#I think I was temporarily possessed by a middle schooler

[thekidsare-not-alright]

when andy pointed at the camera i literally giggled like the fanboy i am i-

[spiriituma]

@beyondthetemples​ asked: {{Just out of curiosity! I was wondering what inspired you to make Lava a horse? Or, maybe: what was it about a horse statue that led Lee to making that decision?

||..I’m gonna give you two wildly different answers for those questions lol. LAVA ACTUALLY CAME FIRST, which may seem weird bc their canons are so tangled up together now that I couldn’t separate them anymore if I tried. Lava was actually one of my first original characters; I used to rp her on a defunct forum back in the day lol. I’ve always been a horse person (I grew up riding, I still ride, I run a horse-based 4H group for youth,) but none of the horses I’ve ever had or ridden lined up with the personality I gave the original Lava. She was hard-headed, stubborn, and all-around MEAN with maybe the tiniest of soft spots if you dug deep enough. Back in the early days, she DID actually have lava/fire powers, which is where the name came initially came from. (I was such a creative middle schooler, yeah?) Lava also had a “pure” form that I may have to draw and put up here sometime bc it was really pretty lol.

I can’t honestly remember just WHAT made me decide to merge Lava and Lee’s stories together and give Lava a total backstory/personality facelift in the process. Something about that decision just seemed natural, and eventually the fire powers left and Lava became a possessed statue that Lee had given part of herself to create. Everything since that initial leap has just been me kinda going “ok, how can I make this a little more fucked up?” I also made Lava much KINDER? She certainly has her moments where the temper shows through, but I really wanted her personality to mimic Lee’s childhood innocence that was “lost” when she lost her heart. In a way, Lee and Lava are TWO HALVES OF A WHOLE PERSON; they feed off of each other and have a connection that constantly reminds Lee of her own humanity.

There was only one thing that made Lee think of bringing Lava to life-- NECESSITY. She didn’t figure she would be stuck with this thing FOREVER. Lee was on the run, needed a getaway vehicle, and remembered that she knew a spell that could temporarily animate objects. What she didn’t realize was that in the statue that was Lava, there were parts of a real animal cast inside, one that was not too friendly in its former life. Essentially, Lee’s animation spell TOTALLY BACKFIRED because even though it gave the statue “life,” enough to get her the hell outta dodge at least, it didn’t nullify that old spirit within the rock.

In her attempt to escape, Lee half-remembers a spell that she thinks could save her, only to have it ACTUALLY GIVE THE CREATURE LIFE and a portion of Lee’s in the process. This is how Lava’s personality changes-- half of Lee’s spirit, the soul that makes her HER, resides within the mare. Lee is honestly a little bit SCARED of Lava (INCREDIBLY scared at the start of their relationship for the obvious reason of “This thing tried to kill me, and now it follows me around like a dog?? Suspicious.”) She doesn’t know if Lava will ever revert to that bloodthirsty behavior again, though Lee DOES catch a glimpse of it with Trevor’s death and that whole situation. 

[paulisweeabootrash]

First Impression: Noragami

Okay, after that crappy “reviewlet” thing, I'm back with another show I actually feel like saying something interesting about:

Noragami (2014)

Episodes watched: 5.  Or... actually, 14, but this review is only based on the first 5 episodes of season 1.

Yato is a minor god.  A very minor god.  A god who has no worshippers, no shrine, and relies on doing odd jobs for people in exchange for offerings of ¥5, a service which he advertises with graffiti and hand-made business cards.  His Regalia — a human soul who temporarily takes the form of living equipment a god can use — just quit.  Things are looking down for him.

Hiyori Iki is a martial-arts-loving middle schooler who just happens to encounter Yato, whom she, reasonably, believes to be a regular mortal, on the street.  She is hit by a bus while pushing Yato out of its path and gets reincarnated in a fantasy world temporarily separated from her body.  Hiyori, understandably, has some trouble coming to terms with this, especially when Yato explains to her that she is not dead (or, not completely, anyway), but instead in an in-between state where she is able to repeatedly temporarily leave her body.  Much much more to her confusion and horror, her in-between state grants her the ability to see supernatural creatures usually hidden from humans, including Phantoms, eldritch abominations that often appear as psychedelically-colored flying sea creatures and possess humans, both living and dead, to induce them to do bad things.

Hiyori is now stuck between the “Near Shore” (the world of the living) and “Far Shore” (world of the dead) rather than a resident of either, and those from the Far Shore — Phantoms, human souls, and gods alike — will certainly notice this.  Yato and other gods frequently use their Regalia (what is the plural of “Regalia”?  “Regalias”?  That sounds wrong.) to fight Phantoms in addition to (or as part of) answering the prayers of their followers.  Since Yato needs a new Regalia, at this point, I was starting to suspect this will maybe be a quasi-magical-girl premise where Hiyori becomes Yato's new Regalia and then falls for him in a "please don't think about what is at bare minimum a several century age gap" uncomfortable romcom.  But... no.  This show goes in a more complicated and interesting direction than that.

