#VERY androgynous so i have no idea what they go by but they were just sooo nice and asking how i was and nodding to me in the window

[lesbiansanemi]

Google how to make peace with the fact that you will always be vaguely to extremely uncomfortable (depending on the day) with your body and how others perceive it until the day you die and nothing you do will ever change that

[godheadjones]

i’m getting gay panic at a bible event what the hell is this

[a-little-lostmoon]

some LU headshots in my style for personal reference. subject to change bc drawing consistently is a bitch but overall i think i’m happy w them! (ignore the comic/writing idea in the upper right corner it may or may not be made into a full think idk yet—)

typed notes for each lu member + a little extra below cut

wild—

oval eyes

rounder oval ((ish)) face

amber earrings

healed scarring

androgynous

i tried to reference the boys’ canonical character models to individualize their features more. i love botw and totk sm but personally i’m not the hugest fan of the way the characters look for it? even so, i think the rounder sort of eye shape works really well for my wild

his colors specifically i drew to be a bit more sunset kissed/orangeish bc i was referencing a wild photo in which the time was sunset. thats abt it. but i think it’s really pretty on him so i’m probably just keeping that whenever i draw wild

warriors—

cheek bones/jawline

rounder ears

pointy eyes ((eyeliner that could stab a person))

cheek scar bc i felt like it

i stole away some of wars’ side fringes, forgive me i couldn’t decide whether i wanted them to cover up his jawline and chickened out. if anyone actually read the comic thing you’ll see smth abt the old man and wars talking abt how his hair parted to the other side of his face during the war. i made it to ‘vent my frustrations’ bc i drew his hair part referencing HW photos of link instead of LU wars and it’s now become my headcanon.

his hair color is vivid bc HW color pallet is pretty damn vivid and his eyes & earrings are a deeper blue to match his scarf. color coordination!

anw he’s a pretty boy so i made him pretty — that’s pretty much the rest i have to say abt that

time—

tired eyes

longest ears

(slight) rbf

both time & legend have half circle/oval eyes ((kind of. at least that’s what i tried to go for to give them a more worn/serious look))

i’m not the best with differentiating ages. i tried to make him look a bit more worn/oldest but i also wanted all of them to still carry some of that classic pretty boy link look. don’t have much else to say but he has the longest/angular ears bc fairy boy. let’s pretend four’s don’t look longer than his i drew him later and forgot

twilight—

<-takes more features from malon ((who i haven’t drawn yet so you don’t have any reference on that))

pretty boy face (wasn’t intentional but it is what it is)

twilight princess link is v pretty. twilights usually one of the more rugged (for lack of a better term) looking ones bc he’s among the taller ones/apart of the “adult” squad but i accidentally made him very pretty looking. oops. don’t know if that will remain consistent for him if i draw him more so we shall see

him and time share less features than i might’ve wanted? you can see a bit of time’s jaw in the way his face curves but overall they don’t share many features. again, he takes more after malon. but their hair textures are incredibly similar if that means anything

gave him jade studs bc they reminded him of midna and are practical enough that he can just keep them in the whole time (bc he will lose them or forget abt them if he takes them off)

sky—

rounder face

big eyes

lips

big ears

his hair color was a bitch to get right im not sorry i had to say it color is so hard to work with. in any case! skyward sword link has bigger looking eyes cus of the style and i just ran w that. his earrings are magenta to match sun’s dress but look red when the light catches them right (or wrong ig bc they look red in dim light too) just bc i realized his earrings were red to match his outfit/crimson.

sky and the next three (everyone sans wind) probly look the least off their character models

legend—

oval iris

full rbf

multiple piercings ((this is important for u to know))

longer narrow face & features

boy’s a strawberry blond bc i said so. and also legend purple eyes propaganda. i don’t know where exactly that originated but like i love it and im on board. he also has purple stud earrings he always keeps in — curious, isn’t it. he probably has more than i gave him but well, thats all i gave him. it gets the picture across. hc that legend realized he couldn’t get more fingers for his rings but he could get more piercings that could handle jewelry that did almost exactly the same thing. practicality!

also i couldn’t decide on legend’s hair length. its all hidden by that hat of his so i just… didn’t draw the back half portion of his hair. does that make my legend bald at the back of his head? you decide.

hyrule—

wide face narrow chin

freckles!!!

bigger earlobes

the earlobes is me projecting /hj but i tried to reference the og link’s face shape for him which idk if i like yet. he has freckles and more accent colors in his hair and eyes which is a subtle thing but a sorta maybe reference to his fairy magic. no piercings for him! i forgot them/didnt see them on og link and can’t really imagine when hyrule would ever get the time to pierce them so he and wind can do that together eventually to bond. legend will do it probly — he obviously has the experience and wild can’t be trusted (offered to pierce winds ears with a knife canonically)

wind—

big eyes

void eyes

big ears but rounder than skys

soft face

fluffy hair

wind’s 100 yard stare *does* things to the chain but none of them tell him that because he’d definitely use it to freak people out. i couldnt decide between going lighter sun bleached hair wind or bright blinding yellow toon link hair so i kind of meshed them together to create that. tried to make him the youngest looking

four—

symmetrical angles ((and then i drew a polygon quadrilateral bc thats the shape i used as a reference)) for cheeks and eyes

minish feather ((earring))

minish ears & nose

hime bangs

yk the picture of a minish that comes up when googled? thats what i used as a reference for his features. ears specifically, nose somewhat. four’s eyes are usually the greyish hazel color you get from mixing all of their colors together but i liked the split look for this piece more. his hair color is also wind’s but inverted so wind’s lights are four’s highlights and his darks make up the brunt of the base color as a slight reference to how it’s occasionally theorized/hc that wind is four’s descendant.

and the hime bangs were bc i wanted a little more “link side fringe” variation and i thought the sort of straight cut looked nice. hime bangs are not the right term tho bc he parts them to the side and doesn’t have that straight cut on his forehead but i’m too lazy to fight the correct term

— thank u for reading, go hydrate and eat if you have not <3

[asherashedwings]

PICOS SCHOOL DESIGN DUMP

Pico

So, I decided that my previous designs for a lot of these characters are going to be more-so their designs during the events of the Pico’s School games. So when they were kids. Like, some will be a bit different, but for the most part, that’s how it is. So then these new designs are them as adults.

When trying to figure out Pico’s design, I didn’t know how I wanted his outfit in this new design to differ from his previous. Cuz like, that’s already the perfect Pico fit. But then I realized “omg, it’d be so much funnier if I DIDN’T change it.” Cuz he is definitely the type of mf to be wearing the same clothes he’s had since middle school.

Like, Cass or Nin come back for a rematch, and they both look super different, and then they look at Pico and he looks NO DIFFERENT than last time they saw him.

Darnell

I immediately broke my rule with the previous designs with Darnell, cuz I just really liked the previous design’s outfit and was like “eh, imma use that for his adult design, and just change the kid design.”

I imagine he got that varsity jacket like, custom made, and it was like super fuckin expensive. But like, when he got it, he decided “wait, I don’t want the sleeves” and just ripped them off 💀

Can’t have long sleeves when you’re always working with fire ig.

Nene

I think Nene is the one I’ve drawn in alt. outfits the most. What can I say, I just really like drawing her and messing around with her clothes. So I had a lot of previous pieces of mine I could look back on for reference.

The main change that isn’t outfit related is her hair. I just decided to dick around and see what looked good, and landed on that. I think it looks pretty good, idk.

Also, gave her a WWJD bracelet cuz sometimes I forget she’s Christian and I thought it was funny.

Reminded me of this one stupid idea I had, featuring my very headcanoned version of the G-Squad:

Like, the G-Squad are doing their whole cult thing, worshipping the Peniliens, when the Pico trio burst in, and Nene says something like “THERE IS ONLY ONE LORD AND SAVIOR, AND HIS NAME IS JESUS CHRIST.”

And then they kick their asses, idk.

Also, here, them as kids. Pico just got spikier as he got older

Okay, time for some antags 💥💥💥

Cassandra

She was actually the first redesign I made in this batch.

Main change: Beard. I just sorta wanted to make the Penilien duo more androgynous. I imagine that they don’t really care about transitioning that much, since they don’t have the same gender roles and stereotypes as humans. Just “I’m [insert gender here], that’s it.” Also, I just think Cass slayed with a beard.

I also wanted to incorporate shapes from their alien forms more into their human disguises. So I gave Cass these big sleeve things to sorta emulate the big bulky arms she has in her true form.

One of her pincers is also chipped. This comes from the fact that in Pico’s School, one of her horn-hair things is shorter than the other, and I wanted to find a way to incorporate that.

Damien

I don’t think there’s much to say here that I have already said while talking about Cassandra.

I imagine Damien does less to hide his alien features, since he has a huge superiority complex and thinks Peniliens are superior anyways, so like, why hide his true colors? Why hide what makes him greater than everyone around him?

So yeah, that’s why he keeps his tail out.

Nin

YIPPEE, HEAVYILY HEADCANONED CHARACTER TIME‼️‼️

So Nin differs with the whole “previous design is them as a kid” thing, cuz he doesn’t really age past his age in Pico’s School. Cuz bro dies.

(Also, quick HC timeline: Pico 1 and “Pico 2” (the conflict with the robo-kids) both take place in middle school, while what I call “Pico 3” (the conflict with the G-Squad) happens in high school. So that’s why Nin appears less child-like; he’s a high schooler)

So like, I hc that when Pico killed Nin, Nin pulled some necromancy bullshit and revived HIMSELF. Cuz idk, that feels like some bullshit Pico’s School would pull.

So now he’s undead. His hair also sorta resembles horns cuz it’s sorta to symbolize his devotion to the Peniliens. If y’all are interested in hearing all the HCs I have for the G-Squad (or just PS in general), I might share more at a later date.

That’s all for now tho.

Bonus:

My color palettes for these fuckers. They’re all named after the MSI songs I associate with each of them. I do not support MSI, I just really like the music and it reminds me of Pico’s School for some reason, so I always listen to a lot of it whenever I get sucked back into this fandom

[explodo-smash]

Are you one of the people expecting bkdk to be canon? I just learned that there are people that sincerely believe Hori would have Deku and Bkg have an explicit confession of love. That he's going to be the first popular mangaka to have a endgame gay ship. I am in so many mlm ships of shounen but I've never had the delusion that the author would make them canon despite the evidences otherwise. Like I thought it's fine to ship mlm as long as we stayed in our lane and never harassed the author.

After speaking together, we do believe based on the evidence in the series that BakuDeku being canon is not an even vaguely unreasonable conclusion to reach. We think the story is written in a way you can reach that conclusion easily, so much that even casual viewers who aren’t shippers are questioning the nature/potential conclusion of their relationship.

One of the most consistent and convincing lines of evidence for us has been Katsuki taking on roles/positions traditionally reserved for female heroines/love interests (if you’ve seen anyone call him “narratively androgynous,” this is what they’re referring to). In the context of Jump magazine, we have a number of shonen heroines and love interests to compare Katsuki to. The similarities are so striking that many notable people (including the VAs for the anime) have taken to calling him the heroine of the series.

However, we do think things like homophobia (whether it’s the writer or the audience/consumerbase at large– in this case we’re primarily referring to the audience), the safety of everyone involved, and timing are all unpredictable factors people have to take into consideration when writing/reading a story of this magnitude. Needless to say, if Horikoshi is indeed planning an endgame for bakudeku, he’d also have to take these factors into consideration.

Horikoshi has a record of being pretty in-tune with his fanbase. He definitely keeps some eye on bnha’s reception–for example, he mentioned a while back that both the people who love Katsuki and the people who hate him will have something to look forward to in this finale (we can now see what he meant lol). He’s very likely aware of the people who love bakudeku and the people who loathe it. 

Taking into account that he tends to be very intentional with his writing choices, he’s written this story in a way that not only centered bakudeku’s relationship over others (notably Izuku + Ochako’s, the character he’d presumably end up with if things were going predictably?), but also went the extra mile to distinguish their relationship as unique, closer than all their other relationships, the “biggest pillar of the story” (x, x). He didn’t have to do all of this. This extra push is what’s giving bakudeku that undeniable chance at an endgame right now, because it’s come to a point where no one can ignore the implications of scenes like this:

On the flip side, we don’t think people’s hesitation is unreasonable. It’s scary! If bakudeku were to fall flat of all this buildup/our expectations, it wouldn’t be the first time the romantic implications between a pair of boys in a story like this was ignored. Hell it wouldn’t be the first time a popular pair in general, (gay or not) got ignored in favor of what the author just felt like doing, regardless of what any previous developments in the story or interviews or official artwork would have us believe. There’s enough written evidence that canon bakudeku wouldn’t be surprising, but there’s also (at the time of writing this response) still room for things to go another direction, for all of this to be recontextualized and passed as something else. 

