#anyway this is all relevant and important

[neosaidwhoa]

In terms of love, it was always Iruka for Naruto.

Relevant quotes from Naruto manga chapters 535-536:

“ENOUGH! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TO ME?! You’re one of my most important students. And… …you’re as close to me as a little brother.” -Iruka to Naruto

“Our enemy is seeking you out to kill you. How am I going to stand here and let that happen?” -Iruka to Naruto

“Why should you continue to bear the burdens of everyone else?” -Iruka to Naruto

“Come back alive!!!” -Iruka to Naruto

“Forgive me Naruto. I’m weak. I think of myself as your big brother, but I’ve never actually been able to protect you.” -Iruka

“Killer Bee? I need something from you. Keep Naruto safe, please sir!!!” -Iruka to Killer Bee

“You’re part of Naruto’s private clan. Naruto needs you. Whatever you done. To Naruto you shine like the sun.” -Killer Bee to Iruka

“Naruto listens to all you say. He’ll owe you his life till his dying day.” -Killer Bee to Iruka

“You’re the first person to ever acknowledge me, Master!!” -Naruto to Iruka

#he truly loved Naruto the person

#the boy

#the troublemaker

#the orphan

#the person

#he didn't love Naruto the demon or Naruto the savior of prophecy

#he loved HIM

#he cared for HIM

#he saw HIM

#Iruka and Naruto are the most healthy and powerful depiction of love in Naruto and its truest depiction of what real love looks like

#canon found family, iruka’s literally in Naruto’s private clan

#Iruka and Naruto as a depiction of brotherhood, in contrast to all the other depictions of brotherhood in the story of Naruto... a powerful contrast fr

#the truest form of love

#to love is to act

#to love is to heal

#to love is to act compassionately

#to love is to change

#Iruka changed for Naruto. He changed how he thought about Naruto, who was the feared vessel of the monster that killed Iruka’s parents and a disruptive, troublemaking, poor student.

#Iruka changed in order to love Naruto like the kid deserved, or is it that Iruka was changed by loving Naruto? Both. The answer is both.

#Naruto changed by being loved by Iruka. Everyone else was comfortable in inaction in regards to Naruto’s childhood. Iruka took action to love Naruto. Iruka’s love healed Naruto.

#Naruto is changed forever by being loved by Iruka, he is a different person before and after Iruka starts loving him.

#And Naruto goes forward in life sharing this love with others. That’s the whole show, that’s the source of every Talk No Justu.

#Naruto was loved powerfully by someone when he was ‘hard to love’ and resistant and lonely and damaged and troublesome, he knows how life changing love and compassion is to someone who is suffering from a lack, so he’s determined to help them.

#Naruto intimately understands that giving love to people who need it most can be difficult. He knows that love requires patience, consistency, effort, empathy, listening, and understanding.

#It’s why Naruto never stops trying to reach Sasuke. Naruto knows how it felt for everyone in the village to be okay with his suffering.

#Naruto knows it only took one person deciding to take action and take responsibility despite what everyone thinks of him.

#Naruto is about the transformative power of love.

#Naruto is about how love breaks cycles.

#It’s about how love bears fruit and its fruit bear fruit.

#Kishimoto wrote this so well. You can tell that the power of love and relationships between people are what Kishimoto cares most about exploring through his art.

#So beautiful that Iruka felt inspired to love Naruto because Iruka was shown love by Hiruzen back when Iruka was a troublemaking orphan.

#Compassion begetting compassion.

#Naruto is a love story, in that it’s a story about love.

#It’s not just about love despite suffering, it’s about love especially because there is suffering. It’s about suffering because of a lack of love, to which the only antidote is love and understanding.

#Naruto is about people who are difficult to love and understand being loved and understood anyways, and how this completely transforms the narrative.

#Naruto is about the people who are determined to do the work of loving and understanding someone despite all the forces against them.

#Naruto is about how the rotten work of love breaks generational curses, quite literally.

Manga pages:

When people list the persons who 'impacted' Naruto the most, they often mention Jiraiya and Hinata but completely overlook Iruka, which annoys me to no end.

I know Iruka doesn't appear much in the manga, but he was the first to show care and love for Naruto. He was the first person to verbally acknowledge him—not just the first adult, but the first person overall. Iruka is one of the people Naruto loves the most. From the very beginning to the end, Iruka is consistently mentioned among Naruto's precious people, with Sasuke being second.

Iruka is Naruto's family, and the fact that people 'forget' this is really upsetting. Iruka is the person who was always there, always. No amount of retcon (yes, I'm talking about the last movie) will ever change that.

While we're on the topic, Hinata didn't give Naruto a family; they founded a family together. That's actually quite different. And anyway, he already had a family. Their names are Iruka and Sasuke. 'Naruto Gaiden' heavily emphasized the idea that blood isn't necessary to have a family, at least for Naruto.

