#I have no grand backstory for this arc all I know is that I must finish this fluff through to the end

[jojo-schmo]

A confession🌟 (Part 2)

(Part 1)

(Part 3- Final)

[tenebrius-excellium]

I don’t know how this narrative principle is properly called in English but today I finished reading an academic paper on “backend vs. frontend motivation” in stories and I am nerding off big-time.

One of the most important elements of modern media to me, especially in film, is for it to be motivated from the ‘front’, that means from the beginning. You gotta have a starting conflict so well fleshed out that it justifies all which comes next in a domino chain of such bulletproof logical consequence that it cannot be questioned until it inevitably culminates in the grand, satisfying finish. Only then is an ending good and only then can it be truly enjoyable.

The best example of which that remains to this day is How To Train Your Dragon.

In my opinion this movie leaves no room for a different ending. Were it to be replayed thousands and thousands of times, it would always unfold the same way. It’s that solid. Solid in its core conflict, in its character designs, in its stakes. It would choose to happen the exact same way again every time. Everything is in-universe consistent and character-consistent to a T. I believe luck, or chance, played a role in the creation of this movie because humanity is just not able to think up something as perfect as this on purpose.

While the sequels are - generally speaking - good, the failure to recreate the artistic mastery of the first movie can be seen in them. Glimpses of the original magic do appear more often than I had feared, which pleasantly surprised me for both the second and the third movie. However, both sequels have obvious weak points. The first movie has none. None. It’s somehow flawless.

I attribute its success to strong frontend motivation. There is an age-old war yet it threatens the current generation’s survival as acutely as it did on the first day. The People are tired and it’s either the annihilation of the enemy or resigning themselves to poverty and death. Berk is backed into a strategic corner and while Stoick is far from giving up, he doesn’t know where to take fresh ideas from. The absurd third possibility of talking peace with the dragons comes from the innocence of a child human and a child dragon. The grown-ups couldn’t have done it, yet so unexpectedly balance is achieved. It’s brilliant.

Httyd1: Shitty war -> needs to end (peacefully if possible, because the vikings are not bad people...but Stoick doesn’t see hope). + DRAGONS.

Httyd2: Hiccup Will Be Chief, therefore let’s throw some growth at him and kill off Stoick so that the two won’t fight about how to run the village later (because that would be in their characters).

Httyd3: The Dragons Will Leave, therefore let’s create an artificial villain, and a convenient dragon girlfriend, and make Toothless ooc to achieve it.

See, Httyd gradually declines into using backend motivation and that’s why the third movie works even less than the second. At least Httyd2 had a strong middle, that is, from Flying With Mother til Hiccup starts talking to Drago. Don’t make the mistake of buying into the rest: Nowhere was the topic of Hiccup becoming Chief even a thing before Httyd2. Also, Hiccup behaved ooc with his sole focus on dragons (at the so-uncaring-that-it-must-be-intentional expense of humans) and the no-kill rule. And Stoick died not from a plasma blast, but for plot convenience.

The third movie, in turn, gave Hiccup his original character back and bestowed a glow-up onto him and Astrid and their relationship, but at the cost of Toothless’ personality and backstory... and the general in-universe logic, such as Grimmel’s hollow arc (stressing his intelligence when he’s clearly NOT). You see, both movies have their strengths, but it just doesn’t work when the creators think up the ending first and are willing to bend everything else, however painfully, to achieve exactly that desired ending.

The newest marvel of frontend motivation done right is of course Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. The reason why it’s just so good is because the arc of Puss eventually losing his lives was not a forced narrative, simply conjured up to Have Puss Do More Jiggling On Screen. It was an innate part of his self, already there in his character from the start, and was inevitably going to become a problem some day. The creators made the most of it by dealing with it not after 8 more daring adventures that were clearly fabricated to generate money in theaters (what a nightmare to think about), but by insinuating that Puss has already lived some of those lives, giving him depth. Because we have not seen all of them, yet our famed hero has been shaped by them.

One could argue that the quest for the Wishing Star was a little too cheap of a narrative. But Puss has been a serious character stuck in a world full of dumb magical creatures and artefacts before. That’s literally the universe he lives in. So it works. And ohh, how magnificently it works.

So anyway. Front-end motivation, people. Has usually better characters too because the plot is tied to their consistency. It makes the ending of their story depend on themselves, not on ex-universe tinkering or budgets. Use it more, please and thank you.

[team7-headquarter]

Now that I'm reading One Piece, let me say this: even when I think One Piece is better written, the comparison between both mangas in their pre timeskip period is often done poorly.

Naruto decides to be immediately a more explicit and visceral story in terms of cruelty, with a main cast of 12 year old children. While One Piece takes its time building the foundation for its characters and future arcs, Naruto jumps right into the issue at hand. The first chapter is practically spelling it out to you, the reason why Naruto could and even should be a villain, given the circumstances. He's a sad sight, the loneliness and general dark feelings coating Naruto as a story are strong from the very start. I'm not saying that One Piece doesn't have a lot of dark themes and feelings too, but Oda style is to use comedy and good humor to balance it first. One Piece is lighter at the beginning.

For example, compare the East Blue saga and the Land of the Waves arc. Unfair, I know, but I want to prove a certain point here.

Each arc of the East Blue has a bit of cruelty in it, the worst being Arlong Park. In the 3 first arcs, when Luffy meets his three first nakamas, we can say it is more comedy than tragedy. No one dies, there is cruelty and battles, but it's kept on the "safe side". The villains are shown to be more "evil" than anything else. Morgan, Buggy and Kuro are pirates after all. Then they reach the Baratie and things start to get serious. Sanji's backstory is heavy (everything Sanji and Zeff went through is dark, from the starvation to the amputation and the grey scale of their animosity turned bond). You have the first hint at Nami's complexity as a character, you get a taste of the Grand Line in the Mihawk and Zoro encounter where Zoro almost dies, there's explicit sacrifice...

Like I said, Arlong Park is the worst of it all. The story of the town, of Bell-Mere and her children, of what the fish-men did to Nami... It would be incorrect to say that comedy is out aside. First of all, because one of the most common purposes of comedy is to build the ground for drama. You will need a light mood to present the gravity of the situation at hand. The reader must be desperate to see the characters laughing and joking again, to recover the good times, to preserve the bonds and friendships. All the previous arcs needed to be so silly for Arlong Park to be impactful. Nami lived through hell. There's war and discrimination, abuse, manipulation, government corruption and betrayal. I'd never dare to say it's a light arc.

With Naruto, it's like they went straight to their own Arlong Park. It doesn't get clearer than the explanation Tazuna gave about what was going on with Kato and the bridge. They step out of the gates and there's an assassination attempt where Kakashi pretends to get explicitly murdered in front of the kids so he can figure out what they're dealing with. You have the story of how the local town hero was basically crucified to get his arms ripped by Kato's men. Hell, before all of these you have things like the Uchiha massacre and Sasuke saying his goal is to kill someone.

Then the top of the cake: Zabuza and Haku. They end up dead, both of them. Suddenly the enemy is not just "evil" or "ambitious" but also very very human. Kids killing kids or refusing to kill kids, it's a nightmare. Kakashi kills Haku with a chidori to the chest and the manga lingers on the blood of it all. There's a panel when Sasuke takes a hit meant for Naruto— the visual impact is insane. That one panel of Naruto awakening the kyubi's chakra and threatening to kill Haku? This is not a story about pirates and treasures and dreams. This is a story about survival and murder and duty, where a kid happens to want to dream above all the misery of his world.

Compare now the Arabasta saga and the Chuning Exams. Both are about politics, foul play to take a country/hidden village down, how normal people are nothing but pieces of a bigger game, how the world is baster and more dangerous than anyone could ever imagine.

The difference is that the straw hats choose to participate and choose how to do so. Every step is one they take conscious of the risk. They are teenagers still, sure, but they have their agency and they're powerful enough to not let anyone else push them around. They're at the heart of the conflict, they know what's going on behind the curtains. One Piece is about freedom, something that people in Naruto clearly lack. Even when there's death and sacrifices and a lot of cruelty, it's shown differently than in Naruto.

Team 7 gets thrown into the mess of Konoha's crush knowing nothing. The Chunning Exams are a shit show. The horror of Orochimaru and the cursed mark, the Hyuuga's plotline about family branches and slavery, arms exploding, Rock Lee's fight, Hiruzen's death, Gaara's backstory... Team 7 (at least the kids) move on such a different scale. It's terrifying. The Chunning Exams are war in a micro scale, designed to keep the power balance using their lower class soldiers, children included.

I can keep going, but well. I feel like I made my point clear with this post.

While Naruto's story pace is faster, the characters and the themes aren't rushed per se. It fits that in a world in constant conflict, things keep coming faster and the characters can't catch a break. The journey of the straw hats allows them more time to build the foundations of the crew, going from island to island. The way the stories are told are different too, so it'd be futile to compare them if you don't acknowledge that. What are the core values of the story? What is the general feeling? What is it trying to tell and how it corresponds to the way the story is told?

You either ask yourself those questions or you'll get a half-assed analysis, at most.

[hey-haven]

Ranking all the TWST books from Worst to Best Part 5

Number 2: Book 1

Don’t know how much of a hot take this one will be, but Book 1 was a very strong start to the game. The simplicity of it really falls in its favor as it’s meant to serve as an introduction to the formula that we’d get used to even as it grows and expands as the story progresses. Compared to the stakes of the later chapters, this one really feels like nothing in comparison as you’re literally just baking a tart with the Heartslabyul gang, but that’s honestly a good thing.

The story itself takes a back burner as it focuses more on the characters. You get to know every member of the dorm and really take the time to figure out what they’re about as well as how they interact with one another. Considering that Deuce and Ace are essentially the deuteragonists of the game, I’m glad that we take the time to get to know them a bit more throughout the chapter all while it doesn’t stray from Riddle’s arc. Even when they’re not present, their actions still push the story along and we can infer just who Riddle is with with how they’ve been running their dorm and with how Trey and Cater talk about them. It’s impressive how much we really get to know Riddle when there are only around 20 chapters overall and they’re not present in all of them.

You know someone’s character writing is damn good when I can go from completely despising Riddle only for them to easily become my second favorite character of all time (no one can take Idia’s throne though tbh). Despite the scale of the conflict being much less severe than in later books, Riddle’s actions are still very extreme. As Ace said, magic is near essential for a mage. He said that removing their magic is no different from removing someone’s limb. It is an extrnsion of themselves used in day to day life, so to have Riddle be locking student’s magic up left and right is actually kind of messed up. Especially knowing how small a lot of the offenses were. It made me kind of angry to watch someone control these people like the tyrant they were described to be. It was easy to hate Riddle and to root for Ace and Deuce because the writing does a fantastic job paining the Housewarden as an asshole. We yet to see the full story, only getting nuggets of whatever good Riddle displays from what Trey says. After all, he must be loyal for a reason.

And then we see Riddle’s backstory. It’s the first one we see, and it’s still the one that impacts me the most. Child abuse is a narrative that we see a lot, but the specific execution with the abuse Riddle faced is one that really pulled at my heart. Maybe it’s because I relate to some extent. To not be abused physically but still faced the impact of being raised by a parent who did not provide love. Trust me when I say that it can break a person. The lack of control Riddle has in their home life easily explains their more neurotic need to have control in school. The voice acting, the story, they way Riddle begs for their mom to just let them have one slice of cake. I cried, I really did. Their story is what I consider a mastery of making a sympathetic and redeemable antagonist.

The pain Riddle faced, and really continues to face as they do still live with their mom at the end of the day, never excuses their actions in game (unlike some of the later antagonists) but it does explain them. I’m sure my own personal life is a big part of why I was more willing to forgive Riddle nearly right away, but another part was also their desire to put in the effort to be better. It’s an attitude that carries over to the second book and really every other time we see Riddle including special events. It’s a process, but we still continue to see them get better especially knowing they are surrounded by people that actually cares about them.

Book 1 is fantastic. It’s one of the only 2 books I have cried over because ouch parental issues ouchie. The heavy focus on the characters rather than some grand story made it easy for me to fall in love with them. The shorter chapters forced Yana to actually focus on the main plot and not get distracted by side quests (I’m looking at you Book 5). Riddle is actually such a wonderful character, being able to see them at their worst and their best. It’s just really fucking good. I look back on Book 1 fondly cause I remembered being excited finishing it and seeing what the others had to offer hoping they would be as good as the first.

And then I was smacked by the disappointment that was Book 2 but oh fucking well.

Part 4

[misarem]

Umineko Episode 3 Thoughts or How I Was Deceived by a Thousand Year Old Witch that Doesn't Exist #Rokkenjimagate

Okay I really thought the jump from ep1 to 2 was crazy. I barely even know what to say for this one I'm so serious. It's almost like the preconceived notions I had abt this game based on like several isolated moments from it I've seen over the past year of wanting to play it were challenged the most here and I barely even know what to think. apologies to myself in the future reading these back to feel something for how incomprehensible they end up being but regardless

Right out the gate I was excited with this chapter focusing on Eva after my presumption abt how the adults were gonna be focused on throughout the Question Arc, and showing Eva Beatrice from the start as seemingly an aspect of Eva used to cope is an incredibly strong hook. Even tho all the adults are bastards in their own right it's hard not to root for Eva wanting so badly to achieve her goals to the point where you even start to go along with her self-deprecating persona. And after kind of a long October 4th, watching Eva solve the riddle of the epitaph is incredibly gratifying. Even tho it's obvious this won't last it still is awesome to see and feels very deserved. Especially Eva's voice acting during it. Honestly through this whole chapter her voice acting rivals Beatrice (especially considering she backs out of the limelight somewhat). And the following scene with the coronation of Eva Beatrice, the lavishly illustrated halls, her new witch outfit, Happiness of Marionette playing, its all incredible. Also a very good demonstration of how warped the Ushiromiya upbringing really is. Eva is really just horribly cruel in ways closer to anime youd only see in Top 10 Deaths videos on YouTube (perfect for When They Cry!) and i do wish there were more illustrations to show, on at least an abstract level, the fucked up shit she did to Rosa besides the ocean cgs recolored to jelly. The fall from midair part was good tho. Also crazier to see the even worse brutality only briefly mentioned that included MARIA. Didnt think this game would even pull that on a 9 year old so that sure is a new level of horrific. Overall a very strong chapter thanks to its focus on one of the strongest backstories of anyone on the island. And yea the satisfaction is short lived but for this game, especially this chapter, for something beautiful and grand to get pulled out from under you and twisted without recognition feels very. appropriate.