As per social norms/patterns of behavior, this would be disappointing as hell but not surprising. Especially for people who have been let down before, we completely understand the need/impulse to distance oneself from the idea/hope that bakudeku may become canon.

In all honesty, if it turns out bakudeku isn’t canon or left open-ended (say, an ending where they’re partners of some kind/the closest to one another without that explicit romantic confirmation), we would be frustrated/heartbroken. Not because we feel like Horikoshi shouldn’t do what he wants, he should. But because there’s been a clear effort to bring LGBTQ+ readers into the fold, and tell and portray our experiences in MHA. Horikoshi has done a beautiful, incredible job of writing various LGBTQ+ and marginalized experiences as a metaphor in his stories. Toga is a prime example. This is something that readers around the world have noticed, and it’s something MHA is special for (see this data x, and the further context/commentary on it given here x). 

We think it’s intentional. This story and the relationships in it have invoked experiences close and personal to many of us. Things are in a state right now where we wouldn’t just feel baited, we feel like readers would have a right to feel unsatisfied.

That being said, feeling unsatisfied doesn’t equate to feeling empowered to harass or bother others. Especially not Horikoshi himself, and also including other readers who had differing expectations. This is really the case across the board. We should all be able to control our anticipation/expectations without becoming assholes. 

It’s not just the shippers, by the way. People who work on the series or work closely with Horikoshi have rooted for bakudeku to go beyond. Izuku and Katsuki have already done what a good chunk of the readerbase thought impossible and became friends. People see their writing, their potential, and they want more. The voice actors (x, x sorry for the crunchy pic it's all i've got atm), academics (x), musicians (x, x) , editors (x) and more have all kind of rallied around Bakugou and Deku’s bond, with a particular sensitivity towards the deeply and uniquely intimate nature of it + how it evokes romance.

We’d like to see MHA exist free of the burdens previous popular shounen series have had placed on them. But that’s a conversation for the ending. As far as the fanbase goes, I think it’s super important people practice humility and caution when speaking to others. We have NO way of knowing what will happen. People who have been traumatized by situations like this in the past have a right to be anxious, people in general are allowed to withhold judgment until we have all the information we need. However, we don’t think having hope or confidence that this narrative might lead us to a canon bakudeku is unwarranted or delusional.

At the end of the day one thing is true, and this was something we had to fight to “prove” much longer than we had to prove Bakudeku had romantic potential - it’s that Kacchan and Izuku’s lives are going to be forever intertwined in this new era of their world that births from the finale. 

They’re forever intertwined in a way that’s not replicable for any other character in the series, and that’s amazing all on its own. We’ll just have to wait and see how far they take it! Thanks for reading if you got this far, and Happy Holidays!

[ingravinoveritas]

Following up on this excellent post from @nightgoodomens, it really is astonishing to see so many people in the GO fandom misunderstanding the characters/personalities of Aziraphale and Crowley. While I by no means am against people having head canons or differing interpretations, it has become frustrating to see people pushing their ideas about Aziraphale and Crowley onto others and declaring them to be official canon, leaving no room for any kind of discussion.

One of the things spoken about in the above linked post is the denigrating of Crowley, which seems to be a near constant in the fandom at this point, particularly in relation to the "apology dance" scene. (Which, to be fair, is chock full of soft!Dom Aziraphale vibes--thank you, Michael Sheen.) What seems to keep getting missed is that the entire apology dance routine is something that Aziraphale and Crowley do to each other. There is just as much of a possibility that Crowley sat there with a similarly smug look on his face and let out a guttural, snakey "Very nice" when Aziraphale did the dance in the years he listed off, because they play this game together.

Aziraphale and Crowley's relationship is one of equals, and I think this is also something people seem to not understand well. It seems as though a lot of fans who project themselves onto Crowley want to be taken care of, and so they want to believe the same of Crowley, and that the reason he wants to be taken care of is because he is broken. But someone doesn't have to be broken to want someone to take care of them. Sometimes the people who are a shambles on the outside can be dominant, just as sometimes the most buttoned up, put together people can also be submissive. And sometimes the people who look in control on the outside can feel not at all that way on the inside.

But this nuanced thinking seems to increasingly be difficult for many GO fans, particularly those who spend a great deal of time on social media, a place where people are either blindly praised or denigrated and torn down, and where such behavior greatly reinforces that binary, black-and-white mindset. We so badly want the world to be clear-cut--good vs. evil, heroes vs. bad guys--but very often that just isn't how things work. And it is exactly what Terry and Neil were trying to speak against in the GO book (and subsequently, the TV show).

The other thing that I think influences a lot of fans' perceptions about Aziraphale and Crowley is their chosen corporations (i.e., Crowley being thin and Aziraphale being plump). There is an automatic assumption that thin somehow equals more vulnerable, and for all of the emphasis that is placed on Aziraphale and Crowley being genderfluid/nonbinary/not subscribing to traditional gender roles, it's Crowley who seems to be viewed as more androgynous/femme, and is therefore looked at as inherently vulnerable. Meanwhile Aziraphale is thicker and viewed as more masculine, and therefore he is somehow inherently not vulnerable. Yet if the body types were reversed, it seems highly likely that fans' attitudes toward them would be much different.

(It also saddens me that this seems to mirror the fans' treatment of Michael and David, where Michael serves as a target for the fans' venom and is seen as less desirable/more threatening because he presents more traditionally masculine, while David is not targeted or attacked and is seen as more desirable/less threatening because he presents much more androgynously. Consequently, many fans find it easy not to sympathize with Michael, and when you can readily disregard someone's feelings, it becomes easier to see them as "less." In the case of Aziraphale and Michael, it leaves no room for either one to be vulnerable and is unfair to both of them.)

What I have always taken away from Good Omens--and from Michael and David's portrayal of Aziraphale and Crowley and how deeply they both understand these characters--is that Crowley doesn't need to be a perfect angel for Aziraphale to like him. He just needs to be a little bit of a good person. And Aziraphale doesn't need to be a perfect demon for Crowley to like him--he just needs to be enough of a bastard to be worth knowing. Neither one has to fully subscribe to the other's outlook or point of view to listen to what they have to say.

Aziraphale and Crowley meet in the middle. In the place that becomes their side, and where they take care of each other, fight with each other, and love each other. And that's more than most of us could ever ask or hope for...

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for changing my (30 FtM) name?

I was born with a very angrogynous/masculine name. For the sake of this post we'll say it's Alex Andrew Lastname. I was bullied for it growing up and can often see on people's faces that they were expecting someone different when they see my name first. I never liked my name growing up because I didn't think I fit the vibe. I'm just not an "Alex". But honestly, if I ever fully pass, that could change.

I recognize I've hit the trans guy jackpot. I've seen quite a few trans men change their names to my birth name, first and middle. Logically, I'd never have to change it for safety or validation reasons.

I've been using a different name for years now. My partner of 10 years doesn't know me by another name and cringes when we have to use Alex for legal paperwork. This name has been public knowledge to everyone including my family for about 8 years. We'll say this new name is "Elijah" (it is not)

The problem arises when I bring up my final legal name choice to my mom.

"Why that? I would have never named you that. I don't think it suits you." I double down and explain I like the name and don't mind the religious connotation (we went to church but she's always appropriated eastern religions, I am not religious) Additionally, SHE should have been using it all this time, even when I'm not there. She complains. "Can't I still call you Alex? I mean, I gave birth to you, I should still be able to call you Alex. I gave you that name because it was androgynous and cool, why do you want to change it?" I tell her again, no. If she's the only person deadnaming me, other people will feel they have the right to. "Can I call you Al?" No, sorry. "Can I call you Andrew? I named you after your uncle, he didn't do anything wrong."

Because she's pushing back so much, I tell her the truth. Growing up, she was abusive and negligent. When she did use my name, she said it like she hated me. When I was in trouble, when she was disagreeing with me, when she bullied me. She didn't really say my name in rare situations where she was proud because she was jealous and focused on making sure everyone knew I was cool and "unique" because I was "her kid". Because of it, I cringe when I hear my birth name. It's a strong name, a good name, even, but it makes me feel small and tired. I told her I was proud of her going to therapy, that we could start over, but that I'm asking to be respected as a person.

Shortly after I was born, she asked my grandma to draw up a tattoo of my deadname. It's a large, dark piece on her entire lower back. I told her I don't expect her to cover it, that she can keep it and mourn the name however she feels, but I'd like to get a matching, small tattoo with her to celebrate my new name if she's interested. She didn't really respond. She finally said she still doesn't like the name Elijah, but asked if she could call me Eli (yeah, obviously)

Despite all of this reaching some sort of compromise, I've heard I've made a bad decision from both sides. Some think I was too gentle and understanding and should have essentially said "fuck you this is my name take it or leave it". Others think I should have kept my deadname because there was nothing wrong with it, I'm being too emotional about it, or that I'm choosing to inconvenience others by changing things age 30. There's also the idea that no one really likes their name so it's not a great reason to change it.

AITA for having no real reason to change my name and doing so anyway?

What are these acronyms?

[identitty-dickruption]

i was wondering if you could break down the other problematic example phrases, particularly the "i wish i was intersex" one?

yeah, absolutely. I'll try my best, but if it's still not clear feel free to ask more specific questions. I'll start with the easier and more obvious one and then get into the mess of "I wish I was intersex"

“intersex people are naturally nonbinary, so a nonbinary intersex person is cis”

this is both bioessentialism and a massive simplification of what it means to be intersex. being intersex can play a massive role in the way someone understands their gender identity, which is why there are gender labels like intergender and ipsogender. as a multigender person, it's quite complicated for me, personally

that being said. the idea that an intersex person has a naturally nonbinary body is just another expression of the idea that gender and sex are inseparable and natural categories. it also plays into the idea that intersex people all have "androgynous" bodies when that is not at all the case. many intersex people will have bodies that are indistinguishable from one of the binary sexes, or that can pass as dyadic in many situations

"I wish I was intersex"

people are always asking me about this one when I complain about it. but. like. once again it is simplifying the intersex experience and it is playing off of a heavily romanticised version of an intersex body. when people say they wish they were intersex, they have a clear vision in their heads of what "intersex" looks like. and, more often than not, that is going to be a very fetishised version of what we look like and what our experiences are

do you wish you were intersex or do you wish you had ambiguous genitals? do you wish you were intersex or do you wish you had androgynous features? do you wish you were intersex or do you wish you had a body that was confusing to cishet people?

you're allowed to fantasise about individual and specific components of what you IMAGINE the intersex experience to be, but you do not need to bring intersex people into it. because the chances are that you don't actually wish you were intersex. being intersex is a lot more complicated than that, and the same things you fantasise about can be the source of a lot of trauma for the intersex community

while dyadic people fantasise about our genitals, our hormones, and our bodies, we are fighting against traumatic medical intervention. many of us have been bullied, harassed, and objectified our entire lives for being intersex. all I'm asking is that you a) engage with the intersex community, b) care about intersex issues, and c) stop seeing intersex people as nothing more than objects to be fantasised about

I hope that helps

[perotovar]

into the beat of the night (ch 2) "fear of the dark"

gif by me

pairing: frankie morales/nb!oc (they/them) rating: T (for now) chapter warnings: discussions of sexuality/gender (frankie doesn't understand some things and may use language that would be harmful, but it's not intentional), goth stereotypes abound, swearing, more cute shit word count: 2.7k dividers by @saradika beta: @scenaaario (ily adrienne ♥)

for notifications, follow @oakslibrary and turn on alerts ♥

series summary: frankie morales thought he had himself figured out by now. he liked both men and women, had dated both in the past. but when someone that challenges what he thinks that means comes into his life, in an unlikely place, he truly learns who he is, and more importantly, who he loves.

series masterlist

Frankie wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he texted River, but it wasn’t this.

ok what about this one?

He looked at the photo River sent him and was having a hard time calming down his heart. River was going back to the club where they met, The Night Owl, and “needed help” picking an outfit. Frankie thought they looked good in every outfit they’d shown him so far and wasn’t sure what the problem was.

U know i liked that 2nd one

you text like such an old man lol

hey

it’s ok, it’s cute 😘

That was another thing he’d have to get used to. River made their intentions quite clear and was very obvious with how they felt about Frankie. The problem was, Frankie was nervous. He’d flirted before. Had random hookups before. That wasn’t new to him, but River was.

He didn’t want to be disrespectful, but he still didn’t quite know if River was a man or a woman. In every selfie they’d sent him, they always had the same androgynous look. River had both sharp and soft features; soft, round cheeks with hard, angular eyes. They weren’t very tall, the top of their head grazing Frankie’s shoulder, and had a medium build. He had no idea how to approach the topic without them turning away.

