#and it's not a chuuni only thing it also happens when not in chuuni

[7000f1]

Compilation of screenshots I took from 3DCG Live of Jyushi's eye doing the thing

[sieglinde-freud]

For the ask game: Ophelia and Camillia

HELL YEAHH hi stedy :) starting with ophelia

How I feel about this character

shes so cute. obviously super similar to her dad and while i feel like she doesnt do the chuuni thing quite as well, i think its cute that its mostly in an attempt to emulate her father, the bestest guy in the world to her, which differentiates it from odin’s mannerisms that were formed as a coping mechanism. shes just very happy and i love that for her :)

All the people I ship romantically with this character

i remember really liking her with hisame at one point? i think i still do but i cannot tell you what their support is about. i forgot entirely. honestly, i need to brush up on the fates second gen because theyre a huge blank spot in my mind 😭 but like, conceptually, i also like her with shiro, caeldori, nina, forrest, and mitama. i just have to actually read those…

My non-romantic OTP for this character

i like her little trio with forrest and nina :) theyre so cute in heirs of fate… i wish we could see more of the second gen dynamic like that. in my head i also like her friendship with soleil, but… in terms of whats given to me in the game… its just… eugh.

My unpopular opinion about this character

i dont think she’s a better unit than odin in conquest. i guess it can depend on who her mom is, but odin is generally going to have much more survivability due to his defense and hp + joining you pretty early, making his role as a nostank reliable and costs zero effort. ophelia takes time, and ideally you want to hold off on getting her for skills/offspring seals. any early game build can be done with nyx or elise, to less potency maybe, but with way less effort especially now that the best way of support grinding (mycastle easy seize) is no longer possible. of course, you can use dlc maps but if you take dlc into account conquest is a whole different game.

One thing I wish had happened

how about something i wish didnt happen? her support with soleil is genuinely one of these most uncomfortable things i have ever read in fire emblem which is saying a lot! because the writing in these games suck! for the most part it is soleil’s problem and not ophelia’s, so maybe i shouldn’t be complaining about it here, but i dunno man. its just… its so bad. i cant even read it in game like it gets a physical reaction out of me and not a positive one.

ok camilla now :)

How I feel about this character

i love her lots :) my savior on conquest and she had the best hair in the game. her supports are… pretty unfortunate most of the time but i think the ones that matter are really good and she’s a really sympathetic character when you get over intelligent systems not trusting in her enough to be popular and slapping the gooner bait “big sister” crap on her

All the people I ship romantically with this character

i really dont have a major preference for her? in game, i usually prefer pairings that give her a kid because 1) woag god stats and 2) her hair color is sooo good i cannot waste it. but in terms of just shipping, shes good with like. everyone. some supports are bad but i can get over most of them if i like the ship as a concept. but off the top of my head i like her with selena, beruka, takumi, saizo, peri, laslow, odin, niles, hinoka, charlotte, arthur, reina, probably more but. yeah shes versatile to me. godmilla

My non-romantic OTP for this character

leo!! all the nohr siblings really but i think camilla and leo specifically are just. they give me lots of brain worms. elise obviously wasnt born yet to exeprience the concubine wars, and as the heir and, iirc, the only legitimate son garon had, xander didn’t really get involved as much either. im sure it affected him, but he wasn’t there actually taking part in it. leo and camilla shoulder a lot for their siblings and i think its very interesting that despite it all, theyre probably the only people that can ever really understand what the other has been through. and i enjoy their supports too, with leo wanting camilla’s attention but not being willing to voice it, and camilla understanding that her smothering would probably just piss him off so she tries to avoid it, until they ultimately find a healthy medium and can start to kind of… work on their relationship with eachother after everything. i love them lots :)

My unpopular opinion about this character

im not sure i have one? i feel like opinions on camilla are so all over the place so its kind of hard to have one thats “unpopular.” but i’ll say that i prefer her in malig knight rather than wyvern lord which is probably the worse play in most scenarios but… oohh hot lady on undead dragon… im very simple.

One thing I wish had happened

more elaboration on her past and her mother and some more story relavance for her. she just kinda… fades into the back after leo and xander come which happens with the other sisters too, but still……

[emblemxeno]

Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Connected Thoughts

-Future Connected is 100% done! All quests, all ponspectors, full collectopedia, all Quiet Moments, and full map! For a 10~ hour epilogue, it certainly had its charms.

-Story and characters were extremely good and heartfelt. Melia getting to be unabashedly happy and powerful in her leadership position is a treat to see. Kino and Nene were feel good team mates that brought smiles to my face, and their inclusion led to Riki being developed without even being there! Best dadapon even more so. Shulk's story was over in the main game, so seeing him in a supportive role was not a shock, and he's so damn sweet. And again, Tyrea's story role in this-as well as Teelan being brought in as a full supportive character-was a welcome inclusion, something that I felt was a great bow tied on to XC1's world.

-Side characters were good, for the most part. Surprisingly poignant and nuanced dialogue from named NPCs, as well as welcome funny moments here and there. I enjoyed Maxis and the Companions, as well as their friction with Gran Dell. Were the game to be longer, I'd call it underdeveloped, but since it's as short as it is, it's just fine.

Gael'gar though... kind of weak tbh. He created tension in the story that, IMO, wasn't necessary or impactful. Mixed blood High Entia hating pure bloods as a reversal of the main game's take is an interesting concept, but something that can't meaningfully take hold in a short adventure, especially since the blood heritage thing is woven tightly into the main game's narrative with the Telethia's origins. Gael'gar blowing up the lab was ultimately for naught in my eyes, as yeah it sets back Teelan and Tyrea's research, but reasonably that probably wasn't gonna be solved before the Fog King issue anyway. He lacks threat and charisma either, so he's not even entertaining or engaging, he's kind of just a negative.

-WE MEASURE! FIND TREASURE! PONSPECTORS TIL WE DIE!

I loved those little fuckers, even if some of the quests involving them were annoying. Shout out to the chuuni ponspector, your quest may have been hell, but I loved your dialogue. They were great in the gameplay sense too, adding some meat to the system. Speaking of which...

-I didn't care much for the combat at all. I have an overall really positive opinion on XC1's combat, where even though spikes are an awful design decision and the game is centralized around topple locking, the variety of arts, skill trees and links, and various armors and gems led to a great deal of customization and fun. Future Connected is a short romp, so it makes sense for it to be stripped, but stripping XC1's combat makes one realize that it's not quite that fun in its bare form. Things become a bit more routine or predictable, and I think the devs knew that, so they made enemies a bit more annoying and tanky (I think even one NPC commented that the region's monsters are stronger on the shoulder than they normally would be). Until I got access to the Ponspector Attack, I felt at the mercy of things just playing out with no major impact; like I was a level 60 hero going through the prologue again. It wasn't hard to eventually adjust, but still. Meh.

-Specific point about battling. Getting rid of Enchant makes sense, since no Mechon. However, why not also get rid of Shield and enemy Talent Arts since there's no visions? Shield's main purpose was to stop talent arts before they happen, but with no visions you never know when they're happening ever. At that point, Shield is kind of worthless the first time round, and it becomes trial and error depending on the enemy if you keep dying to it. Most often, the only Monado Art you needed was Armor, since that's more reliable and multipurpose. Just strange.

-What else... music was top notch, I looooooved the Fog Beast theme. Visuals were great, and huge fucking props to breathing life into the Bionis' Shoulder, since that was major cut content in the original Wii release. Repurposing it for an epilogue mini-adventure was a smart move. Exploring the continent itself was fun, so they did a great job. I loved each location, and I oddly enough enjoyed the high concept names for each landmark and the like. Very fantastical.

-Having played XC3, anything and everything about the Fog King and the Rift, like these:

They're such brain candy moments for literature nerds like me, oooh, I love it. The XC3 art book revealed that Alrest had a similar event to Future Connected, just not seen before XC3's events. I imagine, that since FC was a rift above Alcamoth that spouted out a Guldo, then there was most likely a rift in the center landscape of the new Alrest, where Morytha used to be. I like to think Alrest's version of the Fog King would be a Telethia that got caught in the rift.

-Last but certainly not least, JENNA COLEMAN! Getting her back for both Future Connected and XC3 was amazing, and she kills it as Melia. So mature, heartfelt, compassionate, an A+ performance.

-Overall, I had fun! Would I play it again? Ehhh, maybe someday, but whenever I play XC1 again, I'm not likely to revisit FC along with it every time. Still, loved the scenes and what it brought to the overall Xenoblade story.

Taking another break before moving on. Continuing on, I'm gonna play Torna next, then main game XC2. I couldn't be more excited to play those again tbh.

[neriyon]

10 Characters from 10 Fandoms

Tagged by @zylphiacrowley , ty ty~

These are mostly in whatever order they popped up in my head, since I was hit with the "instantly forget everything you've ever liked" beam when I started writing this.

Hythlodaeus - Final Fantasy XIV I wuv purple wife guy... All the way from when he was just a weenwoon ghost. Honestly, FFXIV has sooo many good characters that picking just one feels kinda weird haha.

DIY - Welcome to My Home Help, the bastard chuuni wizard in a big hat has me by the throat. Everyone else seems ready to strangle him (both npcs and other players). And then there's me who's spamming the heart emote at him every chance I can lol.

Waka - Okami Another bastard of a man. Like FFXIV, Okami has tons of cool characters! But teen me latched into Waka so hard on my first playthrough. And listen. He's a pretty man with long hair, nice voice AND has a flute that he both plays and uses as a laser sword in battle. Yeah. Oh and he shows up to tell you mysterious (and funny) prophecies.

Wei Wuxian - Mo Dao Zu Shi (Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation) I'll be honest, he came to mind while writing Waka's thing (club long haired flute playing guys lol). But yeah, he fits in the "morally grey, overly dramatic and little asshole-ish pretty boy with long hair" category I happen to like very much.

Ukitake Jushiro - Bleach Long white hair! Twin swords! Gentle and silly old man who can kick your ass! Bleach was one of my first animes ever, and I still like the setting itself (and many of the characters).

Courier - Arknights First one that had me going "oh I like him, he's never leaving my team". Also first one I E2'd, and he's still my go-to vanguard for almost every stage. Who can say no to that adorable little smile and voicelines offering to make you food~

Blade - nu:carnival Cute white haired assassin android boy! I started this game thinking I'd fixate on Edmont based on the website character infos, but nope, Blade being cute airhead with love for cute things (and Darling) got me first.

Sleeping Beauty (Briar Rose/Ibarahime) - SINoALICE Game may be gone but having played it for it's entire global run I felt I needed to include it haha. And! Who better than the character that got me into it~ Sleepy's basically what it says in the jar - she prefers to sleep 24/7 and will react violently if you try to force her awake.

