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seaspringangel · 1 month

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blood sport — ais

summary: you and ais indulge each other, in strange, strange ways.

word count: 0.9k

content warnings: gn!reader ✦ canon typical violence ✦ suggestive themes ✦ blood kink ✦ rated A for Ais :)

notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIS!!!!!

The next time you see Ais, he is cracking open the skull of a thief as if it were a jeweled egg.

You flinch and step away as blood splatter ricochets and dots the tip of your boots. You sink into the tired grooves of a wall against your back; a tide of red apples rolling out of your bag teemed around your feet.

There’s a part of you that wants to turn away and squeeze your eyes shut, an anxiety-ridden voice yelling at you to melt into the worn brick and curl into the crushing safety of the mortar.

But there is a malevolent light sparking to life in the pit of your belly, an insidious thrill flowing like sterling water in your veins. You keep your eyes open to the violence and drink it all in.

You watch the thief crumple to Ais’s feet, body limp and shattered, like an oak tree felled by a raging thunderstorm, and you wrestle with the grim satisfaction singing inside you.

Ais had lovely hands. Even if they were adorned in the red silk of blood, they were still a sight to behold, a cruel beauty. He studied them, the very ones that split open the scalp of a man as if searching for the white tissue matter that lay inside, and trailed the pad of his thumb over a bloodied knuckle in contemplative silence.

You try to be discreet with your glances as you knelt to pick up your apples.

“Should be more careful,” he murmured, and his voice tickles like tendrils of smoke at the shell of your ear.

You scoff softly, glaring up at his imposing form above you, a bruised apple clutched in your hands. “Careful is no match for crazy.”

Ais tilted his head down at you, and there was a dark light to the curve of his lips, a soot-stained flame sparking to life. “‘Spose not. But I would prefer it if you knew how to watch your back.”

The sun slithered down the horizon, stealing light from the world, blanketing everything in a velveteen darkness, but Ais’s eyes were warm, too warm, as he looked at you, the hopeful red sunrise before the break of dawn.

You hate that you enjoy basking in it.

From where you still knelt on the ground, you reached a bandaged hand out and pulled at one of his pant legs, gripping the fabric and tugging with more force than you ought to. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Stop being irritating and help me pick up these apples.”

Ais stared at where your hand was placed on his leg, and you witnessed a shadow rushing to speckle the light dancing in his eyes. You felt a heady twist in your gut, hot like blood baking on the pavement in the sun.

Ais sunk to your level, quite close to you, too close, on the girt and grim of the alleyway floor, and suddenly you felt both smothered and comforted, his musk enveloping you in a cloying embrace; the spice of cloves undercut with the metallic melody of blood, kissing your nose as if in affectionate greeting. The husk of blood that you smelled on his body made you feel warm and slightly dazed, red clouds filling your head.

Ais scooped one apple up, turning it this way and that, considering it in silence. You stared at him, stared at the redness of the apple that matched the redness of his gore-slick hands, of his bright crimson eyes, his existence, and his hands blood-staining the dark that surrounded the both of you.

His eyes slid over to you now, and there was something strange glittering in the shadowy depths of his eyes, dark embers flickering in the heart of them, sparking against your skin. You have never felt so raw and vulnerable; you have never felt so elated to be seen.

“Sure,” he said, and there was a lightness in his tone that belied the honeyed darkness that festered in his eyes, “but I’m afraid you’re in debt to me, little sparrow.”

You narrow your eyes at him, trepidation and excitement warring inside you. “Since when have I ever been in debt to you?”

“Since right now.”

Making use of his strength, the apple held in his hands was suddenly split into two perfect halves. The juices from the fruit snaked a clean river through the blood coating his hands, a sweet baptism of the violence, the crisp aroma perfuming the iron-leaden air hanging heavy above you.

Eyes not leaving your face, Ais lifted one of the apple halves to his mouth and swallowed in one whole go, quick yet silent. You were too stunned to question what he was doing when he raised the other apple to your lips, waiting. “Open up.”

You could see his bloody fingerprints marring the flesh of the apple, his scarlet whirlpools imprinting himself on the delicate fruit. You felt angry. You felt disgusted.

But above all else, you felt very, very hungry.

You open your mouth tentatively, and he slides the apple half into your mouth, almost tenderly. Your heart skipped a beat and your gut curdled at the taste melting on your tongue, at the bitter sugar of metallic blood and saccharine wetness of fruit exploding your senses and sliding down your throat.

Ais hummed his satisfaction, his thumb pressed gently to your lips, ensuring that you consumed every little piece. “Good job, sparrow. Didn’t think you had the stomach for it.”

“You’re sick,” you muttered, but you felt yourself relax under his warm, crimson gaze.

His bloodied thumb was still against your mouth, radiating heat. You fight the compulsion to suck it deep into your mouth and lick him clean.

tags: @houseofsolisoccasum

#✐ — writing #ais x reader #touchstarved game #ais touchstarved #touchstarved ais #touchstarved x reader #touchstarved game x reader #touchstarved ais x reader

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mattapparentlystumbltourneys · 9 months

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Virtual Character Tourney - Results!

