#power-link-64 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sy-on-boy · 1 year ago

Text

My 2 cents on the plot / thematic relevance of Ch 95

This is not about advancing Plot B or showing Anya's school life (which is still true but has been discussed), but rather the overall theme of education and war. There was an excellent post about how Eden is at the frontline of the cold war and it is subtly shown through the innocent lens of the first graders (I can't find it now, would link it if I could). And I think that perfectly applies to Ch 95.

Quick recap on some references about education/students/war throughout the series (that I remember at the moment):

Sylvia gravely condemning the Berlint University Student Terrorists during the Doggy Crisis arc (Ch 20) and saying "did you learn nothing about war at your university?"

Henderson talking about his experience as a history teacher (Ch 27.5, Short Mission 4) and quote: "Yes, well, I have always maintained that there is nothing to be learned from the memorization of time lines. From the grand efforts with which our forefathers crafted society to the foolish notions that sent them racing to war, to not study the human element at history's root is to not understand history at all"

Note that Damian's best subject has been established to be history, and his family (father) has been involved in war, at least Donovan was PM during most of the war (established by Melinda in Ch 91). Donovan is also a graduated Imperial Scholar (Ch 64).

The Red Circus group started out as a peaceful student demonstration "advocating for peace and quality" (Ch 72) and "speaking out to protect the weakest members of our society". And Billy Squire said, "We were a respectable movement that fought for our cause with respectable means. It was the state that turned violent against us. So I'm not taking criticism from a member of the establishment (referring to Henderson, an educator). I'm gonna see to it that they reap what they've sown." Billy's daughter Biddy was killed by the state at a protest.

Less of a point, but Becky is the daughter of the CEO of a major military manufacturer. Despite their very likely involvement in military conflicts because they sell arms, the Blackbell cohort has been depicted positively so far: Becky being a kind, wonderful friend to Anya, Becky's father doting on her, and Martha again being kind and dignified (and also being an ex-soldier and acquainted with Henderson).

Eden Academy is a major setting for SxF and the themes of politics, education, and war are embedded in it. The students involved in protests/groups are older (the university students, Billy's daughter), but the political implications remain even among the youngest of the students— the first graders.

Hence, Ch 95. When mere first graders are shown to fight to gain connections, which can be political as pointed out by Henderson: "In the world of politics, dances serve as major social events". But of course, they are kids, so they see it more playfully and innocently, especially Becky with her shipper lens on.

Of course, there is also the aspect of getting to know other people better out of interest (the boys asking Anya and Becky to dance because they were impressed after the bus hijacking). But as people have mentioned, nobody mentions this to Damian despite him being equally involved in saving the class (all three of them got a star). The girls aren't interested in Damian as a person, they're interested in him as an asset because of his family and their power.

And I can see the teachers trying to diffuse the tension and create camaraderie with their friendly competition. To me, this reads as the teachers fully realizing "the battlefield of political maneuvering", and they want to remind the kids to have fun, to show good sportsmanship, to unite the kids, to operate as a class and be friendly with one another, and overall make it more lighthearted. It's nice to see the classes work together and get excited / win as a unit, especially compared to the more "individual" bits of fighting for a dance partner later.

We get a bit of comparison between Bill and Damian, with Bill showing good sportsmanship while Damian scoffs at him. But Damian ends up becoming ultra competitive and telling his classmates to not screw it up.

Like the Dodgeball chapter, Damian is clumsily attempting to lead the class by doing good in his quiz, while getting stressed and yelling at his peers when they don't succeed like he did. So he's not really a good leader. Like how him being good at history does not necessarily mean he is good at being peaceful (Short Mission 4 ends with Henderson staring in exasperation at Damian + Anya bickering with each other). But obviously, he is merely a child, and he is naturally immature.

At first Loid is all for advancing Plan B and analysed Anya's suitors in a rational (reductionist?) way by ranking them in terms of gaining intelligence, but he remembers this is just a dance, Anya is a kid, and she should do whatever she wants. Loid (and the adults) are very aware of the political side of the gala, but ultimately they want the kids to have fun and not worry / worry less about politics.

Because they're kids! They'll grow up and learn more and be politically active later, but right now, they're just kids. Kids who don't know much about the world but are eager to make the world a better place.

In the end, we get a panel of Anya and Loid "teaming up" to win Damian's hand for Plan B / world peace. The Damian-Anya dynamic is cushioned with the silly crushy feelings, but underneath it, Operation Strix continues to be a core motivation.

I find it interesting that Endo chooses to focus on the first graders and their innocent view of the world / politics. It's embedded everywhere and especially in a prominent school like Eden, but the kids don't really realise it / realise the severity of it. Heirs and heiresses are educated at Eden and grow up to have incredible influence and the power to shape the world. Our protagonist's best friend comes from a family that manufactures arms. Henderson mentions the importance of learning history to avoid making the same mistakes (ie. war).

So Ch 95 is a cute prom chapter. But I think it also helps to show the themes underneath the fun, bubbly interactions.

#spy x family spoilers #spy x family #spy x family manga #sxf analysis #meta #idk #what do i tag #long post

263 notes · View notes

moodcrab · 6 months ago

Text

Looks like we'll be getting jyggy with it...

Fixing Skyrim's Daedric Quests

Part III Jyggalag

Even on my second or third ever play through of Skyrim NEARLY FIFTEEN YEARS AGO I still fully expected to find a Jyggalag quest hidden somewhere in the world. His absence was something of an anticlimax for many, as The Shivering Isle was the highlight of Oblivion for a lot of players. Jyggalag being missing from the world in the 200 years since his separation from Sheogorath makes little sense, and Jyggalag doesn't do things that aren't perfectly logical. Either he was overlooked by Bethesda, which is sloppy, or there's an implication that the events of Shivering Isle had no real lasting effect other than the odd cheeky remark from Sheogorath hinting at being the CoC, which is underwhelming to say the least.

But, it does give me a completely blank canvas to write this post, as we are going to be completely ignoring the Creation Club addition. Anniversary Addition is not cannon. I would no more consider a mod to be canon than CC, which isn't a fair comparison as the average mod is more lore friendly than the best CC content, which not only broke lore and established canon but, on occasion, broke the plotlines to whole games. Better games. And it did so for the shallow reason of selling Skyrim AGAIN. I repeat, Anniversary Edition is not canon. Except Scout Armour. That shit is fire.

Who is Jyggalag?

Jyggalag wasn't in Skyrim and was barely in Oblivion, so let's get to know him before we attempt to write a quest that might get into some heavy metaphysics.

Jyggalag is the Daedric Prince of Order in the sense of pure logical and statistical probability, not to be confused with Peryite whose realm is the Natural Order (you get sick, you die), in fact he has more areas of overlap with Jhunal, the Nordic god of mathematics, another unacceptably absent god in Skyrim. Jyggalag is the denial of both determined fate AND free will, everything that is fated and every decision freely made was already accurately and precisely predicted.

Your fate is 3+1

Your free will is 2+2

Either way, you are 4

That's who Jyggalag is. Cold hard numbers. Humourless, colourless, immensely powerful. The implication is that Jyggalag knew that his power would invite betrayal from his fellow Princes but would not deviate despite hating living as Sheogorath, that he knew full well that every Greymarch he'd do for millennia would inevitably be undone, but did them anyway, which must have been hell for him as "doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results" is the definition of insanity. His own nature would have him both foreseeing this AND refusing to alter it, so we can add incredibly patient and relentlessly unyielding to his character breakdown.

*He is also, in my opinion, an aspect of Lorkhan, his mind to be specific, but as this is just a theory I shall leave this to one side for this quest, but if you're interested I have a blog about it that I'll link in the comments.*

Setting the Scene

In case you haven't read the rest of my "Fixing Skyrim" series, the game is now set only 64 years after Oblivion, not the vanilla 200+ years. So it hasn't been that long since Jyggalag was freed and it's somewhat more believable that he hasn't gathered a significant following on Tamriel yet. Also, Silus Visuius, the Imperial who runs the Mythic Dawn museum in Dawnstar, is no longer a man having a mid life crisis who got really into family history, he is the child of actual Mythic Dawn cultists who was indoctrinated and traumatized during childhood. This will be relevant later.

Quest: Restoring Order

After attaining a reasonably high level, if you happen to be walking around one of the following locations; The Library at the College of Winterhold, The Dwemmer Museum at Markarth or the class rooms of The Bard's College, you will find an area unlocked that wasn't previously there. If you wander inside you will find a library, and amongst its stacked corridors, a priestly, unassuming looking man in plain grey robes, sat at a table with an empty chair, presumably for you. Why these locations? Well they have a thematic link to logic and knowledge, but also they are areas you are unlikely to return to once completing their associated quests, which will probably be completed at a lower level, so the quest is somewhat hidden.

The man, you discover, is Dyus of Mytheria, the Chamberlain of Jyggalag. You sit and he explains who he is and the situation with Jyggalag, that he has recently been liberated and requires a new Mytheria, his Realm of Oblivion. It just so happens that a pocket realm of oblivion has recently been "vacated", Gaia Alatar, aka Mankar Camoran's Paradise. Well, "recently" if you're immortal, of course. The pocket realm has been rapidly dissolving into the endless sea of Oblivion, but has not fully collapsed yet, and there is still one from its glory days that lives. He directs you to Silus at the Mythic Dawn Museum.