Frankie knew he liked women. He knew he liked men. So it would make sense that he would like River, right? River was kind of like… both? The two of them had been texting for a week and he really liked their sense of humor. They were really nice to him; maybe even a little too nice. He didn’t know what to do with nice a lot of the time.

“Daddy?”

Frankie looked up from his phone at the sleepy four-year old in his bedroom doorway. Marisol was holding her stuffed bunny in one tiny arm and rubbing her eye with her other little fist.

“What’s up, conejita? What’re you doing awake, huh?” He smiled as he crawled out of bed, phone left behind. He made his way over to her and picked her up, resting her on his hip. “You have a bad dream?”

Marisol nodded and hid her face in Frankie’s neck, her little fist holding on tight to the worn neckline of his sleep shirt. Frankie frowned and held her close, rubbing her little back as he walked her back to her bedroom. As he went to lay her down in her bed she fussed a little, refusing to let go.

“Can I sleep with you? Please?” Marisol’s big brown eyes, mirror images of Frankie’s own, looked up at him pleadingly and he couldn’t turn her down. Not ever.

He straightened back up and nodded, kissing her soft cheek. “Alright. But just tonight, okay? You gotta sleep in your own bed tomorrow. Promise?” He held out his pinky. When her tiny one curled around his own, his heart melted.

He walked back to his own bedroom and set her down on the edge of the bed. She crawled her way up to his pillows and made herself comfy, cuddling her little bunny close. Frankie tucked her in and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. She whined and lifted her bunny up to him. “Flor, too!” Marisol’s little voice demanded.

“Right. Flor, too. Sorry, conejita,” he chuckled and gave a small kiss to Flor’s fuzzy head.

Marisol seemed satisfied with that and cuddled into Frankie’s blankets and shut her eyes. He made his way to his own side of the bed and crawled under the blankets as well, picking up his phone. Two messages from River.

so the second one?

damn, pass out on me already, old man? 😉

He quickly started typing a response, afraid to leave them hanging.

No sorry im here.   Yeah the 2nd one

He looked back at all the photos they’d sent him that evening and sighed. He started typing again.

U want company tomorrow ?

As the three dots showed up at the bottom of his screen, his heart started pounding harder.

i didn’t think you’d want to come back. thought we all scared you last time 😉 i’d love company, esp if it’s yours

Frankie smiled at his phone and rested it on his chest, looking up at the ceiling. Yeah, he had it bad.

“Hermano, I need your help.”

Frankie was sitting across from Santiago at a local coffee shop the next morning. The low hum of other customers talking and the nearby kitchen filled his ears. It grounded him a little. His palms were sweaty and he started sniffing, an old, terrible habit he’d picked up whenever he was nervous. No matter how long he had been clean, the craving to put something up his nose was never far.

“Well, I can see that. What’s on your mind? Is Marisol okay?” Santi asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Yeah, she’s great. It’s not that. I, uh, started… talking to someone. Well, I don’t really know–”

“That’s great, man! What’s her name? Or his?”

Frankie’s mouth felt dry, so he looked away from Santi’s eyes and took a drink of his own coffee. He swallowed thickly around the coffee and the lump in his throat.

“W-Well, um. River, but–”

“Ooh, unique.”

“Yeah,” Frankie sighed, nodding. “I’m not sure if that’s their real name, though? I mean, the bartender went by Viper, so it honestly wouldn’t surprise me–”

“Whoa, whoa, slow down,” Santi chuckled. “Why don’t you start from the beginning, huh?”

Frankie nodded, chewing on his bottom lip. That was probably a good place to start. So, he told Santiago everything. Ending up at a goth club, Viper and the drink he gave him (which he really liked), and meeting River. Texting with River and how much he liked them. 

Santiago stayed quiet the whole time, listening closely to what Frankie had to say. “Sounds like it doesn’t matter if you know or not, hermano.”

“But,” Frankie started. “I’d like to. T-To, y’know… Respect them. I’m not sure how to ask without offending them.”

Santiago hummed and took another drink. “This is still new, right?”

“Very.”

“Right. I don’t think River would be upset at you asking. You said you stuck out at that club, right? They’re probably expecting it at this point,” Santi chuckled.

Frankie nodded again, looking out into the middle distance. Santi was right. River had been nothing but kind to him so far. They even started to create little inside jokes already.

“When are you seeing them next?” Santi asked.

“Tonight. We’re going back to The Night Owl,” Frankie muttered, picking at a hangnail on his index finger.

Santi smirked, sitting up in his seat more. “Together this time? Or are you meeting there?”

“Meeting there. I don’t know where they live.”

Santiago hummed, thinking. “I think you should go and have fun tonight. You said they danced last time? Maybe you could join them this time. Just take the night as it comes, and if anything progresses, well, let it… progress,” he shrugged, as if it was the easiest thing in the world.

And maybe it should be. Frankie was allowed to enjoy himself from time to time. He’s been clean since Marisol was born, and had been on the straight and mostly narrow ever since. He could loosen up tonight. He nodded to himself and finally made eye contact with Santi again.

“I will. Thanks, Pope.”

“Of course, hermano. Lemme know how it goes, yeah?”

Frankie was sitting at the bar again, having another Snakebite. He tapped his fingers against the bar nervously as he waited for River to arrive. 

“They’ll be here, stripes,” Viper’s gruff voice muttered from behind him. Frankie turned to look at him and raised a brow.

“How do you know I’m–”

“Frankie!” River’s voice came from behind him, their hands waving excitedly, which caused all the jewelry they wore to jingle loudly. God, they looked incredible. He gulped, but smiled, standing to greet them properly.

“Hey, Riv,” Frankie said, shoving his hands into his pockets, unsure what to do with them. He hadn’t noticed it last time, or maybe they weren’t wearing it then, but River was wearing a cologne this time around; bergamot, clove, and sandalwood. It went right to his head and made his heart skip a beat. “You look great.”

“You picked it out, remember?” River winked, their eyes flicking to Frankie’s lips for a quick second. Their eyes traveled down further and they smirked, looking at the t-shirt Frankie wore underneath his leather jacket. “Iron Maiden, huh?” They teased.

“What, I don’t look like I listen to Iron Maiden?” Frankie smiled, a little of his confidence coming back now that River was here. All of the comfort and teasing was still there from their texts.

River hummed thoughtfully, one ring-clad finger running over the side of Eddie’s face on Frankie’s torso. “I didn’t say that. Just thought it was an interesting choice,” they grinned, looking back up at him.

Frankie blinked down at them, following their finger that had yet to leave. “Interesting?” he squeaked, swallowing around another lump in his throat.

River chuckled and took their hand away, shaking their head in amusement. “Don’t worry about it. C’mon, you promised me a dance, remember?”

Right. He did. After his meeting with Santiago that morning, he texted River and said he’d never seen dances quite like the ones at The Night Owl. River excitedly offered to show him how to do one or two moves. Frankie didn’t have the heart to tell them he had two left feet.

River grabbed his hand and dragged him to the dance floor, grinning up at him, and started dancing once they made their way to the middle.

The walls of the club bounced with the music. This time it was a little closer to electronic so it was easier to find a beat to Frankie’s untrained ears. He still didn’t fully know what all the different genres were despite River trying to give him a breakdown of the main ones over text. He thinks this one was Dark… Wave? Something like that.

Frankie had danced with both men and women before, but didn’t quite know where to put his hands with River. Thankfully, he didn’t have to think about it too hard, because they grabbed his wrists and rested his hands on their shoulders. They moved their hips to the music, grabbing onto Frankie's waist and guiding him with them.

Frankie’s cheeks warmed as he smiled down at them. He completely lost himself in the moment, just like Santi said he should. Lights danced around with them, shining off of River’s dark hair and illuminating them in a way that made Frankie’s heart stop. They made eye contact and River winked at him, tapping his butt lightly. He blushed, thankful that the lights hid it for the most part. Before he knew it, a few songs had passed and River was dragging him off the dancefloor and back towards the bar, giggling their head off.

“I didn’t know you had such good moves!” They teased, poking his side playfully.

“Oh, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” Frankie winked, his eyes flicking to River’s lips. River got closer, wrapping their arms around Frankie’s waist and grinned.

“That a promise?”

Frankie’s heart skipped two full beats before he exhaled loudly, his hands resting on River’s biceps. He looked around at all the other clubgoers and sighed before grabbing River’s hand and taking them outside into the fresh air.

River furrowed their brows with concern, but followed him. They looked at the back of Frankie’s head, eyes following the shapes and valleys of his messy curls. They wanted to run their fingers through it.

Fresh, cool air hit their warm cheeks as Frankie walked them over to his truck. He maneuvered River so that they were leaning against the side, his arms caging around them. River could see that a million thoughts were passing behind those big brown eyes of his. They reached for the bottom of Frankie’s Iron Maiden t-shirt and rubbed it comfortingly. They were patient.

“I’d love nothing more than to promise you that,” Frankie started, his eyes not meeting their green ones. He kept his eyes glued to the torn shirt and multiple silver necklaces River wore. “But, I just… I have a question for you, and I’m not sure how to ask it.”

River’s lips quirked up into a small smile. They had a feeling this was coming. “No, I’m not secretly a cop,” they deadpanned.

Frankie looked up at that and snorted at the serious look on River’s face. “No, not that,” he chuckled, poking at the tattoo on River’s collarbone.

“You can just ask. It can’t be that bad.”

Frankie bit his bottom lip and nodded, eyes locked on River’s nose rings. “I, uh… I’ve dated men and women in the past. I… like them equally, and I guess I was just wondering… where you, uh… fell, on that spectrum,” he mumbled, eyes downcast again. His shoulders felt a hundred pounds lighter, but he was still afraid he would offend them.

River smiled wide and cupped Frankie’s cheek, forcing him to look at them. “That’s all?”

Frankie blinked and nodded jerkily.

“Well, do you want the long version or the short version?”

Frankie looked at River’s lips, feeling a little more confident knowing River wasn’t angry with him. “Whichever one gets me closer to kissing you,” he muttered hopefully, dropping his hand down to their hip and rubbing the bone there with his thumb.

River’s breath hitched and they smiled. “Short version, then,” they grinned, rubbing at his patchy facial hair, their thumb finding a perfect spot to rest. “I’m both. And neither. I was raised one way and never felt like I belonged in either basket.”

Frankie nodded in understanding. He understood feeling like he didn’t belong. “Is… is there a word for that?” he asked, hoping that was okay.

“Yeah. Non-binary. I don’t always use it, and that’s kind of where the longer version comes in, but I think you promised me a kiss,” River smiled, rubbing their thumb along Frankie’s bottom lip.

Frankie didn’t need to be told twice, surging forward to slot their lips together. He kept one hand on River’s hip and cupped the back of their head with his free hand, sighing into their mouth. 

River moved their head a little to the right so they could fit together more easily. They gently prodded their tongue against Frankie’s bottom lip, asking permission. Goosebumps traveled down the back of their neck to the tips of their toes, as they wound their arms around Frankie’s neck.

Frankie happily granted them entry, his head spinning at the feeling of River’s lips on his own. It was so much better than he thought it would be.

When they eventually came up for air, Frankie touched his forehead to River’s. They just breathed each other in for a few moments, but River started snickering quietly. He leaned back, their waists still pressed together, and looked down at them, smiling softly. “What?”

River pointed to their own mouth, then to his, and laughed harder. He raised a brow and looked over at his rearview mirror to see what it could be. He didn’t let go of River’s hip.

Once his own reflection came into view, his cheeks warmed at what he saw. His eyes traveled over to River’s giggling form in the mirror, their hand covering their mouth as their shoulders shook. River’s dark lipstick had transferred over onto Frankie’s own lips and it looked… very out of place, to say the least.

Frankie started laughing softly, his eyes moving back to River’s. “I think it suits me, don’t you?” He winked.

River barked a laugh and lightly slapped his chest. “Absolutely not. I like you all lumberjack, fisherman chic.”

“Fisher– what?” Frankie chuckled.

“You look like you just got back from a fishing trip with peepaw, Francisco. Please don’t tell me you have a photo of you holding up a fish on your Tinder profile,” River said, suddenly very serious.

Frankie blinked a few times before it was his turn to start laughing hard. Then he got quiet, and asked, “What’s Tinder?”

“Good answer.”

a/n: please enjoy these edits i made of frankie in his iron maiden t-shirt~

[nejis-desk]

Jack Jeanne Complete Collection - Interview with Ishida Sui and Towada Shin Translation

This interview is from the Jack Jeanne Complete Collection art book, it’s available on CDJapan and Amazon jp. You can also purchase a digital only version on bookwalker jp. I encourage anyone reading to purchase the game (if you haven't already) or the art book itself to support Ishida and Towada directly. 💕

This is a VERY long interview so I apologise for any typos or errors I may have missed.

