#if you want to really understand either of them as characters. because they're both so repressed that we basically have to rely on

[blueskittlesart]

I see you refer to Kris and Noelle as besties a lot. I haven't played the weird routes yet and I certainly don't know the normal route dialogue like the back of my hand, but I thought that Noelle and Kris were estranged family friends, not super close anymore, before the events of chapter 1. That view is specifically because of Noelle's private blog post about Kris from Spamton Sweepstakes (https://deltarune.com/kris_dreemurr_kris/). Noelle wrote, "Even then, with my eyes open, there were times when I wasn't even sure if we were friends." What do you think about this blog post?

well ok first of all when I called kris and noelle 'best friends' in my noelle post which im assuming is what this is about it was after about 3 paragraphs about how significantly they had drifted apart after dess's disappearance. I'd certainly not call them besties as things currently stand, but i think that BEFORE dess's disappearance and the player's takeover of kris they were at minimum the most consistent friend in each other's lives. the real point of that post was that i think they were probably significantly closer than noelle leads the player to believe based on her dialog alone, and that she is an unreliable narrator when it comes to she and kris's relationship. If I listed out every piece of evidence I can think of off the top of my head that she and kris were close this post would get insanely long, but literally just walking around her room in chapter 4 will paint you a pretty clear picture. she had a cactus named after them. and when she mentions that berdly renamed it kris gets pissed off about it in the flavor text afterwards.

as for that blog post, I kind of think taking that one line out of context does a disservice to the picture that is actually being painted here, because honestly I'd argue that the full text supports my point even more. full text of the post for context:

It's funny... there was a time when they were coming over almost every day. We'd play, and we'd play... then after a while, they would suddenly get very still, like they were remembering something. They'd go into the dining room to "get a snack," then after a few moments, I'd hear the piano. The first few times, I went into watch them play, but when they realized I was looking, they'd always shut the piano and come back. So over time, I just started staying on the couch in the living room. I'd lie there, listening to them play, sometimes for hours, sometimes even until I fell asleep. Even then, what were they thinking about me? Maybe they weren't thinking about me at all. They didn't have a piano at their house, so they probably just came over to use mine. Even then, with my eyes open, there were times when I wasn't even sure if we were friends. But when I closed my eyes, it felt like a concert just for me.

Yes, there's a level of removal going on here. Noelle doesn't quite understand kris's motivations and is struggling to contextualize their actions because of this. But I think it's important to remember that this blog post is recounting the memories of a young child, and written from the perspective of a teenager, so it would probably be a miracle if nothing got lost in translation. This is Noelle reflecting on a relationship which has very clearly changed drastically in recent years, and if there's one thing we know about noelle it's that she's avoidant as shit. It's nowhere near above her to recontextualize memories in her own head in order to make her previous relationship to kris feel less personal, so she won't have to feel as sad about losing a close friend. We literally watch her do this in real time in snowgrave--painting over and/or blocking out memories that scare and upset her in order to avoid reckoning with those feelings. I think she likely finds this easier to do with kris because kris seems to have been pretty introverted and kind of. weird in the ways they expressed affection towards her as a child (particularly the pranks she so often mentions) which makes it easier for her to spin their relationship as something obligational rather than true closeness. But because Kris was such a big part of her life for so long, her altered memories are still imperfect. In the same post where she says kris probably wasn't thinking about her at all she also mentions that kris was at her house every day and that she felt an intense personal connection to their music. And for what it's worth, there are at least two other pianos in town that kris easily could have used if all they wanted was to practice--one in the church's choir room and one in the hospital. They weren't at the holiday house purely to use that piano. more likely than not they really were playing for her.

[nofilterwaterfilter]

also on the voice thing, we all know kris is one of the most autism coded characters to ever exist, but i really do love everything that both routes of chapter four when taken in conjunction told us about kris, being nonverbal, and how that's not painted as a bad thing?

it's pretty common i've seen for silent protagonists to be headcanoned as nonverbal autistic, but i think this is the first time i've seen it be explicitly canon, and also have it be pretty intrinsic to the narrative?

and like no, kris isn't entirely nonverbal, they do speak occasionally. but deltarune in general, and particularly ch4, paints a very strong picture of someone who (at least when they have control over their own voice) does not use words as their primary method of communication

like you can start with quiet people piss me off, or the fact that music is such an important avenue of self expression for them (made all the worse when they're not in control). noelle in ch1 asks if kris is okay when the player asks her the same background/lore questions we can ask everyone, because kris talking this much pings immediately as wrong to her. then there's everything we know about kris as a kid, and how yeah they had a bit of a mean sense of humor, but also pranks and fucking with people was a very good way for them to get attention without having to talk at all

noelle's story of the ferris wheel if you listen to all her and susie's dialogue in dess' room sticks out to me for this, and i really do love that anecdote. noelle mentions she and kris were pushed into riding the ferris wheel together as kids, she didn't really want to be there. and kris didn't say anything the whole time, for the first half they were just looking out the window. but then they decided to jump up and down and shake the entire capsule, and that's when they turned to noelle and smiled. susie goes "is that good or bad?" in response to that story and noelle says she doesn't know, but it's one of the things that gets kris' attention! and whether you believe that they were doing it to freak noelle out or because they also thought this was dumb and wanted to make it more fun for both of them (noelle isn't sure which it was either), that is how they communicate!

and when they do use words. this is the bit that makes me most emotional - noelle in weird route describes kris' voice as deadpan and mumbly. they don't like being loud, they don't talk very often, and they really struggle with inflection. all things that are normally criticisms when directed at autistic people, they're stuff autism moms use to justify their "i know my real child is in there somewhere" bullshit. but when noelle hears it again from soulless kris for the first time since the soul stuff started, she starts crying over how much she's missed hearing them talk. the soul (as we know from a variety of susie and noelle conversations) is louder, more charismatic, more confident and articulate, and it's not kris. so all those traits that are normally things autistic people get told to be more, are explicitly condemned by the narrative

and that's what makes kris being largely nonverbal such an excellent additional dimension to their story. because everything the soul does, at least in the normal routes, pretty much aligns with how people are expected to behave? kris under our control has a great social life, has friends, is likeable, isn't weird and hard to understand. and a crueler person, the kind autistic people have to deal with far too often, would say "well it's good we gave them a voice, they're not using theirs anyway"

but that's what makes it evil! it doesn't matter if kris is the kind of autistic that everyone hates, if there are things about them that don't fit in with society but that they either can't or don't want to change. their life and their voice, as infrequently heard as it is, is still theirs. and they deserve the freedom to use it however they want to

[destinysbounty]

I think I wouldn't mind Zane's NPC-ification quite as much as I do, if it didn't feel like they were also retconning the fact that he was ever a person to begin with.

Like, sure, I totally understand. Dragons Rising has a huge ensemble cast, and the RGB trio + new ninja are the clear focus. And I don't mind that! Everyone who does get proper narrative attention is written so wonderfully and I adore what we have. But...sometimes it feels like they're just kinda divvying up everything that makes Zane who he is and giving it to everyone else, and never even briefly acknowledging Zane's ties to those traits.

Remember when Zane used to have prophetic dreams foretelling future events? Me neither. Hey Lloyd, how are your visions coming along?

Or, y'know how one of Zane's most integral plot lines, character details, and motifs is his struggles with memory and identity? Remember that time he got amnesia and was then both manipulated and magically corrupted into being a villain? Nah that never happened, anyway check out what Jay is up to now

Or, does anyone recall how Zane is a canonically really good cook with pies so delicious they made Jay cry on screen? No that's Arin's thing, actually

Heck, we even have our quota of ~Silly Robot Beep Boop Bop~ jokes fulfilled by Lobbo!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on any of the other characters for having these traits. Nor am I arguing that Zane should have a singular monopoly on these types of storylines. But when they take traits that have for so long been primarily associated with Zane, like cooking and visions and amnesia, and share them with someone else without even briefly acknowledging Zane's prior involvement...idk. It just feels like they're trying to repackage all the things that make Zane interesting while still writing him out of the narrative. It feels like they're going "whaat? Zane, have personality outside of being a generic robot character?? That never happened!" Like they're just trying to have their nindroid and kill him too.

And I mean, to some extent I can understand their hesitation. It's the same reason the Mr. E/Echo reveal got scrapped in s8 - theres just way too much going on right now, and the narrative load required to explain somwthing this complicated during a reboot/sequel would just bog down an already very complicated story. Zane has a very convoluted backstory that, for new fans dropping in to the sequel series for the first time, may be difficult to explain. How do you recap Zane's history with amnesia in a neat an tidy way for the next gen story, when there's already so much going on?

Like i said, i get that. But they could at least make, like, brief blink-and-youll-miss-it allusions, yknow? Like how they played the Ice Emperor theme during Zane's existential crisis during drs1, or when Zane told Zanth not to follow dancing birds in drs3. Tasteful, subtle, doesn't require much insider knowledge and newer fans could easily interpret it as a noodle incident comment without losing out on their comprehension.

Maybe after Jay gets eliminated from the Tournament, Zane offers to go after him saying, "I've lost myself once or twice before. If anyone understands what he's going through, it's me." And if you want to preserve the plot unobstructed, maybe you can have it so that either Zane fails to get through to Jay or Jay is gone without a trace before he can get to him. Maybe there's a brief scene of Zane making a pie to try and cheer Sora up, but she can't eat it because it reminds her too much of Arin. Or maybe Lloyd has a panic attack over his visions and Zane is the one to offer him the advice about not fighting the vision and letting it come naturally.

Don't you see how easy that is? You would change literally nothing about the story at large, and you're not detracting from the main plotlines or character arcs that are quite validly dominating this series. But you're also throwing a bone to the people who actually like Zane. Like???? I'm not even asking for much here, man :/

Idk. Maybe I'm just bitter and need to touch grass, who's to say

[doverstar]

actually I love Tentoo and he is the Doctor and it was the only ending for Rose that worked and it is a huge gift to be able to have the man she loves grow old with her, they were always heading for that, y'all be quiet. I 100% understand the angst but it's okay, they're okay, good ending-

[meear]

But what Ryukishi portrays in ep8 does isn't acceptance, it's erasure. The battle in the golden land is an example of this. The goats are right to call out Rosa for being a neglectful mother who'd prioritise her dalliances with men over her daughter. Her writing wouldn't be half as good if that wasn't true. But instead, Ryukishi urges you to focus on the genuine love she did harbour for her daughter. Ryukishi is telling you "whatever else Rosa did is not the point right now and you should only remember the good things about her", and the other perspective is presented as villainous for refusing that.

