t know how to bring it up or deal with it how it affected him. Maizuru seems surprisingly uncaring of Toshiro’s feelings on the matter here, oblivious to his conflict her and fondly recalling it all.

This curse is a shikigami. From her profile: "A shikigami user, Maizuru has a variety of shikigami that have been sealed in paper as her servants. Her favorite seems to be Gyuki, a bull ogre." Now don’t ask me when Gyuki appears, I do not remember it. But before we go into the cultural/historical basis for this practice, let’s take a second to recognize the parallel that Maizuru has servants she keeps sealed unless useful in the moment, even despite having enough "attachment" to have a favorite. She’s the governess in charge of the other servants, and she has shikigamis, which she has used on the heir and the runt at the bottom of the hierarchy alike.

Shikigami, in traditional japanese folklore, are conjured to exercise risky orders for their masters, such as spying, stealing and enemy tracking. Shikigami are said to be invisible most of the time, but they can be made visible by binding them into small, folded and artfully cut paper manikins.

Shikigamis are from onmyodo, onmyoji is a profession-legal title historically but it’s what you call a practitioner of onmyodo, and so I feel content in saying that Maizuru is an onmyoji, or based on it. Her outfit reminds me of a shinto priest. It’s interestingly closer to a shinto priest outfit than a miko/shrine maiden’s (in picture below, 2 instead of 5), and I feel like red being chosen for the inner sleeve is a very charged decision since the white & red color combo is the shinto clothes color combo. Especially white clothes with red inner sleeve. Shinto priests can be women nowadays but they’re rare, and onmyojis can be considered shinto priests though it’s a more complex than that. Image below as example, source. Now I don’t think Maizuru has the role or prestige of a priest at all- But the association with onmyodo and spirituality is definitely meant to be made I think. Onmyojis are usually clothed similarly to this.

The babysitter ninja art seems to be based off of the hannya yokai. "They were once human women who were consumed by jealousy and transformed into demonesses", twisted by anger and resentment. Interesting considering her being a mistress to a man whose wife hates her. Hannyas are associated with wisdom because of its name, but there is nothing positive about them. At its highest level of "demonic corruption" if I can call it that, their body tend to become serpentine, fun link to make with her name being from the snakeberry plant.

Other cultural ties or symbolism on Maizuru’s character could be found in the motif of cranes due to her sleeves, in the tales of the crane wife, origami cranes (called orizuru, from deformation of 鶴 "tsuru" aka "crane". All names are written in katakanas in Dungeon Meshi, but thus if we had had the kanjis it’s possible her name would have been written with the kanji for crane), tennyos, and japanese crane symbolism in general. I thought cranes might have been associated with motherhood, but seemingly not in japanese culture at least, I was thinking of storks haha.

Ok speaking of her name. Maizuru is the name of an existing japanese city (舞鶴), meaning "dancing crane". From @room-surprise’s work in progress research paper on Dungeon Meshi characters’ names: "Maizuru is her ninja code name, and comes from “maizurusou”, which is maianthemum dilatatum, the snakeberry plant/two-leaved Solomon's seal/false lily of the valley. Lily of the Valley is a plant associated with motherhood and virtue… So Maizuru being a false Lily of the Valley implies that she is a false, replacement mother, and also hints at the way that Toshiro became cold towards her when he realized she was his father’s mistress, and not a pure, virtuous mother-like figure that he thought she was. Also, lilies are toxic to cats, which makes sense since Maizuru and Izutsumi have an extremely bad relationship." For more details I’ll leave it up to Room when the paper is ready to be released. Edit: It’s out!! Click here! Incredible meta that goes into a ton of details not only about Maizuru.

So some big themes of her character are: (false) motherhood, spirituality/magic, control, cranes, woman’s jealousy.

The siblings

Alriight so besides Toshiro the eldest at 26 years old, there is Toshiyuki (Toshitsuge in one fantranslation) the middle son and Toshizane the youngest (Toshikage in one fantranslation). They were all said to be raised by Maizuru. "A strange level of distance" is interesting. Why strange? I feel like this implies they do interact regularly, and that they’re all rather civil wirh each other, but they still have little bond to speak of. That wouldn’t surprise me, especially since even inside the family etiquette and propriety and rules are enforced, the summoning by his father feels very formal and they all listen to him standing in silence despite having snappy inner thoughts. It’s unsure if they were largely raised together or apart, but since Maizuru was their (at least main) caretaker/governess it implies that they were imo. They were put in competition with each other for the title of heir to the house, though it’s unsure to what degree. It’s examplified by their family all having names that start with "Toshi" that the legacy is very important and thrust upon them, cogs in a machine almost. They all think the same thing when their father summons them and has a spiel, so they’re used to the same sort of treatment and they are indeed brothers for being on similar wavelengths haha.

Toshiyuki, as seen in the comic about his retainers, the poor soul sent into Darkest Dungeon, is brattish. Rude, selfish and rather lecherous, does not hesitate to be mean to his retainers and complain he wasn’t given women retainers. Visually he looks what, 14 years old top. I wonder if Maizuru stopped using her babysitter ninja art on the heirs after it traumatized Toshiro, and if so maybe that explains why Toshiyuki Knows No Fear In His Heart™️ and that’s why he can spout off stuff like that.

The retainers for the youngest brother, Toshizane, don’t seem to be as clad in ninja gear as the other two, seems like the priority is to take care of the very young young master there? Rather than truly go adventuring and dungeoneering, perhaps. Not that it’s ever said by anyone that their quest is to go into dungeons specifically, only to find something "interesting" to bring back, but both Toshiro and Toshiyuki are shown to have ended up drifting into dungeons. Toshizane looks young, I’d clock him 8 years old personally. He’s drawn looking rather innocent, especially the headshot doodle above and in the Toshitsuge complaining about his retainers comic. ALTHOUGH on the latter, interestingly as we see with Toshiro having a smug smirk in that same panel (or alternatively a smug indifferent/uncomfortable "i don’t care about this, even though you want it so much" look which at the very least is very exaggerated from how he emotes in reality), it’s Toshiyuki’s unreliable/exaggerated vision of his brothers and it doesn’t necessaeily reflect reality, though it’s still interesting to note that that’s the vision Toshiyuki has of his brothers/the impression Toshizane gives off. That can imply juicy dynamics for the brothers, for example if Toshiyuki feels as though he’s in competition with his brothers, feels superior to them, that instead of pushing the shitty family dynamic angst onto his father he puts the blame for it all onto Toshiro. Toshizane seems maybe too young to notice the tensions and seriousness around him, maybe more coddled… IS WHAT I WOULD SAY BUT in the comic where their father send them away he’s as well-behaved and serious as the others, so clearly he has a grasp on his role.

When talking about which retainers go with who, it’s said it was the father’s choice. I’d like to assume it wasn’t an airheaded/random choice. Maybe he knew that Toshiyuki would be weird about having women in his team of retainers? And wants to forge their character or protect them in the way they need. Though how Toshiro’s party only has women isn’t only pointed out and commented on by the comic with Toshitsuge but also in the main Dungeon Meshi story, both Marcille and Chilchuck going "his party is fully made up of women", one more loudly than the other haha. So it does feel like a somewhat pointed/purposeful decision, if not that the 4 girls were already a team like I mentioned.

The other retainers

Already made an analysis of Hien and Benichidori’s relationship (+ moment compilation) here. Honestly my juices are exhausted so quick rundown:

Hien’s parents both serve the Nakamotos, so she grew up with the family and was even a childhood friend of Toshiro. She assumed he and her might end up in a Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation ‘just because that’s how things are’/‘it’d be a natural development’ if we’re to believe Hien, ahh what growing up at the Nakamotos’ with those role models will make you believe is normal hah, and was surprised when it ended up not in that way at all. They grew more distant with time, in good part because of the professional nature of their roles in relation to each other (truly a reversal of the Maizuru-Toshitsugu situation). She’s the leader of their lil squad, under Maizuru, she’s very confident and she gets the perks, like getting the bedframe in the shared inn room. For all the details just read her page. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja. I made a more in depth more speculative reading of her in this post.

Benichidori was bought, by "the Nakamotos" so we don’t know who made the final decision. She’s perceptive and submissive, her specialty is implied to be disguise. She never had much contact with Toshiro before she became part of his party. She has facial dysmorphia where she fears the judgement of others if she doesn’t wear makeup and highly values beauty, in her extra her anxiety really shows and she ends up angrily snapping at Hien. Benichidori ends up taking a big liking to Hien and from there on they’re implied to be inseparable. She has two dots, showing her rank as a full fledged ninja.

Inutade is said to worship Toshitsugu because he "saved her" from her horrible life conditions, buying her personally from the sumo matches, she’s extremely grateful to the family and is happy to do any work they give her and is highly satisfied with her current living conditions. She seems to find Toshiro intimidating, though. She was separated from her parents from before she can remember and raised as a sumo wrestler in inhumane betting matches, where her front tooth broke. It seems she has very littke ambitions and dreams besides obeying orders day to day, but after Izutsumi fled away she was happy for her and mused that she’d love to go out and find her one day. They’re so besties Izutsumi gave her a dream of her own I’m sobbing… </3 She has one dot, showing she still has to be attributed her role and earn her stripes.

Their approval rating of their leader. The highest total score from all the parties.

Izutsumi

Sighh where to even begin. Her timeline was put in Maizuru’s section of this post but the rundown is "taken away from parents and turned into a beastkin" at 6 yo (the human half of her soul), "sent to a sideshow on the island of Wa" at 7 yo and bought by Toshitsugu at 10 yo when he took an interest in her when he visited the sideshow. Maizuru put the curse on Izutsumi at age 12, so from then on she always had to not stray much far from Maizuru or risk death, it’s unsure if Inutade’s extra is from before that time, before she was 12, so she could still attempt many many tries to run away. If that’s the case, then Maizuru’s curse was very much treated as a last resort, honestly beyond everything else I can see it being a pain that Maizuru would need to touch her every so often on Maizuru’s schedule as well. The alternative is that, not unlike Kabru who had no regrets dying in a dungeon rather than staying with Milsiril, she’d risk her life to get a taste of freedom. Besides, you know, being a slave and having a timebomb collar with Maizuru’s curse, her frustrations with her life with the Nakamotos is most concisely put in the comic just up above, Inutade’s extra.

She has no dot tattoo, meaning she’s at rock bottom of the hierarchy. It makes sense, since unlike Inutade she’s rebellious and needs threats to obey orders, and even then might try shifty business.

This last part where Izutsumi tries sleeping with Toshiro is most interesting to me. So she’s sought out contact with Toshiro before, she considers him "the stuck-up guy" but she doesn’t exactly hate him. I wonder if this comic is set in the inn on The Island or back at the Nakamoto household, because if that’s the latter it implies that she could get access to his room if she’s sneaky.

Oh oh also, this is fanon but since Toshiro’s weapon is one used usually on horseback, and with the steadfast and upright character of horses I associate Toshiro with horses a bit, though this is wild fanon. What’s interesting is that the plant Asebi was named after is a plant infamous for being toxic to horses. Hehe hehehe he wears a ponytail… Hm now that I think of it hairdos have importance for samurais, should look into that.

Toshiro

God. Ok. Everything was leading up to this guy. Need to split open his head like a geode and vibecheck his brain crystals. Let’s get some interesting details out of the way first.

His weapon is a tachi, not a katana. The wikipedia on tachis is more in depth if you want, but I consider the article I linked to be in deoth and digestible. Tachis are heavier and longer blades than katanas, and make for better horseback weapons than close combat. The way Toshiro uses one instead of a katakana shows that he’s extra strong… And does make sense, since most monsters won’t fight in as close quarters as human fighters. If katanas aren’t a thing in the world yet could make a difference, since tachis were invented first, and once the katana was invented and spread tachis became something more common in higher-ranking samurais. In the monster tidbit of the Hag, it’s shown that even at 6 years old Toshiro was training and learning ninja skills, his first instinct to the shikigami besides running being to fight.

Toshiro knew that Izutsumi wanted to leave, for sure. He may have been sympathetic, if his cryptic look back at her in the ‘Toshiro interacting with his party members’ page means anything. As seen below though, him being sympathetic doesn’t necessarily mean that much. Also, Toshiro had to have known about the curse on Izutsumi, where if Maizuru doesn’t touch her once in a while she’d die. "Asebi must have ran away, leave her" can be seen as subtle support for her to gain her freedom, but it could just as easily be seen as him leaving her behind to die. Because the outcome options are 1) she gets killed by Maizuru's curse, 2) she finds a way to break the spell, 3) she finds a way back to them.

He’s very conflict averse. Wether it be in relationships like with Laios or the status quo. Will not stand up for 99% things including himself. He obeys his father quietly despite his anger and dislike. This is the same guy who can't even get himself to speak up to correct the butchering of his name, the slippery slope that got him tangled in the Laios party seemingly without resistance. It’s very japanese etiquette from even nowadays, never saying a direct no to not be rude. ALSO THAT PANEL, has Toshiro beaten an ogre before?? Is that a brother of his?? Does seem in character for Toshiyuki the most, unless Toshiro was desperate to earn his father’s attention with feats. On the right I’d say the ones in the foreground are two of the brothers, maybe the third being the one to gesture to the ogre. It’s worth noting that inheritance laws during the Edo period often made the heir the son with "the most merit".