Silus, who insists his museum is purely in the interests of history, is upset that everyone finds it to be in bad taste, so he's pretty eager to show you around. It's not difficult to get him to overshare, but you'll need a high speech level to get him to spill the beans on his fucked up family history, but he was indeed the child of Mythic Dawn Cultists and was the youngest member as a child. If you gain his trust he will show you a secret artifact that is usually off limits to the public because he had to do some dangerous and very illegal things to acquire them: The Bands of the Chosen, an item the CoC used when he destroyed Paradise, but lost them inside. There are two approaches to enlisting him. Using the information you learn from him and what is available in his museum/house, you can either convince him to that you are also a Mythic Dawn remnant so he will trust you, or threaten him with information that he is a secret Dagon worshiper.

You take him and the Bands of the Chosen to Dyus, who explains that as a devotee of Dagon and follower of Cameron, Silus's soul is still technically destined to go to Paradise when he dies. You have the choice of killing Silus and using a unique soul trap spell to piggy back his soul to what remains of Paradise, or, as he is now begging for his life, spare him and let him open a portal using his Mythic Dawn magics (which is how he got the Bands in the first place). Either way it only works if you wear the bands. Dyus will also give you a conjure Knight of Order spell.

You enter Gaia Alatar, which will be a bizarre half world, with bits of Ayleid like architecture floating around a black sea. You must fight your way past a unique enemy, the tortured souls of the Mythic Dawn, to a throne. Once there you must conjure and kill a Knight of Order, and place its crystal heart on the throne. The destroyed and chaotic world will transform around you into a white crystalline solid state, and Jyggalag himself will finally arrive. He will explain that the Knights and their hearts are his own creation, and therefore worked as "chaotic creatia" (an aspect of a Daedric Prince that can be used to mold a Plane of Oblivion in their image. The Plane is small now, but will soon thrive and overtake the infinite seas of Oblivion. He rewards you by transforming the Bands of the Chosen into white crystal gauntlets called The Hands of Order, which gives the wearer a chance of doing non elemental "crystal" damage when striking, a shard of crystal shall strike the opponent. This works even with hand to hand.

And that's it. Don't worry about Silus, I had no intentions of using him in my Dagon fix. I'll be honest I'm a little disappointed with how this one turned out, I've been coming back to work on it for a while and just wanted to get it posted. I did attempt to write actual dialogue for Dyus, Silus and Jyggalag but it wasn't great, so here it is and I hope you like it.

55 notes · View notes

hestzhyen · 9 months ago

Text

An Extremely Subjective HakuHiro Romantic Trope Breakdown

Greetings, void. This arc is rough and the brainworms won't let me write my own hurt/comfort fan fiction- they demand half-baked analysis instead of lovemaking. So have the closest thing that passes for fluff from yours truly.

In essence, this is just a list of the explicitly romantic tropes I love applying to HakuHiro with varying degrees of gushing ship babble as justification. Some are definitely skewed hard towards headcanon but there's always at least a tenuous connection to something that's demonstrated in the work itself. Proceed if this kind of brain rot sounds like your jam! Otherwise just please let me die from cringe in peace.

Battle Couple

Offense and support working in perfect harmony.

So this is just one of my personal favourites, but Chihiro and Hakuri definitely have strong vibes for this trope. They fought together in an absolutely stunning display of mutual trust and understanding in the Rakuzaichi Arc. Seriously, these guys pulled off some truly spine-tingly good moves to take down Kyora despite Hakuri only just awakening to his powers the very same day.

They demonstrated this again in the train fight protecting Uruha- Hakuri and Chihiro only need the bare minimum of communication between them to fight in style. I look forward to more chances for them to show off their teamwork! If they end up fighting back-to-back in canon I'll probably just straight up ascend to fudanshi heaven on the spot. I LOVE BATTLE COUPLES.

Love at First Sight/Rescue Romance

"This is the kind of man I need in my life."

Love at First Sight is pretty self-explanatory: person A sees person B and immediately falls head over heels. It's easy to slap that on Hakuri in his introduction chapter- he's only missing an invitation to get to know each other over some coffee when they finally meet up, really. Unless asking someone to help you kill your family is the Kagurabachi universe's equivalent...?

As for Rescue Romance, it's another very simple scenario: person A is saved by person B, which causes them to fall in love. Chihiro saves Hakuri with the other random people at the site of Sojo's massacre attempt, and Hakuri... yeah. You get it.

I think there's a better trope to associate to this later on in the list, but Love at First Sight and Rescue Romance are still apt and very funny tropes to apply towards Hakuri's first impression of Chihiro. The way he waxed poetic over the mystery samurai who saved and inspired him had me in stitches. Seriously, my oldest notes on Hakuri from that chapter are mostly just laughing about him being really passionate about Chihiro for someone who's not intended to be a love interest! Go get 'im, Hakuri. He needs you in his life just as much as you need him in yours.

There's also something to be said from Chihro's side, though...

You bet your sweet Bippy Chihiro's solution to this also ties into his feelings about Hakuri.

Chihiro has expressed that Hakuri saved him twice so far (as of chapter 64). He's guilty as hell over it but he's putting those feelings to good use to become stronger. He's going to become the person Hakuri said he needed, and who he already thinks Chihiro is- but more on that later. Still, improving yourself to meet the measure someone else has of you is pretty romantic, isn't it? Especially so they stop getting hurt for your sake!

Mindlink Mates

Don't need to hear each other at all if you just "get" them.

This is something I like to apply as a Fanon concept based on what happens in canon. Hakuri and Chihiro aren't literally linked mind-to-mind via telepathy, but both of them have a deep understanding of what the other's thinking and feeling at any given moment. I really like the concept that they understand everything about each other on an instinctual level. It's mostly fueled by the Aun concepts that have been associated to them, which I'll get into during a later section. But yeah. Hakuri and Chihiro being borderline telepathic in how they can sense the other's status. That's crack cocaine to me and it's not too far removed from canon so I'm running with it.

I also really like the idea of their strong emotions and desires bouncing off of and amplifying each other's, but I don't know if there's a specific trope for that, so it gets placed here at the end of this tangentially related section. Also not something far removed from canon given how they both fuel each other's self-destructive savior tendencies because they feel the same way!

Moe Couplet

They're so cuuuuuuuuuuuuuute

A Moe Couplet is essentially a pair of characters that enhance each other's cute traits. Separate, they are perfectly fine individuals with their own appeal. Together, they are adorable and capable of some tooth-rottingly sweet moments. This trope isn't typically associated with romantic duos in stuff aimed at general audiences, but it's common in BL as the basis for "fluff" works and wholesome pairings.

This is probably the biggest stretch to apply towards canon on the list, honestly. We haven't seen that much moe moe action from Hakuri and Chihiro- they're kind of busy fighting for their lives or hurting themselves to save others most of the time. But the few moments we get send me straight into cuteness agression-induced brain rot every time I think of them.

Most of this trope label for HakuHiro comes from little details. Like Chihiro often being shown reassuring Hakuri, and Hakuri getting some of the sweetest smiles out of him in return. Hakuri brings out Chihiro's soft side when Char's not around to do so and Chihiro helps Hakuri be his absolute silliest. These guys are are so good to each other! They melt the ice around my cold, dead heart into a slurry of hnnngh and incoherent shipper screeching.

What's it actually based on though? Well, I thought I was just doing normal delusional fudanshi things by thinking Hakuri is extra cute when he's around Chihiro and vice versa. But then Hokazono-sensei threw me a bone in an interview by saying he intended for Hakuri to "bring out Chihiro's personality and add some cuteness". And I. Just. I exploded into confetti on the spot. MOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

One True Love

This ship is not merely an OTP to me, if you haven't noticed.

Note: "ai" is not inherently romantic despite it being the end-goal of pretty much every romance novel out there. It's for deep, profound affection felt for someone- friends, family, even pets. It's rare and not commonly said aloud outside of the climax of a love story is all!

This is mostly tied to Hakuri's experience with love growing up and how he can find out what 愛 [ai, purest and deepest love], really means.

Hakuri probably has no fucking clue what love of any kind is really supposed to look or feel like, much less the ultimate form of it. His father threw ai around as something to manipulate his children into serving the family tradition. Soya used it as an excuse to torture him. This was deliberately done to contrast with the love that Chihiro knew growing up- true ai between father and son, which was cruelly ripped away from him.

So let Chihiro teach Hakuri, and Hakuri provide in return. They're already each other's perfect partners anyway so just put a romantic spin on it!

Hakuri finding unconditional love he doesn't fear in Chihiro and Chihiro finding the same in Hakuri once more. Neither of them ever needing to fall in love again because they slot together so perfectly to fill the gaps in each other's hearts. Oh I'm gonna die...

Opposites Attract

If not meant to be canon, why colour coded as opposite compliments? :thonk:

This is the trope that activates a primitive part of my brain that overrides all thoughts with eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee noises when it comes to HakuHiro. Hakuri and Chihiro are true opposites that are perfectly balanced to contrast and compliment each other, resulting in a duo greater than the sum of it's parts.