Eva isn't the only focus tho, as we learn a ton about witches here too, specifically Beatrice and her predecessor, and how the system of magic and witches really works. Their battle was cool, as cool as you can get for a kinetic novel. I liked what more or less felt liek Beatrice's origin story, with the broken vase serving as a metaphor for aspects of the human condition like life and trust. I like the growing narrative aspect of Rokkenjima being isolated from the outside world as if drifting away from reality, submerging itself in a haze of fiction that Battler must cut down with his truth, and all the dichotomies that form around that. And for a while, I liked seeing a "new side: of Beatrice, if you can even say that. The human side that never grew out of being a child, or knew anything other than captivity. I talked abt this already in a few places but seeing Battler spurn her like that was insane and hilarious especially with her losing a lot of the bold flourishes of speech and voice acting because of it, and having to take a backseat to Eva Beatrice, attempting to reign her in the same way Virgilia presumably did for Beatrice at the beginning of her witch training.

i do say this with the end of the episode looming over me like an enormous thundercloud. I do feel.. a bit stupid thinking she changed in any immediate significant way altho to vouch for myself I didn't think she was completely on Battler's side either. Hell I knew this game has like 5 entire chapters left and she was likely gonna have to go back to her old ways if there were gonna be more murders, and in the whole ending scene I was waiting for Battler to back out of relinquishing to the witch as he kept signing shit and humoring her. But yea I didn't imagine a whole chapters worth of pretending to have a huge change of heart with multiple moving parts and witches assisting in the subterfuge. It does make me wonder if Beatrice had begun this deception by showing her fight with Virgilia to Battler, or if she realized she could manipulate his emotions when he yelled at her over Rosa's deaths, since he said he could kinda see past the murders to view her as a worthy adversary, or potentially, when they applauded Eva together during her coronation. That Virgilia was seemingly a part of Beatrice's plot, looking at that insane face she pulls when they try to get him to submit, makes me think the fight was a ploy to make it look like there was more conflict between the witches of Rokkenjima and to have Virgilia close enough to Battler to manipulate him the way she did. Also generally confused abt what was even going on with Kumasawa around that point in the episode. We see every servant die on screen except her as a part of the first twilight, since who we think is Kumasawa ends up just being Virgilia, yet her body is listed with the other victims. Idk if she is a witch or not, I'm leaning towards no but it's smth I feel the need to keep a tab on since I'm trusting the story not to frame those events that way without purpose. I'm also gonna say I have a hard time believing that everything we saw Beatrice open up about wasn't a complete lie. Like I do think her existence and power on Rokkenjima will end up stemming from something horrible and traumatic Kinzo did to her and that she was a human at one point, hell Lambdadelta kinda confirms this in the witch segment. It's just that using this to pretend to open up was meant to be huge for her game up until-

The funny thing is I literally did not think Ange was gonna appear in the game til Answer arc, although when she started getting namedropped I got a sneaking suspicion we'd see some glimpses. But still this is much more than I expected. Much more depressing going off the little backstory blurb she gets in the character section, altho Evas more subtle, less violent brutality towards Ange is... foreshadowed well we can say. Actually its her upbringing under Eva that seems to influence her actions and character in this timeline (timeloop?) assuming she grieves normally enough under her Grandfathers care if Eva dies too. Really goes to reinforce my confusion on how this all even really works, specifically the two day loop inside of the "fiction" of Rokkenjima, as it remains untouched by the outside reality. If Eva returned from Rokkenjima, does the time loop end with everyone else dead, or just continue in some other plane of reality? Not something I'm super hung up on but idk. Sometimes with this story I don't know if I have the means to solve the bigger mysteries with me now or if I'm supposed to wait to get more pieces to the puzzle. Either way I'm open and excited to how Ange interacts with Rokkenjima that much later into the future.

What else. I liked the fight between kanon and the sisters near the beginning that was kickass and i like how Genji, Shannon and Kanon all care for each other. IDK what chapter it was where I read in Characters that they were like created by Kinzo but that gives them a good relationship. Also LOOOOOVED Kyrie here even tho she died eventually (this game loves badass moments that get cut off when the witch inevitably summons an even more powerful agent of hell) her fight scene was sooo good.

This cg in specific reminded me of a very specific part of, coincidentally, the third episode of The House in Fata Morgana, I wont spoil but if you played you absolutely know what I'm talking about. Just cool to watch with her and even Rudolph holding their own against literal demons. Thinking that the family is mostly framed as knowing abt the magic/supernatural stuff as only myth, and not shit that seems to actually effect them, but has surprising moments of competency like this might be a good indicator of either the true nature of magic in Rokkenjima or some hidden underlying thing about the family (Battlers parents are verry adept with guns for people who are described as legitimately shady in the Characters tab. Speaking of Kyrie it is funny how wrong my prediction was in the last one where I said one pair of parents would survive each first twilight and Maria would always make it to the end considering the. Exact opposite of that happened. TO BE FAIR it was Eva-Beatrices rules not Beatos (I liked the moment of Beatrice letting Maria down gently abt being promised into the Golden Land). In retrospect it does make sense that for these three pre-Ange episodes, the first focusses on children, the second on servants and the third on parents, and its a good way of giving everyone screentime. There really is not a wasted character in this game even tho some are just not that appealing still looking at you Krauss

Heres where I pick up the tier list with every character instead of just the 18. finally can put Beatrice where she belongs. really not a whole lot has changed other than im waiting for ange and beatrices friends to excite me more and i love Ronove and his shitty mustache. curse my butler bias. I think for now im gonna wait an episode to like, recalibrate my predictions. Half the time in this game Im waiting for Erika Furudo and Dlanor to just fuck shit up but i cant say im not having the ride of my life with this crazy ass game.

Okay Im typing this specific part after getting thru like half of episode 4 (im gonna have insane shit to say about that one so stay tuned). Since I know that one focuses heavily on Ange to where the narrative focus feels like its shifting heavily, im going to take the time here to talk about how the Ushiromiya upbringing and how that affected everyone is my favorite aspect of the game so far. Its not even that deep or anything. I think I mightve said in an earlier one that family trauma feels so universal now so its not hard to get her but that also means that this is like an incredible portrayal that I feel like almost anyone would connect to and it very effectively shows how not only how wealth corrupts and debased people but also how abusive parenting has long, LONG term effects on entire family lines and how trauma really does not inherently make you a stronger person. Krauss is just lazy and incompetent, which, IMO he cant really help with how he was raised, and it would be cool to see him be aware of this, but its obvious how this manifested in Jessica thinking her family and inheritance is an active hinderance of her desires. How Rosa was pushed around as the youngest child, shaping her into a sometimes-well-intentioned, but irresponsible and caustic woman, and how this created a cyclically abusive relationship where Maria is pushed further and further into her escapist fantasies by her mother's punishment of those eccentricities. Interesting, Eva's terrible upbringing is focused on the most here despite the fact that she has an outwardly good relationship with her husband and son. But I think, in her obsession with proving the Ushiromiya patriarchs wrong caused by the complex they gave her, she built her home on a rocky foundation, marrying and parenting primarily for her position in the family, and when that inevitably came crashing down, it makes sense that it caused her to give the last remaining Ushiromiya grandchild the worst treatment out of all of them (debatably if you think Maria's was worse).

And its in this portrayal of generational trauma that we see, in my opinion, the most hard hitting, nuanced and just real moments in the game so far, like Jessica finally coming to an understanding with her mom, only able to do this in the most dire of circumstances, or Battler having genuine trouble mourning and grieving for his own parents outside of just being appalled by the atrocity of the murders (hes clearly estranged from his dad and he cant even bring himself to see his stepmom as anything more than an older sister), or Maria (seemingly..?) forgiving her mother at the end of episode 2 in a moment of insane emotional maturity and clarity after compartmentalizing her mom's behavior as one of her only means of coping with abuse other than escapism. These are places many stories wont go anywhere near when tackling family trauma but Umineko just demonstrates a deep understanding about how dire, dysfunctional and callous some families can really be. And having to recognize that all of these painful things are born from earlier pain and the abusers themselves were horrifically abused is the hardest but most important part of understanding all of this and what makes the game so nuanced. It lays these cycles of abuse bare, not completely condemning or exonerating anyone, trusting both the Ushiromiya family and you, the player to flip the chessboard and come to a genuine understanding of why things are the way they are so that, even if the circumstances are still dire, healing can begin and happiness can be achieved.

That all being said, the only gap here is Rudolph and Battler and I'm not just talking about the 6 year one he took from his family. Its easy to assume that Rudolph, influenced by his own older siblings but kept slightly afloat by being older than Rosa, grew up into a hardass without much regard for his own son. But it also feels like theres much less insight into his own upbringing. We only get glimpses of his adult life through Kyrie's brief exposition in this chapter as she guns down. i think it was Leviathan? But things like the deficit in information about both of them, the nonchalant way the Characters tab refers to their shady business practices, the void that his first wife's absence in the story leaves, and the way they handled the demon sisters makes me think that we will get crucial info about Rudolph's upbringing soon, but that there was also a very very important narrative purpose to depriving the main protagonist audience surrogate guy (and be extension, us, the player) of a firsthand perspective of his father and stepmom for the past 6 years of the story. I said earlier that I was holding off on making theories but the gears in my head have been working a bit since I typed that and I think Rudolph and Kyrie are prime suspects at this point of time, with the servants and maybe Nanjo? being accomplices in some way, altho idk abt Gohda LMAO and i also saw a little bit of spoilers from clicking around too much but we'll seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[fizzingwizard]

Because of those last two posts I randomly started thinking about Yugioh... and in particular the Doma arc... about which my opinions haven't changed since I was a teen, even though they were unpopular ones.

Since I'm perpetually long-winded I'll put the tl;dr up here: fans were unreasonbly harsh on Other Yugi during Doma because they were too busy feeling upset about Yugi to appreciate Other Yugi's storyline. But some of that is Doma's fault because while it's way stronger than a lot of filler, it's over-involved and has a rushed ending that fails to express its hero's growth. Also YGO fan culture circa Doma-era majorly sucked lol.

I never hated Doma. It's is my favorite filler arc, and what's great about it because it's filler is that it's not dumb. So much of 90s/2000s filler arcs in anime were just painfully stupid. But YGO, buoyed, I guess, by it's over-reliance on card games, was able to construct a couple filler arcs that weren't mindless nonsense. Not all of them! The KC Grand PRix, for example, is so bad it's unwatchable. But the Noa arc gave us a lot of backstory for the Kaiba brothers and asked some interesting questions about family and love. It doesn't go super deep, and the ending is uh, pretty weird, but also very fitting for sci-fi. It's not my favorite, because despite the ways it's better than most filler it's still got a lot of "stupid filler" features. But I appreciate that it took on something which was going unaddressed by canon (the Kaiba bros and their history) and tried to develop it.

Doma was like that. It took on the fact that Other Yugi is the soul of a pharaoh from ancient Egypt who has no memories of being so, and asked, "What does he actually feel about that?" Because all he does is play card games. Now and then we see him joking around with Yugi, even more rarely the others. But mostly he shows up, plays a cool combo, makes a kingly speech, and then disappears back into the Puzzle. It made sense in the context of the story. He's still fighting the war from the past, and he doesn't want to interfere too much with Yugi's present life. But as a fan, you gotta wonder what Other Yugi felt, discovering he's not actually an aspect of Yugi's personality but an entirely separate person with a past he no longer remembers.

Doma decided to ask that question. Of course it couldn't give us Other Yugi's backstory, since that would happen in canon. But it could address how Other Yugi feels while still not knowing anything. It could look at all the horrible things which have happened which are connected to Other Yugi, and which people (even fans sometimes!!) blame Other Yugi for even when it's not his fault, and ask what impact so much pressure would have on him. It said, "He's stressed. He acts strong, but he's not okay. He's reliant on Yugi for humanity, which means compassion and faith in his own goodness. If Other Yugi is a good person, he must be unable to look at the horrors going on around him and think it's fine. He must be wondering if he himself is evil, for being part of the cause. And a good person who thinks he's evil is bound to reach a breaking point."

I'm not counting the battle with Kaiba at Pegasus's Castle as a canonical breaking point because it's really more about Yugi's strength, and Other Yugi didn't even have a concept of himself having a past outside of Yugi then. That's memorable for totally different reasons. Although he initially tries to sacrifice it for Yugi's sake, in the end Canon Other Yugi follows the course of "destiny" with unfaltering dedication. I suppose the idea is that Other Yugi's convictions about his destiny are just too strong to brook any misgivings like the ones posed in Doma. But I always thought Other Yugi needed real character development, and before Memory World, Doma is pretty much the only thing that gives it to us. So I have to admire it for that.

Here's the tricky part. Doma took on something huge for Other Yugi. It put him in a situation where he had to face his anxieties that he might not have been a good king, that he might be just as bad as Bakura's other self. Where he had to exist on his own and trust in his own goodness sans Yugi's influence. It's a huge undertaking for canon, let alone filler!

I think Doma is right in its take on Other Yugi: that he'd be lost and bereft not because of not having Yugi but because not having Yugi means those weaknesses have nowhere to hide. Other Yugi is struggling, but he always struggles where no one else can see, and presents only strength and confidence in public. But the thing is, fans had never seen that before. The most we saw (if you were watching the Japanese version, btw, the US dub just wrote right over the following lines) was Other Yugi apologizing to Yugi for what he had to go through and wondering briefly whether he was bad for causing it. That happened in Battle City and was quickly forgotten.

We always see Other Yugi the winner. Doma showed us Other Yugi the loser. And fans did not accept him. I know the reason why is because he bartered Yugi's soul for the sake of winning. He thought he was bartering his own soul - a relevant point I feel many fans overlook - but it's still clearly risky, and on top of that, he went as far as to block Yugi from interfering with his duel with Raphael. Other Yugi took a massive risk with a power they knew couldn't be trusted, and he barred Yugi from having a voice while dueling in Yugi's body. It's all round terrible choices on Other Yugi's part.

Which is another part of Doma I love. It didn't give Other Yugi some stupid choice no one could really hate him for. It said we're going to test this guy for everything he's worth and it fucking went for it. That makes it very different from the Noa arc, where the Kaiba bros are unquestionably the stars and heroes.

In themes, Doma and Noa are similar. Both call into question one person's loyalty to another and ask whether their love is real or simply useful. Kaiba, as a sometimes villain, sometimes anti-hero, gets pretty lovely treatment: the fact that he's not a nice guy and puts his brother in dangerous situations all the time barely matters. And also when he loses it's fighting for his brother, and then there's someone (Other Yugi) to step in and win on his behalf. Meanwhile, with Doma, Other Yugi starts out as a hero, so he has much farther to fall. His duel with Raphael isn't for a righteous reason, but a self-serving one. And when he fails, there's no one to help. And he really loses what least deserved to be lost.

