God, sometimes I do not appreciate it ENOUGH how mature, pleasant and level-headed Soulsborne fandom is compared to others :/ Like, at times one of my friends from another fandom tells me extremely cringe stories about how "fans" make a character they hate "the only cishet in the setting" and homophobic/transphobic just to be petty. And today Val also shared how in a fandom he's been observing, the idiot crybabies shut down any and all queer headcanon for a certain villain because "he doesn't DESERVE to be queer uwu" :smh:
At least Soulsborne fandom doesn't fucking other queer people and doesn't conflate queerness with being morally good and cishet with morally evil. Like... we are the fandom where innocent lovely person like Adeline and absolutely irredeemable horrible villain like Micolash have equal chances of being headcanoned as gay and trans. Like imagine if our fandom was as cringe as other fandoms? Imagine if you could not say that Aldrich is hella gay for Sulyvahn without crybabies throwing a tantrum about how he can only be cishet just because he eats orphans or some dumb shit like that? Imagine if people that decided Gehrman being misogynist creep was canon additionally felt butthurt at bi/gay/GNC Gehrman headcanons? Imagine if people shut down any and all manifestations of Mohg x Varre ship because they felt entitled to """fix""" Fromsoft's writing over "perpetuating a homophobic stereotype" and claim fans that acknowledged canon were "as problematic as Fromsoft themselves if not more" for not cooperating?
Like... Look, I know I appear negative, bitter and never happy at times, but I just don't say this often enough - this fandom is so, so, so, SO much better than any other. Like, compared to the absolutely deranged shit other fandoms do, our petty fights over whose headcanon is hotter girl shit are so INSIGNIFICANT. If you ever feel like Soulsborne fandom is cringe, just check what controversy other fandoms have and trust me, you will appreciate what you have lmao
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You’re the resident chilchuck expert, so I was wondering about it there’s any canon evidence that he did smoke or drink alcohol when the kids were younger. I always thought it was something he picked up due to the strain of long jobs, when the kids were already older, but you seem to think differently and I was wondering if there was anything in canon that made you think that way!
Now that you mention it I guess it’s true there’s no evidence he did. Smoking we literally only know he does at all because of one post-canon panel where he has a pipe, so no, maybe this stick-looking thing in the panel below too though, I’m not familiar with medieval blunts eh.
We’ve only gotten one panel of him and his daughters interacting when he was younger so that’s not too insightful on that end, and every time we see him young and freckled it’s in a job context so again not really where we’d expect him to be drinking. The earliest proof (/heavy implication since we don’t see inside his cup I guess) is 3 years before canon when Laios hired him, where he’s at a bar, classily placed in front of all the bottles ✨
Yes alcohol is almost certainly a way through which he copes especially with stress, so if we go with the theory he started around when work got stressful, well… Chilchuck started working as a dungeon diver ~10 years ago so when he was ~19, making Mei, Fler and Puck ~6 and ~4 respectively, so from that draw the ‘stressful enough to start drinking’ line wherever.
We don’t know what he did before that with any certainty, and it could be he did odd jobs, lived off mostly mutual aid and community work, or just focused on only raising the girls. Half-foots tend to be poor and I see a lot of that in Chilchuck specifically so I don’t think he could have afforded to not have some paying work though.
Alright, so then why do I think he did drink when the girls were younger?
I give a more complete rundown of the info we do have on his alcoholism & his family with panels and references + all the speculation I make from it here. But the most targeted and objective answer I can give is:
Of course there’s just very very little we know of Chilchuck’s life with his family, and I think that’s by design too. I think the details being up in the air is to allow more nuance of the topic, like, will trying to reconcile go well, is their relationship salvageable? We don’t know, because we don’t know. So the message of giving hope a chance even if it’s a long shot, that things could truly go either way, is more relevant, impactful and meta in that way.
How long was he usually away for work travels into dungeons here and there? How did he act with them? All we can really do is "it’s likely that", it’s a game of which way we think it’s more implied. There’s no right and wrong answer, it’s all Marcille-like larping the events out.
My main reason for thinking he did is that his father died from overdrinking and Chilchuck is very aware of that. He mentions his death casually in the extra about their stance in alcohol and in his Adventurer’s Bible profile, etc. He acts towards the alcohol presumably the same way his father did: with abandon, uncaring for the health effects, probably happily too considering Chil says "dying doing something you love is a good way to go". Very nonchalant.