Devola & Popola - Nier Automata Cheating and putting them both (lol). I love 9S too, but kinda felt like they deserved to get mentioned so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Idk what it is about them, but I spent a very long time just standing next to them when they first showed up haha. I'm specifically mentioning the Automata ones, since I met them first, and am yet to finish my Replicant playthrough (ooops)

Mashita Satoru - Death Mark I had hard time picking the last one since I didn't wanna go "too far back" in things I like/used to like, so I went with Death Mark since the second one came out not too long ago. The other characters are cool too, but Mashita is fan favorite for a reason. Guess we all love snarky detective who looks like he could really use some sleep.

Hoooo boy it was harder than I thought haha. I mainly only interact with FFXIV fandom, but at least I kinda.... glance towards these other 9 mentioned sometimes? Also purposefully skipping Ensemble Stars even tho I'm currently active player - I could not choose between Mika and Rei, and honestly straight up ignore 99,99% of the fandom.

[floorpancakes]

can you post what all the results to the quiz are & what charas they have? im just curious to see the answers to what i didn't get!

ok so ill probably add to this slowly but time for some stats and answers and stuff! obviously dont check this out if you dont wanna be spoiled (thread)

first, here's the actual amounts of each results people have been getting:

when i say i had NO IDEA we'd get so many chuunis....watching the numbers go up the first few days felt like a fever dream haha

but its comforting to know that everyone is cringe and free! i for one welcome our new gothy overlords!

i was also really surprised that gimmick idols got some of the lowest scores 😭 the space that spans is so wide so i was expecting way more people to get that result since i figured it'd catch a lot of people, but i guess you guys are rare!

---

now its time to look at the archetype list:

this was pretty tricky, especially cause i was working on the quiz for funsies at silly o clock in the morning for two nights while i was dealing with some sickness induced exhaustion lol. i wanted to include more (a few like the princely type nearly made the cut), but I found there was

1. a lot of crossover between archetypes (this even happened with some of the idols i chose for the results image!!! hanayo being average idoltwt user AND a harapeko type or minori being average idoltwt user AND fake it til you make it for example)

2. some archetypes that were only based on visuals or not on personality at all

3. kind of lowkey paradoxical (eg. someone might really fit the princely type, but often in idol shows they make it so that trait is pushed on them, but they secretly wanted to be feminine all along, which like, ok but then if someone actually fits the princely vibe I'd be slightly struggling for examples and we'd get all tied in knots unfortunately)

4. the amount of answers was already getting so long that if i added any more it'd start getting difficult to come up with more answers for some of the more concrete questions (like what you'd do post graduation etc)

...so I had to kind of draw the line somewhere. especially cause i thought like 3 of my idoltwt mutuals would take it and that's it 😭 maybe I'll make a part 2 or a more extensive quiz later who knows (guess who just remembered the 'rock is life' type idols and screamed into a pillow for only just remembering...)

---

so the idol archetype categories themselves are DEFINITELY things I've picked up on in multiple series, altho they may require a lil bit of explaining so I'll quickly summarise each one when we go thru the characters. i should probably mention that some of these (like the chuunibyou) are word for word archetypes that people use all the time, while some were just me trying to put words to the character types so the wording was just a descriptor (fake it til you make it queen), altho i hope they were useful! ive seen a few people online using these terms after taking the quiz which is super cute...🙇 let's take a look at these categories shall we?

(note: i have varying levels of familiarity w these characters, i wanted to make it reasonably varied and recognisable but some of them i kind of just knew what category they fit and that's it)

---

THE CHUUNIBYOU

to those who don't know, the chuunibyou is a pretty popular archetype beyond just idols, and tends to refer to people who are stuck in or going through their 'edgy phase'; chuu-ni being short for second year of middle school syndrome (think like, 13 or 14 year olds), but the general vibe tends to be associated with emo or goth phases, claiming to have an evil eye, being or being a servant of Satan, hiding a secret shy or self conscious side with edge, yaknow. average tween behaviour. it's not limited by age tho especially in anime media! one of the examples i used is a 26 year old grown man with a job. never too late!

Like with a lot of the other categories it was really hard to narrow down the results page characters, but from left to right:

1. Todo Yurika from Aikatsu!

Yurika takes being a lifestyle lolita to the next level, being a gothic lolita and punk idol with the chuuni character of a vicious vampire, which she desperately tries to keep up as part of her career, only letting people see her quiet nerdy self once in a blue moon. She has a secret soft spot for garlic ramen and sings some of the best songs in the entire series (which is an achievement cause aikatsus songs are god tier).

music rec (won't do this for everyone, only ones i know well, but pls feel free to fill in the blanks in the comments/reblogs!): check out Glass Doll, Onegai Venus and Eternally Flickering Flame! She has two singing voices over the series, both of which are incredible.

2. Asselin BB II (Asselin Beelzebub the Second) from The Idolm@ster SideM!

Asselin is a genius chef in his mid-twenties that ended up on the streets being kicked from countless jobs because of his ....quirks. He's a chuuni through and through, and its something a lot of the people around him didn't know how to handle, but when he gets taken in by Cafe Parade (both an idol group AND a real life dining establishment) to be their chef, he finally finds a place where he belongs. He's goofy and crazy while simultaneously being an introverted and nervous personality, and claims to be a servant of Satan, which just happens to be an adorable plushie that he carries around for comfort and finds difficult to be without, who gets painstakingly dressed up in matching outfits whenever he's included in a card! Don't be fooled by his softness though, this servant of satan has PIPES. You may recognise his voice, as he's played by well-known seiyuu Furukawa Makoto.

music rec: check out Waga Konton no Sabbath Marriage to immediately ascend, or Reversed Masquerade for a taste of the full CafePa experience.

3. Tsushima Yohane from Love Live Sunshine!!

Probably the most famous on the list so I'll keep it brief! She's been at this chuuni business since she was a little girl, so she encountered a lot of loneliness before joining Aqours, but she's got a cute and clumsy personality and has a tendency to yell about being a fallen angel. She's an absolute sweetheart, despite claiming that she's angered God himself, and is always there at the scene to deliver an edgy pose or stunning vocals.

music rec: check out Kowareyasuki and Strawberry Trapper for peak Yohane vocals, honestly Guilty Kiss in general should be mandatory listening homework

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

Sakurai's writing oftentimes feels like I'm reading a fanfic. That isn't always a bad thing, because Shimousa was alright (save for getting wordy in places), there were things I liked about Lostbelt 2 I liked (Napoleon was a major focus but at least he was a lot of fun!), and so far Heian-kyo is reading like *good* fanfic. I actually like how it touches on things like Nursery Rhyme's shapeshifting and having a specific form for this chapter, for example. The repetitive-ness and over-explaining is still her biggest problem in my book, and I feel if someone could critique/edit her scripts she could revise them to be less so.

On the other hand, everyone complains about the Edmond Dantes cameos but as for me, I don't care. Heck, I kind of enjoy them. Sincerely I want Edmond Dantes to appear randomly in everything Sakurai writes from now on. I'm hoping he just randomly shows up in Heian-kyo for no reason at all. He just walks on set and calls Limbo a little bitch and then leaves.

gonna be 100% honest i dont even clock her as being more wordy than other fate writers like why would we play the fate game if words werent something we could handle. i agree editing would help but it really isnt just for her. like has anyone who thinks she 'goes on and on' or whatever read any other chapter when the writer gets really into a bit they have An Opinion on. or are being dramatic. or chuuni. or horny. like ??????????

and honestly if shes the only one whos gonna use dantes then fucking let her. it harms no one and i like seeing him show up for 30 seconds to give us a thumbs up its not like it messes up immersion to say 'the guy that lives in your head sometimes....shows up in your head' especially when its like a dream sequence like why are we mad at that. does that not make sense. i thought people got mad when stuff happens to the mc mentally and none of the servants who are allegedly watching out for that sort of thing do anything if anything we should be asking why tf beni enma and merlin and any of the other servants who can dreamwalk arent also there helping out.

[questionablepastries]

Armored core 6 spoiler posting ! This time for the ng+ run and the ending I did, and my thoughts on ng3 thus far:

This time the ending I got for my second run was “the fires of raven”

Pretty hardcore name for recreating the apocalypse and simply leaving the planet, but I get why Walter and Carla wanted it done. They’re the kind of people where the ends justifies the means. Eliminating all life on this planet, for the sake of containing and destroying an organic energy fuel substance that was on its way of leaking out to the space, spreading to other planets, more corporate wars fought for this fuel, and in the end leading to more fires of ibis situations on other planets

Or would it?

The game intentionally never (or at least hasn’t) explained WHY the first fires of ibis happened, and I’m just gonna go ahead and guess allmind is behind this, the group that’s been the most IN GAME but with the least story impact, and my second guess is the group that the original raven is from, killed that lil bitch twice don’t show your face around me again unless u wanna talk >:|

I doubt it’s ravens group tho. A mission I did on the side made it sound like the original raven leaked the information about coral LEADING to the corporations even knowing about rubricon. And it’s giving government leak/Edward Snowden vibes which to ME is a good guy position, now ALLMIND…..

They got some scary descriptions for the allmind arena. Yeah, AllMind exists for mercenaries (aka me) but.. the descriptions include stuff talking about fusing mech with the human mind to make some sort of link, make the body of the mech feel like the body of the pilot? Weird stuff, Also the allmind lady called me a “humanoid”, what’s that about???? Rusty seems to know my true identity since the second he met me (Walter suggests this), and Ayre suggests we’ve met before? So I’m thinking 621 was involved in the fires of ibis situation somehowwww

Then there’s all the hidden notes about these 2 scientists? And their sons that pick up that their scientist dads are losing their minds? There’s a lot im not piecing together at the moment, but there’s a lot of things that haven’t been explained fully, not that they need to, but I can feel an “aha” moment coming. I’m taking a break from the game tho I speed ran the game to get the second ending over with for this upcoming ng+ 3 run that I started (😭 I’m tired)

Back to the ending tho

SO GLAD I GOT TO KILL AYRE LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ ayre fans im only slightly sorry

She was SOOOOO annoying the whole run. I’m so bugged by her doting girlfriend, yelling at me to survive WHILE all I’m doing IS surviving, her character is shoved on you, she hardly has offers any insight into coral other than coral is alive (you call them your brothers and sisters but can you get the mechs powered by coral to stop killing me????), ayre get a life!!! I hate mascot characters and I hate bitches (whiny girls) SHOVED ON YOU in any game, sorry!!! And u know what? she did actually get a life, I was so happy she fucked off, got in a robot herself, and started doing shit for herself even if it meant the first thing she did upon gaining autonomy was going in to kill me. Go girl!!!!! now what hurt was putting down rusty, but I killed him too fast, so fast that my monkey brain outsped the sad feeling I was supposed to associate with doing that, and I was glad they gave him two health bars.. because the first one I kinda mowed down and I felt semi bad about it and then when he got back up I (in full video game enjoying mode) went all chuuni and yelled “I LIKE THAT AMBITION OF YOURS RUSTY” and Then mowed him down again. So now I’ve gotta go to YouTube bc I didn’t save the fight to fully process what Rusty was yelling at me because when I’m under high stress I don’t hear anymore I just get the job done 😫

Gotta take a break tho, ng3 gave me a mission that wasn’t in my first 2 runs of the game and in that mission they shoved in those wheel skeletons from ds1 on me (😡😡😡) and THAT was the hardest mission I’d had in a while, so much so that it drained me of wanting to play after that (that and I had been doing nothing but play the game for the past 2 maybe 3 days) 💤

[prettytanuki]

Kage no Jitsuryokusha, Episode 17

Yay, finally we'll see what will happen after the protagonist, Mundane Mann, removed his power limiter!