He's not accepting both, he's framing her family' flaws as a side of themselves that wasn't as important and that Ange shouldn't focus on too much, for her own happiness. He can describe it however he wants to make it sound better ("believing in her family", "having love", etc etc), but it is ultimately running away and the fact that the Trick ending is obviously presented as the bad choice (despite being simply the truth) is another proof of that.

to R07, you either accept magic as a coping mechanism or you become Erika. Love and truth are fundamentally opposed. There is no world in which Ange can just accept her family as shitty people and still live happily. So no matter how many times she does it, Ange is doomed to always freak out at finding out the truth, even after knowing about it and preparing herself, because the point is she'll never be able to handle it.

The ep7 tea party is kind of like that too. The red flashbacks about KuwaBeato and Kinzo actually trying to steal the gold from the Italians are framed as Bernkastel "tearing out the guts". The villain defiling the sanctity of the story and showing you something you're not meant to see, something that was kept hidden to preserve the dignity of the corpse. Sometimes r07 has good takes on abuse, but sometimes it's obvious he buys into the "why are you mentioning it now/we don't need to know this/this should stay private/this is inappropriate/we're in polite company and you're airing out the family's dirty laundry" mindset (which might be even more prevalent in Japan, I don't know).

The red flashbacks are essential to understand what Kinzo really is and how much he embellished his own story to make himself look better, and they should be exposed, because the extent of Beatrice Ushiromiya's abuse shouldn't be something that you hush up to protect Kinzo's privacy. Kinzo's true backstory in the army is a fundamental part of his character. But by having it exposed by Bernkastel, the obvious villain of the story who only does it for her own sick pleasure, Ryukishi makes it very clear he thinks the very act of revealing it is pointlessly voyeuristic. "Good" truth-seekers like Will let sinners have their little skeletons in the closet out of respect (incidently KuwaBeato never gets any respect or even her own perspective, and her rape is entirely about developing Kinzo's character and how bad that made him feel, so the very narrative is validating her treatment as an object, but I digress)

Basically it's exactly that kind of thinking which is pervasive in ep8. I don't see Ange simply accepting her family as humans, both good and bad, because episode 8 doesn't show her actually doing that work (the manga does make more of an effort to depict this though). She just goes from one extreme to the other (not that she was even wrong originally). She's not reconciling their flaws with the possibility of happy memories. Instead she stops addressing the flaws entirely and they're just slander from the outside world' Instead, there is one way to remember them which is overwhelmingly presented as more correct than the other . Ange made very valid points about not wanting to comfort herself with illusions, and then she suddenly drops all of these points without ever addressing them. She's framed as wrong for wanting to know the truth, even after reading Eva's diary. In the VN, she is very apologetic about reading it - about seeking something that was supposed to be forbidden knowledge. She had every right to read it. Yet when she does, she finally "sees sense", Battler's mindset becomes the correct one in the eyes of the narrative, and even worse, she shares the blame with everyone for the way things turned out (despite ep4 addressing the flaws in Japan's collective responsibility culture, through Ange's character). All of her negative perspective becomes her "irresponsible imagination", and she tells Battler that the truth "wasn't that important" because she should've just believed in her own truth. That she should've just accepted what Battler was trying to show her.

There is way more weight given to the positive side of the family (for Ange's sake because she needs something to hang onto) and that's what makes it so cheap and hollow. There's admitting that abusers are people outside of their abuse, that they can show warmth, play pranks, have fun, act sympathetic, etc. of course, and I enjoyed Umineko because it knew how to that in the first place. And there's choosing to depict Kinzo's last appearance in the story like... That, and having Ange say she should've called Eva Mom.

The manga version is at least a bit better in showing a more balanced perspective between the family's good and bad sides and the dangers of using magic as a way to cope, so I guess R07 did have some changes to make... but the trick/magic dichotomy is still there and I'll never approve of the idea it's somehow voyeuristic and immoral to reveal the truth behind a mass murder just because there are some true crime freaks who want to find out for the wrong reasons. Not when the memory of innocents is being tarnished because of that selfish choice (and it's even worse because Virgilia clearly addresses this in ep5, that Ange is an idiot because keeping the box closed just enables more people to speculate about her family), when Gohda can be treated as a potential killer despite not doing shit, and not when the victims have loved ones who are very much alive and who are still suffering (Nanjo's son, Kumasasa's grandkid, along with many other people who might've cared for the dead and might like closure as well, such as Jessica and Battler's friends, Maria's teachers, etc. But Ryukishi has a funny definition of reading with love which doesn't include characters he doesn't care about). All because of ep8's asinine ideas of not letting the truth taint your own, and of a serial killer needing to have their identity protected for some reason

Is it ACTUALLY possible to solve Umineko on your own? Like, realistically?

This article contains no spoilers beyond chapter 2, which is the bare minimum you need to read to even understand what Umineko is about.

As I was reading the answers arc of the Umineko no Naku Koro ni visual novel, also known as Umineko When They Cry, also known as Umineko no Naku Koro ni Chiru, I wondered:

Can this mystery actually be solved before the story explains the solution? And by “actually” I mean “being an average reader that spends a couple hours thinking really hard about it”, since I assume that it is solvable if you are a die hard fan with 4.000 free hours that is willing to re-read each chapter 10 times and write a book full of notes.

Also, by “possible” I mean that the solution makes perfect sense and can be reached by following logic steps.

I feared that looking up the answer on the internet might produce an accidental spoiler that ruins the whole experience. Still, I took a peek, since I needed some guarantee before committing the time to try and solve it.

I found some threads on reddit where everyone agreed that it was in fact solvable. Some people going as far as claiming they solved it all by episode 4.

So I tried to solve it. I spent some hours on it, rereading some chapter and competitions of red truths. I had some theories, but nothing that neatly explained all the murders. It didn’t look like I could get any further, so I kept reading.

After having finished the whole visual novel, reading over the manga, watching 8 hours of video on youtube, and reading old forums for even more hours, this is my red truth:

It is impossible to properly solve Umineko.

But then, how come that all those people claimed to have solved it themselves?

The truth about those people is that they did not solve Umineko, not by a long shot.

What those people did:

- Figure out a certain twist in the story that heavily implies who the culprit is and assume that’s the solution.

What those people didn’t do:

- Actually go through every murder and provide a proper explanation of how that character could have done it, supported by clues in the game and without contradictions.

Why is it impossible to properly solve Umineko?

- Most of the actions that the culprit must have taken are not hinted at all. - There is no limit on how many culprits/accomplices there are. - There is no guarantee that the accomplices or even the culprit are the same in all the games. - There is no guarantee that the culprit is not killed. - Anything that is not a red truth can be disregarded as “lies of the narration”. - Red truths are valid as long as they are technically true in any possible context or interpretation, which makes them worse than useless (more on this later). - It’s never explicitly stated that the Umineko mystery follows any of the “rules of a good mystery” explained in the story.

So, basically, there isn’t nearly enough information and rules to find the truth. Even if you reached a solution, you could never be sure it is the solution, and coming up with a solution given the listed conditions is unsatisfactory and trivially easy.

Before proving that, let me quickly address the riddle of the epitaph.

Is it possible to solve the riddle of the epitaph?

No.

Why is it impossible to solve the riddle of the epitaph?

Because the solution requires:

- The map of a certain country during a certain time period (none of which are mentioned in the first 4 chapters, I think, and I doubt you could even find it on the internet). - Expert knowledge of Japanese kanjis and a some Chinese. - Solving metaphoric riddles of questionable logic. - To be actually present in Umineko’s world so you can examine and interact with “the door to the golden land”.

However, the riddle of the epitaph is possible to guess.

This is what anyone who claims to have solved the epitaph actually did. They guessed the answer using these 3 steps:

1- Ignore the most convoluted parts of the epitaph and assume the location of the door to the golden land based on what would make sense for the narrative of the story. 2- Solve a play on words by interpreting it in the only way that would fit the description of that place. 3- Roughly guess how opening the door to the golden land could work.

—-

Now, let’s go back to the solution to the murders. I claimed that coming up with a solution given the listed conditions is unsatisfactory and trivially easy.

Let me demonstrate. Here is the solution for all the murders in Umineko assuming the culprit is whatever character you want:

- All the servants, Nanjo, and all the members of the family required to make it work are accomplices. They are either bribed, threatened, convinced or tricked. - Every death is being faked unless stated in red. - Every scene not directly witnessed and described in a literal fashion by Battler is a “lie of the narration”, so it never happened. - If it is stated in red that your chosen character is not the culprit, it is because the word “culprit” is not being used to mean “the mastermind behind the murders” but “the responsible for some particular action” that your chosen culprit is not directly responsible for. - If it is stated in red that your chosen character is not a murderer or did not kill a particular person, it is because while carrying out the murders they were roleplaying Beatrice, so the red truth is considering that the actual murderer is their Beatrice impersonation, not their actual self.

Easy, right? Completely unsatisfactory too.

You would assume that the actual solution is elegant, doesn’t require twisting the red truth so much, and is completely supported by hints, but you would be wrong.

The VN doesn’t even explicitly confirm who the culprit is and it doesn’t go into detail about how each murder was carried out either. However, the manga does. I will refer to this as the “official solution”.

The official solution is so bad and full of holes and contradictions that a lot of people think it’s actually a trap set by the author for “people who stop thinking”.

So there’s 2 possibilities here:

- Umineko is a disappointment and is not solvable. The author did a poor job shoehorning explanations that were not hinted and forgetting details that contradict them. - Umineko is a hidden masterpiece. The author committed to a master trolling and pretended, even during interviews, that the flawed official solution is the truth, all just to hide the proper solution for those who don’t stop thinking. Let’s call this the “hidden solution”.

Why is the official solution so bad? Short edition.

I’ll go into more detail later, but in brief:

- The solution requires fairly ridiculous “anime logic”. - The solution doesn’t follow the rules of a proper mystery that Umineko itself explains. There are no clues to figure out how most of the murders where carried out or by whom. - The are as many clues pointing to the culprit as there are red truths contradicting it. - The solution is willing to disregard basically everything that is not a red truth as “lies of the narration”. - The red truth directly contradicts this solution, unless we interpret it in arbitrary and twisted ways in order for it to mean something else. - The logistics and details of the murders are ignored. Corpses are moved around like pillows. The culprit is never stained by blood. Shots are not heard unless the plot requires so. Etc.

Is it possible to reach the official solution?

