#losing it over how the only person Kaine really knows and would be willing to talk to when he’s Sad

[scarletspider2the2ndpower]

“Heading toward Ωmega,” Spider-Man (Vol. 1/1990), #61.

Writer: Howard Mackie; Penciler: Tom Lyle; Inker: Chris Ivy; Colorist: Kevin Tinsley; Letterer: Richard Starkings

[meyerlansky]

since I watched u play thru marble nest and you had all those withheld Thoughts and Opinions can I ask ur thoughts on one aspect of the story: the way everyone in town seems to disagree on what kind of person dankovsky is, what he wants to do, etc.? it feels to me like it's meaningful on a story and meta level that he's so built up by others to be whatever they want to see?

admittedly most of those went unsaid because i’m inarticulate as shit when i can’t write my thoughts out and i lost my train of thought talking to npcs, and also all of them basically just end in "godDAMN i love him"

BUT YES oh man i definitely agree, daniil is on the receiving end of a TON of projection and assumptions, and i think the thing is, he sort of... cultivates it? like artemy gets people's assumptions projected on him too, but he's MUCH more vocal about correcting it when someone's expectations of him don't match up with how he sees himself. daniil, on the other hand, tends to wear people's perceptions of him like a second skin, and doesn't push back nearly as hard or as often when those perceptions don't sync up. i will be nice to my dash and put my rambly bullshit under a cut, but tl;dr i think daniil finds value in finding out how people see him and utilizing that perception to get what he really wants, and he's willing to play the villain in particular because a. negative perception is as useful as positive perception if you're clever enough to use it to your advantage, and b. based on some stuff in artemy's route but especially based on the particular circumstances of marble nest, he thinks that, to some degree, he deserves to be thought badly of.

so i realized halfway through writing this you probably meant marble nest's story specifically, but i think it's relevant to his characterization in artemy's route too, because... marble nest daniil is not that different from artemy route daniil, as far as i'm concerned—he's just more desperate and more beaten down. as for the actual question, overall i get the vibe that daniil's used to leveraging how he's perceived to get what he needs out of a situation, and he's waaay more comfortable playing the villain than, say, artemy is, if that's what people are putting on him from jump. it's less work, right? correcting people's assumptions is a waste of valuable time and energy, and people are hard to convince once they've set their mind to something. why bother when you can just play along and, if you're clever enough about it, get what you need out of the interaction anyway? he gets built up into so many different versions of himself by different characters because he's willing to be different things to different people without it eroding his goals or his sense of self. he has a flair for the dramatic, obviously, but i don't know how much of it is innate and how much of it is cultivated in service of that kind of perception leveraging. like, prime example, the day 1 conversation with artemy reads as EXTREMELY performative—from his word choice to his demeanor to the exclamation points in the dialogue to the fucking LIGHTING, he comes off like he's playing a role, and not a new one. and when the conversation's over, he's learned some things about what kind of person artemy is, what kinds of things get a rise out of him, all without really revealing too much of his own hand. but the front sloughs off the closer he gets to artemy, and it sloughs off QUICK, to the point that A DAY AND A HALF LATER he's gone from saying "you owe me" in the most facetious way possible to "i need your help" and "if this goes badly, i'll take the consequences" completely unselfconsciously, and subsequent conversations with artemy are complete turnarounds from how he approaches artemy and their relationship on day 1. on the whole, i think he cares way less about his reputation than he does about Getting Shit Done, and he's surprisingly willing to be the scapegoat for other people's fears and other negative emotions, as long as the end result doesn't hamper his goals. which makes some sense considering his corpus of research involves spitting directly in the face of natural law and the people who consider themselves responsible for enforcing it. you don't do that kind of shit if you care about being well-liked. so i think 99% of the time, daniil gets read multiple ways—often incorrectly—because he finds more value in utilizing those perceptions than he finds in correcting them and Being Known. as far as characters we see in the game go, artemy's the exception, which might change once daniil's route is out, but every comment everyone else makes to artemy about daniil leans on their assumptions about him, which means he's not going around showing anyone else what he really thinks.

