#lets try using actual character traits rather than generalizing and demonizing

[ulteri0rm0tives]

I still think about my mutuals tag where he said that he thinks Johnny feels so much and so deeply that it literally drove him crazy. And yeah. Just think about it constantly. It's. The statement I associate with him. The first thing I think of when I think of him.

I really, really, really dislike when people paint Johnny as this totally unfeeling asshole. Or at least, I heavily disagree with it. That's not to say he isn't an asshole, he 100% is. He's a jerk to the people around him, and of course there really is no excuse for how he treats people. But explanations =/= excuses.

I feel when people try to paint him that way, it comes from a place that lacks understanding or even an unwillingness to understand. This goes hand in hand where I'll see these people call him an unfeeling asshole while using terms associated with cluster b disorders and using the social weight they carry to demonize him, a very prevalent problem reflected in society and internet pop psychology culture.

They'll take the fact he's a 'narcissistic junkie', and not only at the same time use it to demonize people with NPD, but also drug users. It's just a very lazy way to paint a picture of his characterization, by using loaded terms as a crutch and letting their social weight, using yours and others people's biases, do the job for you. Like man, if you're going to make a critique of his character can we at least actually put some effort behind it.

Like. They think he's a user who's an unfeeling asshole to people just for the sake of being one. They see him engaging in these self endangering, self harming, self sabotaging behaviors and brush it off as nothing more than him being like that simply because he likes it, that he relishes in it even. Simply because he wants and chooses to be like that.

They don't see him using as a way of numbing himself (this especially with the fact drugs are the first thing he goes for when Alt breaks it off with him). They don't see that constant toxic push and pull in his relationships as self sabotage. They don't see the fact him going on that OP was a suicide mission. Literally.

I truly believe he never intended to come back from that mission, evident in his last exchange with Kerry, evident in a LOT of his own lyrics. (Black Dog, Ballad of Buck Ravers.)

Johnny clearly is passionate. He clearly has things he cares about. He clearly feels.

I'd even go so far as to say he genuinely does care about the people in his life, he just simply doesn't know how to show it properly or in a way that's healthy for anyone involved. Even when Alt breaks up with him, and he pushes her away for it, he still ends up chasing after her before she's even left the venue. He still tries to protect her. When Alt gets abducted, and yeah, he's being a leadheaded stubborn idiot about it, he still goes after her.

And even if it's self aggrandizing in a lot of ways, he still cares about her life enough to raid a whole fucking tower for her. Even if it's more in the view of what Arasaka took from him, than what it did to her, he still cares about her in his own way. He still grieves her. He's still broken up when she dies right in front of him, and he still acts out even if it's violent and angry. His grief has ALWAYS manifested this way.

When he sees the headlines about Kerry, he asks V to check up on him, to visit him. He even asks Kerry about it because (I think) it came from a place of genuine worry shown the best way he can show it, a straightforward question and dropping it when he gets an answer, no matter how truthful the answer is. When Kerry gets the idea for a one time reunion, Johnny agrees to it because he thinks 'Kerry needs this'.

I also think people see that he's a very angry person and attribute 'unfeeling' to that. Because to them, to a lot of people, anger isn't a valid emotion nor one with as much value as happiness or sadness. That's it's something less than. Even if anger was all he felt, it's still a feeling. He still feels it. He still feels.

His anger, though it's execution is obviously a problem, it's extremely fucking justified and valid. It's born from the mistreatment of a system that only destroys people's lives. Born from a system that only knows how to take, how to hurt, how to kill.

The same system that took, not just a literal piece of Johnny, but so many pieces of his identity and his life that he literally tries to project himself as an entirely new person to escape this.

Johnny cares about how the system treats people, especially people like him. How it uses people and chews them up and discards them when it's taken all it can from them. Johnny cares so much he becomes not just a voice, but thinks he is- and in a lot of ways he does really become one- a symbol for people like him.

That OP functioned as another rescue mission for Alt, another statement for his ideals, and his blaze of glory to go out on his own terms.

Johnny cares about things. Johnny cares about people. He has feelings. Complicated, convoluted, deeply traumatized feelings. Feelings that are so intense, that it harms him. Feelings that are so intense, that it bleeds from him and harms others, too.

And honestly, I'd say the one and only person he stopped truly caring about was himself. A long, long time ago.

[pm-my-beloved]

Gah, I see I explained at least 1 point poorly.

I did not want to imply that the necromancy is tied to the location of WH, rather, that as someone who spent a lot of time in there, had chance to gain the powers of that river. (Speculation part) ALL Heathcliffs will resonate with it, because all of them experienced the woe and resentment that makes one capable of taking in his gifts. The point was rather that it's not EXCLUSIVE to Heathcliff, so thats a fault of my own. Anyways, to explore the idea more so with actual sources over memory since I am reblogging anyways.

First the aspect of "Wild Hunt" being supposedly Heathcliff exclusive While it's not specified as "wild", angela in end of Lobcorp mentions "The Hunt" among many phenomena of the city.

Additionally, while Faust mentions it mostly centered on Heathcliff and mirror worlds, Ryoshu's mention of Nocturnal March, makes me believe that several simmilar in nature phenomena happened over the city.

Now, additionally looking into what Wild Hunt, It was often considered a sign of an incoming catastrophe, especially to those that witness it, consisting generally of souls of the dead. An important part IMHO, is that there were variety of wild hunt leaders depending on story being told. Specifically Goethe's poem of Erlkoning, it is a harbringer of death. Simmilarily, Nocturnal March of a Hundred Demons, that being yokai (or spirits), is based on actual japanese folklore, with same trait of bringing death or misfortune to those who witness it. Thus, I theorise that a Wild Hunt is tied more with spirits of the dead, than Heathcliff himself. Now onto the second part of my thinking. The Rivers. We know, at the very least, of 2 explicitly stated Rivers that flow beneath the City, the river of human mind that we pull from in lobcorp, and Lethe, the river of oblivion. Additionally, in Divine Comedy - Inferno, we do in fact, pass through several Rivers of hell. And we know there is a river underneath Wurthering Heights. A "Hypogeal", aka subterrean one.

A river of bad vibes according to architects, and seemingly, a River tied to the Spirits of the Dead. Furthermore, Josephine directly implies that this River IS tied with bringing back the dead

Hermann also, one of the characters that we'd expect to be the furthest from superstition, mentions how the river beneath Wurthering Heights stops the dead from passing on.

Now with that being repeadetly hammered into our heads, let's go for reasoning why I think it might be Acheron. In Dante's Inferno, by the shores of the Acheron lie the dead who cannot pass into the underworld, they are neither in Hell, nor outside of it, stuck in eternal pursuit of something. That's the first hit. The second, definetly sillier hit is - Dante was able to pass through Acheron ONLY because Vergilius forces the ferry of the dead to take them past it. While it would not be exact translation, since the ferry is Charon, one could think Vergilius stopping the Wild Hunt to let Dante and the Sinners to proceed could be a nod to that. Lastly, before trying to summarise my point's, I wish to mention that I DO believe that Heathcliff of Wild Hunt manifested an EGO, because when using that Identity, clashes during final bossfight of Canto 6 are done with his Skill 3 on Dullahan, while any other uses Heathcliffs base EGO. Thus, in the end. 1. I believe Wild Hunt is NOT exclusive to Heathcliff, BUT 2. All Heathcliffs have potential to reach into powers of necromancy through their exposure to the river of the dead in their past. 3. The Erlking specifically, is capable of summoning dead from other mirror worlds due to him commiting multiple mini-genocides of WH in different worlds. (This one I am less certain about.)

On topic of one of your reblongs The Wild Hunt/Necromancy ARE NOT extension of Heathcliffs EGO I believe. Sadly I do not have the most in depth argumentation at this moment because I am pulling all of this from my memory, but regardless.

1. - Through Canto 6 we get a few inklings that the line between life and death at Wurthering heights is blurred, most specifically through Josephine who seemingly is able to hear her already dead mistress. If I recall correctly, there's even a direct mention of an underground river flowing underneath WH, which leads me to

1,5. - We are shown several times that Rivers (Simmilar to stars), are places supernatural powers can originate from. River of Oblivion (Lethe), The river from which we pulled abnormalities. Thus, I believe that the river underneath is either Acheron (The river through which the dead are transported) or Cocytus (The river by which the dead wander, unable to go into proper afterlife.) Point is, I believe that the necromancy, and Wild Hunt are tied NOT to the individual of Heathcliff and his EGO, but to powers of the river which flows close to the surface of his home. That is NOT to say that the coffin or Dullahan themselves aren't EGO, rather, I think those two sources of supernatural reinforce each other. 2. There's also the fact that even at the end of Lobotomy Corporation we learned existance of Wild Hunt, and Faust presented it as a phenomenon rather than something applicable only to this. Before White Nights and Darkest Days, the only person who manifested EGO we know of was Kali, so that also implies to me that this phenomenon exists from different means than EGO.

You seem to be missing important bits of information that point towards necromancy being something Heathcliff himself might just have the potential of developing. Whether it's E.G.O or some other kind of ability we have yet to be introduced to is unclear, but it was made clear this is something tied to him.

Wild Hunt Heathcliff's Uptie Story has his narration state the following: "Though its origin is a mystery still, I came to learn how to command loyalty of the dead. Yet I had no teacher. I suppose my transformation was inevitable, as it was for my countless other selves in the infinite worlds."

This ability is reflected in gameplay through him being able to raise his allies from the dead. Because of this, we know that it's not something tied to the Manor, as he can use this ability on any stage of the game.

We also have a potential moment that might be hinting towards our Heathcliff developing similar abilities in Nocturnal Sweeping. He's able to get up and continue fighting despite being wounded in a way that should be fatal. He then comically falls dead once made aware of it. Knowing PM, the fact that it's framed as a joke means there might be foreshadowing hiding here.

Additionally you bring up Faust presenting The Wild Hunt as a phenomenon, but you miss the way she describes it. "They appear to be imperfect Identities, summoned from worlds chosen at random. It is the fate that awaits all those who become thralls to that Heathcliff. A phenomenon in which a Mirror World entity wreaks havoc across the dimensions in pursuit of every Heathcliff… In other words, the 'Wild Hunt'." She explicitly calls out that it's tied to Heathcliff.

[janecrockeyre]

scum villain is a greek tragedy disguised as a regular tragedy disguised as a comedy disguised as a danmei

this is going to be long, and this is only PART ONE.

a.k.a, Analysing the plot of Scum Villain’s Self Saving System through Aristotle’s Poetics, because I Have Mental Issues

Part One: Introduction and the Tragic Hero

Scum Villain’s Self Saving System is a tragedy disguised as a comedy, unless you’re Shen Yuan, in which case it’s a mixture of a romance and a survival horror. It's a fever dream. It's a horrible, terrible book that made me feel new undiscovered emotions when I finished reading it. 

The thing is... SVSSS shares characteristics with some of the most famous tragedies in the West, such as Oedipus Rex, Medea, Antigone, the Oresteia... if you haven’t read these, I’ll explain everything. But the gist of my argument is this: SVSSS is the perfect tragedy. In triplicate. 

Tragedy as a genre is old as balls and so it has meant slightly different things to different people over the last few thousand years. I'll be focusing on ancient Greek tragedy, which was performed at the yearly Festival of Dionysus in Athens during the 500-350s BC (give or take a hundred years). Aristotle, when writing about this very specific subset of tragedy, had no idea that one day Scum Villain would be written, and then that I would be using his work as a way to look at Shen Qingqiu’s Funky Transmigration Mistake. Anyway!

Greek tragedy greatly influenced European dramatic tradition. I have a lot of opinions about white academics idolising and upholding the classics as the "paragon of culture" but I'll withhold them for now. I have no idea if MXTX has read Greek tragedy or not, so don't take this as me saying they are writing it. 

In my opinion, tragedy is a universal human constant. We are surrounded by pain and hurt and none of it makes any sense, so we seek to process that pain through drama, art, literature, etc. We want to understand why pain happens, and how it happens, and try to make sense of the senseless. The universe is cold and cruel and random. Tragedy eases some of that pain. 

On that note: Just because I am analysing Scum Villain through a Greek lens doesn't mean that it was written that way. I'm pasting an interpretation onto the book when there's probably a very rich and deep history of Chinese tragedy that I just don't know about. If you ever want to talk about that, please, god, hit me up, I would love to learn about it!! 

Anyway, tragedy. MXTX is excellent at it! Mo Dao Zu Shi? Painful dynastic family tragedy. Heaven Official's Blessing? Mostly romance, but she managed to get that pure pain in there, huh? 

But in my opinion, Scum Villain holds the crown for the most tragic of her stories. MDZS was more of a mystery. TGCF was more of a romance. Neither of them shy away from their tragic elements. 

Scum Villain would fit right in between the work of Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus. How? Let me show you. Join me on my mystery tour into the world of "Aristotle Analyses Danmei..."

Part One: The Tragic Hero

What is a tragic hero? Generally, Greek tragic heroes are united by the same key characteristics. He must be imperfect, having a "fatal flaw" of some kind. He must have something to lose. And he must go from fortune to misfortune thanks to that fatal flaw. 

There are two (technically three) tragic protagonists in SVSSS and all of them are tragic in different but formulaic ways. Each protagonist has their own version of “hamartia” or a “fatal flaw”. 

Actually, hamartia isn’t necessarily a flaw - rather, it is a thing which makes the audience pity and fear for them, a careful imperfection, a point of weakness in the character’s morality or reasoning that allows for bad things to happen to them. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the king Oedipus has a “fatal flaw” of always wanting to find the truth, but this isn’t exactly a flaw, right? Note: this flaw can be completely unwitting, as we see with Shen Yuan. It can also be something that the protagonist is born with, some kind of trait from birth or very young. 

Shen Yuan

Shen Yuan’s “hamartia” is his rigid adherence to fate and his inability to read a situation as anything but how he thinks it ought to be. He believes that Bingmei will grow into Bingge, and it takes several years, two deaths, and some truly traumatising sex to convince him otherwise. 

Shen Jiu

Shen Jiu’s fatal flaw is his cruelty. It is his own sadistic treatment and abuse of Binghe which directly leads to his eventual dismemberment. This is kind of a no-brainer. Of course, it isn't all that simple, and as an audience we pity him for his cruelty as much as we fear it because we know it comes from his own abuse as a child. This just makes him even more tragic. Delicious. 

Luo Binghe

Luo Binghe’s fatal flaw is a complicated mix of things. It is his position as the “protagonist” which compels him to act in certain ways and be forced to suffer. It is his half-demonic heritage, something entirely out of his control, which sets in motion his tragic reversal of fortune when he gets yeeted into the Abyss. He also, much like Shen Yuan, has the propensity to jump to conclusions and somehow make 2 + 2 = 5. 

As well as having their respective “flaws”, all three protagonists match the rough outline of a good tragic hero in another way: they are in a position of great wealth and power. Even when you split the different characters into different “versions”, this still holds true. Yes, Luo Binghe is raised a commoner by a washerwoman foster mother, but his dad is an emperor and he also ends up becoming an emperor himself. 

Yes, Shen Jiu is an ex-slave and a victim of abuse himself, but Shen Qingqiu is a powerful peak lord with an entire mountain’s worth of resources at his back. 

Shen Yuan is a second generation new money rich kid. 

Bingge is a stereotypical protagonist with a golden finger. Bingmei is a treasured and loved disciple with a good reputation and a privileged seat by his shizun’s side. 

In a tragedy, having this kind of good fortune at the beginning of your story is dangerous. Chaucer says that tragedy is (badly translated into modern english) “a certain story / of him that stood in great prosperity / and falls out of high degree / into misery, and ends up wretchedly”. If we follow this line of thinking, a good tragedy is about someone who has a lot to lose, losing everything because of one fatal point of weakness that they fail to address or understand. 

If we look at Shakespeare, this is what makes King Lear such a fantastic tragic protagonist. He is a king in control of most of England, who from his own lack of wisdom and excess of pride, decides to split his kingdom apart to give to his daughters, favouring his murderous, double crossing progeny, and condemning his only actually filial daughter to death. He loses his kingdom, his mind, and his beloved daughter, all because of his own stupidity.

This brings us to:

Part Two: Peripeteia

This reversal of fortunes is called peripeteia. It is the moment where the entire plot shifts, and the hero’s fortunes go from good to bad. Think of it like one of those magic eye puzzles, where you stare at the image until a 3D shark appears, except you realise the shark was always there, you just couldn't ever see it, waiting for you, hungry, deadly, always lurking just behind that delightful pattern of random blue squiggles. 

Each tragic hero has their own moment of peripeteia in SVSSS, sometimes several:

Shen Qingqiu

In the original PIDW, SQQ’s peripeteia presumably occurs when he finds out that Bingge didn’t perish in the Abyss but has actually been training hard to come and pay him back. There’s really not much I’m interested in saying here - as a villain, OG!SQQ is cut and dry, and the audience doesn’t really feel any pity or fear for him. As Shen Yuan often mentions, what the audience feels when they see OG!SQQ is bloodlust and sick satisfaction. There is also the trial at Huan Hua Palace, which I will talk about in Shen Yuan’s section. 

Shen Yuan (SQQ 2.0)

One of SY’s most poggers moment of peripeteia is the glorious, terrifying section between hearing Binghe for the first time after the Abyss moment, and getting shoved into the Water Prison. 

“Behind him, a low and soft voice came: “Shizun?”

Shen Qingqiu’s neck felt stiff as he slowly turned his head. Luo Binghe’s face was the most frightening thing he had ever seen.

The scariest thing about it was that the expression on his face was not cold at all. His smile wasn’t sharp like a knife. Rather, it showed a kind of bone-deep gentleness and amiability.”

This is the moment of true horror for Shen Yuan, because he knows what happens next: the plot unfurls before him, inevitable and painful, and he knows that death awaits him at Luo Binghe's hands (lol). Compare it with the bone deep certainty with which he faces his own downfall during the sham of a trial later in the chapter (I’ve bolded the important part):

“In the original work, Qiu Haitang’s appearance signified only one thing: Shen Qingqiu’s complete fall from grace. [...] Shen Qingqiu’s heart streamed with tears. Great Master… I know you’re doing this for my own good, but I’ll actually suffer if she speaks her words clearly. This truly is the saying “not frightened of doing a shameful deed, just afraid the ghost (consequences) will come knocking”!”