When with a goal that’s important to him he’s fine with even starving for it. Although what we see him be like that about in canon is Falin, aka self-admittedly in the post-canon proposal comic "the first person he has liked this much", which for him I feel is like admitting she’s one of the first things he has truly wanted for himself and fought for, soo… It’s more like an exceptional freaking out moment than something that would be recurring, most likely. How disheveled he got is a testament to how much he would forego propriety and rules for people of his status for the person he cares about most. Maizuru says the first personal request he’s (ever?) made was for them to help him rescue Falin.

Which ahh yes, his crush on Falin. I do think idealization plays into it, he doesn’t know Falin that well for sure, but it’s more complex than that too. Falin is pretty and can have an ethereal energy to her, she’s caring and gentle kinda motherly which Toshiro would find soothing I imagine, BUT MOST OF ALL. She’s weird!! She’s just weird enough to allow and be charmed by!! Shuro was fully shaped by his upbringing and environment of nobility, social etiquette and whatnot. Yeah she’s weird and quirky, but still quiet and sweet-mannered enough that he’s like "Yes, she wouldn’t bring shame on my family name". And why would he be charmed by her weirdness? Because all he’s ever known is rules!! Conformity, fitting in!! Unlike the others he knows, she is weird without being overbearing as well. "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" She’s like his comfort character. MOREOVERRR I had totally forgotten about it, but Toshiro was shown watching a snail behind a bush and losing sight of everything else (like Maizuru calling him) as a kid in the Hag monster tidbit, the moment he fell in love with Falin it was when she looked enthralled at a caterpillar and he mentions how "most girls would have screamed or recoiled in disgust", and in the beach chibis page he’s crouching and collecting shells thinking about Falin… He likes bugs and crawly critters guys, he wishes he could be cottagecore too… It’s a genuine shared interest… . Someone pointed out that Toshiro & Falin’s relationship probaboy references this japanese folk tale, and I think that’s very interesting to note.

And Maizuru is like his mom but it’s a Thistle situation where they can’t just be a normal family and normal affectionate either- and when he learns about his father having a thing with her he feels weirded out. And like. Who knows how much he even got out of the mansion. He got homeschooled. He’s distant with his brothers. The family is in shambles

Shuro’s issue is that he was taught to be perfect and have the upmost respectable behavior, so if something annoys him he has to be righteous about it and that it’s the annoying thing’s fault or moral failing. Bro just let yourself be petty sometimes it’s healthier. With the feud with his father it’s explicitly stated that the pressure and expectations of the family name weigh on him a lot.

But then, that makes his beef with Laios so understandable doesn’t it. Not justified, but explained certainly.

Laios & Shuro and the whole mess coming to a head

I’ve made an analysis of the Laios-Shuro fight from Laios’ pov before, here. This is the Shuro pov analysis. Yes yes in The Fight, Shuro is dehydrated sleep-deprived and underate, he’s majorly off his rocker, BUT his frustration and the underlying issues are still things he felt on any day and it’s interesting to note.

Toshiro has been raised from his birth with the priority of propriety, nobility, etiquette, rules, conforming elegantly, appareances and reputation are everything. He’s modest, humble, quiet, stays in his lane and bottles all his feelings up. Wait who is this loud guy coming up to me being inconsiderate and loud af?? Does he not see me blinking in morse code that I’m not enjoying this and want him to leave?? Was he raised in a barn?? He’s overbearing and rude and way too friendly- He’s weird wtf! Not conforming to basic etiquette is illegal??! And people just… Let him do whateve he wants?? He lives well, no one stops him or kills him?? What the fuck, I’ve followed rules and etiquette thoroughly all my life, and it’s thankless work I get no recognition for, meanwhile he gets to be oblivious af and do whatever he wants without getting clapped?? Resentment, frustration, dislike, anger anger anger, jealousy.

Laios might even remind Toshuro of his dad in a way, because he SEEMS impulsive and like he does whatever he wants without a care to people around him, without thinking of how it might affect them. Doing things without thinking through the Implications. And interestingly this is a bit paralleled to to how Shuro is serious, strict, and big on the duties that come with having a leader role and the family dynamic it brings, like Laios’ own father, who Laios also dislikes… Dealing with his anger towards Laios, especially knowing that Laios doesn’t mean anything bad by it like Toshiro admits, is probably very healing to him. He stops repressing and thinks through his issues a bit, realizes what parts of his life he’s unhappy with and where all the negative feelings come from. I do think he bottles up his dislike for his father a bit, he has to at least for appearances. His beef with Laios is repackaged internalized anger for his father, but it’s ALSO repackaged frustration from his etiquette-bound lifestyle. He says it himself, when Laios is like "You never told Falin how you feel…? Alright, when I can I’ll tell her for you buddy!!", "that’s the part of you that I envy". Laios’ ability to just come out and say what he wants to, what he means. He wishes he could be free of all the rules more, that he had te courage to speak out, like with Inutade, or talking things out with Maizuru, or nit having to act like he’s not angry with his father. This narrative point of Toshiro envying Laios’ ability to say things freely and being frustrated by not being able to himself is ESPECIALLY examplified by their first interactions, the basis of their relationship: Laios enthusiastically befriending him, giving him a bad nickname and roping him into joining his party, with Toshiro never turning it all down despite wanting to, too hesitant to act possibly rude.

And now is time for the laishuro addendum… Because of personal experiences it’s a bit of a sensitive spot to me so while I see timelines in which I enjoy it I’m very picky… This is all further theorizing from me btw I’m not pushing my view here onto ppl as facts, but I think there’s more interesting bits and scenarios to bite into here. Laishuro has very cute and sweet potential. I personally don’t see the "Oh wait Laios is just girl Falin… 😳" angle because to me if anything that’d just make Shuro disillusioned with Falin lol, but like yes make Shuro learn that it’s ok to be weird with Laios 🥺 They DO have differences first of all, important ones, especially from Toshiro’s perspective. Laios is overwhelming, whereas Falin is soothing. Laios is loud and asks things of him where Falin is a calm, quiet presence. Laios pushes himself onto Toshiro, whereas Falin is content on just doing her own thing in her corner alone.

Hot take but the ultimate laishuro timeline is the one where he DOESN’T bring Laios back home, because he knows he’ll be seen as an oddity and clown by his father, and he doesn’t want Laios to be treated like the tapdancing monkey there to please and entertain his father the way he himself has always kind of been. Wouldn’t inflict that onto someone he loves. He can recognize when people are taken advantage of (mostly) like Inutade, and it doesn’t settle right with him. He might be especially sensitive to it in Inutade’s case because it’s about seeing his dad in a better light than he deserves, though. His father is his weak spot, THE weak spot.

It gets me so emotional thinking about it actually because seeing Laios played like a fiddle by his father, Laios so happy to find someone who’s enthusiastically listening to him ramble and engaging, would destroy Shuro emotionally I think. Like. On one hand being like "Oh of course my dad would find Laios fun, unlike me his boring son", super angry as coping mechanism for his intense sadness of not having positive parental attention, and then on the other he’d see Laios being treated as a clown and identify with it and that would remind him of how he gets treated similarly which he’s in denial about (more or less, but since he puts up with the family rules and follows along he hasn’t given up on getting recognition. He wants his father’s approval, and he couldn’t blame Laios for being happy with it despite how hurtful that attention truly is without Laios’ knowledge), which would be such an overwhelming conflicted mess of emotions and his worldview would shatter a bit because he has to repress it all even now, and he’d have a breakdown.

And similar deal but if he brought Falin home… Bc ok yes he idealizes her and doesn’t even know her all that well, but like I said imo what he sees in her is that "Woah she’s so different… She’s kind and soft and doesn’t care about fitting in… She is out of this world, she’s free, she shows me a world where tenderness and authenticity is possible…" So meanwhile with Laios he’d have mixed feelings on him getting treated like a clown and identify with it, bringing Falin home and having her be demeaned would be like having his perfect comfort character dunked on and he gets reminded that the world can’t have anything good actually. With both Toudens it’d make his resentment towards his father even worse, he might snap. I’m not the biggest on gendered analysis tbh but Kui evidently does like to do it to some degree, with the genderbending changing their life considerably and different fantasy cultures having different gender roles and all, but Shuro idealizing the Touden sister as something perfect he cannot attain while being jealous and frustrated at Laios for being something he cannot attain is like. So compelling actually. With Maizuru’s hannya of female rage weaponized there could be a theme of pushing the blame and responsibilities of things onto women too, the responsibility to raise and to manage and to dish out the work and to clean after mens’ reckless decisions. Anyways just a tangent.

Shuro on a bad family angst day is everything I love in a blorbo… He can be a lil shitty as a treat to make his healing arc more fulfilling. Toshiro snapping after he sees how they treat Laios/Falin and he gives up the family headship to LEAVE. Maizuru arc where she has to choose between loyalty to the clan and loyalty to Toshiro, will she stay with the boy she raised or go home… To me Maizuru is much less sympathetic than Shuro, but she is pretty tragic and her selfless love for Shuro is her one redeeming quality. Babygirl take no shit no more, but also better yourself and turn your life around please and thank you… She is so evidently taken advantage of but like. What else does she have? So she just takes care of and loves the boy she raised like her own kid and goes about her daily life in servitude and doesn’t think too much about it all.

Shuro is awful a nickname but also, I think Shiro would be a good nickname for Toshiro, because it gets rid of that ‘Toshi’ first part of his name that all the male members of his family share. It severes the link to his father and the tied pressure from his family.

Laishuro brotp turning slow burn romance would be so lovely. I think college au for laishuro would be peak actually… Shuro so is the repressed "I am so normal" guy who has a furry liberation identity crisis arc… I also quite like the potential he’d have with Namari, as both work-oriented misfit foreigners cast out of their homes, and she’s also bolder so it’d be good for him, and he could bring her stability… That’s a topic for another day tho. Even he and falin are sweet tbh, they could have traveled around together even if just as friends… Bc yeah she does value him as a friend at least somewhat, she says she’ll visit him~! Mostly I want Izutsumi-Toshiro brotp fancontent.

Conclusion

The household is very hierarchy oriented, and honestly the system doesn’t seem to make anyone happy, or at least not healthily so. Sighh feudalism.

Obviously their situation are very different, but still Toshiro and Izutsumi react to the same conflict in opposite ways: when a hierarchy and lifestyle of rules and duty is thrust upon them, Toshiro obeys and believes that it’s how things simply are, always having it been drilled into him since being a baby and being privileged enough to live ok with things as they are, meanwhile Izutsumi rages and eventually breaks free and never wants to submit herself to rules or hierarchy ever again, even if that perceived hierarchy is a mutually beneficial professional party dynamic or having a role inside a well-meaning team, like Laios’ party. WHICH IS WHY THEY SHOULD HANG OUT AND HAVE AN ARC TOGETHER. LET HER INFLUENCE HIM TO GET WILDER AND THINK OF HIMSELF MORE. FUCK INHERITING THE HEADSHIP. THE SIBLINGS NARRATIVE.

As always if I find more stuff to add i’ll edit it in. Rn I’m thinking that I’ll look into ninja & samurai feudal history and try to find specific terms that might fit their roles and situations more. I should reread try to cover Izutsumi’s end of the Toshiro-Izu dynamic as well.

I greatly recommend this paper for more excellent meta on all named Dunmeshi characters and their culture!

Ah yes yes, I forgot to talk about it but we don’t know what Toshiro’s retainers have been doing with their time on The Island, especially while he was dungeon diving with Laios and co. Although in the anime’s ed in this shot we see them "stealthily" follow him around, so presumably when he’s not in dungeons they’re tailing his moves.

Afterword here, it has summary charts about the power structure & relationships and complementary pages and artworks, couldn’t put them in here because SIGH 30 pictures per post limit.

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mysteryanimator · 4 months ago

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Breaking down Castlevania Nocturne Season 02 - Episode 08 “The Devil is Easy to Cheat” Almost Shot-By-Shot

Previous shot analyses: S01E04 - Bedroom scene / S01E06 - Gulity Men to be Judged / S01 E08 -Breakup

Word count: 8.2k (I'm sorry it keeps getting longer)

We have returned once again to “mystery uses their media production and analysis skills, along with their hyperfixation on storyboards to talk about gay vampires, their other hyperfixation”.

For people new to my breakdowns:

If I skip any shots, its because I'm limited to a 30-image limit and some parts just won't have images BUT I will try my best!

I highly advise you to rewatch Nocturne after reading this and make your own thoughts because while this is an analysis, it also comes through my own lens. How you engage with media will be very different to me, however, there are principles that are followed to elicit certain types of emotions from an overall perspective. I'm here to break down those film codes and artistic principles :D I will be drawing over some of them, while others will be moving.

These are just observations based on my background in media production and analysis (I’ve been out of the field for a bit but trying to strengthen it back since it is important for storyboarding). Despite all of that, this is for fun, which is why I will be writing a lot more casually (which therefore specific interpretations may bleed through), so please don't take this too seriously! This not only helps me out as a student to become aware of how stories are put together and, in turn, how to apply them and make my own. It also allows me to impart that excitement to you and helps everyone to understand why they might be so drawn to a particular scenes (me included)! Shot choices matter, especially when you have only 12 episodes, a deadline, a budget, asset restrictions, and so on. It all has to count. Everything matters.