So you see what I’m saying here right, wether he started early or late, his view of alcoholism is very influenced by what he saw of his father growing up, it’s something he’s always been aware of and saw in a mostly positive light, something that was inherited you could say. It’s something that was normalized to him from a young age. Regardless or where it goes from there I do think this part is pretty inarguable.
If he views it positively and we know that in the present alcohol is his favorite food that he loveees, why would he have held out on it? Personally that all makes me think he started drinking very young, especially since I don’t think they limited alcohol to age as much as modern standards (and I mean, teen drinking is obviously still a thing).
And here you could argue, maybe his father only started being more alcoholic later when Chilchuck moved out, or something! And to that there’s nothing I can say except I think that’s a strained theory, and that Chil might even have largely cut contact with his family after moving out (since he and siblings are listed as almost strangers and he doesn’t seem to have much emotional attachment to his parents, but also we know he rents out his place to "a relative"), but it’s true we have no evidence. "I’ve picked up the same unhealthy substance abuse as my father haha! No big deal right haha" repeated several times to me just reeks of intergenerational trauma, & the alcoholism gene as they call it. Like effortless sliding into drinking as if it’s second nature, it’s natural after all, it’s normal after all, it just makes sense, it makes you feel good and that’s what matters.
BUT from my interpretation then we have a whole other layer: Alcohol is of course not all bad always. I think he’s always liked alcohol and drank it on occasion and it brought him joy etc etc, but I think here the implication in the question is, how much effect did his drinking have on the family relations and how early? And that isn’t so much about when him drinking started but when the alcoholism started.
Addiction is defined by a habitual need, that has negative effects from filling that need (physical, psychological, social, etc) and negative effects from withdrawal. If Chilchuck drinks to cope and he can’t not cope without it, that’s addiction, if it affects his relationships, if it’s a need he has, it’s addiction. Addiction can be very insidious or look very casual, and how much people around the person are affected by it is case by case. Cheerful drunks can be sooo annoying and uncomfortable though let me tell you. Drunks are drunks. And this sounds harsh, but even if people around them don’t mind drunks it’ll still have some effects here and there, living with one can be such a challenge, ily drunks good luck with everything much like Chilchuck you deserve good things 🫡
Ok so with the dad thing and the "ok well maybe he’s always drunk casually but it grew worse with time around when he started working as a dungeon diver" precision made, the other bit of info we have that can inform this is that Chilchuck is on a harsh diet and that alcohol is a hunger suppressant. We know Chilchuck "used to be fine not eating for two days", that literally on screen to quench his hunger so it doesn’t keep him awake he goes to drink water, drinking is his instinct to hunger. Again alcohol is a hunger suppressant and if you want info on that the internet has a lot of research and anecdotes about it. He diets to be light enough to not trigger traps, so it’s something he’d have started after dungeon diving most likely. Between the stress and the diet, yes it’s extremely likely he started going harder on alcohol after he started working in dungeons.
There’s arguments on wether two days without eating is less bad for half-foots than humans, but apart from smaller portions there’s nothing that indicates half-foots should get less than 3 meals a day. They need less food but that’s because their bodies are smaller: the need is proportional to the body, not smaller than others’ races, the % of need is similar even if the kg amount of food isn’t. There’s also a popular headcanon with support basis that half-foots run hot and have a faster heartrate and whatnot, and that points towards a faster metabolism rather than a slower one: a bigger need for eating rather than a smaller one. He has the same bmi, 18, as Mickbell, but perhaps because Chil is much taller he’s less intensely visibly underweight with ribs showing than Mick during the bath extra, it’s most apparent when he becomes tallman.
Alcohol is something so important and omnipresent in his character that I have trouble believing it’s something that was part of only a small fraction of his life. It’s his immediate go-to, his no-brainer solution to a good time, I’ve sort of always assumed especially after looking at his family that it’s something he discovered decently young. Like he just acts like someone who’s always had alcohol to fall back on and started young idk. Alcohol is one of his 5 keywords. Alcoholism is very ingrained into his world view and life, his "it doesn’t matter" stance his ‘work hard play hard’ mentality his idea that the world is harsh so you get relief where you can, so it just makes sense to me that it’s always been in his life, if not actively then at least looming.