After the peripeteia is usually the denouement where the plot wraps up and the threads are all tied together leaving no loose ends, but because this tragedy isn’t Shen Yuan’s but the former Shen Jiu’s, it’s impossible to finish. 

Shen Yuan cannot provide the meaningful answers that the narrative demands because 1) he doesn’t have any memory of doing anything, and 2) he wasn’t the person who did them. Narratively, he cannot follow the same path as the former SQQ because he lacks the same fatal flaw: cruelty. 

This is why Binghe doesn’t kill him - because he loves him, rather than despises him. And this is why Shen Yuan has to sacrifice himself and die for Luo Binghe in order to save him from Xin Mo: because the narrative demands that denouement follows peripeteia, and SQQ’s fate is in the hands of the narrative. 

(Side note: I believe that this literal death also represents the death of OG!SQQ's tragic arc. The body that committed all those crimes must die to satisfy the narrative. SQQ must die, like burning down a forest, so that new growth can sprout from the ashes. After this, Shen Yuan's story has more room to develop instead.)

It must happen to show Bingmei that SQQ loves him too. And this brings us to Bingmei.

Bingmei

Bingmei has two succinct moments of utter downfall. The first is a literal fall - his flaw, his demonic heritage, leads his beloved shizun to throw him down into the Abyss. From his point of view, SQQ is punishing him simply for the status of his birth. He rapidly goes from being loved and cherished unconditionally, to being the victim of an assassination attempt. 

He realises that he is totally unlovable: that for the crimes of his species that he never had a hand in, he must pay the price as well: that his shizun is so righteous that no matter what love there was between them, if SQQ sees a demon, he will kill it. Even if that demon is Bingmei. 

The second moment is when SQQ dies for him. Again, from his point of view, he was chasing after a man who was struggling to see him as a human being. Shen Qingqiu’s death makes Bingmei realise that he has been completely misunderstanding his shizun: that SQQ would literally die for him, the ultimate act of self sacrifice from love: that SQQ loved him despite his demon heritage. 

Much like King Lear holding the corpse of his daughter and wailing in sheer grief and pain because he did this, he caused this, Bingmei gets to hold his shizun's cold body and cry his eyes out and know that it was his fault. (Kind of.)

(Yes, I’m bringing Shakespeare into this, no I am not justifying myself)

Maybe I'm a bit sadistic, but that scene slaps. Let me show you a comparison of scenes so you get the picture. 

Re-enter KING LEAR, with CORDELIA dead in his arms; EDGAR, Captain, and others following

KING LEAR

Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so

That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!

I know when one is dead, and when one lives;

She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass;

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,

Why, then she lives.

[...]

 KING LEAR

And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life!

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more,

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you, undo this button: thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there!

Dies

Versus this scene in SVSSS: 

Luo Binghe turned a deaf ear to everything else, greatly agitated and at a loss of what to do. He was still holding Shen Qingqiu’s body, which was rapidly cooling down. It seemed like he wanted to call for him loudly and forcefully shake him awake, yet he didn’t dare to, as if he was afraid of being scolded. He said slowly, “Shizun?”

[...]

Luo Binghe involuntarily held Shen Qingqiu closer.

He said in a small voice, “I was wrong, Shizun, I really… know that I was wrong.

“I… I didn’t want to kill you…”

PAIN. SO MUCH BEAUTIFUL PAIN. Yes, I know Shakespeare isn’t Athenian, but he was inspired by the good old stuff and he also knew how to write a perfect tragedy on his own terms. Anyway. I’ll find more Greek examples later.

This post was a bit all over the place, but I hope it has been fun to read. Part Two will be coming At Some Point, Who Knows When. This is a bit messy and unedited, but hey, I’m not getting paid or graded, so you can eat any typos or errors. Unless you’re here to talk to me about Chinese tragedy, in which case, please pull up a seat, let me get you a drink, make yourself at home.

ps: if you want to retweet this, here is the promo tweet!

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

ok, so we have paranoid bella and all other incarnations, but what about Bella who is just a complete sociopath. She completely understands what a vampire is and what she's getting into by wanting to be one. Bella just wants to be immoral and powerful regardless of the consequences. Edward can't read her mind and I imagine Bella has learned social cues and hiding evidence enough to be about at an equal level social standings wise with already weird book Bella. How does the twilight series go?

Anon is referring to Paranoid Bella.

And oh boy, alright, let's do this I suppose.

On Why Bella Doesn't Have to Be the World's Greatest Actress

Of a note, I don't think Edward would even notice that Bella's... odd. Even if she were a fantastic actress (Bella is notably in canon a very poor liar and very easy to read).

This is because he doesn't actually care what Bella is like, he projects onto her, and she smells phenomenal. In other words, he'll still tell himself Bella's a feminine Carlisle Cullen knock off even if she's drowning puppies in a well.

So Bella doesn't need those social cues, Edward genuinely will not notice, and he will not care.

Regardless, you've set the stage with a completely different character and I guess we're going with that.

The Tale of Sociopath Bella

As in canon, Bella immediately notes something is off about the Cullens. Then Edward tries to eat her in Biology. In canon, Bella was terrified in this moment and genuinely thought this boy might kill her. She later tells herself this was irrational and tries to shrug it off, but none the less, she was terrified.

You don't give me too much to go off of with Sociopath Bella in terms of personality traits, but I imagine she still fears for her life in this moment.

I imagine what she does is, after collecting herself, try to get Edward Cullen thrown out of school. Bella is now a sociopath with no empathy towards others, Edward Cullen makes her uncomfortable and appears to actively wish her harm, she's going to do something about this.

I imagine, rather like Amy Dunne from "Gone Girl", she accuses him of sexual assault and goes about fabricating evidence, including harming herself. When asked, others agree that Edward was acting very strange in Biology towards Bella Swan and is generally kind of creepy. Even the administration agrees that something odd appeared to happen, as Edward tried to switch out of his Biology class immediately and then he disappeared without warning for a week after having appeared perfectly healthy the day before.

Something happened in that class, or after it, and that something seems to revolve around Bella Swan.

There's no real evidence, but there's enough suspicion that Edward is granted his wish when he returns: he gets moved into Physics. Edward, of course, is appalled. That girl not only humiliated him and ruined his life by merely existing and smelling delicious, but now she's spreading slanderous lies about him. His family, of course, knows the truth and tries to comfort him (it doesn't really matter, there's no evidence and they'll be gone in a few years anyway, as it is they can leave early if they have to and no harm done) but Edward seethes.

He makes a point of confronting Bella, both to notice if she noticed anything odd (as in canon), and to get revenge for her slander. Unfortunately for Edward, again, there's a little too many witnesses, and Edward looks... unfriendly. Bella files for a restraining order through her father, it's approved in record time.

Edward is now livid.

This woman is the devil.

Well, that there seals Bella's fate. She is a great evil upon this earth, the worst kind of woman, and in a way just as monstrous as the rapist pigs he used to eat. She's destroying his family's reputation in this town, destroying his school life, and he won't stand for it. Carlisle wouldn't approve, but at some point, the demon wins.

Edward gleefully eats Bella in her bedroom. The crime scene is as grotesque and bloody as you can imagine.

Which, of course, also makes him the primary murder suspect (correct in this case, well done Charlie). With the advent of the internet, with cable television, and with Edward now having to disappear before they start trying to get DNA, the Cullens have to go off the grid and exit society.

They now live in a cave, thanks to Edward and Bella.

But That Wasn't What I Wanted!

I get the feeling you wanted to get a little further into canon than that. So, for once, I'll oblige.

Sociopath Bella, for whatever reason, holds her tongue and takes no action when Edward is terrifying as fuck in Biology. He disappears for a week, she finds this very strange, then he returns, clearly interested in her, which is also very strange.

Bella continues to have no sense of self-preservation (for some reason) and still does not take action against Edward. Even when he confesses to wanting to eat her on numerous occasions.

By the time Bella figures out Edward's a vampire, she wants to be one, desperately. Edward doesn't seem... amenable.

But unlike Canon Bella, Sociopath Bella isn't here to please Edward. After the James incident, and she's met the family, I imagine she takes stock of her options and tries to see who is her best mark.

I imagine Bella lands on either Carlisle or Jasper. Carlisle, because he has the best control and has clearly turned several already, and Jasper because he has shown no hesitation on doing what he believes needs to be done regardless of the family.

If she approaches Carlisle, I imagine she points out the peril her life is in. Edward could crush her at any moment, she nearly died thanks to James, her very existence puts his coven in peril and Edward does not seem inclined to let her go either. This is untenable. (I imagine Bella also learns during the course of this conversation about the Volturi Law, as Carlisle undoubtedly explains it in clearer terms than Edward initially did). Edward has condemned her to death, they both know it, and it's best Carlisle turn her sooner rather than later.

Carlisle is deeply uncomfortable with this but doesn't disagree. I imagine he tries to argue for after Bella's graduation, when she can more easily disappear. I imagine she pushes for that summer, plans a hiking accident and forces his hand with "sooner is better than later".

If she goes to Jasper, Bella points out the same thing. This is untenable, she's breaking the law by existing, she must be turned. Jasper fully agrees (and would like not to eat her) but he doesn't have the control to turn her. He would in turn go to Carlisle (leading to the above scenario).

Now, through Alice's visions, Edward would likely find out about all of this and throw the greatest fit the world has ever seen. He rages at Bella, then himself when he realizes she has a bit of a point and he's condemned her to be a vampire, then rages at her again because the Volturi need not ever know and EDWARD WILL LEAVE HER DAMN YOU!

I imagine Bella keeps pushing, which may get her mercy killed by Edward.

In the event that his guilt is all-consuming and he can't even grant her mercy for he is such a wretched beast, Bella turns, and...

I imagine she's a perfect Cullen.

Bella has superb control, to the point of ridiculousness, more the Cullen lifestyle appeals to her beyond just immortality. They have stability, material wealth, and while Bella doesn't care about the familial connection she won't say no to it either.

Being a man eating nomad has no appeal to this Bella.

She'll follow the diet meticulously to a t, do the high school routine perfectly, and ignore Edward's spiral into depression and despair now that he's ruined Bella Swan's life.

[parvulous-writings]

Jesse McCree // SFW  alphabet

​Summary: A sfw A-Z for Jesse McCree, from Overwatch! 

Warnings: use of tobacco/smoking, brief mention of death.

Notes: My requests are currently open! My pinned post (found here) contains both a list of characters I write for, and a masterlist! 

Not my gif

A - Affection (How affectionate are they? How do they show affection?) 

Jesse is pretty affectionate, especially when the pair of you are alone. One armed hugs, hair ruffles and head pats are his absolute favourite way to show you affection. On occasion giving you a kiss on the cheek when in public, and his kisses goodbye are always on the lips. Always. 

B - Best Friend (What would they be like as a best friend? Where does the friendship start?) 

McCree is quite often the sassy joker of a friend group, always pitching in a one-liner or two during even the most casual of conversations. He’s also quite the charmer, shamelessly flirting with you and occasionally others when the moment suits it. Though he will not hesitate to jump to your defense should someone else get too snarky with you. 

C - Cuddles (Do they like to cuddle? How would they cuddle?) 

Though he would never blurt out the fact, he loves cuddles. Curling up with you in a cosy corner, whether it be a bed or a cushioned seat, it’s one of his favourite things, he can’t deny it. He cuddles you by drawing you as close as he can so he can warm your body with his own, wrapping his arms firmly around you like a child with their favourite stuffie. 

D - Domestic (Do they want to settle down? How are they at cooking, cleaning, ect?) 

He isn’t all that fussed on settling down in any one place, so long as he can stay by you, I’d wager he’d be pretty content. He’s an alright cook, not the best but not the worst either. Cleaning, the man is far from mastering that skill (he leaves his clothes everywhere unless they’re going in the wash). 

E - Ending (If they had to break up with their partner, how would they do it?) 

He’d be straightforward about it. Something along the lines of;  “Look, I care for ya, sugar, really I do... But I think it’s time for us to go our separate ways.”

F - Fiance(e) (How do they feel about commitment? Do they wanna get married?) 

If you asked him, he’d probably just brush it all off with a smile. If he was honest though- commitment like engagement or marriage intimidated him a little bit. It wasn’t that he didn’t love you, it was more that he’s the kind of man to live more in the moment than to plan ahead. 

G - Gentle (How gentle are they both physically and emotionally?)

He’s fairly gentle, when he knows he needs to be. Other than that, he’s average on that kind of thing- a life in Deadlock Grange will do that to a man. 

H - Hugs (Do they like hugs? How often do they do it, and what are they like?)

Jesse is usually indifferent to hugs. Except goodbye hugs, he’ll never miss out on those, not in a million years. He knows how sporadic and random Death can be in life. 

I - I Love You (How fast do they say the “love” word?)

He doesn’t say it particularly quickly, but once he actually acknowledges his feelings for you, he’ll say it pretty often. Before you both go to sleep, before you go on a mission, etc. 

J - Jealousy (How jealous do they get? What are they like when jealous?)

McCree does tend to get jealous- usually he tries to hide it, figuring it’s an undesirable trait of his that you wouldn’t be too fond of. There are other times, however, when it does manage to get past his filter. He gets pretty agitated when jealous, and kind of possessive as well. 

K - Kisses (What are their kisses like? Where do they like to kiss you? Where do they like to be kissed?)

It depends on the situation. If you’re out in public, it’s usually a quick peck, on the cheek or chastely on the lips. If you’re alone, they last for a lot longer, and are much, much warmer, full of the love he often restrains from showing in front of others. 

L - Little Ones (How are they around kids?)

He’s more like an uncle figure than a father figure. He’s fun, and is relatively good with kids, but shouldn’t really be a prolonged role model for them. His role seems admirable, but it’s very morally grey, and should really only be tackled when the children are mature. 

M - Morning (What are mornings like with them?)

Slow, and sweet. Jesse usually lays in, even when he has things to do. He especially likes cuddling up to you when he’s still half asleep. “Best damn feelin’ in the world.” 

N - Nights (How are nights spent with them?)

Kind of like the mornings spent with him. Slow, quiet, and endearing. He likes just appreciating time with you, basking in your presence and showing you all the adoration you deserve. 

O - Open (When do they open up about themselves?)

Often late at night, when he’s tired and you’re both alone. It’s when his walls fall down, his exhaustion making them crumble. He also thinks that because you’re also probably tired, you’ll hardly remember his low, quiet voice spilling stories about his demons. 

P - Patience (How easily angered are they?)

This depends on how much sleep he’s gotten, or how stressed he’s been recently. If he’s gotten enough sleep and life has been easy on him, he’s like a lazy river- but then if he’s deprived of sleep and work has piled onto him, he’s more like the blazing fires of hell. 

Q - Quizzes (How much do they remember about you?)

He remembers a fair amount. Not everything- he’d say that’s impossible. But a reasonable amount. 

R - Remember (Favorite memory with you?)

When the two of you went to the Diner along Route 66. Though he personally doesn’t always like the place, the jokes you made that day still make him chuckle. You also fed him some apple pie and that’s something he’ll never let go of. 

S - Security (How protective are they?)

Rather protective. He gives you all the info and training you need- should you not know anything already- to defend yourself, but he is very much aware that he shouldn’t be too overbearing or try to fight every battle for you. 

T - Try (How much effort do they put in?)

Considering Jesse is more often than not a very laid back man, he puts in a good amount of effort. He remembers almost every important date for the pair of you- which is a little unusual in every other aspect of his life- and often makes time specifically for you. 

U - Ugly (What are their bad habits?)

He smokes. A lot. As in a lot a lot. He’s tried once or twice to give up, but he just can’t seem to.

V - Vanity (How concerned are they with their looks?)

McCree isn’t vain per se, but he is certainly conscious of his appearance. He keeps as well groomed as he can between missions, but he knows he doesn’t always look the most pristine of men. 

W - Whole (Would they feel incomplete without you?)

He’d feel lonely. Really lonely. The same feeling he feels on solo scouting missions. He doesn’t like being away from you for too long. 

X - Xtra (Random HC)

This man shares every poncho/scarf he owns with you. Every single one. His favourite is the red one, he loves seeing you in it, but he thinks that the royal blue one he has looks best on you. 

Y - Yuck (Things they don’t like either in general or a partner?)

McCree is a lot of things, but a fussy man is not one of them.  Except when it comes to the coffee in Deadlock Grange. He hates it. 

Z - Zzz (Sleep habits)

This man sleeps like a rock. Almost nothing wakes him. Period. You could scream at him, flash a bright light in his face, this man isn’t waking from external stimuli. The only thing that wakes him is some of the nightmares he gets. 

[fohatic]

okay i was just gonna ignore this lazy unsophisticated* oversimplified take but since my mutuals insist on putting it back on my feed let's talk about character development, personal growth, and the dangers in demonizing cluster B personality disorders.

two crucial disclaimers: 1) i love tony stark probably more than any other fictional character ever & 2) no shade to the op or anyone who reblogged this in good faith because they too love tony stark. this is a very common take and stems from a good place but it's still problematic so please allow me to explain why.

(at the risk of repeating myself please see the reblogged tags on this post ((omgggg you guys this post has sat around all day without me realizing that i linked the wrong rb! see: THIS post, actually 🙃)) for an earlier [briefer] take i offered on this subject)

so the term "narcissist" has become a loaded one in modern society, often bandied around to refer to people with pathological traits that others find distasteful. people react strongly to this term because it denotes objectionable morality, which many seek to distance themselves from and feel that they're 'better than.' donald trump, for instance, is largely recognized as a 'raging narcissist' (boooooo). if you really break down the meaning of the term, though— considering the minimum requirements to qualify as such— you'd probably realize that you know a lot of people that have these traits, and not all (or perhaps even any) of them are 'bad' people. they might be 'damaged' people— or people struggling to figure themselves out, who haven't adjusted well to an unfortunate upbringing— but they still have a lot of 'good' qualities that may or may not be apparent to anyone who doesn't know them well.

people are complicated. that's what makes them interesting. a person (like pre-afghanistan tony stark) can be vainglorious and prone to outlandish attention-seeking behavior and self-absorbed to the point that it negatively impacts their interpersonal relationships. they can be obsessive workaholics who tune out anything/anyone that doesn't factor into their narrow-minded pursuits. they can be totally oblivious to the fact that their own company is supplying terrorists with weapons, for instance, while they're off screwing around and partying and seemingly not giving a single fuck about anything outside of their self-interested bubble.