~ ~ ~

An interview with Ishida Sui and Towada Shin, who both worked on writing the story of Jack Jeanne. In this interview they reveal what went on behind the scenes during production, rejected story ideas and much more. This interview was conducted remotely on the 9th of February 2021.

Interviewer: Yui Kashima

How did Ishida Sui end up making an otome game?

—How did the production of Jack Jeanne begin?

Ishida: It was sometime around Autumn 2015 I think… On an old personal site that I used to run, I received an email from the company Broccoli to an email address that I no longer use. It was a commission request for character designs.

—In 2015 Tokyo Ghoul was still being serialised wasn’t it?

Ishida: Yes. Usually job offers like that go through Shueisha first, so I contacted my editor asking why this one was sent to my private email…  At the time, in addition to working on Tokyo Ghoul, I was also drawing illustrations for a tear-off calendar and very busy with various other things, so when my editorial department heard about the offer they seemed very shocked like "What!?".

—Why did you decide to accept the offer even though you were so busy?

Ishida: I would often receive offers asking for me to draw manga or illustrations, so I figured that this one was a similar case. However, some words in the email caught my eye. Like ‘Gender Swap’, ‘Takarazuka’ and ‘All Boys Opera'. When I saw these concept ideas, a dream began to swell in my chest and I felt like giving it a try.

I think if it had just been a normal character design job, I would have turned it down. However just from reading the short brief in the email my interest was piqued. While in discussions with the Young Jump editorial department, I also casually mentioned the kind of offer I’d received to Towada-san.

Towada: Yeah, Ishida-san asked me for some advice. I was also drawn to the ‘Gender Swap’ and ‘Opera’ concepts. I could easily visualise the setting of the story. Additionally, it seemed like it would be a story that included many different themes such as gender. When I thought about that, I figured that Ishida-san would be a good fit, since I knew he would be able to draw something that went beyond all genders.

Ishida: I’ve been drawing androgynous characters for a long time, so Towada-san and I talked and wondered if that's what they must be looking for. After that, I created my own proposal and submitted it to Broccoli.

—You created your own proposal, Ishida-san?

Ishida: When I looked at the original proposal that Broccoli had sent me, a lot of it differed from my personal tastes. It was a very upbeat and dazzling story. It would’ve been hard for me to match my art style to that, so in my proposal I noted things like ‘if it were me, I’d do something more like this’. I was interested in this unpolished gem of a story, so I thought it would be a waste to turn it down altogether. I wanted to at least try throwing my own ideas into the ring, so I spent a week creating the six main characters and sent them in.

—At that time, I heard that the game wasn’t titled ‘Jack Jeanne’ yet, but was instead called ‘Jiemarie’.

Ishida: At first, I wanted to try creating a word that doesn’t exist. So using French as a base, I came up with ‘Jiemarie’ as the game's provisional title. But then a month later when I was reconsidering the title, I looked at it again and thought, damn this looks lame. So I hurriedly called Towada-san on Skype and we entered a discussion that lasted about ten hours over what the title should be.

That’s when we decided on ‘Jack Jeanne’. The male roles take the name from the knight, or the ‘Jack’ in a deck of playing cards. And the female roles ‘Jeanne’ take from the word parisienne and Jeanne d’Arc. When these two terms are put together, I feel like you can comprehend what the game is about with a bit of nuance. Plus you can shorten it to ‘JJ’… That’s also the title of a magazine though (lol).

—Taking on another job whilst your manga was being serialised sounds like it would be tough on you both physically and mentally.

Ishida: I think I must’ve been a bit unwell (lol). My body was fine, but being able to work on something other than a serialised manga was a lot easier on me mentally. I may have seen it as a way to escape, so I didn’t feel that working on two projects at the same time was difficult. When it comes to game development, I can only create what I’m capable of, and there was no set release date yet. Of course, I would work on and submit things whenever I could though.

—What kind of things would you submit?

Ishida: I would sketch character designs, discuss and create story elements with Towada-san and try to put Univeils history into chronological order. Then I would share the progress with Broccoli and have meetings and such with them. In the beginning, rather than having to draw anything yet, it was mostly just brainstorming and planning. That’s why I think I was able to do it all concurrently with the serialisation of my manga. 

~ ~ ~

How Ishida Sui and Towada Shin know each other

—Do you chat with Towada-san often?

Ishida: Well yeah, she is my older sister after all.

Towada: We talk a lot. When we both have the time we chat over Skype.

Ishida: Once we start the conversation can last up to five or six hours. We mostly talk about things that happened throughout our day. When I’m talking to someone I often bring up something that’s happened to me and ask their opinion on it. She became someone that I could chat with whilst working on my manga. Ever since my student days we’d talk until early morning, I usually told her about storyboards I’d drawn.

—At the Ishida Sui exhibition it was revealed that Towada-san had even given you advice on some of your earliest works.

Ishida: Yeah that’s right. It was a work I’d prepared for a 'bring your own work along' induction course in Tokyo that I attended back in my student days. It was a manga about two characters who eventually became the prototypes for Tsukiyama and Hori Chie in Tokyo Ghoul. It was only about 30 pages long, however when I showed it to Towada-san the day before the presentation, she told me that she thought my linework was too thin.

Towada: Yeah, the overall linework of the manga was thinly drawn. Once I told Ishida-san this thought, he began tracing over his linework and making it thicker. And then when he looked at it again, he said “Yep, I need to redraw the whole thing”.

The linework being too thin was only my personal opinion and the presentation was in Tokyo the next day, so in horror, I began hastily telling him, “You won’t make it in time, stop, stop!”

Ishida: All I could think about was that the lines really were too thin, so I wanted to redraw it. All of the screentones had already been affixed to the panels, but I didn’t want to bring something along with me whilst knowing it wasn’t the best that it could be.

Towada: Ishida-san handled the linework and I helped with redoing the screentones. We worked throughout the night and finished redrawing the whole manuscript. Once it was done, it wasn’t even comparable to the previous version, the lines were powerful and the characters' expressions conveyed a lot. I was seriously worried though (lol), I didn’t know if we’d complete it in time.

Ishida: I couldn’t think about anything other than the lines being too thin, so I wasn’t even worried about whether I had enough time or not.

Towada: I fell asleep halfway through, but you continued and boarded that Tokyo bound flight without having slept a wink, didn’t you?

Ishida: Yeah. I let Towada-san sleep and continued applying the screentones myself right up until the very last minute. I was still applying them whilst on the plane and also after my arrival in Tokyo. I used screentone number 10 a lot, so I remember the scenery around me gradually began to look grainy like the screentone. It felt as though I was hallucinating.

—Sounds like it was a tough manuscript to complete. Towada-san was also the author for the Tokyo Ghoul novels, has your relationship always been one akin to work partners?

Ishida: When it was decided that Tokyo Ghoul would be getting a novelisation, I was given other authors' works to look at. However, none of their styles really clicked with me, and they didn’t seem right for the series. I knew that Towada-san wrote, so I tried reaching out to her.

Although back in the days of Tokyo Ghoul’s serialisation, Towada-san and I didn’t talk as much as we do now. If I had any concerns I would just try and sort them out by myself. We’d always gotten along as brother and sister, however we didn’t really start to have a ‘work partners’ kind of relationship until we started working on Jack Jeanne together.

Towada: That’s true. Back then, we only occasionally conversed regarding the novelisation of Tokyo Ghoul. Before :re we only spoke once every few months over Skype. As Ishida-san said, it wasn’t until I started working on Jack Jeanne that we really started properly talking to one another.

—How often would you contact each other?

Towada: Depending on what stage we were at, we would bounce ideas off each other once every three or so days. Ishida-san would make a request like “I’d be happy if this part of the script was done within the next two weeks.” And then I’d present what I’d written and we’d discuss it and then I’d return to writing again. This process was repeated until Jack Jeanne reached its completion.

—Was Ishida-san the one that reached out to Towada-san to write the script of Jack Janne?

Towada: He didn’t ask me specifically to write the script, early in development he’d ask me to help with some research like “I’d like you to look up some information on this, could you help me?”. I’ve always liked ikusei games and within that genre I also enjoy romance and otome games. So I think that’s why it was easy for Ishida-san to consult me about it. We’ve had a common interest in games ever since we were kids.

Ishida: Back then I played games like ‘Pinnochia no Miru Yume’ and ‘Angelique’. I wanted to try and conquer Marcel in Angelique but it was one difficult game, so it was a tough task. Before I could even raise any flags with him, the training aspect of the game was so hard that no matter how many times I played I never got any good at it.

Towada: I’m the type that loves playing games, so after talking with Ishida-san, I went on to play every popular otome game that had been released around 2015, as well as every Broccoli published otoge. I completed every single character route in those games. I began analysing otome game trends and Broccoli’s brand identity and relayed my findings to Ishida-san. After that, I went along with the Jack Jeanne production team and Makasano Chuuji-san from Shueisha, who was the scriptwriter of the Tokyo Ghoul anime. We all visited the city of Takarazuka for research.

Ishida: I was also supposed to be there for the Takarazuka trip but since I had my manga to worry about, I had Towada-san go and take in the atmosphere in my place.

Towada: I did have to gather material but I think I visited Takarazuka a total of five or six times. From morning I would watch the Takarazuka theatre from afar and simply watch the guests move about, soaking in the atmosphere of the city.

Along with the Takarazuka plays, I also watched student plays, in total I probably went and watched one hundred shows. Theatre shows that are performed by professionals are fully realised and flawless. So getting to see the contrast to student plays, where they progress and improve until the show is complete was a very helpful reference.

I’ve always enjoyed watching plays, so everything I had to research overlapped with my own hobbies. I still shared my own input with Ishida-san though.

Ishida: I’d never formally been asked to write a script before… I felt like a fraud (lol). I think it’s because I’m not very good at being considerate of other people. I don’t think I’d be able to work with anyone other than Towada-san on something.

—Why is that?

Ishida: Well, for one I don’t want to talk to anyone for long periods of time (lol). Because Towada-san understands what aspects of a story are important to me, she’s also able to comprehend what I mean when I talk in abstract concepts. We could save time by not needing to have any pointless discussions.

Towada: Back then Ishida-san was still very busy publishing his manga, so bringing in all sorts of new people to work on the project probably would’ve put quite the burden on him. That’s why I wanted to help him out in some way.

After researching all sorts of things, I ended up participating in a production meeting for Jack Jeanne, but I was not expecting that I myself would end up being in charge of writing the script. Rather, I was more just looking forward to getting to play a game made by Ishida-san. As things progressed though, I was asked to try plotting things out, or to write part of the script to be used temporarily. Eventually I came to think, why don’t I just write the scenario myself?

I’d never written the script for a game before though, so that’s what had been holding me back. Unlike novels, it’s commonplace to not have to write descriptively. Novels are made up of dialogue and descriptions, like describing the setting and characters' expressions or emotions. So I had to spend a lot of time working out how to write to properly convey a story through dialogue alone.

When I first started getting the hang of it, I tried writing a script that still included descriptions but I quickly stopped. Jack Jeanne is about theatre, so I figured that it would be easier to convey the presence and narrative of the story through conversation. I usually write novels, so I was uncertain, but since Jack Jeanne has sprites of the characters on screen, I thought that I could do it. I suppose it’s closer to writing for a manga rather than a novel.

~ ~ ~

The rejected character routes

—Before Tokyo Ghoul was completed, what kind of things did you work on?

Ishida: The first two years were mostly spent creating the game’s world and mechanics. Like deciding how many performances there would be, how the plays would be presented. Would it be a dialogue drama? Would there be mini games? Things like that. We also had to decide whether summer break would be included or not, how raising affection would work and how the choices would be presented. Those are the sort of things that were talked about first.

—You got to watch over the entire game’s development then.

Ishida: At first, I got carried away and envisioned a stage play game full of skill mechanics that I personally enjoyed. A busy game full of specs you can raise and improve in mini games, however when I explained these details to a friend of mine, they were like “You’re just imagining a game that you would like, right?”.

They asked me if that’s what the eventual players of Jack Jeanne would be looking for. That same friend said that since it’s a story that deals with the theme of theatre, it would be better if the player could witness the performances themselves. So I took that advice and the prototype of the current Jack Jeanne was created. I told all of this to Towada-san and had her handle the script.

Towada: You can’t write a script without knowing how the game’s system works after all.

Ishida: Now that I think about it, before Tokyo Ghoul was finished, rather than build the game's foundation, all I was really doing was scattering the sand to prepare for said foundation.