Hokazono-sensei made his intentions about Hakuri and Chihiro extremely clear by going so far as to colour code them for us. This is the protagonist and his foil/deuteragonist guy who is Important as Fuck. The level of detail in designing and writing them reads like he took this trope extremely seriously and said "let's save the Hero + Lancer coding for Hiyuki instead". 'Cause as much as I love her, Hiyuki's got nothing on Hakuri when it comes to this trope. Her thing is closer to being the same person as Chihiro with the opposite frame of mind and mode of expression- it's Hakuri and Chihiro who are the true manifestation of Opposites Attract down to the tiniest details. I'm ready to die on this hill so come at me and put me out of my misery.

I mean just look at these guys:

Chihiro: black and red, stoic, reserved, serious and polite, slim and straight profile.

Hakuri: white and blue, emotive, outgoing, silly and casual, loose and boxy profile.

They invert the same ways under pressure; Chihiro stresses and falters while Hakuri focuses and buckles down. Their fucking backstories are in on it too: they both lost their father's love but under distinctly opposite circumstances. Even the love they received was contrasted since Kunishige was a perfectly wholesome dad while Kyoura used love in an abusively manipulative way! And that laid the foundation for the premise of the Rakuzaichi arc- Hakuri wants to destroy his family's legacy while Chihiro still wants to do right by his. It would take a whole 'nother post to list everything between them because every single detail about one is carefully crafted to be present in the other in order to complete their characters. It's absolutely insane and it's what really sold me on the ship.

The level of care put into writing Hakuri and Chihiro as opposites who complete each other is out of this fucking world. I'll feel sorry for whatever girl gets assigned to be a mandatory heterosexual love interest for either of them because there's just no way to compete when two people are written to be so thoroughly intertwined with each other.

(To clarify just in case: I don't think Chiyuki is a bad ship. I'm not trying to trash it and say HakuHiro's better or more legitimate somehow. I just have an issue with shounen romance in general because the girls don't get nearly as much narrative effort to make them compelling companions to the MC compared to the "best friends" and Kagurabachi is doing nothing new in that regard so far. Hokazono-sensei can actually make a bigger impact by refusing to tease Chihiro and Hiyuki at all instead of going down the tired old path of obligated sub-par heterosexual ship tease/romance IMO.)

The Power of Love

Nice Heroic Second Wind you got after thinking about Chihiro there, Hakuri.

So this is definitely skewed towards pure delusion on my part, but that's what we're all here for anyway. Power of Friendship? Never heard of it.

Basically, person A uses their love for person B to power up and overcome the hardship they're facing. In this case, I'm interpreting Hakuri's tendency to think of Chihiro when he's in dire straits as romantic!

Hakuri comes in clutch a lot and his feelings abut Chihiro are the reason he can do it. The memory of his samurai refusing to yield gives Hakuri the strength to keep standing and finally put Soya down in chapter 36. He does it again in a sadder way in Chapter 58 when he thinks of Chihiro and musters the last of his strength to summon him too late to save Uruha. I have no doubt that he'll have more of these moments as the series goes on, too. Chihiro is kind of hope incarnate to Hakuri.

Chihiro's drawn strength from his feelings for Hakuri too, but not in a pinch kind of way like the Power of Love trope typically implies. I'm just waiting for the day when it's his turn to use memories of Hakuri to keep standing (never gonna happen)!

Chapter 64 update- Chihiro had his own moment! And oh boy is it amazing.

"That's you!!"

He thinks back to Hakuri saying he needs a Samurai in his life, and combined with the guilt he feels over Hakuri's current bed-ridden status, powers up so he can be the person Hakuri said he needed. Chihiro wants to get stronger so Hakuri doesn't have to risk his life and health for him ever again. He's going to become Hakuri's samurai. Holy shit. This is canon! Let all the doubts surrounding how Chihiro feels about Hakuri be dispelled- he cares a hell of a lot.

Ship Tease

Putting this here for lack of a better term, but there's a running gag about Hakuri and Chihiro's relationship that's been escalating in intensity since the early parts of the Rakuzaichi arc. It only comes across in bits and pieces in English compared to Japanese, sadly, but I'll do my best to explain it.

Basically, I'm interpreting the jokes about Hakuri acting like a dog as deliberate ship tease for the lols from the author.

"Paw. Shake. Good boy."

It starts in chapter 28 with Hakuri dropping everything he's doing to run over to Chihiro when his name is called. It's really cute and funny and not something that can get lost in translation- Chihiro calls, and Hakuri comes. Just like a loyal dog to it's master.

It's set aside for a while until the Sword Bearer Assassination Arc starts up and Hiyuki drops this banger during the trial in chapter 46:

"But where he [Hakuri] stands is a big pain in the butt. He's not the one calling the shots." - official TL

Of note is the term Hiyuki used to say that Chihiro's the one in charge: 舵取り [kajitori]. The normal meaning for it is "steering a boat" or "helmsman" with the secondary being leader/director, so it's not like the English TL messed up. Same meaning different wording. What's lost is the subtext: 舵取り as Hiyuki's using it can also imply that Chihiro's in charge of Hakuri like the owner of a dangerous guard dog would be lmao. Hakuri kind of earned that jab after threatening to leave her in the storehouse to die if she hurt Chihiro, though.

And then there's this completely unnecessary scene from Ch. 50...

"Who's this? This little squirt smells like Chihiro, but he's not Chihiro."- official TL

The TL again isn't bad here but it really downplays just how fucking weird Samura is (which downgrades the rocket propellant to mere ship fuel). Samura's phrasing about Hakuri smelling like Chihiro was so batshit insane in Japanese that fellow JP shippers felt compelled to reach out to the rest of us in English to let us know, which is almost completely unheard of.

Basically, Samura wasn't saying that Hakuri merely smelled like Chihiro. He actually said that Hakuri was wearing Chihiro's scent by using 纏う, conjugated and written as まとって (matotte)- completely enveloped in it to the point of smelling identical to him. A native JP reader (in the link above) said that in their interpretation, the phrase "��りをまとって [kaori o matotte], wrapped up in/wearing a scent" isn't really used for friends smelling like each other, but more for lovers, family members, or dogs and their owners in the sense that being so physically close all the time causes their scents to rub off on each other. Hmm.

It's not a normal term used to describe smelling like someone in the first place. When Samura meets younger Chihiro in the flashback and says he "reeks of Rokuhira", he just emphasizes the typical word for "smell/scent" (香り [kaori]) in quotation marks in the Japanese version: [六平の"香り"濃い...ッ!!] and uses 濃い [koi, concentrated/thick] like someone normally would to describe it as "reeking". So for some reason we just had to know that Hakuri smelled like Chihiro in the way dog or a lover would, huh... so much so that Samura thought he actually was Chihiro... (I can't get over this, it sends my sides into orbit every fucking time).

So yeah. That's some top-tier ship tease if I do say so myself. What that dog doin'? What did they get up to on the train before meeting with Uruha? That's for us to decide!

Soulmates

It's not exactly hard to see that Hakuri and Chihiro have a bit more going on between them than standard friendship or brotherhood, even for a shounen series. Even some dudebros acknowledged this before the fandom gave over to homophobic trash anyway.

It all stems from Hakuri invoking one of the most potent romantic tropes there is as soon as they meet:

"That day, a samurai lit my helpless existence on fire."

Jesus Christ Hakuri, that's some passion!

I think the "soulmates" trope is the most fitting description of what's going on between Hakuri and Chihiro from the very first time they meet. I'll even go so far to say that it actually has a pretty damn good case for being canon in a platonic sense!

For the uninitiated (like I was), the soulmates trope is invoked when two characters feel a strong and immediate connection upon first meeting each other. It can be one-sided or even completely rejected by both at the start, but they will always find their way to each other since they are fated to be. The whole world falls into kilter when they get together even if they were perfectly functional people on their own before. HakuHiro is this trope to a fucking T in my mind. Absolutely flawless execution, 10/10 no notes.

Hakuri's part is obvious- he sees Chihiro and decides he must have this amazing person in his life no matter what. He feels the pull of destiny and answers the call with an overabundance of enthusiasm.

Chihiro's part is more subtle. He does the one-sided rejection thing at the start by running away, but fate pulls them together via circumstance and he takes Hakuri back with him. And somehow, for some reason, Hakuri is the first person he opens up about his genuine feelings to in a surprisingly raw way:

"If I don't do something, and a sacred blade takes the lives of innocent people... I wouldn't be able to bear that..."

He met the guy minutes ago, tried to run away from him, then decided to bear his heart to him in the elevator. Chihiro's a natural stoic who doesn't show much of what he's feeling and generally keeps thoughts like this to himself. But Hakuri brings out this softer, more vulnerable side to him that no other character has before. Then as the arc progresses, Chihiro comes to rely on Hakuri more and more until it's crazy to think that he ever ran away in the first place. It's like they were always meant to find and save each other.