BUT, such individuals are typically compensating for deep-set insecurities and perceived inadequacies by acting out in this way. that's what narcissists really are. they're vulnerable, so they put up very deliberately constructed walls to try to protect themselves.

it's important to understand that there's more than one kind of narcissist, too: there's the 'overt' type, which i think tony is best categorized as— and then there's the 'covert' type, who tend to internalize their own self-importance rather than being showy about it, secretly obsessing over their own desperate need for attention. they can be very self-deprecating and use passive-aggressive strategies rather than in-your-face behavior to get attention or to try to feel better about themselves when they're feeling underappreciated. i mention this because in case anyone finds the overt style unrelatable, perhaps there are covert narcissistic traits that you can sympathize with. if you're unfamiliar with this type of narcissism, please look it up.

because my point is: narcissists in general aren't demonic entities walking amongst us good, decent folk, threatening us with their unmitigated malignancy (exceptions may exist, *cough*trump*). they're just people, like you and me. in fact, they probably are you and me! nobody's perfect, and for the most part, we're all still growing out of our less-than-stellar traits and behaviors carried over from the more difficult periods of out messy lives. because that's what people do as they develop; though without constructive feedback and meaningful self-reflection, sometimes this can take quite a long time (if it even happens at all). alternatively, sometimes all it takes is a major wake-up call for real, dramatic change to occur, i.e. getting kidnapped and held prisoner in a cave alongside someone with a uniquely eye-opening perspective, then watching said person die in front of you before you embark on a brand new destiny.

hot take: IM1 is a story about self-discovery, tracking the journey of a self-absorbed, psychically wounded, quasi-narcissist-turned-unlikely superhero who learns to get over himself and take a hard look at reality. and isn't that more interesting than a story that's simply about a misunderstood 'good guy' who finally starts to get recognized as the amazing person he was all along? yeah, that potential was always in there -- but it existed alongside some messier stuff that prevented it from shining as brightly as it was meant to, which makes it a deeply human story.

::end rant::

*adjectives edited bc i regret choosing them in haste; belatedly considering that there's a nicer way to put that

I’m a truly incredible covert operative when it comes to fandom like no-one irl knows the depths of my obsession HOWEVER. I am aware of the fact that if anyone called iron man a narcissist in front of me I’d have no choice but to kill them with hammers

[2-bdamned]

in regards to the aoex pride post i made last month, here are my personal headcanons as to why i think those are their sexuality’s! ( also thank you to @johnannepeterric for asking about this as i’ve been waiting to share these for a hot minute!!)

rin:

sexuality + gender identity:gay and trans(ftm)

reason: i don’t think he exactly cares for the concept of gender and sexuality but just thinks people should be allowed to like and be whoever they want. he knew he was in the wrong body since he was a little kid but never knew how to phrase it till later on in life. as for on screen reasons, he tends to cover up quite a bit before and after becoming a demon as well as tending to wear baggy clothes to hid his form. not to mention he has very poor posture which most transmasc people (myself included) tend to do when we can’t bind or don’t feel masculine enough. and i think he’s gay mostly due to the fact that he’s never really shown to have any friendships outside of the exwires and tends to get his platonic and romantic affections mixed up quite a bit (as to explain why i still headcanon this after the manga and his confirmed feelings towards shiemi)

yukio:

sexuality: bisexual

reasoning: he seems to show and equal amount of emotions to his colleagues and to the exwires and im like 90% sure he doesn’t really talk about romantic through the manga/anime at all. i think he’s always known he’s liked both genders since he was young. shiro seems like he was very accepting and i honestly think he would’ve helped both the boys with their sexuality’s and gender since he didn’t get the freedom to express that stuff when he was younger due to you know ‼️‼️(SPOILERS) ‼️‼️ literally being a clone made in a lab. yukio seems the type to not really care about gender when it comes to romance and instead look for traits like personality and motivations. his friendships are most based on him genuinely liking the person rather than keeping up with his appearance as someone who’s quite popular. this could possibly lead to the same being transferred over to his romantic bonds.

shiemi:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: like rin, she tends to get romantic and platonic affection mixed up from not having friends till high school. there’s a bit in the manga where izumo brings over some romance novels to try and help shiemi out with figuring out her feelings. we all know most romance novels don’t exactly have the best explanation for feeling so i think that’s where shiemi got mixed up. she gets her admiration for rin mixed up with romantic feelings when in reality, she’s not into him. we can also use the garden scene from kyoto arc as some reasoning to this headcanon. izumo called shiemi a weed and she surprisingly takes this “insult” very well and even thanks izumo for the interaction. even later in kyoto saga, we see shiemi use even more of her power to save izumo from the miasma. she clearly cared a lot about izumo and basically wore herself down to the the brink of exhaustion trying to dave izumo herself when she could have easily run and got help from another exorcist. sheimi seems to care deeply about her friends but shows more concern to izumo than any other exwire (minus rin and yukio).

shima: ‼️‼️ HIS WHOLE HEADCANON REVOLVES AROUND MANGA SPOILERS SO THATS A HEADS UP‼️‼️

sexuality: gay

since he found out about izumo from the illuminati, he never really had a “crush” on her per say, but showed an unromantic interest in her due to her past and just wanted to know more about her. since he had kinzou around him as a kid, i think that played a huge part in him hiding that he was gay (just bc kinzou is a huge perv and probably pushed some of that onto him). that could also lead to the reasoning as to why he’s so pushy with izumo. he’s trying to convince himself he liked women by trying his hardest to like izumo. the kinzou thing is the only thing really leading to me believing this but an alternative reason could also be a fear of changing his personality this late on when both suguro and koneko have known him to be a certain way since he was young. he’s shown to have this perverted personality since he was quite young and it’s even mentioned in an extra concerning why suguro and koneko use his last name and not his first. these two factors lead me to believe his attraction to izumo and subsequently, his attraction to women, is just a lie he’s putting on.

koneko:

sexuality + gender identity: pansexual and genderfluid

reason: koneko is shown to have a deep love and care for the people around him and i think that not only applies to him with friendship, but with romance as well. like yukio, he tends not to focus on the gender of the person perusing him, but rather their intention, personally, and motivations. he wants to know if his partner is a good person rather than their gender. gender wise, i just don’t think he cares. it’s not explicitly shown but it can be heavily implied when he talks to rin about why he has a hard time trusting him after the “son of satan “ reveil happens. for gender identity, i think i as a kid, he was commonly referred to by most pronouns since he wasn’t exactly the most “boy looking” when he was young. later on he learned he didn’t exactly mind what gender people perceived him as but rather how they perceived him as a person. there’s no canon information for the genderfluid headcanon but again, these are my personal headcanon, they don’t exactly have to make sense.

suguro:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and trans (ftm)

reason: this one is mostly me projecting onto this man so if it doesn’t exactly make sense, y’all know why! but he’s shown to be quite affectionate to rin in both the manga and the anime. he doesn’t really tend to do that too much to other people, especially the women that are around him. he probably has some sort of crush on rin or at least some form of admiration to him. as for his gender identity, this is literally just me projecting. that’s it. but i think he does show some signs that i tend to show as a trans person ( the one example i can name off the top of my head is that he seems pretty insecure when shima and koneko brought up his body before he started working out and hates mentions of his body in general ). like rin, he tends to have very poor posture and also doesn’t wear form fitting clothes and this is especially prominent in official art.

izumo:

sexuality: lesbian

reason: she has a very deep relationship with paku and shiemi after the events of the manga take place. she never shows this same connection with any one else throughout the series. she gets severely worried once paku leave cram school and is shown to be quite empty after this happens. ‼️‼️SPOILERS‼️‼️ the same thing happens once shiemi leaves cram school as well and is taken by her family to go train. she seems to be deeply affected by these two events and even goes as far as to show the others her concerns after the thing with shiemi happens. after she ‼️SPOILERS‼️ gets kidnapped by the illuminati and winds up the the hospital, shimei is the first person she lets see her true emotions and feelings and doesn’t once make a comment on her being some kind of hindrance. we also see her show quite a bit of empathy towards shiemi when in kyoto. there’s a scene where they two are gardening and she calls shiemi a weed. she’s very much plays into a tsudere type roll in the beginning but this seems more like a backhanded compliment rather than trying to be a jerk to her. both of the girls receive this interaction in a positive way. we also can use the scene where shiemi saves izumo as a reason for this as well. izumo shows a genuine concern for shiemi both during and after her being stuck in the miasma. even when they go to the hot springs, she seems to have this perpetual blush while looking at shiemi. these all lead me to think she has some sort of feelings toward both paku and shiemi, leading me to headcanon her as a lesbian.

shura:

sexuality: lesbian

she was basically born just so she could produce a child to fuel some demons deep desires. her unhealthy attachment to shiro can be explained by this. i think this is the case for all the “attraction” she showed towards him as a young girl. all her life she’s been told she has to have kids with a man and that’s was her purpose for a long time. thus why i think she’s a lesbian. she never shows any real attraction to a man throughout the entire series besides the man who saved her as a child. she never talks about men till after her character arc in the manga and even then, it seems she just wants to live the rest of her life differently than before and doesn’t exactly seem too enthusiastic about finding a husband as it’s never mentioned again after that point. she really only seems to show an “attraction” to men when it’s useful to her. she uses her looks and charm to get what she wants when it comes to men. she has this facade she puts on where she acts innocent and cute and uses her looks to her advantage. she never truly shows an actual attraction to a man.

mephisto:

sexuality + gender identity: gay and genderfluid

reason: i don’t think any of the demon kings are cis. like not even remotely. they all have to take on different forms and have taken on many in the past. as long as it’s a body, they’re basically fine with whatever. mephs past forms are never shown but we can assume he’s taken on many different body’s in the past as well. after all this body hopping and the fact that gender is literally a thing made up by humans, i don’t think meph really cares about the forms he takes and how his gender is perceived. he knows he’s a powerful demon and could easily destroy the knights of the true cross if he wanted too so gender is the last thing he really cares about. as for sexuality, nothing on screen really points to anything but he tends to show more affection to the men on screen than the women. in fact, the only women we see him really interact with (that i can remember) is shura and we all know how they feel about each other. even though those two both “flirt” with one another, these seem to be more so parts of their personality’s rather than them both having an interest in each other. his “flirting” with shura seems to be more taunting her and displaying his absolute discard for human problems.

amaimon:

gender identity: agender

reason: just like meph, amimon had possessed(?) many different forms over the course of their existence. we even see him take on a rather feminine presenting form when they were destroying the earth. but unlike meph, he is less fluid in terms of gender and instead, prefers to not identify with one. she does use all pronouns and doesn’t exactly care on that front but i think there’s certain terms and compliments they don’t exactly like. meph does use gendered terms with amimon, but these two seem to be very close and have probably communicated this before as well. like koneko being genderfluid, there’s no definitive evidence to support this claim other than these are my own headcanons and i can do what i want.

[blind-alchemists]

Meta-Analysis of the Rift Mage Specialization

I said in February I was going to do it, and it only took me seven months to follow through!

Anyway. Analyzing game-play elements for narratives purposes has become somewhat of a hobby of mine ever since I really got into GameLit. Then, I started "fangs" and felt that my fight scenes were boring, so I build ability trees reminiscent of DA:I's for my OCs. You know, as you do. During that process, though, the lack of banter acknowledging several choices struck me as odd. Especially regarding specializations. Especially when it comes to Solas'.

We’ll be taking a look at (in order)

1. Description

2. Codex Entry

3. Skills

a. in comparison to DA: II’s Primal & Force Mage

4. Specialization Dialogue with Solas

5. Conclusion

Disclaimer: I talk a lot (this post might have about 2.5k). And, I promise you, you'll be tired of seeing 'the Fade this' and 'the Veil that' at the end of it.

Description

“These mages draw upon the force of the Fade, either pulling matter from the Fade to attack or twisting the Veil itself into a weapon to stagger or crush their enemies.”

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

So, lore-wise, mages do ‘draw upon the Fade’. Sure. But do they ‘pull matter from the Fade’? Absolutely not.

Physical things and the Fade rarely mix well. Plus – this is mainly my theory – the way magic is utilized (the 'drawing upon the Fade part') requires it to pass through the Veil. Magic being a form of energy, and thus not physical, does not constitute to ‘pulling matter from the Fade’.

That's the first thing other mages (read: Dorian, Vivienne, possible the Inquisitor) should (or could) have referenced in banter/dialogue.

The rest of the sentence ('twisting the Veil into a weapon') is also highly interesting, since there is little known about the Veil. Nobody knows how it works. And, thus, nobody should be capable enough to manipulate it consistently enough to use it as a weapon. But considering it's Solas who gets this specialization - well. He knows the Veil well enough, don't you think? (Which is why I think Rift Mage should have been Solas' personal, individual specialization like Fenris' Lyrium Ghost, but I just really like personalized skill trees in general.)

However, having answered that question, connecting magic so closely to the very thing can be described as a “magical vibration that repels the Fade”, I'm curious about how it would work. Since, you know, mages are inevitably tied to the Fade. Wouldn't the Veil repel a try to manipulate it by a mage? Is using mana the same thing as drawing energy from the Fade? If so, it would be straight-up impossible to actually use such a method for any ordinary mage (read: not Solas). If mana can be used without the Fade, it would be possible, but is such a thing feasible? Can you switch between spells and Veil quickly enough without horrific consequences such as possibly tearing yourself apart?

Very interesting topic. Would love to go into it more, but at that point, I'd become subjective, so let's end it here.

To summarize: Rift mages do things (physically pulling things from the Fade plus using the Veil) normal mages don't do. There is also a chance, logically speaking, that no one else but Solas (or mage!Inquisitor) can accomplish such a feat without dying a horrific death.

Codex Entry

From "Power Bleeds: Harness the Flow." Your Trainer's words make one passage stand out:

There are no tomes dedicated to this manipulation. There has been no time for academics, only the practical—and not in a manner that mitigates risk. Power in a raw form has found an outlet, both visible and in ways that only we of arcane proclivity can sense. The risk is great.

An account:

From this page forward, these are the notes of Thelric. They began as the work of my mentor Julion, and I will continue in the research she began, as she cannot, because she is dead. The rift we were examining did not react well to her last investigation. We believed ourselves prepared for demonic manifestation. We were not prepared for how the energies we expected would be encountered. Well-versed in the forces that magic can produce, my senior was surprised by an alteration, a deviance. That which previously had to be coaxed is now a flood that must be staunched. The same amount in different intensity, quick to expose fault in the way it is accessed. She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none, and her form suffered the brunt. Tread carefully in studies of new matters, for I cannot unsee the end of her.

Scattered symbols and sketches follow.

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

Apparently DA:I has a thing for hiding the true horror in Codex Entries and off-hand comments.

Here, we learn one key fact: The school of Rift Magic is relatively new ('no tomes dedicated to this manipulation'). I think it's safe to assume the possibility - and thus research concerning it - emerged around the time the Breach appeared. So it's new, people have no idea what they're doing, but it somehow works. A little like the whole time magic thing, funnily. (That brings me back to a lot of questions I have about the Veil: Just how powerful is it? Just how deeply is it intervened with Thedas?)

Reading further, the entry seems to (only) stress how dangerous Rift Magic is. Who would have thought! No, really, it's a fair point to empaphize. I'm not certain the Trainer and his previous teacher (or anyone else but Solas) know what kind of role the Veil plays in this, and so of course experiments are going to get ugly. The Veil holds a much greater importance than the people of Thedas realize.

And, in a very similar vein: The people of Thedas don't know much about directly interacting with the Fade through, say, a rift, which poses another risk. The wiki entry establishes two things in particular that are relevant here: Using spells (in the Fade itself) has unpredictable results, and one can draw unprecedented power from it while sleeping.

The codex entry cited above proves that. A rift is a direct connection to the Fade, and thus unpredictable ('She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none') and that power is too much to handle ('her form suffered the brunt').

My theory is that, while a certain flunction is natural to the Fade, the Veil also plays a role here. Which I'm not sure. But it has one.

Personally, I wouldn't be sure the risks of a horrific death outweigh the benefits of power, but let's look more in depth at that!

Skills

Which brings me to the abilities themselves.

The first two you can choose from are Veilstrike and Stonefist. (Which I think should have had their names changed but, oh, well.)

Veilstrike: “You recreate your own fist from the essence of the Fade and smash nearby foes to the ground.” (Upgrades being Punched Down and Wounded Veil, but they don’t have anything interesting for this analysis. Note the names, though.)

Curious here is the 'recreate [...] from the essence of the Fade' part here. On first glance, it sounds like a rather ordinary spell, right? But it's not. That's just the 'hiding in plain sight for the first playthrough' aspect of Solas' character.

Mages do shape their spells with energy from the Fade (as far as my assumptions go). Maybe they can also recreate something. I'll give them that much. But the essence of the Fade - the inherit, unchanging nature of it - can't be manipulated by them. I think that's specifically a trait only Dreamers can have. (More evidence for my 'Rift Mage should have been Solas' personalized, individual specialization' hc!)

There is an argument to be made if this already constitutes for 'pulling matter from the Fade', but this isn't even the funkiest part yet.

Stonefist: “You summon a boulder from the Fade and smash it into your target, sending them flying.” (Upgrades being Shatterstone and Unblockable Force.)

'Summon a boulder from the Fade', you know, as in, bring physical matter from the Fade to the other side of the Veil. A thing that is pretty much unheard of. Remembers what happens to spirits when they pass violently through the Veil? There is an entire game dealing with that. (I mean, stones won't hopefully turn into demons, but my point is that bringing things through, usually, is not a wise idea.