The stakes were high and Doma let the hero fail catastrophically. Because Doma understood that the only way characters grow is through failing tests against themselves. Not against business executives. Not against millionaires.

And Doma gave us plenty of explanation for Other Yugi's failure too! It didn't make him a temporary villain who would just go back to being the hero at the end of the filler arc so we'd all say "oh, Doma, yeah that was stupid and doesn't fit anywhere in the story as a whole." Doma told us that Other Yugi is breaking down without anyone knowing, and Raphael and Orichalcos are the final straw. Doma says this was going to happen, and if it hadn't happened, Other Yugi would have been weaker going into his final battle for his destiny. Doma said Other Yugi is traumatized too. And why shouldn't he be, having so much pressure on him all the time, with so little knowledge of himself and so little to distract him in that dank, dark mental labyrinth where he's trapped day in, day out?

This is what I think fans as a whole missed because they were too busy freaking out about "angelic Yugi, poor baby!" Don't get me wrong. Yugi is everything good and Other Yugi did make a horrible choice with Orichalcos. But Other Yugi is suffering from trauma every bit as much as the Kaiba bros. It's an existential trauma as well as a magical one which means it much less relatable, much less visceral. And Yugi is so sweet and kind! It's so easy to forgive the Kaiba bros because they love each other, be upset on poor Yugi's behalf, and completely ignore the intense mental upheaval Other Yugi was going through. It's not that Other Yugi should get blanket forgiveness. But his motives should be understood and his pain should be respected.

He didn't set out to risk Yugi's soul, or the Duel Monsters either for that matter. He meant to risk his own and to prove his mettle as a king by overcoming the Orichalcos's influence. It was stupid because he didn't have any proof that that was a good idea except that Raphael provoked him to try or accept that he was a failure. As a very strategic player, Other Yugi is used to taking calculated risks. But this wasn't that: if he'd been calm, he'd have realized that he couldn't be sure Yugi's soul would be fine and only his own would be lost. And he'd have realized that he had only Raphael's word that a pure soul could overcome Orichalcos to go on. Granted, Raphael seeming in perfect control while using Orichalcos himself probably seemed like pretty good evidence. But it certainly wasn't the only possible explanation and normally Other Yugi would know that. He chooses to play the Orichalcos card clearly under a lot of strain, even pushing Yugi away, which is unprecedented.

What this means is that, afterwards, the reason Other Yugi is suffering isn't just because of losing Yugi. It's also because he's now lost what sense of self he had. He had so little of it going into the Raphael duel, and he wanted to gain more by overcoming Orichalcos. Instead he lost Yugi and he lost his idea of himself as someone who cares about others and can trust his own heart. That's why he wanders. That's why he's so mixed up and and sad and broken for the next several episodes. And it's why, once again, Doma put off fans.

Because fans don't like to feel sad, unless it's in an "aw, poor puppy" way. They don't like to see someone who is strong wrestle with not being so. And words like "arrogant" or "impure" are trigger words in fandoms: apply them to any character even one time and that's all fans will remember about them forever and ever. Other Yugi made an arrogant decision; he acted arrogantly. But arrogance isn't who he is. How can we tell? Because he comes back, he wins and gets back what he lost, and he apologizes. And he doesn't do it again. He does better. The same goes for "impure." What even is purity? Why did fans accept it just because Raphael said it was real and mattered? Raphael provoked Other Yugi's anxieties and then laid a trap for him: he gave him what he most wanted, a duel that would "prove he's a true king," and set him up for an entire mountain of despair to crush him one he fell for it. Even with Yugi, Other Yugi was already in such a state of confusion and fear that it was something others could manipulate. Losing Yugi was heart-breaking, but it wasn't the cause of Other Yugi's troubles: they already existed. I prefer Doma's odyssey of test and riddles to the manga version of Atemu, who blindly does what he's told to do because "destiny," but who is also revealed to be just as much the player as a pawn during Memory Game without any transition.

Now that I've praised Doma up and down, let me wind back and say I also hate it. Because for all it gives us that's great, its execution leaves a lot to be desired. Other Yugi is rather hard to watch when he's so sad and weak for so long. It's especially hard when he's got Jounouchi and Kaiba for comparison, both of whom were put in much more heroic storylines. I find Kaiba's dull, since there's not really much Kaiba is really guilty of there - Amelda's grief was Gozaburo's doing. Jounouchi's is great for him as a masculine hero, but fucking sucks for Mai who is a helpless female caught between two men and sapped of any personal motivation. I love Jounouchi/Mai so I really wanted to like their subplot, but Doma really ruined Mai for the sake of Jounouchi's heroism.

Which makes me wonder if Doma hates Other Yugi. It gave classic hero stories to the others, but beat Other Yugi so hard he was wounded forever in the eyes of some fans. Especially in the aftermath of Doma's first airing, every fic had to make sure to describe Other Yugi's "arrogance" to prove they didn't like him an unreasonable degree. It's one reason I stopped reading YGO fic back then: I couldn't open one that didn't mistreat Other Yugi, often while glorifying Yugi's perfection or going to lengths to sympathize with and justify Kaiba's wrongs.

So are there things Doma should have done to lift Other Yugi up the same way? My overall opinion is not really. I think Other Yugi's Doma arc is clear and fitting right until the final battle. BUT! It fumbled the ending. It fumbled it really bad. The battle with Dartz gets stupid by not doing anything with Yugi and Other Yugi's long-awaited reunion. Not only was the art in that episode unfortuantely awful, but the scene itself is like... seconds. Barely memorable. Yugi hugging his friends is way more satisfying. And the weird bit at the end-end where Other Yugi gets hit by the vortex of anger and grief, I guess, was meant as the final proof that he had overcome all the tests Doma threw at hm. But once again bad art and a "running out of budget" vibe hurt that as well.

Endings are important. You can't rush them. Because Doma fumbled the ending, Other Yugi's victory has much less of an impact. Because it doesn't step back and reflect, but just kind of spouts some cliche phrases, we forget what Other Yugi has really accomplished. Kaiba sacrificing himself to let Other Yugi keep battling is memorable. In fact, Kaiba was much more useful than Other Yugi in most of the final Dartz duel, because Other Yugi had not quite recovered his confidence. After Kaiba's loss, Other Yugi faced real despair again, which should have been awesome but was, by then, kind of like "oh, he's sad again. Will he ever stop being sad?" Yeah, he won. We got cool golden lights and shit and then a miracle. But it's not the same as that victory being felt by fans.

So that's why in the end, I'm always half-and-half on Doma. Because it did what no filler ever dared to do before, I admire it so much. But because it was filler, it also couldn't keep all the subplots in balance, it couldn't do its main characters justice, and most importantly, it didn't stick the landing. For all those reasons, I understand why fans have mixed opinions on Doma. My general sense is that it's disliked but in a weird way where everyone still references it and uses it in their fics - proving how superior Doma is to other filler.

I will always have beef with fans who are unreasonably hard on Other Yugi over Doma, especially when those fans don't bat an eye at things other characters do. I hate that the purpose of Other Yugi's Doma arc flew over so many heads or just went unappreciated. I really felt it was much needed character development. And most of all I hate the impact it had on fandom, which made it so impossible to find Other Yugi-related fan works that didn't either overdo Doma or make sure Other Yugi was everlastingly apologetic about it.

Really, I can't express how nuts the fandom nonsense was - I didn't even want to talk about Doma, because fans were so extremely sure about Other Yugi's arrogance and Yugi's saintliness. Call any of that into question and you'd get attacked. It's been like two decades now though so I should be safe... right? X'D

[tuiyla]

I’m not sure if you’ve written about it before, but what do you think Kitty’s back story is. Is it all defensive because of the sexual assault? Or what are your views on her past?

Alright so, sorry I've been as late answering this as other asks because I actually got really excited to answer and then, you know, life. So much "life" that, not exaggerating, I started working on a grand Kitty essay that goes into excruciating detail about what her backstory must have been like and what her arc represents. Sadly god only knows when if ever that gets finished so my answer to you is essentially a tl;dr (or too long didn't write) version of it. Some discussions of sexual assault and its effects.

Though it's not referenced in any other episodes, I take what she says to Ryder seriously. Every sentence Kitty says is hugely revealing about her character. I've written about the scene itself here, though answering a different type of question. Basically, I think a lot is explained about Kitty not only because of the assault she reveals but also its aftermath. It's key that people didn't believe her, ridiculed her, ostracized her. Not that Kitty isn't a hugely problematic character, particularly in season 4, but it makes sense that she'd work so hard never to feel like that again. In early season 5, she even acknowledges that she's a habitual liar and I firmly believe that comes from others labelling her a liar and her retreating, maybe even doubling down on that. Kitty's defense is being unknowable by being this duplicitous bitch who lies to Marley's face and takes so, so long to reveal her true vulnerability.

There's an excellent deleted scene that I've also written about and one that I think further explains much about her. About her self-worth and how it's been tied to her looks but also about how she does want to belong, she just doesn't quite know how. I also think that is yet another effect of how she was previously treated after coming forward about her assault. Kitty has difficulty trusting that groups will accept her now and she cares about the Glee club much sooner and much more than she'd admit because she found what she was looking for there. This is further highlighted in season 6 when she admits how hurt she was by the club's end and everyone's abandonment.

I consider the main themes of Kitty's story to be self-worth issues tied to beauty and sexuality, trust issues but also a deep need to belong to a group that will accept her. Some of this is touched on in the canon-for-me Previously Unaired Christmas where she lets it slip that she doesn't feel worthy of playing the Virgin Mary - "more like Mary Magdalene". And going back to the Lights Out scene, she tells Ryder that she talks a big game with guys but actually backs out when it comes to intimacy. Who knows what went down with Puck, yuck, but this also checks out.

That is way less coherent than I would have liked it to be but I don't want to put off replying. Long story short, I do think she's defensive because of her past, if in subtle ways that all make sense as pieces of a larger puzzle. I think the assault itself traumatized her, of course, but it was really how her environment handled the truth when she confessed that left an arguably even greater scar. In my view of Kitty, not being believed then was a crucial and heartbreaking milestone for her character. Maybe she would have had issues with her self-worth regardless, as the deleted scene hints at, but because of the assault her views on intimacy got jangled up. And because of the aftermath, she started choosing lies and masks as a defense. To be clear, none of this excuses what she did to Marley and I think that instance was largely independent from this, just Kitty being a stupid kid blind to the consequences. But in general, her behaviour checks out to have been heavily influenced by the single event and what it resulted in in terms of her relationships with her peers.

[irishanimefan]

One Piece Anime Watchalong: East Blue Saga 2/6

Orange Town (Eps 4-8)

Started: 4/7/23 Finished: 5/7/23

We start this arc by flashback to reveal some of Luffy's past and how he got his Gum-Gum powers, and how he obtained the iconic straw hat. This was a good episode that makes us understand Luffy more and what makes him want to become the King of the Pirates. That is all because of Shanks, who we are introduced to in this episode. There's not a lot we know about Shanks, other than him being a mentor figure to Luffy, but from what little we did see I thought he was pretty cool. My favourite moment was the scene where Shanks give Luffy his straw hat before he leaves with his crew. The way Kohei Tanaka and Shirou Hamaguchi's epic score swells up leading up to the moment and the shot composition/storyboards (which I believe was done by Munehisa Sakai?) is incredible, with that wide shot of Shanks placing the hat on an emotional Luffy, with the faded white borders on each side framing both characters and the big expansive sky hinting at the bigger adventure these characters will embark upon. Chills! However, one issue I had with it was that, because Luffy's backstory is competing with setting up this upcoming arc with Buggy the Clown for screen time, the pacing of that felt a little rushed and wasn't able to get properly invested. Other than that, it was a great episode that had ripple effects throughout the arc.

Concerning the main plot of the arc, which our protagonists facing off against Buggy the Clown and having Nami join Luffy and Zoro towards the Grand Line, I thought it was really good! I stated in the last post that the villains were fine but didn't leave that big of an impression. Well, that's where Buggy comes into it, because I thought he was a great villain. He had such a goofy design with his, ahem, prominent feature that shall not be uttered unless you want to feel his wrath! Despite his appearance, he had a real threatening and deranged presence with his obsession with all things "flashy", with a laugh that gives you the creeps. Him also revealing to have Devil Fruit powers, specifically from the Chop-Chop fruit, while the reason why he ate the fruit is comical, it leads to some interesting techniques seen in the fight between him and Luffy.

This arc also gives us a proper introduction to Nami, what compelled her to become a thief, and, most significantly, her hatred of pirates and what they took from her. It's not explained exactly what those pirates did to her, but it's alluded that it must be something or someone that was important to her. This might be explored further later. As for what I thought of her in this arc, I liked how they showed her reluctance to join Luffy's crew and came to the point where his more honourable, or even naive, intentions ended up challenging her own biases against those who choose to become pirates. It went into more depth than Zoro in the last arc, who was more trusting of Luffy before breaking out of Captain Morgan's base. Even if they did save her from being killed, those biases still prevents her from trusting Luffy completely. However, the back and forth grappling with those preconceived notions became a bit repetitive after a while. Also, if I wanted to be pedantic, it is rich for a pirate to be lectured about by a thief, which Luffy does point out quite early on. Apart from that, looking forward to how she gels with the rest of the crew.

Some other thoughts I had about the arc: the subplot with Chouchou the dog in episode 6 pulled on the heartstrings. It was so moving to see him fight for something that's so dear to him and was the last reminder of his owner's existence. I also loved the bond Luffy formed with him and how it reminded him of his connection with the straw hat. The fight between Zoro and Cabadji was pretty decent, in the way it shows Zoro's tenacity and determination to beat an opponent who keeps repeatedly targeting the stab wound he sustained from Buggy earlier. They keep drawing the attention away from the fight to focus on other things, like Nami stealing the treasure and map, which it felt more padded than it actually was. Finally, seeing Luffy getting so worked up about Buggy damaging Shank's straw hat was so powerful, considering how he's been so carefree beforehand.

Overall, I did like this arc quite a bit. I'm looking forward to see what happens next when we come to Syrup Village!

[nalyra-dreaming]

i'm intrigued by the show's timeline & how much of books 1-6 have happened already? i know s3 is tvl, but if qotd, totbt & mtd have happened in some way, wont lestat include them in his memoir too? it'd be kinda arbitrary for him to consider his life story 'over' at the end tvl, so we may be in his pov for a while. i hope they keep some of those plots for the modern day tho - the action-based ones (esp. akasha's vamp apocalypse) won't hit the same if the audience can infer the outcome too much.

