#IN CONCEPT

[kakusu-shipping]

Anon back again to harp on my multi-decades love for Luca Blight. Buckle up and hear me out. I'm talking about a character-driven irresistible force paradox.

When you have someone who endures trauma so impactful that their way of 'dealing' with it is to simply decide to burn the entire world down at any cost, what happens when he meets the opposite side of the same coin?

Luca has no remorse, no grand and righteous 'I will destroy this world and rebuild it anew because I'm special' manifesto. No - he just wants to watch the world burn because he hates it. Plus there's speculation that he had an unhealthy symbiotic relationship with the True Beast Rune that may or may not have been magnifying his rage and bloodlust, but that's a whole separate topic entirely.

So what happens when you take someone so volatile and doggedly set on his goals and put them in the path of another character who's just as bullish and focused as he is, but their entire life's purpose is the opposite?

Someone who cares about the world just because they love it. Someone who is *determined* to befriend him instead of destroy him, who spreads sunshine and rainbows. Someone who shows no fear in the face of him and is all stubborn smiles and wholesome gumption? Lovebombing instead of hatebombing because, "didn't your mother ever teach you any better?! Fine then, I'll just do it myself!" (Oof, that'd go over well.)

I'm going somewhere with this, I swear.

Luca is violent and cruel, but he has his values. He has great pride for Highland. He's shown to hold certain qualities in high regard (competence, passion, bravery - "I don't care about breeding. A sword doesn't need a fine lineage, it just needs to be sharp.") In short, much of what he holds in regard are qualities he ascribes by personally, and the things he hates run opposite (cowardice, indecisiveness, incompetence).

What happens when he comes face to face with someone who embodies the *traits* he respects but exercises them in the opposite way he does?

By the way, I'm not talking about your classic, "he's a terrible villain and I can fix him~" scenario, but instead introducing a foil who's just as stubbornly focused and intense about their wholesome love for sunshine and happiness.

I think he'd be frustrated, conflicted, and ultimately torn because it flies in the face of his worldview. At the same time he'd likely find himself harboring some sort of begrudging respect for this individual (while simultaneously conflicted and pissed off).

We talk about Luca for being the crazy 'mad prince' of Highland so what happens if he's in the crosshairs of someone just as 'crazy' as him but in a wholesome and positive way? He'd be annoyed as fuck while also probably winding up enjoying himself in a backward sort of fashion because this individual embodies many of the same qualities he esteems.

And most of all, there's the potential for inner turmoil where he'd have to process how to feel about someone who cares unconditionally in a way that strongly parallels maternal affection. He can't bring himself to kill Jillia because she *looks* like his mother. But what if someone *treated* him in a way reminiscent of a parent's unconditional love? Someone who has the same brave, reckless lack of self-preservation Luca does, bold enough to scold him the shit out of him for tracking mud across the fancy carpet yet in the same breath steamroll him over with sunshine and positivity and rainbows?

I posit that he'd be a mess over it. He'd hate it and at the same time enjoy it. And then hate it even more *because* he enjoys it.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. I thought about this way too much.

I've read this novel of a Luca X Reader pitch so many times anon I hope you're aware I never answered it because I had nothing to add, but I loved every word of it and reading it over and over. You're so correct.

Today seems like a good day to post it was we Finally have Suikoden remake news. So here's to you, your immovable object vs unstoppable force dynamic, and to the potential new fans these remakes may bring who may themselves see the glory of Luca Blight as we do

[mountainhaunt]

they're really havin us have fight the rat king close quarters as a fuckin sniper for today's daily run huh. i have been procrastinating and staring at the board for like 20 minutes bc i know as soon as i press play its over

[darklight-owl]

Uh oh! You are now a were-animal! This means you become a human-sized animal hybrid with uncontrollable bloodlust every night!

Spin this wheel to get your species

[taddymason]

Crystals study

i'm so tired

[prokopetz]

One of those goofy maid animes, except the viewpoint character isn't the hapless master or mistress of the house, but a regular-ass janitor who ended up on this crew due to a paperwork mixup at the temp agency and can't figure out what the fuck is wrong with her co-workers.

[sofiarostova]

Yeah, I guess I do. But like, what even is a star beam, you know? Now, a lead pipe to the shins? That's just reliable, baby.

PRETTY PRETTY PLEASE I DON'T WANT TO BE A MAGICAL GIRL Kiana Khansmith / @kianamaiart (2025 Pilot Animatic)

[084392]

[ghostdeals]

No bcus the implications of the Saja Boys are so funny like??? Jinu is the only one we've seen has a confirmed music background so did he have to research, train, style, and manage the group by himself???? Did he also have to come up with the concepts and the marketing or is there like a demon thats rlly good at photoshop? Or if its all Jinu that means he had to teach himself fucking adobe after effects and how to use tiktok. Also how did he even research how to make a boy group was he in the trenches of BTS comment sections??? God the more I think about the Saja Boys the funnier it gets

[ivyrotica]

when doms coo out a soft ‘there you arreee’ the moment their sub finally gives in and starts whimpering, gasping, making the prettiest noises while being absolutely ruined >>>

[wumbreon]

We were watching the glass blowing competition show on netflix because it's really cool to see those talented artists do their thing...

But I will NEVER forgive the judges for eliminating an amazing artist who's concept was that plastic hamster tubes are actually dangerous for hamsters yet they are normalized in our society so they made a beautiful glass rendition of an endless loop of colorful hamster tubes as an expression of how we can be trapped by society in a loop of behavior that is normalized but actually killing us

And the judges were like "this isnt DEEP ENOUGH" because they dont care enough about hamsters to learn and interpret the artist's statement at the level it was meant for.

They literally saw the glass renditions of colorful tubes that represent suffering and being trapped in a glossy predesigned hell and went "this is too normal and isnt saying anything important actually" Fuck them!!!!

Anyways Gemma should have won and I'm so happy to see that she didn't let it stop her amazing concept and she continued with it outside of the time constraints of the show. Fuck yes Gemma

[mintaii]

drops them in a gothic horror au

[gnomebud]

i can be so normal about knights. come closer

[hinamie]

newest issue of first years fashion just dropped

[shadesofmauve]

I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.

Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.

He was really nice.

Yeah.

It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?

You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."

You didn't, loves, you didn't.

We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.

I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.

Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.

When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"

No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.

Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?

Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.

That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.

I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.

A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.

I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.

So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!

Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.

You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.

I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.

I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.

It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.

Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.

[lambofmoss]

being weird and full of love can save you

and it might save those around you, too