It’s possible to figure out who is the official culprit. There are heavy hints for it, hard to see initially, but sorta obvious in retrospect. Since it’s a big twist, you should be fairly certain that you found it when you do.

However, for the reasons listed before, finding the culprit doesn’t allow you to find the solution to the murders, since anyone can be an accomplice, any narration can be a lie and any red truth can be interpreted as something else.

So, what about the hidden solution?

Is it possible to reach the hidden solution?

I’m not saying a hidden, elegant solution doesn’t exist, but for the reasons listed under “Why is it impossible to properly solve Umineko?”, you would never know if it is elegant enough to be the actual truth. It would also certainly require 4.000 hours if not more. Such a hidden truth would require you to disseminate and analyze almost every single word of this 120 hours novel.

However, I don’t see how you can make sense of all the red truths without twisting their logic and meaning so they don’t contradict real facts or one another, which makes me think that the actual solution being bad is more likely than a hidden, perfectly logical solution.

Up until chapter 6, I would have totally bought that the whole story was perfectly thought off up to the last detail, but chapters 7 and 8 are so bad I don’t believe that anymore.

Why is the official solution so bad? Extended edition.

Since I don’t want to spoil it, let me give you a fictional example of a solution that is roughly as bad as the official one, with the same kind of justifications.

The following are not spoilers, just a completely fake theory I just made up that not only appears to fit perfectly as a solution, but also appears to be heavily hinted through the game:

The culprit is Maria. She is actually not 8 but 20 years old. This is the big twist that makes people think they have solved Umineko upon realizing it, regardless of whether it completely fits or not. Then they reinterpret everything as needed to make it look like it’s supporting this truth, as I’m about to do.

This truth is right in your face the whole time, as Rosa is constantly scolding her for not acting her age. It makes no sense that she would be that bothered by it if Maria was actually 8 years old.

This is also heavily hinted by the way Rosa abuses Maria in front of other people while they all allow it. Hitting a 20 years old is not nearly as abusive as hitting an 8 years old.

All the characters agree to treat Maria as an 8 years old since that’s the way she acts and they don’t want to be mean to her, unlike her mother. This is also the reason why she is visually depicted as a little kid; as far as anyone is concerned, she is a little kid. “Without love it cannot be seen”; because they love Maria and respect her personality, they can see her as a kid.

This is all a facade maintained by Maria to trick everyone. She’s such a fanatic of the occult that her mask slips when talking about the topic and she starts acting like the creepy adult she actually is. Another massive hint that’s in your face the whole time.

She’s also shown to know Hebrew and have the whole Bible memorized. There’s no way she could be a little girl.

Even her appearance reveals the truth: She’s the only one who wears a crown, signaling that she’s the queen of the chess game.

If you have read up to chapter 5, you should recall a scene in which a certain character seriously confronts her about the existence of magic as if she was an adult, to the surprise of everyone else, who think this character is being rude. This is another massive hint that she’s actually an adult and everyone is pretending for her sake.

The reason she carries out the murders is because she truly believes Beatrice exists and will be resurrected with the ritual depicted in the epitaph. She is always saying so openly and being unaffected by the murders no matter how grueling they are or if the victim is her own mother.

The kind of person who claims to have solved Umineko would have stopped here and decided the mystery is solved. The twist is obvious in retrospect and it seems like Maria could actually have carried out the murders if she was an adult. It’s obvious that this is the solution, so there’s no need to think it further or go through every murder to check if it actually fits and is supported by clues. This story is a masterpiece!

But now we are on the internet and there are idiots who claim this solution is bad or contradictory, so let’s prove them wrong:

First chapter, first twilight:

Maria enters the parlor with a gun and kills everyone.

Yes, she kills 6 people by herself without missing a shot, even though in later chapters it’s said that the guns in the mansion don’t shoot straight and are very hard to reload for an amateur

She then carries 6 corpses to the storeroom at the other side of the garden all by herself, without getting blood stains on her clothes or on the path to the storeroom, and without anyone hearing a thing.

Later on, Natsuhi also has a gun. This confirms that there are guns in the mansion, so Maria could also get a gun, making this crime hinted and solvable.

First chapter, second twilight:

Maria goes to Eva’s room. Eva has no reason to suspect her, so she lets her in, then Maria kills her and Hideyoshi with the gun she carried hidden on her purse (another big hint; she’s the only one who can carry weapons around without being noticed).

The chain on the door was never set, that was a lie of the narration. This makes sense since Battler himself didn’t witness the scene. Genji and Kanon find the bodies and go tell other people.

While they are out, Maria somehow draws a giant magic circle in blood on the door, without moving the bodies or staining herself, the floor, or the bed where the corpse of Eva is laying. She had drawings of the same circle on her notebook, making this crime hinted and solvable.

You get the point, so let’s skip the rest of the murders and assume they can be explained by Maria somehow.

Let’s assume that in later chapters it is said in red that Maria is dead and her death was a homicide. This might seem to contradict our theory that Maria is the culprit, but it actually doesn’t. The sentence is referring to “Maria the kid”, which is treated here as a different entity from “Maria the adult”, in a similar way as how Maria treats her mother as either her real mother or “the evil witch” depending on whether she’s angry or kind. “Maria the kid” being dead means that she has discarded that facade and won’t use it anymore*. This can be considered a homicide since “Maria the adult” is the one who decides to “kill” her facade.

*She will actually use it one more time when it’s convenient for the plot, but this is treated as a resurrection and doesn’t contradict the truth that “Maria the kid” was dead at that point in time.

All of this makes sense and is solvable.

This is what the official solution apologists believe.

Umineko completely betrays the player.

Umineko is constantly asking the player to solve its mystery, going as far as to insult readers who don’t try hard enough, and seemingly assuring you that the game is perfectly solvable and follows the rules of a good mystery.

All of this is a lie.

I take particular issue with the red truth.

The red truth is introduced in a way that requires trust and cooperation from the player. It is not realistic to think that Battler (or you, the player) would be convinced that a lying witch that is trying to trick you would be trustworthy when explaining the rules of the game or the nature of the red truth.

However, you do the concession because you are, in fact, playing a game. You understand that the game is challenging you to solve it, so some rules must be laid out.

The red truth is accepted as a shortcut to avoid having to read through 2 hours of explanations for every minute detail. You accept that when “character X is dead” is said in red, the purpose is to tell Battler (and you, the player), that you should not waste your time trying to find ways in which the death of character X could have been faked, and for the story to not waste time either trying to deny every possible way to fake that death (which would be futile anyway since you can’t believe anything the witch says).

Red truths are sometimes used for misdirection, but that’s all good and part of the fun as long as they can still be taken at face value and interpreted literally. “Character X didn’t exit the room” tricks you into assuming that character X was inside the room to begin with, but the solution here is to take the red truth literally and don’t make any extra assumptions, not to change the meaning or the context of the red.

Eventually, however, the game provides consecutive red truths that directly contradict each other. The official explanation is that a red truth is valid as long as there is a way in which it could technically be interpreted as true. For example, if you and I are in the same room, I can claim in red that “there’s only one person in the room”, because I’m speaking out of context and by “the room” I’m not referring to this room, but any other room with a single person in it, or because you did cruel things in the past, so I consider you to be a “monster”, not a “person”. Therefore, the red truth “there’s only one person in the room” is no truth at all.

You might think it’s a cool twist that the red is not reliable and the witch was tricking you all along, and I agree that from a narrative standpoint it is.

However, from the point of view of a player being encouraged to try and solve the mystery, it is a complete betrayal of the truth you placed in the game.

The ending of Umineko is awful and the whole “solvable mystery” is a hurtful lie.

[some-pers0n]

Every once in a while I think about the ship I've been obsessed over for close to two years now and feel like I'm ascending to another plane of reality. Like sometimes you just encounter a ship that hits every single mark and is perfect in every regard and you're left stunned how something like that can even exist

[fragmentedblade]

I hate that when I look up the "Kalpas" tag here there's me and then there's me again, but on another blog. Fake moustache me

[frownyalfred]

Why is it so hard to find ppl that actually understand bruce? I am tired of either finding ppl that see him as an abuser or others that only love wfa version of him I am really tired of this like really I can't even join a Fandom without getting my favorite character not getting mischaracterized left and right 😔

I'm going to rant a little bit here, and I apologize in advance. This isn't really directed at you. But I'm kind of tired of this flavor of ask. I get it a lot -- half of these asks are praising me for having a "good" interpretation of canon, and the other half are blasting me for being too "fanon" and bending too much to fandom tropes in my posts and writing. And of course the nonstop WFA hatred in my inbox is tiring.

Be the change you want to see in the world. If you don't like what the fandom is doing to your blorbo, write him your way. But sitting at the edge of the playpen complaining about how someone else is playing with their toys isn't useful. And it's really getting annoying to me, as a content creator.

I'm also tired of the superiority some canon-adherents have over those who write/draw more fanon tropes. So many of you are SO bitter over the idea that fandom is "ruining" Bruce or your other Batfamily blorbo because how DARE they write your blorbo in that way that is so OOC. How DARE they! And yet, you sit on the sidelines and create bitchy tumblr posts about how those fandom participants are stupid, or ill-informed, or simply don't have the higher thinking ability to understand your blorbo like you do.

And yet. You don't write Bruce the way you "enjoy." You don't create content or share posts or promote those canon characteristics you so highly value. Instead, you write posts complaining about the others in this fandom and deride them for being stupid like adhering to canon strictly somehow makes you better than anyone else. You mock their acceptance of fanon tropes as canon as if there is required reading in this fandom, entirely dismissing the idea that the line between DC fanon/canon is confusing as hell on a good day, and ignoring that the natural progression of engaging in fandom is finding out -- sometimes on your own timeline -- what actually happened in canon. Especially when canon is so vast.

And guess what? At the end of the day, we are all on the fandom website(s). You're still reading fanfiction at the end of the day. Canon or fanon or some blend of the in-between, you are still a fan participating in fandom content in some way or another. And we are all equal in that respect.

We are all here to enjoy these characters. Fanfiction is a medium that allows us to further explore canon, yes, But it is also a way to explore the OOC, the what-if's, the out of character but fandom-fave ideas and tropes people want. The fact that OTHER people enjoy those things should never impact your enjoyment of fandom.

If you cannot handle someone else playing with the same toys as you, but playing with them in a way you don't like, you need to go back to preschool. And if someone won't give you your toy back, find another one. Write the story. Create the post. Build your own engagement from the ground up, finding likeminded people if you can. They are definitely on here.