I think (by now) that they're likely doing a mixup of various events of the books, but in a way that the main points of the stories are still reached.

IWTV is a different setting, a different time, a different timeline... but it feels still right, feels still like them because the emotional and main story points are reached.

I think it will continue that way.

By giving us the hint with TVL we have a certain... setting that has to happen (in some kind of way), because at least the bigger part of TVL, Lestat's backstory, Armand, the theater, Nicki, Marius, Those who must be kept... has happened. ^^

In the books there are two instances of vampires multiplying out of control (as mentioned in the show), and then being, errr... reduced. It would be interesting to see them combine that, tbh. Which would mean Qotd will still happen, maybe in combination with the spirit part Prince Lestat arcs (I actually like that idea a lot, tbh, what if that spirit is what drives Akasha and then that arc segues into the other).

But the rest of the books does not necessarily need to follow a pattern, or a structured order either. I think we're in Merrick territory in modern Dubai right now, but that doesn't necessarily mean that QotD or Memnoch etc have to have happened yet - though, tbh, I do think Memnoch would be much harder to show than TtotBT - which Rolin Jones has addressed already (so it's floating round his brain).

But even if QotD has not happened yet, Lestat's one-hit-wonder rock career might have?! He could have done that for (lots of) other reasons - even though IWTV has not been published (yet) in this universe, it does not necessarily mean that TVL has not been published.

In general I agree, they would do well to give the "Dubai-storyline" a grand arc that is ultimately action driven.

However, I do think that QotD would be more like season 4, because... I honestly cannot see Lestat telling his story (and it has been stated already that we get to see his POV in season 3) while Akasha is wreaking havoc.

So whatever is happening in Dubai has to have a certain... lull, imho, after season 2. A breather, if you so will.

And then, when Lestat tells his story, it could easily pick up again and turn into this QotD and PL-arc mashup with the vamp apocalypse :))

I am not sure where TotBT would fit in, but maybe they could somehow mix that with the Mayfair Witches and those crossover books. The characters are connected after all. Maybe even as some kind of standalone series.

(And in the end, when they're all done with the action stuff, we can get to the aliens *laughs*)

I think that would be cool :)

[vulpiximisa]

so i finished utena

(not the movie though)

i started the first few minutes of the movie hoping that it was a sequel to the series but it looks more like a retelling or au so ill watch the movie another time

anyway, i still dont really know whats going on but i guess im glad i went through with the ride

i dont think i want to say necessarily  that im disappointed in the end, considering the show what kind of show it was and its not really like them to have a happy ending. if it was a regular (magical girl) series, utena would magically get a white outfit, she would have been able to save anthy and make akio change his ways by remembering how to be a prince again.

but you know that didnt happen lol

i didnt want to watch too many videos/look at comments analyzing the series/ending yet because i wanted to put my own thoughts out first but i have seen some comments already so

anyway im Stupid As Fuck so i dont think i Understood it At All. i usually take things at Face Value so i KNOW that many themes/symbolisms of the show had gone straight over my head.

how i interpreted it was Prince = Nobility/Innocence/”good”. utena wanting to be a prince (a masculine role) meant more as wanting to be (a protector) because she has stated that “she is a normal girl that wants a boyfriend”. ((i love her for this and i relate so much)) [[tho thinking about it the term “futsu” might mean “straight” in that context because they were talking about the rose engagement]]

i dont get what the duels were about in the grand scheme of things. Or the rose bride.

anthy as the “witch” came up way later, so i understood that more when paired with the “stole the prince from the world” backstory. I dont see how she became The Rose Bride. Is it that she is a slave to the demands of everyone or something. 

im going to ignore all of the dark rose arc because it was like net zero information.

i saw gifs of someone (im Assuming its Nanami) turning into a car (in the movie???) so i always assumed the Ohtori car was supposed to be Anthy but iunno, ill find out. not sure if the car is symbolic of s*x or something

the OP sequence and song, the art, everyone: oh man Utena and Anthy are so in love

me: oh they seem like nice friends

noah fence, i really must be reading it wrong, but they seem like nice friends. 😅 utena never ended up calling anthy by her first name (i thought for sure it would have happened by half way) and the majority of the eps, theyre kinda just doing their own thing. Utena treats everyone mostly the same and its not like she coddles anthy, so seeing her banter with Wakaba gives more on Utena then when its the two. (tho utena not calling her by first name might be a “shounen” thing because she was playing the prince role)

“but what about the whole bed scenes!!! you dont just do that with A Friend” well the only thing i got from that is that utena wants anthy to open up but anthy never had the heart too and later utena realizes she was being naive for just Saying That and never Trying to see anthy’s pain

i find it Very hard to believe that Utena was “happiest when she was with anthy”. like sure, i guess maybe the most mundane moments were a good memory in the grand scheme of the rest of the nonsense but in terms of “romantic feelings” she obvious leans towards males. And Im not saying that she cant be Bi, but there was never a romantic attraction to Anthy. (if youre saying that shes attracted to The Prince in her past and both Toga and Akio had exhibited some form of that and thats why shes blushing around them, that doesnt disprove her being attracted to males)

you might say Utena does not need to be romantically attracted to Anthy for them to be close and i do agree. They do have have special bond, i can see this, and i'm glad that Anthy can finally step away from Akio to go look for the person who tried to save her. 

(again i am so fucking stupid because i was (fed) the “Anthy stepping out of her coffin, leaving abusive Akio”, “Utena not Revolutionizing THE World but A World, Anthy’s World”. So i cant take any credit for those thoughts)

Its always hard to read Anthy because she’s so straight face and you can never take her words at face value. There was the one line that was said in a preview “Ive always hated you” but it was never said in the episode (im Pretty sure it was never said?) so the whole Anthy/Akio/Utena triangle really confuses me. Like, Anthy trying to jump and apologizing feels like her being honest to loving Utena but at the same time she was the one that stabbed Utena in the final duel and it could be because she still loves Akio despite everything that he’s done to her so shes battling it with herself.

I do acknowledge that they do love each other, given how they had poisoned(?) tea and cookies with a smile and then the roof scene. Anthy smiling at the end makes me very happy for her and i hope they are happy together, but it doesnt mean that i can see them as lovers (yet)

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh what else

Miki, Nanami and Juri are the best trio, i love anything with the 3 of them together. My favorite scene ever has to be when theyre just vibing at the council table and Nanami and Miki are talking about their unrequited love and Juri  is like “oh you silly children” and theyre like “youre one to talk”. So much fun, love them. 

Also loved when theyre playing badminton with Utena before the final show down and how theyre all like “oh we’re falling for you” but in such a cute supportive way

50% of the reason i started the show was because of shinkichi mitsumune but im kinda disappointed because i can barely hear the tracks aside from the vocal duel songs and zettai unmei mokushiroku. Aside from The Piano song. 

Maybe i just have to watch the series 3 more times in 2 more languages to understand it like i did with sarazanmai. lol

[the-whumpening]

The Backstory Arc, Part 1

Masterpost | Next

Part of Ash's backstory before the events of The Caged Tiger. As this fic is a bit old, it might have some oddness about it. I did give it a quick once-over edit, but I could've missed stuff so feel free to let me know! No CW this time, it's pretty much all fluff and angst.

A crumb of context: The party has returned to Evius’ hometown of Solmar, where Ash had begun dating a half-orc/half-gnome artist named Umazura. During their time in Solmar, Evius found that a fling he had a few years prior with a djinn had resulted in a child. As djinn parents don’t typically care about their children, she had no problem turning her son over to her employer as a sideshow act. The party concocted a plan: Ash and Evius would offer a deal to the carnival owner, to do an acrobatic performance for the carnival and bring in enough money to buy the child’s freedom. Meanwhile, the other party members would sneak the child out while everyone was distracted. But Evius, in his jealousy of Uma and caught up in the passionate performance, kissed Ash . . . and immediately poofed invisible to spare himself the awkward confrontation that would entail.

------------------------------------

  Ash thumps to the floor as Evius suddenly disappears, a cold imprint left where his body had been. Where once were Evius’ sparkling eyes, now Ash sees only the tented ceiling above him. As pain shoots through his chest, he scrambles to his feet frantically and casts a message into the ether.

Evvy? Where are you?

A reply never comes.

The roar of the cheering crowd overwhelms his senses, and his heart pounds with a jolt of panic. He scans the audience, desperately searching for any familiar face to tether him back. His eyes finally land on Kane, who seems even more surprised than Ash. But before he has a chance to rejoin his friends, he feels the strong grip of a blonde half-orc on his arm.

“Ash!” He turns around, dazed, as Uma comes into focus in front of him. “I saw the performance—you guys did amazing! I had no idea you were so . . . flexible.”

Embarrassment and panic flood Ash’s cheeks, still hot with sweat and exertion. “You saw . . . all of it? Even the end?”

Uma’s smile tightens uncomfortably, a glint of displeasure in her eyes. “Yep. All of it. Like I said,” she reassures through slightly gritted teeth, “you guys did great.”

The awkward discomfort between them is quickly broken by Barnum waddling towards Ash, a smug grin spread across his greasy face. He shrugs in faux concern.

“Well, it looks like you boys didn’t pull in quite enough money! So unfortunate, but a deal’s a deal!” Tipping his enormous hat, he gives a grand bow and waves to the crowd.

If Ash were capable of perceiving the color red, his vision would be filled with it. His muscles strain and vibrate under his skin, fighting to stifle the brewing rage.

Uma holds on tighter to his arm. “Ash . . . He’s not worth it, kitty.” Her voice cuts through the fog in his brain, the moment of clarity allowing him to keep his cool a little longer. After a calming breath, he addresses Barnum.

“How much? How much did we make?”

Barnum shuffles uncomfortably. “Well, it’s hard to say, really; these things are complicated business, you se—“

“How. Much. Give me a number,” he snarls, leaning closer to the small man. At the same time, he feels some familiar presence nearby—is that magic?

The same presence must have startled Barnum, who stiffens and begins to stammer. “Ah, well, um—I think it was about 400? Either way, you’re still 200 shy, so the kid . . . stays . . . ”

As he trails off, a pile of gold coins materializes in front of Barnum. The squat, toad-like man eagerly scoops up armfuls of the coins and counts them as he jams them into his oversized hat. Ash swears he can make out a faint blue outline where the coins originated, but it’s gone before he can be sure.

“We’re square, kid! Take him; I don’t care!”

Uma tugs Ash away, reiterating: “He’s not worth it. Let’s go.”

With Barnum out of sight, Ash’s rage is replaced by anxiety once again.

“We need to find Evvy . . . ” His head swivels around as Uma pulls him through the crowd, searching for any sign of him.

“We’ll find him; don’t worry. Besides, I’m sure he’s fine.” She leads him out of the main tent, away from the circus and the source of his confusion. Ash follows along, dazed and lightheaded, glancing back towards his friends as they fade farther into the distance. “I think we need to blow off some steam, big guy.”

He nods silently, stumbling behind her, his brain numb and swirling. I just hope Mouse and Krumgus got Zephyr out safe . . . Uma drags him through the streets, down a path that's now familiar to him, before stopping at the large wooden door of her studio.

“Come on, I have a project you can help me with,” she says, pulling him inside. The studio is just as chaotic as always, but he quickly finds his favorite spot on the floor to settle into. Sitting cross-legged and his head drooped low, he fiddles uncomfortably with the hem of his shirt.

“Uma, I don't—”

“Nope, none of that,” she interjects. “We’re going to have fun, dammit! I’ve got three full buckets of paint I can't use anymore, and you're not leaving until they're empty. You got that, Kitty?”

Puzzled, Ash finally looks up to meet Uma’s gaze. She's still got the grouchy glare he’s come to expect when they work together, but underneath it is a surprising tenderness.

“What exactly are we doing?” He asks, noting the brushes in her hand and the bundle of fabric draped over her arm.

She gestures as broadly as she can without dropping her supplies. “I call it: art therapy! Here, I'll show you.”

She strolls over to an empty wall and throws the fabric over a clothesline, clipping it in place to keep it from falling. Then, she dips a wide brush into a bucket of paint and flings her arm toward the fabric, letting out a primal yell as the paint splatters onto the canvas.

“See? It's aggressive and creative.” She grabs both of his hands and pulls him to his feet. “Give it a try; I think you’ll enjoy it.”

Although his thoughts still buzz rapidly in his head, he tries to push it aside, following Uma’s lead. He grabs his own brush, gathers up plenty of paint, and roars as he, too, splatters the fabric.

He has to admit, there is something exhilarating about it—whether it's the stretch of his muscles, the freedom to be loud and messy, or the fact that he's letting out this energy with a trusted friend, he's not sure. But as the two take turns splashing paint first onto the fabric and then onto each other, he can't deny that he's feeling much more relaxed. The stress of the night lifts off him, and he finally quiets the noise in his brain.

Before long, Ash and Uma are both as splotched with paint as the canvas. When the buckets are finally emptied, she takes stock of their work and turns to Ash.

“Well, I don't know if it's exactly art,” she gestures to the canvas with a laugh, “but it was definitely fun, right?”

He admires the dripping mess of colors, feeling the lightness in his body. He lets out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding and reaches out to take Uma's hand. “Definitely. Thanks, Uma. I needed that.”

She squeezes his hand and looks him up and down before speaking. “I think we should probably go clean up,” she laughs. “I don't think your friends will be too happy if you track paint in their house.”

Uma leads him upstairs to her apartment. It's a modest, open space with little division between her living and sleeping quarters, but they pass quickly through both to reach the spacious bathroom.

“Alright, Kitty, take it off,” she commands. His heart leaps into his throat for a second; he still hasn't quite gotten used to taking his clothes off in front of her, despite regularly posing in his underwear for her as a live model. Before his nervousness kicks in, he quickly removes his shirt and pants, holding them over his underwear as if to subtly cover himself. Uma rolls her eyes with a smirk and strips down to her underclothes as well.

Again, Ash’s heart flutters wildly. Uma isn't exactly a prudish person, but he'd never seen quite this much of her before. He can barely keep his eyes off her as she bends to turn on the tap in the bathtub. The curve of her hips had always entranced him, but never quite like this.

When she turns back around, he can feel his cheeks growing hot, hoping she didn't notice. A shrewd narrowing of her eyes suggests she did, but she says nothing as she kneels by the tub to start scrubbing her clothes. Ash follows her lead, and the two work in silence for a while.

After their clothes are free of paint and hung to dry, they both rest on the couch, and Uma finally addresses the tiefling in the room.

“So . . . ” she starts, her arm draped over Ash’s shoulders. “Are you ready to talk about it?”