Passionate creatives care and there is more than "the curtain is blue just because." The times when things slip under the radar and are put there just because are mostly due to executive decisions, budget restrictions, deadlines and a lot more that we don't get to see from an audience perspective. I think in this day and age, people do forget about how intentional the media they consume is and Castlevania is choked full of carefully curated scenes.

With that out of the way, let's talk about gay vampires !!!

[Can't believe we're starting with no image. I can't show it due to image limits, I'm saving them for other scenes. Feel free to follow along on Netflix!]

After Edouard and Annette's conversation, we have shots of buildings. This is to establish a jump in time and a new scene occurring! Showcasing this large building is important because we cut to Olrox carrying Mizrak after this, and once you mentally pair that with this large building, it'll sink in that Olrox has been walking with Mizrak in his arms for a while now. We do not know what happened from the time we saw Mizrak walking side by side with Olrox to now, but we know he's getting worse for wear.

Then we get a close-up of a window!! Mizrak and Olrox scenes in season 01 were either introduced through pulled-out establishing shots that contained a lot of greenery (the courtyard in ep 03 / the breakup hill in ep 08) OR via windows of the inn. This gets continued here.

We get candles too and fire symbolizes life and we've already had Olrox state how his previous lover "burned with such passion". These candles supernaturally light up, which builds to foreshadow the transformation Mizrak will have as he goes from dying to being "alive" through supernatural means.

The following midshot purposefully cuts off their faces to continue to build suspense. Having a lack of face means we're unable to connect to them which is intentional. It makes us yearn to connect deeper because we can clearly see something is absolutely wrong. Mizrak isn't walking. This is super uncharacteristic of Mizrak and doesn't align with what we saw last.

[omg yay an image]

This is a midshot in which the camera moves from top to bottom/bottom to top. This type of camera movement is called a pedestal, though I have seen it be called a boom/jib. For any general camera movements, whether that be the aforementioned pedestal or a pan, the camera has to be motivated by something in the scene to move in that direction. So what is the motivator for this specific camera movement in this shot? The order of who we see in the shot.

It begins with Mizrak because now we finally have a clear view of him and he practically encompasses most of the screen because he's horizontal and how we view shows is with a landscape screen. Immediately the first half of this shot tells us two things. It's Mizrak and Mizrak is dying. It's something we need to immediately pick up on because the camera begins to move up. After all, a particular face is cut off. It's Olrox's. The second part of this shot has us reveal it is Olrox who is carrying Mizrak and what expression he's making. Dividing up our focus and moving the camera makes it less overwhelming to us as an audience to engage with this scene because it lets us focus on one thing at a time and builds up a shock factor. This is helped by the fact that the first focus point is horizontal, then when the camera moves up to shift focus, Olrox is dead center vertical.

This also feels like a reference to La Pietà. It is a sculpture of Jesus and Mary depicting the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary. La Pietà depicts the sixth, John 19:39-40. Jesus is being taken down from the cross and put into Mary's arms. While the death is over, Mary still grieves the loss of her son. What follows after this is the seventh sorrow as she watches Christ's burial waiting for his resurrection which feels very in line with what's happening right now.

[no image my bad sorry for the long wall of text]

Next, we have an extreme close-up of Olrox's eyes.

Eyes are a massive thing within this scene alone, and this shot here helps to establish his current thoughts and feelings because they take Olrox's eyes away after this. We no longer become privy to his inner world. Eyes are by far one of the easiest tells of a character and their current thoughts. Eyes are the window to the soul. Mizrak also in previous scenes has a ton of focus and close-ups of his eyes because he is such a guarded character but his eyes do tend to betray him. The exact same thing can be said for Olrox (his eyes betray him with Drolta when he lies about not seeing Belmont and co, won't lie, it's really funny).

One thing to note is the asymmetry of his hair, which never usually falls in front of his face. This is where I bring your attention in season 02, Drolta and Ezerbet questioned what Olrox has sacrificed. What or who he would die for. His hair has fallen in front of his face VERY MESSYILY in that instance as he looks down in deep thought. While there are other instances of his hair in front of his face, the example I brought up is personally the strongest call back (however I can be totally wrong and there can be more!)

Not only big wide expansive shots are used to establish new locations, close-ups do! They're usually always followed up by much wider shots, however. The purpose here is to show Olrox entering a new location, and moving from the hallway to the bedroom. This is super important to establish because this is the final leg of the journey they both have to traverse. We need to see them get from point A to point B or else it does not feel as impactful. The silent moments matter heavily for this type of scene because they say a lot.

Also, I'm a sucker for these types of compositions/lighting, it's actually one of my favorite shots in this scene. The doorway literally frames Olrox into a box and it keeps him centered in the shot. As he walks through, it is purposefully dark around him and the only light that peeks through is from behind. Backlighting a character not only helps to distinctly separate the character from the background, it often gives a halo effect which is associated with the divine and otherworldly. It can establish how powerful a character is. HOWEVER, Olrox is walking Mizrak away from the light, which can further strengthen Mizrak's descent into vampirism as it can be considered turning away from God due to the inability to accept human ailments and death.

This is a wide shot to establish the interior we're in. It's absolutely used to contrast the much smaller inn room in season 01 episode 03. The beginning of their relationship versus the end. The camera here uses a truck movement (the camera moving side to side, in this case, left to right). Its intention is to follow Olrox and draw our eye towards the bed in this scene, as this is where the rest of the scene will take place.

Now, if you’ve read my previous analyses, you will know how much talk about Olrox holding Mizrak from behind. It’s a key characteristic, it is so important to see their mental states as characters.

Olrox right now is holding Mizrak from behind. Except this time, Mizrak is accepting it.

The first time Olrox holds Mizrak from behind is he tries to persuade him out of death. The second (and third) time Olrox holds Mizrak from behind is to forcibly tear him away from death. This is the last time Olrox holds him from behind because he’s actively dying. though in this instance, instead of persuading or forcibly trying to pull him away from death- it’s him ending up gently carrying him away from death. Or one could even argue, that Olrox is actually gently taking Mizrak towards his death instead of preventing it. Death to his human self and his man-made chains.

While Mizrak never explicitly states “yes bite me turn me into a vampire”, and the room for ambiguity is there, there is an acceptance from Mizrak that begins the moment we see him in Olrox’s arms. Time and time again, we have seen Mizrak constantly fighting against Olrox, either by physically pulling away or saying the most horrific things known to man. This is entirely different. He’s being carried the ENTIRE WAY to the bed without fighting Olrox. His posture is a lot more open and exposed towards Olrox. He in this moment is giving himself up to him.

Why another wide shot? For the boxes lets gooo, Myst loves boxes and frames.

This shot uses the setting to frame Olrox and Mizrak. The bedframe acts to box them in and create a small space just for the two of them outside the view of anyone else. The background behind them showcases the hallway Olrox traversed and its length emphasizes the distance Olrox has been walking just for Mizrak to lay and rest.

By the way, why I'm wording what Mizrak tells Olrox as a confession later in this analysis is because of this shot. This deeply reminds me of the Anglo-Catholic practice of private confessionals. It feels like Olrox is here as a higher judgment, sitting and listening to Mizrak's confession of penitent. The boxing-in of the shots and how private it is begins to deeply feel like a confessional.

A close-up! While an extreme close-up is where the creative behind the shot forces you to focus on one thing, a normal close-up is usually aimed at the face and intended to communicate what the character is feeling or their current headspace with a whole facial performance. So, as you could probably surmise from this shot, what the artist intends to communicate a few things:

Olrox putting him down (neck area)

Mizrak breathing raggedly (mouth)

Mizrak opened his eyes to look at Olrox (top of face)

Mizrak is SO GREY, he lacks proper colour (overall face)

So for all of that to be seen, a close-up is needed.

Ok, why punch into an extreme close-up here if we already have a close-up of Mizrak in the exact same pose? This one solely focuses on his eyes. As I stated with Olrox's eye close-up, eyes are a massive thing in this wholeee section, so now it's Mizrak's turn for a eye close-up. Especially since for the remainder for this, Olrox does not show his face and Mizrak basically communicates for the both of them. The way Mizrak talks and looks at Olrox is an indication of how Olrox could be feeling.

Also, how can you not have an eye shot paired with the line "You've seen the devil, then, waiting for me." This falls into place really well.

This midshot does a lot of things, more importantly, it establishes where characters are in the scene because, for the rest of this entire section, it is basically all close-ups. This helps to ground where everything is because later on, Mizrak gets panicked. In turn, the camera and timing match that, therefore we can begin to lose our sense of where we are WHICH is a good thing to sell that idea, however, we need to establish where everything is before that is done.

This also establishes Olrox is just never going to be showing his face until the very end because now the camera has locked itself to this side of the characters.

Another thing is also how Mizrak's wound is practically in the middle of the shot. It is more clearly obvious that the wound is straight in the middle of where the cross is on his uniform. Mizrak in a funny not so funny way, is being martyred. He is dying refusing to give up his faith or beliefs. While he is defined by his religion because that's a core aspect of his character, he actually mostly believes in the people. He believes and cares strongly for characters like Maria who neither of them politically align together, but he makes sure she gets to her house. He wants her safe.

This midshot is very important because while Olrox's face is purposefully obscured, Mizrak's face never does. What's interesting is that Mizrak is looking directly at Olrox as he braves his confession of weakness. Not only is Mizrak's eyeline just up toward him, but Olrox's body is just purposefully included in this shot. When Mizrak continues to confess his fears further into this scene, in the back of our minds we have the fact Olrox is intently listening the entire time even though he is shunning himself away from the audience. For the next three shots, he literally disappears from the audience's perspective, but not from Mizrak's eye line. His current expression when listening to him is literally just for Mizrak to know.

These are all extreme close-ups! The purpose of this is to directly have you focused a very specific reaction and emotion! The main focus of the first shot is to solely focus on Mizrak's eyes looking directly at Olrox, then him looking down and away from his face before getting scared literally the moment his eyes move off him and he looks back up at him. Multiple different reads of the situation can be applied here since why Mizrak looks down is not exactly stated to us. One thing I will say is that what motivates a character to move their eyes down another character's body is to literally check their body, either for attraction or concern.

Mizrak is dying here though. Why does his eyes drop? It can be for a multitude of different reason but the most likely is the self-actualisation of the eternity of torment.

What's important too is that in the second shot, Mizrak's hand shakes before stopping. We need to see that. Especially paired with that specific line because his shakes stop after saying "no release", which is basically a visual contradiction. Having something visually stop while having a dialogue about unending pain and suffering. To me personally, this hand movement can read as two things, though there are definitely more interpretations, these are my two takes based on different focuses.

Tremors are caused by fear, but he however can control them which is why it stops. This is his last attempt to feel like he has control over his situation. This is based off the fact the line contradicts the action taking place.

This isn't him shaking, this is him fighting himself to reach out to Olrox physically. His hands can be read as clenching and unclenching rather than tremors. This is based off the idea of how visually Mizrak is alone in these shots and Olrox's presence in a is absent (but can be sensed he is outside of our line of sight).

Hey so, fun fact, this has happened before. Extreme close up of hands/eyes whilst they talk about demons/hell. BOTH SIDE PROFILE TOO.

Again, hands and eyes are key indicators of how characters can feel in the moment, and the character Mizrak uses this to great effect since it pairs very well with his guarded persona.

Also oh my god look at him being so full of colour compared to now.

A close-up! It is probably one of the most vital shots in this entire sequence (alongside Olrox's iconic line). Mizrak cries A LOT in this season, but here, he purposefully doesn't try to hide or turn away- he admits this while staring directly at him.

An important detail is that his dialogue of torture and agony are all solo shots. Alone. This is on purpose. This confession of fear is also visually alone, but he calls out to Olrox by name in this solo shot. What this does is that it gives permission for Olrox to re-enter the scene, hell, you could argue Mizrak is begging Olrox to re-enter the scene. Technically, Olrox has not left the scene because Mizrak stares at him the entire time during his confession, but Olrox has left the audience's line of sight, which makes Mizrak's shots feel that much more isolated and alone.

This is a personal take, but it also has evidence. This is one of the bravest things Mizrak has said thus far in the entire series. His bravery and strength should not be measured by running into battle to protect the ones who cannot protect themselves- his measure of courage and strength lies in being vulnerable and admitting weakness. I actually discussed it in my season 01 - episode 04 analysis, so the groundwork for shielding vulnerability only for it to be opened up has been there from the very beginning. There is build-up and now it's being released all in one go, which is really interesting considering the fact Mizrak talks about agony upon agony with no release, but here, he's releasing all of his emotions.

Mizrak has also said Olrox’s name about three times now. That is the exact amount Olrox said Mizrak’s name in the last season. Funnily enough if you squint hard enough they can be call and responses to each other.

S01E03 - “Has the world abandoned you, Mizrak?”

S02E04 - “I’ve seen enough too, Olrox.” (girl what have you seen please tell us)

S01E06 - “Of course not Mizrak, I’m not in love with you.”