i also think daniil has sort of... internalized that he's Unlikable, on a personal level. he doesn't walk into a single situation in p2 expecting to be liked, or willingly helped, or for his presence to be wanted beyond the utility he can provide. he relies almost entirely on his ability to deliver solutions [with, uh, declining success as the game goes on], the respect his reputation and his status as the kains' guest confers, and on the rumor that he's willing to get violent if things don't go his way. i think he's utterly convinced his ultimate goals will benefit humanity as a whole and therefore are fundamentally good, but i don't think he thinks HE'S good. there's a couple of moments in marble nest where he can pretty explicitly shoot down people saying nice things about him, and the "i guess i had to prove them right" and "do you condemn me?" lines in the shelter convo do not read to me like the words of a man who thinks he's 100% in the right in the way he's gone about achieving his goals. so like as much as i think he does have a very solid sense of Who He Is, i don't think it's a very generous self-image, and i don't think it's entirely accurate either, because i do think he's fundamentally a good person, despite people [in the game and out of it] not really bothering to push past whatever front he's put on. artemy pushes through it, and the kids in marble nest push through it, and i think it's somewhat telling that the kids in marble nest are... the only real people IN marble nest. georgiy undermining his authority as soon as he's indisposed is part of the fever dream; the soldiers and orderlies believing he's the one giving the okay to kill kids and civilians are part of the fever dream; the clerk assuming daniil will agree with his racist bullshit is part of the fever dream. all these negative images of himself are in his head—based on previous conversations with the real people, but at the time of marble nest, in his head. they're all things he, somewhere in his mind, expects people to think of him or expect of him, and to me, that's not the kind of stuff someone as arrogant and convinced of his own awesomeness as people seem to think daniil is would think about himself. but the kids worrying about his health and taking care of him while he's infected are real, and for whatever reason they think he's worth trying to save. THAT'S the reality, THAT'S who he really is, even if he can't see it himself, and i don't think he can.

so ANYWAY i think the multiplicity of daniils in marble nest in particular is to some degree a manifestation of the fact that he IS willing to be different things to different people, that he knows this about himself, and that he has SOME level of anxiety over the thought of the various masks becoming the reality, and him losing control over who he ACTUALLY is, not just how he's perceived. i think this bothers him in artemy's route as well—the last thing he says to artemy translates to "the greatest power is to have power over oneself" and i do not think he's talking about himself. i think he's talking about artemy, and the fact that, ESPECIALLY from daniil's perspective in artemy's route, artemy very much controls not only his own narrative, but at the very least strongly influences daniil's and everyone else's too. [there are also layers and layers with that line and the doll narrative but i am too tired to get into it right now and also the doll narrative fucks my feelings up in so many ways.] i have no idea if any of this makes any sense, but here it is /gestures weakly at All This

[curemoonliite]

Premiere Nebula x PMMM!

So this is just something I was thinking about after finding out about the Nanoha promotion on Magia Record JP. Obviously, PMMM seems increasingly willing to think about what other magical girls would look like in their ‘verse, so obviously, Magica Quartet has done nothing but enable my “what if an Incubator came to the Premiere Nebula world” curiosities.

And so, without further ado, here are my headcanons for how this crazy crossover (that could only happen in fanfiction) would go down:

—You can make a contract with Kyubey, even if you’re an Actress. In fact, a lot of Actresses are so messed up by their alterings that they almost think becoming a different type of magical girl would ease their pain. (Since, y’know, a lot of them have given up on not being magical girls.)

—When I say different type, I mean it. You can’t be a Puella Magi and an Actress at the same time. The Manufacturer can alter a Puella Magi’s body, but can’t do a whole lot else due to the Soul Gem deal. Similarly, Actresses who contract get a new transformation and lose their wings.

—The Incubators probably do a ton of recruiting in the Actress community once they realize what they really are—a new breed of magical girl with greater magical potential and more importantly, with greater potential to burn out quickly with all the despair they have.