Cid u ok?

So much effort put into fantasizing running mental simulations of what cringe-inducing chuuni spell to spew. Sasuga Shadow-sama!

Someone is coming. Considering it's a girl, someone from Shadow Garden?

lol he ran away.

OH IT WAS HIS SISTER!

I completely forgot about her!

Priorities.

Piano? Wait I think I heard this song before...

PRIORITIES.

Cid's pianodere adventure:

piano sux

piano useful because it lets me have zero friends

piano cool

you can't really call yourself the Eminence in The Shadow if you can't play Beethoven's #14 sonata

Expectation vs. reality.

I wonder if Cid is hoping to find someone else who's been reincarnated.

Is there a single letter in this alphabet that doesn't commit plagiarism???

Epsilon is really trying to make herself look good to Shadow by saying she'll work hard and he's like "ok, go for it." Poor Epsilon.

Cid what did you see in that piano, why are you smiling so devilishly eminently? You can't bring a piano to the fight. I mean, you probably could, but that would look weird. I mean how would you even. I don't get it. He clearly got some idea about what to do from looking at the piano, but I haven't gotten the slightest what it would be. Entrance song??? (my actual thoughts when I saw this.)

Beta's acting skills never cease to amaze me.

Rule 1 of going into a maze where you might get lost and die a horrible death: inform someone OUTSIDE the maze that you're going in.

What is this thing she is looking so fondly at.

Okay so this is an extremely template conspiracy. Still odd that the evil guy is so handsome. He should be ugly.

IT WAS A FAST FOOD WRAPPEEEERRRRRRR!!!!11

Yeah, he does, in more ways than one, but not in the ways he should.

I can't believe she actually likes Cid. I thought she would be in love with the masked knight that saved her, who was also Cid, but not the Cid she knows.

So she's possessed? How did this happen? Did they drug her or something? I thought the possessed were created in the labs and she never went to one... or did she?

No.

Way.

NO.

WAY.

NOOOOOOO WAYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!111111

WHAT'S THIS... HOLLOW KNIGHT-ESQUE SCENERY????

MOTHERFUUUUU*******EEEEERRRRRR!!!!!

WHERE DID YOU EVEN GET ALL THESE FEATHERS FROM?!??!?!?!?!?

The feathers that were going up start going down when the song ends. THIS IS SO EXTRA. JUST...... SOOOOOOOOOOO EXTRAAAAA

...and then everyone clapped...

Shadow is just built different. Normally you wouldn't interrupt someone who is clapping at your extraneously unnecessarily extra performance.

God I love this eminent OST.

>I wanted to protected them. >But I couldn't. >And your fight ends there?

My god what a chuuni-fest. Hard to imagine she didn't rehearse for this.

GAMERS, RISE UP!!!

says dude who didn't stop gaining power until he could rival a nuke. (he stopped, right?)

You know, Cid being blissfully unaware SOMEHOW that the girl he just saved from possession will actually believe this chuuni crap he made up on spot can only mean on thing: he's literally insane. No joke. Dude's a psycho. But he's a funny psycho to watch from the other side of the screen where his I AM ATOMIC doesn't reach (hope this doesn't jinx it).

She didn't even join the cult yet!

Is that her natural talent? A disposition for edge?

SHE BATHED IN THE BLOOD OF HER ENEMIES!!!! ROCK 'N ROLL!!!!!!!!!

Dear god, woman, do you have any idea how much his Lord Darkness, Shadow-sama, has to practice to say this sort of stuff with a straight face and you just...

Is this it? Finally Cid has a worthy rival? A chuuni who doesn't even realize how chuuni she sounds because she isn't even trying to sound chuuni?

*casually evades debris*

Poor Alexia is the only one of the trio who isn't part of it.

lol

This was the work of Carmen Sandiego.

OH GOD SHE IS STILL THERE

^v^ Does this look like the face of mercy?

Is the fake smile genetic?

Man, I love it when anime take bold steps like... killing the protagonist. R.I.P. Cid, you'll be missed. Po Tato will be the protag starting next week.

[dollhouseirl]

'Magic'

I am thinking today of 'magic' as described in Umineko. It's a big inspiration for what I'm trying to do with my current visual novel project although that project also incorporates capital-M Magic as well. I won't spoil anything in Umineko but you should know that this is a way of thinking that the VN hopes you will pick up on your own and that it is a delight to discover for yourself so, if you plan on reading it (and you should, it is my favorite thing ever and could be yours too!), you ought to read it and not see me pick at 'magic.' Umineko is a story that is told on multiple layers. I want to talk about three: the logical layer, the 'magic' layer, and the Magic layer. Whether the third layer exists in Umineko at all or not is a subject of some real debate. My answer to that question would necessarily be a spoiler for pretty much the whole thing and what I think is going on in it. It does, however, present the third layer in order to make it clear what the three layers are and aren't.

The logical layer is pedestrian. We don't need to go into it much. It has features worth talking about another time, maybe, but you know it. You love it. It is the confines of specifically what can be explained by way of real world mechanics and what makes sense. It all has a perfectly rational explanation. Battler ostensibly fights hard for the logical layer: the idea that his family was killed in a perfectly rational incident by a culprit the way it happens in real life. The logical layer heavily rejects the Magic layer; as such, the one thing Battler won't accept is that a literal witch used magical spells to kill the Ushiromiyas.

The Magic layer is also not a layer we need to go into much. It also has features worth talking about another time. I like it better than the logical layer, to be quite honest. In the Magic layer, anything can happen. You can turn into butterflies. You can summon the Lance of Longinus with the right incantation. Your eyes can glow with fire. It is a very chuuni layer in places and a very transcendent and warm layer in others. The only unifying thing about all the things this layer can be is that it defies all logical explanation. Beatrice fights hard for the Magic layer: the idea that a witch with insane magical powers and control over Solomon's demons killed a family that had turned its nose up at her existence. The one thing she won't accept is what happened on Rokkenjima is explicable purely with logic.

The 'magic' layer is the interesting one. It is a layer with the premise that the logical layer can be reframed into something resembling the Magic one just by way of semantics and altering how you perceive yourself, others, events, your surroundings, etc. Umineko's culprit operates from the 'magic' layer; they fight for the idea that there is a genuine and real truth on what happened at Rokkenjima and that logic distorts it, makes it seem worse and more horrible. Maybe it really is horrible. There is only so much of it I feel we are genuinely privy to and I'd love to talk more about that some other time.

'Magic' in Umineko is telling a child to close her eyes while you fish around for a candy to replace her broken one with. She believes you when you tell her you are a witch and that you are about to magically repair the candy. Therefore, when she opens her eyes and there is a whole candy there, she concludes: ah, my candy was fixed with a spell. What is the utility in this internal explanation? What is its value? For this child, it is quite simple: the world is too hard to bear for her if there are not witches and magic in it. She wants to be a witch when she grows up and the nicest person to her in the world says she is a witch too. The world she prefers is the one where you can fix candy with a spell.

I have a similar 'magic' story in my visual novel as related by Lucia. If you do not mind the self-indulgence, here it is paraphrased in her terminology: the spell to turn a delicious meal into raw fish. What you do is simple: you designate the target and use their unvarnished trust in you as a supply for mana. Without mana, 'magic' will not work. You take them to a restaurant and order them a meal they haven't had before and you ask them kindly to try it first before you explain what it actually is.

This is the critical point. The unvarnished trust is the mana. Without it, there is no 'magic.' If the target questions you anyways or won't agree to this, the spell is almost assuredly not going to work. If they do trust you though, the rest is child's play.

When the target eats the meal, you say, that was raw fish you ate. Lucia's mom cast this spell on her to share her love for sushi with her; she knew Lucia wouldn't eat a meal if it was raw fish before she ate it. Once you define the meal, the spell is accomplished. You cannot guarantee the target will be happy to have eaten raw fish but that is why 'magic' is best cast from a place of trust and intimacy as it is employed in Umineko.

In truth, on the logical layer, this is just the story of Lucia's mom taking her out for sushi as a child and strategically waiting to tell her what sushi was until after she'd eaten and liked it. To Lucia, though, it's 'magic.' In some ways, it's 'Magic'; sushi is not literally 'raw fish' and telling her that it was made her an adventurous eater who figured, well, if raw fish is so delicious and safe to eat, anything is probably good.

In some ways, Purple Prose for Purple Hearts is a screwdriver for layers to me, the layers that Umineko uses to depict the world in. I hate having it be the only thing I want to talk about (I kinda love it) because it's not done yet, it's not finished and in its final form, but it comes from a place of having thought long and hard about the concept of 'magic.'

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 318: On Your Left

Previously on BnHA: The Hawksquad+Lurkers were all “well this sucks” and sat around a bit talking about how maybe they should actually come up with a new plan that is actually good, but then in the end they were like “nah.” Deku was all, “THERE’S SOMETHING INSIDE ME THAT PULLS BENEATH THE SURFACE!! CONSUMING, CONFUSING!! THIS LACK OF SELF CONTROL I FEAR IS NEVERENDING. IT’S HAUNTING HOW I CANT SEEM TO FIND MYSELF AGAIN. MY WALLS ARE CLOSING IN.” Just, literally that whole entire song. All Might was all “Deku you should take care of yourself, try eating a thing,” and Deku was all “BYE, ALL MIGHT,” and just LEFT. He left!!! What the fuck!!!