He sighs, leaning into her and nibbling on the inside of his lip. “I guess so. Have to at some point, right?” His stomach churns as he tries to organize his thoughts and find the words to say. Why is this so hard? Sometimes I wish Kane had taught me more about people and less about mushrooms . . .

“I guess I'm just . . . confused,” he starts. “Evvy’s my friend, and he means a lot to me. But sometimes I feel weird around him, like my stomach is swirly and my heart is pounding.”

He lifts up from leaning on Uma’s shoulder and looks her in the eye. “The problem is, I also feel this way with you. I really like being with you, and I get the same weird feelings.” His pulse thuds in his neck, embarrassment coursing through him.

Uma smiles and rolls her eyes, placing her hand over his. “That's called attraction, dummy. Have you . . . have you ever dated anyone before?”

Ash looks down into his lap, anxiously tracing the stripes on his thigh to distract from his shame.

“No, I . . . I haven't. I don't have any experience at all with this stuff. Kane explained it a little, but this is the first time I've ever really . . . ” He trails off, unable to find words for the first time in a while. “Sorry. I just--I have no idea what I'm doing.” A wry chuckle bubbles up, and Ash can't help but laugh at the irony: all this new intelligence, and I still feel like an idiot when it comes to people.

“Hey,” Uma cups his cheek in her hand and lifts his face up. “I didn't mean to make you feel bad. It's okay to be inexperienced. And it's okay to be confused. I think you just need to try things for yourself and see how it makes you feel, you know? Look, sometimes you have to put your head aside and just listen to your body.”

Ash closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, he tries to shut off the faucet of thoughts running through his mind, focusing instead on just the sensation in his body. With Uma’s bright blue eyes and constellations of freckles before him, he feels his chest tighten and grow warm. Goosebumps rise on his arms as he moves his gaze up and down, and he can feel his pulse quicken.

“That's a good start,” Uma praises, tapping his cheek affectionately. “But I have some other plans as well.”

With that, she pulls him in toward her, moving her hand from his cheek to thread her fingers in his hair. Before Ash can react, she presses her lips to his, holding him in place with a surprisingly firm grip.

His eyes shoot wide for a second in surprise, a small yelp catching in his throat. It’s not exactly the same as earlier—Evius’ kiss was quick and passionate, disorienting beneath the bright lights and adrenaline. Uma’s is softer, less hurried, but still makes his nerve endings burn and his stomach flutter.

She pulls away, dragging her lips across his cheek, down his jaw, and onto his neck. His breath shudders, then catches in his throat. A sharp, satisfying pain pierces his neck, and the image of an elk being crushed in his jaws flashes in his mind.

“Ow!” He jerks back, Uma’s teeth scraping against his skin as she detaches. “What was that for?!”

Uma grins evilly, pressing closer towards him. “It's a hickey, Kitty. It's just a bruise—it’ll fade in a couple days. No stress, big guy.” She reaches one hand onto his thigh, the other still keeping a loose hold on the back of his neck. “So tell me, how are you feeling now?”

With the fog cloud forming in his head, Ash finds it hard to pinpoint exactly how he feels. His whole body is tingling and buzzing, and he can feel his heart thumping in his fingertips. Where her hand caresses his thigh, his muscles shake with an unfamiliar anticipation. Is this good? Is this what it's supposed to be like?

Uma eyes him suspiciously, gently tugging his hair to lift his head. “See, that's the problem. You're still up in your head.” He raises an eyebrow in confusion. “Yes, Kitty, I can practically see the gears turning. Relax.”

Ash continues to chew on the inside of his lip, and Uma groans sarcastically.

“I guess I have to do everything myself, don't I?” she grumbles, vaulting effortlessly over Ash's legs to straddle his lap, using both hands to pin his shoulders back. “Now, where was I?”

[greysfall]

My 4444-word review of NEO TWEWY (with personal illustration + heavy spoilers)

My overall critical score for the game is 7.5/10, while my personal enjoyment score is 8.5/10. This review is posted as I have 80% completed the game, got the secret ending and achieved the Angel psychic rank. I’ll first start with the main pros and cons as follows.

PROS:

-        Enjoyable as a whole, still upholding the first game’s spirit in world building and sharing the same backbone - which was mostly revealed in the Secret Reports, it’s impossible to grasp the story without reading them.

-        The new cast and new game is charming in their own way

-        The old cast’s return is one of the biggest highlights for sure, it was fun and impactful. Everyone stays true to themselves and also had their own stories wrapped up nicely.

-        Boss designs are cool, new pins are fun to use and collect

-        The connection between the old and new cast is well written and executed, including but are not limited to the tension between the old and new protagonist, the weird but fun interaction between the 2 Composers, the new friendships revealed and formed

-        Sho being in the main cast is something so uniquely TWEWY and uniquely Sho

-        Still good music

-        Still many fun side quests, some of them really uphold the same quirky spirit of the old game and some are surprisingly touching

-        Many new nice stores and yummy looking foods to explore

-        The map is really easy to memorize for me, it’s fun to travel around the “current” Shibuya to see all the differences compared to the past

-        The social network is crazy and interesting to read through

-        Has an anti-frustration system to help 100% complete the game more easily and earn money faster, so post-game is relatively managable.

-        Overall, I really feel the efforts the team poured into making this as their passion project, not just during the development process but for all the last 14 years. They showed the vision of what they wanted to make, at the same time giving something to both the old as well as new fans.

CONS:

-        The biggest problem with the game is scenario writing. The story is so heavily back-loaded. The director himself thought it would be better to balance out the tension flow by adding more at the beginning but gave in to the scenario writer in the end, probably due to time pressure. This results in an underwhelming execution of characterization and lots of wasted potentials for the first half of the game.  

-        I struggle to view it as a stand-alone game, since the backstory and the old cast both play such an important role in the core of the game. If someone plays this game without having played the OG, they can only enjoy it on surface value at best.

-        The new cast is nice but most of them aren’t quite as intriguing as the old cast, maybe it’s cuz they’re all too nice deep down that they lack a little bit of an edge, of that batshit craziness that everyone in the OG used to have? I think some characters (Fret, Nagi) ended up weaker in terms of characterization because the writer is too afraid of making them unlikeable – which kind of backlashed cuz they only became likable in the most expectable way to cater for a specific group of fans. I would have wished for the other team leaders to be more crazy too, had they not suffered 30+ loops of the Game…

-        The CAMERAWORK IS HELL.

-        Gameplay does get tedious at certain points with all the time travels.

-        Shiba is so badly written as a villain, some Shinjuku characters should be given more screentime cutting into Shiba’s– like Hishima or Kaie or even, Hazuki (though his limited presence also solidified his importance).

-        Some of the main character designs, for example Beat’s hairstyle and his food reactions are hilariously bad. What’s the point of covering up most of his unique facial features?

-        Some of the minor/side characters’ design are too cool for them to have such a small role (eg: Ayano, Eiru). Ryoji did get much screentime but is nowhere as fun as Makoto was.

-        Overall the scope of this game is made a little too big for the team to handle as perfectly as the last game that was very compact, it felt somewhat rushed in development too so the missing pieces are clearly there in the final picture

The entry fee versus paying for it all in the end

An important difference between the Neo game and the original Shibuya game was that the Shibuya rule asked for an entry fee that is the Player’s most important asset, stated as a chance the Composer gives them to reexamine themselves. Meanwhile, the Shinjuku rule neither encourages nor allows personal growth and ultimately aims to erase as many Players as possible. It’s a pity we were never introduced to the full Shinjuku rulebook, as it seems like the system there focuses more on building up power and a grand government to compare with the individuality-driven system of Shibuya.

When you have to compare the new game and the original game (OG), this is an important factor to consider. Also, the OG has a serious storyline running through and through, locked with a different partner/GM creating unique atmosphere for each week and you don’t get to see your old partners again until the end. NEO’s team system does not allow such deep insight and communication between the Players. All of your teammates are always there throughout, the dynamic does change with each new addition but it is not as prominent as a partner change.

Another important factor is how the OG was built from scratch for a new platform as “something no one has ever seen before”, while Neo recycled a lot of old unused ideas from the previous development (check out this interview for more details). The development team for NEO lacks 2 key members and had a change of writer so the final product is not as strongly bound together as the last game.

The new cast is definitely inspired by today’s teenagers (from the view of creators), compared to the old cast they’re more sociable and always seem to take whatever works for them despite feeling unstable inside. They are all innocent and genuinely nice kids, avoiding to hurt each other to a degree that they end up keeping some sort of distance. They’re also unable to communicate at deeper levels, always stagnant at this half-baked stage of equilibrium without any motivation to get to the core of things. That is the cost of entering the game without an entry fee, without even dying or having a reason to be there/to fight seriously. These kids were stolen from the RG into a Game that was decidedly the worst environment for them to change or develop, just wandering around cluelessly to find a way “out” until tragedies started to unfold one by one and they ended up being charged the total sum of the price for their actions – ultimately losing everything in the end.

That is, I believe, a story arc which can resonate more to the youth of today rather than of my generation. If the message of the old game was to “listen”, enjoy life to the fullest and accept to trust others, the message of the new game is to “speak up” from the inside, trying to understand yourself and take actions instead of just going with the flow and finally, to take responsibility for such actions.

If Neku was handpicked by the Composer for being the special one with an all-dense soul to ensure victory of the game then Rindo was just a normal kid chosen out of random by Kubo to be his back-up plan, who just happened to have a high enough imagination to awaken the incredible power from his pin. Rindo was then officially chosen by the Composer as Josh picked up and handed the pin to him again, this time not as Josh’s personal Proxy – but as the Proxy to represent the normal people of Shibuya and via whom he could gamble if humans can fight for their own fate.

The underworld heroine and the hero with little of his own

Shoka is for me a refreshing and layered heroine. She’s the kind of character that took at least 3 trials of creators to form as a complete individual – that included Nomura who gave her the base design and Reaper background, Gen who gave a more cunning touch and the writers who made her English dialogues more punchy. Dishonesty equals “tsundere” is such a cliché, so the English writers tried really hard to avoid that trope in my opinion, while still letting her good intention come through.

She serves as the character who is informed of everything the players should have known, and there was almost nothing she could do about it. Almost. Until she met Rindo.

They were drawn to each other by sharing a state of “not having anything of their own”. They both started out with not being able to truly know themselves, Shoka even hated her RG life but also managed to mature from that stage before Rindo. She must have vibed with Shiki’s love and passion in the Gatto Nero threads, initiating her connection with Shibuya and understanding herself more. With Shoka as Swallow, they were able to open up to each other and offer mental support… but was still not getting to the centre of their problems because for all this time, Shoka could not tell Rindo the most important things about herself.

How did Shoka feel when she met Rindo at the UG? She probably didn’t want to hope that he would live the day until she witnessed the Twisters’ potentials. From the very beginning, they were both incredibly conscious of each other and also constantly frustrated that the person they happened to “notice” was such a condescending bitch/a clueless loser. The Shinjuku Reapers are overall quite drunk in power and uncompassionate to Players, Shoka included. She is also a master of dissociation, which results in her constant boredom, tone swings, haughtiness and subconsciously distancing herself from the friend – the boy she cares about – from false hope, as she judged from facts that it was a hopeless situation where nothing could ever be. Maybe she is naturally a bit of a chameleon just like her name suggests (Shoka 紫陽花 = hydrangea, the color-changing flower), so putting on an act and always dissociating herself from what’s important was easy, while hiding her contradiction was impossible. It was the ex-Reaper Beat who broke it out to her, that she should decide whether she really cared and wanted to do something for a change. He knew how it felt like to cross that line, and knew she wanted to too.  

Shoka is endeared by many of the Shinjuku Reapers and has shown independent acts of kindness (the Shinjuku ghost), proving that her kind and truthful side is as real as her harsh and dishonest side – which makes her a nice mirror to the previous heroine Shiki, who also embraced a dichotomy of self-complex and self-love within her character. In the end, she was the first of the new cast to ultimately accept all that is important to her and independently made the decision to help save Shibuya despite all costs.

She was jealous at Rindo’s interaction with Tsugumi and Kanon but remained silent cuz she wasn’t at a place to have any say about it. She also didn’t reveal about Swallow because that would only add an awkward irrelevance to their current situation, as she was too ready to face erasure at the end of the Game. She only wished to “play a game” with him, be it FanGo or the Reapers’ Game. The tension that the team could only feel at the end, she’s felt it the entire time. The song “DIVIDE” is applicable to not just one bond in the game, but it always makes me think of theirs. There is always a “divide” between her and Rindo throughout the course of their journey, as the living and the dead, as a Player and Reaper, as someone who has a place to return to and someone who doesn’t, someone who knows little but wields too much power and someone who knows a lot despite not being able to do much.

“If only I had the chance to connect with you on the other side

But time goes on, and without us realizing it

The battle is getting heated

Time goes on, and without us realiazing it

Divided again”

To be honest, maybe I didn’t grow any affection for the new main cast from Rindo’s perspective but from Shoka’s. Since I started to sympathize with Shoka, I started to see the boy in a more “real” way. The real Rindo, behind his peaceful façade with others, would lash out on Shoka for her unfairly harsh attitude while none of the others cared. He could also subtly feel that mantle of unspoken secrets from her, her own contradictions, the unresolved chemistry between themselves – and not knowing what to do with it rather than to feel angry with all the unfairness he could not process. (As a Libra too, he’s triggered the most by unfairness!)

It is actually a positive development as he’s at least “reacting” to something strongly now rather than to keep evading his problems. During my replay, I clearly saw the difficult situation Shoka was in, her remaining harshness after the Motoi incident was due to her internal struggle with a mission to save her own life, versus a chance to really be with the team. Her decision was to do both at the risk of losing favour from both sides. Rindo started to accept her layer by layer, as the person who resonated the most to her contradicting nature from the start and knew that via learning her resolve, he has learnt his too.

Later into the game, she even got too much of his attention. Maybe even without knowing she’s Swallow, he’s familiar with her thinking direction and Swallow had always been closer to him than any other friend. It was only after she had to betray her important ones twice that she could start being truly honest. The scene when she died a 2nd time left a strong impression in me, the little reveal let Rindo know that he is also losing Swallow as he’s losing Shoka – and that only death could drive the last secret out of her. Her final “Later, loser” echoed through Rindo as it was the final truth, with only him remaining to hear it: they had actually, already lost everything.

Rindo was the boy who never dared to face all that matters to him until he lost it all, fighting an unfair battle in the faith that they would somehow still win. Shoka was the girl who always knew what was dear to her, but never dared to think she could be together with them ever after and still threw her all into a battle she knew was losing. I think they stir each other on naturally to fill out their gaps, similar to what the Shibuya game partner systerm would have aimed for. The end reward was a little divine intervention to help close up the divide between them once and for all.  

