#so i'm probably really biased

[stuckontheflipside]

genuinely dont understand why some people dont like anas mythic this season shes so silly i love her

also she has a unique "my ultimate is ready" line that i havent seen anyone mention? "my ultimate is ready, are they? (laughs)" shes so evil gives her a little kiss on the cheek /p

[hauntzbin]

i feel like it's pretty safe to assume the people who say Chaggie is toxic because of Vaggie's attachment to Charlie haven't really been deeply in love before, especially not in a situation where their partner literally saved their life.

Sure a dynamic like that could go sour if you become too overbearing/demanding or controlling out of fear of losing them, but Vaggie is very obviously not that?

I can't exactly put the feeling into words, it's sort of a situation you have to experience in order to understand. But when you owe someone your life, especially when it feels that person is also your soulmate, of course you dedicate the rest of it to making them happy and giving unyielding support. Of course you feel like you owe them the world, because they're your whole world and the only reason you're even still here.

Yes it can create a power imbalance and your partner could take advantage of the obsessive loyalty that level of dependency breeds, but Charlie chooses not to because shes not abusive and she respects and loves vaggie.

Charlie recognizes that Vaggie has self worth issues and places her value in how useful she is to her, and instead of making it into a toxic situation charlie takes the time to reassure vaggie that she doesn't need to be 'proving' herself and that she is loved and valued as she is.

[wildflowercryptid]

sometimes, i think about the extra bit of depth alex's romance is given when you date him as a guy and i just gotta. stare at the ceiling for a bit...

[yuseirra]

Scene from Memento Mori Chapter 4 by victarion

This scene is present in every piece of p3 media there is, I think, but it still stood out to me here and I like how it was handled. Speaking of which, I love how Yukari checks up and walks home together with you after this in Reload as a newly added thing. That really shows the kindness in her character and also, it's cute!

This chapter also had the Junpei-crying-and-panicking-in-the-convenience-store scene that's briefly brought up in the game and it was written really well!

other scenes: Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 19

[watermelinoe]

my niece once got upset w my dad bc he wouldn't buy her some overpriced drunk elephant skincare product. she was freaked out about getting wrinkles. at age eight. i wish her mom had never bought her that damn smartphone

[fitzrove]

Omg turns out Brigitte Hamann and Fredrick Morton beefed over Rudolf's depiction in Affaire Mayerling (das Musical)

[my-current-obsession]

My hyper-specific type when it comes to otome guys:

- Absolutely pathetic - Cannot speak to a girl normally to save his life - Tries to be calm/aloof, but turns tsundere when flustered enough - A good and pure man at heart, yet does some questionable things - ...Little Red Riding Hood???

[svtskneecaps]

thank you for bearing with my purgatory posting and i'm also glad to see i'm not the only one who still has this fungus eating away at my brain matter. seeing other purgatory posting in the tag makes me feel better lmfao.

i'm not done btw, posting will (probably) continue as i revisit vods. wanted to extend a thanks in the interim, since i know how contentious the event was in the moment. i kinda thought the general consensus was most people hated thinking about it, but there's been a weird amount of engagement and yknow other people talking. makes me happy to know i'm not alone here!

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

Something I've been considering recently: the big storytelling difference between Hideo Kojima and Yoko Taro.

There's an obvious reason I've been thinking about this, I feel: both these guys are, on the surface, exceedingly similar. They're both well-known Japanese video game creators*, they're both known for their eccentricities, they both tell stories that run the razor-thin line between 'Violence is corrupting and immoral' and 'Okay, but that bit of violence was pretty sick, right?' really well, as well as throwing in some really funny 'Hey, what the fuck did I just watch?' energy, hell they even both had a game in their series directed by Platinum Games, I don't especially think this is an overreach, here.

But they are different creators, and I've been thinking about their differences (specifically in storytelling - obviously one makes Action-RPGs and one makes Stealth Games and Baby Postman Simulators) as I play MGS3 and Nier Replicant, and I think I've come down to this: it's in how they condemn violence, and especially war.