Today on BnHA: Endeavor is all, “maybe if Deku didn’t listen to All Might he’ll listen to me instead.” Deku is all, “[doesn’t listen to Endeavor]” because, well, yeah. The Vestiges are all, “surprisingly, even we are a little concerned -- maybe you should get some rest, kid.” Deku is all, “((Ò ‸ Ó)).” The Vestiges are all, “holy shit.” Deku is all, “[wanders the ruined city streets terrifying the populace on account of him looking like Shelob had a baby with one of the Nazgul].” Some shriveled-up puppeteer villain asshole is all, “HORIKOSHI SAID IT’S MY TURN TO ATTACK DEKU TODAY SO I AM GOING TO SUMMON MY FRIGHTENED HELPLESS ATTACK MOB!!” Kacchan is all “WHADDYA MEAN THEY FOUND THE NERD!!! -- oh wait, that’s me, I found him. I found the nerd, you guys.” And just in time, too. I was about to owe a whole lot of people a whole lot of dollars.

so I have been super good about spoilers this week as always, but let me tell you guys, for the past 36 hours my dash filters have basically been nonstop “manga spoilers” this and “bnha 318” that, and so I’m coming in with a fair amount of hype here. your move, Horikoshi

oh, good! they got Endeavor to call Deku to try to talk him out of it. what a great and wonderful plan

“listen up kid, you haven’t slept since March and you are basically a walking biohazard right now, I’m just telling it like it is. didn’t you get shot like three times?? and there was a whole thing about how you urgently needed medical attention?? and supposedly we gave it to you, but I mean you haven’t even changed your clothes and don’t seem to have any fresh bandages or anything, so did we?? did we, really?? and also we all got blown up yesterday, so yeah.” hmm he’s making some reasonable points here you guys, but you sure do go on and on, Endeavor

oh he says foreign aid is finally on its way! I’m sure they’ll be very helpful. I mean in fairness they can hardly be worse than the home-grown heroes at this point

hey Enji, could you maybe try appealing to Deku the sixteen-year-old human boy, as opposed to Deku The World’s Last Hope? he does have value beyond his quirk. I know that’s always been an incredibly difficult concept for you to grasp, but could you maybe TRY, jesus

and also we’re worried about you as a person?? you’re just a kid and you’re pushing yourself way too hard?? you were going to say that part next, right. why the hell didn’t Hawks make this call instead

“don’t worry about me... I’m completely fine” Deku you do understand that saying it over and over again doesn’t actually make it true

and again with the rush!! all the rush rush rush!! we’re running out of time, we can’t let AFO and Tomura keep getting stronger, I have to end this now, there’s no time to rest, etc. etc. etc. just the constant pressure of this whole big countdown on top of everything else

holy shit, you KNOW it’s bad when even the Vestiges are telling him to chill

these guys are basically the walking talking embodiments of self-sacrifice; if even they’re telling him he needs to take five, then he must seriously be like half a step away from death’s door

OH SHIT LMAO

DIDN’T EVEN LET HIM FINISH HIS SENTENCE BEFORE HE SENT HIM INTO THE FUCKING SHADOW REALM WITH THAT FUCKING LOOK. HOLY FUCK. DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DIE TWICE. SHIT

(ETA: so I’m pretty sure this was just Danger Sense activating and so he cut them off to go do more hero stuff, but I’m gonna go ahead and stick to my original interpretation anyway lol.)

anyway so how’s everybody doing. we all good? En, you good? Banjou? Shino? I’m imagining you guys all curled up in a little ball on the floor right now lol. can’t say I blame you though, no shame

lmaoooooooooooo

“SHEESH.” sheesh indeed, lmao. “what in the FUCK was that”

see, this is why y’all need Kacchan. you need someone who’s not going to back down from him no matter what. if it’s a matter of out-stubborning Midoriya fucking Izuku, then there’s only one other person on the planet capable of that, and we all know it. don’t pretend like you don’t. I am not going to shut up about this! we’ve had our hurt so now what about SOME COMFORT, DAMMIT

“I’m afraid that he’s becoming influenced by my conscience” nah are you kidding Nana this is all 100% made-in-Japan pure original Deku right here

see, Banjou gets it. “that kid, he’s totally going on his own.” exactly. this was so inevitable it was basically scientific law

“well I for one don’t see the problem with Deku being so obsessed with saving everyone else that he pushes himself until his body and soul literally fall apart” okay, whose speech bubbles are these?? we’re about to have words

lol of course

well you always did prefer the direct route didn’t you. but even you can’t possibly think this is okay lol

dark AU!Kacchan please tell us more about your badass doomed timeline in which everything went to shit and you apparently had the same character arc that Deku is having right now except it somehow made you sexier instead of turning you into a rabid t-rex. I have so many questions

oh so now you want to help??? well -- good, actually. sorry if that sounded offended just now lol

(ETA: so at first when I got to the end of this chapter I was wondering if Katsuki B. had somehow summoned his alternate-universe counterpart through trippy OFA space telepathy lol. but in the original Japanese there’s no reference to “we”, so this appears to be a mistranslation. this line should probably read more like “if there’s something/someone out there that would be able to complement/complete the current Midoriya Izuku [it would be]…” which, oh hello, is that Horikoshi once again reaffirming that Deku and Bakugou complete each other lol. “guess what guys, the Vestiges ship it too" heck yeah. they know what’s up!)

look how admiring his boyfriends are. HORIKOSHI GIVE US THE REST OF THIS BACKSTORY ALREADY GODDAMMIT

“meanwhile somewhere in the depths of the ruined city, Deku was having a dance-off with the villains”

I like how the villains all have this “AHH WHAT THE FUCK” kind of body language to them lol. I mean if it were me, and an eldritch horror suddenly clawed its way from the shadows with its writhing glowy tentacles and pants-shitting nuclear death stare, I would probably just die on the spot. no need to stick around. only pain awaits

lol for a minute I thought this was Can’t Ya See-kun and I was like “WHAT A FASCINATING CROSSING OF PATHS” but it’s just some random girl

he seems genuinely confused lol

Deku it’s because you look like something that crawled out of a sewer drain, sweetheart

lol they just took his word for it?

so trusting. even though they’re immediately hauling ass anyway just to be safe lmao

“my appearance is frightening to others” no shit Deku it’s because you look like a fucking alien exorcism. you look like a Lich that got caught up in an oil spill my dude

NO NOT THE CHOSEN ONE ANGST AGAIN

I RAN OUT OF ESSAY JUICE FOR THIS ALREADY HORIKOSHI!! I’VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IT FOR MONTHS NOW WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG!! BUT ANYWAYS, GOOD!! I MEAN, BAD, THOUGH, OBVIOUSLY. BUT YES

“ENJOY THIS MONTAGE OF DEKU BATTLING A RANDOM KAIJU AND WANDERING THE WOODS LIKE A DERANGED GREEN BABA YAGA” okay yes but sir, exactly how much longer is this going to go on. if it’s a matter of you wanting to make sure we get it, let me assure you that aside from a few stray chuunis who think that Deku embracing the Darkness is the coolest thing he’s ever done, all of us here in fandom fully comprehend that this is Not Good

-- OH SO IT’S LIKE THAT

really. with the flashbacks to his loved ones’ smiling faces and everything. not even gonna try to aim above the belt, huh

AND NO KACCHAN??! NO CLASSMATES?!?! IS HE PURPOSELY NOT THINKING OF THEM??? OR ARE THEY BEING SAVED FOR THE NEXT PAGE??? SO HELP ME, IF THE NEXT PART OF THIS SENTENCE IS “CAN PROTECT THEM”, OR EVEN WORSE, “CAN SEE THEIR SMILING FACES AGAIN”, I...

WHAT DID I JUST SAY

(ETA: my man did Sero and Kaminari fucking dirty lmao. I miss their smiling faces too omg.)

the sheer, unparalleled irony of him saying this while he stands there looking like the gargoyle demon from Fantasia got crossed with an umbrella that got struck by lightning. Deku :(

oi who the fuck is this clown

is he controlling this mob with his evil hair. “what if I made an exhausted, running-on-fumes Deku battle a brainwashed mob at Ground Zero.” Horikoshi do you just have like a checklist of horrible things you want to do to your protagonist

easy there Sasori

well joke’s on you buddy because he’s apparently “completely fine”, so

“here’s to hoping that you know more about AFO’s location than the others” jesus christ Deku you really have hung your mercy out to dry huh

now he’s forcing his mob of terrified prisoners to attack Deku ahhhh. sucks to be them. at least they’re not being controlled by bees

so Deku is saying that Sasori’s control can be broken with “physical trauma.” similar to Shinsou’s quirk I guess. but so does that mean he’s gonna have to hurt them? ( •﹏•)

NO NOT MORE SAD EYES

“DEATH BY EMPATHY!!!” HORIKOSHI NO

fuck. he looks like he’s on the verge of passing out

this is what happens when you nerf a character’s self-preservation stats in favor of spamming their bone-breaking stats instead. NOW ACCEPTING BRAIN CELL DONATIONS FOR A BOY IN NEED!! with your loving generosity we can hopefully help him live to the ripe old age of seventeen

OMGFGGG

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[grabs your hands] ლ(*꒪ヮ꒪*)ლ [swings you in a circle] へ(ﾟ◇ﾟへ)

THASSSSSSSS WHATSSSSSSS UPPPPPPPPPP

HORIKOSHI REALLY SAID FUCK THAT MASK (ノ°ο°)ノ YOU FINALLY LEARNED!! IT’S CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!!!

JUST FOR YOU KACCHAN, HORIKOSHI LEFT THIS ONE BAD GUY WHO’S STILL WEAK TO FIRE. GOD BLESS

IT’S YOUR COUNTERPART, KATSUKI B!!!! HOW WE DOIN OVER THERE IN THE TRIPPY COSMIC OFA SPACE REALM LOL. DO WE BELIEVE YET, FANDOM???

LIGHTS!!!!

INSTANT RESULTS!!! IT’S SUPER EFFECTIVE!!!

(ETA: imagine what this must look like to Deku though. he’s been caught up in this dark cloud of despair and exhaustion that’s been building up over... I’m gonna go ahead and say “weeks”, because yeah. and now he finds himself here, in the place where All Might’s legacy ended and the torch was passed to him. and the world is in ruins, and he’s surrounded by frightened people who are all trying to hurt him -- because who isn’t trying to hurt him, these days -- and he’s scrambling to figure this all out, but meanwhile the weariness is finally starting to catch up to him, and so he’s basically just standing there in a fog of complete and utter misery.

and then all of a sudden through that haze, he hears the one voice that’s more familiar than any other that he knows. like, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he thought he was just imagining it at first. Kacchan showing up to save him right when he’s at his most desperate and feeling the most alone. Kacchan, showing up to save him.

this is the person he always looked up to as a child (to be fair he was quite a strange child lmao). the person who was even closer to him than All Might. the person he always thought was amazing. and bam, here he is now. appearing in the sky out of nowhere to one-shot the bad guy with a single blast (which, btw, that was his armor-piercing attack too lmao dslkjlk take it easy there kiddo). like, that must have felt absolutely surreal to him, especially coming at a time when he’s already half-delirious and barely hanging on to reality. he must have really thought that he was losing it there for a second.

but he’s really there. it really is him. and for this brief moment -- before the rest of the situation catches up to him, and he remembers about all of the fucked-up AFO stuff, and remembers why he was so afraid and why he was pushing everyone away -- for just this one brief moment, he’s too exhausted and stunned to do anything except to just react. just stands there, looking up at him in awe.

and you know, it almost reminds me of...

just. you guys. the character development. the freaking character development. someone who brings reassurance. someone who shows up and makes you think, “oh, it’s all going to be okay now, because [person] is here.” the role reversals. the growth. the payoff!! because who is the one person who always had faith that Kacchan would one day grow up to become an amazing hero like that. WHO IS IT. YOU ALREADY KNOW.

omg. anyways, bless you Horikoshi, my feels which have been on backorder since fucking September have finally arrived lmao. yes, good, thank you. worth the wait. it is always, always worth the wait. fuck yeah.)