When Tokyo Ghoul entered its endgame especially, I really had to concentrate on it, so I took a six month break from Jack Jeanne. Ending a story requires a lot of energy and attention, so I left the practical work of Jack Jeanne to Towada-san and only supervised the music production and attended any important meetings.

—So during serialisation you were making preparations to jump right into it afterwards?

Ishida: Yes exactly. I wasn’t able to do much practical work, so I had Towada-san prepare the script in advance for me. And for the time being, create one character route.

—Which character was it?

Towada: It was Shirota. I wrote about the equivalent length of a short book and it was more or less complete. In the end, we scrapped the entire thing though… Because the atmosphere in the beginning was quite dark.

Ishida: It was dark because I was too used to Tokyo Ghoul. It included issues like a troubled household and severe bullying. Reading something like that wouldn’t put the player in a happy mood.

Despite it being a story about the theatre, my attention drifted to other topics which didn’t fit. And it was me who had asked Towada-san to write something like that… A couple months after the Shirota route had been completed, I read over what Towada-san had written for me once again and realised that it was a bit too gloomy. I’d forgotten what prompt I’d even given to her in the first place (lol).

The first character portraits and CGs that I created were for Shirota too. The reason being that Shirota is the only second year student and he was already a complete individual, so he was easy to create for. As for the third year students, there’s three of them, Fumi, Kai and Neji. Along with Kisa, Suzu and Yonoga are also first years, so continuity and character relationships need to be taken into account in order to create them, so they were a little more complex.

—How did the other characters come to be?

Ishida: At the proposal stage, the first character that I created was Kai. It’s a game where characters will be falling in love and confessing to one another, so first off I wanted a character that was handsome. Then I made Fumi who would be Kai’s partner. After that, I think Shirota was next.

Towada: At first you created the characters by basing them on plays didn’t you?

Ishida: I’m a fan of Yamamoto Shugoro’s work ‘Kikuchiyosho’ so Shirota was created using that as a base. In Shirota's case the genders are swapped, but Kikuchiyosho is a story about a girl who is born into a samurai family and raised as a boy. It has an element of androgyny and portrays the confusion and anger concerning gender quite well.

—How did you select the plays to base the characters on?

Ishida: I chose plays that lots of people are familiar with and would be easy to assign characters to. Kai is ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, Fumi is ‘Salome’, Neji is ‘Faust’ and Yonoga is ‘Shintokumaru’. Kisa and her classmate Ootori are ‘Don Quixote’. Ootori ended up becoming a side character though.

—So Ootori was originally meant to be a main character?

Ishida: Yeah. If I were to compare it to Tokyo Ghoul, Ootori is in the same position as Tsukiyama. I wanted a pompous character like that in Quartz. However I may have made him a little too unique (lol).

I received feedback from Broccoli that they want the main six characters to be an elite group, so a more easy to approach character would be better. So I moved the bright and cheerful character that I had originally made as Onyx’s Jack Ace over. That character was Suzu.

Making the characters personifications of plays started to become difficult to stick with though, so I abandoned the idea entirely halfway through.

—Despite appearing glamorous, the characters are all dealing with their own issues, like certain complexes and family troubles. I think that they’re all conflicts that are easy to sympathise with, how did you decide what the backbone of each character's conflict would be?

Ishida: First I created the character's appearance and then decided what personality would match them. Like with Fumi, when I began to think about making his story about the unique struggles that come with being born into a respected family, if becoming a successor was going to come into question, then he needed to have a brother.

In this way, I worked backwards from the vibe of his appearance and created his home life. I did the same with the other characters too, thinking things like ‘to have a personality like this they must not have parents, or they must struggle with expressing themselves’.

I think that if you let your characters do human-like things, then aspects of them that are easy to sympathise with will be born.

Jealousy, setbacks due to failure, inferiority complexes… Each and every character naturally ended up having some form of theme attached to them.

—I feel as though Kisa had a different sort of personality than that of a typical heroine.

Ishida: To put it simply, I want my protagonists to be fighting something. If they’re not giving it their all, then it’s no good. If they’re just standing around, then you can’t empathise with them.

—There’s times where she draws others towards her or supports those around her. She also has some masculine aspects to her.

Ishida: I think that I’m moved by characters who make me think “This kid’s really admirable”. That’s why I made Kisa a girl who works hard no matter the difficult situation that she’s in. I like Kisa and I’m sure Towada-san feels the same way.

Towada: She’s the result of both of our preferences. While due to the game’s setting, she of course has struggles related to being a girl, but I was careful to write the main thread of her story in a way that transcended gender and instead simply showed her charm as a human being.

—Regarding gender, I was impressed by how neutrally it was portrayed.

Ishida: Yes. Originally, I was going to make Shirota a character with a feminine personality, but I ended up scrapping the idea. In the end, he ended up having more of a masculine mentality. The premise of Jack Jeanne is that boys also play the female roles on stage, but it’s not a metaphor for anything and I didn’t want it to raise any questions. I simply wanted to give it my all creating plays with that setting and create something new and refreshing.

I don’t struggle with any gender related issues myself, so it’s not like I can fully understand what it’s like, but in general I’ve never considered gender to be a very big deal. If someone born male were to tell me “I have the heart of a woman” then I’d just think ‘ok cool’.

To me it feels strange to place so much weight on such an issue. I don't see why others need to be bothered by someone else's gender, I'm not since I myself am not able to speak for such experiences.

Towada: At first, it was possible to take that direction with Shirota but as I continued to write, I came to realise that there was no need to exaggerate any emphasis on his gender identity.

To those looking from an outside perspective, it may seem like a unique identity such as that is a person's defining trait, when in reality it's only just a portion of their whole self. If you consider it to be all they are, then you end up denying the other aspects of that person.

Whilst considering the individually of each character, I kept in mind to write them in a way that seemed natural for them.

—The side character, Tanakamigi Chui of Amber, had a very striking presence. How did you go about creating him?

Ishida: I wanted someone that’s easily understood to be the antagonist, so I went ahead and tried to draw someone who looked like an unstoppable genius. Despite being a second year, it’s as if he controls the school. I wanted an enigmatic and intriguing character like that. Once I named him Tanakamigi Chui I felt as though he was complete and his inclusion in the story was quickly decided on.

—On the flip side, were there any characters that you had a hard time creating?

Ishida: I had to think a little harder about the other members of Amber. They needed to have the aura of the enemy but since they’re only villains in the context of the stage, they’re not actually bad people. So it was hard to find that balance between them.

Visually they’re edgy and have a talented vibe, but they also have their own individual quirks, they’re not all homogeneous. I struggled with Kamiya Utsuri especially, I wanted him to visually look like he could be a Jeanne while also still looking like a boy, so it was difficult to get him right. I didn’t have to do many redesigns though and all the other characters came to be without much trouble.

What I actually had more trouble with, was the fact I made the cast too large. I initially created almost double the amount of first year characters, but when I looked back over the script that Towada-san created, I told her “There’s way too many characters, please cut some of them out.” To which Towada-san replied, “Ishida-san, you’re the one who created them in the first place.” (lol).

Towada: That’s because the cut characters had already appeared in the script (lol).

Ishida: I feel that when there’s too many characters a lot of them get wasted, so just like that I end up creating and scrapping a lot of my characters. I think even Broccoli were surprised by the amount of times I’d suddenly tell them “Oh that character doesn’t exist anymore.”

—Apart from characters, were there any other aspects of the game that were abruptly discarded?

Ishida: The performances I suppose… Originally I had wanted there to be a larger variety of shows, but if you were to put all of them in the script it probably would’ve ended up being three million characters long.

In the beginning of development, I had originally planned for each character's route to have a different final performance. There’s six main characters, and including Kisa’s route, that would total to seven unique shows.

Before that there’s the newcomers, summer, autumn and winter performances, so I arranged to have a script written for each. Basically I wanted to include more shows and increase the amount of sub stories, but that would be confusing to play through and development would never end. The game engine has its limits too, so I decided to keep it simple.

Towada: It would’ve been difficult to play through all that as well (lol). For the final performance, we settled on it being one show and letting the player enjoy it from each character’s perspective instead. And even then, there’s still over 20 different endings to the game, so it still took a long time until everything was fully complete.

—Newcomers, summer, autumn, winter and the final performance, were these five show’s scripts all original?

Towada: Yes. However at first, like the characters, we had planned to base them on famous productions. Like Shakespeare or fairy tales. We figured that players would find it easy to get immersed in plays that they were already familiar with.

Ishida: For the newcomers' performance, I thought we could have a show called ‘House of Biscuits and Candy’ based on Hansel and Gretel. I had also originally planned to use each character's motif to base the plays on.

Towada: Like Shintokumaru, right?

Ishida: Yeah yeah. I even went as far as getting permission to use it, but if the show were to be following a story that already exists, then the script would be bound to it. Once I understood that it would make it difficult to relate the stories to Univeil, we decided to create the plays ourselves.

Since I acquired the permission to adapt Shintokumaru though, maybe I’ll have to make a manga about it someday…

By the way, the one who was saying “Let’s do this” and then changing it to “Nevermind let’s not” was all me. I’ll start on something wholeheartedly thinking that it’s the right choice before realising halfway through that I can’t actually take it anywhere and stop. Jack Jeanne’s development was full of trial and error.

Whenever I’m about to start something, Towada-san will express her concerns with my ideas but I always end up pushing on with them only to ultimately scrap it.

I probably have at least ten books worth of scrapped drafts alone. I had no real knowledge of how to properly craft a story. I hadn’t drawn anything other than Tokyo Ghoul, so even though I had no idea what the fundamentals of storytelling were, I misunderstood that I could write other kinds of stories too. This time around I studied and revised each time… I really learnt a lot.

Towada: You learn things by doing them, so I think I just got used to it (lol). Also, you don’t commonly see stories presented within stories, I thought that it was a rare case for a game especially.

~ ~ ~

The story behind ‘Lyrics: Ishida Sui’

—You also wrote the lyrics for each of the songs used in the performances didn’t you, Ishida-san?

Ishida: Yes, that’s how things ended up. It goes without saying, but no one, including myself, thought that I’d be the one writing the lyrics.

Originally Broccoli brought in several professional lyricists and had me look over what they’d written. However I couldn’t help but feel that they were lyrics I’d heard somewhere before, or they at least didn’t leave a unique impression on me. I did feel the finesse of a professional, and they were beautiful lyrics that fit the story in one way or another… But the words used didn’t touch on the core of the story. 

The songs in Jack Jeanne are stage songs that Neji wrote for the members of Quartz. So unless you’re familiar with the setting and understand how the characters are feeling, then you won’t be able to write lyrics that perfectly fit the scenario.

While I knew that my lyric writing technique would be far from that of a professionals, I thought that no one understands and loves these characters more than me, so I approached Broccoli about it. I’d poured my heart into not only the character designs, but also the story and system of the game, so I didn’t want to compromise on the lyrics and have them pale in comparison.

So, to the best of my ability, I wanted to at least try my hand at writing them. I had Broccoli check whether or not what I’d written was viable and asked them “If there are no problems, then please let me write the lyrics.”

—Did you sing the temporary vocals for the songs too?

Ishida: When I submitted the lyrics to Broccoli, I got the normal response of “Thank you, we’ll leave the temporary vocals to you.” Along with this message they also wrote “You can hire a professional vocalist if you’d like, or you could record the temporary vocals yourself.”

Because of this I started thinking that maybe I should record them myself. Similar to how one wouldn’t be able to write lyrics for the songs without a deep understanding of the story, if you weren’t the one who wrote the lyrics, you wouldn’t know how they’re supposed to be sung either.

So, after deciding that I had to be the one to do it, I made preparations to acquire some audio recording equipment and downloaded some editing software. I divided up the parts and harmonised with myself and over the course of three days, I finished recording the temporary vocals. That’s more or less how I did it.

—When recording yourself singing, being self conscious about it can interfere, can’t it?

Ishida: I don’t think I was possessed by him or anything, but… When I tried to go all out, as expected I felt a bit hesitant, so I began recording whilst imagining I was Neji.

In the game, Neji is the one who writes the scripts, so surely he would also write the lyrics and subdivide the song and do everything himself. So I got through it thinking like that. In that pumped up mental state, I sent in the temporarily recorded songs but all Broccoli said back was “Alright, let us know your upcoming schedule”, I got so carried away that I was somewhat bewildered by the cold response (lol).

~ ~ ~

Recruiting via DM, gathering specifically selected creators

—It appears the creators you gathered to handle things such as the concept art and music are all people whose work you enjoy.