S02E05 - “If you do have soul Olrox, and maybe you do. I hope it finds peace.”

S01E08 - “I don’t want you to die, Mizrak.”

S02E08 - “I’m afraid, Olrox.”

In any visual entertainment medium, repetition comes in threes so something has to happen after this, which we'll get to very shortly (it's the "my love" part).

This close-up of Olrox is used to slow down the scene and break the tension caused by Mizrak's scenes. It's utterly silent, a complete contrast to the panic and the wordy confession by Mizrak.

What this shot does is help build anticipation for him to share the screen space with Mizrak as he lowers himself in this shot. We're also not privy to his face. This also builds up the anticipation of seeing his face later on and really hammers that impact.

This shot is very important as it reintroduces Olrox to be in the same visual space as Mizrak and this is the very first thing he does.

When reintroducing Olrox back in, two new things are introduced. Well more so not new things, two pre-existing motifs/concepts get elevated.

Hands. This is not new, hell, Olrox holding Mizrak is by far not a new thing and it is one of the key visual characteristics of their dynamic, hand-holding however, is definitely new.

"My love", is absolutely very new, but of course it is a replacement for Mizrak. Mizrak's name gets elevated to my love.

What's also very interesting is how pulled out this shot is. This is important however as two different elements are here to strengthen this shot.

Mizrak's entire dagger is in this shot. A weapon of violence is here to contrast the gentle nature of Olrox reaching for Mizrak's hand. The matter of fact that the dagger is placed in this shot BUT lacks any very heavy visual weight implies how any agony, torture, or violence is currently being subsided as Olrox's hand is in front of it.

The bed sheet takes up a major part of the lower thirds of this shot. Take notice of it's colour and pattern. I do go over it in my mindless talks about the Nocturne eye colour analysis, but I'll reword it to fit the context of this scene in particular.

Olrox is coded purple and green. Not only in his character design, but in the locations he's often put in. If you think back to every single space Olrox has shared with Mizrak they are all green. Mostly grassy outdoor environments, however, if they are not outside, the inn is very naturalistic in colour and framing like nature itself. This showcases where Olrox is compared to Mizrak in a power dynamic. Mizrak just does not have any strong vibrant colours to define him that aren't monochromatic or brown, but that's kind of the whole point of his character. This just easily allows for when he shares a space with Olrox, the green and any other vibrant colour to overwhelm Mizrak, and in a funny way, make Mizrak stand out very oddly because Mizrak isn't visually a vibrant character.

So this one shot, it basically informs us how Olrox is wrapped around Mizrak and is not willing to let go.

This is shot is so impactfullllllll, the build up to this is soooo good.

This is a close-up shot, what's important though is how much Olrox visually takes up screen space-wise, completely contrasting the previous shot. Especially since this is the first time we haven't seen his face in a while. This shot chooses to specifically focus on Olrox's eyes and mouth. This builds to anticipate what is to come and have us on the edge of our seats, questioning if Olrox is going to actually bite Mizrak. The closeness of the shot too makes this scene very intimate to continue this more romantic, yet still dark atmosphere going on.

Also what's important to mention again is Olrox's hair strands, which is used to block and frame this shot. In a sense, it makes the shot that much more suffocating and close in. While Olrox does not show any panic or fear emotionally, simply because Olrox is trying to comfort Mizrak, this feels like Olrox is in fear. By having this line paired with a close-up of Olrox only, it makes it feel like Olrox is locked to the one sole option. His sole decision. He's currently not going to be taking any other suggestions because how can he? Mizrak admitted his fear of death/hell, and by no means Olrox is giving into Mephistopheles/Old Man Coyote.

What choice does he have? He has no other choice... right?

The theme of choices is a massive thing in Nocturne Season 01. Olrox's first appearance in the show is with him says "don't listen to her, there is always a choice". Olrox is the one to introduce this theme of choices, but here now, Olrox is backed into a corner with no other choice.

[No image sorry]

Next we have a close-up of Mizrak's eyes.

While this will not be the last we ever see of Mizrak's eyes since we have another shot, his eyes are important. This reaction is important. We need the pause for the gasp and his shock. What's important is that his eyes do all the talking which in my mind is much more powerful as it communicates ten different billion things and leaves it up to the audience's interpretation of how to engage with this scene.

However, the most important takeaway for everyone is that we have to see Mizrak be shocked.

This is important because of course, a close-up of the mouth is there to state how Olrox is going to bite him, therefore you need to put a lot of emphasis on that to really hammer it in, but the focus of the mouth moves. It does not move with Olrox however, Olrox moves himself and out of the camera. This puts emphasis on his descent, really building for that anticipation of the bite but it gives us one last tiny glance at Olrox's mental headspace before the bite.

It is so brief, but we see his eye and that's important. You don't include anything that isn't important because this is a serialised animated series, you're not going to spend additional time on something that lacks importance (I think, this is me guessing I can be so wrong here). Also, his eyes are green they're going to stand out against black and brown. His eyebrow is upturned and his eye, from what i can personally read, is far more gentler than his previous shot.

(i won't lie, seeing this loop is very funny to me)

Another close up and this is the final time we see Mizrak's very brown human irises. This is the last thing we see of his humanity. This is animation, so it's important to capture Mizrak's face before the bite, Mizrak's initial shock of pain and some sort of acceptance as his irises settle back to normal size before closing them with tears. Honestly, it's better to just click through it on Netflix frame by frame if you really want to see the arcs Mizrak goes through in this one shot, its very cool to see him go through all these phases in a short amount of time. While nothing is stated outright for the morally grey area which is on purpose. It builds off the whole conversation from the season 01 episode 06.

Mizrak: And you did that to him? Did you even ask for permission?

Olrox: I was in love with him, I wanted him to be with me forever.

Mizrak: And is that what you have planned for me?

Olrox: Of course not, Mizrak. I'm not in love with you.

This leads to one of two outcomes for the future. Either Olrox repeating a cycle beat for beat, or Olrox trying to fix previous mistakes in a "what would I do differently if I went through this again." Both come from his survivor's guilt. This will be explored further in season 03 (please I need it so bad) in a much more complicated nuanced way because this is Mizrak we're talking about. Despite him having overlapping traits with Olrox's previous lover, he is also the very opposite of him (that we know of since we can gather Mizrak is so self-loathing, while Olrox's previous lover embraced his connection to the land and fought for the rights of his people, so we can make the assumption that he embraced his whole identity).

This mid-shot paired with another pedestal camera move! The camera is motivated to move up so it can showcase the new character positions in the location, Mizrak's hand placement, Olrox's arm and of course the biteeee, followed by Mizrak's expression. It's staggered one after the other.

One thing you must notice is Mizrak putting a hand on Olrox's elbow (this gif makes it so hard to see, this is me asking you to rewatch it on Netflix for a better view) which can imply acceptance of vampirism. It's animated intentionally. Again, nothing is stated outright, but also media is kind of boring to engage in if you spell it out verbally. What's the point of a visual medium without using visuals to a storyyyy. It also just gives autonomy to the audience to come to their own conclusions which is also more fun. The lack of a spelled-out answer makes us more engaged as an audience.

Then we get a fade to blackkkkkkk~

While this is mostly just to symbolize the end of a scene, in a lot of other media, fade to black is used to cut away from sexually intimate scenes which is funny knowing that context.

What's fun is that this scene is supposed to run parallel with Richter and Annette's scene kissing (I'm not sure, there could been a stronger scene to parallel this, I just know in my soul of them is supposed to go in line with a Richter/Annette scene). One character takes care of their partner's aliments and sharing an intimate moment together. Whilst they are definitely not one-for-one, these two couples are supposed to show different aspects of love as this entire series, both the original and Nocturne, have very strong themes of love in it. This also just allows for whatever they have planned for season 03 to make them still feel closely tied even if they're literally doing completely different things.

Ok we are done with this sequence, time to jump to the spicy one!

This is our establishing shot for the scene. Curtains. A window. Through both season 01 and season 02, we’ve been getting so many cues about Olrox and Mizrak’s association with windows and curtains. Also, the last time we saw curtains as an establishing shot for Mizrak/Olrox, they were naked. This builds off our previous expectations.

Also, this is super vertical and red. This will be VERY IMPORTANT LATER. Greenish yellow curtains were used to represent Olrox, but this is red.

We jump to pedestal midshot, which just gives us a lot of questions. Where's Mizrak? WHY IS HIS SHIRT OPEN? WHY IS HE LAYING LIKE THAT? NEW CLOTHES??? WHAT'S GOING ON??? That's all intentional because we don't have any setting establishing shots and therefore it feels disorientating on purpose. It forces us into questioning mode. We can only presume we're in the same location due to the bed and camera angle feeling the exact same as where we left off in their previous scene together, but that's all we get.

Pedestal camera movements also just happen a ton in this sequence simply because Mizrak's reveal is all ton in pedestals and it complements nicely with the fabric falling down, so setting up the movement early helps ease it in.

This shot can also totally parallel season 01 episode 04 where Olrox turns to look at Mizrak leaving the bed since both of those shots are framed above Olrox. This can also totally parallel Olrox killing Julia as his hair is in a circular motion in a similar shape to the blood.

@ifishouldvanish did an amazing breakdown of this and for the life of me I cannot find it, but once that's found I'll link it here, in a sense it's basically offering his blood up to Mizrak here.

EDIT: Thank you Vanish for sharing it! This comments the Olrox/Julia parallel along with discussing the Quetzalcoatl and how they overlap with what's occurring in this scene! You can read it here!

We cut into this close-up! The main thing here is directing our eye-line to stay on the left of the screen and build anticipation for Mizrak's face. Every single shot's aim is mostly for that build-up for that pay off.

Close-ups, as I've stated before, are used mainly to see an emotional performance from the character and therefore personally connect to their feelings. This however, which I will be personally honest, is so hard to read but I feel that's on purpose to give into the ambiguity aspect of not only the scene but also of Olrox as a character. Both Olrox and Mizrak are expressive and extremely very guarded, so it definitely leans into that. It also gives the audience the autonomy to come to their own conclusions. Like this can read as a very gentle smile, it can read as a subdued concerned look- it's your interpretation and how you personally engage with this entire sequence. It allows the ending to be a lot more open-ended.

This longshot! It gives more of the background to establish where characters are in the scene but do notice how things seem different now. Notice the colours in this shot. We're introducing Mizrak's new colour motif. It practically dominates the entire scene, even if Olrox's eyes glow bright green. Not only this, this shot builds up for the anticipation of Mizrak's vampire transformation reveal as all the red fabric drapes down in an almost waterfall/dripping way akin to blood.

We also begin to have the fabric move down, bleeding into other shots to stitch them cohesively together (that pun was intended).

Also, this is super intentional again, but Olrox is boxed/framed by the bed with very harsh lines and rectangles. This deeply contrasts Mizrak's shots because Mizrak doesn't visually get confined by the background due to all the drapery and the blurred background. He is also associated with vertical organic lines. This creates a deep separation between these two characters, giving us suspense and tension because there's a clear disparity between them.

Woo! A midshot! This shot feels so long and so short in timing.

This is super vertical. This shot is 90% made of vertical lines, which brings a ton of focus toward Mizrak's back and the drapery because they're the only two things that are not vertical.

The drapery here is basically a curtain unveiling the main piece. This is Mizrak's rebirth, he has transformed. This is coupled with artistic nudity as nudity isn't inherently sexual and represents the form in its barest sense. You could even say it's religiously coded.

Also in general, if you put anything on the very edge of your shot visually, it creates unease so if you put something as bright as light on the very edge, it makes your shot unbalanced. This is done on purpose. The dark aspect of this shot is literally all-consuming and makes the left heavy focus feel more menacing because there's so much empty dark space.

This mid-shot is paired with a pedestal camera move! The camera is motivated to move in an up/down position due to the last shot having the robe fabric around him move down as a reveal, therefore continuing that movement here to continue the reveal of Mizrak’s transformation. While yes "teehee look at his chest awooga", rightfully so, me too, you notice the blood and wound are absent. Mizrak looks strong and healthy. The pedestal camera movement is used to great effect again because the first thing you're focused on is his chest, then it moves up and you see the bite marks and the ear. Information is slowly given to us.

I'm putting my case down that this shot is a callback to Season 01 Episode 03, in which Olrox peers outside the window of his inn room. They both have this same forlorn look as they look out.

This cut to a close-up and having Mizrak switch up is fucking terrifying. This is because the background is completely blurred to give Mizrak the center stage. The background is completely separate to him, he doesn't feel grounded to it as if he's popping out of the screen. His eyeline is directly at US, the audience.

When Mizrak turns, his eyes glow bright red. We've seen this before where someone turns their head and their eyes shift from their natural colour to bright red. In-fact, Mizrak has seen this before.

Tera does this BEFORE with Emmanuel too when he insinuates on Tera's vampirism affecting her love for Maria. Another example, while not as strong (simply because the freshly turned vampire comparison) is Ezerbet demanding Emmanuel to bring back Drolta but all of these points of contention surround love and so-called monsters having souls.