“LOWFRIES” SO YOU’RE TELLING ME THE WHOLE GANG IS HERE, AHHHHHHHH (º̩̩́⌣º̩̩̀ )

BEAUTIFUL. WONDERFUL. SENSATIONAL. I DON’T EVEN CARE THAT JUMP IS ON BREAK NEXT WEEK. THIS RIGHT HERE WILL SUSTAIN ME

[no-psi-nan]

@akirameta84 Awww, thank you so much!! 💜💜💜💜 That's super sweet of you to say!

As adorable as Catsuo is, Saiki really is pretty lazy about transformation so he'd only do it in support of some scheme he's been roped into or if there's something in it for him. And the mobile game already did a "cutest pet contest" scheme lmao. All I'm coming up with is Saiki seeing Amp enjoying the sunshine and deciding to try the same, only to be found by his friends and get petted and fussed over within an inch of his life. And then he probably ends up napping on the toastiest lap (Hairo's) to enjoy being toasted like a marshmallow as cats apparently desire XD XD

But here's another animal transformation to consider: that shibe Saiki from the Jump cover! I can see him turning into dog form when he has to distract Teruhashi from one of Makoto's schemes so he doesn't have to give his identity away. All he has to do is look lost, and Teruhashi's love of dogs will kick in along with her perfect pretty girl instincts, to try to find his owners. And of course a bunch of shenanigans happen, including someone trying to claim Saiki was their dog and Saiki growling at them until they back off, and naturally he also takes the opportunity to scare the shit out of Makoto. If Teruhashi pets him very nicely and carries him around sometimes, well... He won't admit it.

For Kubokai, let's do another supernatural themed prompt for you! How about a canon divergent AU where everything is essentially the same, but at some point during their looped second year, Kaido gets bitten & turned by a vampire. Now he's stuck because everyone's used to his chuuni nonsense, so when he tries to explain that he's a vampire now, everyone just assumes that this is the new weird roleplay he has going on. This is a big problem for Kaido, who has no idea how he's going to get blood, and he's scared to tell his mom about this because she'd almost certainly take him to a psychologist over it. Kuboyasu is the only person who generally indulges his fantasies, so Kaido tries again to explain that he's a vampire and that he's starving. Kuboyasu's like "well then, just bite me bro! I've got plenty of blood, have at it‼️" And Kaido is incredibly grateful but still shy about taking his blood and is very careful not to hurt him. Kuboyasu is kind of impressed that he really is a vampire, and starts calling over Shun whenever he knocks out some thug to come have a sip, babe. 😂😂 I'm guessing the climax of the story here would be Kaido confronting the vampire who turned him, only for Kuboyasu to beat the hell out of them with a baseball bat lmaooo. Also Kaido turns into the most adorable little bat sometimes and Kuboyasu does the brushie brushie thing from that cute bat gif between clutching his heart at the cuteness. Also they smooch and Kaido's little fangs are highly appreciated lol.

[Context for ask]

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hi slug I was wondering if you ever have a moment when you're trying to translate be like "How the fuck can I word this as accurately as what they actually say in Japanese-" like for example whenever jyushi talks in his chunni mode or when gentaro say 「おや？」 would you translate it to "oh?" Or "my" (like "oh my") by the way gentaro talks because I tried to translate something by myself and what I tried is to translate it by how in character would the sentence be said by the characters just like how you did when ramuda say "playdate" in dirty dawn chapter 5

Unless you have a different ways when you tried to translate

Sorry for asking to many questions www have a good day and take care!

"How the fuck can I word this" is my constant mantra, but it doesn't tend to happen in the situations you've mentioned. For Juushi's chuuni mode, the Japanese text is always bombastic and over the top, so I likewise go nuts and scale everything I write up to ridiculous proportions. I actually tend to handle this performance mode more loosely than I handle most characters, since it's a bit easier to hit peak bombast when I'm thinking solely in English. What I tend to do for him is figure out what he actually means underneath all that nonsense, phrase that idea in English, and then gussy it up as much as I can without it becoming utterly incomprehensible. For Gentarou's "Oya?", it really just depends on what meaning this sound has in context. It could easily become "Oh?" or "Hmm?" or "My word".

Like you mentioned, I do consider "How would character x express idea y?" as I work on Hypmic. The Japanese text has very distinct character voices which make for a rich, enjoyable reading experience. It's usually very easy to tell who is speaking even if the illustrations don't specify. However, while some of this is carried through via the word choice (for example, Hifumi uses a lot of words that are made up in such a way that is supposed to sound trendy and goofy), a large portion of it appears in the grammatical structures via particles and the politeness of the characters' dialogue. A translation concerned purely with semantics may lose a lot of that fun, so I work very hard at establishing and maintaining consistent character voices. This forces me to think outside the box and consider wording things more creatively than I would if I was speaking normally. Most of these creative choices tend to be received well, as far as I can see, which is an affirming thing. To bring up the example of Hifumi again, I've seen a lot of people really enjoying the "Boy, am I a real smart cookie!" line from FP/M+ 1 which came from 俺っちマジ天才！ (more literally: I'm an actual genius!) or... everyone's favorite... "Good lord, seems like I'm becoming quite the popular guy," which came from やれやれ、だいぶ気に入られてしまったみたいですね (more literally: Oh great, it looks like I've accidentally become well liked).

Since there are no direct analogues for most of the small grammatical points that make for each unique character's voice, this means I also get to make up certain traits to give each character in English to keep them sounding distinct. Almost all of these are grounded in considerations of the Japanese text. For example, Juushi uses "so" more than any cast member because it makes him sound softer and less aggressive than other cast members, just as he does in Japanese, and Otome shouldn't (I say shouldn't because I occasionally forget and notice it later, whereupon I edit it out) ever use contractions because she speaks especially formally in Japanese. The only times they aren't are when I need to make fairly arbitrary decisions in order to having characters bleed together. For example, when multiple characters are swearing in the same scene, I have certain characters favor one curse word or another. Samatoki's favorite curse word is "shit", but Juuto and Ichirou both favor "crap" to keep them from accidentally treading on Samatoki's territory. Then to keep Kuukou from running into Ichirou, Kuukou uses "ass" liberally, in addition to having the biggest potty mouth of the cast. (Although, come to think of it, Kuukou talks about asses a fair deal in Japanese... so maybe this one isn't as arbitrary as I thought.)

[accio-victuuri]

Recent Reads Part II. 🤍

This is not really a serious rec list. I’m just trying to be accountable with what I read and then write a bit about it. these are ones I finished or ones that i’m currently making my way through as translations are ongoing. nothing heavy. all feel-good and (mostly) sweet stories. I’m on a transmigration kick so alot of them have that in common.

* All-round Mid-laner by 蝶之灵

This is ongoing but I just had to pick it up. E-sports, Transmigration and A/B/O. A combination that shouldn’t work but it does! It does! The author wrote this so well. It won’t feel like your usual A/B/O story at all. I personally don’t care much for e-sports but the author makes it an interesting read and explains it in a way that I can enjoy it. I also love the Main Character! Ye Shaoyang is so chill!

SYNOPSIS: After waking from a car accident, professional esports player Ye Shaoyang found himself transmigrated into a mystifying A/B/O world where he was living as a noobish streamer. In order to support himself in this new life, Ye Shaoyang decided to return to his old job and climb the ranks in the esports world. With his outstanding talent, he quickly secured a contract with a prestigious club. But on his very first day with his new team, he unexpectedly presented as an omega right in front of the team's captain Chi Shuo.

* Withdrawal by 十一月十四

A quick read on a weekend that is just the right amount of soft and angst. I like the age-gap plot in this and the two of them knowing each other since they were kids. Also the fact that it looks like the younger character benefited more from the older one— but in reality, they are equals. They support each other.

SYNOPSIS: When Fu Shizhou was seven years old, he gained a little tail named Qiao Luo. If he were to get it removed, severe withdrawal symptoms would ensue. Qiao Luo was born with the innate ability to tease and be spoiled. Zhouzhou wasn't born awkward; that developed later in life. His maturity is a lasting aftereffect of his chuuni years. He's actually a top-tier cinnamon roll.

* Your Distance by Gong Zi You

The premise was interesting and looked like it’s gonna be hilarious and it was, but not enough to warrant that much chapters. If this was shorter then it wouldn’t feel dragging ( well atleast to me). As soon as they got together, it felt like there was nothing for me as a reader to look forward to. It also doesn’t help that I didn’t feel attached to the MC, I was more looking forward to the ML.

SYNOPSIS: Distance is a social platform that (just like other social platforms) can display the distance between parties. Ting Shuang had chosen someone that was 287 kilometres away from him, thinking that it was very safe. After all, when there’s more than two hundred kilometres between them, they wouldn’t awkwardly chance upon each other in real life, right!Unexpectedly… The next night, 287 kilometres suddenly became 4.8 kilometres??? And even more unexpectedly… In the afternoon of the third day, 4.8 kilometres suddenly became 3 metres???

• Accidental Mark by Die Zhiling

I didn’t expect to enjoy this as much as I did! Ahhhh!!!! I wanna re read it actually. I like Pei Shaoze as a character cause he does things his way. Just ignores the whole novel and makes a name for himself in a different world. Cheng Xia is also likable. A cinnamon roll. Plus the whole backdrop of the c-ent industry driving the plot is delightful. I’m glad I have some knowledge of c-ent before reading this cause I appreciated things more.

SYNOPSIS: Pei Shaoze unintentionally heard about a novel called Accidental Mark. Once he woke up, he found he had transmigrated into the alpha scumbag in the book, Pei Shaoze. The omega protagonist of the novel, Cheng Xia happened to have his pheromones out of control. The original scumbag not only took the opportunity to mark the protagonist but also killed the protagonist’s parents and ruined his reputation. The protagonist was completely blackened and returned five years later to stab the scumbag to death. Pei Shaoze, “……” What type of melodramatic plot was this? Why not invest well in movies and TV shows when he was the boss? His brain was used to bully the protagonist. No wonder why he would be stabbed to death.

* Your Memes are Better Looking than you by 毛球球

I know this title sounds meh and like a Fall Out Boy track. Lol. But I truly enjoyed it 🤍 more than their relationship, I liked the main character Gu Wei. He’s that misunderstood star with lots of Antis but people don’t really know the true story. WeiWei is hardworking and talented! 🥲 I found myself being happy that he found Jiang Xun who was just unconditionally on his side.

SYNOPSIS: Gu Wei, the popular yet controversial lead dancer of boy band T.ATW. Jiang Xun, a god-tier professional esports player. One day, after a certain variety show aired, these complete strangers became a trending topic together.

* The Emperor’s Adorable wife from Ancient times by 甜柚茶

Again with the long title. Bear with me. This one is actually adorable. I chose this because of the Transmigration plot but it gave me so much more. It did become dragging along the way, with things happening to the MC and the ML comes to the rescue. The inclusion of how dramas are filmed and what actors experience in their work was something that makes this story more solid.

SYNOPSIS: Yang Anyu was originally a little personal bodyguard for a general. As a result, his soul transmigrated to a second-generation young master in the modern era, then met his ‘general’ Yi Chenyan again. The general daren he had especially respected and worshipped unexpectedly became a performer? (Actually, he’s a popular film emperor). What made Yang Anyu even more astonished was that— he had been ‘married off’ to Yi Chenyan.