I'm not looking too hard at this with shipping goggles strapped to my face. We get confirmation that this is what's going on with them via The Word of God Himself:

From the Volume 4 description: 一方、兄からの愛と暴力によって地に伏した伯理。��際の際に脳裏を過ったのは、ある少女との日々だった。極限の中、二人の少年の魂が呼応する。

"Meanwhile, Hakuri is struck down by his brother's love and violence. On the brink of death, he remembers the days he spent with a certain girl. In the midst of this extreme tension, the souls of both boys resonate with each other."

The last sentence is basically more total harmony/Aun imagery for Hakuri and Chihiro. 呼 (ko) means to call and 応 (ou) means to respond. Together, 呼応 means to act in concert. So Hakuri and Chihiro's souls call out and respond to each other in perfect sync when they're in dire straits. It's canon!

If that's not enough, then there's also the Aun imagery. It was left out of the EN Chapter 38 colour page as usual (never gonna forgive the EN version for removing the text), but basically the author used deliberate religious imagery to tell us that Chihiro and Hakuri have an inherently harmonious relationship. A and Un, in perfect sync- whatever one starts, the other will finish. The beginning and end of all things. A perfect pair.

They demonstrate this lethal effectiveness by working in tandem during the storehouse fight, with Chihiro only needing to yell Hakuri's name for Hakuri to perfectly interpret everything he's thinking and execute on it flawlessly. It's absolutely insane stuff even if we disregard Hakuri only woke up to his power less than an hour ago in-universe isn't it?! And they repeated the stunt the next day while protecting Uruha, so it wasn't just a one-off for a cool moment. It's core to their dynamic for their souls to resonate in total harmony!

And just to top it off, we got a funny little gag of Chihiro and Hakuri passing out and waking up at the same time side-by-side after the auction, totally in sync.

All of this within a week of meeting each other.

Some actual romantic soulmate couples don't get this much effort put into coding their relationship, just saying. I also don't think people would be so quick to jump on the sibling interpretation after Shiba's "What are ya, twins?" joke if Hakuri and Chihiro were a heterosexual ship option, just sayin'.

Unknowingly in Love

No sad pictures of dead Kunishige in this post!

This is another one that's far closer to fanon than canon. It banks on the fact that both of them grew up isolated and, quite frankly, probably poorly socialized compared to the rest of the world.

Chihiro lived with just his dad in a remote mountain home and only occasionally visited the town nearby with Shiba. No friends, no school even. Hakuri lived on the secluded Sazanami estate surrounded by his family and saw some of the outside world, but likely only the criminal elements of it. Plus there's the whole growing up only knowing love as something abusive and manipulative thing; even his parent's marriage was strongly implied to be arranged and joyless. Neither of these guys have anything decent in their personal lives to reference from!

So in my mind, while Hakuri and Chihiro have certainly heard of romantic love and thought about it themselves, they wouldn't really have an idea of what it feels or looks like to them. Couple that with being each other's first friends ever and you've got some extremely potent fluff (or angst) about them being unaware that what they're feeling isn't platonic.

You Are Worth Hell

I will follow you into the dark.

And to round things off, one of my favourite romance tropes ever! But it's not canon at all- YET.

You see, Hakuri and Chihiro are constantly pulling each other forward. When one stumbles, the other's there with a helping hand. But what happens when one descends into hell like Chihiro says he's doing this very arc? Will the other try to throw them a lifeline and hope for the best?

Nay! The other will stay by their side out of love.

This trope can veer too close to toxic situationship scenarios for comfort, it's true. Characters staying to "save" someone or letting themself get dragged down at their own expense is not healthy at all. But the core sentiment of this trope is that anything is bearable if you're with the one you love. The emphasis isn't on the mutual suffering but rather the comfort of being together despite it all.

My personal interpretation of the relationship between Hakuri and Chihiro is that one was born in hell (Hakuri) and the other has condemned himself to it (Chihiro). Hakuri's trying to rise up while Chihiro has consigned himself to sink further into the darkness. They met at at a crossroads on their respective journeys and are walking together for a while. And when Chihiro takes a turn to keep going further down, I think Hakuri will stop him from going too far. Hakuri will be the light in the gloom until the mission's over. Then they'll figure out if they can make it back up or not. And if they can't? Well, he was already at rock bottom before Chihiro came into his life. It's worth it to stay in hell at his side and face everything together.

So I think this can apply very well to HakuHiro as the current arc progresses. Hakuri choosing to stay as a partner to provide support rather than trying to save Chihiro at his own expense would be huge character growth for him. And Chihiro accepting Hakuri's gesture would be growth for him too- he doesn't have to do this alone. There's no truly Bad End for their stories if they are walking side-by-side to face the hardships together until the end.

That's it. If you got through all this, thanks. Yap at me about tropes I missed! I love hearing the myriad ways other people interpret this ship. Unless you think fixed left-right boring seme/uke stereotype ChiHaku is the only valid interpretation, in which case we can never be friends. Sorry not sorry.

#kagurabachi #hakuhiro #chihiro rokuhira #hakuri sazanami #I visited TV Tropes for the first time in years to help make this list since I'm not savvy on trope names #It was disappointing but not surprising to see that the romance tropes section is still extremely heteronormative #The general Kagurabachi page also doesn't have a dedicated HoYay section- it's all buried in the YMMV tab #How is that even allowed with all the passionate men gushing about each other in this series #I don't care enough to try and fix it myself though. I'm sick of general fan spaces and the mean-spirited snark around m/m ships #Trope meta yap

127 notes · View notes

ngage2003 · 6 months ago

Text

I've talked a bit about how the Operator affects you mentally and how it affects you physically, but let us talk about the most amusing detail of it now.

Why does the power of friendship hurt part of this paranatural entity?

Well, as with a lot of things Marble Hornets, I think its for a kind of layered reason.

Ok lets start by refreshing on what the Operator actually does.

It infects people's minds sort of like an infohazard, something we see plainly with how Alex, Jay and Brian all got obsessed with it to some degree after they saw it. After that though, it slowly wears them down with its passive effects of anxiety and sickness until it can either lure them to it and/or corner them alone, us seeing the this many times. (Entry 64, Entry 72 and Entry 82 with Jay, though it got Tim that first time, and Entry 70 with Alex.)

At that point, it will finally attack its targets directly, inducing a seizure, after which it will more or less try to torture away pieces out of its victims, to tear away a part of their self to eat, something that leads into an increased level of paranoia, aggression and obsession, often culminating in more people being hurt and consequently taken by the Operator.

Note: The only person who seems immune to this is Tim, and we've talked about that before so I won't touch on it now.

Alrighty though, so, if thats how it attacks you, why does friendship scare it off?

Well, I think the reason the Operator attacks in such a convoluted way is because it needs to weaken someone's physical defenses to get to their mind. The two are intrinsically linked and once someone is disoriented, their shields are down. The Operator then can easily get what it wants, food, slipping under the skin without any trouble.

But humans are notorious for throwing all our fear away when we see another person in pain, we see this in Entry 72 with Tim and Jay, and again in Marble Hornets comic #4 with Jessica and Taylor. We are by nature pack animals through and through, and I don't think the Operator can really stand up against a direct attack, or at least it isn't guaranteed overpower one.

That is part of why it purposefully attacks people when they're alone! It wants people alone so it can wear them down without having to worry about someone fighting it for its meal. Yeah, the Operator is a predator, but it isn't really a pursuit hunter. It poisons people and then scavenges their bodies.

I think this line of thinking though is also why it takes dying people, as even though they're, well, dying, their defenses are also super lowered by that fact, and the Ark as we have seen can sustain people with mortal injuries presumably as long as their self is being fed on.

I don't know, interesting food for thought, and it provides some logic to why the Operator operates as it does.

#marble hornets #the operator #ng.txt #ng.analysis

42 notes · View notes

evidence-based-activism · 8 months ago

Text

Sex Differences in Physical Strength

A while ago, I explained the substantial issues with IOC study on Transgender Athletes, and explained how the physical advantages for men in sports also apply to transwomen. However, I wanted to make an additional post highlighting the evidence base for sex differences in physical performance. These differences underlie arguments for important issues like sex-segregated sports and self-defense laws.

This 2023 review [1] of several hundred studies found:

Female grip strength (a proxy for overall strength) is around 75% of male grip strength, starting around age 15

Men are stronger in all muscle groups, but this difference is more pronounced in upper body strength tests

When comparing male and female power-lifters with the sex-relative body masses, female power-lifters strength was between 46-64% that of males

There is no evidence that a neurological factor (i.e., voluntary activation) underlies this difference

Instead differences in "muscle mass, size, and fiber type" are most likely responsible

Despite lesser strength, women demonstrated greater muscle endurance than men

This 2024 review [2], again, of several hundred studies, discusses the physiological differences that may underlie this, including sex hormones (e.g., testosterone, estrogen), body composition, organ size, among others. This review confirms and extends the research in [1].

This 2022 review [3] describes the sex differences underlying differences in endurance sports. Importantly, males and females each have some advantageous traits, but when examined holistically men's physiology confers them a performance advantage. This 2022 review [4] discusses the impacts of sex differences in oxygen utilization.