But I get the impression that when people complain about fanon "ruining" fandom, what they're actually saying is "I'm upset that canon content isn't as popular as fanon content." And that, I can't help you with. We can't always change what other people love or want to engage with.

I'm sorry that this rant is blunt, but it's been simmering inside me for a while. I'm really tired of getting and deleting this ask 15 times a day. You will not find much sympathy on this blog for canon purism and the derision of fanon/fandom, and for that I apologize. But it's the truth.

I enjoy consuming content about both "fanon" and canon Bruce. I like the contrast and complexities. But I have seriously had to stop following a ton of blogs in the last year who don't create "canon" content anymore and instead spend their time complaining about other people in the fandom who are just enjoying themselves and creating their own content. It's incredibly disheartening and frustrating.

[grandwretch]

headcanon: since steve likes star wars but doesn't really grok the scifi parts, i think steve really likes old samurai movies. he watched them all the time with grandpa otis, who showed him seven samurai after steve liked magnificent seven so much. even though steve isn't the greatest reader, he's read a few biographies of famous samurai like musashi miyamoto and even read macbeth to better understand throne of blood.

when dustin shows him star wars for the first time, steve is like oh wow this is so cool! and dustin is like i told you nerd stuff is fun! and steve is like nerd stuff? this isn't nerd stuff, this is hidden fortress with laser swords!

his favorite movie is lady snowblood (he likes a woman who could and would kill him), but he also has a major soft spot for kagemusha, which is the last movie he saw with grandpa otis before he passed away.

he doesn't bother telling keith about it during the movie interview because he knows family video doesn't stock his favorites-- he's checked before. however, late in '85 once keith starts trusting steve and robin to do new order movies, steve absolutely abuses his power to get his hands on a copy of the new Kurosawa movie, Ran, and forces Robin to watch it with him.

she's shocked he wants to watch something with subtitles, and even more shocked that when she asks him a question about the characters, he pauses the movie, gives her a fifteen minute speech on samurai culture, and then restarts it from the beginning.

after the movie is over, they argue for two hours over whether or not the movie was based on King Lear (Steve has no idea who that is) or the life of Mori Motonari (Robin has no idea who that is, either.) They're devastated when a magazine confirms they were both right, actually.

[celtrist]

It's okay to be emotional over a ship.

It's okay to be emotional over a ship. It's okay to be emotional over characters. It's okay to share grievances over a ship as much as it's okay to gush over a ship. It's okay to feel so overwhelmingly negatively over a ship just as much as it's okay to feel so overwhelmingly positive.

While it's always going to be better to focus on positives, it can also be just as good to let out any negatives you might have about something rather than bottling it in and, for some, feeling alone in your thoughts about it.

It is so, so, SO OKAY to be so heavy in emotions concerning a ship whether negative or positive because it means you're invested in the characters and their relationships. When spaces seem to allow only positivity when some people might have some negative thoughts on a ship, it really negates any conversations about it and even understanding sides of why someone may or may not ship something.

While understandable, there is a double standard between being negative and positive about ships (or portrayal of characters). If you feel overwhelmingly negative about something, "you need to go touch grass". If you feel overwhelmingly positive about something, "go at it queen". I would personally argue we all need to touch grass.

It is NOT okay to harass others. It is NOT okay to let your emotions dictate that you should attack somebody for LIKING a certain ship or DISLIKING a certain ship. Your emotions DO NOT dictate how OTHERS should feel.

It is okay to be negative about a character or ship as much as it's okay to be positive about them. Neither side of being for or against a ship is more virtuous than the other. It's okay to have some fucking emotions regardless if they're positive or not, because it means you CARE about the media and the characters in it.

No, you should not revolve your whole online experience in negativity. Find the positive in things you DO enjoy. But to brush off people who vehemently might dislike a character or ship as "losers with no lives" is to disregard a person's emotions on something. And if you do wanna think that mindset, congrats, people who obsessively love a character or ship are just the same by your logic. Obsession is obsession, regardless if it's negative or positive.

TL;DR, If it's okay to be overwhelmingly positive in liking something like a ship or character, it should be just as okay to be negative in disliking something like a ship or character. Just as long as it's not the ONLY thing you focus on and no one is actively being bullied, attacked, or harassed about it. And of course, either way, positive or negative, it is all fiction, and a real person should not be attacked or harassed for it. And if you don't want to indulge in negativity you might have, 100% valid. Both sides always need to take a step back into reality.

[trafalgarya]

Hashiras x reader who doesn't know how to show emotions.

Plot : The Hashiras (from Demon Slayer (not all of them)) x a stoic, inexpressive reader. Headcanons.

With : Giyuu Tomioka, Muichiro Tokito, Kyojuro Rengoku, Shinobu Kocho, Mitsuri Kanroji.

tw : giyuu's backstory is briefly mentioned. kyojuro's part involves anger and sadness. shinobu's part can be seen as slightly suggestive, but there's nothing explicit.

gn!reader. reader feels emotions just like everyone else, but they're just not too fond of displaying them.

hi ! so, uh, it's been a while. tbh, i completely forgot about tumblr. lots of things (not in a bad way, rest assured) are happening in my life rn, and i hadn't much time to spend time on tumblr. i won't promise you anything about me definitely coming back on tumblr, as i don't want to give you guys any hopes that'll eventually reveal themselves false, but i'll try.

my english has improved a bit, but i'm afraid it's still shitty, so i apologize if what i say isn't always coherent enough.

one last thing : i'll often mentions headcanons about when the both of you are going to bed to sleep together, but of course, these are when the characters in question aren't assigned on a mission.

Giyuu Tomioka

Giyuu himself doesn't like to publicly showcase his emotions, so you being inexpressive as well is kind of a gift for him. Don't make me say what I haven't, though ! He'd love you just as much if you were someone expressive by nature, but you being inexpressive suits him even better, because he knows you'll understand how he feels about this subject.

Both of you being a stoic couple doesn't prevent either of you to show your love for the other, though. You're just... not doing it outside closed doors. Hugs and kisses are at the rendezvous once both of you find yourselves in a quiet place where you know you won't be disturbed.

However, Giyuu isn't too fond of being overwhelmed of affection. Sure, he enjoys feeling the warmth of your body as you lay your head on his chest, his arms wrapped around your waist, and I'll tell you, he even enjoys being the one to lay on your chest. Hearing your heartbeat acknowledges him with the fact that you're still alive and not leaving anytime soon, so he won't be having a mental breakdown about losing one other person he cherishes. He loves the feeling of your hands grasping his, your fingers intertwined together as you enjoy the peacefulness and calmness of that loving moment... That said, I can't really imagine Giyuu being so touch deprived that he'd want affection all day long. He needs a bit of space sometime — not in a "Leave me alone" way, but in an introverted way, if that's the correct word —, and he knows you'll respect it as you're not one to make a scene about such things.

I can see Giyuu enjoying to read in your presence. He'd especially love it if both of you were lying on your double-sized bed, wrapped in each other's arms as he's holding a book for you both to read as you readjusted your position to make yourself more comfortable on his chest. That'd kind of be your dates, I guess ? I mean, Giyuu isn't someone to willingly go outside and take long walks at night.

You're the type of couple to either have deep, philosophical talks at night, rambling about your lives or something intriguing that happened during the day, or the type of couple to stay silent even when you're together, just silently enjoying the other one's presence and the amount of joy they're bringing to your life, no in-between.

If you're the second type of couple, however, that doesn't mean you'll never talk at all. If there happens to be a problem within your relationship, as mature adults, you'll talk through it and find solutions together. Neither of you will leave until you've both found a solution. Giyuu wouldn't mind doing compromises for your relationship to work better — he's not risking losing you just like he did with Sabito, Makomo and Tsutako — and so would you. Despite not showing him at all times, you love him with all your heart, and you know it's reciprocal.

Overall, you being stoic suits Giyuu just fine, and he loves it even better. He knows you won't question his lack of emotions on his face at any times, and that's probably what's keeping him in your relationship. Outside of his undying love for you, of course. He's undeniably the best one to go to if you want some calm and peacefulness.

Muichiro Tokito

Despite his age, Muichiro is a mature boy, and he knows better than to question whether your lack of expression is due to the fact that you're growing tired of him — which you clearly aren't, quite the opposite actually —, because he's in the same situation as you are. Just like everyone else, he's able to grow attached to someone, to cling onto them, just like he can feel joy, sadness, anger, etc.

He knows you're mainly showing your love physically, and privately, and he respects that. Not that he isn't too fond of PDA, but he doesn't crave it, and so do you. So, just like with Giyuu, you both keep your love within closed doors.

However, unlike Giyuu, Muichiro is much more clingy. Whenever he can, he'll go on and hold your hand, immediately intertwining his fingers with yours, he'll stand on his toes and kiss one of your cheeks, having the satisfaction of bringing a faint blush to the inexpressive being you are, he'll snuggle in your arms and rest his head on your chest, immediately closing his eyes to appreciate your warmth the best he can, he'll play with your hair after asking you if you were okay with it... You got it, he's quite the clingy boy.

Speaking of hair. If you have long hair, he'll gladly brush them and style them for you. Just know, he especially love braiding your hair, he thinks it looks good and cute on you. However, if you have short hair, he'll ask you to brush his instead. He's gifted with natural, long, beautiful hair and he knows it, and he wants to keep them maintained. As you do so, he'll probably sit on your lap, crossing his legs as he hums a melody, trying his best not to move too much so as not to complicate you the task at hand. When you're done, he'll reward you with a small kiss on the lips and a warm smile.

When it's time for you to go to bed, you already know he's clinging onto you as if it was the last thing he'll ever do. You're usually spooning. He doesn't mind being the big spoon, but he usually prefers being the little spoon. It just brings him a sense of comfort, he can't explain why exactly, but all he knows is that he loves it. He'll wrap his arms around your waist, snuggling his face in the crook of your neck to smell your scent. It relaxes him and helps him to go to sleep.

You're often training together. As a Hashira, he acknowledges his strength, and he'll go easy on you. The last thing he'd want to do is to hurt you. In that case, he'd act more as a teacher for you, helping you with moves you're struggling with. However, if you're strong enough to keep up with him — first of all, he'd be proud of having such a strong S/O, and that'll make him relax about knowing you can protect yourself — but ultimately, he won't hold back as much as he was planning to. He'll still do his best not to hurt you, but he'll be having fun training with you. It brings him a strange sense of pride and satisfaction knowing that he can freely showcase his strength while you're keeping up with him.