* This Omega is Immune to All abilities by 吃青梅酱呀

I’m making my way through this Novel and loving it! Chapter 85 of 103. I thought this was gonna be heavy on the A/B/O storyline but it actually didn’t focus on it too much. There was an actual plot. I like school settings, especially ones like this where people have abilities and they are divided in groups. A good cast of characters. A tournament. and there is a reveal that I’m still looking forward to. The pacing is excellent too and as a reader, it keeps me engaged. The MC also has a good personality. Lol. He’s so weird! My son!!!!

SYNOPSIS: Yi Jiamu was a patient with the ‘Ability Deficiency Disorder’ and he inadvertently attracted Gu Yesheng’s attention. The yandere beauty avoided by the entire school pinched his chin: Child, I will cover you in the future. Yi Jiamu thought for a moment: In fact, it isn’t necessary. At first, Gu Yesheng thought he was just shy. Later, he discovered that it really wasn’t necessary… Yi Jiamu had a secret. He wasn’t lacking an ability, he was immune to all abilities.

*** 101 Essays that Will change the way you Think by Brianna Wiest

This is not in the whole vibe of this blog but this is one that I’m reading a few pages of for the past week. Just to have a good mindset before I go to work or when my head gets too jumbled. I found myself actually highlighting entire paragraphs ( example below ) from this book. 🤍

That’s it. I hope to read more in the coming months! 📚📖

Part 1 of recent reads here.

[generallypo]

in all sincerity, kim dokja makes me happy and he deserves to be so too :^(

incoherent yelling and sobbing under the cut. these fEELINGS will not be contained aaauuunnghhh. 

------

anyway i binge-read all 500+ chapters of ORV this week and i honest to god feel bad for this -- completely! fictional! aghhhh -- guy. in case you haven’t figured it out, the following is some spoilerly shit

i went in expecting a fun, brainless power trip fantasy for dudes with an isekai addiction. instead, it turns out ORV is actually a gigantic, self-deprecating prank on the entire genre itself. kdj plays more into the sad -- if high-functioning-- clown trope than the sexy, edgy, chuuni bastard type i was prepared to laugh at. there were -- gasp! -- female characters with personalities! parents (aka ADULTS who act like ADULTS) who actually survive and feature prominently! adorable children! a real sexy, edgy bastard! a power trio with amazing fashion! sexual tension and bickering! friendship! life and death bonding! 

*breathes in deeply* fouND FAMILYYYYYYY.

like, yeah, the plot around the first few arcs seems a little aimless, but the buildup is worth. the world-building is pretty decent. there’s discernible effort put into the fight scenes, and i can appreciate that. but -- but! what i stayed for were the characters -- namely, the fantastic OT3 of KDJ, HSY, and YJH -- who come together despite their initial rivalries and end up saving each other’s asses, like, every other day. granted, the other characters don’t get as much focus, and they do fall into certain character tropes.. 

but a trope done well is nothing i would gripe about. every significant character in ORV has a coherent, and more importantly, respectful take on their respective trope. maybe it’s because sing-shong is actually a married couple, but all the interactions between even minor characters are a convincing blend of awkward rambling, suggestive humor, sharp remarks, and casual banter. in other words, this cast of mostly working adults (plus a teen and two kids) talks like working adults. the relationships built throughout the story are, frankly, some of most realistic of its genre. sing-shong has managed to craft a dynamic that undoubtedly brims with fluffy fondness all around, but also drips with sarcastic tension, with unspoken urgency, with a wariness that softens into sincerity over the course of many, many chapters. it’s the kind of progression that makes even stock characters read like more than just the 2-bit villain or comrade or love interest. here, we have relationships both straightforward and not, strained or otherwise, romantically-oriented as well as decidedly the opposite -- and then numerous others scattered along the spectrum with the freedom to shift either way. 

it’s also an interesting point of note that our MC kdj actually does not end up with a stated romantic partner, much less a conventional heteroromantic harem. he gets teased about that fact from time to time, but it’s with less of the sleazy shonen locker room humor one would expect and more of the good-natured ribbing you’d find among friends or that one especially nosy auntie at the yearly family reunion. kdj is a grown ass man. in the background, i applaud his maturity, and he handles all the prodding like a champ. 

so instead of finding and fulfilling his horny, he builds himself a wealth of loving family. yeah, there are beautiful men and women around him. yeah, they unequivocally adore him. but they’re also adults, and they have priorities, too -- which are not so much finding a way to bang kdj’s brains out and more so simply keeping the damn guy alive. this is truly not ‘oblivious mc with his thirsty, sex kitten harem’. it just so happens that a guy proves himself to be unflinchingly gentle and capable in an apocalyptic setting despite his broken self-esteem, and lots of people find that attractive, romantically and platonically. 

it.. kinda makes sense? he’s a hard worker, thoughtful, and good with kids. kdj is the kind of guy you know would make a reliable partner, and anybody with eyes can plainly see and appreciate that. 

and it’s not that our MC’s a total brick wall. in fact, it’s likely the opposite, and he’s just too darned repressed to admit it. from what has been implied, kdj does indeed recognize and accept love, or at least a primitive concept of it. i like to imagine that the kind of love that he ends up seeking out simply manifests itself more easily as acceptance and safety, as warmth and a home of people to return to every day. even better, the people who surround him know this, and they give him exactly that. it’s refreshing, and honestly, really sweet.

(as a side note, i really, really do appreciate the cosmic bi energy radiating off of kdj, who canonically earns the title of being loved by all and is all but in name married to yjh and hsy. he also respects women and small children and honestly anyone who isn’t total scum to him or his family. i respect that.)

but the happy stuff aside, you know it it just ain’t ORV without the generous screaming dollop of angst. admittedly, there’s self-sacrifice, injury, lonesome wandering, more sacrifice, some epic fighting, reunion and confrontation. all of it is a lot to digest, sure, but never does it feel entirely hopeless, or truly, truly heart-clenching. ORV, up until the final act, is a mostly light read. you relax in your chair, thinking that nothing beyond this point can disturb you. 

yeah fucking right.

------

and then the beginning of the end arrives. when the squad finally break through to their ‘ending’, the scene that kind of breaks me is the reveal of the Most Ancient Dream. it ties so much thematically into the little tidbits that we get of kdj’s past, and it though it feels like almost a joke that the source of the goddamn apocalypse is a kid with bruises smeared across his skinny ass body -- it’s such a pathetic picture that it’s kinda poetic, actually. you’re left mystified but somewhat convinced, like a math problem explained halfway through. this.. child.. is a villain somehow, isn’t he?

and then 999th turn uriel speaks up, and she. just. hugs him. 

[[You are this universe’s most powerless existence, aren’t you.]] 

that. that gets me. kdj’s reaction immediately upon this revelation? absolute murder. seeing him essentially self-destruct upon realizing that all these people he’s surrounded himself with -- some who continuously proclaim their loyalty and affection for him throughout their journey, some who suffered eons of war and loss and trauma because of his existence -- not only forgive his younger self but smother him with unconditional acceptance and love is stifling, is too vulnerable and exposed and he simply can’t cope -- it’s so telling of his true mentality, of his crippling insecurity and crumpled sense of self-worth. kim dokja is a liar, through and through, so much that he fails, or perhaps refuses, to comprehend the veracity of others’ kindness and love towards himself. 

by some miracle, the events at the end of the world somehow resolve.. or so it seems. there is a departing train, a liberated team of ex-gods, and a child rousing from his slumber. in the aftermath, i am left shaking. somehow, despite the ending having been (happily?) reached, there’s still another chapter ahead. what is this witchcraft?

------

and then ah, yes -- the epilogue arc. i teetered on the edge of being critical for a little bit there -- is that display of deus ex machina, of sad, self-sacrificing nobility a bit too egregious to be acceptable? is this some wild last let-me-yank-this-outta-my-ass plot twist to drag out the chapter count? i sincerely thought that the arc before it would have been the finale. i was wrong. thank god.

anyways, as an answer to the above: no, and no. i stake my firm claim on the belief that the epilogue arc was meticulously planned out well in advance of its release, confusing and time-warpy as it is. i liked it. tremendously. even if it entirely invalidates all of kdj’s supposed development (”haha lol yeah sure i won’t sacrifice myself or anything anymore guys don’t worry about me” -- KDJ, at some point because he’s a lying rat bastard). actually, our beloved MC disappears for a large chunk of this arc, and i think it’s great. in his absence, the other characters not only go absolutely fucking nuts, but they have to figure out this new problem on their own, even if the lure of peaceful complacency in the newly saved Korea might convince them otherwise. 

and then the whole time paradox thing comes around. yjh goes to space, hsy saves the only life she can, and kdj grows up. the crew waits, holding onto their hope even if it bleeds them dry. sing-shong does a damn good job of illustrating their fraying calm, their lurking madness, the unseen but pervasive depression that seeps in from kdj’s absence. the kids lose their father, lhs and jhw lose their reliable leader figure, ysa loses a best friend and confidant, lsk -- as distant as she pretends to be from her son -- loses her only child. and then there’s hsy and yjh , who are essentially bereft of the other half of their existences. their pain is palpable, is grounded in the hopeless, gnawing frustration of an utterly meaningless victory. emotionally, ORV hits all the right -- if agonizing -- beats.

however, a story can’t sustain itself just through its pathos. i’m happy to say that ORV doesn’t drop the ball after the first milestone, and after all the hurt, the characters do leap straight back into action. even better, the plot holes actually do get patches, and the poetic cycle of writer, protagonist, and reader comes full circle by making use of all those supposedly throwaway characters from the myriad world lines. 

at the end of the road, there is a distinct sense of unity, of a delicate but undeniable cohesion to the world lines and their origins. sing-shong lets us guess a little here at the finish, but there’s just enough information to feel hopeful. maybe there never had been a definite start -- or finish -- to the story of kdj company, and... that’s okay. everybody ends up where they were meant to be, where they fought and struggled to reach. it’s.. almost like a happily ever after, if we’re allowed to dream of that.

------

now, i realize, this was all an orchestrated maneuver.

i’ll take it.

to me, all of this work sounds like someone put some serious thought into this behemoth of a plot. it cements the entire original premise of the story. it suggests -- but never explicitly confirms! -- the possibility that breaking free of the cycle is possible through the exact same system that sustains it. it’s terribly interesting -- and inspirational! with all the dramatic revelations and life-threatening scenarios  and the cast’s resigned acceptance of them that essentially make up ORV’s entire mood, there’s still that last hint of rebellious and righteous anger that lights up the whole damn nebula. it’s like the kdj company blasting away at the heavens just to yell into the nether: we’re not looking for the happy end, but the free one. stay alive.

it’s subtle, and yet it’s such an emotional gut punch. i came away with the most ruinous, frustrating, bittersweet sense of longing in ages. i pined. for these fictional darlings. god, i am weak.

so. yeah. ORV is pretty good. flawed, but ambitious and impressively thought out.  i’m stoked that the webtoon is making pretty good progress, even if it’ll take an eternity and a half to meet that monstrous chapter count. i’m still gonna follow it. hell yeah. 