It's been a wild journey, but we finally have the long awaited results for the Virtual Character Tourney! Behold!

The winner is Hatsune Miku!

In second place, we have Hera from Wolf 359! I cannot emphasize how close it was between them consistently. There was a stretch of time where Hera was only behind Miku by 4 votes! Regardless of the outcome, I have to commend Hera's fanbase! I hadn't heard of Wolf 359 before this, so I definitely need to check it out!

In third place, we have Dr. Coomer from Half Life VR But the AI is Self-Aware! Given the recent announcement of a sequel, can't say I'm too surprised! He was consistently a strong presence in the polls with plenty of nominations, so I can't say I'm too surprised that he did so w-Hello Gordon!

As for the rest of the top 10,

4th - Fey (Welcome to Night Vale)

5th - Hal 9000 (2001: A Space Odyssey)

6th - P03 (Inscryption)

7th - Giffany (Gravity Falls)

8th - Ultraman X (Ultraman X)

9th - Kasane Teto (UTAU)

10th - EDI (Mass Effect)

Thank you all for following along in the tournament! There were a lot of characters, and I hope that there was at least 1 that you weren't too familiar with that got you to check out something new!

As for what comes next, there will be some rebranding (probably immediately because I'm impatient like that) to Matt Apparently's Tumblr Tourneys (at least linkwise. I'll probably change names around for relevant tourneys, as well as for the icon and banner). Otherwise, I'll get this all setup for the next tourney, which I'll be launching on January 1st!

...I wasn't kidding about the impatience.

So enjoy and prepare! Next time, we're going to strange new heights!

#virtual character tourney #results #hatsune miku #vocaloid #hera wolf 359 #wolf 359 #dr coomer #hlvrai #character polls

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wishfishy · 4 months

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When I first heard that a new Endless Ocean was going to be released, I was incredibly excited. Just absolutely over-the-moon excited. You see, Endless Ocean 2: Blue World (also called Endless Ocean 2: Adventures of the Deep) is one of my favourite games of all time. Scratch that: it is my favourite game. It was far from perfect, but I loved it dearly and happily sank hundreds if not thousands of hours into it.

EO2 is a diving game for the wii that was released in 2010, and I have never been able to find a game quite like it. The main story was a bit cheesy, but charming and engaging, with a bevy of likeable if occasionally one-note characters, and the game itself had surprising depths (diving pun fully intended). The game had 12 different diving maps in 6 locations and while the specific areas were fictitious, they were based on very real places (the South Pacific, Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, as well as a freshwater river in the Amazon) and this was reflected in the species found in each area, with a few exceptions here and there. You could explore shallow coral reefs, a sunken castle, ancient temples, abyssal depths, a kelp forest, sandy beaches, riverbanks, hidden coves with murals, and much more. You also had a small private island as a hub location, a personal reef you could decorate, and a public aquarium which you could fill with any of the non-legendary species you discovered.

Speaking of which, the game featured 340 different species of marine and freshwater fish, sharks, rays, marine mammals, penguins, shore birds, reptiles, crustaceans, cephalopods and other invertebrates. Some of these also had different models for young or different genders. You could find truly miniscule species that most other diving games overlook entirely in zoom-spots (such as gobies and nudibranchs), and you could interact with most by feeding, touching or even riding in the case of large marine life. And on top of this you could also find legendary creatures, which could be individuals of extant species with unusual colouring or size, or even extinct species, and could be exceedingly hard to find but entirely rewarding.

This is already getting to be much too long but on top of all this you could customize your diver character, buy things for your island hub, decorate and populate a private reef to propagate and release fish, create various aquarium exhibits, discover a great many side-quests, upgrade equipment, take and sell photographs, heal sick animals, search for and sell salvage, find collectable coins, train dolphin partners, take requests for guided tours, dolphin shows, salvage and photos, dodge or placate aggressive sharks, and more that I am probably forgetting. It’s been a while since I’ve played the game, as I no longer have a wii and don’t have the first clue on how to emulate games on my PC. All this is to say that this game was something special, and I have never been able to find anything remotely close to it. And seeing as how the last one was released almost 15 years ago, I had long given up hope for an Endless Ocean 3.

And then lo and behold, a trailer dropped from out of nowhere for Endless Ocean Luminous! And it was releasing in a month! Holy Shit! What!? Yes!