During the game there was not enough space to process anything personal so at the ending when they officially became “friends”, it was an important affirmation of their bond. Some people complained it was friendzoning but it’s not, they just have arrived at the perfect place to start something more. “From now on, we will truly be together” – I read it as that kind of message.  

The heroine from a lost battle, with her story taken away

After reading the secret reports and playing the game to be surprised of how small a role Tsugumi had in the main game despite being the “Hype-chan” thought to be a major character of the next TWEWY installment, many fans would feel sad at a missed opportunity to see the Shinjuku arc in full depiction.

It was shown clearly that, a Shinjuku arc was very carefully planned out and is a vital part of the whole story, yet it could not be made due to various circumstances behind the development scene. I would assume, that the team were not able to make a TWEWY game that ended on a despairing note, but it already happened in their mind, thus becoming a mental burden that forced them to break away from it and started the game anew with NEO. A significant part of NEO became the healing arc for the Shinjuku characters, especially for Tsugumi though I really wished more emphasis should have been placed on her rather than Shiba. We didn’t even get to see her brother – Shinjuku’s Conductor who had a vital role and instead was given the clueless Shiba, who had absolutely no idea what’s going on all the way until the last day in NEO. It’s as if Tsugumi has had her story stolen away from her, because her own battle ended with a saddening loss.

I think every time the game creators look at Tsugumi, they would feel that sadness too. Maybe to them, she is a bigger character than what is seen by the fans, as despite their failed effort to depict her story, she’s lived in their mind for all these years through periods of destruction, healing and rebuild.  Though it is a pity we could not get to experience the full scope of the Shinjuku story, the creators was clear about the place they wished for it to arrive at.    

Individuality, connection and the social network

The team system adapted from Shinjuku rulebook does not allow much room for personal development, as the team dynamic is closer to a work relationship forced to bear results, than a spiritual bond to max out all corners of understanding as found in the partnership system. The old Shibuya system allowed only 1 winner and 1 week limit per game, while the new rule declares for a 1 winning team and only the team at last place will be erased – the other teams will enter another loop. Furthermore, whichever team to challenge the unwinnable Ruinbringers will face the risk of ending up dead last followed by erasure. As a result, the longest-standing teams are most likely not the strongest ever recorded, but the ones who have figured out a strategy to simply survive until something changes, enjoying their newly found social constructs while they are at it. Basically, it is a system to hypnotise players into the illusion that they are still “living”.

Therefore, we as players would not get to the core of each Player individually as fast and directly as we did in the last game. The Twisters were able to stand out not because they’re powerful, they only started to have a real chance after growing enough to each form a meaningful and personal connection to another teammate. It did not come as a team, nor did it intiate from the existing friendship between Rindo and Fret. In fact, I did not find much solidity or anything truly note-worthy about the main team and new characters within themselves until they started clashing with other team members, Reapers and new recruits from week 2 onwards. Rindo found his personal development with Shoka (via a clash with Motoi and pretty much a mini dating sim between them), then via the confrontation of his role with Neku; Fret found his with Kanon then Nagi, the team learned about the real Neku via Beat, Neku entered the UG via Coco’s wish to save Tsugumi… it was not the team but their personal links that empowered them to fight and solve each of their problems.

The other team leaders may have failed because they did not form such personal links, after 30+ hopeless loops Fuya’s team all fell apart to pursue their own interest even at the cost of erasure, Motoi quit his KOL façade to work like a dog for the Reapers (probably to save just his own ass not his team), while Kanon dropped her tricks to find changes via honest cooperation in acceptance of a fair loss. The despairing note in that is huge without making much of a scene because their failure didn’t happen at their best effort to “win”, but in their last attempt to find a way “out”. Even Shiba got his way “out” in the end thanked to his personal friendship with Hishima and Tsugumi.

Something has shifted in the mindset of the game creators in the last 14 years, as both games are about “connection vs individuality” but the last game focuses more on connection between just individuals and this one on the overall network that is formed out of those individual connections.

The introduction of Beat into the main cast was truly the bridge between old and new, they helped each other out in several turns before officially recruiting him. Beat is a character whom a lot of fans including myself have felt somewhat concerned about after Neku disappeared from the RG, so when the new kids welcomed Beat with warm and organic interaction and Beat seemed happy, I started to feel like I wanted to help them out too! I think the overall team chemistry is enjoyable enough for new players, but I could warm up to the new kids more from the pov of a returning character – whom I’m glad to be Beat, as the older brother figure who is genuinely kind, fun, serious and upbeat at the same time; who is needed and needs the kids in return.

The social network is a fun and refreshing feature. You can read all of the crazy tidbits about Shibuya and the links each character have formed with the town people, it’s also fun to visualize how the characters act off screen. Characters’ profiles provide extra insight into their background too, like how it reveals Tsugumi has been friend with Coco during her time in the RG. During the game when not all characters have showed up, you can sometimes guess which empty spot will belong to whom. For example there is a 1 character linking to Neky that is not linked to anyone else, so I could guess that was Joshua, and that another character linking only to Joshua was probably Hazuki, hinting that the 2 Composers are related before either of them even showed up.

Hazuki only showed up for 5 minutes, but his presence is so vital and true to the game that I think he is the most memorable out of the new cast. The two Composers have such an intriguing bond, with their yin/yang or phoenix/dragon themes, opposite color design, the sempai/kouhai tone and the way they keep some sort of distance/work relationship as if it’s mandatory between Higher beings, yet at the same time they can talk so casually because they are truly equal – and different from one another. I have written a separate meta on them here.

Some people pointed out, that all Shinjuku characters’ names and themes are based off Hanafuda cards and the Phoenix in Hanafuda belongs to the Paulownia suit – which is Joshua’s name flower. This is so interesting because it feels like the creators somehow saw it as a sign to interweave the Shibuya and Shinjuku storylines together. Though it doesn’t come out much on the surface, it’s fascinating nonetheless considering both Josh and Haz had at some point interfered with the other town’s affairs.

“Shibuya tour with Haz” was such a special scene, as it happened between 2 characters who do not/no longer have a reason to care about Shibuya, on the subject of what is worth saving about Shibuya. Hazuki carried out the purification of Shinjuku and stepped in to restore Shibuya just as part of his job and unlike Hanekoma or Joshua who both possess profound understanding of humanity, he really didn’t know humans at all. Rindo’s irrational wish invoked in him a sense of curiosity, to try gambling on something irrationally and learning a bit of what his senior have experienced. With all the pieces put together, it provides an overview on Higher beings as a whole, and that Joshua and Hanekoma are really the odd ones out with Hazuki being somewhere in between them and the rest.        

The old friends

It’s easy to have returning characters overshadow the new cast as they have already matured out of their personal story arc and stayed in our hearts for all this time. In the end, I have managed to enjoy both the old and new cast separately and altogether, and they will both find their own place in our memory of this game for the long term.

Sho is truly as crazy as ever, the game wouldn’t be the same if Sho is any less of what he is. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like Neky or Beat is younger than Nagi at all, with moments when it seems like Neky has aged 14 years instead of 3 years. His friendship with Coco surprised me pleasantly, and their interaction together with Beat was fun to watch. Rhyme’s found a new dream and her friendship with Kaie is precious too, especially considering that she can still talk to him online after the game ended. Josh and Neku’s interaction suggested that they have resolved the past and are on equal terms now, they even parted ways in good spirit and I don’t feel any worry about them like I did before.

Neku and Shiki’s reunion scene was beautiful, theirs is such a special bond that it has grown and supported them even without being able to see each other. I am so happy to see them all again and that they stay true to who they are, albeit looking more grown up, cooler and happier than ever before.  

Overall, NEO can’t become a classic on par with the OG, but is definitely a good sequel and a good game in its own rights. I’m happy with whether or not there will be a 3rd game to complete the 3 monkeys theme, but if there will be – I hope the creators can really find the time to learn from the last 2 games and start over with a fresh mindset and strong core.  

[shihalyfie]

Regarding Konaka’s influence on Tamers (or how much he actually didn’t have)

(Rest assured that if you’ve had a conversation with me recently about this issue, I’m not vaguing you; this conversation has come up a lot in the last few weeks, especially in my private chats, so this is just me deciding that I should write something about this for once since it’s been weighing on my head lately.)

I think, right now, with what happened regarding the DigiFes debacle, a lot of people are having complicated feelings about how to feel about Tamers, and this is completely understandable. I think there are also some things that may be inevitably unavoidable, such as starting to second-guess certain nuances in the series and what they might lead to. All of that is perfectly reasonable, and in the end, it’s going to be up to everyone to decide how they feel.

In light of this, a lot of people have been bringing up the fact that, while Konaka was the head writer, he was by no means the only person working on it. This is very much true, but I’d like to add something else to the equation: this is an issue that goes much deeper than the usual claiming death of the author for the sake of sanity. The full picture is that Konaka has always had much less influence on the series than the fanbase tends to attribute to him. Official statements have been very clear as to not attribute the entire series to him, and, among all the other controversial statements he’s made, Konaka himself has at least been very active about crediting the other staff members as far as their influence on the series! The idea that he was the only person who ever did anything substantial for Tamers is something I’ve been warning against since long before any of this happened (if you want proof, I have a post from April with this sentiment in it), and right now we just happen to be seeing what’s basically the worst possible outcome of the fanbase constantly worshipping him like the only real creative heart behind the series to borderline cult-like levels...when that’s never been true, and has resulted in unfairly taking credit away from people who deserved it.

I’ll go into detail below, and I hope this can help people understand the situation better and sort out how they feel about it.

Note that I make references to his infamous blog in this post, which I’m deliberately refraining from directly linking for obvious reasons, but all of the information is still there, so it should be verifiable if you decide to look for it yourself.

Personally, I’ve always found it really bizarre how there’s been this obsession with portraying Konaka as some kind of auteur whom the entirety of Tamers depended on. I’m not saying this out of spite towards him, because, again, even he himself was very insistent on disclaiming credit for things he wasn’t actually responsible for (he was quite humble in this respect, actually). Not to mention that I think it’s a mistake in general to constantly pin a single person in a multi-person production as the sole heart behind it, and the Digimon fanbase has historically had this strange double standard behind it when it comes to uplifting him as the only heart behind Tamers when nobody says that about any of the head writers for...anything else. (How many times has Nishizono’s name ever popped up when talking about Adventure? People are usually more obsessed with talking about Kakudou or Seki.) Konaka’s work is certainly distinctive, but Tamers had a lot more going on besides just that.

In fact, based on his own statements on the matter and all of the other official information we’ve gotten about Tamers production, while you can’t really quantify such things, it’s generally been estimated that Konaka was responsible for something like only a fourth of the series. Which is an incredibly low amount compared to what the fanbase would have told you before all of this happened, because of this fixation that he must be the genius mastermind behind the whole series. Not only that, this “brilliant auteur” image of him was so inflated that people were attributing way more of 02 to him than he deserved; 02 episode 13 was the only thing he contributed to the series and he was specifically brought on as a “guest writer”, and the overall plot of the episode was determined by the rest of the production staff and not him -- but ask the fanbase and they’ll tell you stories about how he invented some grand planned arc for 02 that got cancelled, or even that Tamers exists because of a “writer revolt” from him and other writers not being allowed to do what they wanted. (You know, as much as I understand 02′s a controversial series, it would be really nice if people didn’t make up completely baseless stories like this just to scapegoat it...)

I honestly cannot emphasize enough how much of the problem we’re in right now has been horribly enabled by the weird pedestal the fanbase has been putting him on. This is to the point where there’s even been a double standard where some of the more unpopular/criticized elements of Tamers must not have been the fault of a brilliant writer like him, and in fact was forced on him by the executives (this excuse had always been brought up anytime someone doesn’t like something about Tamers, just to make sure the image of him as a perfect writer was maintained). Turns out, as per his own admission on the infamous blog, while he wasn’t the one who initially had the idea of putting Ryou in, the part that rubbed the fanbase the wrong way -- that he came in as an accomplished senior who was better than everyone and played up by everyone in the cast -- was unabashedly his idea (he apparently was enamored with the idea of having someone like Tuttle from the movie Brazil). Again, this is a weird scenario where even Konaka himself has been more humble about this issue than the fanbase’s perception of him; he fully admitted whenever he had trouble writing certain parts. For instance, he doesn’t actually like writing about alternate worlds, felt they were out of his comfort zone, and only wrote in the Digital World because the franchise needs one; he’d stated that if he’d had his way, the Digital World arc wouldn’t have come in as early as it did, which might be a pretty shocking statement for a Digimon fan to hear.

If you want even more specifics, here are some extremely major parts of the series that Konaka was not actually the one behind:

The character backgrounds. Konaka stated on his blog that he wasn’t interested in going too much into character backstories because he felt it was too plot-limiting to say that a character is the way they are thanks to something in their past or background (basically, he cares more about plot than character for the most part), and that he’s also not into worldbuilding. Certain things like Ruki going to a girls’ school were supplied by Seki, who infamously loves worldbuilding, family backgrounds, and character settings.

Certain nuances of Ruki’s character, especially the part where she’s pigeonholed into uncomfortable places due to being a girl, were informed by Yoshimura Genki, writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02 (who eventually would go on to create an entire career out of feminist cinema).

According to the posts on his blog, Impmon’s character arc didn’t have much input from Konaka himself and was largely written in by Maekawa Atsushi (also a writer from Adventure and one of the head writers of 02).

The whole concept of Yamaki being redeemable in the first place was something Konaka didn’t originally plan for; he’d initially intended to make him a straightforward antagonist, but, of all things, his Christmas song, combined with the input of the other writers (especially Maekawa) humanizing him, led to the development where Yamaki eventually changed sides and became sympathetic. (This makes Konaka’s recent stunt revolving around Yamaki a bit painfully ironic.)

The director, Kaizawa Yukio, was deliberately picked because he didn’t have experience on the prior series, for the sake of changing things up, and he spent Tamers as a period of studying what Digimon should be like. Based on what he’s hinted, it seems Konaka's writing style and choices were able to have as much influence as they did because Kaizawa approved of them -- that is to say, Konaka’s detailed imagery and descriptions were extensive enough that Kaizawa could go “sure, let’s go with that.” But in the end, nothing Konaka did would have gone through unless Kaizawa and Seki (among many others) didn’t also approve of it or provide input. Moreover, Kakudou Hiroyuki (director of Adventure and 02) has also been stated many times to have been a valuable consultant on invoking Digimon so that the new staff could understand what to aim for and how to get the right feel (and also assisted with providing stuff for the mythos, such as the Devas). Nevertheless, Kaizawa also seems to have had his own strong opinions and input on the story; he especially seems to get passionate when it comes to the topic of making the story something the kids watching it could relate to and imagine. (He would eventually go on to direct Frontier and Hunters, along with several episodes of the Adventure: reboot.)