[athena-the-undestructible]

Time to finally explain my new OCs

Well to start, I have a duo of characters

The first is a sniper who acts stoic at a distance, doesn't interact much with others and barely thinks about the fact that she's killing other people, it's just a job to her and she will rarely question what she is doing.

Up close she gets really nervous since she's not got any people skills and doesn't want to give the wrong information to the wrong person, plus her fighting style isn't very good up close so she prefers to stay away.

The second is a Knife Wielder with both stabbing and throwing skills. She's got great people skills and can manipulate them slightly and she greatly enjoys the act of killing others.

However she's very oblivious to anything that isn't immediately around her and in general is unable to grasp the bigger picture and of course her knifes are allergic to anything long range.

These two are supposed to be foils to each other although I still gotta develop them a bit like giving them names and more reason to dislike each other.

There is also a story I'm trying to construct around these characters although that's very work in progress and I haven't even got a proper idea of what the latter half or end looks like.

The basic premise is that these two kill each other at the beginning of the story, however both of them wake up the next day as if they'd only suffered a slight injury and a job listing they've both taken without remembering.

So they'll have to work together and it's not going to make them reconcile in any way, these two will still hate each others but in some different angles maybe.

They will also work with two others during these jobs.

The first I'll mention is a woman who wields a revolver and dressed like an MiB agent. She's been doing these mysterious job listings for longer and believes in some overall grand scheme that connects all of these.

She's initially supposed to give off mysterious vibes like maybe she did used to be an agent and she knows more than she lets on although this is supposed to be torn away as the plot moves forwards.

She doesn't have any more information than the other two but unlike them who don't think much further than what's happening to them, she's trying to piece together the grand scheme that she believes she's part of .

Her intense desire to be part of something important and her idealism is also why she has the secret agent theme despite never being part of any secret services.

And then we have the other one, the transgender robot I mentioned in a previous post.

So her cover "story" is being an assassin so dedicated to her career that she invested in cybernetics to improve her skill and become more efficient.

This is a total lie and quite the opposite, she's really a combat android who's been using her earnings to gain the appearance of humanity (hense the whole transgender part since she definitely wasn't a girl before).

She's also the total opposite of agent in that she has zero stakes in these missions and her enthusiasm goes as far as her payment.

This includes her inability to die like humans do which will be relevant and means she can just fuck off at any time.

Anyway that's all of them, I still haven't come up with their names (Once I can't make puns, I start to struggle) so maybe people could suggest them but I hope you enjoy these character concepts and would like to see me develop them.

My brain is also currently falling apart so I may have got something wrong, anyway that's all for now.

[yangjeongin]

HYUNJIN BIRTHDAY COUNTDOWN (2024): hyunjin in every letter... ↘ D-30 | ARTIST

[deweyduck]

@pscentral​​ event 25: seasons

↳ HAPPY 65TH BIRTHDAY BARBIE! 💖 (9 March, 1959)

"Positive attitude changes everything."

insp.

[hangingslothcentral]

I swear, every time there is news about trans rights in the UK a chorus of people start crowing about a certain wizard school franchise as though a decent response to trans people having their freedoms limited is 'don't engage with wizard school content'

to be clear: the problem isn't that we shouldn't talk about that content in the context of trans rights. it's that whenever a conversation about trans rights starts happening, everyone starts talking about that content. not only does that suck out all the air from the room and reduce a conversation about people's freedoms into one about whether you should engage with a specific media franchise, but it keeps that content in the centre of the public's attention.

advocating for trans rights is not the same thing as encouraging people not to engage with specific pieces of media. of course, discourage people from engaging with it if you want, but too often I'm seeing people see a conversation happening about trans rights in the UK and IMMEDIATELY starting to talk about this other issue instead. it's not that it's not relevant, it's that it's not the point.

*stop feeding the fire.*

[windcarvedlyre]

I've been following @druidposting's DR2 playthrough on discord and we just had a really good discussion about DR's Closing Arguments. Specifically the way the murderer is depicted as grey and featureless, which until now I found a bit annoying.

In Danganronpa it's repeatedly the case that we don't have the full picture until the talking actually stops- which always goes beyond the end of the trial. We generally vote first and come to understand what the murderer's actual motive was, sometimes filling in important pieces of the timeline in the process, afterwards.

But none of that matters for the killing game because characters' emotions aren't directly relevant to who was the 'blackened'- the only thing that matters to Monokuma- so it comes out afterwards and does nothing to change their execution. It doesn't matter how sympathetic they are (basically everyone) or whether other people share responsibility for the situation (eg. Hanamura, Pekoyama, Momota) or whether they intended to murder at all (Nanami). They objectively pulled the trigger and nothing else matters. Nothing about them as a person matters.