Overall, one of the best Hashiras to be inexpressive with. He's someone understanding, but that said, it doesn't mean he'd hold back at all. You're his and he's yours, so why restraining himself when it comes to showering you with affection ?

Kyojuro Rengoku

Well... He's the complete opposite of you. That man is full of energy and always seen with a smile on his face. He's loud and always up for a challenge, while you're... well... usually quiet and stoic. But, in his eyes, that's what makes your charm !

He's completely respectful of your boundaries. If you don't want to do something he wants to do, then be sure he won't do it. Despite how hard it would be for him to not do it, he's putting your health and well-being before his own needs. Don't want a hug ? That's fine, he can settle for your presence instead ? Don't want to go outside ? He's just as fine staying at home with you ! Don't want to cook ? Just rest in bed, he'll take care of everything !

You got it, he's very respectul of your boundaries and doesn't want to pressure you into anything that could make you uncomfortable. That's the last thing he'd want to do, to make you uncomfortable.

Whenever you need some calm, some relief or simply to talk, you can count on him ! The moment you appear to be sad or angry, he's already sitting next to you. He'll gently rest his hand on your shoulder, or your thigh if that's okay with you, and he'll ask you what's wrong, and if you want to talk about it. He'll wrap a warm arm around your neck, bringing you closer to him, and he'll run a hand through your hair, putting you at ease the best he can. He's someone quite skilled with his words, he'll always find the right words to comfort you, and he'll be careful with his choice of words. He doesn't want to accidently say something that'll make you feel worse than before.

When it's time to go to bed, he'll sneak in the blankets and wait for you to get ready as well. Just know, he's a man who usually sleeps without a top, his torso and strong, muscled, well traced arms displayed, for your eyes's pleasure. If you don't want to cuddle, be sure he'll at least kiss you on the lips. If you want to, however, he WILL cuddle. He's not missing the opportunity ! He likes to be the big spoon, it brings him a sense of protection knowing that you entrust him enough to let him carry you in his arms in such an intimate way. He isn't someone to fall asleep so quickly, so he'll admire the peaceful look on your face as you're deeply asleep, wandering how such a beauty could have fallen in love with him, someone who's so different from you.

When you both are going out, he's always having an arm wrapped around your waist. Not to display affection or to show to everyone that you're his, but to protect you. He knows you can protect yourself, but he's an overthinker, and wants to make sure you're always by his side. You never know what could happen, especially in public places, so he makes sure to at least have an arm wrapped around your waist.

Overall, Kyojuro is someone very understanding and respectful of your boundaries who'll make sure to protect you at all cases. He loves you very much and is always there for you. Probably the best one if you're feeling down, as he's the most skilled one with his words.

Shinobu Kocho

That woman is such a tease. If you agreed to be in a relationship with her, you also silently agreed to be made fun of at all times. Not in a mean way, of course, she just likes to tease like no one ever did.

You kind of remind her of Giyuu, that's probably one of the reason she's "bullying" you at least as much as she does to Giyuu, if not even more. With a playful smile on her face, she'll often do remarks about how you're not smiling enough, and how pretty you would look for her if you had a smile on your face. She's probably the one who leaves you all blushing and flustered the most out there, although you're usually not used to blush and be unsettled that much. You kind of hate her for that, but oh how you love it as well. Kind of like a love-hate relationship.

On a more serious tone, she's always reminding you that it's all for fun. She doesn't want you broken and saddened because of her playful personality. If it ever made you uncomfortable, she'd immediately notice it and stop her remarks. She'll feel remorseful, although not showing it. She doesn't want you to know that.

As the insect Hashira, she possesses lots of medical and pharmaceutical knowledge to make up for her lack of physical strenght — although that doesn't mean she's physically weak, she's actually pretty strong, her physical strenght is simply not enough to cut down a demon's neck —, she's the best one to go to whenever you feel sick. Whether you've returned of a mission and you're full or bruises and cuts, you're having a fever or a simple headache, she has all the best medicines already prepared for you. It won't take much before she finds the medicine she's searching for, and she'll immediately administer it on you. If your case is serious, she'll make sure you're lying on a bed and moving only for the necessary. And trust me when I say that if she has to tie you up on the bed for you to stop moving, she'll do it. She always has some... accessories ready for these cases.

As one of the doctor of the Demon Slayer Corps, she's often busy healing slayers and creating medicines. However, if you need to talk to her about something important, she'll make sure to talk to you while doing the task she's assigned. If she's healing a slayer, you both will talk standing up while she's doing her job. However, if she's producing some medicines, which often happens in her personal office, she'll grab a chair for you to sit. Whether the medicine needs constant attention or not, she'll prioritize you first and will be sure not to make you feel ignored. Although she may not always look at you in the eyes because of whatever she's doing, she's attentive and listening to you, and you know it.

Despite her petite figure, she's not one to underestimate. If, for some reasons, you decide to tease her back and acting bratty on her, may the Lord forgive you, because she won't be holding back. She'll remind you of your place and punish you suitably to how much of a brat you've been. She's not afraid to use radical solutions to get what she wants — as long as you've given your consent of course — and to prove to you that her height doesn't mean shit. It might be publicly, also reminding to everyone that she's not a woman to mess with, or it can be in a private setting, where you won't get disturbed. Rest assured, though, she won't hurt you... much.

Sadly, you're often sleeping alone. As I mentioned before, she's a doctor, and is often busy working on medicines or injured slayers. Even though she's sneaking into the bed at night and you both ultimately sleep together, you rarely fall asleep together. If that's hurting you at any point, she'll find a solution, whether it's to stop working for the night to sleep with you, or to bring you to her office, letting you sleep on her lap as she keeps working, she'll make sure to find a solution not to make you feel abandoned and neglected.

One thing she loves to do with you, even going as far as making it a daily thing, is having breakfast with you. Whether she has slept or not, she'll make sure to take ten to twenty minutes each morning to have breakfast with you. It is a must in your relationship, and you're happy with it, as she's probably the one out of the other Hashiras you'll see the less. She'll ask you if you've slept well, how was your night, etc. If you're not a morning person, she'll just restrain herself from talking that much, but she at least wants you to be there with her.

Overall, she's the best Hashira to go to if you feel sick. She's a busy woman but she makes sure to fulfill her duty of keep the relationship healthy and maintained as your girlfriend. She's not one to mess with, so as long as you respect her, you're fine. She's making sure you know she loves you very much and wants to keep you in her life for a long-term relationship, she doesn't like short relationships where y'all break up over a small argument, she's a mature woman who's talking through everything and makes sure to find a solution while doing her best at work.

Mitsuri Kanroji

Do I really need to specify she's the complete opposite of you ? Even worse than Kyojuro, she's a cheerful and happy being who always showcases her emotions. Rare are the moments where she isn't seen with a smile on her face. The difference between the both of you is so obvious that people can't help but ask how did you two ended up together.

Your lack of expression doesn't bother her in the slightest ; Trust me, she'll make up for the both of you, as the emotional person she is. She finds your lack of expression charming, cute and hot at once. She loves this side of you, seeing you so calm and unbothered makes her heart melt. All she wants to do is to pamper you and shower you in hugs and kisses. But if you aren't too fond of it, that's okay too ! She'll make up with other things she knows you tolerate, such as hand holding, words of affirmation or buying you gifts, often food.

Just like Shinobu, having breakfast with her is a must... except it's not only breakfast. In fact, she wants to spend the three dinners a day with you, she'll find herself all saddened and upset when she can't spend even one dinner with you. She wants to be by your side at all times, even though she knows it isn't always possible and is more of an utopic desire of hers.

She knows you're not talkative, and that's fine by her. Just like for your emotions, she'll make up for the both of you. She's the yapper to your listener. She'll often talk for hours and hours about her life, her day, about that one stray cat she crossed paths with on her way to a restaurant and how she couldn't resist the temptation to caress him, about that new, young and prodigious slayer called Tanjiro she sympathizes with, etc. Sometimes, she's afraid she's talking too much, but you assure her she's not, and in fact, you love listening to her.

Obanai was jealous of you at first, but eventually he realized you were treating Mitsuri well enough after lots of conversations with Mitsuri herself, so he kind of gave up on the idea of seducing Mitsuri and entrusted you with bringing her the joy she deserves to have. Be wary, however — if he hears ONE bad thing you did to Mitsuri, he'll knock your ass, going on and on about how she deserves to be treated like a princess and all. But Mitsuri often gets in his way, stopping him before he goes too far. Eventually, he stopped loving her, realizing you were the one who got her heart, and started acting just a little bit more friendly towards you.

When it's time to go to bed, she's often the one lying in the it first, tired of her day. Yup, whether she has done something or not, that's what makes it funny. When it's your turn to sneak under the blankets, she'll immediately snuggle to you, it goes from simply hugging you to spooning you — she doesn't mind being the little one or the big one, it's honestly up to you — to lying on top of you and resting her head in the crook of your neck. She'll whisper a weak "I love youuu" before quickly falling asleep. She's a quick sleeper, unlike her master Kyojuro, so you're often the one finding yourself admiring her angelic traits as she's peacefully sleeping next to/on top of you.

Overall, the sweetest Hashira to be in a relationship with. She's the one to go to if you need affection and for a sunshine to invade your life.

[tennesseetrekkie]

Eliot Spencer is Still a Killer

But not a murderer.

I've been thinking this for a while and I think "The Side Job" basically confirmed it.

Killing and murder are two different things, especially to a man like Eliot. He has his own moral code. He will never take another innocent life. NEVER again. But if they deserve it? Maybe so. (Who he is to decide that is an entirely different matter)

Some examples I can think of to support this theory:

"The Wedding Job": Nate asks if he just killed a guy with an appetizer, he replies with "I don't know, maybe." Doesn't seem to bother him at all (kind of freaked Nate out, though!). Never did get confirmation one way or another.

"The Order 23 Job": He shows up outside of that boy's house dressed in all black with his hair tucked into a hat waiting until the boy is clear... I remember reading that the writers didn't mean for it to look like that but, uh, it did.

"The Future Job": Parker asks if they could kill the "psychic", Eliot tells her "yeah, I mean, I could". No big deal. Sure. Wasn't even like a hesitant "but it could compromise my morals!" more like a "just another Tuesday".

"The Carnival Job": "Nate, if I'm engaged..." "Do your worst." They both know what means.

"The Experimental Job": The CIA interrogator who was torturing veterans did not look very lively at the end. Just saying.