Kojima bases all of his stories in reality - a heightened reality, perhaps, but there's a reason multiple MGS games end with long lists of dates and events, Kojima's made-up ones slipped in-between the actual history. Kojima bases his critiques on things that are real and tangible - MGS3 itself, more than any bee-wielding supervillain or photosynthetic sniper, is about the Cold War, and it's no accident that the Boss' speech at the end isn't about the Philosophers, or Volgin, or Metal Gear (METAL GEAR?) it's about soldiers, their fates and their traumas. Kojima lives in the world of... not exactly reality, but allegory-through-reality, and it makes his games pretty explicit in their messaging - which in my mind is a good thing, because it means that people who fundamentally misunderstand MGS aren't just wrong, they're obviously wrong - show me an MGS fan who thinks they're pro-America and pro-military, and I'll show you someone who did not pay attention to MGS.

Yoko Taro, on the other hand, is entirely a creature of allegory. Yoko himself has said in interviews that he tells stories primarily as a way to get people to feel something, and all other things like connections to the other games or even internal consistency comes as a secondary concern (as someone who's tried multiple times to tie everything Drakenier related together - that's believable.) As an inevitable result of this, his stories aren't really 1:1 parallels to history or the modern day, they're very general conflicts that speak to a wide range of topics.

Put it this way: in MGS4, Kojima describes in great detail a situation that is the natural endpoint of the geo-political situation (especially re: America) during most of the early 21st Century, especially The War on Terror - instead of war being a means of obtaining resources to generate income for big corporations, now war is the means of income, and all the inherent flaws of American late-stage capitalism have been applied to it - to the point that soldiers have to pay extra to use someone else's gun. It's a heightened, at times absurd version of reality, but it focuses on specific issues and flaws with the subject matter - The War on Terror, and through them highlights issues with our current world - hell, Kojima may have predicted some of the issue we currently face with capitalism.

In Nier Automata, however, Yoko doesn't present an exaggeration of a real-world conflict to portray it's flaws and its hopelessness. Instead, he constructs an entirely hopeless war, a war that is literally pointless on every side, and explores how people react to that. As opposed to Kojima's slight exaggeration of the War on Terror, by the end of Automata Yoko has presented a proxy war fought on behalf of two races that died off millennia ago, between two groups that are, at their core, exactly the same, made from the same components, fought on one side because of a poorly worded instruction from their creators that necessitates eternal total war as a basic fact of their evolutionary cycle but also inevitably results in their evolutions being violently purged because any form of passivity is betrayal, and on the other as a grand Machiavellian scheme to kill off their own troops, thereby concealing the deaths of their creators – a scheme, it’s worth noting, conceived of by an android that no longer remembers conceiving it, because his own scheme necessitates his constant assassination by the person he cares about the most to prevent him from discovering his own plan. Kojima's wars in MGS4 are absurd and pointless for us because we know what the results of the War on Terror were, Yoko's war in Automata is kinda like an onion - every layer you peel back on it, you discover a new way that it's pointless, and every time you do, you're crying a little bit more.

So, wrapping this up before people realise I just used the ultimate cliche of poorly-worded food metaphors, if you were to ask me what the big difference between Yoko Taro and Hideo Kojima was... well, I'd still go with the gameplay genres, but I'd also say that it's a slight, but really interesting, difference in how they go about their metaphors. As for which is better... neither, obviously. They're both really talented creators, this is just a style thing. You seriously expect me to choose between a series that includes 'a man pretended to be possessed by the ghost of his crush's son because he grafted his arm onto him and everyone bought it' and a series that includes 'at some point the Earth stopped spinning. This has never been explained in any of the games'? What are you, a cop?

*albeit if Yoko ever heard someone compare him to Kojima he'd probably simultaneously die of embarrassment and make a joke about being a younger, hotter Kojima.

[theminecraftbee]

also, i'm curious if this is just me or if this is anyone else: it feels like scavenger vaults are, currently, objectively better than the other two objectives? like, i think that obelisks is probably best if your goal is "complete a vault quickly" and you have the gear for a boss fight, but otherwise, scavenger vaults basically let you have a chance of winning by looting normally, and the scavenger items can be reduced to soul dust once you have the soul diffuser, meaning that unlike, say, punching half the obelisks and then having to flee, getting half your scav items and having to leave rewards you with a small amount of resources anyway. the only downside is that obelisks are easier to consistently find than scavenger items, really. (monoliths are basically like obelisks except you don't have to fight a boss, but they're uncommon and the rewards aren't as good, which is why i'm using obelisks as a comparison point here.)

as a result, since i largely go into the vaults intending to loot and only switch to "intending a completion" if i get halfway through and it seems viable or if i have a bounty that requires i complete a vault, i'm normally kind of like... disappointed to get a non-scavenger vault right now? especially given the soul diffuser's existence. however, i also just dislike hunting down obelisks (i have hunter for it but hunter's range isn't big enough to solve my problems with hunting them down). so, since i have more fun with scavenger vaults anyway, i may be biased towards them being better.

like, idk. i know iskall prefers scavenger vaults too right now so it may not just be me. or it could. so i'm curious if anyone else is of that opinion.