So in other words, looking at this, a lot of these things that people emotionally connected to and loved about Tamers are things that literally were not his personal creation, and were largely contributed by the other writers! Of course, Konaka’s “creator thumbprint” is very obvious -- he was the head writer, after all -- and all of this had to go through his own vetting to make sure he personally liked it as well -- but nevertheless, you can see that this very much was a collaborative effort from head to toe, with him being very open about this fact himself. Insisting on making sure that this fact is well-known isn’t just a coping mechanism to try and remove his presence in the series, but rather a desire to get people to seriously stop giving him credit that really should be going to others (especially since, again, even he himself was very diligent about assigning that credit).

In the end, I’ll leave you with another thing to keep in mind: Konaka doesn’t get paid anymore for Tamers work (unless they make something new like the DigiFes thing), so continuing to buy Tamers merch and supporting the series through fanart and such will probably end up going more towards the Digimon IP as a whole. Basically, if we’re just talking about Tamers specifically, what degree this is going to matter is only really relevant to the content in the original series, which is now twenty years old and remains unchanged. By Konaka’s own admission, he wasn’t into all of these conspiracy theories until 2010 at the earliest, so while it’s understandable to be a bit wary about the themes in Tamers having traces of the base sentiment, the original series itself does not seem to be an outlet for alt-right propaganda, and it’s probably forcing it a bit much to read into it that way. Konaka’s also repeatedly insisted that all of his attempts at a Tamers sequel have been rejected and that he’s been doing increasingly strange swerves to get around members of the original cast not entirely being available, and the Japanese audience has turned out to not be very fond of the contents of the 2018 drama CD and the stage reading for reasons entirely separate from the politics, so it’s also unlikely we’ll be getting a Tamers sequel from him or something in the near future.

So -- at least for the time being -- what’s done with him is done, and the remaining question is how all of us feel about Tamers. I think everyone will have differing feelings on it, and that’s perfectly understandable. Personally, given everything I just said above, I’m going to continue treating it as a series very important to me, and one that many people (including, as it seems, a very different Konaka from twenty years ago) worked on with a lot of effort and love, although you may see me getting a bit more willing to be critical about the series and its themes thanks to my concerns about some of the sentiments in it and what they imply. I also completely understand that there are probably people whose associations are going to be much more hurt and who will have a much harder time seeing the series the same way ever again, and I think that’s reasonable as well. But at the very least, going forward, I hope all of us can understand the depth of this situation, give credit where it’s due, and not force credit where it’s not due.

[sashi-ya]

{+18} - Law x Fem Best Friend ♥ CH.1

♥ Daily living with the Heart pirates crew AU  ♥ Spoilers after Dressrosa Arc. Law´s backstory.  ♥ Female reader. Little physical description. Everybody is 18+, canon ages.  ♥ TW: Nightmares related to PTSD. no further warnings. If you think I should include some feel free to tell me ♥ ♥English is not my first language, so If you happen to find some grammar or vocab mistakes, I’m sorry ♥´

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31053383

Word count: 4.1K

» List of parts: {CH1}  {CH2}  {CH3}  {CH4} {CH5} «

Chapter 1

- Polar Tang, somewhere underwater on the Grand Line. July 14th. -

“Ay ay captain, I need fresh air please, I’m dying!” Shouted Bepo asking our captain, and my best friend, Trafalgar D Water Law to please emerge from underwater. Bepo is a polar bear mink, and does not like hot environments, so he is usually hot whenever we pass a lot of time underwater in the submarine.

“Let’s emerge, guys” said Law, annoyed, but willing to make the polar bear feel better. Me, despite not being a polar bear, I’m always hot, so I praised the lord for the decision. 

“Aya aya, Thank you captain!!!” Bepo celebrated and grabbed me by the arm pulling me eagerly to the main door, because he knew how much I love to get fresh air, as much as he does. 

From the control room, Shachi and Penguin shouted, announcing that we can fully unlock the door. And so, we did. Outside there was a clear blue sky, the sun was shining, but apparently, we were close to some winter islands, so the temperature was lower than we were expecting. 

Fresh cold air hit my freckled cheeks and it felt wonderful. “Oi, Y/n-ya, don’t go outside without your coat. You are going to catch a cold”, said Law while placing a white coat over my shoulders. My best friend, despite the unfriendly appearance he normally shows, has the biggest heart and takes care of the one he loves.  

I’ve known him since we were 13 years old, while wandering on a certain island of the North Blue after losing my family.  A few weeks before knowing him, I found the Nagi no mi and became the user of it. So, when we introduced ourselves, we realized I was the new user of the devil fruit that had “Cora-san”, the person that saved Law’s life. Both of us were alone, and sad, so we held onto each other, striving to survive. I wanted to become a doctor like him, so we studied together. Now I’m his right hand whenever we have a surgery. 

“Aren’t you coming outside?” I asked Law, which was still inside, looking through the door with a listlessly gaze at the immense sea around us. He looked at me, sighed and said, “Tomorrow is 15th”.  He didn’t wait for my response and walked away. 

Our captain still misses “Corazón”, Rosinante, or “Cora-san”, as he usually calls him, and on July 15th was his birthday. He was killed by his brother, Donquixote Doflamingo, who was taken down and sent to prison by Law and the Mugiwaras, a few months ago.  I didn’t say a word, mainly because I knew how Law hates to show his feelings and even if I decide to say something, it wasn't going to help at all. The afternoon went by, and while the crew was having fun relaxing on the deck, Law didn’t show up. So, I proceeded to go see him, he usually loves to be alone, but this time I felt he needed some company.  

I headed straight to the kitchen, made his favorite tea and went to his room. “Oi, Doc, you’ve been there for a good 5 hours, I brought your fave tea. Can I come in?”, I asked, but didn’t receive any answer, so I knocked, and the door opened. “I’m sorry dumbass, it was unlocked, I brought some tea for… “I stopped when I saw Law on the floor, with red cheeks, sweated and unconscious holding something red on his hand. “Law, what the hell?” I said while placing my hand over his forehead. His skin was burning. He was running a strong fever that caused him to faint. I was worried because I didn’t know how much time had passed since he had fainted. In any case I needed to make the temperature go down, as quick as possible. 

“Law, Law, are you with me?” I asked him while grabbing him by the shoulders making soft movements. The captain vaguely opened his eyes and said “Y/n-ya… I’m ok, do… don’t worry”, “Of course you are not, your temperature is really high, why didn’t you tell me you were feeling like this?, come on you should take a bath right away”. He passed his arm around my neck and I grabbed him by his waist. Law is pretty tall, but I am stronger than I seemed, so I made him stand up and took him to the bathroom. 

I turned on the shower and helped Law to undress. Taking off first his sweated white shirt and then unbuttoning his jeans. I left him only with his boxers on, that made me giggle a little ‘because they had a heart pattern all over. 

The laughing was over because he became pretty weak so in order to avoid him falling, I had to grab him real tight, making myself enter to the open douche. We remained for a few seconds looking at each other under the running water, until he slipped a sloppy laugh at how I was becoming wet. “Dumbass don’t laugh” I apprehended him. I remained there for a few minutes letting the slightly cold water bathe his whole body, waiting for the temperature to drop.  I realized I’ve never been that close to him, we usually had zero physical contact, and as weird as it might sound this was the first time, I saw that he has more tattoos than I thought. 

“Sexy motherfucker look what you’ve been hiding”, I thought, but quickly I uprooted those thoughts off my head. “Come on, Y/n, he is like your brother….”. 

I turned off the water, extended my arm out of the shower and grabbed a towel. Wrapped him with it and as I was doing so, I noticed that Law was looking at my chest, still weak but now able to stand up without my help. 

“Take off your wet boxers, I’m not watching” I said, turning my back to him. To which he responded, “I don’t care if you look, you are like my doctor”. 

“Oh, come on, tell me when you are ready”, I said, a little embarrassed.

A few seconds later he told me he was ready and I turned back at him again, realizing that now the towel was hanging from his hip bones, leaving his whole tattooed torso naked, his hair was pretty straight from being wet and his cheeks now don’t show as much blush as before. I admired the image of the handsome man I got before my eyes for less than two seconds and told him to go to bed.  I helped him to get into bed carefully not to untie the white towel, because he was still a little weak. 

“Wait here, I’m going to the infirmary to get you some antipyretics, ok?” I ordered pointing at him. 

I was about to walk out the bedroom when I heard him say “Oi, dumbass, are going out looking like that?, Put on one of my shirts” and I realized that my underwear was showing through the transparency of my wet clothes. I widened my eyes, and my cheeks turned to fire. Without saying anything I opened the drawers grabbing a shirt and some shorts he had there. I ran to the bathroom where I got changed and left the bedroom without even looking at him. 

I walked through the hallway feeling my heartbeat faster, trying to dismiss the embarrassment I was feeling, until I got to the infirmary.

While searching for the medication I asked myself why this whole situation was making me lose my cool so easily, but no answer came out of it.

I then went to the kitchen to grab some water for Law to take the antipyretics and came back to my captain's room. 

I gave him the pills and water and waited for him to take them.

"Let me check on your temperature" I said, and he raised his arm for me to put the thermometer under his armpit. "I don't want to feel sick; I hate those pills you gave me", complaining and acting almost as if he was a little boy. I remember when we were younger. He rarely got sick after he cured himself from the amber lead disease, but whenever he felt bad, he acted as he was a kid. I always thought that was really cute and today it wasn't the exception. I teased him a little bit for being a capricious little child and he smiled, gave him shorts, because his temperature was getting lower.  I asked him if he was hungry and he assented. 

 The whole crew was still having fun on the deck, so I went back to the kitchen and made Law some soup. 

I brought the meal to the room that he devoured, despite feeling sick. We chatted a little bit until he fell asleep. "How angelic you seem sleeping and acting as a child, Law…" I whispered while contemplating his face that was slightly illuminated by the moonshine that enters from one of the little windows. 

Suddenly, something on the floor caught my eyes. It was some sort of red cloth. Picking it up I realized it was Law’s most precious treasure, Cora-san’s hat, that he was holding when I found him on the floor. I put the hat next to his face and caressed his cheek softly, "Sleep tight, Law, Corasan and I will take care of you tonight”. 

A few hours passed and the bustle of the crew slowly turned to silence as they went to bed. 

Sitting on bed next to him I must have fallen asleep until I was woken up by some grunts. Law was still asleep, but he seemed uncomfortable, he was again starting to sweat, and a few tears were running through his cheeks. I placed my hand over his forehead and his skin was burning once more, not only was he having one of those nightmares he always has, but also his fever was getting serious again. 

I went to the bathroom, got some towels wet and put them over his face and under his armpits. 

I held his hand and softly said “everything is going to be ok, Law”. You see, when someone has nightmares related to PTSD it's better not to wake them up instantly. With Law it has always been better if I slowly do it, making sure I am there for him.  He woke up, looking at me embarrassed but relieved I was there to tell him it was just a bad nightmare. 

The night went by, with me frequently changing the wet towels for more cold ones and the fever slowly stopped. My best friend went back to sleep until the next morning. 

The sunrise was invading timidly the room and the clock strikes 7 am. Time for Law to take the medicine again, I said and stand up from bed. 

I headed to the kitchen to prepare some tea and bring a glass of water to my patient.  

When I got there, I saw Penguin and Bepo looting the fridge. "Excuse me? What are you both doing?" I shouted, scaring the hell out of both of my nakamas. "Aya aya Y/n, you are gonna kill us!!". But after looking at me both of them changed their facial expression from scared to confused.  "Y/n, are you wearing the Captain's clothes? “asked Penguin, scanning my whole image from head to toe. "They suit you, really". “Whatever you are trying to suggest, stop it right there, you little shit” I said frowning and continued, “Law is sick as hell, he had a fever all night long, I’m taking care of him. He is still sleeping, don't run to him, especially you, Bepo.” I sentenced the Bear that was about to run through the hallway to hug his captain. 

“Law, oi Law, wake up, you have to take your meds”, I whisper to wake him up. Slowly he opened his eyes, letting myself admire the bold grey irises that were looking at me. He gave me a weak smile and sited on the bed, grabbed the glass of water and chugged it with the pill.  “How are you doing? feeling better?”, I asked. “uhm, I am”. “Go back to sleep, then, you should rest”, I suggested - ordered - him. He nodded getting under the sheets again, covering his face with them. A little laugh slipped out of my mouth until he said “Y/n.. can you… stay here with me? If you don’t want to, it's ok.”. How cute he acts when he wants some care… “Of course, I’m staying here, I’ve been here the whole night, what makes you think I’m leaving you now?”. A silence invaded the room, until he broke it with “Thank you, do you mind getting in bed with me?”. We have slept in the same bed before when we were younger so at first it didn't surprise me, but then, something hit my insides. I didn't know why but It made me nervous. Nevertheless, I acted cool and agreed, "Ok, make some space". 

Law moved and I got under the sheets. My body didn't know how to react, so I stayed laying down facing him until he buried his face onto my chest hugging me by my waist, really tight. I put one hand over his hair and place my other hand on his back caressing it softly up and down. I couldn't see his face, but I knew he was crying as my t-shirt began to have wet spots where his face was. He then placed his ear onto my chest, as he was trying to feel the beating of my heart and said, "I needed to hear your heartbeat, I don't want to ever stop hearing it". There weren't words to be said, I knew what he meant, so I simply gave him a kiss on his head and hugged him even harder.  

We both passed out at some point until a well-known voice woke me up saying "Daaaaaamn the captain and vice-captain are sleeping together!!!" Shachi was shouting and I realized I had the whole crew watching us from the door. The image they saw Included Law half naked, myself with my shirt up letting my back and stomach out, Law's hand over my waist and his head over my breasts, my leg over Law's legs. The perfect image to imagine every sexual situation. 

"It is not what you all are thinking! Law is sick, shut up!" I told everybody as I stranded up from bed arranging my clothes. The whole crew was laughing and making a fuss of it. “Hey, get out, Law didn’t get so much sleep last night, shut the hell up!” ... As I finished my sentence, I regretted it instantly and everybody started to laugh. Suddenly everyone shut up. I saw their faces turned to happy to fully serious followed by the voice of my captain saying “Oi, all of you, prepare to submerge. Bepo, resume the course to our destination, tomorrow we have to arrive at the next island, I don’t know why you all are wasting time. And, remember this is the last time you disrespect your Vice Captain. Is that clear?”, “Yes, Captain. We are sorry. Excuse us Y/n”, said everybody in unison, and rushed to their positions. 