Side note, it's very interesting that she yells at Emmanuel, but cries over Mizrak's comment and her red eyes disappear. Obviously, the stark difference is that Emmanuel literally sacrificed her, but it showcases that Tera and Mizrak probably were close friends since he makes sure to actively protect her daughter and he knows his way to their house. Just something to think about with these newly turned vampires and how their lives will come to overlap eventually.

While this trait may just be an Ezerbet thing, we don't know, notice how the glowing eyes occur in highly intense emotions surrounding people they love deeply. The Tera example just being stronger to back up this case since she is a recently turned vampire. Eyes are super important in Nocturne for both vampires and humans. Alucard's eyes go bloodshot red like Dracula's when he fully powers up. Maria's eyes go pitch black as she initially summons Seiryuu. Olrox's eyes glow bright green as he spies from Mizrak from his inn room window. Richter's eyes glow icy blue as he fights Drolta and eventually confronts Olrox.

So what does this mean for Mizrak? Again, this will begin to pull into interpretation based on other scenes in the show and how I viewed those. One thing I can say is that Mizrak still "has a mind that can think and a heart that can love" - Olrox S02E01. We need to pull that context from Olrox/Tera's conversation, Tera/Emmanuel's conversation, Ezerbet's demands from Emmanuel, Drolta's night creature transformation, and Alucard's conversation with Maria about Dracula. While there definitely are more conversations that can further strengthen the point I'm making, no matter who you are, monster, vampire, or human, they all have a soul, you are innately the same even after transformation. It is however your choice to indulge in the powers of vampirism and abuse it or stand against its tide. This includes Mizrak now. The choices he makes now are still him. Which why it makes it all the more shocking because the last time we saw him, he was having a crying session, pouring out his heart and soul to Olrox but suddenly now he's quiet and fucking terrifying. We as an audience mentally have to determine which choices he has made. Did he cry after feeding, sobbing over the violence like countless times before or did he indulge in the powers he manifested? Or a third other more complicated idea? I'm not going to say my personal opinion outright to avoid swaying your own because the intention of this shot is to make you question and really dig deep about it.

Also if you're still interested in my personal opinion I feel like it really seeps through in all my fan art and just this informal essay in general. Even then I do have a ton of thoughts about it that are not perceivable in the public eye because, in my brain, their dynamic is so convoluted as individuals LET ALONE THEM PAIRED TOGETHER. The thing is too, multiple different ideas and interpretations co-exist in my brain at the same time so it's really hard to get a proper personal opinion without me just saying "me like Castlevania : Nocturne more than a normal amount."

This is a long shot, it establishes the room they’re in, where the characters are placed and the location. While it is always important, the is colour, character placement and framing is something I’m specifically calling out here.

This is an extremely red room. The colour red is now heavily associated with Mizrak. The only thing that isn’t red is the bed, aka where Olrox is placed. It is green, a colour often associated with him. Often then not, Olrox and Mizrak’s private scenes usually tend to be placed in green environments, giving the sense to the audience of who is higher in the power dynamic. Not only here, that has been changed but with the way the bed frame is placed, it literally boxes Olrox into this section. It makes him appear a lot smaller and appears to take up less space. The roles are swapping. We've already seen this by Olrox joining the fight, and now we have Mizrak accepting vampirism.

This midshot is used to communicate him getting up from the bed and giving Mizrak the same dark stare. It also just gives a reason to see Olrox's torso LOL.

This shot is super vertical which challenges every other shot Olrox has been in because he's been horizontal or laying down the entire time. This and the previous shot is now on par with Mizrak who has been associated with vertical organic lines.

This shot is laced with so much mystery and lack of any conformation because you can also again, interpret as you wish with this shot. That's the allure of it though, that's why people love this shot.

[no image here sorry, curse you 30 image limits]

The next shot I wanted to talk about was the transitional curtain/drapery which is super fun as a way to go between shots. It's a super reminiscence of curtains unveiling a performance on stage or a magician trick behind the curtain to reveal a transformation or something disappearing. What the drapery reveals for the first one is two close ups of Mizrak's new form. His teeth and his dagger-like nails. These are vital to showcase the violent potential of his body. His new weapons.

What's interesting is that Mizrak is growling. Mizrak throughout the entire show harks on about animals, yet he himself has become the thing he's sworn to hate- hell, before his transformation, he literally barks and growled at other people, this is just manifesting it in physical form.

Animals to him (from what I've gathered) are free to follow their heart’s content (which is something Mizrak is yearning, desiring and longing to be like if you think about it), which are not bound by the rules made by mankind. The church's rules appear they are given by God, and the Abbott fights for Him in His name, but these teachings are reinforced by infallible men despite taking vows of obedience, stability and conversatio morum (fidelity to monastic life, which vows of poverty and chastity go under these). Mizrak is blind to the fact he is serving men's idea of God rather than God Himself, but it all begins to unfurl at the seams during season 01 and Mizrak finds himself trying to still cling to it in season 02, but it's just himself now. It is literally just faith as his companion at this point.

Ok Mystery, tell me how this shot of Mizrak’s ass is important. Why incorporeal voice, I’d love to tell you. So I'm not joking when I say this is Mizrak liberating himself from his man-made chains. Nudity, as I stated before, can mean rebirth but it can also represent vulnerability. This literally bares out Mizrak in his entirety, unbound by his uniform, and by his ties to his religion. Vamprisim in a way has led him to accept his other parts of his identity (not fully though because this is Mizrak).

Going off into another media, but it reminds me of Louis from Interview With the Vampire (2022). He comes to terms with his queer identity through being turned into a vampire and if he never got turned, he probably would have died never accepting that part of himself. Honestly, I think that show is very good to overlap its theme with Mizrak and Olrox, and also in general a very visually/narratively-driven strong show, I would highly recommend it.

Okay, let's get back on topic!

They're posed specifically like that to make the silhouette distinctly clear of where they are, but Mizrak and Olrox's poses intrigue me. The way Mizrak's legs wrap around Olrox's thigh and how very intentionally his hand goes to the side of Olrox, especially since we have jumped from two shots of his dagger-like fangs and nails, which appears very violent, yet this is very intimate. Then we have Olrox, whose pose is also very open. It's accepting whatever onslaught hunger Mizrak has. This is strengthened by the contrasting vertical and horizontal lines in this shot as now Olrox is horizontal. He lasted about 5 seconds before being back on the bed.

Another thing is that compositionally, Mizrak is above Olrox and takes up a lot more visual space then him, which places him higher in the power dynamic. Mizrak has never been in that position until now. Olrox is much lower in the composition and most of it is covered up by Mizrak, being placed lower in the power dynamic, which is also a very new thing. This further pushes the new roles they have in this dynamic.

The sound effect for Mizrak landing on the bed isn’t as harsh or violent as I expected despite the appearance of the velocity he was going at in the previous shots. I'm going to take that as intentional because Mizrak looming over Olrox is a parallel to season 01 episode 03. While the sounds are not the same they're way similar. In turn, almost every single shot in this sequence can be tied back to a previous shot in season 01 I'm not kidding. This is why this works so well, everything is coming back.

All those visual parallels can be seen here on my Bluesky!

This one shot is both fucking absolutely terrifying but it also communicates "woah hot" which is great, we need more of that in media. Give me more horror mixed with sexuality in a vampiric context thank youuuu.

This shot moves from a midshot to a close up because Mizrak moves himself. The camera isn’t motivated to move, he is, exactly like Olrox's bite shot. We’re also placed in the position of Olrox. The shot just LINGERS on Mizrak just staring at the camera and it’s just slightly longer then the norm. To me, this reads as if Mizrak is literally eyeing up prey. Terrifying.

The presumption can be made that Mizrak, being newly turned (evidenced by the still-fresh bite marks) needs to feed. Much like how Tera needed to feed off Ezerbet. However, instead of forcing blood into his mouth much like how Ezerbet dribbled blood into Tera, Olrox just lets Mizrak come to him animalistically. This does not strike any fear into him, hell his expression is so muted. Though we never get any close-ups of Olrox's facial expression when Mizrak goes to look at him which is very intentional, we don't get to have a proper read of Olrox's expression and continues to steep this further into mystery, yearning for more information on this scene. This also just ends in another fade to black, Olrox bit Mizrak in the last sequence analyzed, now we can again presume Mizrak is biting him due to this.

This is our last shot of Olrox and Mizrak. It leaves us to question what happened and what will occur in the future. It doesn’t even give us any answers but it lays the foundation for theories and the potential for season 03.

Another thing to note is that Olrox, originally known as Count Olrox/Count Orlok in Castlevania : Symphony of the Night was based on Count Orlok from the gothic film Nosfertau (1992). There's a whole thing where Count Orlok's shadowy hand clasps over Ellen's heart/chest and she reacts quite 'suggestively' to it. This scene is used to comment on the societal taboo of sexuality and indulging in it. This basically kind of happens in this entire sequence, but instead, it's Mizrak's shadow looming over Olrox and it's Mizrak initiating the act. If you apply that lens here, you can engage with the scene as Mizrak letting himself come to terms with his sexuality, a thing he considers taboo and forbidden through vamprisim.

A section of Nosferatu I'm talking about can be viewed here.

And we're done! Apologies for skipped shots and if any of it got really clunky or had any odd grammar. I hope you enjoyed this informal essay discussing episode 08 and I hope you got something out of it! I'm stopping this now before this consumes my brain because I need to hop onto graded studies. This was a very fun study and I hope to do more in the future!

#mystery talks #castlevania nocturne #olrox #mizrak #olrox/mizrak #mizrox #long post #analysis #castlevania #this has been rotting in my mind for two months now and finally got time and the confidence to just write #i literally keep adding to this so I'm going to stop here before it gets longer #fingers crossed that my knowledge on this is percievable in my workkkk #iwtv mention #nosfertau mention

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goyardgoyangi · 4 months ago

Text

𐙚 busy woman pt. 1 ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

⌗ pairings: eren x reader, slight! erwin x reader

⌗ summary: you don’t believe in fate, but you do believe in probability. the odds of running into a stupidly attractive guy at a highly competitive internship interview? low. the odds of him rejecting you? …higher. the odds of ending up in the same program — and on the same project team after all that? practically zero. and yet, here you are.

⌗ word count: 1.2k

♥ pt. 2 ♥ masterlist ♥

The first time you see him, he’s sitting across from you in Amazon’s sleek, modern lobby, scrolling through his phone with an air of boredom. His long hair falls effortlessly over his shoulders, framing sharp green eyes, and the all-black outfit he’s wearing only adds to the effortlessly cool aura he exudes. It’s infuriating.

The other candidates in the lobby are visibly tense— eyes darting across their laptop screens, reviewing LeetCode problems like their lives depend on it. Meanwhile, he looks like he just rolled out of bed and showed up for fun. He’s probably the type to start coding projects the night they’re due and still get a perfect score. The type who never second-guesses himself in a technical interview. The type who coasts through life on sheer talent.

It’s hard not to be at least a little resentful, especially in this job market. You sent out over 200 applications, grinded through a grueling technical screening, and sacrificed weeks of sleep just for this shot. And here he is, looking like he has nothing to worry about.

You fidget with your fingers, trying to shake off your pre-interview nerves. Maybe he’s a nepo baby. Maybe his dad is a senior dev here, and this interview is just a formality. That scenario isn’t unheard of. There’s no way a normal college student would be that calm right now.

You sigh, letting your mind wander to all the K-dramas you’ve watched about office romances. Out of the sea of awkward, smelly, socially inept CS major guys, he’s like a rare exception— the kind of guy who actually looks good while coding. Gosh, imagine if someone like him was your coworker. Debugging wouldn’t be so miserable if you were pulling all-nighters next to a guy like that. If only.

You’re still lost in your little fantasy when a voice snaps you back to reality.

“The next interview group, please come forward.”

Your name is called first.

And then—

“Eren Yeager.”

Oh.

You glance at him from the corner of your eye as he stands, stretching lazily before trailing after the recruiter. As he walks past, you catch the faintest whiff of something clean and expensive, so unfairly good.

Life really isn’t fair. Not only is he ridiculously good-looking, but he’s also tall. And he smells good.

You force yourself to refocus, but as you follow the recruiter inside, the awareness of him lingers, making your heart rate spike even more. You shouldn’t care— he’s just another candidate, really, just another competitor. You should be silently praying for his downfall. But something about the way he carries himself, so effortlessly confident, only makes you hyper-aware of your own unease.

By the time you’re seated, you push all unnecessary thoughts aside.

The interview goes well— better than well, actually. You answer the behavioral questions smoothly (after rehearsing them so many times you could probably recite the prompts in your sleep), showcase your problem-solving and people skills (shoutout to all those painfully competitive career workshops from uni), and even throw in a few well-placed jokes that make your interviewers smile (carefully crafted after an embarrassingly deep dive into their LinkedIn profiles).

By the time you walk out, you feel good— so good that, on a wild impulse that not even your obsessive need to be prepared could have accounted for, you find yourself stopping in front of Eren by the elevators. He’s leaning against the wall, scrolling through his phone like he has nowhere to be.

“Hey,” you say.

He looks up, surprised. His sharp green eyes flick over you, taking you in for a moment before he responds. “Hey.”

You hesitate for half a second. Then, before you can overthink it, you say, “We were in the same interview group, and I think you’re really cute. Would you wanna go out sometime?”