"The King George Job": Eliot straight up asks Nate "if I take out Keller how hard would it be get at Moreau?".

"The Big Bang Job": A big deal is made about the gun scene but right before he picks it up he just causally snaps a guy's neck. He also doesn't object to Nate saying he might have to kill Atherton.

"The Rundown Job": Eliot tells Hardison "you get me to him. I get my hands on him and it's done."

Pretty sure there's a couple other instances I'm forgetting but this is a few.

Of course, this is the exception rather than the rule. Generally he won't kill, it's rarely his first choice. I mean, in that last example the tone he used to tell Hardison "it's done" strongly implied killing but when it came down to it he didn't. I don't think the man is bloodthirsty but he makes the hard call sometimes and doesn't let it bother him. This is not a morality I agree with but it certainly makes the character more interesting. (I always wondered how things would've played out had Sophie not been there with Dubenich. Would he have "saved a friend some trouble"?)

I don't think it's in conflict with him not being the same kind of guy anymore either. He's in control now, he never takes an innocent life and he doesn't kill indiscriminately or for fun or pleasure.

"The Side Job" really sort of confirmed it for me because he didn't outright disagree or discourage Parker from killing someone. He'll support her in it. Even against the rest of the team because none of them would understand or support it.

Whether the rest of team knows about Eliot is unclear. He definitely doesn't go around talking about it. He does what needs done and moves on. But I think Nate did. I don't know if he always approved but I think it was an unspoken understanding between them. I think he trusted Eliot enough to kill the right people and not cross the same line as before. I don't think Hardison, Sophie, Harry, or Breanna knows. They have their own innocent views of who Eliot is and what he's done. Partly because they don't want to think about it. I don't think Parker did at first. After running the crew though I suspect she does now. They have the same unspoken understanding as Eliot and Nate did. Because she gets it. The others don't understand because they're different. He's different. She knows and she gets it.

[ooooo-mcyt]

no wait ur right. wait can u elaborate on desert duo + box boys + divorce quarter queer-codednees PLEASE ur right but i cannot put it into words

For me it's a matter of nonconformity.

The root of the queer coding in Double Life to me lays in the Double Life societal expectations. Soulmate relationships were held above all other relationships and there was an immense pressuring expectation to both be interesting in/prioritize the soulmate bond and to be with the "right" person, the person who you are assigned to and who it is "correct" to be with, who you are supposed to want to be with. To me this reads as a very strong standin for both amatonormativity and heteronormativity.

Scott and Cleo have always been the ones who immediately struck me as being very obviously queercoded with how they presented their narrative. Choosing each other and the joy they find together despite the expectations on them, and talking at length about how invaluable it is to find your own path and choose the kind of love that's true for you even if people think it's wrong and even if it's hard. It's also no surprise to me that the characters with the most explicit queer themes happen to be played by cc's who are both queer irl. It's also worth nothing how much the reaction of other players to their relationship adds to these themes- confusion, discomfort, even judgment. BigB tries to console Scott that there's still time to connect with his real soulmate. Jimmy repeatedly calls their relationship 'fake' to their faces. Nobody quite seems to understand.

The themes are less spelled out with Ren+Martyn and Grian+BigB, but they're still there. Ren and Martyn are both outwardly fixated with the people they're 'supposed' to be with, but at times it feels almost forced, like their minds are more on doing what is expected of them than on the actual people who are their soulmates, meanwhile they're frequently drawn toward each other in the background, because love doesn't care about the bounds of strict societal expectations. BigB and Grian have a very open struggle between what's expected of them and what they really want, because they want each other, regardless of what they're expected to want, and they're constantly torn between these two factors, trying to be together in secret because they don't feel like their relationship can be accepted publicly.

Scar is slightly different from the others in that he doesn't seem to want a relationship at all, which in of itself is a form of nonconformity. He's 'supposed' to want his soulmate, but instead Scar seems focused on himself, on his own projects, and on his connection with animals. This lack of concern with what is supposed to be the most important and special relationship is framed, by most people, as ridiculous, a failing on Scar's part, because of course anyone would care more about finding their soulmate than about the things Scar is focused on. Scar's desires conflict very strongly with the societal expectation for relationships in Double Life, and he struggles with the outside pressure to prioritize a relationship he never really wanted, just because he's expected to want his soulmate.

I'd say Pearl is the one I don't read queer themes as explicitly from. I always got the feeling she did want her soulmate, and that she did value soulmate relationships strongly, her isolation coming from circumstance rather than Pearl having fundamentally divergent desires. That being said! Pearl is also very very negatively impacted by societal standards of Double Life! I've said it many times, but Pearl wasn't isolated because Scott rejected her, Pearl was isolated because it was impossible to form a real support system in Double Life. Because the soulmate relationship was seen as so deeply important and was centered in everything, Pearl could never feel like she belonged anywhere, always an outsider looking in when she tried to form friendships with soulmate pairs. Pearl was also frequently either pitied or viewed as if there was something wrong with her for not having a soulmate, which reinforced how lonely, bitter, and hurt she was. Pearl doesn't have queer themes to me, but I view her as the symbolic standin for how amatonormativity and heteronormativity can be extremely damaging even for people who aren't queer through shaming and pitying people who don't have relationships, making them feel defective, and isolating them through making non-romantic connections seem less real or meaningful (in many cases this also disproportionately impacts women- who are in many cases valued solely through their relationships- and disabled people- who in many cases have a harder time making connections and are more likely to be viewed as 'defective' generally.)

Anyways sorry for rambling but Double Life is truly a story about amatonormativity and heteronormativity to me and I'm kinda insane about the themes.

[bitegore]

I made a character sheet to plot your OC's development over time! (There's supposed to be a character name in the big white space next to "over time" but it got eaten a little lmao)

You can use this for whatever you want, and you don't have to credit me. Feel free to change or edit anything you feel like. Please don't tag me if you credit me - just link to the original post.

Credits, explanations & a transparent version under the cut :D

Credits:

The actual image was made with the free NBOS character sheet creator, which is a sort of dated but free and solid text-layout sheet maker intended for ttrpg style character sheet creation.

Fonts used were Bisdak (titles) and Rockwell (body). Both are free! You can use them to fill it out if you like.

Inspired by a comment @maybe-solar-powered-calculator made on this other post about filling it out for characters at multiple points along their arcs. Thanks for putting the idea in my head :D

This is explicitly released under a CC0 1.0 deed, ie: you can do fucking whatever you want with it and I don't care and you don't have to tell anyone where you got it from and no one gets to stop you.

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Last time I made one of these I got a bunch of questions on all manner of things, and I can never keep up, so I'm just appending a set of notes for how to use it and a glossary because I know some of these phrasings will be confusing.

Ignore or change anything you don't feel like works for you here. You can do whatever you want forever.

Suggested / intended use & general notes:

This sheet could work for something story-level, if you want. But it's really only good for individual arcs; if the character goes through multiple arcs in your story, then they're going to fit poorly here. In that case, you're probably better off doing versions for each arc, or just adapting this to a different format more suited to your thing.

Also, if your arc has a nontraditional structure - divorced from the typical "rising action - climax - conclusion" type of structure where there's a clear 'important turning point' - it may not work as well either.

The mindset section is meant to come at it from a 'golden mean' standpoint - that is, everything on either extreme of the slider is 'too much' and therefore bad. It's not bad-to-good! The far right side is a flaw too. They're only grouped the way they are on basis of the specific OCs I personally had in mind when I put it together.

Growth is labeled 'worse'-to-'better' but it means, like, active decrease in that area vs active increase; if nothing changes, it should stay at the center even if it sucks. The category is about contrasting changes, and sometimes changes are for the worse!

The entire sheet is very deliberately subjective. It should really be answered from the character's perspective - how they feel about it, not what's necessarily true. Technically you can do whatever you want and I can't stop you, but it's a better tool if you approach it from the point of view that the character may believe things that aren't true - that will define their behavior way more than the objective facts of the story.

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Definitions:

This part is long as hell - recommend using ctrl+f to find the specific words you're stuck on. I defined everything.

General categories:

Mindset: how your character thinks about themself and how they act. Their understanding of their own approach to life. Attitude, viewpoint, decision-making process, that sort of thing.

Circumstances: the relationship between your character and the world around them. Where they are, what that place is like, and how they feel about it.

Growth: how the character and their impact - their attitude, their behavior, their immediate surroundings - changes over time.

Outset: the start of the character's arc.

Present: the 'center' of the arc. If you're planning something ahead of time and it hasn't 'happened' yet, then this is the near future.

End-game: where they are after the conclusion of the arc.

Mindset terms:

Center of the world: "If I have a problem, it's the only thing that matters to me." Self-centered, self-absorbed. Doesn't necessarily mean anything beyond that - they don't necessarily have to be unpleasant to be entirely focused on their own life.

my life isn't relevant: "Everyone else's problems are so significant, I don't pay any attention to my own". Someone who ignores or neglects their own life in service of some other thing, or doesn't consider their own behavior to have any real importance.

Only see enemies: Paranoid. Everyone's out to get them. Anyone who seems nonthreatening is hiding their potential for danger and everyone who seems threatening is a threat. The character must remain ever-vigilant, lest the cashier at the 7/11 suddenly stab them, or their best friend turn out to secretly be trying to poison them to death.

Only see friends: Naïve. Everyone is a good actor who wishes everyone else well, and if they don't seem like they're acting from a place of kindness or care then you probably don't understand what they're up to. The character is pretty sure the stranger holding that knife is, like, someone to chat up maybe, they're clearly only hanging out in this dark alleyway because it's a nice spot and no other possible reason.

overthink everything: Ten thousand thoughts per every single action taken. Maybe they never get around to acting at all. They have to consider every possible outcome. What if by eating lunch they accidentally trigger the apocalypse?! Who's going to think about these things if not them?!?!?!

impulsive to action: Act first, think never. What do you mean "consequences of actions"?

Unilateral decisions: "I will make every choice and no one else's opinions or thoughts are relevant". Discounts outside suggestions. Firmly convinced that they know best in any situation, and will brook no disagreement with their views when it comes to actually doing things.