Another thing someone could have commented on.

Passives: Restorative Veil, Encircling Veil, Smothering Veil, Twisting Veil.

Unfortunately, neither of these descriptions give me much, but they all have the ‘Veil’ component in their name, so that’s interesting.

Upon closer inspection, the Veil can function in a variety of ways: speeding up mana recovery, further weakening enemies, boosting your own damage. (Veilstrike being an example of a means of attack.)

Now, my question here would be: Do over mages notice changes in the Veil? Do they feel it shift and bend? If not, well, that's one thing. if they do, even subconsciously, I'd want banter. (I want a lot of banter, though. Just generally speaking.)

Pull of the Abyss: “You create a tiny rift that pulls enemies toward a central point.” (Upgrades being Shaken Veil and Devouring Veil.)

I can live with never hearing anything about everything else. Sure. But this one? This damned skill? You're telling me I read that the first time I played the game, nodded, and that was it?

'You can create a tiny rift-' I'm sorry, do you what now? After a good a couple of hours of learning just how bad rifts are?

And the upgrade names. Shaken Veil, Devouring Veil - is there anything this thing can't do, except for becoming more and more horrifying and giving me bad vibes ofr whatever DA4 will do with it?

Firestorm: “You summon flaming meteors, raining fire down upon enemies all over the area for the next several seconds. This ability consumes and is powered by focus.”

This one is ... honestly, I don't like it being here. It's an AOE skill, which does fit in with the rest, but it's fire and it seems rather randomly assigned compared to other focus abilities with a more personal note (Haste, Rampagne, Cloak of Shadows, Mark of the Rift).

Doesn't give a lot here to analyze, except that raining down flaming meteors is the level of (global) destruction I can see happening in the future if Solas isn't stopped. So. That's fun.

(It's the ultimate skill in the Fire/Ice tree in DA:II, or at least the ability there has the same name.)

DA: II Comparison

Nearing the end, I'll take a brief look at the Force Mage specialization from DA:II and the Primal base skill tree for mages. Both have some interesting similarities.

First, Primal.

Stonefist: “The mage hurls a stone projectile that strikes with massive force.”

It's only the name and the effect, honestly, but it is curious to see it in a skill tree that focuses exclusively on the elements earth and lightning. (Because Pride demons also use electricity ... yeah, yeah. I'm reading too much into this.)

Petrify: “The mage entombs an enemy in stone, leaving the foe temporarily unable to move. However, the target becomes more resistant to damage for the duration of the spell.”

This has nothing to do with Rift Mage, but in light of Trespasser, I'll just leave it here for your consideration. Petrifying people is neither new nor exclusive to Evanruis.

Now, onto Force Mage.

Fist of the Maker: “The mage slams enemies into the ground with incredible power, against which armor is no protection.”

The effect sounds like Stonefist (Primal) and Veilstrike.

Pull of the Abyss: “The mage conjures a maelstrom of energy that draws enemies to its center while slowing them to a crawl.”

This one is similar to the Rift Mage skill with the same name, so it might have served as an inspiration (or base).

Overall, though: nothing much to say here. Maybe I could talk more about Rift Mage being focused on crowd control, but that is probably for game-play balance. I could connect that to Solas' character and analyze every little thing to death. I'm not doing it, though.

Specialization Dialogue

Solas: You have begun practicing new magical forms. Interesting. You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade, likely using your mark as a catalyst. I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that. Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?

Inquisitor: (if chosen) I hoped that studying such magic would me help better understand the Fade.

Solas: While our fight affords little time for formal study, the wise can better themselves even in the midst of battle. Perhaps especially then. I hope your new studies serve you well.

[source]

Let’s go through this slowly.

‘You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade-’ Alright, we’ve talked about that. Makes sense he’d comment on it. ‘likely using your mark as a catalyst’ Sorry? The Inquisitor is doing what? I’m not saying it’s not possible, I’m just saying it might not be an overly smart idea to use the Anchor in that way. Because it’s attached to the Inquisitor’s arm. And because the Inquisitor knows what happens if it snaps out of control. So, purposefully doing something that might cause you agonizing pain? Mh. Yeah. No, thanks.

Also. The 'drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade' part makes me think that the Anchor does give the Inquisitor Dreamer-like abilities. Forcefully, and possibly difficult to control, and the Inquisitor might not be aware of it, but. That would be an interesting aspect to explore.

‘I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that’. Well. Yeah. Mostly a sound response, except I’m not really sure it's true. Why does he say years? Because he didn’t go right to sleep after creating the Veil, or because he studied such methods theoretically beforehand? I doubt he refers to the time Inquisition spans, because it’s not that long, cannocially, (isn't it like ... a year? I forget what the devs said), but … I don’t know. It doesn't sit right with me. Solas never truly outright lies, so there is probably some merit in it.

‘Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?’ That’s … an interesting way to ask. Sure, there is a very small group who has this specialized knowledge, but it feels a little like deflection.

The rest of the conversation doesn’t give much for me to analyze.

Conclusion

TL;DR: There should have been banter. Or Rift Mage should have been a personalized, individual specialization.

Pull of the Abyss is the funkiest skill in the entire game, from a meta-perspective, because tearing a hole into the Veil is the opposite of what the Inquisitor is trying to do.

There are also many more questions than answer to take away from this regarding the Veil and the Fade and how Solas manages not to blow his cover, but I believe there are theories about at least the two former points out there.

I thank you very much for bearing with me for this long!

[ireallylikejonouchi]

𝙽𝚞𝚛𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚑𝚢𝚘𝚗 𝚗𝚘 𝙼𝚊𝚐𝚘 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠

Written and drawn by Shiibashi Hiroshi, Nurarihyon no Mago is a manga series that ran in Weekly Shonen Jump with 210 chapters, 25 volumes. It’s about a Japan that has a massive Yokai underbelly, consisting mostly of yokai yakuza clans that run certain parts of Japan. The protagonist, Rikuo Nura, is the third heir of the Nura clan, kingpin of Kanto. His grandfather is the legendary Lord of Pandemonium, the yokai Nurarihyon, but Rikuo is only a quarter yokai, having a half-human father and a full human mother. As a child, Rikuo thinks yokai are the coolest thing, but his classmates mock him for this, not believing that they exist, and finding it even weirder that someone could admire them. Rikuo is told that it is his destiny to take on this role, and that he cannot live a human life. Hearing stories about evil yokai who enjoy making humans despair, Rikuo decides that yokai are terrible and he wants nothing to do with them. When Rikuo’s classmates are attacked by some rebellious yokai from the Nura clan, who are unhappy about their new leader being a quarter-human child, Rikuo awakens to his yokai blood and transforms in order to defeat them. He decides here that he will become the third heir in order to subdue yokai that would bring terror to humans with his “Fear,” the power system of the series.

With the synopsis out of the way, from this point on there will be spoilers. Be wary. I’ll try my best to spoil only what’s necessary in order to get my point across.

The beginning of this manga takes its time setting up character dynamics with short story arcs, as well as establishing what the yokai of the world are truly like with various examples of opinionated yokai antagonists. Some consider it boring, and I can understand why, but I think it pays off very well. The characters are incredibly likeable and fun. Even the ones that don’t have very much development are still a joy to see on the page when they show up. Rikuo himself is simultaneously a complicated character and a very easy character to follow. The first chapter takes place a couple of years before the second one, and his childish judgement to go from worshiping yokai to hating them is intentionally so. The story is about his growth. Rikuo is told that he must take on this role, he denies, but eventually accepts under his own terms, and for his own reasons. This ultimately sets up what his character arc will end up becoming, as one of his final conflicts at the end of the story sees him battling against another half-yokai, Abe no Yoshihira, who believes it is his duty to follow his evil father’s plan because of his "cursed” mixed blood. Rikuo doesn’t simply reject this title, but he also doesn’t accept out of obligation. He accepts this as an opportunity to bring about change. The change he wants slowly evolves from protecting humans to bridging the social gap between human and yokai so that they may find peace together. Fate shouldn’t be fought against or ignored, but you must make whatever you can out of it. Rikuo feels that connecting human and yokai is something only he can do as a half-yokai, so he feels a responsibility to carry this out, yet it is also what he truly believes in and wants. He is a leader because he was graced with the opportunity to bring about a better world. Your fate is only what you perceive it as. The final villain Abe no Seimei believes that human and yokai are fated to be at odds forever, and that influences his evil plan to purify the world. Both are believers of fate to some extent, the message isn’t something as simple as “defy fate” or “there is no fate,” which I appreciate. This manga is very good about exploring all facets of the themes it presents, which I will give more examples of shortly.

The power system is an interesting one. To quote the wiki, “ Osore (畏, Fear) is the term that denotes the unique skills and traits of each yōkai. It refers to the "fear" of the unknown, an emotional reaction produced when the yōkai represent themselves as "monsters". As yōkai first existed as creatures who induce fear in humankind, the general concept of "fear" revolves around being feared and respected by humans and making them feel small and weak. It involves exerting a wall of pressure to make one's presence feel larger than the actuality. When done correctly, this also creates a change in the mood and surrounding air - as seen whenever a dense fog appears when a Hyakki Yakō gathers in the series. Itaku states that Osore only applies to scaring humans.“ Fear is an inherently negative word, especially when associated with demons. However, Rikuo is proud of his fear, despite scolding yokai who scare humans. Fear in this manga is not quite so black and white. Rikuo’s form of fear is reverence, admiration. He considers this to be a form of fear, and he is indeed proud of the awe he is able to inspire within his followers as well as his enemies. Rikuo is able to use a power that comes only thanks to his human side, letting a yokai haunt his humanity while keeping control with his yokai half, performing Equip and gaining that yokai’s powers, but only if they entrust themselves to him. It is the ultimate representation of the Fear that Rikuo believes in. For the core power system of the series to have such a double meaning about it speaks to the coming complexities, and it is incredibly fitting for this story, as I hope to convey.

Fate, lineage and connection to history are the main themes of this manga. Many of the characters in the story are tied to tradition before it starts, and have to be brought out of that by Rikuo and his progressive mindset. One’s blood is used to portray this theme in an interesting way. Rikuo’s father, Rihan, describes him as a symbol of hope for the future. Rihan longed for a world where human and yokai could get along, yet he came into constant conflict with both evil yokai and evil humans, as his son Rikuo would soon come to do as well. Rikuo loved his father, and carries on his dreams. However, similar to his “fate” of leading the clan, his respect for his ancestors is well-informed by his individual beliefs, and not from any kind of feeling that he MUST do what his ancestors wished. Abe no Yoshihira failed here, becoming a slave to his perceived fate. Hagoromo-gitsune, the main antagonist of the Kyoto arc as well as Abe no Seimei’s mother, was tied to her blood relations as well. She did everything for her son, who was soon to be reborn again into this age. She had her own image of an ideal world, erasing humans and making a world full of yokai, but she didn’t consider her child’s ideals, which she could have presumed from Seimei’s suffering he received when both human and yokai betrayed him. Seimei is born and casts Hagoromo-gitsune into hell, declaring that he will purify all life from the world, as neither human nor yokai can be trusted. Abe no Seimei is the agent of fate, declaring that all living things on Earth have doomed themselves to a fate of death thanks to their own horrible and greedy nature. Abe no Seimei is a half-yokai himself and he has found solace from neither of those sides. Rikuo, however, does not give up. He equips himself with the true fear of this reality that places him in-between two worlds, unable to fully enjoy life as a human or a yokai, refusing to resign himself as Seimei did, and instead fighting against the fate Seimei enforces by bringing together humans and yokai, including Hagoromo-gitsune, in order to seal the final blow against him.

You may be wondering what it means that Rikuo was able to finish off Seimei by fusing with his mother. Well, you see, Hagoromo-gitsune is sort of, in a way, Rikuo’s mother as well. You see, before Rihan had a child with Rikuo’s mother, he was married to another woman, Yamabuki-otome. For context, Abe no Seimei is a man who reincarnates throughout generations, as does his mother, Hagoromo-gitsune. Some time after Yamabuki-otome’s death, Seimei used her to take revenge on Rihan for disrupting his plans, by reviving her as a child and turning her into the host of the yokai Hagoromo-gitsune, sending her with false memories and subliminal orders to kill the man she loved when she was alive. Once she had killed Rihan, her human self hid itself away in despair and Hagoromo-gitsune was able to take control of her body for good. In modern times, after being cast into hell by Abe no Seimei, she is revived by Nurarihyon in anticipation for the final battle. After encountering Rikuo and his burning feelings in Kyoto, she had regained her human memories before being struck down by Seimei. Upon her most recent revival, she found she had feelings for both Rikuo and Seimei, and considers both to be her children. She regrets that her feelings for Seimei had ended up being met with treachery, and she goes to confront him. When she hears his full plan, she decides to do kill him herself, though she fails. She feels it her duty as a mother to make up for not understanding his suffering earlier, as it’s now too late to reason with him. Hagoromo-gitsune’s progression comes from her ability to find love for her yokai followers, considering them to be her children all the same as Rikuo and Seimei, and learns that she should have seen this love all along rather than being blinded by her obsessions with her blood son. Once again, she values her children and the blood she shares with them, but she is only able to find happiness when she realizes that the feelings she has for them don’t have to be restricted to only them simply because they are her kin, and similarly she does not need to follow Seimei’s plan just because she thinks it’s what a mother “should” do. Fusing with Rikuo is the culmination of this. While Rikuo is technically her kin, as Seimei is, we see through her arc that she has matured and learned to spread her love. So even though without context it would seem that she simply went from one child to the other, we can see the complexities of this and see how it relates to Rikuo’s arc, accepting something not out of obligation, but from your own will. 

By coming to a true understanding with the woman that Abe no Seimei had discarded, his mother, and her doing the same, an act that seemingly defies their fates (Rikuo’s fate to be a cold yokai ruler and Hagoromo’s fate to be a slave to her child’s whims), they’re able to defeat him and sever fate itself.

The Hundred Stories Clan Arc is one that I really appreciate for showing me how truly interesting Rikuo was as a character. I hadn’t realized it up to that point, and it’s clear why. His characterization and progression is subtle. The text doesn’t tell you how Rikuo grows, the art and his actions do. When humanity told of Rikuo’s half-yokai status is convinced that he must be killed for the safety of Japan, Rikuo is forced to face the fact that the humans he wants to protect are not perfect, and have as many imperfections as yokai do. Humans can be greedy, they can do horrible things when they’re afraid. In a backstory, the leader of the Hundred Stories Clan is shown to be a despicable human from Japanese history named Sanmoto Gorozaemon, who takes control of yokai to secure his political and social power, and turns himself into a yokai in order to secure that power. When a member of his clan is assaulted by humans who don’t care about the harm they’re causing, some of them even reveling in it, through facial expressions we can see him struggling with the thought of killing these humans to end the conflict, or out of revenge possibly. Shiibashi leaves this to the reader’s interpretation and it works wonders, he has no internal monologue relating to this feeling and nobody points out that he seems crazed or anything. It’s some panels that you could easily miss if you’re reading too fast.

In this panel, we are shown his reaction to a female yokai appearing and tormenting the humans that were tormenting him and his clanmate just moments ago. Even when he showed such rage at the humans, seemingly almost snapping, he decides he needs to stop the yokai from killing them. However, the expression on his face conveys perfectly how complex his emotions are over this. Despite how confidently he’s saying he needs to save them, his face almost looks like he doesn’t want to. Of course, he overcomes this and saves them for the sake of his dream.

It’s clear to see the moral dilemma he’s going through and it’s conveyed entirely through art and subtext. This is confident storytelling, and not to mention incredible artistry. Shiibashi has a certain maturity and respect for the reader that is hard to find in Shonen Jump manga sometimes.

Rikuo’s fight against the yokai artist Kyosai in this arc is notable for being similar to what I just described from the beginning of the arc.

Kyosai has an interest in turning human women into yokai using his painting techniques, including one of Rikuo’s classmates. Enraged, Rikuo engages him in combat with his newly acquired Attack Mode, which switches his Fear from a defensive technique to an offensive one, and changes his hair from white with black underneath it to having half of his hair being black on one side and the other being white. As the fight progresses, Rikuo is continuously injured and decomposed by Kyosai’s abilities, burning his flesh and scarring Rikuo black.

Rikuo’s deteriorating mental state during this arc is conveyed visually through his design, with both the way he is inked as well as his literally evolving design, his new transformation. He’s never had to confront these kinds of humans and yokai before. This leveling of suffering is new to our middle school-aged protagonist. After Kyosai is defeated, his momentary rage subsides but he is still scarred, physically and mentally. Encho, the acting leader of the Hundred Stories Clan, betrays Sanmoto’s reincarnated brain for personal gain, confusing Rikuo who is already in a fragile mental state. He struggles to comprehend the enemy, as he had been forced to face humans that he wanted to protect, yokai that despised those humans, and even his own best friends. Once again, exclusively visually conveyed and up to interpretation.

At the end of this arc, he accepts the help of his friends, his aide Yuki-Onna, and equips with her, washing himself of the stress he’s in and covering him in a beautiful veil of ice. His design goes back to normal in order to show this, and get across just how much his friends mean to him, in a truly impactful way that really strengthens the theme by giving real weight to his connection with both his yokai and human lives.

Every arc is strong in its own way, I simply wanted to discuss the few that best show what I’m trying to say. I hope you now understand why I love this manga so much and why I think you should read it. I promise the things I’ve spoiled here are only a fragment of the whole experience, and your appreciation will only grow as you experience the full context by reading the manga. If I got across what I wanted to, then you understand that this manga cannot be explained as much as it can be experienced. There are probably more things that I never noticed, maybe you’ll discover those before I do.

This manga is an ode to the future, to humanity. We can overcome our differences and coexist. Perhaps all it takes is for one person to take the fear that we as people feel in our daily lives onto themselves. The fear that there can never be change, the fear that our road only ends in sadness. The fear that our history defines us. The fear that we must conform to our duty. The fear that accepting a duty strips us of individuality. The fear that we can never bring these conflicting aspects of our mind together and find inner peace. The fear that we can never bring the conflicting aspects of people together and find true peace amongst ourselves. Not many people can overcome that fear, but he who is truly strong is he who equips that fear. He who takes that uncertainty of the future and uses it to empower himself and push for that change he wishes to see. This review is my ode to the man who was able to understand what makes people who they are and didn’t let that fear consume him. The man who equips true fear. Thank you for reading.