This 2023 review [5] further discusses the biological factors that underlie these differences, extending the discussion to the molecular level.

Together these reviews illustrate undeniable sex differences in physiology. Please see the initial link for an examination of how these differences apply to all biologically male individuals.

Importantly, however, these differences are rarely relevant in day-to-day life (i.e., for almost all jobs, for non-physical activities, etc.). These differences are primarily relevant when considering "competitions" between individuals whether they are recreational (e.g., sports) or antisocial (e.g., physical fights, abuse, etc.).

References under the cut:

Nuzzo, J. L. (2023). Narrative review of sex differences in muscle strength, endurance, activation, size, fiber type, and strength training participation rates, preferences, motivations, injuries, and neuromuscular adaptations. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 37(2), 494-536.

Hunter, S. K., & Senefeld, J. W. (2024). Sex differences in human performance. The Journal of Physiology, 602(17), 4129-4156.

Besson, T., Macchi, R., Rossi, J. et al. Sex Differences in Endurance Running. Sports Med 52, 1235–1257 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-022-01651-w

Santisteban, K. J., Lovering, A. T., Halliwill, J. R., & Minson, C. T. (2022). Sex differences in VO2max and the impact on endurance-exercise performance. International journal of environmental research and public health, 19(9), 4946.

Landen, S., Hiam, D., Voisin, S., Jacques, M., Lamon, S., & Eynon, N. (2023). Physiological and molecular sex differences in human skeletal muscle in response to exercise training. The Journal of physiology, 601(3), 419-434.

#feminism #postmodernism

39 notes · View notes

roy-dcm2 · 2 years ago

Text

Zelda Theory - The True form of the Kokiri / Koroks

There's something about the Kokiri that doesn't add up.

There's the matter of the rules of the Kokiri and the Lost Woods. Although that might be simpler than it seems.

One rule is that Kokiri must not leave the Kokiri Forest, because they might die, or grow up. But we see them at Lonlon Ranch at the end of Zelda 64.

There can be a simple explanation:

It was the old Deku Tree that made the original rule, and the New Deku Tree does not demand that the Kokiri be permanently confined to the Forest.

But, I gotta ask, why wait until now to revoke that rule?

"Ocarina of Time" never mentions it, but there are some lapses in logic when it comes to Link and the Kokiri.

The Deku Sprout reveals to us that Link was actually delivered to the Deku Tree as a baby and raised as one of the Kokiri. But… wouldn't they all remember Link was a baby?

Like, wouldn't Saria, his closest friend, remark to him that he was a baby, when they met? Wouldn't his bullies (like Mido) tease him about being a baby?

Unless, they all forgot about it.

The Deku Tree is very old and powerful Spirit, he might have the power to alter memories. Especially the memories of the Kokiri, who are probably just extensions of his own spirit.

I'd could even speculate that the Koroks are actually the ORIGINAL forms, and they became the child-like Kokiri, in order to accommodate baby Link, and allow him to grow up around people that look like him.

And of course, the special rules that Kokiri cannot leave the Forest were set in place to protect Link. (at first)

It's likely the Deku Tree could sense the spirit of the Hero inside of Link, and he needed to be guarded until Destiny called on him to rise up.

Finally, by the time of Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild, the Deku tree no longer had a child to guard, so he had no qualms about letting the Koroks go beyond the forest. Regular people can't SEE the Koroks!

(Also, after many tests, we know Koroks are indestructable, lol)

Imagine that... Saria was a Korok the entire time. Link never saw her true face. It makes it all the sadder, doesn't it?

#roy dcm2 #zelda #link #legend of zelda #LoZ #Wind Waker #Breath of the Wild #Breath ofthe Wild 2 #Tears of the Kingdom #Saria #Ocarina of time #Kokiri #Korok #Koroks #Hero of Time #Lost Woods #Deku Tree #totk korok #zelda theory

360 notes · View notes

ithildinwrites · 8 months ago

Text

anime recommendations

it was really hard to limit myself bc i’d recommend all the stuff i’ve watched but then this thread would be too long so! i’ve linked my anilist below if u want more recs from there bc i record them all :)

JUJUTSU KAISEN

ongoing (manga completed)

47 eps + 1 movie

genres: adventure, dark fantasy, supernatural

notes: jjk is hands down one of my fave animes. it just has so many cool characters and the growth that they go thru is so cool to watch, plus the power system is really cool (albeit a little complicated) and it really keeps you on your toes so i always rec this one

HAIKYU!!

ongoing (manga completed)

90 eps (inc. ova's) + 1 movie

genres: comedy, coming of age, sports

notes: hq is one of those feel good animes. gen always makes me so so happy and it always puts me in a good mood. v minimal sadness and v focussed on the character's growth and their relationships with each other. underlying themes of overcoming stuff and becoming a better version of yourself etc. and it focusses on other teams as well, not just the main team. i love love hq with my whole soul and it'll always be so so special to me, i can't not recommend it like i could talk about it for hours

ATTACK ON TITAN (SHINGEKI NO KYOJIN)

completed

94 eps (inc. ova's)

genres: action, dark fantasy, post apocalyptic

notes: aot has one of the best, if not the best, written stories in media, like not just anime. i think it's the best written thing i've ever seen in my life. some things you don't even notice unless you rewatch and you realise how much of what happens later has been hinted at since the very beginning. it's insane how well written it is. gen such an incredible piece of media and no one who wants to get into anime can not watch it, i think it's a must. it was the first anime i ever watched and it just hooked me straight in.

DEMON SLAYER (KIMETSU NO YAIBA)

ongoing (manga ongoing)

63 eps (if watching mugen train as eps not movie)

genres: adventure, dark fantasy, martial arts

notes: i feel like i don't commonly see demon slayer be recommended to people despite it having such a good story, which is insane to me. a lot of people put emphasis on other shows for being heartbreaking / devastating but no one ever mentions demon slayer and it broke me honestly. it's just so devastating in so many moments but that's what makes it so good! you get to see different perspectives, including some from the demons and it explores people changing their opinions on things and how this organisation works and people's motivations, and ofc follows tanjiro on his journey to save his sister and turn her human again.

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST: BROTHERHOOD

completed

64 eps

genres: adventure, dark fantasy, steampunk

notes: oh fmab my beloved! it's focussed on two brothers trying to get their bodies back after they messed the up trying to bring their mother back from the dead (they're alchemists). they're v young and also in the army so it's super interesting seeing the missions they go on and the other people in the army they're close / not close with. the enemies are also v well thought out and idk everything in this show is just done so well which shows why it's so highly rated on imdb and myanimelist. it also has such a good ending which is so rare with shonen like i do think hq and fmab are the exceptions to that lmao

HUNTER X HUNTER

completed (i think?) (manga ongoing)

148 eps + 2 (non canon) movies

genres: adventure, fantasy, martial arts

notes: hxh is so good???? yes, it's kinda long but all the arcs are so different it's worth it. the way u get to see gon and killua grow so much from the beginning and how their friendship evolves and the skills they learn and the people they meet is so cool. the show is pretty lighthearted in the first few arcs but it gets darker the further you progress and it all comes to a head in the chimera ants arc. greed island is my absolute fave arc i just adore it sm u get to see killugon flourish! they have one of the best, if not the best, friendships in anime

BLACK CLOVER

discontinued (i think?) (manga ongoing)

170 eps + 1 (non canon i think) movie

genres: adventure, fantasy

notes: i gen never see anyone rec black clover except one friend who told me it was good and i gave it a shot. when i tell you i was hooked so fast???? yeah it's kind of a typical mc has no powers type plot but the found family is INSANE! the black bulls have such a strong bond and they're all outcasts who found each other after yami recruited them it's so cute. they also all develop and grow into their powers and grow stronger as the series develops and it's so cool seeing all the magic knight squads and the arcs are so good. so many arcs so much cool stuff and it's not even finished yet. the found family got me hooked and now im stuck here forever

FRIEREN: BEYOND JOURNEYS END (SOUSOU NO FRIEREN)

ongoing (manga ongoing)

28 eps

genres: adventure, drama, fantasy

notes: one of the prettiest animes i've seen. the music and vibes really remind me of lord of the rings (one of my alltime fave movies ever). it feels so beautiful and fantasy-esque. also it gets quite sad when u think about it but somehow also maintains this really lighthearted whimsical vibe. it's so cool seeing frieren's journey with fern and stark and at the same time getting flashbacks from her original journey with himmel, heiter and eisen even though it was a long time ago but we still learn more about them. v cosy anime.

BLUE LOCK

ongoing (manga ongoing)

24 eps (not inc. s2 which is currently airing)

genres: sports, thriller

notes: bllk is the anime i've recommended the most to people i think. smthn about the vibe in s1 (s2 wasn't out atp) hooked me and then i went and read the manga and just fell more in love with it. idk maybe it was bc it's so crazy seeing an mc like isagi bc it isn't very common to see someone push for working alone and not in a team. maybe it was the bond and relationship he has with his teammates and friends and rivals but it just got me and i've recommended it to so many people and gotten so many people to watch it lol

FRUITS BASKET

completed

63 eps + 1 movie

genres: romantic comedy, slice of life, supernatural

notes: fruba is prob the only shojo on this list even tho i've watched other shojo's. fruba just hit the hardest. it's got elements of fantasy in it and really goes into exploring the backstories of so many characters, not just the main ones, and you learn about them and why they are the way that they are. it's so cool bc it's a story about not only romance, but healing and saving people and friendship! so much friendship! the mc, tohru, is one of the sweetest girls ever i adore her.