So yes, in summary, my take:
Alcohol was always something he wholly enjoyed to an unwise level, but it could have been considered casual until he started working into dungeons and his need for it on a regular basis intensified. Alcohol has always had positive association to him as far as we see, so when it started being a problem he didn’t see it as such. To quote him, "I drink anytime I get the opportunity to".
Why always? Approval of father’s alcoholism. Why alcoholism at all? Diet + stress & coping mechanism & emotional stunting + relationship issues, and she decided she had enough after they went out for drinks.
Conclusion
Chilchuck having drunk from a young age makes sense to me and it’s the strongest narrative angle I see on the table, but that’s objectively a me opinion, yes! There’s no evidence, moreso there’s canon basis and supporting info, but it’s all very left up to interpretation. I’ve made my own interpretations of things from the scraps we see, like everyone else making Chilwife and daughters content. Wether you have a stance on the topic or prefer to leave it vague in your takes, it’ll be a matter of what you think makes most sense, or what you’d rather believe I suppose (which is literally fine)
There’s a lot of subjectivity in even just setting up causal links like you probably noticed during this and I was careful with my word choices, because we’re just extrapolating from what we see and unless Kui states it explicitly from a reliable mouth all we can do is have informed opinions on most things. This particular interpretation is influenced by other details I’ve come to form about my interpretation of Chilchuck too, the more psychological and emotional sides of him and the timeline and how his marriage even happened, unplanned pregnancy imo. Like I hope you see what I mean, this wasn’t supposed to be a speculation post just a quick simple answer but there’s sort of just no other and concise but complete way with the subjectivity nuance to put "maybe it could be yes because of this but maybe it could be no because of this" haha
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Shinomori is cute. Here's a post.
He is so baby-faced. He hasn't changed at all since he was 22, to when he died of "old age" at 40
(Old age? With a face like that? 40 years old?? Gimme that kind of youth and hotness Shinomori-)
He has tiny eyebrows. Like a puppy's (rottweiler's, for example). So cute and tiny and fuffy
He naturally frowns. Look at him and his mouth and his lil nose
He has a thing about keeping his arms near his chest. He sits with his arms crossed, introduces himself with his hands over his torso, and even walks with his arms crossed toward Midoriya
He has such clear skin for someone who lived the rest of his life in a forest??? Why do Hikage and Yoichi have such nice skin despite living in terrible environments? (forest and vault + abandoned streets respectively)
Is easily scared
They knew their Quirks could be used, but Shinomori got scared of it when it happened. Even though he gave Midoriya his support and access to his Quirk beforehand. Depending on the translation; "it startled me", "you scared me", "it surprised me"
I'm not going to hold running from AFO against him because he knew he was running for his life. Who wouldn't run for their life when it's in danger? Shinomori was being chased by the strongest person in the country (and likely the world)
His sense of self-preservation is probably heightened by the nature of his Quirk to keep him out of danger too. Which makes him all the more sensitive and jumpy to danger and anything that startles him, especially when he has no warning
He's actually extremely tall, but is so socially inept and jumpy it's adorable. He's taller than Bruce.
Bruce is as tall as a vault door that the 2m AFO used.
(Meanwhile Kudo is down there-)
He has such a bad sense of humor that it's cute (his puns off Danger Sense)
It's also adorable how Shinomori just doesn't understand social conventions sometimes. He lived in a forest, so it made sense, but also— Midoriya shows up in the void to the vestige platform for the first time. He has no mouth, no clothes—and Shinomori's first idea is to stand in front of him menacingly and go: "I shall explain. I am Shinomori Hikage." SIRRRR
This.
His Ability is basically like glorified anxiety. What if something is coming to hurt him? If something can hurt him? What if that tree falls while he's under it? And the ideas come so hard they hurt (although yes, it does detect ill intent and that's what sets it off)
He talks weirdly. Formal? Old-fashioned? Listening to him speak Japanese compared to others, it just sounds a bit different. (Translated subs don't show it very well, it's the voice itself methinks)
"This too, is destiny." *about Midoriya having OFA*
Kinda wise or sage-y. He did spend his life in solitude in the forests so he definitely spent a lot of time with his own thoughts. Maybe he found the meaning of life in a centipede or something one day
For someone so cute, he is also such. A fine. Specimen???
Look at those back muscles, dang.
LOOK AT HIS CALVES AND ARMS DANG.
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