Ishida: Yes. Almost everyone was sent a targeted offer. For example, I’ve always loved the concept artist Lownine-san’s work ever since I was a student. I suppose you could say I was jealous of how high quality their artwork is… They’re someone who I thought I'd never be able to beat in my entire life. Lownine-san is an amazing artist who is especially good at blending characters into their backgrounds.

When we were creating Jack Jeanne, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pull something like that off, so I definitely wanted to recruit Lownine-san for the job. After getting permission from Broccoli, I reached out to Lownine-san myself through Twitter DM’s. I had only appreciated Lownine-san’s work from afar, and we’d never actually interacted before, but we did both follow each other. I received a reply that Lownine-san was fully on board to accept the job.

Towards the end of Jack Jeanne’s development, I got the chance to speak with Lownine-san, so I asked them “Could you teach me how to draw?” They gladly accepted this request and taught me how to draw whilst screen sharing over Skype. However, in about 10 minutes, they’d already drawn such an amazing piece that I felt I should just put my pen down (lol).

Towada: You were a little down after that, weren’t you?

—Had you been a fan of Kosemura-san, who was in charge of music, since you were a student as well?

Ishida: Yes, I’ve listened to Kosemura-san’s music a lot since I was a student. When I was brainstorming what kind of music would fit Jack Jeanne, Kosemura-san’s ‘Light Dance’ immediately came to mind, since it fit perfectly. Because I didn’t have any personal connections to Kosemura-san however, I didn’t know how to get in contact with him, so I made the request through Broccoli. I only found out about this recently, but apparently Kosemura-san almost turned the offer down*, I was quite shocked to hear that (lol).

*When the initial request was sent, it was under wraps that the game was being made by Ishida Sui, and since Kosemura-san didn’t have much experience in writing game music, he wasn’t optimistic about the offer. However, later, when he learned that it was a game being made by Ishida Sui, he readily accepted the offer.

—How did Seishiro-san, who was in charge of the choreography, get chosen for the job?

Ishida: A very long time ago I saw the group Tokyo Gegegay appear on a program called DANCE @ HERO JAPAN and I remember thinking ‘this group is crazy good’ and I was immediately charmed by them. After that, whilst I was looking through more videos of Tokyo Gegegay on YouTube, I happened upon a studio workshop video and discovered Seishiro-san.

—What about him caught your eye?

Ishida: Whilst first and foremost his dancing was super sexy, it also had a certain strength to it. I remember thinking that he danced in a way that embraced the best elements of both masculinity and femininity. And that had stayed in my memory ever since. When Seishiro-san was recording motion capture for the game, he allowed me to interrupt and even taught me some of the choreography.

(note: you can watch Seishiro dance here, he is also the choreographer behind this RADWIMPS music video!)

—I hear you’ve known Gyudon-san, who was in charge of making the movies, since your Tokyo Ghoul days. 

Ishida: Yes. Around the time volume 13 of Tokyo Ghoul was set to be released, we held a still image MAD (Music Anime Douga) contest. The grand prize winner of said contest was Gyudon-san, who at the time was still only a student. The way they made a video by manipulating the manga panels to move so fluidly was really cool and stood out from the rest. 

Around when Tokyo Ghoul had ended and :re was about to start, I had Gyudon-san make a minute long video for me. After that, Gyudon-san grew in popularity and became someone whose work is in high demand, so they seemed very busy.

However when Jack Jeanne was announced, we were able to have them create a promotional video for us. Since I’ve known them since Tokyo Ghoul, I figured I couldn’t go wrong entrusting the job to Gyudon-san. They didn’t just deliver their finished work without a word either, Gyudon-san also made a variety of suggestions and worked on the project with a positive attitude. For the videos used in the performances, I was asked to provide materials and became very involved in the process. I think it took about two weeks… Despite the really tight deadline, Gyudon-san allowed me to catch up and was super helpful.

I was also the one who reached out to Touyama Maki-san, who was in charge of creating the in-game chibi characters and the 4koma manga used for promotional purposes. During Tokyo Ghoul’s publication, Touyama-san would draw short comics for the series as a hobby, I thought they were a nice person for doing so. Their art was great too and I was very thankful. So when it was decided that we’d be displaying chibi characters during the game’s lesson segments, I wanted to leave it to Touyama-san and sent them the offer.

(note: this is the MAD that gyudon won the contest with, they now regularly make moving manga CM's for jump titles, they make the Choujin X ones too!)

~ ~ ~

The winter performance moves into Quartz’s ending, and the divergence in the story since the beginning of the year drastically branches off

—The performances, packed full of each of the character’s skills, continue for a year and pass by in the blink of an eye. Once the new year breaks, it feels as though the atmosphere of the game drastically changes. What were your intentions behind this?

Towada: That’s when the character route specific endings begin. So we packed all the needed material to set them up into the winter performance.

Ishida: The winter performance is like an ending for Quartz as a whole, so we packed it full of good lines and scenes without holding back. I may have used up all of my cards but by using them all without compromise, we were able to make the story reach a nice peak. After that, the story switches to focusing on each character's individual ending.

Towada: We used a lot of great material in the winter performance, which meant the final performance would have to be even better still. In a good way, it gave us a higher hurdle that we now needed to overcome.

—So you needed to create even more anticipation heading into March?

Towada: From January to March, each character’s route is completely different. From the new year onwards I needed to create seven different scripts, so it was very challenging. The amount of text for the last three months of the game alone just about eclipses the amount of text from up until the winter performance. There was so much to write that I began to fear I wouldn’t even be able to finish it.

Ishida: Having more choices that drastically change the ending of the game makes the player feel more involved. So, despite it making things tougher on ourselves, around the time we were working on the autumn performance is when we began thinking about how the game’s big branches should work. Along with the main routes, we also planned for there to be the option to deepen your bonds with the side characters.

—How did you go about creating the confession scenes?

Towada: Before the winter performance, to some extent each character has already grown closer to Kisa, so I kept in mind not to disrupt that flow. Since if I didn’t make it a confession that respected both Kisa and her suitor’s feelings, then I felt it would spoil the fun.

—Is that how you approached the ‘realising Kisa’s a girl’ scenes as well?

Towada: Yes, I suppose so. As I was writing the script, I knew that a point was going to come where Kisa would have no choice but to acknowledge the fact that she’s a girl. There’s characters that realise her true gender once their bond deepens and on the flip side, there are some who don’t realise it at all. There’s also the case of Yonaga, who knew Kisa’s situation from the beginning. I guess you could say each reveal followed one of these three patterns. Those who came to realise it, those who didn’t notice anything and those who knew from the start. I think they ended up being nice variations and I put careful consideration into writing them to make sure none of the realisations felt forced.

Also, the beginning half of the story is akin to that of a sports drama about teenagers putting on shows together, so the room for romance to be added is limited. That’s why, when I first started adding romantic elements to the character routes, it felt strange to me, so I discussed it with Ishida-san. I wasn’t able to effortlessly soak the story in romance. I think I had to rewrite Shirota’s ending at least three times…

Ishida: Shirota was who you tried writing an ending for first after all.

Towada: Shirota and Kisa aren’t the sort of people who’d be all flirty, and Shirota’s initial route was already muddy, so it was difficult to pull everything together. However, once I stopped trying to write in a way that forced romance on them and instead wrote them becoming closer as partners, things went more smoothly.

It may not be a stereotypical sort of love, but it was a human love. I thought that the natural way these two would be drawn together wouldn’t be through whispering sweet nothings to one another, but instead by coming to understand one another without having to exchange words at all. Once I’d completed Shirota’s route, to some extent, I continued writing the other routes in a similar way.

Ishida: While it’s true Shirota acts like that, the other characters all act differently. To the point some aren’t even comparable. In contrast to Shirota, Suzu’s route ended up being more of your stereotypical kind of romance. I thought that it would be nice for each character to have their own unique form of love.

Towada-san’s strong suit is writing a love story with your more classic otome guys like Suzu and Kai. I have no idea about that kind of thing, so I left Towada-san to pour her own ideas into their routes. On the flip side, characters like Fumi and Neji were dyed more with my own ideas. Neji’s way of flirting especially were mostly lines that I requested.

Towada: He’d say “Make him say something like ‘Try seduce me!’ Because I want this CG to appear.” (lol).

Neji especially plays with his words a lot, so unless Ishida-san told me what wordplay to write, I wouldn’t have been able to expand on it. Ishida-san has a very unique way of phrasing things, so I asked him for advice a lot to make sure I was making Neji speak in a Neji-like way. I then arranged the lines and created events in order to reach the intended goal. I constructed the route in a way that wouldn’t disrupt the flow of the story. As for Fumi, Ishida-san wrote his route himself.

Ishida: Yes, I wrote it all myself.

—Well isn’t this quite the exciting plot twist?

Ishida: I turned into quite the young maiden myself (lol). Even though I’m clumsy at it… I began wondering why I ended up loving writing it so much. I added some lines that have more of an adult and deeper meaning to them, so when I played the route myself I was like “Woah!”.

Towada: It’s more interesting if at least one character is that way. From the early days of production, I’d quietly wanted Ishida-san to write a character himself, so I was happy. I was unsure how to deal with Fumi too, so it was a big help that Ishida-san took him on. His route ended up being a lot sweeter than I’d been expecting though, it got my heart racing (lol).

Ishida: I was also the main writer for Kisa’s solo route. There’s no romance in it, but it’s an ending where long lasting friendships are born and it ended up being the kind of story you’d see in an uplifting shoujo manga.

Towada: It’s full of Ishida-san’s flair, I loved it.

Ishida: If love is a lie, then how do you face that lie? That’s the sort of thing I thought about. Kisa is lying about her gender and pretending to be a boy, but Neji, Suzu, Fumi, Yonaga and so on, are also hiding lies within themselves.

The fact they’re all hiding their true motives is something that they have in common with Kisa. Whilst hiding, the two grow closer. I think that a confession is a scene where all these lies intersect and burst open. Everyone is lying, and I thought that was like a play, without realising it I think that slowly became the theme of the work. 

As people, we meet others whilst lacking something and some people end up becoming a necessary part for someone else. I wanted to see a drama like that. Despite it being a game with confession scenes, I wanted it to be a story that both women and men alike are able to identify with.

~ ~ ~

From thorns to rounded edges, how the style of work transformed 

—If there was a small novels worth of rejected material, then how many books worth of words made it into the final game?

Towada: In terms of paperback books, probably about twenty volumes worth.

—Because as well as the main scenario, there’s also the sub scenarios and the stage plays?

Ishida: As much as time allowed, I put my all into creating the game. However there was a deadline for things like the voiceline recordings, so I was working both day and night to get things done in time.

Towada: I was only getting around three hours of sleep. I feel like at one point Ishida-san didn’t sleep for four days.

Ishida: I was in a serious pinch so I don’t remember it well, but when I was writing the script I would hole myself up in a manga cafe for around thirty hours at a time. Multiple times a month. Once I felt as though I’d written to a good point, I’d go home only to return to the manga cafe again. Why? Because I was sleeping in the manga cafe. I mays well have been living there…

Towada: Once Ishida-san had finished writing his part of the script, he’d have me check it. So at the same time, I’d have Ishida-san check what I’d written.

Ishida: For a period of time it seemed like Towada-san was always awake. Whenever I would send a check request she always responded right away regardless of the time, so I figured she must not be sleeping.

So that my productivity wouldn’t be affected, I made sure to sleep at a regular time, however I’d be awake for like 30~40 hours at a time and then sleep for 10 and then be awake again for another 40. My sleeping patterns would repeat in this cycle. During Tokyo Ghoul’s serialisation my sleeping patterns were similar, so to some extent I might’ve gotten used to it.

—That’s just like Neji-senpai, isn’t it?

Ishida: Yeah yeah, I worked in a similar way to him. However in Neji’s case, he can complete a script just one day after coming up with the idea for it, so he works way faster than us. It took us around two months to write parts of the script, so Neji really is a genius isn’t he? I was writing whilst wishing I could be like Neji.

After experiencing writing a script, I’ve come to have a lot of respect for authors. Writing is completely different from drawing. When writing I need to really concentrate on it, I can’t multi-task or think about anything else. Whereas with drawing, there are some things that can be done as long as you can move your hand, so I can talk to someone whilst drawing or watch a movie in the background or work whilst thinking about other things. I can’t do that when I’m writing though, I was starting to wonder if I really had to think so deeply about everything I wrote.

—During the production of Jack Jeanne, as you worked on the script or the lyrics etc, did you notice any changes in how you worked?

Ishida: For Tokyo Ghoul, I was always consciously adding things, meaning I would draw everything that I came up with. I thought that it was fine to only put 20% of my output into the characters and dialogue. However, when I was working on Jack Jeanne, I began to think that my method of just adding things was incorrect and that I should also consciously remove things. It’s ok to just be left with what’s necessary. My way of thinking ended up being the exact opposite to before.