Command me, please: "I don't know what to do and I don't know what to even start with, someone please tell me what to think". No confidence in their own views. Will not make any decisions unless forced and even then will beg someone else to please tell them what to do. Has no idea what's best and is pretty sure anyone else will have a better idea.

can't ask for help: No one will ever help the character; they have to do everything themself, even the things other people have repeatedly offered to do for them and have much more experience with. Doesn't necessarily mean that no one will help them or that they are explicitly barred by some real-world circumstance; just that, for whatever reason, they refuse to ask for help. This is an attitude thing - will they ever reach out? No? Then they're here.

too reliant on others: Have they ever solved a problem alone? Do they believe they're even capable of doing so? The character all the way at this end of the scale absolutely never expects to be able to do anything themself, has no trust in their ability to solve a problem, and needs someone else to come save them from it. The kind of person who needs ChatGPT to do their homework. Again - doesn't actually mean anyone will help them, or that the people they're relying on are reliable - just that they think they are helpless without ... well, help.

Weapon maker: This has to do with problem-solving strategies and not actual weapons. The weapon-maker is a character who views every situation as a conflict that cannot be de-escalated or solved by cooperation, and responds appropriately. The most fundamental weapon maker character turns everything into an argument, a fight, a war, etc. There are a bunch of other responses to conflict, though - they might avoid problems that need solving because they avoid conflict generally too. Fundamentally what you want to answer here is: when they see a locked box and they don't have the key, do they respond to it the same way they'd respond to someone telling them "you can't open this box"? And how do they respond to that? Typical weapon-maker approaches: - brute-force the box open or try and then give up if it doesn't work; and also get into an argument that might turn physical with the hypothetical person - shrug and give up immediately, in both situations so on and so forth. Another hallmark is that they kind of suck at problem-solving and give up if brute-forcing a problem doesn't work. This is not someone who is picking locks unless someone else told them to - they have one solution, it's to make everything into a conflict, and then to win that conflict by beating them or to give up because they think they'll lose.

Tool maker: This person approaches every situation like it's a puzzle, not a fight - up to and including actual fights. Tool-maker characters generally assume that a situation can be solved by just finding the right approach and doing it the clever way. There's the same fundamental question as above - if your character sees a locked box and has no key, would they approach it differently than someone telling them they're not allowed to open the box? 'Typical' tool-maker approaches: - I can trick the person into giving me the key by saying the right things, and I can also pick the lock because fundamentally there are 'right answers' to both of these - If i make friends with this person, they might change their mind, because now we're cooperating. I can still pick the lock because there are 'right answers' there. - The person has a reason for wanting me not to open the box, so I can definitely figure out what that is and solve the reason so then they'll let me open it. I can take whatever it is even if they really want to keep it if I just find the right answer. I'm going to break this box into little pieces because that's the easiest way to get into it but I could probably open it some other way if that wouldn't work.

A note - the center of this bar is someone who generally has different responses to different kinds of situations - like, in the box example, they'd approach the box and the person with two different general attitudes and processes - but generally responds to those situations using the same kind of decision-making process for each category every time. Most people are nowhere near either extreme. Characters tend to be classifiable into weapon-maker and tool-maker because they are fictional and it's easier to define one kind of approach than many. Approximately average approaches: - pick the lock if no one's around, but give up if someone is there because someone telling me not to open the box is a conflict i think i'll lose but a locked box is just a puzzle that i can solve - argue with the person, but give up on the box, because they're approaching the box as a puzzle and they don't think they have the skill to get into it, but the person is someone who can be convinced or bullied into handing over the key

I made this particular dichotomy up, which is why I think I get a lot of questions on it whenever I put it into anything, but I also don't know of any other snappy way to describe this sort of thought or approach variance, and it's genuinely useful for character writing in my opinion.

Pessimist spot-finder: Generally a downer but not necessarily. This kind of character just approaches everything with a close eye for problems, issues, reasons to find fault. If they're miserable, it might be why, but like, they can be a cheerful spot-finder if you want, I just wanted to get at "the glass is half empty" and "the glass is half full" more than anything.

Optimist upside fan: The opposite. "The glass is half full". If there are problems, they can find something about them that's not so frustrating or bad to focus on. Pretty damn good at overlooking minor issues if there's no reason to fixate on them. Not necessarily cheerful.

Abysmal company: could not give less of a damn about treating people the way they 'should' be treated. Maybe they take pride in that. Maybe they just think it's irrelevant. Either way, they know they treat people badly and they don't see any reason to stop. Does not necessarily mean that they treat people badly if they think they're doing the right thing and are wrong. Doesn't mean they're actually pleasant or unpleasant to hang out with, either, unless you really want it to mean that.

Decent to others: treats people well as a matter of course, or at least they sure think they do. Makes an effort. Would probably care and/or consider changing their behavior if someone said they were treating someone poorly. As before - they can be completely un-self-aware and just think they're doing right by people while treating them completely horribly.

Morality is irrelevant: 'abysmal company' for broader approaches to life and problems. Maybe they just know they're myopic and don't think other people's problems matter. Maybe they just gave up on trying to differentiate between 'good' and 'bad' and outsourced it to someone else or stopped paying any attention. Maybe they just like to take morally unjust actions and can't be bothered giving a damn when someone points out that they're morally unjust, or maybe they're proud of it. Kind of a villain trait generally, but not necessarily - it doesn't have to mean they act badly, just that they don't care if they do. Also, this is about how they choose their own actions and view their own behavior. They can think morality is relevant for other people as long as they ignore it when they act themself.

Always in the right: feels morally righteous in every decision they make. Standard superhero type of trait. Doesn't necessarily pass judgement on others, doesn't necessarily act well according to everyone's moral code (see: blue and orange morality), but they are extremely principled and will never deviate from the moral code they personally believe in. And they do genuinely believe in it.

Circumstances terms:

Generally terrible to generally excellent: how subjectively decent is your character's situation, overall? If they think everything is horrible, but the situation is charmed to everyone except them, then it's generally terrible.

Need for changes to passive tolerance: will they do something about it? Do they feel like they have to?

No agency in action to decisions are huge: agency being "how much power do I have to make changes here?", this just asks how much they have. No agency means that, no matter what they do, nothing will happen - they might be locked in a cage or somehow otherwise completely unable to use any sort of power at all, even the power of just leaving. The other end of the spectrum is where every decision the character makes makes a huge difference, not just to themself but to everyone around them as well. They can start wars, they can have anyone they want killed, they can do anything whenever they feel like it. If they think they have no agency even though they do actually have agency, they don't have agency here. If they feel like they have all the agency in the world and can do anything, then they do even if it's not true. It's perceptual again.

Stakes are deadly to mistakes solvable: what are the consequences of failure? Will you die, will you lose status you can't afford to lose, will you lose belongings, will you have to apologize, will nothing happen at all? Mistakes solvable is where they think every mistake is solvable forever - the character pushes someone through a woodchipper and they come out and to fix it, maybe an apology has to occur, but not much else. Does not necessarily mean no one gets hurt or killed as long as the character thinks there are no permanent consequences. This is the most important one on this section to keep subjective because it will greatly influence how your character approaches situations. A character who thinks everything is deadly-stakes may go to cartoonishly-extreme lengths to avoid turning a report in a day late. A character who thinks all mistakes are always solvable may push someone through a woodchipper and then just assume they can say they're sorry and it'll all go away. The setting and their approach do not need to be applicable.

Needs go unmet to attended with care: how do the people around them treat them? Do they pay attention when the character needs something, or do they ignore it? Does the character have to do everything themself around here, or are there people who will help out?

Regarded poorly to regarded well: how do they think other people see them? Are they respected, are they liked, or are they disliked? Do people broadly trust them or are they pretty sure everyone regards them with suspicion?

Nothing changes to changes in seconds: functionally the 'stability' meter of your setting - is the situation generally stable, or are things constantly changing? Does your character feel like every five minutes, there's a new problem that needs dealing with, or do they feel like nothing has ever happened ever?

Growth terms:

Changes in place: do they go somewhere else? Does the physical setting otherwise change (eg; earthquake, war, etc) ? Are there any other reasons that the 'vibe' or 'experience' of the place is different from before?

Change in power: does the character's percieved agency (see: no agency in action to decisions are huge) change? Alternately you can use it if they've gained or lost power in some percieved way (deposed, assigned a commanding position, etc).

Change in bonds: do their relationships with people change? Have they made new friends, lost old friends, changed the nature of their relationships with friends or partners, etc?

Change in beliefs: straightforwardly, have their beliefs, morals, etc, changed?

Change in hurts: have they undergone some horrible experience? Do they have past trauma from some pre-arc horrible experience they're healing from and/or discovering they're more powerfully subject to? Did they experience a physical injury that they're recovering from or which materially changed their life? Did something recent dredge up old issues? So on and so forth.

Change in hopes: Do their desires for the future look the way they used to? Do they care about different things now? This is something the character is not actively working for, but may be tied to actual goals.

Change in fears: are they overcoming fears? Growing past them? Gaining new ones? Are they scared of shit different from how they used to be?

Change in goals: Not the same as a hope because it needs to have a specific, achievable outcome the character is actively working toward. Do those material goals look different? Perhaps they no longer want to work against something, maybe they didn't have any goals and now they do. Or maybe they've realized the goal is impossible, or something has happened to make that goal unachieveable. Whatever it is, if there's a change, it's a change.

Change in self-awareness: their beliefs about who they are and what they're like, and what their circumstances are. Have they gotten more self-aware, have they gotten less self-aware, or has nothing changed?

Change in relationships: their relationships' overall health and resilience, as far as the character is concerned - which doesn't mean they're necessarily good, just that the character thinks they're how they're supposed to be. Have they improved? Have they gotten worse? Have they not changed?

Change in knowledge: do they feel like they know more about the world, their place in it, the people around them, etc? Not necessarily how to do things - just general information and awareness.

Change in social standing: how does others' regard for the character change over this part of their arc? Do people like them more or less? Are they respected more or less than before? Has nothing changed? And so on.

Change in skills and abilities: do they feel more skilled than they were before? Do they feel like they know how to do as many things as before? Again - not necessarily rooted in reality - a classic example of a character being wrong about this is a 'big fish in a small pond' character who used to be the high school sports star going to college on a sports scholarship and discovering they're not the best any more, and suddenly feeling like they're the worst - when they're better than they've ever been in an objective light. Use a subjective viewpoint for this.

Change in agency in life: how does the character's percieved agency change? Do their decisions matter less now than ever? Do their actions make way more happen than before? (See: no agency in action vs decisions are huge)

Change in outlook: Here's the upper/downer part. Are they more or less hopeful for the future? Do they think things are more terrible now? Are things improving as far as they're concerned? Or has that not changed?

Change in goal progress: how do they feel like they're progressing on the goals they've set for themself? Are they getting further and further away? Are they getting closer?