------

(by the way the idea that secretive plotter and co are literally gonna take care of and raise baby kdj and spoil him and be the best friggin family a kid could ever want does things to me. protect him. he’s suffered too much. let at least one worldline’s version of him know happiness. and actually, aLL OF THEM DESERVE DOMESTIC BLISS TOGETHER IN A BIG OL MANSION WITH SUN AND FRESH AIR AND TENDER FAMILY MOMENTS UGH)

------

and there you have it, folks. you made it to the end. in the far, far distance, i’m cheering you on and crying my eyes out in gratitude. thanks for tuning in!

[ac-liveblogs]

I mean, it’s not like Genshin events aren’t always weird and unsatisfying, but I do generally think they’re getting better.

I see a lot of people (mostly on Twitter) talking about Unreconciled Stars and to a lesser extent the Chalk Prince and the Dragon being the best events, but those were like. The worst of them?

Unreconciled Stars especially. It started basically... very shortly after I started Genshin, I don’t think I’d even finished Liyue yet (AR woes), and I... was very used to FGO events, which are quite lengthy and usually have at least one or two character arcs, a full complete story, comedy chops, etc. depending on the genre of the event, and always have a very climactic finale with a huge boss fight that the event slowly builds up to. And because I’m, like. Used to narratives, and read books and play games, I had certain... reasonable expectations about the way the event’s story would be paced anyway.

Like for example, the expectation that when Fischl was introduced, she’d be a focal character in the story and she’d have a complete narrative within the arc. I’d kind of assumed she was telling the truth about being from another world at first because I hadn’t read her profile (because I didn’t have her), so I thought the stars and her being from another world would tie together and it would turn out that she was relevant to whatever it was that was happening. I also assumed that when she left the event, she would come back, because we’d spent half the event travelling with her and getting to know her so why on earth would our companion just bounce and not return after having done... basically nothing?  

Well, I was wrong on all counts. Fischl was just there, travelled with us a bit, had no narrative relevance to the event in any way, contributed almost nothing and then left and didn’t come back after passing us off to Mona. Also she wasn’t from another world, she was a chuuni, which is already kind of... making your fantasy world less interesting right out the gate? You really wonder why she was even there in the first place.

But okay, fine. Mona... Mona was... Mona was there mostly for gameplay and exposition purposes, and she saved us from Scaramouche when he tried to attack us. She didn’t have any greater relevance beyond “I’m helping solve the mystery”, which was okayish when I thought Fischl was still coming back, but less so when she never did. And Scaramouche...

Okay, so like, a boss shows up and meeting him is treated like a Big Deal. You reach the climax of the event and he shows up again and you, naturally, are like “oop! here it is! the big climactic finale! we’re gonna fight him!” and you’re gearing up for a boss fight because why wouldn’t the event end with a bang and then he just makes you fight some mooks, cackles about some baffling plot revelation that won’t pay off for IRL years and bounces. and the event ends. 

I was so disoriented playing it. It ended on this weird lore dump about some guy that died centuries ago that wasn’t... even super relevant to anyone in the cast, and Fischl, Mona and Scaramouche didn’t do anything. I should’ve taken it as a warning of things to come, but I figured it was just messy first event syndrome and things would improve. Which they have somewhat but uh, the bones of all the problems in later events and chapters were definitely already there.    

Chalk Prince is also pretty anticlimactic and strange. It tacked Albedo’s character quest onto the start of the event, which padded things out, but it also ended without a climactic boss fight and also just loredumped about a dragon that had been dead for centuries. I don’t know - when we saw this dragon heart beating in a mountain I went “oh, we’re going to fight the dragon as a ghost or something” or maybe “oh man, something’s going to make us fight Albedo?” and “there’s something really ominous about that sword that’s going to bite us later”.

But the dragon really was just a talking piece, and this super dangerous sword that only worked for us really was just a free weapon, and the random flower that burst out of the ground was just an evil flower, and then the event was over. The climax of the event was Sucrose getting knocked over by Pallad and the flower showing up which, to my mind, was like, a miniboss at best. 

Is that partially on me for underestimating the scale of whackiness or drama that Genshin was willing to reach? Yeah, maybe. Genshin is not a game where you can expect to fight ghosts,  or evil swords to be ominous, or there to be princesses from other worlds, and its on me for not realising that it might not have stories like that. But it’s really not my fault for expecting the stories to feel complete or for the characters to have stories within the events they’re the focal point of. 

At the time my thought was “Genshin is for some reason making regular story chapters events and that’s why they aren’t complete narratives/don’t have character arcs/just exist to set up future plot points and character arcs” and to an extent I still think that’s true of those events, because functionally that’s all they did, but man, those two events were bad. Genshin’s definitely improved on making events self-contained stories since those two - the events are still a little bland, but they don’t end as suddenly and they do try to use their cast better. 

Lantern Rite’s story was dull, but they spent the event establishing our goal (taking Xiao to the rite), so it was a satisfying enough finale to finally convince him to watch the fireworks. Windblume also wrapped up nicely. I think those two worked best because they didn’t have some Big Plot that was meant to hint at something happening in the future - they were really just about Xiao and Mondstadt, so the writing was less ambitious. Summer Isles were... messy, and still set up future events (Alice....), but less offensive. 

I can only hope Genshin won’t use events to set up future events - they are not good at this - and stick with telling self-contained stories, but we’ll just have to see how it goes I guess

[mythgirlimagines]

If there’s a machine that needs a tune-up, who can you call? Why, Myth Anon, the Former Ultimate Mechanic, of course!

———————————————–

BACKSTORY AND TALENT

Someone as honest and straightforward as Myth obviously has the honest and straightforward backstory to match. Myth’s heavy interest in the mechanics of vehicles and appliances obviously stemmed from the fact that all of her immediate family members had machinery-related talents (her father was the Former Ultimate Car Salesman, her mother was the Former Ultimate Clocksmith, her first older sister was the Former Ultimate Audio Engineer, and her second eldest sister was the Former Ultimate Battle Bot Champion). As someone raised by such a machinery obsessed family, it would make sense that Myth would grow up to be a machinery-obsessed loon, and while Myth is usually a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to all sorts of machinery, she particularly specialises in the repairing of vehicles and appliances, and when not in school, she helps her father repair the cars that are sold at his shop, which is how she got the title of the Ultimate Mechanic in her high-school years (alongside her general hospitality and charisma helping her father rope in far more prospective customers at his shop), although she would much rather have the title of  “Ultimate Mechanical Engineer”, because she feels as though her original title doesn’t live up to the sheer expertise is almost all things machinery, and designing her very own machines has always been a girlhood dream of hers. In her adult years, she’s currently balancing her career and her well-deserved position at a prestigious mechanical engineering institute. It may sound treachourous, but for Myth, nothings impossible without the right resources and a little bit of elbow grease.

———————————————–

RELATIONSHIPS

Wyre Anon, Former Ultimate Team Manager

When not working out or going to school, Wyre spends a lot of their time managing the “TBD-Town Dinos”, only the biggest Little League baseball teams in all of town. As an expert and extreme fanatic of the sport, Wyre knows exactly how to get their beloved teammates (which they view a bit like their own siblings or even like their children) to cooperate and secure a win for the town’s team. Their loud voice and forceful personality definitely does wonders for motivating their team, even if they do have a tendency to cuss freely in front of the kids. Myth and Wyre also happen to be childhood friends and mutual workout buddies, and any time either of them feel down, they always head over to each other’s houses and go do some mode of exercise, in order to help lift both iron and spirits. When it comes to fixing jammed-up pitching machines, no one top Myth, and Wyre always pays her in Gatorade bottles.

Outfit: A green and beige cap with their team’s logo on the front, a matching jersey over a black shirt with a flaming tire on the front, white shorts, white socks, and red and yellow sneakers.

Anon Scar, Ultimate Photographer

Claiming that she uses her talent to “capture the souls of the innocent and immortalize them for all of humanity’s miserable time on earth” (purely for the sake of seeming cool and edgy), Scar is known for her eerie and creepy photographs (which are taken with an old-fashioned black-and-white camera) that have alleged ghosts or other spiritual beings in the background. So while she may not be well-liked when it comes to people wanting to take normal photos, she is beloved by edgy aestheticians and lovers of the macabre everywhere, who would pay ludicrous amounts of money to have one of her eerie photographs. Myth finds Scar to be mysterious and almost as creepy as her photographs (not helped by her incomprehensible chuuni-talk). But Myth finds herself fascinated by Scar’s prized old-fashioned camera, having only seen such old-fashioned machinery in her mother‘s clock shop.

Outfit: A black t-shirt with a white ghost illustration on the front over a white sweatshirt with black stripes, a black and white skirt held up with black suspenders, black and white striped stockings, black boots, the mask and makeup from her original design.

Fusion Anon, Ultimate Swordsman

If you regularly keep up with televised sword-fighting competitions, surely you would recognise the face and name of Fusion, who has won every single swordfighting tournament he participated in for two years in a row, with the help of his signature sword: a scimitar that he calls “Turquoise”. In spite of what his scarred body, imposing height, and combative talent (and the reputation he gained as a result of said qualities) would suggest, Fusion is a very cheerful and kindhearted soul, who is always willing to give people one-on-one sword-fighting lessons. As a fellow athlete, Fusion gets along rather well with Wyre (he can’t handle her foul mouth though) and by extension, he also gets along well with the friendly mechanic, and they regularly exercise and work out together (alongside the other below-mentioned Anons with athletic talents). Myth and Fusion also like chattering to each other about their respective talents.

Outfit: A blue hoodie with red stripes on the sleeves underneath a golden chestplate and shoulderpads, black pants, brown boots, has his sword in a golden holster, and has scars all over his body and face.

Fusion Anon II, Ultimate Animator

Commonly found in her bedroom and working diligently on her latest project, Fusion II is a well-known online animator, famous for her satirical web cartoons (she also has a lesser-known book review video series) that usually take place in supernatural fantasy worlds (a surprising number of gags can come from the combination of the setting and the standard mode of humor, which leads to a lot of memes in their respective fandoms). While Fusion II normally doesn‘t interact with anybody (not even her fans), the very few people that she bothered to interact with all agree that she is stoic and about as sarcastic as the humour of her magnum opeses. Because of her general workaholic attitude, she only ever really interacts with Myth if she needs help drawing machines, which is how the upright mechanic and the sarcastic animator managed to forge a strange friendship over drawing up new machines.

Outfit: Purple and pink headphones around her neck, a shirt that matches her headphones over the gakuran top from the original design, black digital artist’s gloves, grey sweatpants, black socks and off-white slippers, the sunglasses from her original design.