—What brought about this change in thinking?

Ishida: It was early in production, when I had asked Towada-san to write Shirota’s route for me, I got concerned about the ‘sharpness’ of the story. As I mentioned earlier, I ordered Towada-san to add this and that and sent her walking on a long journey. Except, what lay completed at the end of that road was such a painful story that even I myself was shocked by it. When I looked down at the world I had created it was as if I’d received a psychological shock. I think I even smelt the faint scent of blood.

—From thorns to rounded edges. I still remember the comment you made during a press conference saying, “I was careful to not kill off any characters”.

Ishida: Stories where characters die are usually fast paced with high stakes, however, the kids at univeil are living a different kind of story. I had to consider the best way to create drama in that kind of setting. I thought about it a lot and it may have only ended up being possible because of the fact it was a game.

—Why is that?

Ishida: Because of the flow of the dialogue, backed by Kosemura-san’s music while it's being read out by all of the voice actors. It all comes together as one… That’s what I think at least. Writing and illustrating are Towada-san and I’s main domain of expertise, but I think that it was thanks to all of the other various creators involved that we were able to create something new.

—Do you think anything about yourself changed, Towada-san?

Towada: It came down to the fact I wanted to create something for Ishida-san whilst there were also things that I wanted to add myself. This dilemma caused me trouble at times, however when I started to consider what components I should add, or which ones I should remove, I began to discover what elements I liked and what my own skillset was. 

The way that Ishida-san and I go about creating stories is different. I came to understand that Ishida-san’s strong point is creating impactful scenes, whilst mine is plotting and world building. Ishida-san being in charge of the pivotal scenes would make things more exciting, so I concentrated on writing everything else whilst keeping the balance in mind. Through working on Jack Jeanne, I’ve become able to say that my strong suit is being able to create a story that flows well.

It may be true that by working with other people, you come to understand more about yourself. Starting with Ishida-san, I also looked at what the other creators were doing and thought ‘so this is how they interpret the story.’ Seeing what they came up with made me notice different approaches that I hadn’t thought of.

I’d write whilst listening to Kosemura-san’s music and decide which way to take a scene. Or I’d watch Seishiro-san dance and think about how I could make the performances more exciting. We were all connected in some way. Novels are usually written alone by one person, so I came to learn the thrill of working on something in a team.

—The way you all came together as gears to create a single work sounds similar to the story of Univeil.

Towada: True. I never thought I’d experience something straight out of my youth again at this age. Being helped by other team members or being supported by them, being motivated by simple phrases like “It was great” or “I like this idea”.

For example, when I was working on the final phases of the story, I was just writing and writing with no end in sight, I couldn’t take it anymore and my pen just stopped moving. During this dire moment so close to the end, my proofreader messaged me saying, “You’re almost done.” And with that simple message alone, it was as if a burst of light appeared before my eyes. Everything had gone pitch black, but they lit everything back up again. Ishida-san also wrote some of the script, so I didn’t feel as alone.

Ishida: At that time I left all my drawings alone and decided to solely focus on the scenario.

Towada: Yeah, because I hit a point where I wasn’t able to write it on my own anymore… When Ishida-san sent me the script he’d written, it was interesting and I let out a breath of relief. I felt the joy of being able to see someone else's work. I was the same as the Univeil students who find joy in performing with others. I definitely wouldn’t have been able to do it if I was alone.

Ishida: You’ve got that right. I think that if anyone was missing from the team, it wouldn’t have worked out. Not to mention that in my case, everyone’s contributions were directed to me, and they were all people that I’d personally gathered.

With manga, even if it comes to the worst case scenario, at the very least it would all just fall on me. However this game isn’t just something I made on my own, I need to contribute as much as I can or the efforts of everyone around me will go to waste as well. There was a moment where I felt afraid of having such a heavy responsibility placed on me. However, if I had tried to do it all on my own, I think I would have given up.

By listening to wonderful music, reading interesting scripts and moving forward together with everyone, I was inspired. Coming together with fellow creators to make one work came with a lot of challenges, but it was fun. It was refreshing being in an environment working alongside other people, and because of it I was able to experience something new.

—Has working alongside other people changed the way you work at all?

Ishida: Right now I’m still in the state immediately after being swept away by the raging waves of a storm, so I’m not sure how I really feel yet. I’m in the phase of just watching what becomes of Jack Jeanne as the waves subside.

Even though the script and illustrations were done, like bonus stages lots and lots of new tasks kept popping up. So I was still busy with work up until the beginning of October last year. When I looked at some of the thoughts people had on the demo version of the game, it felt as though what we’d all been working so hard on had finally taken shape, and I was relieved.

Working on this project I’ve come to learn both the hardships and the fulfilment that comes with creating something with others. So, I suppose I’ve started considering working on something by myself again… I’m not trying to say that it’s in my nature to want to work alone, I think I’m just experiencing some kind of aftershock. I think the waves are returning.

Towada: I’m still working overtime and supervising Jack Jeanne (lol). Like checking content that will be posted on social media, as well as the 4koma manga. Content is still being released and there have been bug reports from some people who played the demo… Meaning that my journey is still not over yet. I think that things should calm down once the game has been released for a while.

Ishida: Yeah, probably after around five months (lol).

—After their final performance, the members of Quartz all threw a party to celebrate. Did you and the rest of the creators do the same upon the game's completion?

Towada: I celebrated with Ishida-san as siblings. And then afterwards we got swamped with work again (lol).

Ishida: Yeah, we didn’t end up meeting with the other developers or the voice cast. Big project after parties aren’t as common these days, but I do want to hear everyone’s stories of any struggles they had.

Towada: There were way too many people involved in total for me to be able to speak with them all, but I’d still love to convey my impressions to them. Like letting them know what I thought was good, or letting them know that a certain thing really helped me out.

Ishida: Ideally I would like to gather everyone and really have it feel that ‘this is the team of people that created Jack Jeanne’ and I’d like to express my gratitude to them all in person. I hope that an opportunity like that will come one day.

~ ~ ~

[hotluncheddie]

t4t chubby autistic steddie GO

i have been thinking about this (nsfw from twitter!!) art lately so i am here with u <3

even tho i get nervous to write trans characters, idk why, i just don't wanna mess it up i think

but im doing my best!! bc autistic and gender exploration are very lovely wonderful cozy subjects so i'm gonna focus on that

this is such a string of ideas but - 4 u <3 :3c

Stevie leaves with Eddie and Robin, taking their trust fund and leaving their parents to it - too the rest of their lives - without her. Like the Harringtons always hoped, really.

Stevie doesn't need them, the money is useful but they offer nothing more to her.

She's able to buy an apartment. In Chicago. With her loves. They learn how to live. How to live together. How to be at peace.

There's big bright widows in the main space, with light and air and the sunset. The two bedrooms are cozy and warm and it's a place for them all to grow.

'There's chips here.' Eddie says. They have a matching day off and she's trying to practice what it is to do nothing, to truly rest. Eddie helps, by being there, keeping her still with his hands and his love.

But Stevie tenses up, she was snacking, has been snacking, trying to learn her hunger signals better - what they feel like to her. It was always a rule not to east in her room, not to eat between meals. But she was hungry, she had a snack.

'I'm not judging, I'm saying so we remember to take it out next time one of us goes to the kitchen.' Eddie says, coming back from changing the tape, kissing her. Kissing her and kissing her.

Stevie relaxes.

'You've gained a little weight.' Robin says, laying on Stevies thighs on the couch, crocheting while Stevie watches sports and rubs her knuckles agains her teeth, twirling a strand of Robins hair in her fingers.

She looks down at her best friend. Robin looks back at her.

Robin smiles.

'It's good. You look more like you than you ever have before.'

Stevie smiles back. Tries not to cry.

Stevie letting herself change, relax. Unlearn those eating habits that helped her feel in control. Instead allowing herself to enjoy, and eat the things she wants to, the things she likes.

Eats pasta every night for a month and doesn’t feel bad about it. Doesn’t force herself to eat kale because she hates it, spinach is good enough. She is good enough.

Eddie gets little chubbier, in this new life. After recovering from nearly dying. Explains to Stevie in his long lilting way that he likes it, feels more protected, like his skin isn’t so fragile now.

He’s never liked his body but now he truly knows how short life is, and, maybe he can learn to like this new one. In this new place, in the love that surrounds him.

Plus, the bats destroyed his chest. So without that in the way, no longer lurking and potentially ruining his day. He realises he can shed that background fixation he always seemed to have with thinness. The idea that it would make him look more masculine or more androgynous. Curves were for girls and Eddie was not. That.

But now, now, who fucking cares. He’s alive. He needs to eat.

Steve feels a finger trailing over her hip, dipping into the band of her underwear, skimming over her crack and the the ridges of stretch marks that lead up to her waist.

'So so pretty' Eddie whispers, and it's filled with so much awe, so much grace, so much reverence and love.

Stevie shivers, feeling endless and grounded and like her body is here and hers and everything she ever dreamed of because it exists now.

She puts her hand under her loose shirt, cupping her belly. Skin still sleep warm and the energy of her palm seems to cover her whole body in warmth, in light and softness. Tinging and bright. Still being traced lightly by the love of her life. But being loves by her own hands, now, too.

She exists. And finally, everything is beautiful.

[d4rkpluto]

𝔪𝔢𝔯𝔠𝔲𝔯𝔶 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔠𝔬𝔭𝔶 𝔠𝔞𝔱 𝔭𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔢𝔱

chart reading; one spot left!

intuitive readings still open

dm me for more info and follow for more content!

THIS CONTENT IS ALL MINE, PLEASE DO NOT COPY AND POST ON OTHER PLATFORMS.

example one;

♇ so i was looking at gabriette butchel on tiktok and i went to the comment section and i saw that people were comparing her to amelia gray who allegedly got surgery to look like gabriette [on the left] and amelia gray on the right.

♇ and allegedly she even tried to have the same aesthetic as gabriette for a couple of months before she returned to her own style which is beautiful, but before she got her face done this is what amelia had looked like:

♇ and because of this change it did cause an "alleged" feud between both gabriette and amelia, and to be honest, i would've been defensive/or would have felt weird if someone did surgery to look like me. [or similar].

♇ gabriette is a virgo mercury and venus.

♇ amelia gray is a gemini sun, mercury, jupiter and saturn. [amelia on the left and gabriette on the right in this pic].

♇ i remember many people did notice the big similarities amelia shared with gabriette when she began to change herself, including the aesthetic of clothes, hair, make up etc, and of course gabriette doesnt own the aesthetic, but it was just very similar to gabriette's way of doing it. especially since this is amelia present day. she's stunning!

♇ if i remember amelia is young, so she was probably finding her aesthetic and was inspired by gabriette a lot, but now she most likely found her own style. but mercury beauty is so pretty.

example two,

♇ the famous carla bruni and bella hadid, [obviously, carla on the left and bella on the right]. it is known that bella hadid did get surgery to look like carla bruni, and it is odd to do that imo.

♇ luckily, carla and bella get along with each other, but it is known that the gorgeous bella hadid did not look like how she does now compared when she was younger:

♇ carla bruni is a virgo moon, virgo jupiter, virgo uranus and virgo pluto.

♇ bella hadid is a virgo ascendant, virgo moon and virgo venus.

♇ and i dont think that is is known that mercury is the copy-cat planet, because it's a trickster, especially with how the Greek God that rules mercury is hermes, and mercury does rule over mirrors, [along with the moon and neptune].

♇ but due to the mercury planet ruling over mirrors, one side being gemini and the other side being virgo, [it could also be said venus rules over mirrors too since the symbol of venus is the mirror, one side being taurus and the other libra, but these venusian planets arent trickster-y and intentional to copy like mercury].

♇ plus, mercury does rule over trends and as it also rules over mirrors as i said; so it could symbolise over mirroring trends. [and the other hand, mercury's symbol is similar with venus' symbol, but as venus is the feminine planet, mercury is the more androgynous planet.]

♇ and to be specific, gemini rules over the twins, so whenever celebrities with prominent gemini/virgo/mercury in their chart become famous for their beauty, there will always be someone willing to go so far to copy how they look, and i call this the virgo structure, since virgo's idea of beauty is to be made and constructed and not handled freely like gemini. [both virgo and gemini symbolising the twins].

♇ i noticed that mercury beauty involves a lot of sharp edges, so like a lot of these women in the end have very sharp and pointed features.

♇ plus where you have gemini/virgo/mercury in your chart could indicate where people might feel inspired by you or just copy you. and whats in your 3h and 6h can also tell you that as well.