[itsahotsecondafter]

hdhdhdjd sorry if its feels like im being annoying or condescending. im not!! the "eclipse liking the cello" part was a reference to that one piece you did of solar playing the cello!! not surebif that was clear enough if so my bad sjhddj,,, but that solar piece lives in my head rent free for some reason idk why but i think about it!!! a lot!! no cluebwhy but yippeee!!!!

OH! NO SORRY THAT MAKES SENSE-I WAS THINKING ABOUT THAT POST WHEN I READ IT (my brain caught the tone of the thing but I kept thinking it was in reference to a specific piece and not the instrument for some reason-) BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO ASSUME IT WAS ABOUT THAT CUZ YOU MENTIONED ECLIPSE (and I don't wanna assume stuff about people's aus cuz that doesn't usually end well...) BUT THANK YOU FOR THE REFERENCE! AND THE EXPLANATION (i'm chronically stupid sorry)

i kinda wanna redraw that one actually cuz it doesn't look the way i wanted it to-but-uh- thanks! for mentioning me! and for clarifying!

[sysig]

A few more “canon” designs, a few more new ones (Patreon)

[tovaicas]

god I wish I liked RPR more than I do

[dazais-guardian-angel]

delighted that i'm so much more fond of chuuya at this point than i was just a couple years ago. it took the stormbringer play, the cannibalism play, and the fifteen manga (still haven't gotten to those two novels in their entirety, I Will Soon I Promise), it took 6ish+ years, but i can confidently say I Get It Now. Now i just need asagiri to break him (affectionate) in the manga and actually give him a character arc already <333

[ladyluscinia]

wait hi it's me ourflagmeansgayrights messaging u from the main blog. i liked ur addition when u rb'd my post abt ed saying he doesn't have any friends, but i also saw ur tags and i would LOVE to hear ur tangent abt why the "izzy likes blackbeard not ed" interpretation is contradicted by the text. i've personally have been reading it that way, and most of what i've seen/heard abt ppl talking abt ed and izzy have been reading it that way, but i would rlly like to hear the other argument

Oh yes, @ourflagmeansgayrights . Absolutely. I love presenting arguments. (At length, as you will see 😅)

(Link to the mentioned post for reference)

Ok, so first, most important point - Edward is not a soft marshmallow center person whose true self is silk robes and sweets and singing. My first major meta for this fandom was an analysis of his character, which is pretty long but worth the read since that's where I'm coming from for ALL of this. (Also the skeleton of this whole analysis is in there too.) I'm going to use names the same way I did in that meta, where Edward is the real guy, and "Blackbeard" and "Ed" are both at least partially fake personas he's putting on. Got it? Ok.

Why Izzy Loves Edward (Not Blackbeard)

Obviously, Izzy does spend a lot of time propping up the unapproachable legend of Blackbeard, which is where I assume the idea he's fixated on it comes from. The thing is that this is what Izzy does in public, to other people, and it's kind of his job. Izzy in private is a different story.

---

Broadly, Izzy's approach to the Blackbeard mask is very similar to and informed by Izzy's general approach to violence. Unlike multiple other characters, including Edward, Izzy isn't much of a sadist. He treats violence as a tool he's very skilled with. Uses it with purpose. He isn't invested in keeping Blackbeard around because he thinks he's real. Blackbeard is a tool that, in Izzy's assessment, they very much still need (and one that can be put away when not needed).