If some of this doesn't make sense and you want a clarification, you will have to tag me to get my attention, because I'm turning notifications for this post off the minute it leaves my immediate social circle.

Transparent version: (sorry you had to scroll so far)

[angeliteeyes]

Multifandom: Caleb (LADS), Castorice and Sparkle (HSR), Ei and Ganyu (GI)

I adore aus where the characters are aware of you in some way even though they're still in another world. My favorite of those concepts is an au where instead of them being your favorite gacha characters, you're THEIR fave.

I like to imagine that this version of them doesn't take place in their reality that we know of ingame. Instead, it's more of a modern au where they're just as chronically online and cringe as us lmao. Spamming their social media accounts when you get a new card (or whatever your game does) in all caps, falling asleep to videos of you talking. Maybe even writing long, angry replies on Reddit defending you and how you're best char. Here's some of the characters I feel particularly suit this idea

cw: mental illness (they're gacha addicts what else would you expect lol), mentions of death, light angst for some characters

-Caleb-

Listen, I can't NOT talk about Caleb here. This concept is practically made for his clingy, traumatized ass.

In this version of him, I imagine he started out pretty normal for a while actually, making friends pretty easily in his youth and all of that. Slowly but surely, though, things shifted. Family deaths piled up at an age where he just wasn't ready to handle that kind of emotional burden and... well, you know how guy friendships can be. He didn't really feel like he could turn to any of his real friends the way that he desperately needed to stop his entire world from falling apart.

And then there was your bright smile on his screen all of a sudden. He'd seen ads for the game you're in before, but he never got around to actually trying it out. Until that fateful day. After having gone through yet another funeral, his brain felt so fried and tired that he barely even processed his finger movements as he went through all the install screens, clicking the repetitive buttons and whatnot.

It's not like there's something wrong with the other characters or anything. They're fine and all, but he quickly started to realize just how much you stood out to him. How soothing everything about you was, as if you were actually there telling him everything would be okay. It doesn't take very long before he's full-on obsessed with you.

As a fan, he'd be so so pathetically jealous. Of course, he logically understands that he can't stop other people from looking at you, pulling for you, loving you... But holy hell if he doesn't want to just have you for himself, as ridiculous and impossible the notion is. He's the type of dude who'd legit get so heated over seeing someone mischaracterize you that he'd either send them a 1000 word rant or insta-block them. No in-between.

And yes, he would listen to your sweet voice every time he feels particularly lonely or grief hits too hard. You aren't going to judge him for crying, after all.

-Castorice-

Castorice in a modern au, in my opinion, would totally be a hospice worker. Ever since she was a child, she's had a knack for finding injured animals and would cradle them in her palms each and every time until they took their last breath. She's like an angel attracted to poor, suffering souls. Unfortunately, her young kid mind misinterprets the situation and believes she's cursed instead. It ultimately culminates into a full-blown phobia of touching people with both of her hands; it's just that ingrained in her that holding someone equals death.

Thankfully, as she gets older, she manages to cope with her fears a little better by putting her talent to good use. Whenever a patient in her care clearly expresses that they're ready to go, she's more than happy to help them pass on. But... it's still so achingly lonely. A real romantic relationship doesn't even process as an option to her, because, yknow. Physical intimacy.

That's why she grows so painfully attached to you, viewing you as her only real hope of having the lover she yearns for. Sure, she's not delusional. She knows you have a screen permanently forcing you two apart, but that's even better in her book. This way, her curse will never, ever harm you.

Castorice would absolutely be part of the hugging-a-pillow-and-imagining-it's-you club. Every single night, without fail, she wraps her arms and legs around her body pillow while imagining you. How warm you would actually be in her arms. She'd even go as far as to spray a scent on it—whatever reminds her the most of you while she's out shopping one day and picks it up.

As far as her online presence, she's definitely on the calmer side. Her account is filled to the brim with wholesome fanart of you, both reblogs and her own works. If anyone talks smack about you, she'll just block them and cleanse her soul with that adorable birthday art of you. Why waste precious energy on them when you're here to love and adore?

-Sparkle-

Sparkle is THE number one online troll, you can't convince me otherwise. Everyone else hates her so much, but somehow, they can never get rid of her presence. Aw, they blocked her newest account? Too bad, she's already got 3 other ones ready to go. But no matter how many times it changes, one thing remains consistent: that damn profile picture of you.

In a bizarre way, her determination to troll combined with your face being plastered next to her username kinda lets her... claim you? Nobody else would dare to use that photo of you as their profile pic, at least. It's not exactly the most orthodox way of showing her affection for you, but it gets similar results.

Now, everyone hates her and all, but most people have learned by now that she's best handled through methods like ignoring or blocking her. If they do that, typically Sparkle's attention wanes and she moves along to her next victim. But one person, one damn person, takes things too far. They start spamming insults towards you in her dms, tagging her in hate posts about you, everything to get under her skin. And it works like a charm. She's literally seething behind her dusty computer screen, losing her mind at every stupid notification sound.

Let's just say, that person won't be using social media again any time soon. Not once she's done with them.

-Ei-

It feels a bit strange, this version of Ei. Trust me when I say that every ounce of elegance and social skills her Genshin counterpart has flat-out doesn't exist in this world. I'm talking doesn't brush her hair most days, constant eyebags, won't even order at a drive-thru due to needing to talk to others, the works. It's not even necessarily that she's got social anxiety or anything like that. Ei plain old doesn't like people in this au, or at least, anyone other than you.

You're her rock that keeps her going every day. Why bother "making friends" when you're already here by her side every day? Why bother "taking care of her appearance" when you love her all the same? Her parents tried so hard to intervene and force her to act normal. They took away her devices and even forced her into therapy for as long as they legally could, but she just... wouldn't change. When they took her phone and computer, they'd expected her to switch hobbies. Maybe she'd pick up reading again. But every time they peek into her room, she's just sitting there with a vacant, empty expression. They can't hear it, but in her mind, you're still there right next to her keeping her company. It's honestly so heartbreaking to watch that they give up and let her have everything back again.

Truly, nothing else matters to her but you.

Unlike the others, she actually wouldn't have any social media presence whatsoever. Ei's stuck so far in her delusional attachment to you that she barely even can register the fact that she isn't your actual friend or partner. How could you not be, when you're together every moment of every day?

-Ganyu-

Ganyu's honestly probably the only one here with a genuinely healthy attachment level toward you, even if she admittedly uses you a lot to cope with her insecurities. You're just so, so sweet to her, having so many uplifting voice lines.

Her absolute favorite card of you is one where you're eating pastries with your game's mc. It comes with a corresponding unlockable event, where you encourage them to eat as much as they want. You even reassure them that no matter how they look or how much they weigh, you'll always love them. Essentially, you give Ganyu a free therapy session, and one that she greatly needs.

As much as she loves you, work forces her into being a filthy casual. Don't worry, though! She always makes time for limited content with you in it, like event stories and cards. Plus, she earns so much from her hard work. She can afford to spend an extra hundred... or five hundred... on duplicates of you. Even if your game's company is greedy as all hell, she still takes pride in funding them. If your game ever got the dreaded end-of-service announcement... she doesn't know what she'd do.

Her whale habits carry into social media, where she pays the bills of so many artists. They practically view her as a saint, both for how often she commissions them and for how willing she is to pay full price. Her? She's just happy to have all this extra content of you to admire. What a sweetheart ♡

[manytoonepoet]

Hiya! I'm not the same anon who brought up the shipping thing with Aglaea and Cipher. But I was very interested in their perspective and your perspective while answering them as well. So I hope you don't mind that I add on a bit with my own thoughts (feel free to ignore if it gets too long haha)

Admittedly, sometimes I feel as if I might be a hater or just anti-ship, but recently I've been reflecting and realise that it's not the ships I'm against. It's that it feels like it's being forced onto me. Anon also mentioned shippers going into non-shippers' posts to "spread their agenda", and if you don't agree, you're a hater and you're blind to what's implied in the story.

I think this might be the fundamental problem. Why can we not live with notion that people have different understandings of the dynamics between characters? Why must something be "canon" because you believe there was evidence of it? Keyword being "believe", because nothing is canon unless Hoyo explicitly states it.

You mentioned that moment when Phainon said "it's a date" to Mydei and oh wow I got kinda peeved when a lot of people seemingly reduced it to evidence that their ship is canon. A date doesn't just have romantic connotations, it's a promise to meet again. And in this context, it's a tragic and bittersweet promise between two comrades made during a time when neither can live a truly peaceful life but probably wished they could (also on a similar note, Mydei telling Phainon "I wish you could come visit my library". Same thing.)

Really long rant, but it just feels like romantic connections seem to be prized above all other types of relationships. Why? I got no clue, but it just seems that way. God forbid people be friends and comrades and family without wanting to kiss. Anyway, just my thoughts, because it feels rare to see posts like this and I just wanted to share my perspective as well. Thank you for reading all that haha!

Hi, Anon! Oh, I most definitely agree. As for why? Well, from what I've personally seen, it's usually either self-projection or aesthetic pornography. Or both. Many of these people claim it's a plea for representation, but really, it's a demand for attention. If it were truly a plea for representation, then why reduce a character to a dynamic such as "a gay sub" or "a daddy dom" and more? If it were truly a plea for representation, then why reduce a character to their potential abilities in bed and the size of their genitalia? If it were truly a plea for representation, then why reduce a character to such a skin-deep degree that a series of forcibly pasted labels will be the only thing you can see? Is this how you truly want to be represented? In such a dirty and carnal way? I understand that there might be people who will be triggered by these questions, but these are questions I have to ask, and you should too. All of us should.

Going back to Phainon and Mydei, these two are one of the many examples of what will happen if we don't consider those questions above, and I must say, I couldn't be any happier than I already am now that I've seen someone who sees the moment when Phainon said "It's a date" as a farewell and a promise between comrades, not lovers. Because, you see, that phrase can and is used to mark another meeting between two or more people, and even if one would argue that the bond between them is beyond friendship, that doesn't mean that they're lovers as well. As I've initially said in this post, a platonic bond between Mydei and Phainon is possible and is experienced by real people. Romance is not the end-all be-all to every relationship, same-sex or otherwise.

Friendships. Romantic Relationships. Families. All of them are important in their own way, so to argue that this person's view of the two characters' relationship is wrong because there's no way the bond between them is platonic is simply fallacious. So there is no use in arguing because one, a person has the right to their own opinions, and two, until there are no official statements made, nothing is canon.