The Closing Argument mechanic might illustrate that problem- literally. They're a dramatic, conclusive summary of the entire case... constructed before the vote even happens, before we know if we're actually right, and they're missing something really important:

The actual perpetrator.

We quite literally don't even begin to see the real person behind the crime, any real exploration of their mental state, anything besides the cold, hard facts of the murder that are necessary to convict them, until the comic finishes and the protagonist makes their final accusation- replacing the grey figure with their real appearance in a shot that's often intensely emotional.

And these comics lack crucial parts of the case's timeline and sometimes important parts of the very scenes they depict that we only find out about afterwards. And those are what we know; characters may die with some pieces of the truth and prevent us from ever learning them. These aren't objective depictions of the murder, they're the protagonist's subjective attempt to connect the facts they have. A join-the-dots portrait of someone with missing dots and no colour.

Even characters' expressions may not match how they truly feel, with the grey placeholder potentially looking way more confident and sinister than they were in reality. Pasting Falter's commentary here since they put it well.

For obvious reasons this could especially be a problem for characters that die before the trial- the ones we never get a post-vote testimony from. DR1 chapter 4 really highlighted that in the way Asahina's huge misinterpretation of Oogami's feelings took up a lot of the post-trial discussion, only for Monokuma to reveal Oogami's real suicide note and recontextualise everything.

It might really be a problem for how Komaeda's depicted in DR2 chapter 5. While he isn't greyed out, we get panel after panel where he's either level-headed or maniacally evil, and even the depictions of his self-torture and death don't humanise him:

But we know that his real feelings were more complicated than that. We have his actual corpse to compare the last page to.

He died afraid.

If we approach the comic as Hinata's mental image of him instead of reality, he died without anyone truly understanding him. He was alarming, very hard to relate to, actively fought against people doing so, ensured even the killer didn't watch him die, and the survivors couldn't begin to understand his motive until a chapter later. The Closing Argument reflects that.

Early in DR1 Togami calls out the rest of his class for judging others by their own standards. However, he, too, is doing this, maybe more so than many other characters; his inability to view other people through anything but the cold, brutal logic of the killing game bites him in the ass in chapter 4. In DR2 chapter 2 voting without a good understanding of Pekoyama's motive or Kuzuryuu's involvement nearly got everyone killed. Komaeda's a walking embodiment of the problems with flattening people into caricatures and not empathising with them, suffered from people doing that back to him, and his case- the Closing Argument for which turned everyone else into grey placeholders- was impossible to solve with objective facts. It was only survivable because the survivors cooperated and one person tried to analyse things the way he would.

The games have always been a critique of the justice system and Japanese society and push us to care about others as individuals, not reduce them to- and judge their right to exist by- something they've done or their net impact on society. There are always consequences when someone neglects to do that, and the above might be yet another way the games explore that theme.

[bantersnatch]

"The Ugly Duckling" (illustrated by Theo van Hoytema); Dropout's "Very Important People"; Wikipedia on Hans Christian Anderson's "The Ugly Duckling"; Wikipedia on "Leda and the Swan"; "Leda and the Swan" (statue by Emanuele Caroni); William Butler Yeats' "Leda and the Swan"; Joseph Jacobs' recounting of "The Swan Maidens"

[mistfallengw2]

Feel free to be more specific in comments/notes if you want! If you want to elaborate further, how do you organize them? By role, species, age, alphabetical order, vibes or something else?

[bberry005]

the writing for andor wildly swinging between some of the greatest i've ever seen and the most subpar character writing i've laid eyes on is truly such an accomplishment at this point

[whatisamildopinion]

ella ella ella tell me about the key around kristen’s neck?!?! recurring in multiple drawings??? pls i must know

OHOHOHOHO I'm gonna be so real, I didn't think anyone would notice that in the midst of the doodle chaos. I should have known.

so. aasimar au kristen in junior year has exactly one (1) recurring necklace and she wears it literally every single day and it's actually not a necklace, it's just a key she stuck on a chain. what's the key for, you ask? well, the gukgak apartment, of course.

because I love you (and I am. so incredibly insane about her and her key even though it hasn't published yet) have a snippet under the cut

Sklonda leaves him, hopping down off the platform. She strolls over to the table, where Kristen is slumped in her cocoon of stolen blankets. She digs around in her pocket, and produces something. She reaches forward, and grabs Kristen’s hand, dragging it out of the blanket nest. She sets it down, and curls Kristen’s fingers around it. “Pull in on the handle when you’re turning, it’s sticky. And you better eat lunch, too, sweetie. I’ll know if you don’t.” She pulls Kristen down and leans up on her tiptoes to kiss Kristen’s forehead. Then she’s sweeping past and out, closing the door and shouting, “Have a good day!” after her.