[demonslayedher]

Any Kny character you've grown to love/appreciate more??

Thanks for waiting, Anon, I have been trying to really, really hard to narrow this down, but the answer remains: the vast majority of the cast. The only character I loved right away was Tanjiro and that love kept me watching, as with almost every new character I was like, "ugh, I hate this guy. Here I was, having fun being emotionally invested in a high quality anime, and this might ruin it for me." But then the instant I see a different side of their character, I'm like, "...Oh." To go into some examples...

Zenitsu: I could not stand him right away, I hate womanizers, and his conniptions would go on so long that they held up the story. But Gotouge/Ufotable strung me along perfectly, the first glimpse of Thunder Breath made me immediately pay attention and think, "oh, that was cool. I want to see more of that." Seeing him protect the box pretty firmly put him in the "I need to protect this child" box in my heart. And then the spider demon happens, and I'm sending desperate reaction messages to a friend like "NOOOOOO!!!! BABBBBBBBBBYYYYYYYY!!!!" And then he annoyed me all over again at the start of Functional Recovery, ahaha. It's hard to remember how annoyed I was because I'm such a Zen Stan now, and he was a very firm favorite of mine by the time I finished binging the anime up to the last couple episodes, which I waited for as they came out. Inosuke: He was one of the reasons I was curious about the series, I saw some promotional art and was super curious about Nezuko's muzzle (I was one of the people who thought it was some ancient scroll or something, haha) and the kid with the boar mask. The art I saw showed his face, and I assumed he'd be some kid with a cracking voice performed by a female seiyuu. As much as I love Matsuoka's performance now, initially, since I knew what his face looked like, I found it grossly off-putting the moment I heard it. Then every chaotic thing Inosuke did dug a deeper hole; I very quickly decided I hated him, especially when he started beating up on the kid I was starting to like. As his chaos subsided he just became a character I tolerated, and then this happened:

Images you can hear, am I right? This immediately flipped the "BABY" switch in my heart. It was also a lot of fun to understand the Inosuke memes I was seeing everywhere. So by the end of the anime, I loved, loved, loved, loved the Tanjiro/Zenitsu/Inosuke interactions and desperately wanted more (still didn't like how Zenitsu bothered Nezuko, though). I was so impatient for more, but the manga art looked disappointingly off-putting. I figured the anime was successful enough that there'd eventually be more of it, and I wanted to be patient, but then I poked around, read some spoilers, got back into Tumblr to look at fanart and memes, saw a spoiler image of Tanjiro affected by Muzan's poison and the binge-read began. (That's kind of a lie, but I'll get to that.) Let's back up a few episodes. There I was, having a great time, the guy who I forgot about from Episode 1 was back and haha, I guess everyone hates him, and the chick who I figured was going to be a medic who saves Zenitsu in the nick of time turned out to be savage, awesome. I was sending reactions to my friends who were ahead of me, and then we left off seeing the Pillars staring down Best Boy. And I...

Well. Uh. Here, I've dug up an old convo for you, my comments are in blue.

Immediately followed by a passionate vocal rant, which I have transcribed here:

“I feel like what happened was that the mangaka was sitting around with his assistants and was like, ‘welp, gotta make this whole cast of characters, they gotta be so-o-o-o many more levels of extreme than all the other characters I’ve had so far, which isn’t hard, because all of the background characters are cannon fodder and I’ve just gotta leave them all with black hair and no personality traits. So! Gotta go to the opposite of the spectrum with the BIG! POWERFUL! People so no-o-o-body can be normal.’ And so he and his assistants sat down, and they all wrote down just random words or traits, and them put ‘em all in a hat. And then for each character, they pulled out a few of them and said, ‘OK. We’re gonna put these things together, now we have a character.’ And he was probably also like, ‘Iiiiiiiiiiiii’ll flesh them out later. For now, they just need t’… be there, and make an impact. How do we make an impact? By making sure it’s super, super clear what their character traits are. Here, we’ll have this guy repeat the word //HADE//…. ////HA DEEE//// over and over and over… to show that he’s a /showy/ person. Because he /cares/ about that. And he //should// care because that is his character and that’s why he’s powerful.’ OH MY GOSH, it’s so dumb.”

......orz I feel like Genya looking back at how he acted at the end of the Final Selection. I'm sorry, Gotouge, I had not even encountered your love for these characters yet in your little alligator form. Nor had I encountered the yet unseen-sides of these traumatized dragons and tigers. ...*coughs* Um. So. I was pretty harsh.

So this was my mindset, I went into the manga not caring about most of these characters and just wanting more Kamaboko squad interactions and wanting to hurry up and catch up to the battle with Muzan. And it's worth stating that I didn't mean to read it at first. I encountered a few spoilers, and just wanted to look for the context surrounding those parts, and then hunt for the (non-existent) build-up to those parts, and so... uh.........

I read a lot of the manga out of order, and yeah, that did affect how much I cared about what was going on. I didn't actually properly process a lot of it until later re-reads. But to try to state some things simply about each Pillar:

Giyuu: He was just 'ok' to me for a long time, I could see the appeal for why people I knew were fangirling over him but he didn't do it for me. His soft spot for Tanjiro was indeed endearing, though, and I firmly liked him by the time chapter 200 came out and I was properly heartbroken on his behalf.

Shinobu: She was intriguing, and then I liked her as soon as I saw her savage side, she was one of the characters I went hunting for spoilers for.

Rengoku: That stare really put me off at first, but I fell for him over the process of Tanjiro falling for him. When I first finished the train arc I sat back and said, "wow! That's going to make for a good movie!" and then in psyching myself out for the movie several months in advance, I fell hook, line, and sinker and was totally excited for him each time I saw the trailers. And then the movie was *stunning* and I love him even more. Uzui: He was the Pillar I hated most upon first meeting them. I blame the repeated use of his catchphrase. But then when he let his hair down to sell the kiddos the change in design helped warm me up more to him, like, "oh, there was a human in there." It took a long time for him to become more interesting to me, and an uncharacteristically subtle journey to becoming a character I liked. I am currently getting more and more psyched out for him and eager to see how much more I'm going to like him with the shiny Ufotable treatment. Mitsuri: At first I didn't remember her name, I had code-named her as "Boobs." But I kinda had a feeling she was going to grow on me quickly, and I was right, she's one of my easy favorites now. Muichiro: Who? Oh yeah, that kid who always kinda fell to the wayside in my attention. I'd see a lot of Muichiro-themed blogs and hear a lot of little girls looking at merch and showing a clear favoritism of him, and I'd like always react like Muichiro and just be like, "...", and then when I read his major battles I was more emotionally invested in things going on concurrently with other characters, and I was still like, "...", and then two days ago I revisited a Muichiro scene and was suddenly like, "......OH!!! MUICHIRO!!!!!" Himejima: I never really hated Himejima, even if I found his first impression kind of wimpy (haha... oh, I was so wrong). I had a pretty easy acceptance of him too, so I would generally count him among characters I like, but if you were to ask me why, I'd draw a blank. It's kind of a weirdly mature, subdued appreciation for him rather than passionate fangirling. But weirdly when I was daydreaming the other day I found myself thinking, "if I had to marry someone in the KnY cast, it would be Himejima." So like, not a fiery romance, but I see him as my dependable, sturdy rock to grow old with??? What is up with you, sub-conscious?? Iguro: My interest in him rises and falls. Being a Mitsuri fan helped warm me up to his character in the first place, which was the emotional tie I needed since his backstory didn't grip me much (I found it a frustrating distraction while I was desperately reading weekly updates). Reading more subtle details about his character in the fanbooks has brought me around and made me more curious about him, like I'd really like to be a fly on the wall for the conversation he had with Uzui one day about their pasts.

Sanemi: Hahaha, wow. He was so unlikable in the beginning, wasn't he? His character design (yeah, the eyes) was really off-putting too. But then I got to know him and there was no going back, I got totally played. He's a character I'm pretty fond of now and one of the characters I've enjoyed delving into most in fanfic. To keep this answer from getting too long, for the vaaaaaast majority of the cast, I was initially like, "meh" or "OK" or "ew" but now am like, "EEEEEEEEE, I LOVE THIS TOTALLY RANDOM UNIMPORTANT SIDE CHARACTERRRRRRR" so you know... times change. And the more time I spend obsessed with Kimetsu no Yaiba, the more I like them all, so even the characters I'm lukewarm on will probably have their eventual days when they take over my heart and smash it.

[dystopiandilfs]

I find it interesting how each Feral boy is with DreamSMP lore and how they approach it if they do. This is also some ideas and improvements. This is all my opinion and you don't have to agree or disagree.

Disclaimer this will be me using comparisons as it makes it easier to explain. This isn't me saying one person is better than another. Some might be negative points, some will be positive so no critical tags sorry. Even with me once again expressing my strong negative opinions on Tales. The idea is good the execution is not.

This is based off of multiple things; Character story, Character traits, Lore?, Plot holes, Fan theories, General enjoyment, Viewer impact, Clear goals etc

Dream seems to enjoy it the most as he offers to join everyone's lore as well as helping when he can and also trying to include others into "main" lore He also has managed to create a character with a full storyline without not once streaming from his perspective. He's very good at doing things that may seem small at the time but ends up having a huge impact. He manages to have a full storyline and a complete character but still leaves room for theories and headcanons for people to add on (Dreamon my beloved 💕). Because we don't see his perspective we don't know his intentions or goals so he's made his character detailed but mysterious which is actually quite difficult as he's the main character (Sorry Ranboo but it's true)

When it comes to acting he's very good at staying in character even when things get a bit scuffed obviously there's a few moments of breaking character but they're not him trying to get others to break character with jokes and voices they're genuine fuck ups (Accidentally blowing himself up and breaking character to both clear up confusion about it being canon and to switch from a tense atmosphere to give the audience a break for a bit and breaking character to say his Twitch handle after accidentally breaking TOS so George didn't get banned)

Dream said he's got a storyline from his perspective and it's all prerecorded which I'm excited for as I think it's going to be a bunch of flashbacks which could expand both character backstory but also create more storylines for people to bounce off of. For example if he did a flashback with some of the OG members they could build from that. It could give more of an explanation of why he changed. Essentially Dream's lore could be a bunch of behind the scene clips giving more lore for characters like him discussing the egg or prison with Sam, him and Punz talking more about the deal, him and Techno , him and Puffy, him and Ranboo. Dream is the main character because literally ever other character can do a flashback scene with him and build a whole storyline from it. For example Dreamon Hunters can be bought back in which already was linked to the Egg by Fundy. To sum it up Dream's lore from his perspective can not only made way for multiple new theories and headcanons but also is the easiest way for other characters to have more dimension even with a 20 second clip. And it gives more context to Dream as a character. Disclaimer this isn't me saying people can only be dimensional characters because of Dream I'm saying that Dream is the easiest way for someone to start a storyline that they can then work on if they want.

Quackity can do lore if he puts his mind to it. However it also has to rely on multiple things. Who the lore is with?, How serious is it? And What's the vibe? Basically if Quackity is with people who don't do serious lore or people who crack jokes often then his lore won't have that good quality lore I know it can be. For example Quackity's lore with Sam and Dream couldn't be replicated with most other people on the server. I can't even imagine if Karl and George were trying to do the prison lore. Even in Quackity's big stream you can see this difference Schlatt's bit dragged on and often got derailed because whilst they were both interested in the lore they weren't invested. The bit with BBH was a bit all over the place because they were both talking over each other and you could sort of tell it had little to no script or end goal but this was also partly down to them both being very into lore. They both tried to stick to their pre-existing character traits which clash Vs the Prison which had a clear script even if it was vague. Go to prison, convince Sam to bring weapons, Go torture Dream. Sam, Dream and Quackity are 3 of the most mysterious characters who have no clear plans, you can't predict their moves which is why any lore with them is good because they don't have a character personality that they have to stick to. For example Dream is known to adapt for each person so he could be nice one minute and demon child next.

Once Quackity has broken character he used to completely lose it. The vibe was gone however I was highly impressed with how he and Sam managed to keep the vibe when the prison broke. Previously Quackity would have lost his shit and derailed everything. I do think Quackity's strongest lore point is going with other strong lore members or just being on his own.

George and Sapnap I'm going to sort of link together. They both seen to be a bit meh on lore. I think it genuinely depends on what mood they're in. I also think that they'll both be much more comfortable doing lore that's prefilmed Vs live on stream.

Sapnap is very good at bouncing off of people so I think he'd be really good at lore with most people. I think Sapnap could definitely capitalise on the angst of being the abandoned one who is loyal to death but doesn't have the same in return. Like Dream both Sapnap and George are good at voice manipulation meaning if they want sad angst they can sound upset. Sapnap seems more tempted to do on the spot lore so he can't back out so that's another option. Like Sapnap has multiple headcanons handed to him and I know this bitch can act his little yeehaw soul out. Even if it's short clips talking to people like Punz or Sam who he seems closest to.

George has this strange ability to kickstart ideas for lore and then let's others build from it. (Also his ability for all of his lore to have a LGBTQ subtext like pack it up Dean Winchester) I genuinely don't think it's intentional however I think with a bit of thought he can have a general well rounded character. I know he did that lore the other day and has started to build up a character background however I think he's better with less serious lore people as I don't think he can do serious mood streams like Dream or Ranboo but can potentially hold it long enough for a bit like Techno or Phil. I think George's weakness is he'd rather someone else guide him through lore instead of doing it himself. Man really doesn't like being the main character.

Karl seems to want to do lore but doesn't have the ability to create it. He has all these ideas but can't form a proper story about it. I used to have this issue where I had all these cool bullet point ideas but I could never form a cool idea with them and I think Karl has the same issue. In my opinion if Karl does want to continue with Tales and bullet point ideas I think he needs help formulating a bit more of a story. Once again like Sapnap and George I think he excels in prerecorded lore however it's also either heavily scripted or he's having his hand held through it. Which is fine but that's why a lot of people can't connect Tales to DreamSMP as his streams are the only ones that are heavily scripted and it gives off a different vibe. Karl is also too bubbly to crack down on serious lore which is fine not all lore needs to be serious and angsty however he tries to make it deep. I personally think that Karl should capitalise on this uwu soft boy persona he has. No deep lore. Obviously choosing memory loss time travel involves serious moments but I think he needs to split it more between dark angst and wholesome Karlnapity moments. What I mean is that Karl on DreamSMP and Tales Karl seem like 2 completely different characters that just so happen to share a name. I think the prerecorded bit at the end needs to begin to add his DreamSMP personality a bit more.

TLDR: Dream is strongest lore, Quackity works best with serious lore with people invested or on his own with a bit of direction, Sapnap and George will probably be better off doing prerecorded lore as it seems more comfortable for them, Karl struggles to put his ideas into a storyline and would benefit from doing less heavily scripted pre recorded lore to make his storyline cohesive Vs a bunch of one shots.

To sum it up Dream is Hot and should bring back Dreamons, Quackity needs to work more with serious lore people, Sapnap should Capitalise on his loyalty trait and constant abandonment for maximum angst, George should cry on command more, Karl needs spend more time writing instead of paying for builds.

[jinjojess]

超高校級の英雄 V3: Danganstuck Classpects V3

Okay, okay. 

Enough waiting around; let’s get this up and ready to go.

These are obviously just my own opinions on things, and as such are very closely tied to my own personal interpretations of both the V3 characters and also of the classpects themselves. For clarity’s sake, I based the aspect rationalizations from the official lore here, and I used the MSPA wiki for direction with the classes.

Just as a quick note, I used some of the FTE info (which is debatable in its veracity) for some of the assignments. Sorry, gotta work with what I have to work with. Also, if anything is expanded on in Homestuck 2, I have no idea, as I haven’t read it (or the epilogues, for that matter).

Akamatsu Kaede Prince(ss) of Time Derse Dreamer The Land of Sharps and Flats

Going off the canon description of Time, it makes perfect sense for Akamatsu. She’s goal-oriented, wants to skip to the credits, and would rather take a leap of faith than wait things out. To say nothing of the strong associations between Time and music. I went with Prince for her as a class since it’s the destroyer class--Akamatsu very literally destroys both Amami and herself (and her goal of getting everyone out alive) thanks to her own impatience in wanting to stop the one responsible for the killing game. I had her sleep on Derse since she’s supposed to be a bit of a protag subversion in that she hatches a literal murder scheme. Her equivalent of the Beat Mesa is a big metronome. 

I also have an alt land name for her in The Land of Ninths and Eighths to reference the time signature of Claire de Lune (which is 9/8). 

Saihara Shuuichi Page of Doom Prospit & Derse Dreamer The Land of Glass and Fingerprints

I considered making Saihara a Rage player at first given how the ultimate conflict is (supposedly going to be) solved in Chapter 6, but the description of Doom players as being commiseraters rather than healers really stuck out to me as appropriate for Saihara. Of all the characters in the game, he’s one of the few that doesn’t actually push anyone to heal, and his ultimate gambit in the 6th trial is to counteract the audience trying to self-medicate with catharsis at their expense. He takes a while to come into his own, which is the signature trait of the Page class, too. As a Doom player, he dreams on both moons, which for reasons I can’t quite articulate just clicks for me. The glass in his land name references not only magnifying glasses but also mirrors, since his is very much a journey of self-reflection.

Amami Rantarou Seer of Breath Prospit Dreamer The Land of Sails and Nail Polish

I really like what I came up with here for Amami. Breath is linked pretty strongly to his FTE reveals about how his desire to explore led his sisters to disappear into the ether (and changed his direction in life), and the angst he feels over wanting to reunite with his sisters hints at his trouble with bonds (the Breath inverse Blood’s territory). I incorporated the boat stuff into the theme with the idea of sailing for his world name, while the nail polish is for his sisters and that extra scene with Akamatsu. I went with Seer as the class since Amami Knows Things, and there’s that bit about Seers “having a strategy guide in their head” that I wanted to be a callback to the special map and the fact that he’s the Shogo Kawada of this operation. Prospit as the dream moon just felt right, so there it is.