KAIJU NO 8

ongoing (manga ongoing)

12 eps

genres: adventure, sci fi

notes: kaiju no 8 reminds me of attack on titan a lot: the whole becoming a kaiju thing and also wanting to protect the people around him plus building bonds w the people in the defense force with him and being surrounded by strong people. the character designs are also so cool and the kaiju are so interesting. also super refreshing to see an mc in his 30s bc i feel like that's not very common but it's cool bc he's like everyone's dad and OFC FOUND FAMILY yk the drill it's like my fave trope ever you'll see it's a common theme

WINDBREAKER

ongoing (manga ongoing)

13 eps

genres: adventure, martial arts, yanki

notes: i actually have two posts on windbreaker, u can read pt 1 here and pt 2 here! anyways yk the drill: found family. that's out the way now, let's talk about our mc. his name is sakura haruka and he's super strong and ofc he's been thru shit. he doesn't take affection v easily and people being nice to him makes him flustered so he's shy and blushes a lot bc he's not used to it. it's cool seeing people supporting him and his friends being there for each other and how they protect the town and all the enemies or enemies turned friends. it's cool seeing all the kids help each other idk. i've seen it be compared to tokrev a lot but i really don't see the comparison lol

YURI!!! ON ICE

completed

12 eps

genres: sports

notes: you're prob noticing a theme with the sports animes but what can i say, a girl needs a break from the sadness shonen hits u with lol. okay! yoi is so good; first of all animation, it's mappa so ofc it's good come on now, they've done aot (s4 onwards), jjk, csm and hells and bf. this anime got me so interested in figure skating like it's gen so cool seeing all the routines people come up with and how it goes from a mess of a routine at the start of the season to the end! also super inspiring seeing a character like yuuri who struggles with anxiety bc it makes it feel more real to see a fictional character go thru that like yk he still goes out there and skates despite it all idk it's cool

LINK CLICK

ongoing

23 eps

genres: supernatural, drama, fantasy

notes: the best way to describe link click is mindfuck. it's INSANE. so much happens and stuff links back to other things in ways i didn't even think was possible. it's abt these two guys and one of them can go into photographs into the body of the person who took the photo and they use this to solve people's questions and find stuff etc and ofc it evolves into more serious issues but it's just super cool. so well written and incredible animation as well. idk if it classifies as anime bc it's in chinese but i couldn't Not put it here it's just too good

THE ELUSIVE SAMURAI

ongoing (manga ongoing)

12 eps

genres: adventure, comedy, historical fantasy

notes: i finished this kinda recently bc the episodes were just airing but it's so good! the animation is insane and again, found family!!!!! they're just a bunch of kids and the mc is the son of the shogun who is super good at being elusive and running away and the others are his retainers, or his most trusted guards. they're all kids but they're so talented and he's gathering more and more supporters to his cause and it's so cool seeing how they overcome their obstacles like enemies bigger and stronger than them but they still push thru to try and get his kingdom back

VIOLET EVERGARDEN

completed

13 eps + 1 movie (movie sucks ass tho don't watch it)

genres: coming of age, steampunk

notes: so beautifully animated it's insane. every episode is done so wonderfully and it makes me so emotional. i think i cried watching every episode. it's about this young girl named violet and she's been a child soldier for most of her life but then someone close to her dies and tells her "i love you" right before he dies so she goes on a journey to find out out what love is basically and just meets so many people on her journey. it's really sweet.

AKAME GA KILL

completed

24 eps

genres: action, dark fantasy

notes: without saying too much and spoiling it, this is one of the most unexpected animes i've ever seen. there's a group of people who are all v strong and talented and they're classed as criminals. i don't remember everything that happened bc it's been years since i watched it but i remember it being so good and being unable to predict anything that happened bc it all came out of nowhere. all i can say is, don't forget who the series is named after (akame).

HIGH CARD

completed (i think?)

24 eps

genres: action, adventure, fantasy

notes: high card reminds me of kingsman a lot and that's a good thing. it's such a cool concept to give different playing cards different abilities and people who have those cards get those powers. plus the fact that they're an organisation masquerading as a normal business makes it cooler (this plus them dressing all formally is what reminds me of kingsman)

TRIGUN STAMPEDE

ongoing (manga completed)

12 eps

genres: space western

notes: maybe some of the best animation i've seen in a series. vash and nai are so tragic i can't stop thinking about them even after it's been ages since i finished the anime and the other characters are so cool??? i love how vash has a skewed sense of like morality if that makes sense bc he wants to not hurt anyone but that in turn hurts people and it's just cool and nai is also so interesting. i don't want to spoil anything but the designs and everything are so on point AND THE MUSIC IS AMAZING! i haven't even talked about wolfwood but we'll be here all day if i start he's awesome

HELLS PARADISE

ongoing (manga completed)

13 eps

genres: action, dark fantasy, psychological thriller

notes: hells is considered one of the dark trio with chainsaw man and jujutsu kaisen but i don't see as many people talk about it as they do with the other two which is such a shame bc it's so good. there's bits that fuck with you so much like i was convinced i was being gaslit at one point but it's just so good and the worldbuilding and fantasy elements on the island are so insane and well done. the mix of characters is also so cool bc there's so many different ones with different motives and they gotta work together it's just cool

SK8 THE INFINITY

ongoing

12 eps

genres: adventure, sports

notes: sk8 is incredible like idk how in 12 eps they managed to make me like so many characters including all the side ones like cherry, joe and miya but also introduce a villain and a conflict, make a fight and resolve it all and we even get a beach episode! the underlying yaoi makes it even better like that scene with langa and his mother and the "reki my love... for skateboarding" like they knew what they were doing. anyways incredible character building esp on reki's part. i love seeing how down he gets bc he's more relatable that way yk like he's the sunshine character who's outwardly so happy but he gets so self conscious as well idk i see myself in him a lot i love reki

FREE!

completed

41 eps + 3 movies (i think? free is confusing okay)

genres: sports

notes: last sports anime i promise. free is prob the most emotional of all the sports animes i've seen and it's not even that bad. can i entice u with the one bed trope bc they fully did that in the show w 2 of the male characters. anyways it's a swimming anime and the mc is haru who loves the water and he only swims freestyle. he has a group of friends (one of them being his childhood bestie) and it all starts when his old friend comes back from school abroad and he's different. i love free a lot i feel like it's very realistic too

okay we're done, here's my anilist so u can see the other anime's i love bc i promise there's good stuff on there :D

44 notes · View notes

unclegrumbles · 2 months ago

Text

ULTIMATE DANNY PHANTOM

TUCKER FOLEY

Tucker had his nose buried in his phone before it was cool. Beyond gaming, he loves tinkering with his many gadgets to find new and creative ways to optimize them. Having access to the spare parts bin from the Fentons' laboratory grants Tucker a veritable buffet of tech to play with. Using their old tech, Tucker created his beloved PDA. Hidden beneath its standard functions is an encryption-cracking algorithm Tucker developed himself, capable of hacking into the most secure computers in town. Once Danny got his powers, Tucker began upgrading a special backpack with even more FentonWorks tech to aid in ghost hunting. Tucker's "Battlepack" contains a powerful, compact radio receiver linked to his PDA which allows him to tap into police radio comms and the FentonWorks' satnav ghost radar. It also includes a link port compatible with Fenton Thermoses, allowing Danny and the team to inspect certain traits of captured ghosts. An integrated Fenton powerbank can charge up all manner of devices, from phones to Fenton Thermoses and beyond. While Tucker takes pride in his role as the team's tech guy, he harbors some jealousy over Danny getting superpowers. That doesn't stop him from being Danny's closest, most reliable and loyal friend.

Powers and Abilities

Multitasking: Heavy is the head that wears the crown. As the self-described brains of the operation, Tucker is thusly saddled with the responsibility to handle more of the complex strategizing that comes with ghost hunting. After all, one does not simply hunt a ghost on a school night. Tucker takes on the task of checking weather, traffic, security, and even variables like public transportation and community events while coordinating with the rest of Team Phantom during a hunt. Tucker's obsession with data and details often prevents him from seeing the bigger picture.

PDA: While Tucker is too insecure to realize or admit it, the PDA he created is practically a superpower of its own. The encryption-cracking algorithm he created is based on a primitive program found in a discarded FentonWorks hard drive, but Tucker's skill with tech advanced the program far beyond its original state. By plugging into any computer linked to a network, Tucker can gain full access to all of its protected files. At the time of its creation, WiFi was still in its infancy. Regardless, Tucker integrated state-of-the-art WiFi tech into his PDA, allowing it to remotely interface with networked devices. Tucker can coordinate nearly all of Team Phantom's operations from the little machine.