"Blackbeard" isn't just a persona of Edward's, he's a fuckery that Edward and Izzy both have invested a lot into maintaining. A way to keep them in power and unquestioned for decades in a profession where slipping up can get you murdered by your own crew. Blackbeard is especially armor for both of them because Izzy and Edward both have personal issues that cripple their ability to lead alone, so they operate as a codependent unit instead. Edward is still an active participant in this unit and the abusive power structure it utilizes when we first meet him, almost certainly because he agrees with Izzy that the traditional "never let them see you weak" style of piracy is valuable.

So you can imagine that his decision to go all in on trading "Blackbeard" for "Ed" a month or so later sends Izzy into a panic (exacerbated by the fact that Edward has not communicated with Izzy for shit in that entire timeframe). That's what's blowing up in 1x10. It has nothing to do with hating Edward himself, because as far as Izzy is concerned Edward is not being the real Edward at the moment, and he's mostly right. In fact, the main reason it can all go so disastrously wrong is because Edward is still himself under "Ed", and fully capable of making his own terrible panic decisions when Izzy reality checks him and accidentally hits the worst possible sore point.

That's Izzy and Blackbeard. A public front of intimidation and awe that keeps anyone from getting close enough to hurt Edward or Izzy. But the benefit Izzy gets from helping keep all this up is that he's is allowed, encouraged, even entitled to go behind the curtain as he pleases.

So he does. And Edward is happy to have him there.

Izzy in public is way more casual with Edward than others are, doing things like being the only one allowed to use his name, but Izzy alone with Edward is on another level. He can't possibly think Blackbeard is real, because there is no way in hell he would interact this comfortably with Blackbeard.

One of their first interactions is Izzy getting an order and immediately whining "Oh Edward, can't I just send the boys???" And Edward teases him about it! He's not remotely mad or treating it like insubordination (probably because there is no question Izzy will get it done). It's a joke between them! Oh lol Izzy's gonna hate this! And while I do think Izzy deliberately doesn't try very hard because he thinks Stede is stupid, I don't think he's consciously plotting to lie to Stede and then Edward or even entirely aware he did so. Stede did shut down that interaction very quickly without getting all the information, and that's kinda on him.

In 1x04 we are seeing them completely out of sync, but also the episode is littered with echoes of intimacy. Edward's little "Izzy, they've got a bird guy" bit and showing him the boat with such enthusiasm are not habits that get ingrained if Izzy has never reacted positively to that kind of sharing in the past, even if he's too distracted by imminent death for fun right then. And Edward goes straight from the boat to a vent about his boredom and frustration.

On Edward's end of the conversation alone the timing is awful, he won't share his plan to assuage Izzy's worries about the imminent death problem to make the timing better, and his wording leaves a lot to be desired, but it's a very human emotional moment and he's not afraid of or concerned at all about sharing it with Izzy. He trusts Izzy. Unfortunately, both of them are kind of disasters at solving emotional problems on a good day, so Izzy is not exactly equipped to respond well and unsurprisingly fails to do so.

Later, Izzy pulls Edward away to talk alone and does his own emotional vent in the resignation scene, which is about the same level of successful communication as the last one - read: basically none - but, again, Izzy isn't afraid of backlash here. He's talking to Edward, not Blackbeard. He's always talking to Edward. Edward is the brilliant sailor he chooses to follow and the person he treats like an equal in personal matters. And Edward is the one he apologizes to at the end of the episode, and stays for when asked.

And I think the real evidence that Izzy is perfectly fine with the parts of Edward that aren't Blackbeard is in 1x06. ("Let me kill for you" conversation my beloved! 💓)

The thing is that Izzy is not an emotionally vulnerable person, and definitely not a talking about your emotional vulnerability kind of person. And to be honest, I don't really think Edward is either, he's just so desperate for something right now that he'll do it anyway. So whether or not they've talked about something is less important then their actions, and holy fuck does this episode imply some actions.

The reveal that Edward doesn't kill with his own hands throws a lot of Izzy's actions leading up to the duel into a new light, because I just don't see how Izzy could not be aware of that fact. He's Edward's right hand. He must have noticed, and Edward likely knows he did. In fact, if Edward makes a habit of telling the kraken story, I wouldn't be surprised if Izzy put "Edward killed his shitty dad" together too. And that knowledge adds a lot of context to what Izzy's doing, even if I can guarantee they've never talked about it.