Iruma Miu Thief of Space Prospit Dreamer The Land of Caulk and Nuts (and Frogs)

I don’t care if you have to have Frogs somewhere in the Space player’s land name, I will stand by that pun! So Space is all about creation and seeing the bigger picture, and to me that jived with how Iruma is an inventor. While Time is deeply linked to music on a conceptual level, Space is linked to nurturing, including growing plants, raising animals, and parenting. The Space and Motherhood parallels fit well with Iruma’s canon aspirations and goals. I went with Thief because Iruma is very much out for Number One, and wants to hog up all the creation ability for her own ends. Prospit dreamer because she’s the type.

Ouma Kokichi Bard of Heart Derse Dreamer The Land of Kings and Horses

There’s a lot you could do with Ouma, and I’m sure that plenty of people peg him as a Void player because of the lying. For me though, I read Ouma has being primarily concerned with his own identity, and how he’s perceived by others. Fractured senses of self are a Heart concept, after all, and it seems that Ouma likes trying on identities to see which one ultimately fits him best. I made him a Bard because they’re unpredictable and all about helping or hurting a session in random turns, but also because Ouma himself is allowing his own identity to be destroyed thanks to his paranoia and inability to let anyone get close to him. He dreams on Derse with all the other schemers, and I went with a name pun for the planet that can also function as a chess reference (ala his bandana and his 5d chess approach to life).

Kiibo Sylph of Mind Derse Dreamer The Land of Shells and Ghosts

Since Sylphs are healers, I wanted to have Kiibo in that role, since he’s usually trying very hard to smooth things over and fix problems. I went with Mind for him for a few reasons: one is that Kiibo’s self-identity is subsumed by his “inner voice” that later turns out to be audience suggestions, meaning that he’s healing things through the choices of others and doesn’t have as much of a Self as it were. Another reason is because I made Naegi a Mind player and Kiibo is clearly meant to be a bit of a callback to him (up to and including the fact that Naegi very much functions as an audience insert in the first game). I made Kiibo a Derse dreamer because he literally hears the whispers of the audience members telling him what to do. The land name was me having a little fun and poking at his aspect a bit.

Gokuhara Gonta Heir of Light Prospit Dreamer The Land of Pins and Wings

Light is all about knowledge, and Gonta has, while specific, quite a lot of knowledge. He likes learning, and is open to new information to re-evaluate what he knows. I made him an Heir since the speculation is that they are subsumed in their aspect, and Gonta is very passively knowledgable. He often offers helpful suggestions based on things he just happens to know, for instance, and what ultimately undoes him is Ouma showing him the “truth” of things, which Gonta doesn’t even think to question. He’s a Prospit dreamer who’s been awake for awhile, unwittingly watching the clouds for signs, and his land name is a reference to pinning butterflies into a collection.

Shinguuji Korekiyo Mage of Light Derse Dreamer The Land of Scrolls and Masks

Meanwhile, on the other end of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, we have the other scholar, Shinguuji. Unlike Gonta, he’s actively out there seeking knowledge, rather than being drawn to it, and his motives are undeniably selfish in nature, so I wanted him to be an active class (I’m assuming Mage is the active counterpart to Seer, shhh). Shinguuji uses his understanding of his field--humans--to progress his own goals and wants. He’s also smart enough to know what pieces of information to share and which to keep hidden behind a convenient zipper. Made him Derse because shemey as all hell, and I went with some general imagery for folklore for the land name.

Chabashira Tenko Knight of Breath Prospit Dreamer The Land of Sweat and Flipping

I think we can all agree that Chabashira is probably not a Derse dreamer. Meanwhile, I chose her aspect for a couple of reasons: first, because aikido is generally about evading attacks which strikes me as a windy kinda deal, even if Neo Aikido is a bit different; second, because her central conflict in the game is about learning to let go of a bond she desperately wants to forge with Yumeno (which, again, is a Blood-related matter); and third, because flipping somebody would create a gust of air movement and that image made me laugh. I went with Knight for Chabashira, since the most common interpretation of Knight is that it exploits its aspect, and I think that Chabashira is able to exploit the various currents of influence (especially in Chapter 3) to great success. I also think that she exploits The Breeze to nudge Yumeno’s path out of danger by taking her place in the kagonoko ritual. The land name is the sweat of training in martial arts, and the flipping is not just about said martial arts, but also about being flung off a see-saw.

Toujou Kirumi Knight of Life Derse Dreamer The Land of Sticks and Carrots

Life players are generally known to be trying to fix everybody’s problems, whether they want that to happen or not, and if that doesn’t scream Toujou to you, I don’t know what will. I went with Knight again for the exploitation aspect of it, where Toujou uses her position as authority in the group to further what she believes to be the greater good (hedging my bets here since we don’t know if Knight is active or passive). She’s clearly a Derse dreamer, because even if she wasn’t schemey, she’s droll as fuck. Her land references the two main ways to motivate someone: threats and rewards.

Harukawa Maki Knight of Time Prospit Dreamer The Land of Beans and Demons

I know, I know, but really, if you think about it, HaruMaki and Dave do kind of have a lot in common (and not just the fact that they have red eyes). The part about Time that fits well to me is that a Time player’s life is marked by strife and struggle, which HaruMaki has in spades. Like Akamatsu, she’s impatient and often acts rashly, in an attempt to cut out the middle man or advance what she thinks should be happening. She’s the last of our Knight squad, exploiting Time (or more broadly, destruction/entropy) to try and help out, such as trying to off Ouma or attack the Exisals head on. There’s also a bit on the Wiki that’s speculated that Knights often try to conceal their insecurities by acting tough, which is HaruMaki’s M.O. While she doesn’t have the music theme, assassination is very much about timing. I had her dream on Prospit because she’s not really a plans person, deep down, and her land name is a joke about her name/birthday referencing Setsubun.

HaruMaki doesn’t have a Beat Mesa equivalent, but she does have a tool specifically for causing a Scratch: a huge, unwieldy kantana.

Hoshi Ryouma Prince of Blood Prospit Dreamer The Land of Grass and Clay

Here you go, anon, what you were waiting for. I personally peg Hoshi as a Blood player, through and through. He’s stubborn, values bonds with other people, can lead via inspiration rather than direct command, and feels grounded. I think he’s a Prince thanks to the fact that he ended up destroying the very people who meant so much to him, and in the aftermath continued to push people away and pre-emptively destroy any possible future bonds. He’s a Prospit dreamer because he can see flashes of the future, though he often doesn’t read them correctly. His land is a reference to different types of tennis courts.

Momota Kaito Rouge of Hope Prospit Dreamer The Land of Wishes and Stars

The key part of a Hope player is that they can dream up a better world than the one that exists, and that can definitely be said about Momota. Like Jake, he’s a bit in his own head and immersed in his fantasy version of reality, where he plays the hero and is able to save everyone else. He’s somewhat gullible, to a point, and he’s the most superstitious of the bunch, showing how much stock he can put into the thing he believes. The sheer power of Momota’s belief is infectious, hence why I made him a Rogue--he’s out there trying to impart his sense of belief into those around him, for everyone’s benefit. He dreams on Prospit because of course he does, and I made his land name reflect literal space in conjunction with his talent, and to riff on that inspirational poster about shooting for the moon and landing among the stars.

Yumeno Himiko Heir of Doom Prospit & Derse Dreamer The Land of Death and Magic

While most people who played V3 picked up on Saihara being depressed, not everyone has noticed that Yumeno also suffers from the same bleak view of the world. Similarly to Saihara, Yumeno is not a healer, or a doer. She’s here to sigh and complain and tell you that’s rough, buddy. Because of that, I can definitely see her as a Doom player. I made her an Heir, as one who is consumed by their aspect, since Yumeno is very much doom and gloom a lot of the time. She’s also subconsciously drawn to death, as she gets close to both Angie and Chabashira before their untimely demises. It’s through their deaths that she comes more into her own, hence why it’s also part of her land title (I don’t think I have to explain the other part). She dreams on both moons because Doom players are implied to do so.

Yonaga Angie Witch of Hope Derse Dreamer The Land of Prayer and Idols

Like Momota, Angie has intense faith on her side; if Angie thinks it’s true, it’s true. She’s also similarly not looking at the same world as everyone else, instead seeing something slightly different and colored by her own beliefs. However, unlike Momota, Angie is not interested in helping others find their own faith, and would rather use the power of her belief for her own gain. Hence why I made her a Witch, an active class that manipulates its aspect. The other characters may not believe in Angie’s religion, but they sure do believe her when she tells them to sacrifice their autonomy for safety. I put her on Derse since her god could very easily just be a specific horrorterror, and the land name is connected to religion. 

Shirogane Tsumugi Maid of Void Derse Dreamer The Land of Scripts and Swatches

I went through a lot of possible Classpects for Shirogane, including Light, Space, Seer, Heart, etc., but I think that this is what I’m going to settle on. Derse Dreamer because not only is she schemey, she’s listening to whispers of her bosses and the ratings, albeit in a less direct sense than Kiibo (what’s more horrorterror-y than a focus group!). Void as an aspect works well to me, since Shirogane is always going on and on about being plain and forgettable, about how she hides in plain sight, and even her talent is about becoming somebody else rather than herself. She’s also the one who in the end throws the “truth” into question, instead concealing it in favor of ambiguity. I went with Maid since one of the speculated interpretations is one who creates or creates through their aspect: she not only (arguably) erases the casts’ identities and memories, she does this in order to have “blank pages” on which to write the killing game’s drama. Whether Maid is an active or passive class is unknown, but if it’s active it makes sense since she’s using other people for her own gain, and if it’s passive, it could be argued that she’s doing it in service of Team DR or the audience.

Speaking of...

Bonus!

The V3 audience Muse of Space The Land Beyond the 4th Wall

I don’t like assigning Master Classes unless I have a really good reason, and here I think it works. The fans are the epitome of the “wait-and-see” model, and their crime as it were is their general apathy toward the very real subjects of the killing game. They’re all big picture and no important details or nuance. You can’t get much more passive than being an audience member, hence Muse class, yet it’s their desire to recycle the series over and over that leads to the killing game’s very existence (they’re also not too upset about letting the kids’ past lives be sacrificed for this act of creation). The V3 audience is collectively in the real world as opposed to the Medium, hence the “planet” title for them. In the context of an actual Sburb game, they’d likely be Exiles.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yeah, no Rage players in V3. I couldn’t find my notes the other night when I got home, so I just went ahead and reworked all of the classpects from there.

The Aspects were fairly easy to assign, but the Classes really had me scratching my head for a good long while. Maybe it’s because it can recontextualize the Aspect elements depending on what it is, or maybe it’s because we don’t have as much information about how Classes work. 

Anyway, whew, that’s it! Hope you enjoyed!

[tiny-stack-of-knights]

AH SO I FINALLY FINISHED AN OFFICIAL REF FOR MY META KNIGHT GIJINKA AND? Not gonna lie I’m pretty happy with his design and stuff (:

I HAVE. SO MANY NOTES

So uh feel free to read them below the cut 😳

warning it’s a LOT

OKAY HERE WE GO

for starters, these are specific to my gijinka, buuuuut most of them also fit my general interpretation of him

- Meta Knight is not his actual name. It’s just the title he gave himself to sound cool.

- As such, he’s not technically a knight, just in spirit. A meta knight, if you will (:

- He takes his image very seriously. It used to be so bad that he would take literally everything seriously, and had a reputation for sucking all of the life and fun out of everything and anything. But, he’s softened up a lot since he came to dreamland. He’s actually a pretty fun guy nowadays (and maybe just a little chaotic, or, rather, enthusiastic when excited...)

- Because of his once dreadfully serious nature, his face is stone cold and “dead eyed”. Once he broke himself of his old habits and lightened up, he became humiliated by how stone faced he is, and it’s one of the many reasons he wears his mask.

- Speaking of his mask! He is sensitive to light, and his mask helps tone it down for him. He can go without it, but if he’s in a well lit area for awhile, he will start to get a migraine.

- As such, he has pretty good night vision.

- Yes...he is very bat like. That’s for a reason! My hc for my puffball gijinkas is that they have a lot of traits similar to their wing type. For instance, since Galacta has bird wings, they have some bird like features like sharp vision, soft feathers strewn about their hair, and squawking when startled.

- Yes, this implies that Meta makes cute bat-like trills and squeaks......(he also purrs. puffs purr, because they are basically just round cats)

- He is very kind and caring beneath his persona, which has become more and more evident. He is also incredibly protective of those close to him. He secretly worries he will lose them, and as such, he does everything to keep them around.

- Despite his agility, he can be quite clumsy at times. This has led to some...embarrassing injuries.

- He’s tiny! 5’0 with heels and 4’10 without them, but since he almost always wears them, he will tell people he is around 5’0 (but almost 5’1!)

- As a knight of sorts, he has a strong sense of chivalry (which is basically canon). It is hard for him to accept any sort of kindness, since he feels he owes something in return. He always makes sure to express his gratitude however he can.

- However, he is really bad at emotions and expressing himself. He suppressed most of them early on when he was painfully serious, and as he’s lightened up, he’s had to deal with actual emotions.

- He uses art and poetry to cope with this and express his emotions. He never lets anyone see it though.

- He also draws cute things. He loves cute things, but is still hesitant to let others know this, as he worries it will

- a) damage his reputation and

- b) confirm to him he is, very much, a rather cute little puffball

- There are many (often very specific) things he is fascinated by, and can talk on for hours on end. However, his more personal and less “serious” interests he rarely talks about to anyone he isn’t close with, and if they’re brought up in public, he often gets very flustered. (yes, he’s shy but he’ll never call it that)

- He loves sweets and has a passion for baking. He’s quite good at it, but not at cooking actual meals.

- Despite Kirby (and the meta-knights) thinking of him as their dad, he is absolutely horrid with children. Does not know how to deal with them. He gets very flustered (and often frustrated) if he ever has to watch them. Since he doesn’t really know how to deal with them, he kinda just treats them as he would anyone else. Because of his caring and protective nature, many still consider him dad-like.

- Oh yeah, Kirby is the exception to this since he is (usually) such a wonderful little dude. If left alone with the other puff, he can act like a semi-competent father. It is very rare that this actually happens though.

Okay, time for some darker headcanons, including a lot of post Mecha Knight stuff (‘:

Oh yeah I have a Mecha Knight gijinka too 😳

-He suffers from depression. This was one of the main reasons he used to be so dreadfully serious, and why he’s so used to suppressing his emotions. He used to use his knightly persona as a not-very-healthy way of coping.

-As a bit of a lighter note, after many years of care and support from his friends, he’s seriously lightened up.

-However, he still has days when it surfaces, and it often takes the whole day to get him back to a more functional state. Yes, even Meta Knight has to take mental health days sometimes (:

-He has a serious issue with abandonment. He worries nobody could actually care about him, and frets constantly that he will lose the people close to him. This stems back to when he got his wings, as many saw them as “demonic” and as a “bad omen”

-Because of this, he has a really low self esteem, which, again, is why he used to live through his knight persona primarily, and was so ashamed of his actual self.

-The Mecha Knight incident left him with serious mental scars, giving him minor ptsd through nightmares and panic attacks when strongly reminded of the incident.

-It also left him with a robotic eye and arm.

-During his fight with Haltmann Works, his non-gauntlet arm was severely injured. Instead of just trying to fix it, Susie gave him a shiny new robot arm. It was originally Haltmann red and black, but he repainted it and, with some help from his crew, slightly modified it to more of his style.

-He also had an eye replaced in order to be compatible with the “eye” that swerves around the mask. He’s been too scared to try rewiring or recoloring it.

-The Mecha Knight incident really set him back from all the progress he made.

-During the first few months post Mecha Knight, he hid himself, only showing up when needed. He became paranoid of him hurting his friends without knowing it, which furthered his isolation.

-Much like how he managed to learn to cope better with his depression, it took him a lot of time and help to get him back to where he used to be.

-And, to end this little segment on a happier note, as of the time of Kirby Fighters 2, he’s much happier than he’s ever been. He’s made a lot of progress, is much more open with others, and much more accepting of his soft side (:

I could honestly go on and on, I have SO MANY notes that haven’t made it into this post, including his backstory, his relationship with the other characters, and a few other miscellaneous details (I even gave him a more...normal name that he never uses cause its cute and why not). If anyone’s ever interested in more though, feel free to ask me, I do have anon ask on after all, and boy do I have a lot to say (:

God, maybe I put a little too much thought and psychoanalysis (and maybe just maybe a liittllleee too much projection) into my interpretations but? hey, I had fun with it

If you actually read all of this bullshit, holy shit thank you and I hope you had fun too (:

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Heroes: Sweet or Shite? - Part 1: SILVER

There are some heroes I like. And there are some heroes I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a series in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the heroes in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves over the course of time. Two things to keep in mind:

1. These reviews will be focusing mainly on game portrayals. Though alternate media will occasionally be mentioned, it'll be for the sake of adding onto a point if a portrayal is similar enough, or to compare and contrast if a portrayal is different enough.

2. These are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, I decided to challenge myself by starting off with a complicated one. Born from the future, and never content to stay put in said future, it's the saviour whose debut came from the most unfortunate game... Silver the Hedgehog.

The Gist: Once upon a time, in the distant future, there was an idealistic young hedgehog named Silver, gifted with the power of telekinesis for reasons unknown. With his amazing potential, he was truly destined for a wonderful, prosperous li-just kidding, it was shit.

“All two of us.”

For as long as he knew, the world was forever plagued by Iblis, the terrible Flames of Disaster. Cities stood in ruin, flames stood high, the floor was lava... it was a bitter life to be certain, all thanks to Iblis. Not even defeating the titular creature did much good, since it would simply come back to be a shitty boss fight another day. What was he - and his friend, Blaze, a character we definitely never saw before and definitely didn't have a completely different backstory before - to do?

Trust the first person he sees, of course. Even if they look like they might be related to the same Flames of Disaster that he fights so constantly.