Just Anon, Ultimate Chef

Graduating from the top of his culinary academy and being made a major celebrity, as a result of his talent and instant mastery of just about any cooking style that one could put in front of him and his culinary delights are able to put even professional chefs to shame. However, Janon appears to really dislike his talent, and would much rather hide away in the shadows, underneath his bedsheets, and simply live off of delivered microwaveable meals than actually cook anything for himself or others. Apart from the two Jr. Ultimates (who are talked about below), Janon seems to treat the other Anons with disdain and complete disregard, and Myth is certainly no exception to this rule. Janon only really interacts with Myth if he needs a kitchen appliance fixed. Myth is simply shocked and appalled that all of these high-tech cooking tools are going to waste, and Janon couldn’t be bothered to use any of them.

Outfit: Same outfit as the original, but with a chef’s outfit underneath his hoodie.

Sparkle Anon, Former Ultimate Animal Breeder

Usually calling herself a “SPECTACULAR BEAST TAMER”, Sparkle is infamous for both her stellar breeding of show dogs (although she’s definitely not limited to just dogs) that win awards at only the most major and most famous televised dog shows, and her advocacy for the prevention of cruelty to animals of any kind, for Sparkle is well-known for treating each and everyone of her showdogs with the love and care that they rightfully deserve. She’s usually seen with her three favourite fluffy and pure white showdogs right by her side (and they each have monogrammed capes with their names on the outside): Andrew, Lloyd, and Webber, who have a track record of winning every dog show that they participated in. As a fellow dog person, it makes sense that Sparkle and Myth would get along swimmingly, despite Sparkle’s initial hesitation to let her well-groomed dogs get anywhere near that “grease monkey”.

Outfit: A blue coat with little jewels on the (fake) fur lining over a black shirt with an orange paw print on the front, a pink poodle skirt over black leggings and blue boots, the glasses and hairstyle from her original design.

Egg Anon, Former Ultimate Gymnast

As one half of the twins from the royal family of the Kingdom of Denebict, Egg seems content being shunned in favour of their twin sibling (who will be talked about directly below), and would much rather focus on their athletics. Topping every single gymnastics competition and gaining swarms of swooning fan-Anons, they were eventually chosen to represent Denebict in the Anonlympics with their beautiful and physically-taxing artistic and rhythmic gymnastics routine, and managed to win the competition by a landslide. While known for being a jokester in their home country, they have garnered a reputation in other countries as “cursed” and a “memelord”. As a fellow athlete, Egg gets along with Wyre, and by extension, Myth (think of it as smarter-than-they-look-or-regularly-act thembo/herbo solidarity). Egg and Myth love to work out and get up to trouble that the other adults have to dig them out of.

Outfit: A green and black hoodie over a tight green and yellow leotard, white leggings, fluffy green leg warmers and black ballet-esque slippers.

Wet Sock Anon, Former Ultimate Princex

As the other half of the royal Denebictian family’s twins, Wet Sock was chosen by their parents (the crowned king and queen of Denebict) to become the new crowned princex of the town, on account of their knowledge of their country’s history (they have a particular interest in Denebict’s illustrious war history and has a whole collection of professionally-crafted swords), and their general professionalness, sanity and level-headedness in contrast to their disowned muscleheaded athletic superstar twin sibling. Considering their two respective social standings, Wet Sock usually spent the earlier days of their tenure at the Kibo-Con looking down on the “lowly labour worker”, much to the anger of the mechanic. However, as Egg eventually found out, Wet Sock is housing some forbidden feelings towards Myth, and now, Egg is trying their damn best to break down those regal walls, and get the princex and the mechanic together.

Outfit:A golden crown on their head, a black vest over a white dress shirt and a black cape with a red interior, black pants and blue socks, the glasses and earrings from their original design.

Curious Anon, Jr. Ultimate Traditional Dancer

Renowned by the traditionalist crowd for their graceful dancing skills and their ability to pull off both masculine and feminine roles, Curious‘s performances garner a massive crowd, because of these beforementioned qualities, as well as their polite and supportive (“Yamato Nadeshiko“ is another term that people use to describe them) nature towards their fans. They may be a bit of a passive doormat, but Curious’s fans claim that that is simply part of their special Curious charm. Because of Curious’s traditionalist upbringing, they’re not really skilled in the realm of modern technology and can barely work a modern cellphone, which is where Myth and her superior mechanical knowledge come in. Every time Curious has a machinery-related problem or query, Myth would always be right beside the dancer with the answer, and Myth gets happier, for her mechanical knowledge is finally respected by another Anon.

Outfit: Longer hair with flower decorations in it, a green, red, and white kimono with a red obi, white socks, and brown zori sandals.

Anon Nerd, Former Ultimate Nurse

Garnering fame for mastering even the most difficult of medical treatment, many people are surprised when they found out that Nerd’s currently working as a nurse, especially considering his usual behavior. Despite his general jerkish personality and hot temper making Nerd seem like a less-than-stellar nurse, people under his care have noted that he is far more caring and affectionate (albeit begrudgingly, for he’s only doing this to get qualifications to move on to a bigger and better medical career, despite still remaining as a nurse for all of these years) in the workplace, than he is in real life. Considering Myth’s line of work and her usually-physical hobbies, it only makes sense that the local doctors would know her by name, and is regularly assigned Nerd to care for her, much to the irritation of the medical professional. But at least, Nerd does his job well, and Myth is up and running in no time.

Outfit: Red-tinted glasses, a white lab coat over a black turtleneck sweater, black pants, and brown shoes.

Eldritch Anon, Ultimate Musician

You’d be surprised to learn that the lead vocalist for the cynical hardcore death-metal band “THE X-POSERS” is a five-foot-nothing teenager who always cowers and stutters at the sight of people. However, that is only who Eldritch is off the stage. On the stage, the whole attitude flips, as he’s willing to scream to you about all of the evils of the cruel world until your ears begin to bleed. Despite not garnering an audience with authorities or old people (both due to the subject matter and the sensitive hearing of the elderly), the band’s subject matter is a hit amongst the rebellious teenage crowd. Whenever working, Myth always likes to have some industrial metal in the background (she claims it helps to set the mood in the workshop), and actually managed to hear some of Eldritch’s music in her playlist. She doesn’t care about the lyrics, but she likes anything with good sound equipment and instrumentals.

Outfit: Wildly dyed hair, a black leather jacket (that has the band’s logo on the black) over a dark grey turtleneck sweater, black fingerless gloves and matching nail polish, blue jeans and tall boots that add about four inches to his height, elaborate facial makeup.

Dream Anon, Ultimate Yakuza

Despite seeming like your standard genki and innocent shoujo protagonist (with the spirit and physical capabilities of a shonen protagonist), Dream is actually the daughter of and the heiress to only the biggest and most influential yakuza families in all of the country. Despite this (and several instances of not knowing her own yakuza-trained strength), Dream remains a cheery and kindhearted (if slightly childish for her age) teenage girl, and is planning on turning over a new leaf with her business. Myth actually fixed the cars of a couple of influential yakuza members and could have lost a couple of body parts, if not for her competence at her job. Because of that experience, she’s naturally a bit shaky around Dream, much to the yakuza princess’s obliviousness. However, according to Wyre’s accounts, Dream actually loves sports and regularly plays volleyball matches against the team manager.

Outfit: A black gakuran top over a pink t-shirt, a black skirt with white leggings, black Mary Janes.

Iris Anon, Jr. Ultimate Lucky Student

Having been accepted into Hope’s Peak Middle School through the recently-implemented lottery system (in an attempt to copy the high school division), Iris feels a bit like an outsider to the other Ultimates (both in her class, and in the Kibo-Con), but they tries their best to not let that get them down. Because of both their natural clumsiness and their chronic bad luck (that’s always balanced out by a stroke of good luck), Iris regularly ends up breaking things, and regularly has to visit Myth, if that thing was an electronic device. Myth often times wonders how someone could be so lucky yet unlucky at the same time, and it appears not even Iris has a scientific explanation (as an Anon of science, Iris is always ready to shoot down any claims that the luck cycle is “magic”) that can justify their weird luck cycle. Weird attachment to plants (clovers, in particular) and superb clumsiness aside, Myth finds Iris to be a great friend.

Outfit: Messier braids and glasses with a cracked left lens, a green hoodie over a green and light blue dress with a clover design near the bottom, yellow rainboots with clover stickers on the side, several assorted bandages on her skin.

Purple Anon, Reserve Course Student

Unlike the rest of her Ultimate, Former Ultimate, and Jr. Ultimate peers, Purple is a part of Hope’s Peak High School’s Reserve Course, planning on specialising in Literature and Writing (hence her ridiculously old-fashioned speech and vocabulary, if rumors prove correct). Because of said difference and her general timidity and anxiety around strangers, Purple regularly isolates herself from the rest of the group, and hardly ever speaks to the other Anons, unless she absolutely has to. She also seems to have a weakness for candy, and can easily be lured out of her hiding place, by waving any sort of sweet in front of her. Just like all of the other Anons, Myth finds Purple to be one hard-to-crack mystery. Despite having chose to attend the Kibo-Con tour, she seems to be intent on isolating herself from the group, in addition to her incomprehensible speech and her obvious lack of a talent.

Outfit: The usual Hope’s Peak uniform, but with a purple sweater vest underneath her blazer.

In this AU, watch as the Former Ultimate Mechanic impresses her peers with her mechanical know-how and her misadventures as the Con’s official tech support!

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PERSONALITY

Always willing to do what she can to help others, Mechanic!Myth is a charismatic and helpful soul (which really helps business), always willing to help those in need, even if she isn’t getting paid for the endeavor. Despite not seeming or acting like it (usually acting muscle-headed and reckless, much to the dismay of the Con’s brain cells), Mechanic!Myth is still an expert in her field, and dislikes being seen as lesser in intellect than others, just because of the label that was assigned her. When it comes to any sort of machinery, Mechanic!Myth would just talk your ear off about them, which is good for equally talkative Anons, but not very good for more socially-awkward Anons, and it goes to show that despite her seemingly macho and rough attitude, Mechanic!Myth is just a massive nerd deep down. She also has quite the love for cute things (such as cats and dogs), and if you combine her two interests, and introduce her to a cute machine, you will bet that she’ll be your best friend for life. Then again, it’s very easy to become Mechanic!Myth’s friend, for she gets just as attached to people as she gets to her machines.

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APPEARANCE

One of the most notable differences between Mechanic!Myth and Romantic!Myth is that Mechanic!Myth is far more muscular in stature and is covered in engine grease, in contrast to Romantic!Myth. Mechanic!Myth wears her brown hair in a bun and a pair of golden goggles on her head, a white tank-top with a cat-like robot design on the front. Around her neck is a gear-shaped necklace with a heart in the center (Wyre has an identical one). Myth also wears a pink jumpsuit with light blue stripes on the side, and oddly enough, dark purple crocs on her feet.

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I apologise for my tardiness again, but I hope you like this “Talentswap Thursday” post! I‘d love to hear your thoughts on this AU, and if you have any opinions on or additional headcanons for this AU, I’d love to hear it!

-Fusion Anon

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I still can't get over that I'm the youngest child in these aus lol-