—Puella Actress (dumb name, I know) powers tend to be linked to their wishes, but they still have a little bit of their old Actress power. Those with more vague wishes can even keep their Actress magic entirely (I.e. Xing wishes for a stronger body, so she still has her fire magic, much like Tsuruno).

—There’s a little less diversity in magic types for Puella Magi (fire, water, forest, light, dark, void), so Actresses may also change types in the transformation. For instance, Valka fits a little more into what would be considered a fire-type than the light-type Actress she’s technically classified as. Similarly, since air-type Puella Magi don’t seem to exist, Stelle becomes a dark-type.

—On a side note, the Incubators are very surprised that light and dark magic are so rare in the PN universe.

—Most Puella Actresses are pretty unfazed by the Soul Gem revelation. After all, selling your soul doesn’t mean a whole lot when your body’s been altered as much as an Actress’s, and a few even take it as a release from their altered bodies. The worst reactions Kyubey probably gets are from Xue (who as a therapist hates the sheer principle of separating body and soul), Stelle (who wonders if her old Firebrand magic drove someone to become a Witch), and Xing (who just feels like she wasted her wish since her Soul Gem is already a stronger body).

—The Incubators do not touch Alarice with a 39-and-a-half foot pole, because while they understand she has tons of magical potential, they are also not stupid. They can deal with strong Witches, but not Puella Magi that can rip the planet apart like a black hole if they got any more power than they already have.

—For reasons listed down below, Stelle and Valka actually take way longer to Witch out than anyone expected. On the other hand, the relatively chill Phea makes a terrible wish choice and would probably Witch out first.

—For reasons also listed below, Omega is no longer with the Nebula. A few members still talk to her, but since her wish tampered with their leader’s magic, there’s a lot of bad blood with her. Io and Xue are the only one who really supports her on it, but even then, both think there could have been a better way.

And so, wishes are down below!

—Omega: “I wish Valka didn’t have to be an Actress anymore.” Light-type Puella Magi with magic-cancelling powers. Probably uses a scarf as a weapon because we all deserve a mahou shoujo light magic-version Eraserhead.

—Phea: “I wish for the power to inspire people.” Water-type with charm powers, siren theme. Wish got wildly misinterpreted to mean people would straight up obey everything she said, like Kyoko’s wish.

—Xue: “I wish I could read people’s minds.” Water-type (but in the Waterbender sense that she can also freeze stuff) with pretty straightforward mind-reading powers.

—Xing: “I wish I had a stronger body.” Fire-type with super strength and regeneration similar to Sayaka’s.

—Io: “I wish people would stop trusting President Tsukimura so much.” Light-type who can break Witch hypnosis for a minute or so—just long enough to get the person out of the Labyrinth.

—Kaine: “I wish I had the strength to leave my asshole boyfriend.” Dark-type who leaves the Manufacturer with probably one of the most relatable wishes of all time.

(Seriously, I feel like wishes like that would be so common, even with high school girls. Or especially with high school girls.)

—Koto: “I wish I could express my emotions like humans can.” Forest-type, takes over Xue’s empath position in the group. I see her gameplay as similar to Kirika’s—a really good Defense Puella Magi who’s not too shabby on the offensive angle, either.

—Stelle: “I wish I didn’t have to take others’ magic to survive.” Dark-type. RIP Stelle once she finds out what Grief Seeds really are!

—Valka: “I wish Actresses, Puella Magi, and humans could live equally.” After being brought down to normal by Omega, she bides her time and sees for herself what being a Puella Magi does to you. Plays a role similar to Madoka’s and plans her wish out so it sounds very normal, but contains a weasel word that will break the whole system. (That being, if magical girls and humans live equally, they would also have to die equally—through normal human death.) This wish was based entirely on the fact that Madoka and Valka are both magical girls of hope and, more importantly, that I had a dream several years ago where Valka wore the Madokami dress. Fire-type Puella Magi.