Eren blinks. He wasn’t expecting that. Hell, even you weren’t expecting that. But when someone has a face card like his, sometimes you just have to shoot your shot.

Then— silence. A long, excruciating pause. The kind that stretches just long enough to make you wonder if you sounded creepy. Oh god. Maybe you came off weird. Or desperate. Or worse— maybe he thinks you’re completely out of his league, and not in the fun, delusional way.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, he exhales, his gaze flicking over you once more before taking out an airpod to bluntly say, “I don’t really date.”

Oh.

You try your best not to let the rejection sting for too long. After all, Eren’s gorgeous and probably gets asked out by girls all the time—enough to build immunity to it. What could you say? Beautiful people should date other beautiful people, and even with your fair share of self-confidence, you felt deep down that he was out of your league.

But your obsession with being prepared had its perks. It helped you be adaptable in situations like this. “No worries,” you say smoothly, flashing him a casual grin (one you practiced in front of the bathroom mirror, imagining hypothetical situations like this) like it’s no big deal— despite the fact that your heart feels like it’s been stomped on. “Good luck with the internship.”

And with that, you turn and leave down the stairs, pretending like it never happened.

A month later, you get the acceptance email.

You’re beyond thrilled— thrilled when you (finally) announce your highly coveted internship at frickin’ Amazon, thrilled when you go out to the club with your girlfriends to celebrate the end of internship application season, and thrilled when you hear about the sweet, sweet pay (which you’re already planning to save up for a winter break trip to go snowboarding) during the Zoom onboarding meeting.

You’re so thrilled, in fact, that you can’t imagine anything ruining your high. That is, until you walk into orientation and see a very familiar face sitting at one of the tables.

Eren Yeager.

His gaze flicks up as you enter, recognition flashing in his eyes. For a split second, neither of you says anything. You freeze, feeling your face flushing with heat. He holds your gaze for what feels like an eternity before you break it, quickly looking down at the floor, mortified beyond belief. The probability of this happening was practically zero.

And yet, here he is.

You tug at the hem of your newly bought shirt from Mango (a mini present to yourself to celebrate landing the internship of your dreams, the pinnacle of what your college experience had amounted to on your resume), trying to distract yourself, but nothing can shake the immense embarrassment you feel.

To make matters worse, the project manager steps to the front of the room and announces, “Alright, summer interns! You’ll be working in assigned dev groups for the summer. Let’s introduce you to your teams.”

You can already feel the impending doom, as if the universe and all its forces are conspiring against you. What were the chances? Your opps must’ve gotten together in a group chat and ordered the most expensive bootleg spell from Etsy to make sure this moment— your moment, the one you’ve worked your butt off for— was as awkward as humanly possible.

You knew life was getting too good to be true.

#linkedin huzz is interning at amazon this year..without me...#fawkkkk #at my first internship ever i asked a guy out in front of an elevator and when he said no #i had to do the walk of shame down the emergency exit stairs bc i was too embarrassed to enter the elevator with him #never ask someone out in front of an elevator #eren x reader #eren x you #eren x y/n #eren yeager x reader #eren yeager x you #eren yeager x y/n #eren jeager x reader #eren jeager x you #aot x reader

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ilikekidsshows · 2 months ago

Note

"It also seems like she often takes credit for things that require a whole team to accomplish."

THIS. I definitely agree/commiserate with other anon here.

Similarily, there's the trend of just Ladybug getting credit or attention in her partnership with Chat. Off the top of my head: Alya outright ignoring and never acknowledging Chat saving her personally, twice, in the Origins episodes, the class cheering Ladybug's name in Bubbler when her and Chat show up, Fu thanking Ladybug in Feast and her alone even though Chat was just as involved and is standing right there, just...all of Timetagger (aka Bunnix constantly uplifting LB "you're the bestest hero ever now and in the future" and essentially telling Chat "you're a reckless idiot and ruin things in the future"), the whole city chanting her name in Strikeback, Ladybug and Chat showing up in front of Alix in Evolution while she cries out "Ladybug!", the opening news segment of Illusion in which the citizens talk about "Ladybug's" actions against Monarch, and even the Paris special when Sabine tells Tom "she's" already gotten a miraculous back (Chat who?)...

It's just, no wonder people think he's a sidekick. She's treated like a solo hero by the city more often than not, because even though he's been by her side contributing 99% of the time, he's rarely mentioned or acknowledged. I don't care if they're supposedly "partners" and it's just that "she leads, " or it's "her story", it's just so obvious the writers are prioritizing girl power/wish fulfillment over everything. And don't care nearly as much about uplifting their deuteragonist who they wrote to have self-esteem issues and an abusive home life (seriously, why did they write him that way if they never intended on adequately addressing it???), because he's...not a girl, I guess. And therefore he doesn't need or deserve to be appreciated or celebrated for being a 14 year old hero. or doing so wouldn't serve the wish fulfillment

And sure, to be fair, there are times when both their names are mentioned, but the fact that removing his name so often is a complete non-issue really tells you something. Like it's almost...nice of them to include him, but not required. Whereas the opposite is definitely not true. Can you imagine, Ladybug and Chat showing up somewhere as everyone starts chanting "Chat Noir!" alone?? Kinda seems weird that they'd just ignore her existence, now doesn’t it.

Alternately, there are times that LB messes up and then they both get blamed for it. Which after everything...is so frustrating. This is already a longer ask than I intended, so I won't go into it more, but in sum...the show tends to ignore his contributions but elevate him to "partner" status when she fails and needs an emotional support lackey.

Just...have him explicitly in the role of the sidekick from the get-go (no ying-yang this or ignoring his equal contributions that), and bam! No problem. Or at least, less problems.

...

Okay so I definitely veered into ranting about their "partnership" instead of the whole team getting shafted for Ladybug's sake, but I'd be curious to hear more/see examples, if you have any thoughts or if the other anon cares to chime in again.

---

One thing that stands out to me in addition to all of this is fans. Adrien the model’s fans are depicted as annoying unless they’re Marinette, meanwhile Ladybug’s fans are depicted as sympathetic unless they’re Theo. Like, Adrien is a fan of Ladybug but Ladybug thinks Cat Noir is an egotist and doesn’t even respect him as more than a teammate from the get-go despite him being shown as being originally more competent with his Miraculous than her with hers. She doesn’t need to do anything more than show up and Cat Noir will stare at her in slack-jawed awe, but, whenever he showcases remarkable skill in languages, binary, fencing, combat, superheroics or just clearly having a strict moral code, she’s just annoyed at him and thinks he’s showing off.

Cat Noir isn’t appreciated, in universe, outside of his existence being acknowledged. Like, Paris putting up a statue of Ladybug alone would have been such a snub, but, considering the rest of the ‘Copycat’ episode, I feel like the statue depicted Cat Noir as well just so that they could have that setup between Cat Noir and Theo. There isn’t a single Cat Noir fan in the cast, like, Nino is excited to see him in ‘The Horrificator’, but that being because Cat Noir is his favorite between him and Ladybug is just my headcanon and Adrino bias, we actually have no evidence of that.

Alya’s blog is the “Ladyblog” not the “Miracublog”, so the main news outlet for the heroes is Ladybug-focused. Chloé fangirls Ladybug but sneers at Cat Noir, but, since the show was always very bad about showcasing Chloé and Adrien’s friendship, it isn’t really set up to be for irony’s sake, but more because Ladybug is supposedly cooler / the wish-fulfilment. "Everyone who's mean to you in school would like you if they really knew you". The villains can’t shut up about Ladybug, but Cat Noir only gets vaguely mentioned in a “I’ll get you both next time” way.

Also, the importance of his Miraculous gets forgotten all the time by the writers, heroes and villains. There are so many times when Cat Noir is captured, incapacitated or mind-controlled, and very often the villains don’t even bring up the possibility of taking his Miraculous and, when it does get mentioned, it’s brushed aside with a “I’ll get it later”. Meanwhile, every time Marinette is cornered, the writers don’t waste a second before raising the stakes by having the villain try to reach for her Miraculous. Marinette is an attention black hole in-universe.

#dats chats #ml critical #ml salt

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twipsai · 10 months ago

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ive been wanting to do something like this for a while, so here we go

Silver's straightforward attitude and anxieties: a poorly formatted analysis

Silver's anxiety is something i havent seen talked about a lot, and im really just barely going beneath the surface here -- i hope i did it justice in anyway sfdkSKHJFDSKFH i think about his obvious anxiety disorder a lot

transcript of all the text i added under the cut incase its hard to read for some ppl ^_^

image 1 (source: IDW #8): "isnt really used to banter, got worried he actually offended Sonic"

"he worries a lot about not being useful, because thats pretty much his entire purpose in life. if hes not doing something, he will find something to do (badly) or panic. he gets nervous at the slightest insinuation that he mightve messed up because the last thing he ever wants to do is get in anyones way."

"for how powerful he is and how much shit he talks, Silver doesnt really think very good about himself or his own worth."

image 2 (source: Sonic Universe #82): "its hard to say anything here that i havent already said, its just another example os Silver having issues with his self wroth, and also a lot of his motivation coming from protecting the people he loves (and, more generally, protecting the world), considering a page after this he gets up and completely wrecks the Second Devourer"

image 3 (source: IDW #8): "Silver will take pretty much anything literally. he lacks the social skills to identify when someones being serious bc he grew up completely alone"

image 4 (source: IDW #14): "he cant lie (is both bad at it, and it really just doesnt cross his mind to do so), but he can change the subject"

"he also really doesnt like it when people are worried about him -- almost every time people show concern for him, he tries (and fails) to lie or change the subject"

image 5 (source: IDW #14): "he didnt see anything suspicious about [Starline giving the "vault code"] because he doesnt usually assume people lie directly to him, its just not something that usually crosses his mind"

image 6 (source: IDW #60, TSR interview): "Silver's rudeness, his naivete, misunderstanding of jokes/quips/banter, inability to lie, it all stems from his straightforwardness. its simple, but but oftentimes effective (yes i chose a bad page to showcase when it works, ignore that)"

"Silver doesnt like to beat around the bush or show off too often. go in, defeat the bad guys, get out. it ties in with his anxiety of the future -- time is always of the essence"

"Q: What are some of your favorite items to use during the race?

Silver: [...]but the Jade Wisps' "Ghost" is the only one I like. I can disappear and focus on the race."

"it does make him forget to stratagize and cooperate with his friends sometimes, though, when his first instinct is "hit it until it stops moving""

image 7 (source: Sonic Rivals 2): "im not really going over his bluntness in this, but literally the entirety of Rivals 2 covers that. he doesnt think to hide what hes doing because he knows hes in the right, so he just expects everyone else to know that. he expects people to believe him just because hes telling the truth. he doesnt see why he would have a reason to lie, so he never thinks to justify his actions."

"a lot of this bluntness is also shown in IDW #64 -- Silver cant be stealthy and observe someone from afar to save his life when he knows hes right about them. he really takes no time to explain that Duo is Mimic before Whisper steps in and attacks Mimic, even though if he took the time to talk through what happened, he probably couldve convinced Lanolin of Duo's true nature"

image 8 (source: IDW annual 2022): "Silver has pretty much zero idea how to navigate the world outside of helping other people and saving the world. he is almost constantly in "survival mode" and doesnt know how to handle low-stakes"

"(he sometimes takes casual conversation too seriously because of this)"

"he is constantly worried about the future. to an almost unhealthy degree sometimes, its often all he thinks about. when he knows exactly what to do, he comes off as confident and powerful, but when he doesnt know what to do..."

"...he completely spirals. to him, an uncertain future is worse than a doomed one. not knowing how to fix things is one of the most terrifying thoughts to him."

"if Espio hadn't been here to calm him down, i think its super likely he'd have had an anxiety attack."

image 9 (source: Sonic Generations, IDW #64, Team Sonic Racing, Sonic Universe #79): "like, i truly cannot emphasize enough how he cannot relax. anything can be a threat, and if he doesnt see an immediate one, he will find something that is one. "

"he can rarely calm down, because every second hes in the past is another second he should be saving the future"

"i cant properly showcase it here, but if you run past him in Gens, he'll immediately be on-guard."

"he has to always be looking for the next world-destroying foe, it's pretty much his default setting."

"there are tons more examples of his overt anxiety, but these are some of the more prominant examples."

image 9 (source: Archie Sonic #235): "we even see in the traitor arc in archie how Silver is constantly paranoid. the idea never crosses his mind that there is no traitor, because something is always wrong. hes like a machine built to find a problem with no off switch"

"almost anything can set him off and make him untrusting of anyone, because thats the only way he knows how to live. anything can be a threat in his eyes, and when there is no threat, he will either find one or panic that he cant find one."

"because when you spend your entire life fighting,"

"how else are you supposed to live?"

#sonic analysis #silver the hedgehog #silver the hedgehog analysis

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theaawalker · 3 months ago

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Steps to Writing an Enemies-to-Friends Relationship (No Romance or Sensual Tension)

follow for more tips �� || request writing tips 💌

1. Establish the Foundation

Define the Conflict: Clarify why these characters are enemies. Is it ideology, personal betrayal, competition, prejudice, or circumstance? The conflict should feel justified on both ends. Set Clear Boundaries: From the beginning, eliminate any hints of romantic tension. No suggestive dialogue, no lingering glances, no "will-they-won't-they" teases. Give Them Equal Strengths: Avoid power imbalances that suggest dominance or attraction. Their friction should stem from their beliefs, goals, or past—not unspoken desire.