♇ don't you find it funny that the person in my gif, kakashi, is a virgo sun? and is known as the copy-cat ninja.

chart reading; one spot left!

intuitive readings still open

dm me for more info

masterlist

pluto

[magebunkshelf]

How did you figure out you were genderfluid I questioning my gender I didn't know if you had any advice on how to figure it out?

I am so sorry for the slow response. I wanted to take a day or two to figure out the best way to answer. I just spent two hours writing out a really long and thorough answer about my experiences and all the advice I could think of and then my page bugged or something while I was typing and I lost it all x.x Its 3am, and this is nowhere near as well written as I was trying :'(

I guess the super short of it, and sorry this is going to be super scatterbrained now:

I never cared how I looked, never felt comfortable in my own skin, and just dressed very messily - overly large t-shirts, hoodies, and never shorts because I never wanted to acknowledge my legs. I started growing out my hair during lockdown. I'd been trying to grow it out for years but it had to be kept short first because of very strict school dress code rules, and second for practical reasons for work. Having long hair, making a change to my appearance like that, caused to me to start to like how I looked and start to care about it more.

One thing that made me introspect on my gender was when I found audio roleplays. I'd discovered I was bi around the same time, and after finding F4M stuff I also gave M4F a go. I'd questioned things before, but finding that 4F audios would often feel fine and not uncomfortable like I was expecting, really got me thinking more about it.

I'd have called myself like a guy, but stronger words like "man" always made me uncomfortable. I think I'm pretty gender neutral most of the time, but there are definitely times where I feel I associate more with one gender or another. I never felt all that "manly" all my life, and people would just sum that up as like "he's just more sensitive," which didn't help. The times your gender more closely matches how you were raised can start to raise those doubts at the back of your mind, like "am I wrong? Am I faking it?" etc, and those really aren't helpful! Those thoughts started going away whenever I didn't feel masc at all, I held on to knowing that feeling and that it changes.

I started to cared about how I looked and try different things based on what I saw people/characters wearing that I wanted to try. I bought myself some skirts & thigh-highs, and also uh chest padding x.x, and honestly I felt great! For the first time in my life, the person in the mirror was someone I cared about. But it was only some of the time, sometimes the thought of wearing those made me uncomfortable, and I'd go back to jeans and feel much better.

I think for myself, my gender orbits around androgynous (maybe leaning slightly towards the fem side). I realise I've always felt very androgynous, but that it does change one way or another every now and then. There are times I definitely feel more boy-ish, and others like;

There was this one time, I'd felt either very neutral or kinda masc for maybe a week. But then I passed the hall mirror and - it felt like my whole body slammed into a wall, just WHAM! Suddenly F mode! It occasionally happens, and sometimes in reverse, or sometimes for feels very neutral, but this one time the feeling was surprisingly strong from the sudden change XD

I think all I can recommend is to ask yourself how you feel about it; gender is different from any person to person, we have labels for some common experiences, but those experiences are still personal, still going to vary, the only person who can make that determination either way is you. And it may change! Some days I wonder seriously if I may be trans, if that would be more who I am, but then other days I distinctly relate more to being a little more masc. So right now I don't feel that that's me, but I do now have an idea of who I think I am, and some changes I want to make to myself and what I wear to reflect that. But also my experience of being pretty neutral most of the time may not match another genderfluid person!

Look at people or characters you see online that you think look or dress in a way you really like, and ask yourself how you'd feel looking like that, or wearing that? I started to ask myself, do I just find that attractive, or is this more like jealousy? XD If you play games with character customisation, what do you find yourself going for? And if you're in the position to try it, is there anything about how you look or dress you'd want to try changing? I think that's how you can really assess it; having facial hair a few years ago made me super uncomfortable and I swore off ever growing it again, but now having shaved arms & legs feels great, it completely clicks for how I feel about myself even when I'm in a more M mode. And even if my F mode clothes don't feel right to wear all the time, the times that they do, that I'm in the right mode for it, feels great, and I'm not sure I would have figured that out without trying it.

At the end of the day, maybe you are fluid, maybe you're not, and either way is totally fine! It's an ongoing process of figuring out who you are, don't rush it! And maybe however you land you might not want to put a label on it, that's also fine too! I have my own little genderfluid flag attached to my monitor & a few other things, and these are all there because it helped me early on in discovering these things about myself. It can feel weird and strange in asking these things, but after I found a label I felt applied to me, I liked having the flag there as a reminder to myself: this is okay. This is normal. There are other people like me. I've always felt different, that there was something else up, but my whole life it was just dismissed as, I guess I'm just weird. But now I have a name for it, I have a better understanding for what's going on in my head, and I have a flag to remind me it's okay to be the way I am. But you dont need to find a label, that's also up to you!

Be yourself. Be awesome.

[awakentheeldritchabomination]

First off, I wanna say that I mean no disrespect to the artists who worked on Hazbin Hotel. It’s just that I’ve been seeing people make redesigns of Hazbin characters, and though I don’t usually participate in stuff like this (it seems fun, and you are all incredibly talented. I just feel kinda bad tinkering with someone else’s work like this), the show made me frustrated, and frustrated induced brain-vomit started sloshing around in my skull so noisily that it’s been keeping me up. And, well, I had to get it out somehow.

So…here ya go, I guess. It’s nothing crazy or new. It’s just a few disgustingly rough ideas for this very specific version of Charlie that I kept seeing in my head. They’re far from polished or anything, and they’re definitely missing some key details because I’ve been hyper-fixating on trying to get the face right lol. I might make a full body illustration later, but I have commitment issues so who knows how far this’ll go. That is to say, don’t expect any more of this or the other characters unless 1) my brain decides to torment me with more literal demons or 2) I, by some miracle, become a more productive person. Plus, Tumblr’s a new thing for me, and I don’t know what I’m doing with this yet other than posting art and then disappearing for years. Seriously, you have no idea. It’s a wonder that I posted for a second time.

Anyway, the direction of this design is pretty obvious. I went with the lamb/goat motif because I liked the idea of inverted/parallel symbolism. I was toying with a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” concept where they appear to be a lamb in this form but actually shift into a more wolf-like dragon sorta thing when prompted. Their wardrobe is supposed to be an extension of the innocent lamb deception as the ruffles and looseness are meant to be kinda reminiscent of fluff while communicating a sense of privilege (a white untainted by the grit of Hell… something that probably wouldn’t last long). I was also inspired by white goth and catholic goth aesthetics (I blame Ethel Cain) as well as those insanely beautiful ball-jointed dolls. I don’t know if I captured that well (to be honest, the more I look at those digital renditions, the more I hate them). I considered adding a pair of spectacles coz I thought it was cute lol, and because I thought it could be a way for them to try and seem more human.

If I were doing a rewrite (which I have ideas for, but I should probably focus on my actual original characters instead) then:

1. They would be agender and androgynous (I’d go the Good Omens route and make most angels/non-human entities largely genderless as gender is a human construction, one that most angels wouldn’t really concern themselves with)

2. They would be kinda elitist and naive but still sweet

3. Their intentions would not be entirely insincere, but they would not be acting without selfish goals

4. They would be an eldritch abomination

5. There would be possible exploration of their role as an antichrist as well as basically being a tool of war for their papa’s self-gratification

6. Their pops would suck

7. More horror

8. Like, it wouldn’t not be funny…but horror’s my genre so….

9. They would not suck at fighting, but death is traumatizing and so is being the cause of it (squeamish)

10. That being said, could make friends with Death??

And that’s all I feel like writing. Hopefully I update this lol

[athensandspartaadventures]

absolutely the biggest most dramatic redesign by far!

So, back when I started drawing this comic as a Hetalia spin-off, Ancient "Mama" Greece was only mentioned by name as someone Rome fell in love with at first sight and did not have a design or any other particular attributes. I modelled her a little on Herakles (modern Greece) but mostly I just kind of ran with a few fanon interpretations I liked and some of my own particulars, but I felt like the character I drew and the character in my head were often very different.

So as of quite recently, Ancient Greece does have a canon design (although has not appeared much in canon). I figured, well, this is an opportunity for me to portray her more like how she is in my head than her scanty appearances in canon (which, kind of reinforce the image of her as having "beautiful" as one of her primary character traits, boring)

I wanted to portray Ancient Greece how I "encountered" her in my studies. Rather than leaning into the stereotype of her being a "goddess-like" beautiful and mysterious figure, I wanted to acknowledge her as someone that was constantly in turmoil and determined to get stronger, someone who rarely had any idea of what was going on (haha). We (at least in the western anglosphere i'm writing in) so often encounter Ancient Greece through this Victorian lens of pristine white statues in ruin and decay, and we forget that it was this vibrant, strange, bloody, living, breathing, dynamic culture.

Anyway, I was trying to remember whether it was Polykleitos or Praxiteles that struck me in art history class and found this ancient post from ten years ago and thought yes, this is the year i finally lean into the Polykleitos energy! So this pose is based off of Diadeumenos (diadem bearer) and the clothing is based somewhat off of Wounded Amazon. I really really wanted to lean into the youthful/masculine/androgynous energy for her more, so I felt the pose and shorter chiton was the right decision.

[0nyxvesper]

OBEY ME REDESIGN/AU? KINDA?Just read pls😭

Art -> Part 1 -SATAN- (art at the end)

Hey! My name's Onyx and I'm a artist, which gives me incredible powers of creation that I use to make or redesign silly characters instead of focusing on my already existing art projects or simply my overall future : what a life.

So as the title says, I'm redesigning some of the om! characters as well as changing up the world they live in. As for the first redesign I chose (very self indulged choice ) to start with Satan :)

This isn't really an AU but just me ''fixing'' (changing) things that I (emphasis on the I, this is MY opinion, you don't have to agree with me) dislike about the game's world and/or characters. I also added things that were, yes, absolutely unnecessary, but so fucking cool 😎

Btw english isn't my first language so if something doesn't make sense just pretend it does, thanks :)

START OF MY RAMBLING

So, in my vision of obey me, all demons have access to magic (curses, hexes, potions...) but some demons also have a connection with one to two elemental powers (water, fire, wind...)

The ''regular'' magic as well as basic knowledge of the devildom fonctionnement and history is taught to young demons (just born/reborn demons and fallen angels *wink wonk) at RAD (which explain why the heck some litteral ADULTS that could easily have a balanced working life are still in an HIGH SCHOOL environment.) (I know that adults can go to school, no problem with that lmao, but lucifer or satan in the og! game for example have nothing to learn there anymore and could be having a ''regular'' active life like-)

But yes, the academy's objective isn't really to ''tame'' demons, because they can't change their very nature and the idea that a demon (Diavolo) is working on turning other demons into more ''human'' beings seems really fucking off to me

And the human exchange program was supposed to be more of a ''exchange of culture'' kind of things where humans would learn about demon's ways and vice versa, it wasn't as diplomatic as it was in the game. See it as these ''special week'' thingy in school we're you'd learn about other cultures and try different country's dishes everyday. Exept it's for a full year. And in hell.

ALRIGHT THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ YOU'RE SO SWEET ILYSM :))))

here's the part that you probably wanted the most : THE DRAWINGS x) (hope it not too pixelated 🗿)

ABOUT THIS REDESIGN

Soooo my Satan is connected to earth and shadows and is an expert in curses and potions as well as devildom's history which is one of his favorite subjects along with the optional Art and litterature classes. (there's multiple optional classes that are supposed to help students that can't keep up or have bad grades to balance their grades by just showing up and listening, for exemple, mammon sometimes goes to the optional business and trading classes. )

In the og! game, satan is supposed to be lucifer's opposite, but I felt like it was mostly showed with his design and wanted to make it go a little further by making them dress in a more androgynous way and changing a bit his personality, making him a bit more carefree. (he's still super self conscious about his dangerous changes of temper which makes him a very closed and silent person, he's also still introverted, but when I say carefree I mean that he often skips classes to go check on cats or go read, and that they don't feel obligated to fulfill a role of exemple as a head student or avatar of wrath like lucifer does) I honestly just wanted the opposition between these two to be more marked but not necessarily have this ''competition'' between them because it felt very childish.

As for the elephant in the room, yes, he has hooves, no, there's no other reason than the fact that he doesn't have an animal theme like all of the others have. Yes, I only chose it because I find it cute. No, you may not pet them. Oh and as for the ''but why do they show up, aren't they supposed to have a human form'' I just decided that being gifted at everything is unrealistic, so I officially declare that Satan SUCKS AHH at maintaining his human form. He's not helped by the fact that he's constantly concentrating on staying calm and having a neutral facade and would saturate if they also had to concentrate on his physical form. But yeah he's still bad at it.

Alrighty thats it for today :)

Much love !