Regalia must be sufficiently pure (and apparently fully-dead) human souls, so Yato, who seems to look down on humans even compared to other gods, simply drafts the first suitable soul he encounters.  That soul, a teen boy with no memory of his Earthly life, whom Yato names Yukine, luckily turns out to be a very talented Regalia and a quick learner, but also frustrated about his death and prone to sinful thoughts (more on that in a moment).  Hiyori takes an interest in Yukine, mainly to take care of him because Yato is certainly not doing that well, but I actually kind of get the impression she's attracted to him, especially given that, unlike Yato, Yukine is approximately her age (or was before he died... it's not clear how long he, or any other Regalia, have been dead).  She also takes an (academic) interest in the supernatural world in general, which is only partly what she expected or imagined, and she becomes a de facto member of Yato and Yukine's "team" as it were.  But also overwhelmed and mainly just wants her soul to be securely re-attached to her body so she'll stop accidentally leaving it at inopportune times — to her friends and family, it appears that she has now been having severe and unpredictable episodes and collapsing and losing consciousness since her bus accident, and she often leaves her body lying around in public without realizing it.  Or, in one case, draped over the top of a fence, which is... not an ideal sleeping location.  Yato vaguely claims he will restore her, but has no idea how to.

So far, the story has focused on the interactions between the three of them and on exploring the setting/what Phantoms are/how the gods work/etc.  This has revealed a fascinating detail which, beyond the scope of the five episodes I took notes on, becomes one of the main arcs of the first season: although the gods are amoral, or at least behave according to a totally different set of standards, they are still affected by human morality.  Morality, says Yato, is socially constructed by humans, but affects the gods vicariously by causing “blight”.  If humans decide an act is sinful, then a Regalia doing that thing causes a blight to both themself and the god they serve which must be ritually cleansed.  Yukine, despite being initially pure enough to become a Regalia, starts to cause blight to Yato because of his jealousy of the still-living and his attraction to Hiyori, and this proves to be... well... you’ll see.

We also learn from Kofuku Ebisu, goddess of bad luck and poverty, that Yato used to be a war god, with a past darker than Hiyori is willing to accept or think about.  He will grant anyone's wishes to remain relevant, and this may come back to endanger people.  Yato is also dating(?) Kofuku, and seems to have had a previous romantic relationship with a Regalia named Nora who served him and gives off a serious yandere vibe.  Or actually (spoilers), as it turns out, not named Nora.  "Nora", we learn, is a derogatory term for an entire category of Regalia: those who serve multiple gods and generally do jobs normal Regalia would refuse.  This, in connection with the whole thing about gods being corrupted by their Regalia violating human-made moral standards, raises a worrying question I hope we get an answer to: do noras corrupt their gods, or are they somehow unable to produce corruption because they themselves do not believe anything they're doing is wrong?  This is the sort of question this show raises, and it seems smart and thorough enough to try to answer it... if it doesn't, there's the ongoing manga series to turn to, and this is yet another show I've enjoyed so much that I might start reading it.

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Revised W/A/S Scores: 7 / 3 / 3 / !

Weeb: Pretty high on this scale mainly because of its very Shinto background, including very specific patron deities of concepts, gods physically residing in shrines, its specific forms of prayer, the dead just sort of... wandering and acting like still-live humans, and of course the presence of shrine maidens because how can you not have shrine maidens?

Ass: Occasional nudity, but not fanservicey.  Ep. 2, for example, has partial nudity in situations like contemplating in bath and locker room that are not framed sexually but probably would be in a different tone of show.

Shit (writing): I have a weirdly specific translation complaint (because of course I do).  I accidentally learned via Wikipedia that "nora" means "stray", and this seems like information that maybe should've been dropped in the subtitles at some point?  It might actually have made the reveal about what "a nora" is work better in English than in the original Japanese because this meaning would be a surprise to the English subtitle-reading audience.  Anyway, enough about that.  I find the characters enjoyable and their arcs pretty believable.  A main plot conflict between Yato and the nora is clearly forming by the end of the five episodes I cover here, and I'll cheat a bit to say that the first season successfully plays out two story threads while leaving others open for the next season, but not in a cliffhanger or "we clearly didn't know how to wrap this up" way.  An advantage of adapting a popular ongoing manga, I suppose: you can pace things better and also be reasonably sure that there's enough interest to get you another season.

Shit (other): Pretty ending, meh opening.  Great reaction faces.  Moods are accentuated well by variations in the art and animation.  I love the design of the Phantoms because I'm a sucker for surreal depictions of the supernatural.  It's not as dramatically bizarre and imaginative as, say, the witches in Madoka Magica, but still excellent.

Content warning: It is a recurring point that the gods' duties include saving people from suicide, and multiple suicide attempts are depicted (although they are thwarted by divine intervention by Yato).

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Stray observations:

- Yato starts out appearing to be a magnificent bastard, but it becomes apparent quickly that... uh... maybe he’s just an asshole.  

- I have no idea why, but Yato sneaking into Hiyori's house and mirroring her dad's actions is one of the funniest things I've seen recently.

- You'd think at some point Hiyori would develop a plan, or at least a cover story, for abandoning her body, even if she remains unable to control when she leaves it.  Not to mention that she'd sometimes come back to an injured body or find that someone has moved her or called an ambulance or something.

- The background music includes rap in English with autotune, which is... surprising, but neither good nor bad.

- This setting raises the same set of troubling questions about the concept of an afterlife that a lot of afterlife concepts do, since it appears that people are "frozen" at the age they were when they died but also have the ability to learn (and later, outside the set of episodes I covered here, to mature mentally at least somewhat)... do child Regalia or children's souls in general ever mentally mature in the same way that real children do as they ender adolescence and adulthood?  Are there baby ghosts hanging around with no concept that they are dead, unable to ever gain that concept because they will never age?  (I feel like this is turning into a literary criticism of religion, and that's waaaay outside the scope of this blog, so I'll end this here.)