If he had eyelids, he'd be winking at the camera.

This mysterious fellow, Mephiles the Dark, informed Silver that if he were to wipe out Iblis for real, he would need to take a trip into the past, and eliminate the root of the problem... Sonic the Hedgehog? That was what Mephiles claimed, yes. What was his proof? There was no proof.

That was good enough for Silver.

Oh look, it's Fleetway Sonic.

After an elaborate series of events, which should sound exciting but really isn't because it was just Silver going “Iblis Trigger grrr” in varying tones of voice, he was finally able to corner the blue hedgehog... twice! And despite having less fighting know-how than the hero who saved the world plenty of times, he effortlessly came close to killing the blue hedgehog... twice!

This looks like a jobbing for...

Why twice? The first time was halted by Sonic's friend Amy Rose, who Silver had met beforehand after she mistook him for Sonic, an understandable mistake that even the keenest of eyes would be forgiven for making.

The second time was also interrupted, this time by Shadow the Hedgehog. There's only room for one controversial non-blue male hedgehog in this franchise, sonny boy. Actually, his reasons were more benevolent than that: he wanted to show Silver the truth about what was going on, by time travelling to the incident that gave birth to Iblis. Why was one able to to this, so long as more than one Chaos Emerald was present? No one knew.

That was good enough for Silver.

“I challenge you to a dumb-off.”

As it turned out, Iblis was one half of a sun god called Solaris, the other half being the aforementioned Mephiles. The Duke of Soleanna wanted to reunite with his late wife by harnessing Solaris' power, which succeeded from a certain point of view since he's dead now too. The resulting blunder split Solaris into two halves. One half was all brawn, with little capacity for intelligence. The other half was Iblis.

Understanding the error of his ways, and after making peace with Sonic, Silver went back to the future to try something different, which consisted of doing the same thing he always did. Luckily for him, the script decided it would work this time, albeit at the cost of Blaze sacrificing herself... Maybe? Sort of? It’s not entirely clear what happened to her, and it’s not like this was the last we ever saw of her.

~La laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, heading to a better game, la laaaaaa~

But ohhhhh nooooo, turns out THAT didn't solve anything either! In the present, Sonic was killed by Mephiles, after the latter realised he should probably do that already if he wanted to make any progress at all with his plan. This incident led to Iblis being brought into the present, and they fused to become the omnipotent Solaris once more. Such power... such divinity... such devastation...

Actually, he was really easy. The antlion from Underground Zone was harder.

Manchild robots - 1, god of time - 0.

With their super forms in tow, Silver, Shadow, and the revived Sonic joined forces to defeat Solaris, with Sonic in particular going the extra step in retconning Solaris out of existence entirely. Since time itself reset, meaning Iblis was no longer a memory, Silver's timeline was given a second chance. What was he to look forward to in this new, promising future?

Shit.

The Design: Let's take a closer look at Silver's appearance, shall we?

Or rather, a certain thing that's wrong with it.

He's holding up fifteen fingers.

Yes, you all know what I'm pointing to: the hairstyle. Let it be known that I'm very aware of the intention behind this design choice. It's supposed to be based on the Japanese Red Maple Leaf, which holds a lot of relevant symbolism for Silver's character. This is a fine idea in theory, and I can respect the intent and the creativity.

But here's the thing: If it looks like a ganja leaf, people are going to say it looks like a ganja leaf. I know some fans will gnash their teeth at me saying this, but the fact of the matter is that intentions and ideas, no matter how good they may be on paper, don't always translate well into the final product. Unleashed Secret Rings Black Knight Sonic '06 in general is certainly no stranger to showcasing examples of that, and Silver's hairstyle is no exception. There are ways to incorporate symbolism in a character’s design without making them look like meme bait in the process, and no amount of “umm ackshually” will change that, I'm afraid.

That said, there's another reason why I'm staying clean of Silver marijuana: it doesn't work for a hedgehog character. With the other hedgehogs, their hairstyles are simple and get the point across: Sonic's goes without saying, Shadow's is more angular to befit a slightly rougher hero, and Amy's is a cute bob cut of sorts. But Silver? Even without the ganja, you've still got the two tentacles making up the back of his head.

I'd rather not be reminded of hentai quills, thanks.

“I thought Crusher-san would like it :’(”

I do find it hilarious that they went through numerous designs for Silver, and this was what they chose to go with. Some of his prototype designs may have fared better had any of them been used instead... but we didn't end up with any of those ones. We ended up with this one, therefore I'm judging this one.

But don’t worry, it’s not all bad with Silver...

The Personality: As far as actual character goes, Silver's personality is as straightfoward as most characters in the series, yet it's no less interesting, because it took a while for it to fully evolve to what it currently is. The seeds of his character - a good-natured yet awkward and rather insecure kind of guy, who doesn't fully understand how the present time works - have always been there, but it was often downplayed in earlier titles due to him being hungry for Iblis Trigger blood... or being an arsehole for no reason.

Although to be fair, everyone in Rivals is an arsehole for no reason.

Eventually though, after the writers gave him a Snickers, these traits got more opportunity to shine. Mostly in side media admittedly, but it's been noted in the games as well. With no Iblis to angst over, he's proven to be a surprisingly bubbly chap, who just wants to know how you're all doing, fellow anthro kids. And whereas his naivety was previously used for intended tragedy to benefit the evil plan of a guy who thought taking the -istoph- out of Mephistopheles would make him inconspicuous, now it's been used for a bunch of low-key contexts that do a much better job at endearing him to the player.

Finally, something I can relate to.

Hell, he even seems to have learned from the Mephiles incident, as he was quick to make it clear to the next shadowy deep-voiced anthro with demonic eyes he met that he wasn't gonna fall for any of them fibs no more, ya hear?

“YouTube and Twitter don’t count.”

All in all, it works well enough, in my opinion. His personality does pave the way for some funny and wholesome moments, and since they’re no longer trying to build him up like he’s Shadow 2.0, he's nowhere near as much of a tool as he was before. So I guess you could say... I like it?

Does this mean I can say that I like the character as a whole then, design and '06-induced idiocy aside?

Well, not quite...

The Execution: This is where the complication part comes into play. We know now that I like his personality, not so much his design, but that's only the half of it. It would be more accurate to say that I like his personality... and dislike everything else.

Aside from that, obviously.

For starters, the creation process for his character and story was summed up with, in their own words, “Think Trunks from Dragon Ball Z”. So he comes off as rather lazy and uninspired. Now I'm not expecting my Sonic characters to be 100% unique, there's always going to be similarities to other franchises no matter what you do, even if subconsciously or by complete coincidence. Taking inspiration in itself is no big deal at all.

But... was that it? Copying a DBZ character to such a blatant extent? Was there no other thought put into it?

Naturally, this ties into an overarching problem: the franchise's mid-00's habit of trying way too hard to be the anthro Dragon Ball Z. Sonic has had DBZ influences since the early days, with the Chaos Emeralds and Super Sonic, but it didn't assimilate itself into every waking aspect of his universe. It was merely an additional flavor that added to the complete package, in the same way that a Death Star with a moustache didn't mean the franchise was suddenly Star Wars the Hedgehog.

But come the turn of the millenium, nearly every main title in the series ended with Super Sonic and/or Super Shadow saving the day, while everyone else either stood around being useless, or only helping in ways that no one actually cares about. Including the in-universe President apparently, since only Sonic and Shadow were featured in the photo on his desk.

Amy smiled. “I guess the rest of us can go fuck ourselves, huh?”

This reached its peak with - of course - Sonic '06, with Silver in particular being an obvious result of this then-ongoing trend. And yes, it would be unfair to use him as a scapegoat, considering it was already a problem long before he turned up. But moreso than even Shadow, it's an era that Silver is forever a relic of, for better or for worse.

But it doesn't stop there. Since Silver is considered a mainstay character, his gimmick of being from the future also creates problems of its own, because in order for him to make further appearances, he keeps turning up for little explained reason, and thus he suffers the Deadly Six problem of being shoved into places where he doesn't belong, for fanservice's own sake. Take Sonic Colours DS for example, where he went back in time JUST to check out Eggman's theme park... Okay...?

On one hand, I’d visit it too, since it's made by Eggman. On the other hand, I’d stay clear of it, since it's made by Eggman.

And when there IS a justification with more weight to it? It's just recycling the '06 routine of trying to avert his ruined future, which isn't much better. The cause may differ depending on the story, but if his future is a permanent shitehole for one reason or another, he might as well cut out the middle man and stay in the present altogether, since that's where his friends are anyway. But they seem intent on not doing that, despite the future schtick being a noose around his neck at this point.

In hindsight, maybe this was a hint to how the rest of the arc would turn out.

And then there's his dynamic with a certain purple cat... No, not Big. The other one.

“I’m here, by the way.”

Simply put: I don't like this dynamic. At all. Or rather, I don't like how they keep milking it. Blaze's backstory was radically changed to justify her presence in Silver's future, and it really shows, since she barely even shows up half the time, as if the developers themselves forgot she was in the game. But her backstory has since been restored to her original alternate dimension interpretation, so hanging around with the grey hedgehog is all good now, right?

To be brutally honest, I probably wouldn't care for this dynamic regardless. But I would be more willing to tolerate it, and I'd refrain from groaning every time they're seen together... if they weren't intent on playing it up so much in spite of '06 being wiped out, sometimes with a bit of commentary involving their thoughts and memories, which only succeeds at making things more confusing. If Blaze is around, Silver will be nearby, and if he's not at first, he will be soon enough. This franchise does have a problem in general with restricting who's allowed to interact with who (I personally believe Sonic Heroes may have led to this, or at least it accelerated it), but I'd argue it's at its most insufferable here, with Blaze's potential and her entire world taking a backseat to being the sidekick of Ganja Man.

And you might say “Well, it's part of the franchise now, so you'll just have to accept it”. To which I ask: Have you accepted Two Worlds? Have you accepted Solo Sonica? Have you accepted Sonic's friends not doing much as of late?

Yeah. That's what I thought. “It’s just how it is” doesn’t mean you can’t criticise it.

Meanwhile, Marine is lucky enough to get so much as a shout out.

So yeah, I have quite an extensive list of grievances involving poor Silver. But... very little of it has to do with him, right? They're all indirect problems that he just so happens to be linked to, as opposed to someone like Chris Thorndyke, who is genuinely a shit character through and through. This is more comparable to Tails being bitchy in Lost World, or Amy being manipulative in Chronicles, or Sonic being a smug dumbass in IDW, or Shadow not wearing a Hawaiian shirt in Boom. Frustrating, regrettable, but not really the character's own fault.

Yet even after all that, there's one last kick in the teeth... How do you fix all this? And how do you fix it when he's since gained a sizable fandom, many of whom like him for these very attributes? If you leave it as it is, you're stuck with this big, awkward mess that everyone pretends to ignore. If you try to do something about it, you'll get complaints about disrespecting the True Silver Spirit, and you’ll get questions about why you didn't create a new character instead... And if you did use a new character for the sake of a clean slate, THEN you'd get complaints about not using Silver.

It's a tough call to be sure, and it's such a shame because like I said, I do appreciate his personality, so I can't say he's bad outright. But with all this... clutter, I can only put him in the average category. So, in he goes.

Crusher Gives Silver a: Thumbs Sideways!

Well, I'm glad this one's out of the way. Putting my thoughts into words with Silver was harder than it should have been. I do slightly regret starting this series off on a rather downer note, but rest assured, it's a lot more positive from this point onwards, since while I have higher praise for some heroes more than others, the hero characters as a whole fare a lot better than the majority of villains not named Eggman.

I guess you could say that I hope to show why Sonic's friends aren't as shitty as the haters would suggest. ;)

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Ok, I've been sitting on this awhile (mostly because I worry that my reaction stems from personal feelings, rather than the content of your actual post) but while I agree wwx's arc is not ABOUT trauma, I do think he IS traumatized. Like, he has a literal phobia of dogs due to childhood trauma w/ dogs??? And I take issue with the idea that someone cannot be simultaneously traumatized and resilient/always smiling. I mean, refusing to process and deal with negative experiences and emotions because if you can choose to be happy, why would you choose to be anything else can actually be worse for you than just letting yourself be sad for a little bit. People are supposed to feel the full emotional spectrum and refusing to acknowledge sadness doesn't make someone not actually sad. As someone with a sunny personality who almost always let's things roll off my back, that doesn't mean I don't have trauma to deal, it just means it presents itself in different ways than someone with a different personality. Everyone is entitled to their interpretation of characters, so I'm not trying to say yours is inherently wrong, my point is more that it's not a guarantee that having a happy personality = not traumatized, especially when there are other things to point to them being traumatized.

Hi anon,

I think it’s important to consider the context in which I addressed fandom’s discussions on “WWX’s trauma/ptsd,” which in this case was a response to people explaining many of his behaviours during his first life, from the Sunshot campaign onwards, as resulting from trauma. I never meant to suggest that WWX could not experience trauma, at all, especially since in an earlier post about my thoughts regarding the trauma argument I did highlight that we get in the narrative an example of how WWX reacts when faced with trauma through his cynophobia (although I can’t find that post because it I can’t remember exactly when I shared it 🤷‍♂️). It was more to oppose the ideas that (1) events are inherently traumatic and thus that because these distressing things happened to WWX, WWX must be carrying trauma from them (because if we’re going to use psychology/psycho-analysis for literary analysis, it might be good to consider that the perception of trauma in psychology is not that) and (2) that there are no other narrative or character explanations for those behaviours that are not rooted in trauma. 

In this case, I think the novel makes it clear that while WWX is of course affected emotionally by the events, the things that people point to as resulting from trauma are actually tied to his cultivation methods and him losing control. I do feel like that interpretation is coherent with the authorial intent, which seems to be confirmed in one of MXTX’s interviews. To share here the most relevant possage:

[WN killing JZX] was perfectly an example of how Wei Wuxian was losing control. The more he lost control over his demonic cultivation, the more likely he was going to receive a backlash.

Of course, authorial intent is not the end-all-be-all of everything, and, certainly, there exists probably as many interpretations of a text as there exists readers (or, in the case of MDZS, we should also probably include all the people who haven’t read it but still have an opinion on its content). However, my brand of meta focuses on reading the text closely and challenging interpretations that are floating around in the fandom space against the text itself--the narrative, the characterisation, the themes, the symbolism. To say, ‘perhaps some people tend to associate a certain behaviour with a specific thing (ie, emotional volatility with a traumatic response to a distressing event), however does it seem like the text wants to lead you toward this interpretation? Does the text provide other story-specific explanations, some of which might actually be more cohesive and coherent with the narrative/characterisation/themes (ie, emotional volatility in this specific instance is a side-effect of the influence of modao on WWX and his loss of control)?’ That doesn’t mean I’m always right, of course I’m not. But I also do not prescribe to the belief that every interpretations are equally credible. That is, I do believe that people are entirely free to interpret a text however they choose, even if it means reappropriating the text and completely ignoring parts of it or mentally rewriting parts of it; all the same, I do not think these interpretations are particularly helpful when it comes to understanding and analysing the text itself (though they are interesting in that they help understand how a work is received by certain demographics). So, yes, sometimes I will write posts that aim to contrast certain popular interpretations with what can be gleaned from a close reading of the text. 

In addition, let me clarify that when I contrasted “resilience” with “trauma”, it was not in terms of personality trait so much as a reference to terms used in psychology: where how a person processes a distressing event through a trauma response or through resilience. 

As for the “smiling thing”, I think it is important to remember the context of the discussion, where I cited the novel:

Jiang Yanli said that he was born with a smiling look. No matter what unfortunate thing happened, he wouldn’t cling on to them; no matter what situation he was in, he would be happy. Although it sounded a bit heartless, it really was not bad.

In the original post, I did reframe this quote by acknowledging that yes, smiling is not an inherent proof that someone has never experienced trauma.

To me, this is a clear move from MXTX to position WWX as the kind of protagonist who can face a storm and keep his smile on his face. I can imagine that some people take it perhaps as a subversion, as the text telling us that WWX is weathering it all with a smile but underneath it all he is just a bundle of unaddressed trauma. And that’s certainly a possible interpretation, but it’s not mine. In this case I think the text is being straightforward. What we see of WWX also seems to support that: the way WWX just rolls with being brought back from the death, how easily he finds a way to adapt to things, etc.

That was more of an acknowledgement that wrt this topic, the novel seemed to have chosen a very straightforward approach or, in other words, to choose to not be That Deep. The smiling disposition here is not part of a psychological diagnosis, but simply a story/characterisation shorthand. I also never suggested that this meant that WWX is not affected by events: “ My point is not that WWX is unaffected by the things that happened to him or the things he’s done during this portion of his life: of course he is! Especially as they are happening to him, or when he is still stuck in a very difficult situation. But I don’t think his character and his arc is about trauma”. I think that nuance is important. 

At the end of the day, I do not want to force people to change their minds. I only use my free time to over-analyse a novel and sometimes try to challenge people to reconsider their initial interpretations of the text or their approaches to literary analysis more generally. 

[prettywarriors]

what are some of your favorite and least favorite magical girl raising project designs? and your thoughts on magical daisy just because she's my fav

Heck yes opinion time! But first what you asked for:

Magical Daisy Good. The yellows-browns-beige works really well with both the purple accents and the minty green hair. She has pleats distributed evenly through her design, and they work in tandem with both the ribbons and with the daisies through her outfit without it getting too busy. I like her detached sleeves with gloves, and I am a sucker for practical footwear on a MG (both for them and for possible cosplayers) I’m not Crazy about the. Pouch? Asymmetrical bustle? The thing off her waist on her right. But it balances with her off-center headdress and has the same small design on it so it get’s a pass. Her hair is simple, but I like it and I think it works for her A good design for an anime (if the MGRP anime had done really well, do you think we would have gotten an in-universe magical daisy episode?)

Other opinions under the cut

Haha only giving opinions on 3 girls? I’m reading Peaceful Days now so enjoy my speed thoughts on MGRP-Aces outfits.