I grabbed my face with both of my hands, I wanted to hide for a week. Law approached me and placed his hand on my shoulder saying, “don’t worry, they ‘ve always been like this, it’s ok”. I sighed hard and turned my face to him. He looked better than yesterday but still needed to rest. “Are you feeling better?” I asked him, and he nodded. 

I told him to go get some more rest, that I was going to have a bath and get some rest too, and then come back to check on him, and left to my room. 

Only Law and I have private rooms, so I was going to be safe from the looks of our nakamas as long as I didn't leave. 

I open the faucet and let the water fill my bathtub. Undressed and left Law’s clothes aside for me to clean them after and return them to him. I realized I had left my wet clothes and underwear on Law’s bathroom, but I didn’t stress much about it, he wouldn't see them, because I left them in the laundry bin. I relaxed for a few minutes in the hot water until the image of Law’s body covered in tattoos, hit my thoughts. 

Suddenly I discovered myself enjoying the fond memories of his anatomy. He had become such a grown-up man throughout all of these years, and I didn’t realize about it until last night. I wonder if he thinks the same way about me…? My mind sailed through the memoirs of yesterday, seeing his body covered in sweat, having him close under the shower, the feeling of his skin on my hands, his face over my breasts, him holding me from my waist, being in the same bed… every memory was making my body react and… I shook those thoughts out of my head. What the hell am I thinking? Law is my best friend; he is like family. Stop Y/n, stop right there. 

After eating something I headed to Law’s bedroom and stood up in front of the closed door. I’ve never felt the need to rehearse what I was going to say to him, but this time, I did. I felt the need. To my surprise I heard from behind the door as If someone was breathing with trouble, little moans perhaps. So, I instantly thought that my best friend was again running a fever, perhaps having trouble breathing. I opened the door without even knocking, worried and expecting to found Law suffering. I tripped and fell on my knees and what I saw next, was something far from distress or sickness… 

 There he was, sitting on his bed, fully naked, holding my bra with his left hand, breathing heavily, arching his back and neck with his head thrown back. His right hand stroking his hard member up and down, violently. 

I was still on my knees when he concluded someone had entered his room, and as fast as he could said “Room… Takt” and closed the door behind me with the simple movement of two fingers. “La… law… what… I mean, I’m sorry, I’m…” I barely mumbled still with my mouth open, unable to move, mortified for interrupting such a private practice. But at the same time unable to understand why the hell he had my bra on his hand while touching himself. 

He looked at me, still naked, meeting our eyes, both without even moving. Until he expressed a little smile and stood up. Me still on my knees, I contemplated him and his glorious body reaching to where I was. He stopped in front of me, grabbed my chin up in between two fingers. “Wha.. what are you doing, Law?” I asked, even though I didn’t take my eyes off him. “Shh…” he said rubbing his thumb over my lips and softly opening my mouth…

“Puru puru puru puru” the Den Den mushi next to my bed woke me up from my dream exalted. “Oh… It was just a dream…” I said and picked up the snail transponder. “Y/n, dinner is ready, you haven’t eaten anything all day, come to the dining area!”, I heard my nakamas shout through the speaker. 

I washed my face and looked into the mirror. My cheeks were red, my head was spinning, I was agitated, sweaty. I replayed the dream over and over, it felt so real… so… enticing. 

When I got to the kitchen my nakamas were already drinking beer and shouting as always, Law was seated on his usual spot, and Bepo was passing plates. “Oi Vice Captain! have a drink!!” some of them shouted, while Bepo handed me a big bowl of my favorite meal, read bean soup.  Shachi, who was seated next to me, bumped me with his elbow and said, “Oi, the dinner was chosen by the Captain specially ‘because he said it was your fave, fufufu…  are you both sleeping together again tonight”? I turned my face to him with the most psychotic expression I’ve ever had… “I’m sorry”, he said and directed his gaze to his plate. 

I looked at Law who smirked a little and kept eating without any talking. I gave him a little side smile and did the same. He had a better semblance than the night before, so I think his fever hasn't come back since last night. 

We finished eating and discussed the plan for tomorrow. We were supposed to arrive at a new island in the morning, not for anything special but for us to buy food and supplies needed. Usually, the whole crew divides the work, so some of them buy food, the others stuff for the submarine, and normally Law and I take care of buying medical supplies. 

Through all the conversation I was trying to avoid looking at Law as much as I could. Whenever our gaze locked, I remembered the dream over and over… I felt guilty, stupid. My cheeks burned every time I replayed it on my head. 

After having the plan settled, I waved goodnight to everybody, and left the kitchen. I was almost running through the corridor to get to my room as if I was trying to hide when I remembered that my underwear and clothes were still in Law's bathroom. 

“Ok, he is not here, this is my chance, I just have to recuperate them and run to my room”, I said while entering my best friend's bedroom.

I was scrutinizing the laundry bin in the bathroom, when I heard the door of the bedroom close. I stood still. "Damn, what should I do?" … so, I decided to use my devil fruit powers in order to avoid making any sound until I was able to figure out what I was going to do. I mean, I couldn't just get out of the bathroom like nothing happened, what would Law think? 

As the bathroom door was not fully closed, I was able to peek through it and observe what Law was doing. 

The captain took off his hat first, and then his shirt. He jumped on the bed and grabbed a book.

I was hoping for him to read some more and fell asleep, so in that moment I could get out from my now hiding spot. 

Twenty minutes passed and he was still reading. Meanwhile I admired every movement he did. From brushing his hair back, to how he licked his finger to turn the pages. My core felt fancy, I couldn’t escape from watching, deep down I wished for him to even untied his pants. I wanted to see more…  

Finally, he put the book down and turned off the lamp.  

"YES! FINALLY!" I said getting excited for my big escape but suddenly he said, "I know you are in the bathroom; I don't need to hear you to sense you, you know?". 

I froze, closed my eyes and remembered how strong his Observation haki got during the last months. I didn't say anything simply because I didn't know what to say. 

" Room… Shambles!", and without any warning I was teletransported to his bed. My ass hit the mattress hard making myself lose stability falling with my whole face over his lower abs. 

The scent of his skin invaded my nose for less than a few seconds, because I regained my posture as quickly as possible. "Law, how many times I have to tell you not to use shambles with me without any warning?!!" I scolded him. "Excuse me? You've been hiding in MY bathroom for almost half an hour and I'm the one who gets shouted at?" He said, frowning and staring into my eyes. “I was trying to recover my clothes, I wasn’t trying to hide…”, I confess, to which he responded this time laughing, “Don’t lie, I’m sure you are into voyeurism”. Widening my eyes, still seated on his bed, covering my mouth, my cheeks blushing, my heart beating faster, I was embarrassed, because deep down, after all it was what I was doing. I was enjoying the view from the bathroom, I wanted to see more, I wished I could witness an image as my dream…

“I’m kidding…”, he said ruffling my hair and smiling. God, I love his smile… I wasn’t still saying anything back when he came close to my face, and whispered into my ears, “unless… you like it…”

Chapter 2

[hayleysayshay]

On Wu’s backstory:

Wu is a character many people find annoying, but I enjoy. His backstory is vague at best. Here is what we know.

Wu is the grand nephew of Hou-Ting. He is the only heir to the throne.

At some point he moved to Republic City. Commentary implies that he was there doing a degree

At some point Mako was made his bodyguard. Commentary implies that Mako was his bodyguard for the three years.

The canon status of all commentary is debatable. As far as I see it, the show is true canon, the only reason we take the commentary as canon is because nothing contradicts it, but it is particularly substantial.

So, let’s analyse this backstory. This is all my personal opinion and headcanon and based upon what I find interesting and what fits Wu’s character as we see it in Book 4.

Was there a Royal Family massacre and is Wu traumatised?

We don’t see any other family members than Hou-Ting in Book 3. In Book 4, we are introduced to Wu, and only Wu. He is the heir to the throne.

At the end of book 3, Ba Sing Se falls to a the angry citizens of Ba Sing Se. We do see them enter the palace. They are seen looting and burning.

So, did this mob murder the rest of the Royal Family? Wu is the only heir. He is the grand nephew. This implies both his parents and grandparents are dead. What happened to them? They all must have died fairly young if Wu is the heir as a twenty something in Book 4.

I believe this is the basis of the ‘royal family massacre’ argument. Wu is too young to be the only heir to the throne. And the mob were angry. Therefore, the heirs above Wu were killed.

Now to be clear: the real reason Wu is a young heir is because Bryke wanted someone young for Mako to bounce off of. He’s around the same age as Mako but has a completely different life to him. Wu is not serious whereas Mako is. Wu is flippant and Mako is serious. Wu is extroverted and Mako is introverted. Wu is rich, Mako is not. This contrast is more fun if they’re the same age.

I say this because I think it’s clear that Wu was created with no clear trauma in mind. Wu does not act especially scared, or traumatised by the past. He is cautious and scared of hearing of Hou-Ting’s death, but acts in a comedic manner (fake strangling sounds) but then resumes a proper mourning action (may she rest in piece). Wu acts fairly silly throughout the series, enjoys the attention from fans, and even towards the end he creates a plan that he hopes will gain him attention from Korra. Wu is breezy and flippant and shallow, only really maturing towards the end and appears to be genuinely committed to dismantling the monarchy.

The trauma seen in fan works is a result of fan expansions, and personally I don’t really see it having a strong basis in the show. Wu is never really shown to be scared, or withdrawn at any points. Wu is never shown to be angry at the local populace who killed his family, as although Wu is shallow he never treats anyone badly. So is he masking? That’s totally up to your interpretation. Wu could be burying all his negative emotions and is acting out to hide his trauma. This is perfectly plausible. Personally, the lack of anger is what slightly damns this interpretation for me, I’m sure he’d show something.

Also I don’t think Wu not being fully prepared to take the throne is unreasonable— it makes sense if he was going to finish his education before starting public duties and gaining more political experience. And he could have made public experiences but still be fairly shallow. It’s implied that the Dai Li have a great degree of power so Wu not taking things that seriously or having a lot of experience is perfectly reasonable: it’s not needed for him to do so. So no, I don’t think Wu being the primary heir to the throne has to be sudden and unexpected because Wu isn’t very well prepared or serious.

How Old is Wu?

If you take the idea that he was in Republic City doing a degree when Hou-Ting was murdered, he could have been eighteen at the time, and twenty-one by the time of Book 4. He could be older. He could have started the degree at a younger age however, so he could even be nineteen at the start of Book 4.

If you ignore the idea that Wu was in Republic City prior to Book 3, and only came to Republic City to be safe after the Queen’s death, he could he even younger, potentially around eighteen in Book 4 if you HC him as young, but he could also still be older than Mako. Basically nothing confirmed, but I think it does depend on how seriously you take the commentary about the degree.

Have Wu and Mako worked together for three years?

This is going to be my strongest opinion, but I don’t think their relationship makes much sense if they’ve known eachother for three years.

I feel like this was meant to explain what Mako was doing for three years, but Mako doing his job as a detective was enough. So I don’t think it was needed.

In the episode where Wu’s coronation is ruined, Wu has a breakdown. Mako asks why he even wants to be King. He apologises, and Wu says that ‘no-one ever spoke to him like that’.

No-one has ever spoken to Wu like, even Mako. For three years? I don’t buy it. Mako is professional but he does talk back to Wu. Mako doesn’t think Wu is deserving of power just because he was born into it. I can’t believe Mako would his tongue on Wu for three years.

Also, I think Wu and Mako have a nice arc over Book 4. They get to know each-other more deeply. Mako sees the more mature side of Wu. I just don’t get the impression that they really knew each other that well beforehand, and I think you’d learn more about each other if you were together 24/7 for three years.

Obviously a lot of fan works expand on this and make the whole three years together thing make sense (by making them fuck usually and then having ensuing drama), but my critique is that I often think this over explains Wu’s character and ignores the very real shallowness Wu does show in early Book 4 by making It doesn’t meant I don’t love these fics, but I just don’t really ever reconcile them with the version of Wu we see in the show.

What I headcanon.

Again, this is literally just headcanon, and the events have no real confirmation in canon, it’s just what I think is both interesting and what I think matches with Wu’s characterisation in the show, whilst also giving him a backstory and more depth.

Wu’s grandparent and heir to the throne had one child, who became Wu’s father. This grandparent and heir dies. This grandparent dies young.

Wu’s parent’s were married. It was a political arrangement as Wu’s mother was from a rich family. Their marriage is strained. They have one child, Wu and don’t really talk to eachother much. Wu’s Dad dies young from partying too hard. Wu is left the only heir.

Wu’s mother remarries a wealthy baron or something. Because of not doing widowhood properly she is not welcome at the palace and moves away from Ba Sing Se. She and Wu have a strained relationship, since she never really wanted Wu in the first place. They sometimes exchange letters. (This could be swapped for his father and his mother was the heir but honestly I just wanted a strained relationship with a maternal figure. She got her happy ending but not with Wu).

Wu and Queen Hou-Ting have a very strained relationship as Hou Ting considers him weak, and despises animals which Wu loves.

Wu ends up with no real close familial relationship and is used to never really caring about anything. He is very isolated and is mostly raised by Dai-Li appointed carers.

At twenty ish Wu decides he wants out and asks to study in Republic City. The Queen is against this but Wu is insistent and she sees it as an excuse to get him out of her hair.

Wu moved to Republic City. After the fall of the walls, the Dai Li are in disarray as much of the leadership flees the city. Wu was previously appointed Dai Li bodyguards but Republic City officials replace them with city appointed bodyguards instead to maintain order. Unsure of how to proceed with Wu, Raiko and the other leaders agree that Wu shall complete his degree whilst Kuvira restores order. Wu is rarely included in meetings that decide the Earth Kingdom’s policy because they don’t like him and everyone just accepts he will be a King supported by his advisors and won’t rule himself.

Wu is of course horrified but he has a lack of personal stake in the death of his great aunt other than the realisation that he is now under a lot of pressure, which Wu mostly just ignores.

Wu completed his degree. After this, he begins to move into the public sphere and begins to make public appearances. Instead of a rotating team of bodyguards he requests a personal one, Mako, because he saw him a newspaper and thought he was hot really cool. This happens around six months before Republic City.

Mako treats Wu as a job, but the events of Book 4 eventually push them to become better friends and get to know eachother. Wu matures What happens next is either comics canon or my own ideas.

This is complete headcanon and I expect some people disagree! Hope it makes sense.