2. Shape Their Role in the Story

Decide Their Narrative Purpose: Will they have to work together against a common enemy? Do they grow from rivalry to mutual respect? Determine how their evolving dynamic impacts the plot. Avoid Romantic Substitutes: Don’t use tropes like “angry confessions that turn into vulnerability” unless it’s clearly platonic. Let their growth come from empathy, not emotional seduction. Let Their Bond Matter: Their friendship should hold weight in the narrative. Make it feel just as powerful as romantic ones—without relying on attraction.

3. Build Their Dynamic

Use Natural Conflict-Resolution: Let them argue, clash, and call each other out. Gradually, introduce grudging respect and understanding. Highlight Differences and Growth: Show how their perspectives shift over time. Let their values clash, then overlap, then align. Allow Emotional Honesty (Platonically): Let them share personal experiences or open up over time.

4. Define Their Chemistry

Make Their Interactions Unique: Their banter, teamwork, or verbal spars should be distinctly non-romantic — more like frenemies turned allies or siblings who used to fight. Focus on Respect Over Intimacy: They may not like each other at first, but they come to respect each other’s strength, skill, or heart. Use Physical Space Wisely: Keep physical contact platonic or avoid it altogether. A handshake, a nod, a slap on the back — nothing coded with longing.

5. Demonstrate Their Impact on Each Other

Let Them Grow Together: Show how they push each other to improve. Maybe one learns humility, the other compassion. Create High-Stakes Collaboration: Put them in situations where they have to trust each other. Show how tension gives way to reliability. Allow Disagreements Without Regression: They can argue again even after becoming friends — just without regressing into hatred or falling into flirtation.

6. Develop a Satisfying Arc

Decide Their Long-Term Dynamic: Will they become close friends, uneasy allies, or respectful rivals? Make sure the conclusion fits their journey. Showcase Their Changed Perspective: Their friendship should feel earned. Use flashbacks or contrasts to show how far they’ve come. Avoid Subtext: Don’t write in lingering glances, “maybe if things were different” lines, or vague emotional ambiguity. Platonic means platonic.

Examples of Strong Enemies-to-Friends Relationships

Film/TV Examples:

Zuko & Aang (Avatar: The Last Airbender): From hunted enemies to one of the most supportive friendships in animation.

Magneto & Professor X (X-Men): Ideological enemies who respect each other deeply, even when at odds.

Shrek & Donkey (Shrek): Donkey annoys Shrek into eventual friendship—zero romance, just stubborn growth.

Literature Examples:

Brutus & Cassius (Julius Caesar): Complicated enemies-turned-collaborators, bound by politics, not love.

Nikki Maxwell and MacKenzie Hollister (Dork Diaries): Originally disdainful of each other, they become friends through shared enemies and interests.

Claire Warden & Butch Betcher (The Guardians of Camoria series): Once bitter enemies due to opposing beliefs and temperaments, their mutual goals and personal growth foster a tough-but-loyal alliance rooted in shared trauma and witty banter, not romance.

Follow || Like || Comment || Repost || My Novel ⇚⇚⇚

thank you, i am farkle :)

thank you @stardustcasti for the request :)

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tanaka-drew · 6 months ago

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theme - tonight i might: preview/code (ko-fi, free)

features: 75x75px icon image, custom blog title, custom blog subtitle, three custom links, about section**, skills + client progress sections***, services offered section**, portfolio gallery section**, multiple post sizes ranging from 450px to 540px

notes: happy lunar new year to those who celebrate! enjoy this online red envelope. <3 this theme is for those who offer commissions and need this type of theme to showcase their works. npf posts friendly! ask and submit button will automatically show if allowed (please check your settings). ** you have to go directly to the code to edit this section. you can add as many services offered and portfolio images as you like. thank you @/glenthemes for the griddery script. <3 credits link to the resources, tutorials and scripts used to make this theme possible is found on the bottom right corner of the theme. join me on patreon.

#theme #themes #blog theme #blog themes #mine: themes #free content

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cuntyglam · 11 months ago

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alien romulus, andy, racism, and why robots are autistic

this is an introspective into how the alien series treats artificial humans, also known as synthetics, and how sci-fi portrays androids in general. alien romulus spoilers under cut. written by a native autistic and disabled fan <3

andy from alien romulus is an artificial human that is constantly being seen as less because of his race (artificial human) and who often portrays autistic characteristics. these characteristics include an aversion to loud sounds, difficulty reading social cues, and a special interest in dad jokes.

his behavior is explained by him being a “damaged” artificial human, which is somewhat disappointing. it’s disappointing that these traits that so many of us autistic people have are considered flaws in the context of the movie.

his sister, who is human, takes him for granted and chooses her life over his, even though he shows emotions and was apart of her family. even though it isn’t outright stated, this kind of reminds me how sometimes we as autistic people are seen as a burden on our families, despite us being able to care for ourselves.

once andy gets rook’s chip inserted he becomes “better”. “better” motor skills, “better” intelligence, and “better” everything. but yet, he still portrays autistic characteristics. he doesn’t go from autistic to not autistic, he just starts displaying different autistic traits. he is very knowledgeable about tech, aliens, and the human body, while being very objective about what the right thing to do is. instead of being a very empathetic person, he is a very practical and calculating person, which i think is super interesting.

honestly, i think it would have been really interesting to see him be the sole survivor. to have him get his revenge on the sister that betrayed him and the world who bullied him for his raise and ability.

okay now to androids, synthetics, and robots as a whole. robots are seen as cold and emotionless, similarly to how autistic people are seen, so many ai and robot characters are autistic coded. robots don’t have compassion or empathy in the eyes of the general public, same as autistic people. many autistic people have reclaimed robot characters to represent us, and i think that’s fantastic !!

i specifically love artificial humans in the alien franchise because they showcase so much depth and empathy, while still displaying autistic traits. and beyond that, most of these artificial humans are enslaved by a corporation (weyland yutani), and despite direct programming from their oppressors, most artificial humans end up doing the right moral thing in the end, further proving their humanity. despite being technically non human, i genuinely think they’re good autistic representation. do i like the way that the characters around them treat them ? no. but i think that might be the point. the point is that these characters are ableist and racist and shouldn’t be considered morally correct. i think that the writers could convey this in a better way though.

okay. racism discussion time. several times throughout this series we encounter artificial humans, and almost every time they have to correct their peers on the right terminology to use for them. as a native person who has had to tell multiple people (coworkers, professors, etc.) not to call me an indian, this really stuck with me growing up, and i still think it’s interesting to this day. in alien: romulus andy’s sister uses “synthetic” to refer to him MULTIPLE TIMES, after he’s stated that he prefers artificial human. this is important, because even though he’s family she still does not fully understand what he goes through and she does not respect his identity or boundaries.

there are also multiple instances throughout the series where characters (our beloved ripley included) have prejudice against artificial humans because of bad experiences with artificial humans in the past. this causes human characters to attack and/or harass artificial humans who they have just met for no other reason than their race. in alien: romulus we see a character be hostile towards andy because another unrelated artificial human made a choice to save the many over the few, and his mother died. this is a choice that many humans would make and would not be blamed for. this reflects the real world, where people of color are blamed for almost every choice they make, while white folks can make the same choices and not be criticized.

in conclusion, i love the character of andy and i think him and the alien franchise as a whole is so interesting. let me know if you want a deep dive into the themes of sexual violence, birth, and motherhood in the alien series !! i’ve done a whole research paper on it, and my college admissions essay was about the alien queen, so i know quite a lot !! i hope this drives a lot more fans towards the alien fandom and i hope a bunch more merch comes out !! yippee !!

#alien #aliens #alien romulus #andy alien romulus #horror #scifi

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tvckerwash · 3 months ago

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mel being a mage was a weird choice, and while I'm not inherently opposed to the idea as much as I'm opposed to how it recontextualizes and devalues her intelligence and political know how from being various skills she had been taught and/or learned to utilize from an early age to instead being an innate talent born of unknown magic powers, I think it would've been more fitting to have the armor be a magical item given to her by ambessa (or more likely, forced upon her prior to mel's exile) for the specific purpose of keeping her safe in her absence.

piltover and zaun's entire thing is magic as science and technology, so it's more thematically relevant for mel—whose arc ends with her removing her family ring as a way to showcase her choosing to abandon the warmongering medarda legacy in favor of maintaining peace through diplomacy, embracing her identity as one of piltover’s 'soft spined idealists'—to have a form of magic technology augmenting her body that allows her to overcome the ~fragility of the flesh~ to survive an otherwise potentially deadly event.

doing the above would also continue to draw parallels between mel and viktor, as viktor’s entire thing is augmenting the body with science and steel to overcome the fragility of flesh and blood and the fallible nature of emotions in order to empower people (not that they did that in the show but we're going to pretend s2 viktor doesn't exist because I hate what they did to my revolutionary coded messed up cyborg guy, and no I don't care that he's "biomechanical" in arcane because NOTHING about his design reads as mechanical. even in s1 the only reason you can tell it's metal is the sound effects so GET that mf out of my house /j)

#arcane #mel medarda #arcane viktor #arcane critical #again I'm not being super critical but the spirit is there

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wrongfulruffian · 4 months ago

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I'm posting this so much later than I meant to, cause my new addiction to crocheting has stolen all my free time and brain cells, been sitting on this for almost two months 😂

I did my first author copy! Its actually super cool because their work "The Long Hangover" by @coffiocake was actually the first full bind I ever did, so its like I've come full circle!

I've re-read this work at least five times at this point, I love it so much! Thanks @coffiocake for your amazing work, and I hope I did it justice 💕

Since this was my first bind and my most recent bind I thought it would be cool way to showcase how much I have improved since I started bookbinding.

I have definitely gotten better at cover design. I learned how to upload new fonts into Canva for starters, which has made a huge difference. I really think the font makes the cover, and in the new design on the right, the font is literally called "Watchtower" 😆. In the original design, I was mainly just going for general gothic vibes. I still really like the original design, but I think the new one matches the work much better.

Aparently I've gotten worse at ironing on vinyl lol. Still haven't figured out the right temp, pressure, and time for this specific vinyl.

I think the most noticeable improvement has been in my construction of the text block. Since I started, I've picked up a lot of little techniques, to reduce swell, fold the pages evenly, and keep the signatures in line when sewing it together. I have also gotten nicer paper that is slightly thicker, the proper grain, and a softer color, while the first one was on regular printer paper.

My typesetting skills have greatly improved. I had soooooo many mistakes in the original 😂 the headers were on the wrong side of the page and I somehow didn't notice till I was folding the pages, my drop caps look a bit weird, and the chapter headers are too large and far down the page. The biggest thing is that the margins are off, another thing I didn't notice till I was folding. That part was actually an issue with how I was printing, and not with the actual typeset.

Now, I prefer to have my page numbers at the bottom instead of in the top header. I keep the top header centered, and I learned how to remove it on chapter header pages. I'm much better at inserting the drop caps and designing chapter headers. I think he new version looks much cleaner.

Something I only recently started doing, was including a copyright page; I find it adds a lot to how legitimate the book looks. It has all the work information, as well as the classic fanfic unaffiliation statement 😂

Something cool that I saw someone else do recently was include a QR code to the work on this page. I'll have to re-work my template, but I loved that Idea and am going to try and incorporate it on future binds.

#bookbinding #typesetting #ao3 #fanfiction #archive of our own #fanfic #book cover #batman #superman #fanbinding #superbat #clark kent x bruce wayne #justice league #art progress #long post

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the-path-to-redemption · 2 months ago

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I dunno if you still do P5 critical content here but one thing I really don’t like about the game is…Makoto. I feel that she’s the weakest member of the entire team with how she’s got such a nebulous role as “tactician” when Joker and Futaba do everything she can and more, her attitude towards Ann regarding what happened with Shiho as an answer to a genuine question about why she didn’t do anything with Kamoshida (it’s understandable that she couldn’t act as much as she could have but Ann still deserved a clearer answer), her theming is incredibly weak since Pope Joan doesn’t really do anything rebellious like the rest and it doesn’t even have an internal reform thing, her Confidant doesn’t even focus on her, her design as a thief is meh and most people only remember it because bike and ass shots…overall, Makoto feels the most slapped on out of all the thieves and that’s not even getting into the arc she debuts in.

I try not to post too much critical content of Persona 5 here, because despite the flaws I find with it, it's still one of my favorite games of all time. I genuinely enjoy it, and I don't want my only contribution to it to be all critical and no fun. That level of anger is reserved for another series on this blog, and I would like to work on my own P5R AU mostly.

But I do see where you're coming from, anon, but I don't think the problems many people have with Makoto come from the character herself, but rather are manifested as a product of a very prominent issue of how P5 handles a lot of its female characters. In my opinion, the issues that Makoto has aren't a "Makoto Is a Badly Written Character" issue, but a "The Female Characters of P5 Are Better Conceptualized Than Executed" issue.