But first Maruino deserves so much recognition because her use of cream and dark brown in place of white and black whenever possible, combined with her chibi style and general color pallet choices, is so good. I know I’ve talked about the LN look vs the anime looks here before, but some designs would just look not nearly as good if she didn’t know how to use colors as well as she does

MGRP:

Snow White- School uniform with an armband indicating she is someone who can help, but with flowers. It’s cute, it’s fairly simple compared to other mgrp outfits, I like the big flowers on the sides of her outfit over the ones hanging from the ribbons off her back. A solid look, but not a winner in my book

Ripple- This is going to come up with quite a few of these designs but I like basically everything but the body. I like the sleeves, the geta are great, love the one ponytail with big shuriken, scarf brings great contrast to the rest of the color scheme, bikini top with ribbons attaching it to a wrapped skirt? The skirt feels like this could have been a keikogi but the top is almost wholly unadorned and overall I wish this was a better look than it is

La Pucelle- Great idea, meh execution. Knight And Dragon? Love it! The navy blue for military feels with armor and goes well with the gold&cream&brown. Her horns are cute! I like the tail- it fits the character and isn’t too large or distracting. Once again I like the arms-neck-legs but the body is. a bikini with a drapery bit off the top and the tabard. The tabard is good! But why is she in her underwear? Give pants??? 

-And yes I know swimsuits cover just as much as underwear but this isn’t a swimsuit and it’s a lazy way to cover what needs to be cover and not even try to make that area of a design more interesting. This doesn’t apply just to LP or even MGRP I have seen comments on this before and unless the character’s outfit is an actual bathing suit, try harder.

Top Speed- A wife. A halloween wife. God I lover her personality and her outfit is definitely on the simple end of mgrp outfits but very fitting. The colors are great, love the hat and the tall boots, the cape stripes might be my least favorite bit? But I feel if it was solid it would be too bland so. And the end of her braids looks like a broom. I love her. Good design.

Ruler- I hate this. But why..... Is it the navy blue is a singular piece? I liked Ripple’s scarf for contrast but maybe this piece isn’t large enough? Her head things look like two crowns on the sides of her head and their weird and. Not awful? But not great. The cape looks chunky at the end? In a weird way? Or is it the drop waist on the top. I know I don’t like the butt fluff. I do like the shoes&leggings? pants? And her crown and hair stars. bad/10 for reasons I can not place

Swim Swim- Techno demon in the accessories, pure schoolgirl in swim class in the torso. The white suit+black devil wings is good as character contrast , and her....hip...discs? have demony tails which is good, but the big headphones and floating disc things work great with the shoes but not with the rest of the outfit? This is two outfits in one but not in a good way. Pick a lane.

Minael&Yunael- They might not be super-murders but boy that’s their only redeeming trait. I do not like them as fictional people. And outfitwise? Meh. I like the chat balloon halos, and the one wing look for the two of them works, and again the use of Navy rather than pure black is good, but the old fashioned dress with a bib is. boring. and not in a simple way just not interesting? Like I think if the stiped bib thing was removed it might look better? This also might be a secret hatred of mine as I think I have figured out from a later outfit. For now- boo

Tama- Are you spotted or brown&white? Her fluff bits and legs say spotted and her ears and tail and paws say brown and white and I wish we’d pick a lane? Also not crazy about the butt-length cape. I do like the bone clasp and the hood, and you have to have big ol paws for a dog girl. She’s. Fine. Just fine.

Nemurin- Her hair clouds say magical girl, the rest says generic cute sleepy anime girl. I like the socks, and her hair, but she’s not that interesting? Don’t get me wrong she’s cute but the bulk of her design is Big PJs. The candy clasp is nice as a sweet dreams thing? Sorry Endo

Calamity Mary- Titty fur. Boots with spurs and arms with fringe and mini cowboy hat are all good, and her skirt is. A little boring but fine. But the best part of her top is the sheriff badge. If we’re committed to evil=slutty=evil, you can still make a more appealing lewd top than a bikini over some fluff. Let sluts be sexy? Stay dead bitch.

Magicaloid 44- Elementary schoolgirl but robot. Bulky but in that smooth modern look. I’m a sucker for hair horns, even when they’re metal or plastic, and she just has a good silhouette. But her colors could be better? I will say her mn art has her skirt look like a skirt, and the anime said This Is A Solid Hunk Of Plastic/Metal and I think that works better. Swap her dark brown bits for a navy to go with her skirt and i think i’d be out of complaints

Sister Nana- There are multiple MG nuns. What’s up with that. Good use of sexy belts for theme consistency, but I with there was more red up top or her shoes were a different color. 9/10 for dirty nun

Weiss Winterprison- Girl I love you why is your outfit not good as a MG look or even really as an outfit. Your practical looking boots have heels, your colors are boring and messy, you have like. belts but not enough for them to look interesting? Gurl I love you do something with this bland mess.\

Cranberry- ‘I love this’ I say threw clenched teeth. I love green and flower motifs, and I like boleros and big sleeves. But I’m not that into this? I think it’s that her top looks like a nice shirt that’s a little long and then she. Just has leggings on and a big belt. I guess the buckle is like. A big thorn? And i’m into tunics with leggings but this doesn’t? do that in a way I like? The red-blue roses are a nice contrast to the green and creme but i just. I have no idea I want to be in love with this and it’s Middling for me. More elf ear’d MGs pls

Hardgore Alice- I love alice, I am a fan of edgy spins on stuff(sorry), so I’m a bit disappointed? And I think it’s just the colors? I love the checkered pockets and the striped stockings and bows and the headband and apron and bloomers and dress shape and even her eye bags (mood). I guess I just wish there was more of the off white-maybe for the full apron? or even the bloomers? I love you please re-color.

Restart:

Keek- This bitch might win it for worst look. I like her hair color, and giant sleeves, and the cd and rubix cube are nice touches for an outfit, but what outfit. A bikini top and slightly-larger-than-usual underwear style bottom with a big plate of metal? Are those supposed to be shorts??? Points for normal shoes but take off the coat and this is nothing. And the coat isn’t much to begin with. 0/10 might take home the gold

Clantail- I wish the apron part was gone? But the colors are good tho I do have a question about the horns- they’re cute but if she can change her lower body to other animals they won’t always fit very well? And her necklaceuhhh tattoo? is odd. But she’s fine

Pechika- Good colors, like the feathers, I wish the chef’s coat had a different fit but it’s good. Could go without the tail. Also has some almost military feeling elements like the hair cross and the? epaulets? This is a spats stan account

Rionetta- Great use of colors, patterns, ribbons, has a specific look that works great for the doll dress. Hell year ball joints and weird eyes. Wonderful. I hate it. No fucking clue why. Like with the angels maybe? I hate strips? Except I don’t. Maybe just in specific situations? Or I hate multiple patterns? Rio looks good. I just see her and go into a rage. 

Nonako Miyokata- A very good look overall, just not super Magical Girl? Definitely magical miko but. The yin yang accessories feel a tad out of place- replace them with existing themes or add them in elsewhere

Magical Daisy- Still good

Nokko- This is just a maid. A cute maid with a weird choice of hair decor, but I think she got her outfit at the same shop as Milkit. *shrug*

@Meow-Meow- boy I hope I didn’t just at someone for real. I like her colors and tail, poofy detached sleeves are good, her top works with the open dress. I’m a fan of detailed edging on a piece, and it works with the pattern.  I’d’ve liked to see more of the bells that are on her wrists? I guess she had a racist accent originally though which yikes. 

Genopsyko Yumenoshima- A great sentai outfit, love the helmet ears and the tail. Not good as a magical girl outfit unless we fully dissolve the mg/sentai line. But the suit is great, slightly oversized gloves, and retro lasergun that doesn’t even work? Yesssss.

Detec Bell- Fwuffy. Great hat, love the dress, a good use of a cape, simple but very good. I feel a feel some of the ribbons could be changed up but a solid if simple design. 

Lapis Lazuline (2)- Cute starry tiger princess? I guess I’m a fan of navy and brown because i’m into it here too. Good use of the silvery details on the sleeves and dress bottom, and the links both at the cape clasp and on the boots. Really nice.

Melville- Bootleg Cranberry in every way. I like her over-pants and sleeve-cape, but the weird bib-top under the bikini top is a bad shape? Hair roses good and leg thorns do get a thumbs up. 

Cherna Mouse- If the turtle gets it’s own distinct look, why is Cherna just baby+ hamster? The hood is cute, and I dig the boots which work with the shoulder things, but said things don’t go with the toddler one piece+cape. She reminds me of Moetan and that is a bad thing.

Pfle- Ohhh this bitch. I may have been reading these books but I have no damn idea what she is up to and I hate it. Love her eyepatch tho. Super cute throne-wheelchair and it continues the bird motif. Her dress is nice but not that interesting? Seems more generic old timey fancy lady dress than Magical. Honestly I could go for some mixing up of the colors here? The dress and hair and throne all are a bit too similar. Maybe make the dress wine?

Shadow Gale- I like her look but I don’t feel it says nurse as much as it’s supposed to? Her aces profile honestly gives Rue vibes. It’s very monochromatic but I guess that works for her. Big fan of her skirt, kindof with it went all the way around. Solid design

Masked Wonder- Who? I refuse to play person5 because it’s been overhyped but isn’t this one of them? Not awful as a phantom thief outfit, but doesn’t say magical girl phantom thief at all. I do like the roses on the belt and. garters? Kindof wish we’d loose the color on the cape because it clashes more than anything with the rest of the look

Akane- I like her long hair flower. But her samurai-kimono look doesn’t feel blended well enough imo and the colors are too over the place while still being bland.

Lake of Fire Flame Flamey- Hell if I know how she looks I just love typing that name

Limited:

Weddin- Good colors, a bit too busy? The chains+roses+lace doesn’t feel well balanced. But the flame and ankle chain are balanced because Maruino is good at asymmetrical details 

Captain Grace- A pirate magical girl? Is she legit the only one from any main stream series? Well she set the bar high. The captain coat is great, multiple small anchors, the hat, and her skirt(?) is very cute. I guess the sole of the boots stands out a bit? But very solid (wait is that a tail? or a butt hook? :/)

Funny Trick- If Las vegas was a magical girl. Colors and silhouette are good, I’m just not vibing with this. sorry girl

Kuru-kuru Hime- Yiss more ballet themed outfits. Good colors, love the shape of the giant back bow. I could go without the big ribbon coming off the headpiece? It’s nice

Postarie- Buttwings! I love her hair shape, just. Not a fan of the orange and green colors? She’s a delivery girl but feels more marching band. It’s a good design, just doesn’t feel fitting? Great just not for her

Rain Pow- Now this is a sci-fiy look while still saying magical girl. The tail is yet another weird thing, and I could go without the permeant ring behind her, but the shape of her outfit is very good, and love the silly heart hair. Wish the gloves were a different color? But this is up there

Tepsekemei- Genie outfits being problematic isn’t something I can speak to, but this is a solid genie look with additions to feel different, specifically the lotuses. It’s good, and I haven’t seen flying turtles since love hina so. Good for her.

Mana- You’re not a magical girl. Maybe I just hate bibs? The hat is great and snake leg is fun, I wish her collar was actually smaller to stand out more? It’s a fine mage look i guess

Hana Gekokujou- Great use of hair color as contrast to a committed color scheme. A cute traditional bunny look. Not personally my favorite but it is Good.

7753- Big Coat! Giant heart braids! Consistent heart theme! It’s bland compared to a lot of the other outfits, and I don’t think her flat heart uhh hair? pieces? like rain pow? work as well with her. But I think she works well for a member of the resources department. Wait is her hat backwards? Amazing

Archfiend Pam- I’m mostly a fan of this. The top is great, it’s carried through at one hip, she has the weird arm guy to keep her asymmetry going on. I just wish she’d commit to either fur Or pleats as trim? Both is a weird texture choice

Pythie Frederica- This bitch took a while for her proper appearance. I love the horns on the hood, and the stars throughout work well. I really don’t care for her skirtdress though? It’s too long and in ribbons and feels almost jellyfish-y? I feel it’s supposed to feel like she’s standing in fire but that doesn’t work pass a glance for me

Tot Pop- Love hot topic. Her spiky ribbon is my favorite bit, and I’m a fan of oversized sleeves. A great mall goth look, not amazing as a magical girl look tho. The head decor feels most on brand for the genre.

Punkin- What if the three musketeers were murderous and royalty. I love the hair feather and dig the ruff, the cape honestly feels like overkill? The boots are great and I dig the pants. Once again, why tails. I know mahou-furbies has reviewed a lot of these girls with the same comment and she’s right. Pick red or blue for this look though.

Sonia Bean- Kindof busy, in a garbage way. Like her outfit is made of fancy garbage to make an old timey doll. Which is fitting. Love the dress shape. Less into the weird dangly poofs.

Jokers:

Princess Inferno- The whole princess line works well together. Quake has the least Team outfit but I feel all four work well together? Inferno’s bikini is a smidge above other tops with the fire shapes, and I like her hair, but I think she’s my least favorite princess.

Princess Deluge- Swirls and scales throughout? Armor? Gold jewelry? My biggest issue is the chain to the weapon because this is a really nice outfit.

Princess Quake- Why does your tail start in the middle of the back? I like her leotard and eye theme, and her head piece adds nice shape. Good asymmetry. shame she’s into children The hair gem is a fun touch

Princess Tempest- The apples are a weird touch? Good for color but weird as a theme? I love the leaves- honestly I’m a huge fan of the vaguely toga-y look. Are the apples supposed to be an atlanta thing? Her skirt could be a bit better but Nice

Prism Cherry- Princess of our hearts. What a color scheme. Her oversized dangly accents work well here I feel, and I love the skirt and the leaf looking ribbon behind the neck. I could do without the arm fluff, but the top garter for the skirt is a nice touch

Marika Fukuroi- My wife is a bitch and I like her so much. A much more vibrant outfit than most of the mgrp girls, the black is edgy but in a fun loud way. I love her skirt and every damn crazy flower. Her top is my least favorite with the smaller flowers connecting her top to her bottom and the frills that honestly are out of place. Great eyes

Styler Mimi- A fancy outfit that fits her theme, with a nice silhouette and simple color scheme. Ruined by the giant back powder puffs. Yes she would be fairly simple without those but they’re so garish and awkward. Good hair

Stanczyka- I thought her middrif was another hunk of plaster like the mask and now that I see it’s just skin with some stars :/ The whole head thing is good, and the fur is consistent throughout even if I’m not a fan of it. The giant sleeves are. weird. I want to like them but. Her swirly tiddys are a nice touch. The brown hair on the tail doesn’t fit

Lady Proud- For someone who lived for a lot of pages I do not remember her. Her leotard works with the sleeves to feel like an old timey dress and the way the cape is being held up to look like bat wings is nice. The green layer in her hair is an odd choice. I do dig the hair clips with the horns

Umbrain- Froggy slicker. ...Sakura did it better, the yellow and purple&red is a meh color combo sorry. I do love the candy additions for the ame(rain) ame(candy) play, and her umbrella is great. But once again I am confronted by a bib. Also her slicker is actually two pieces? Bad colors, bad body, good theme

Filru- I like the colors and the corset, and in theory the chunky knitting is very cute but I feel it’s at odds with the boots and corset. Make the whole thing chunky knitting- it’d be cute. The head doily also could be more on theme imo

Uttakatta- again, what did you do? giant overalls are good in theory, but the slits and the. bubbles? clear donuts. are just ugly. Honestly her whole look is not good, and a bubble theme has so much potential for cool shit :(

Kafuria- good use of colors, I’m not personally into the shape of her kimono as a mg dress, but the wings and the veil+such are nice

Grim Heart- this bitch. God her dress is a great shape. I think i’m not fully into her spade tail ribbons, but otherwise love? The flamingo is Silly but again as an alice fan, i do not care (ask me about kagihime for 10000 words of rage!)

Shufflin- the tiny bib haunts me but the big double sides apron card piece is a nice way to do the simple and versatile Card look. The hair is cute and i like the suit as a big piece behind the head

Aces:

Armor Arlie- chunky suit of armor. but Cute. as an armor fan in MG designs, even I think this is A Bit Much, but it has enough going for it that i think it’s a fun look

Bluebell Candy- once again Maruino kills it with using navy very nicely. A military vibe with the epilates and double breasted uhh skirt decor. honestly shocked the hat is center, and mm good hair happenings. A very nice design. still not into the weird fluff tail stuff

Dark Cutie- Great hair decorations, love the lunar details, seems to be a leotard over leggings? It’s nice. It’s not crazy grabbing or stands out that much in silhouette, but i do like it

Micchan the Dictionary- tying your coat around your neck is not valid, motarboards are not good magical girl accessesories, i personally have an owl vendetta, the red in her shoes appears no where else, and the shape of her dress is just weird. plus that hair is. not good. Oh wow. I might rank her lower than keek. oh Wow

Glassianne- this is just that alcreamie pokemon. i wish the exposed strawberry went all the way down instead of there being more icing along the bottom. she has a consistent theme and nice colors, i’m not not digging it

Uluru- said dog. 7753 and tama’s child. she looks warm but not super magical. why is she dog themed?

Sorami Nakano- gamer aesth. I could do without the hair paws, but the jumper is super cute, love the eyes and the hair tones, general color scheme, bandaid is a cute touch. A solid look.

Premium Sachiko- good colors, i like the cut of the sleeves/boots/dress, but her art has her legs blend together and that’d just the art but weird. nice use of four leaf clovers and horseshoes throughout for her luck theme. 

CG Angel Hammer- I like the flowers and the bones tail/wings. The halo thing is. odd, and it’s hard to get a great idea of her actual outfit. weird hair choice, tiny bottom but at least it has some frills. Needs more art

Patricia- acab. great colors tho and I like the shapes for the shoulders and wrist, and the light theme. The bright blue ribbons and earrings stand out well. This is actually a really solid design. 

Puk Puck- i hate this baby angel there’s too much to look at. Your bondage leg is weird! cute chest piece. you can’t have cloud swirls and drills for hair damn it. your halo also has a veil? fuck you. 6/10.

Best Outfits: Princess Tempest and Grim Heart Worst Outfits: Keek and Micchan the Dictionary and Uttakatta