Gamer™: Tucker, like Danny, is a proud member of the PC master race. Tucker has one of the best rigs in town, built with his own two hands, and has poured countless hours into late nights playing DOOMED with Danny. Once word slipped that Sam was one of the best gamers in their group, Tucker made it his life's mission to beat her high score in Superman 64, or die trying.

Confidence: Despite his very nerdy interests, Tucker oozes self-confidence. That translates well when talking to peers and adults alike. When Danny needs a pep-talk (that doesn't involve screaming from Sam), he goes to Tucker for wise words of encouragement.

---

Tucker is immensely proud of this encryption-cracking algorithm, but recently it's given him cause for concern. During routine maintenance he'll sometimes discover lines of code that he didn't write. Other times the algorithm diagnostic log shows encryption-cracking attempts that he didn't initiate. It's almost as if the algorithm has taken on a life of its own...

#danny phantom #tucker foley

12 notes · View notes

wheelsgoroundincircles · 10 months ago

Text

The M/T Ford 480 Hemi is a fascinating chapter in hot rod history! Designed by the legendary Mickey Thompson in 1963, this big-block engine starts with a Ford 427 ci block but pushes the boundaries with its impressive 480 ci displacement. While it’s often mistakenly linked to Chrysler, the M/T Hemi heads are entirely unique designs, showcasing Thompson's innovative spirit.

One of the standout features of the M/T Ford head is its equal-sized intake and exhaust valves, both around 2.00 inches, which is a departure from the traditional American V8 design. In contrast, the Chrysler 392 FirePower uses smaller exhaust valves. Even more intriguing are the articulated three-piece pushrods, a radical innovation that allows for larger and more efficient intake passages by navigating around the ports.

In 1964, with the backing of Ford, Thompson prepared drag racing cars, including the iconic ’64 Thunderbolt Fairlane, demonstrating the power and potential of his design. His contributions to performance engineering and drag racing remain influential today!

#Ford 480 Hemi #Ford 480 #Ford #car #cars #muscle car #Mickey Thompson #chrysler

53 notes · View notes

emilio-guevara · 1 month ago

Text

I wrote 100 new rules of the internet

1. All links are Rick rolls.

2. All non Rick roll links eventually lead to Rick rolls.

3. AI(ai) is not to be confused with Al(aL)

4. The Internet exists both outside and inside of all world governments, take this into account.

5. Wikipedia is a reliable source.

6. If Wikipedia isn't a reliable source, then it doesn't exist.

7. Nazis are to be made fun of.

8. Pedos are to be made fun of.

9. TikTok speech is to be made fun of.

10. Children falling or doing silly things are to be made fun of.

11. The word cat is to be misspelled as "car"

12. Orange cars are silly little goobers.

13. People can change, this does not apply on the internet.

14. Gimmick accounts in social media are a treasure, please respect them.

15. All posts are reposts and all reposts are shit.

16. Everything will be reposted eventually.

17. There's a platonic ideal of the white man, bald, overweight, old, in a suit. Take this into account.

18. Don't trust anyone, not even u/trustmeimnotascammer69

19. Grandparents will find a way to get scammed.

20. Scammers will find ways to get grandparents.

21. What was considered cool yesterday, is cringe today.

22. What was considered cringe ten years ago is cool today.

23. Careful when searching r/eyebleach

24. Elvis is alive everywhere.

25. Elvis is an entity far superior to the internet.

26. Elvis only eats lizards and beetles.

27. Love everyone.

28. Hate everything.

29. Don't fuck with pets (non sexual)

30. Don't fuck with pets (sexual)

31. All characters have a gender bent version of themselves.

32. All characters have a "fixed" version of themselves.

33. No female character will be correctly represented in pornography

34. If it exists, there's porn of it.

35. If there isn't porn of it, there will be eventually.

36. If there's really no porn of it, you're not looking hard enough.

37. If there's actually not a kilobyte of porn of it, make it yourself.

38. Furries have a lot of money.

39. Furry commission artists have all of the furries' money as passive income.

40. Ben Shapiro is the least reliable person on the internet.

41. Everyone who has a podcast is telling the truth

42. Unless Ben Shapiro has appeared ever in it.

43. If given the chance and justification, the internet will make your life hell.

44. This justification can also be manufactured.

45. Acronyms can mean anything you want them to mean.

46. On Reddit there's only men.

47. On Tumblr there's only weird women.

48. On Pinterest there are only Pinterest users.

49. On Facebook there's only bots and old people.

50. There's no such thing as the fiftieth rule of the internet.

51. Fandom is no longer useful.

52. Don't steal shoelaces from the president.

53. If you know someone who has stolen shoelaces from the president, don't tell them you like them.

54. If they reveal they have stolen the shoelaces, both parties must engage in hot steamy sex. This does not apply to asexuals.

55. Asexuals have to engage in a pokemon battle instead.

56. I can't click book, I hate wife, me no understand kids, I hate wife.

57. Crypto bros eventually sink.

58. Crypto bros eventually resurface.

59. Crypto bros eventually kill themselves.

60. Goblins are gross

61. Female goblins are sexy

62. Orks are muscular and manly.

63. Female Orks are muscular and sexy.

64. A stack of rules.

65. All shitposts are to be taken seriously.

66. All seriousness is to be taken as shitpost.

67. Sad good, happy bad.

68. No joke is original, not even when it's told the first time.

69. This joke is not funny, but laugh anyway.

70. The highest honour is to make someone exhale a little harder than usual.

71. Human rights are a suggestion.

72. Unless you're rich and powerful, there's no mercy for you.

73. There's no way to convey emotions through text.

74. A cool thing is only cool the first time you do it.

75. A joke is funny the first, third, fourth, seventh, eleventh, twentieth time it's told, then every following prime number.

76. Explosives are always funny.

77. Anti-climax is only funny the first time.

78. Every discussion eventually leads to sex jokes.

79. Everything and anything all of the time.

80. Nothing actually matters if it's not porn, cars, boobs or Nazis.

81. Boobs are not lewd unless explicitly stated.

82. Anything can have boobs.

83. Anything that can't have boobs, will be set adjacent to boobs.

84. If there's a chance of boobs appearing, it will often happen in public.

85. Boobs exist for everyone's happiness.

86. All boobs are beautiful.

87. All boobs are perfect.

88. Boobies!!!!

89. There's never enough boobs.

90. All good things end eventually.

91. Bad things tend to last longer for some reason.

92. Pirate everything.

93. Lie to everyone.

94. Remember to have fun.

95. Seriously, dont Fuck with cars.

96. All "I had sex with you mom" jokes coexist with all the "your mom is ugly/fat/old" take this into account.

97. There is actually a rule 50.

98. All information can be changed retrospectively.

99. Don't actually have fun.

100. Everything leaves a mark, either intentionally or not.

#memes #funny #funny memes #rules of the internet #internet #internet culture

8 notes · View notes

mademoiselle-cookie · 6 months ago

Text

Choose according to who you think will match the best, who is the most interesting or the funniest. Have fun!

PROPAGANDA:

Second main character

Royalty

Elegant

The magician and strategist of the duo

Link's most famous love interest

Often the damsel in distress but knows how to fend for herself

Has a dedicated bodyguard

Strong personality (in some incarnations)

Often kidnapped and tormented

Sometimes annoying

Always by Link's side

Magical

Introduced Link to a bigger world

Shigeru Miyamoto revealed in an interview with Famimaga 64 that Navi is jealous of Princess Zelda and has feelings for Link.

Her color is blue

Large humanoid Fairies

Heals Link and gives him magic power, new items or upgrades

Sometimes represented as immense

Often pretty

Daughter of a rancher. Teaches Link the song to ride Epona. Her father proposes to Link to marry her (as a joke)

Potential love interest

There is a theory that Link married her and that their descendant is the hero of Twilight

Animals love her

Lives in Orion Village, like Link at the beginning. Mayor Bo's daughter. Get kidnapped by monsters and lost her memories

Obvious love-interest

Knows her lover for years, and they have been in love with each other for a long time

Everyone sees their feelings for each other

Brave and kind

Zora Princess, prepares meal for Zora's god Jabu-Jabu and becomes the Sage of Water when adult

Potential love interest

Strong-willed, stubborn and sometimes unpleasant,

Got eaten once

Willing to put herself in danger for the greater good

Blue

Kokiri and Link's childhood friend. Became the Forest Sage

Gives Link the Fairy Ocarina

Helps and teaches Link during the game, and it's possible to talk to her through her song

In love with Link

Has an admirer who is very rude to Link

Potential love interest but Link doesn't seem interested in her romantically despite an obvious deep affection/friendship

Link went and successfully saved her from a terrifying place

Doesn't age

#poll #the legend of zelda #dead boy detectives #edwin payne #edwin paine #charles x edwin #payneland

14 notes · View notes

numbugpowerscale · 1 month ago

Text

Vs Shows Recap: June 2025

Fan War

Sakura vs Yuri (Street Fighter vs Art of Fighting)

Release Date: 7th of June

Link: https://youtu.be/ymCRNZGMq7A

Mini-review: The show has the kind of technical polish indicative of a low budget, but if you can look past that it’s fine, the analysis feels like they gave a decent rundown of these characters, and the animation was fast paced the entire way through. The analysis was strange, especially the argument of a teleport nullifying a speed advantage (which reads to me as a misunderstanding of what’s actually important about speed in a vs debate), but overall the conclusion seemed fair enough beyond the confusion of the peak potential being talked about before the “standard” power.