Kristen blinks. She looks down at her hand, and uncurls her fingers. There’s a tiny key on her palm, the ridged teeth gleaming up at her. The curled loop of metal, designed to clip onto a key ring, winks lazily up at Kristen like an eye. Her whole world condenses down to a single point of focus, like looking through a pinhole. Her heart stutters in her chest. She barely feels like she’s breathing, her chest tight. 

She is, suddenly, wide awake. It’s so routine, the way it was delivered. Casual, unassuming. As if it’s not absolutely everything. 

It’s not as if any of the Bad Kids are incapable of getting into any of each other’s homes. It’s laughably easy. They all know the windows with weak locks and where the extra keys are hidden around the stoops and the code to the gates. 

But this isn’t that. It isn’t breaking into somewhere you know you’re welcome to enter at any time. It’s about the symbol of it. This isn’t the guest key. This is Kristen’s key. 

[0requiem]

[ 2ND CHILDREN / 5TH CHILDREN ]

— The truth is, Unit 02 simply isn’t compatible with the other EVAs. (E14)

— I never imagined this boy could synchronize with Unit 02 without replacing its core. Quite astonishing. (E24)

Death & Rebirth Pamphlet / Cruel Angel’s Thesis OP / EVA-02 wiki / DEATH (TRUE ²) / E16 / E24 / DEATH (TRUE ²) / E22 / 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo Cover / E09 / The End of Evangelion / E09 / E24 / NGE Manga / The End of Evangelion

[vesselofvanta]

utatane piko fans are so strong and Awesome 💪🏻

[cosmiado]

something about the fact that Hermie wasn't even supposed to exist, the fact that he only came into being because Beth was fucking around with an anagram generator and he was funny enough to keep around. (something about the fact that Anthony clearly liked him enough to not want him to be a total creep, and retconned an explanation that he was method acting as the Joker.) something about the fact that Paeden didn't mind getting frequently forgotten by the PCs, but Hermie minded a lot, and that was funny, so it became a running gag. something about the fact that all his flirting and messing with Normal was motivated by his single most important desire in life: getting attention, and more specifically, attention from Normal. (something about the fact that he seeks attention more than he seeks love.) something about neither of his dads wanting him, of the party not wanting him (of the cast not wanting him). something about the fact that it was clearly specified that Scam spawned him into existence, meaning he might not even have a soul, meaning he might be gone forever without even the possibility of reunion in the afterlife. something about the fact that he outlived his usefulness, and the only significant or meaningful thing he could do for narrative or characters was to die. (something about "he's basically a free kill that changes nothing in the story.") something about him saying in the stand-up ep that he'd be better off dead. something about the fact that the narrative decided he was right. something about the fact that he was loved enough from his introduction to keep coming back, but not loved enough to be made plot important. not loved enough to be saved. Hermie the Unworthy, everyone.

[kirisclangen]

Rookblossom

She/her, 107 moons, cis molly

[odetoalostpairofkeys]

Meet the Forgotten Memories cast!

And now meet the reason why it's called Forgotten Memories!

:D

Anyway character introductions under the cut

Starting on the top row, Tivvo! Tivvo enjoys playing and teaching music. They are a beta kid but spend most of their time in the Realms teaching their students.

Then we have Neptune, who y'all already know (she and Pattern were introduced here), but just to recap she enjoys theater and creating scripts and stories to drag the rest of the crew into acting out. She wants to create an official theater group with the help of the Rhythm Guide. She is a beta kid and an Outsider and often uses her book to draft ideas for scripts.

And then Pattern! Another y'all should know. She enjoys causing chaos, specifically with or towards Neptune. She is a beta kid and an Outsider. She looks up to Sho kind of like an older brother. Bell is her moth, in the sense that she met them first and brought them into the group.

Sho, or as known in this group, the Fool King! More on him here, but to recap he acts like an old man most of the time, fully leaning into that act. He refuses to take off his crown despite most of them teasing him about it, leading to the nickname "Fool King" which he loves. He enjoys guiding moths and others.

Bottom row on the left, we have Bell, the youngest! They were found by Pattern, but Junebug and Sho end up taking care of them and showing them most things. Everyone adores them and think they can do no wrong. Bell can get away with almost anything due to this reputation.

Junebug! A chibi who loves to sing and dance, often ends up taking the lead role in whatever script Neptune comes up with. Mole calls her Fish because of her cape.

Then it's Mole, another chibi. He likes exploring oobs and racing around the Citadel. They also enjoy hiding just oobs to jump scare sky kids walking by. Him and Pattern get up to lots of chaos! In the future after the events of Forgotten Memories, they become Jam's mentor.

And finally, Ink! Ink is one of the moths Sho guided through Eden one time, who followed him home. He acts like an annoying younger sibling, and all of the others treat him like an annoying younger sibling. He loves theater.

[le--monde--est--stone]

my personal theory is that people who endlessly make fun of yamcha and hate on him never watched the og dragon ball series/read the manga