Of course Izzy is unsurprised that Edward never killed Stede in his sleep and isn't taking a lack of action as a sign the plan is off. Of course he doesn't assume that the conversation is done when Edward agrees to kill Stede in front of Fang and Ivan. So he goes to Edward, alone, and he offers to take care of it. That's huge! If Izzy had objections to the real Edward then this should be a massive sticking point. He should be irritated that Edward is too weak to handle his own problems at best, and more likely actively pushing him to do so, but he's not! The only part of this that Izzy seems concerned with is making sure no one else knows, and that's a matter of common sense considering Edward threatens to kill people for a living.

Izzy doesn't mind at all that Edward can't kill like Blackbeard ought to. He's happy do it for him. Note this is a good time to remember that Izzy is not a sadist or particularly prone to violence as problem solving, meaning the "for you" bit is way more important than the "let me kill" bit. This is another behind the curtain thing, just like using Edward's name or getting teased by him in private, and Izzy loves those things. Like, to the point of jealously guarding them and getting real pissed that when he's being shut out, Stede is getting let in.

This is getting kinda long and I'd like to wrap it up today so I'm going to skip straight to 1x10.

I already touched on the blowup, but let's talk about before the blowup. Edward is a mess. He gets back to the ship, asks Izzy to bring him tea, and the next time we see him he's gone full breakup mode. He's been crying, the room is covered in booze bottles and marmalade jars, and he's in a blanket fort. I doubt there has ever been a moment in his life where he is less Blackbeard than that. And what is Izzy doing (at least before Edward takes his mess public)?

Well, freaking the fuck out, but also trying desperately to cover for him. That's it.

Izzy is the only one who has been seeing Edward. He has brought him tea, and food, and booze and marmalade. If Edward hasn't left that fort - and it sure doesn't look like he has - then I think it is entirely reasonable to assume Izzy crawled in there every day and offered the saddest attempt at emotional support you have ever seen in your life, all the way up until Edward requested Lucius. Pre-blowup there is nothing about Edward's demeanor that implies Izzy has been unpleasant or hostile to his grieving.

Izzy is full on panicking in a nightmare scenario for the whole "don't let them see you weak" mindset - a crew that is way too comfortable asking questions with nothing to distract them - and at the same time he's just supporting Edward as best he can while letting him be sad for a while. His best is pitiful, yeah, but does that sound like a man who can't stand the real Edward?

The tipping point is only when all this goes public. A clear violation of the established rules, a serious potential danger, and Edward casually makes it way worse when he drops the double hit of "Why are we even being pirates?" and stating he wants everyone to call him "Ed".

That's rejection with a blast radius.

That's "I'm unilaterally deciding everything we've built is worthless." That's "Everything you've done to try and maintain us was pointless." That's "Seeing behind the curtain isn't special anymore."

That's "You aren't special anymore, and I don't even care enough to notice I'm telling you this by accident."

"Ed" rejects Izzy, Izzy rejects "Ed", the "Ed" mask slips...

Eventually we end up with The Kraken.

Another major point that people use to say Izzy wants Blackbeard is that Izzy wanted the Kraken. Except he doesn't say that. His "threats" in the cabin confrontation are completely vague. He doesn't tell Edward what he wants from him beyond NOT this unrecognizable "Ed", or even what he would do if his explosion was ignored. It's not fundamentally different from the explosion in 1x04, and that's kinda the problem for Edward because 1x04 almost ended with Izzy leaving for good. Hello, freshly hurting abandonment issues! Ready to drive Edward to some really fucked up decisions?

And as far as Izzy's whole "Blackbeard is himself again" goes... The man is not exactly a good liar, and that is a really obvious lie.

---

So yeah. Izzy is in love with Edward. I feel like the text makes it clear that Izzy values the fact that he gets to know Edward while everyone else is kept at bay by the Blackbeard persona, and Edward doesn't maintain any personal boundaries on his end that imply this intimacy isn't reciprocal.

They are in the middle of a depression spiral and contested divorce right now and not communicating for shit, and I don't think either of them was a talk through their feelings kind of person before, but there is a history of vulnerability and trust there. And not just on a professional level, though their jobs and lives are so intertwined that everything is a little work related.

They are a disaster, honestly, but I do love them so. Mutual toxicity and all. 💓

(Season 2 really needs to make these men talk to each other, though.)

[meownotgood]

oh yeah we also had this get announced but it's gonna be really ugly so I forgot