Fan Battle

Doctor Octopus vs Viktor (Spider-Man vs League of Legends)

Release Date: 8th of June

Link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZVos-jLes04

Mini-Review: The analysis dug into the characters decently well (though there’s no avoiding missing some stuff for Otto due to the sheer bloat a long running franchise like the MCU has), dove into their abilities and powers rather well. The animation was fine enough for Fan Battle’s style, and I can’t really argue with the conclusion. It’s depressingly one sided, but that’s still a, well, conclusive conclusion.

Death Battle

Wile E. Coyote vs Tom Cat (Looney Tunes vs Tom & Jerry)

Release Date: 22nd of June

Link: https://youtu.be/6BDk8SyGMNo

Mini-Review: A very funny episode, definitely fits the silly feeling and stylings of the cartoons these characters come from. And the analysis sections, in turn, do provide a narrative framework for the characters while still focusing mainly on the goofy stuff they’ve built up over the years. I agree with the winner, but I’m not entirely sure about their arguments for said winner. Ah well, still a very fun episode by the end.

---

Episodes I missed last month:

Realm of Gods

Ryuji vs. Joey Wheeler (Persona vs. Yu-Gi-Oh)

Release Date: 2nd of May

Link: https://youtu.be/5SK4rdXw-64

Mini-Review: Truth be told, this just isn’t my kind of fight, so it’s hard to really like it for that. Despite that, the analysis worked fine enough, and the animation, while a bit stilted, did portray some semblance of strategy (although it also showed moments of baffling decisions, like Joey summoning a monster with a passive effect, making a moment of showing off that passive effect, and then immediately sacrificing it to summon another monster for, I guess, the iconography). The conclusion was fine enough, though it didn’t sell me on the match-up being quite close enough. Sorry to hear about Dormonos having dropped off the internet, though.

---

Other older shows I have yet to cover an episode of (covered for the same reason I covered such episodes last recap):

Crossover Colosseum

King Boo vs Gengar (Super Mario Bros. vs Pokemon)

Release Date: 31st of October, 2023

Link: https://youtu.be/dMGY2eltWNA

Before I give the mini-review, I’d like to mention that the show seems to be coming back under a new team, so keep an eye out for their revival if you want to see Crossover Colosseum again.

The show’s (former) closure is also why the analysis isn’t in the episode proper, and is instead a link in the comments section.

Mini-review: The animation is quite fun, and captures the chaotic fun of a silly Halloween themed match-up quite well, and they know how to keep upping the stakes. My biggest complaint in the animation is definitely the army fight, which felt like it had the worse choreography and the worse pacing, both sides just running at each other until the leaders decided to change into their “costumes”. As for scaling, I’m left confused at the standards needed to get a stat considered applicable for this show, and I hope that’s resolved when the show comes back.

Final Round

Aang vs Po (Avatar vs Kung Fu Panda)

Release Date: 9th of March, 2025

Link: https://youtu.be/Mh9t2D1GMlw

Analysis portion available here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7bKpoTEajcf1_BpQpFjkgA/community?lb=UgkxEi3UvISy9SQDf2PFFUmfxuRaBpkxt2HW

Mini-review: For the financial budget that went into this show (and thus the limitations of the sprites used), I’d say the animation is choreographed decently - though some sections still feel a little slow or like one character just stands around and lets the other hit them. The analysis (besides being something I had to dig up instead of being in, say, a reply to a pinned comment on the video itself) is incredibly barebones, especially the experience category which doesn’t really give anything. Skill? General intelligence? No, just raw experience, and only from one side.

Showoff Showdown

Arzette vs Asha (Arzette: the Jewel of Faramore vs Wonder Boy/Monster World)

Release Date: 22 of June, 2024

Link: https://youtu.be/_v2zXYj9dtQ

Mini-review: I don’t like the style used for the animation, buuut since it’s clearly an homage to Arzette, which itself is an homage to CDi Zelda, I guess that’s mission accomplished, since it is exactly that. As for the debate, I’m not sure about the logic used for the multipliers and speed calcs, and those are kind of important to determining the result, so, while I have no idea on who I’d say wins, I’m not sure how much I trust the result. So uh… Yeah, that’s the mini-review.

Smash Bracket (concluded)

Dark Pit vs Dark Samus (Kid Icarus vs Metroid)

Release Date: 2nd of March 2024

Link: https://youtu.be/C8RM-FdOCw8

RIP Smash Bracket, I hope the host has been recovering well. The show’s closure is also why the analysis is in the description rather than the episode itself.

Mini-review: The animation was fine enough, nothing exceptional but there weren't any problems I found with it. But I really heavily disagreed with the stats presented, and I can never quite understand what the cut-off point for their rules is (especially when Kirby’s calc in an earlier episode just casually violates that cut-off point into dust) let’s just say that this is far from a unique instance for Smash Bracket. I found it especially baffling when they talked about how speed doesn’t matter for Dark Samus, only to then deem speed an important factor in the conclusion.

Thunder Clash

Infinite vs. Shadow Mewtwo (Sonic the Hedgehog vs. Pokemon)

Release date: 5th of September, 2024

Link: https://youtu.be/ZDuMORNVnMM

Mini-review: This one’s a bit interesting in that it doesn’t cover stats until after the fight, only giving a surface level overview in advance. As for the fight animation, I think it’s got some rather flashy sequences and good fight choreography, despite some technical issues - however, it’s characterisation is pretty abysmal, seemingly hyperfixated on making the characters as edgy as possible (especially given Shadow Mewtwo doesn’t even talk/telepathically communicate). That being said, dunking on Infinite is much appreciated, and the ending is rather interesting. As for the scaling, boy, that sure is some scaling. Let’s just say that the winner was incredibly, massively overscaled.

Currently has a fundraiser active for their second episode, if you want more then feel free to donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/thunder-clash - worth noting that it’s been open for more than a year and has yet to meet its goal, so if you’re concerned about it being still in use I understand.

Fan-Made Death Battle (one-off)

Mario vs. Sonic (Super Mario Bros. vs. Sonic the Hedgehog)

Release date: 19th of October, 2024

Link: https://youtu.be/0DAepAGsqys

Mini-review: The analysis was pretty fun and bouncy, giving a fun vibe to the characters and their adventures while building up the absurdity of not just what they’re capable of, but just the sheer variety of stuff they’ve been in. The animation was alright, though I do feel the set-up for the fight was pretty poor. As for the results… Yeah, it’s pretty good. Goes into enough depth to make the conclusion pretty clear.

Even though it’s a one-off, I think it’s pretty good for what it is, and I think more people should-

“Jeez, I hope the episode never gets popular.”

Oh. Uh. And judging by the comments being frozen, it looks like that was the case.

---

Some vs show fundraisers

Thunder Clash (episode 2): https://www.gofundme.com/f/thunder-clash - currently at 2.6% of its $15,000 goal

Triple F (episode 2): https://ko-fi.com/triplef - currently at 86% of its $6,500 goal

---

Most recent episodes of Vs Shows (ignoring one-offs and concluded shows)

Crossover Colosseum: https://youtu.be/dMGY2eltWNA - King Boo vs Gengar (31 Oct 2023)

Showoff Showdown: https://youtu.be/_v2zXYj9dtQ - Arzette vs Asha (22 Jun 2024)

Thunder Clash: https://youtu.be/ZDuMORNVnMM - Shadow Mewtwo vs Infinite (5 Sep 2024)

Character Clash: https://youtu.be/cpbwaYYRlL4 - Perfect Cell vs Metal Sonic (15 Feb 2025)

Rewind Rumble: https://youtu.be/MHhCt7uZ59Y - Yang vs Sakura (5 Mar 2025)

Final Round: https://youtu.be/Mh9t2D1GMlw Aang vs Po (9 Mar 2025)

NOT-Death Battle: https://youtu.be/5bPbS1CsSic Fulgore vs Sektor 2 (16 Mar 2025)

Cartoon Fight Club: https://youtu.be/pMD5Bs-KwZ0 Charlie & Pim vs Mordecai & Rigby (22 Mar 2025)

Triple F: https://youtu.be/lQT3jazYrMA - Starfire vs Blaze (26 Apr 2025)

Realm of Gods: https://youtu.be/5SK4rdXw-64 - Ryuji vs Joey Wheeler 2 May 2025)

Fan War: https://youtu.be/ymCRNZGMq7A - Sakura vs Yuri (7 Jun 2025)

Fan Battle: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZVos-jLes04 - Doctor Octopus vs Viktor (8 Jun 2025)

Death Battle: https://youtu.be/6BDk8SyGMNo - Wile E. Coyote vs Tom Cat (22 Jun 2025)

#Fan War #Fan Battle #Death Battle #Realm of Gods #Crossover Colosseum #Final Round #Showoff Showdown #Smash Bracket #Thunder Clash #Fan Made Death Battle

9 notes · View notes