Long Post Ahead. Spoilers for Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal, and Persona 5 Strikers.

Let's go through this together step by step.

Makoto as the Tactician of the Thieves

I've seen this argument come up quite often. I can see why people say that Makoto's official role as the tactician of the Phantom Thieves isn't a very apt description of what she actually contributes to the team, and you're right that the planning of the operations soon falls to Joker, Futaba, and, to an extent, Akechi. But just because the other brainiacs of the team rolled up to show out, that doesn't mean that Makoto isn't a brilliant tactician in her own right.

Makoto is a genuinely marvelous planner! She's highly aware of her situation, even in high-tension ones, and she earned her place as the brain of the Thieves. Makoto was the one who figured out the locking mechanism of the Bank Palace's second half, she managed to memorize Kaneshiro's pass code for his money case after watching him while in great danger, her navigation lines and Confidant trait Shadow Calculus are solid evidence that her mind is as sharp as ever even in combat. And the way that she stayed calm and was skilled enough to drive the others to safety during the Pyramid Palace's collapse was nothing short of awesome!

Makoto is a great tactician! Holy shit, she was the one who came up with the plan to spread the Calling Card with Ryuji without either of them being caught, while the initial Thieves' best plan for distracting Yusuke was...Looney Tunes shenanigans. Makoto has on multiple occasions showcased her intelligence, which has saved her friends and gotten them out of trouble, and that shouldn't be discounted because there are other brainiacs on the team later on.

The problem is that, and I think this is where people find issue in the portrayal of her intelligence (and by proxy, her role as the tactician), is that a lot of the feats where she's proven herself to be smart were...told to us, instead of shown to us.

I know I just used this example above to prove her capabilities, but the way that Makoto just knows Kaneshiro's pass code was a bit strange to me. Yes, I know that she said that he has opened and closed the case so many times that she managed to memorize it, but when was that? When we see her on-screen with him, she was pinned to the ground, and Kaneshiro was just yapping. It wasn't until the Thieves got there to help her that Makoto actually saw him open the case to get some cash. When were the other times he had opened and closed the case that she could possibly remember its pass code?

It's such an easy fix as well; show us a brief moment in Makoto's sprite that she noticed his movement on the case, and have her occasionally mumble the pass code to herself before she actually opens it. It's much more impressive, and we can actually believe Makoto when she said that she saw Kaneshiro use the pass code.

Another example of her intelligence was told and not shown was the aftermath of the Interrogation Room, where we found out that it was Makoto who realized that Sae might have a cognitive version of Akechi walking around and that will screw up their plan, so they had to take care of him in time. Now, where did we see this brilliant display of quick wits?

From Futaba. Who relays it to us. In an optional dialog. After the fact. Instead of seeing a flashback of it.

Deadass, the first time I've ever played P5, I didn't even talk to Futaba after we were caught up. That tibbit of information is fucking optional, and easily missable if you just...don't care enough to talk to Futaba.

That's such a disservice to Makoto! Futaba gets to have all the screen time showcasing her intelligence, and Akechi actually shows us how smart he is in the Casino Palace! Why doesn't Makoto get to show her smarts on screen, and was told to us instead? To me, that's why it's hard for people to actually believe that she's the brilliant tactician that the game wants us to believe she is. But she is one. I just wish we got to see it more on-screen.

Makoto, Ann, Shiho, and Shujin.

I'm gonna get a lot of flak for this, but like...

Makoto did not know about the extent of Kamoshida's abuse of the student body. She didn't know about the extent of Ann's struggle. And she for fucking sure did not know that Shiho was abused to the point of jumping off the roof.

Yes, Ann deserved a better answer about what happened to her best friend. Anyone would, but it's asinine to expect anyone but the adults around them to give her that answer. Makoto is not the one who should be responsible to give Ann a better answer, when she wasn't even properly informed about the abuse.

I'm not defending her initial behavior here; yes, it was wrong for her to approach them with an abrasive manner initially, and it wasn't the best response to Ann accusing her of not doing anything about Kamoshida by referring to him as a good teacher before the scandal. But the point of the scene was to show that both girls were right and wrong in a very unfortunate situation that neither of them was at fault for.

The way Makoto responded to the Thieves on the rooftop was an unhealthy defensive mechanism not uncommon for people in environments like Makoto has been; Makoto has spent a majority of her life, especially in her most formative years, being told to obey and put her all into being the best, and if she stepped out of line, all of her efforts will be taken away from her. Makoto, in the beginning, was someone who was dismissed over and over again by the people around her, the adults around her, so her only way to be heard and taken seriously by her peers was to react abrasively to their scorn. She cannot do that to adults because that would cost her, and unfortunately, that manifested into her very unhealthy style of social interaction.

Again, this isn't to excuse her actions before awakening to her Persona; this is explaining that it's not uncommon for someone who was pressured into being a pushover by their authority figures to try and defend themselves by overly defending their bad actions. To Makoto, this is the way she has rationalized herself into believing that her perspective will be heard this way, and to others, her efforts will look like excuses.

And it's not like Makoto doesn't care about her fellow students. In the Royal expansion, we see Makoto asking a teacher to help with the situation and trying to fix it, and what was the answer she was given?

The teacher, an authority figure, an adult, did not want to get himself involved when a student just tried to commit suicide. Makoto was given an excuse when she rightfully turned to someone she thought she could rely on. And when she once again rightfully demanded an answer from the highest form of authority at Shujin, Principal Kobayakawa, he told her to fuck off and held her opportunity for better secondary education hostage so Makoto doesn't pry more.

Makoto is stuck between a rock and a hard place here, where the adults at Shujin scapegoated her to mitigate the consequences of their negligence and the student body of Shujin treats her like a fucking spy. That's not fucking fair, and to expect her to know better is wrong when an abuser like Kamoshida only got to this point was because the people who can stop him refuse to do so.

Yes, Ann deserved a better answer. No, Makoto isn't the one who should be expected to give her that answer. She is another teenager who was exploited by the same environment that left Ann to suffer, and to pitch them against each other in anyway is fucking dumb. I'm sorry that I'm being harsh, but Makoto made a mistake that she is constantly fixing and rectifying, she did not told Ann to fuck off or that Shiho deserved it or anything truly warrant unforgiveness. Even Ann herself acknowledged that she fucked up with how she treated Makoto, and both girls decided to move on together as friends. That's growth! That's the right thing to do; both girls forgave each other, recognized their failings, and became friends on their own volition.

If the Persona fandom can look past Yusuke blackmailing the Thieves when Ann refused to model nude and the boys asking about Madarame's mistreatment of his pupils, it's absolutely hypocritical to not even try to let Makoto right her wrong for doing the same thing, which she has apologized for.

If the Persona fandom is going to shit on Makoto for not knowing the extent of abuse because it was hidden to her on purpose, then the priority is completely fucked. The people who should be scrutinized in the tragedy surrounding Shiho are her abuser, Kamoshida, and the adults who let him get this far. NOT A FUCKING TEENAGER.

These kids deserved better than to have a school that only doesn't care about them, but is actively pitting them against each other just to save their reputation that the adults have tarnished. Makoto is one of those kids, like Ann, like Shiho, and so many others, who make mistakes and try to fix them so that they don't become their abusers. At least give her that.

Pope Joan and the Rebellious Soul of a Woman

I think it's important for the audience to understand the story and the relevance of Pope Joan in order to understand Makoto (and to an extent, Sae); Pope Joan was allegedly the only female pope of the Catholic Church during an age where it acted not only as a religious organization, but also as one of the most powerful socio-political force in the European world (and even beyond). That is, if anyone rebelled against its structures and what it deems as "justice", they are as good as dead and condemned by their own world.

The Church and the Papacy were, and still are, a power governed by patriarchal enforcers, and for women, it served as a looming threat over their existence and autonomy as people. By mercy, they're considered witches for being different than what was expected of them by the Church, so imagine a woman acting as the highest authority of that power when that same power demonizes her existence.

A woman who defied the structures and expectations of the main judicial power of her world and placed herself as its highest authority is relevant not only to Makoto's existence in the narrative of Persona 5, but it is also relevant to the themes of social rebellion that make up the foundation of Persona 5.

Think about it; she's the highest authority in the student body, but her existence there is constantly in jeopardy because of the disadvantages the overall environment traps her in, but her Confidant shows her wanting to reform it and extend that to her future career for the betterment of society. Her more tomboy-adjacent style and hobbies defy what the traditional Japanese expectations of women want her to be, and it plays into the traits of her Arcana, the High Priestess, which is created after the visage of Pope Joan. She's justice-driven, empathetic, and angry that people would exploit the weak using the gaps in a flawed justice system. The system that consumed her sister in a prison of envy and bitterness.

Sae's anger towards the patriarchal society that puts her down when she no longer has the support of a man, her father, who she loved and admired, created the Casino. You know what's one of the greatest sins the Church commits in its crusade to maintain an unjust socio-political order?

Monetary exploitation of the people and allowing its members to gamble it away for better political standings in the name of "justice".

And what does Makoto want to do?

Reform that system so no one else has to suffer injustice.

So yeah, Johanna is more than important to the story of P5. And if I'm being honest, she's not the worst usage of Persona concerning the user's personal story in the narrative.

Is Makoto the Worst/Best Girl in Persona 5?

I'm going to say she's a good "middle" tier girl. Yes, I know I just yapped on and on in her favor, but in all honesty, Makoto is just an...okay for me. She has many more merits than people seem to give her, but she also has more flaws in her characterization than most of her diehard fans would admit. She's not the best, but there are certainly worse character writings than hers in the main female cast alone.

Regarding her PT outfit, I think it's okay. But it's mostly because she makes it work, and there are other designs that are so much fucking worse than hers. Sure, the amount of ass shots are annoying, but it has nothing on Ann's "LoOk aT aLL oF mY cURveS iN ThIS SkIn-TiGht aNd EmBaRRassiNGLy ImPRacTIcaL" catsuit, or Yoshizawa's "basically waifu Joker that hurts my character growth more than aids it" nightmare of an outfit, or Sophia's "discounted Eve from Wall-E" sorry excuse of a design.

Between those and the two others that are better suited for the characters, Makoto's actually decent. The only thing I would change about it is that I would add more red to the design and choose a different torso armor, but it serves its purpose.

Yes, I would agree that her Confidant story doesn't really focus on her, but again, it's not as bad as Ann's. My major problem with Makoto's characterization during her Confidant is her wish to become a cop; sure, the head cop that can possibly change the system, but how long until she actually gets to that point? And this point only became even more relevant in Strikers when Zenkichi became disillusioned with his occupation after it failed him, and even before that, Makoto saw how it drove Sae into a corner.

And most importantly, the person she confides this desire to is a victim of police brutality.

Oh, not to mention, Makoto would be the last person who should be a fucking cop. She's impulsive, stubborn, headstrong, and extremely confrontative when she sees injustice in the world; you can argue that it makes her not a corrupted cop, but this woman fucking bust into a criminal den by herself and slapped her friend to wake her up from a dangerous solution! That impulsivity would have her end up dead if not controlled at worst, and put others in danger at best!

If the writers want Makoto to become someone who can reform the justice system and actually prevent inequality in the force, for the love of fucking Philemon, have her aspire to be a defense attourney, a criminal analyst, a criminal justice researcher, or a fucking judge. Any of those profession would actually benefits society more than adding another cop into an already flawed and violent organization, where assholes like Shido can exploit for their own selfish means.

Atlus is absolutely terrible at sticking to its ACAB message when the premise of the story starts with the protagonist getting battered by cops at the command of a corrupted politician, but guess what? We shouldn't actually want our audience to question the corrupted criminal justice system that actually contributes to the inequalities of our society, they should keep believing that it's actually salvageable without a complete reformation and to expect the authorities to face the consequences of their deliberate shortcomings; we need to sell this game after all.

And that particular point rounds us back to my biggest problem of Persona 5's treatment of its characters; in comparison to the male characters, even in the main cast, the female characters have so many more flaws than merits when it comes to the prioritization of story beats in their personal journey. Makoto isn't the worst girl or even tacked onto the story; she's just utilized much less effectively for the character she is, and like other girls, there is an emphasis on her being a waifu first, and a character second.

But when you look at Makoto and compare her to the other girls, holy shit, she's actually way more lucky and interesting than what they were given. At least her sexuality isn't being made into a joke despite not giving her any agency in it, and, thank the heavens, she actually allowed to interacts with other characters aside from Joker for more than 10% of the game and isn't written as a fucking Satellite despite the fascinating psychology behind her conceptualization.

TL;DR, Makoto has some issues, but her issues aren't her fault, and she is actually better off than some other female characters in the Phantom Thieves alone. Those issues are more of symptoms of an ongoing problem with Atlus not treating its female characters with more interest compared to their male counterparts, and it's unfair to only use Makoto as a scapegoat for that problem when she's honestly a good mid-tier member overall.

#answered #anonymous #persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 strikers #persona 5 scramble #shin megami tensei persona #persona 5 critical #persona 5 royal critical #makoto niijima #makoto niijima critical #atlus critical #I know I yapped a lot about this topic #I had a shorter draft but it got deleted by accident #so I had to redo it and with much more details #but I stand by what I said

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