But alas, the more information came out about the game, the more that excitement started to wane. A focus on multiplayer? Procedural generation? Only one map? The only character being an AI that sounded like all those awful tiktok voices? To be clear, I wasn’t expecting Luminous to be the next GoTY. I wasn’t even expecting it to be an exact replica of EO2, or continue the storyline. If it had even a fraction of what I liked about the previous game I was going to be one happy camper. I assumed that the marketing was focusing on the multiplayer aspect instead of the single-player story, that hopefully the procedurally generated map was exclusive to that multiplayer. Surely the single player mode would extend past what little was shown in the trailers. Some things seemed promising, such as an advertised 500+ species, and even more prehistoric marine life. But again, alas, what I have seen since the release is the barest and palest reflection of what I enjoyed about the previous game. I could understand cutting some content, such as the dolphin training and shows, considering the controversy of cetaceans in captivity. But it seems like there is no aquarium, no central hub of any type, no characters beyond the aforementioned AI and a single faceless diver, salvage reduced to a single click, an incredibly reduced story consisting mostly of scanning fish, no ability to feed or interact with fish and fish behaviour also seems to be quite reduced. At least photography still appears to be in the game, though its unclear to what point. Are there still photo requests? The ability for some critters to swim along with or attach to your diver looks cute at least. But everything I’ve watched so far just feels so… lifeless. Empty. As if the whole game was AI generated, which I’m at least %75 sure isn’t the case.

But I’m left kind of baffled by the direction that this game was taken in. I’ve been trying to find any information about it’s development with little to no success. Why the focus on multiplayer to the exclusion of a single player story beyond the bare minimum? What lead to the choice to have a single, procedurally generated map instead of separate, smaller, but more scientifically accurate maps? Or even a single smaller but purposefully designed map? Was this game more like the previous games at any point in its conception or development or was it always intended to be such a departure?

#I apologize for the wall of text and stream of consciousness rant #Should this game ever go on sale I may check it out #but as it is I cannot justify spending $50 on it #endless ocean #endless ocean 2 #endless ocean luminous

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cypress-punk · 1 year

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Thinking about Eclipse Phase, a cyberpunk ttrpg with a focus on transhumanism and one of the ideas it brings up in the form of post humans.

So in the setting "transhuman" refers to three groups of beings. The first is humans, like you and me, but in this world basically everyone has a cyber brain and a genetically engineered body or inhabits some sort of fully synthetic robot body but their mind is that of a human. The second is AGI, artifical general intelligences, which are designed to remain at roughly human levels of intelligence and a are engineered to have human like perspectives because AIs allowed to become too smart nearly wiped out the human race fairly recently in the history of the setting. The third is uplifted animals, apes, cetaceans, corvids, parrots, octopi, and pigs which have been genetically engineered to have human like minds and intelligence along with modified bodies that make them more human in body plan (for the apes at least).

This broad and somewhat contradictory set of beings are what you can play as and make up most of the intelligent beings a player might encounter though there are some rather odd aliens and even a weird race of mantis shrimp murder creatures engineered by the bad AIs I mentioned earlier. There are all sorts of contradictions about the category of "transhuman" that the game positions you to explore and challenge in game. Its a very interesting setting in general and worth looking into though the actual rule set is rough (in the first edition, I haven't played the second edition and only skimmed the rules briefly when I read the book)

Anyway that really long preamble out of the way I want to talk about another category of being that exists in the world: post humans. That is to say, if the majority of intelligent beings in the world have become something more than human as it was once understood, these guys have abandoned it entirely. Post humans come in two major flavors from what I recall, Minds, which are people who engineered themselves into enormous brains with equivalently staggering, though alien, intelligence; and Predators, which have abandoned human nature to become pure hunters, highly versatile killing machines that target transhumans as prey, or in some cases have weird space habitats engineered as massive ecosystems over which they are the Apex predators.

Both of these are presented as the result of sort of egoist/objectivist approaches to evolution. In a world where the technology exists to basically engineer a whole viable organism these people have chosen to become something completely unlike what they were. The Minds can be taken as an attempt an organic super intelligence, a piece of meat that can rival the god like AIs that devastated the earth. The predators strike me as a very fascistic view of nature taken to the extreme, seeking to become machines that kill, bending all that you are toward being a weapon. Its almost in line with some Futurist ideas about the body in an industrial world. They also serve as basically stand in for some classic DND monsters. Minds are a lot like Beholders or Elder Brains, Predators can fill many "monster" roles depending on the type of body they've built for themselves.

Anyway I like the post humans because they express an interesting ethos within the setting. Theyre a believable fringe that adds something to the world and provides an interesting element for the players to interact with. But there is one other being in the setting that strikes me as very post human.

There's a description in one piece of fluff of colonies of "barnacles" on certain space ships or habitats. These are extremely stripped down synthetic bodies that are equipped with the tools to affix themselves securely to the hull of some man made object in space and then point a lens at the void of space. A body built for complete isolation and meditation upon the cosmos. A sort of ultimate asceticism. I like the barnacles a lot conceptually.

#eclipse phase #ttrpg #cyberpunk #transhumanism #tabletop roleplaying

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a-dumbass-jester · 6 months

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Yttd x tma au!!

The main post with plot an a full explanation and story.

{Part one} (it’s much more bref there, this is much more in depth and organized)

This focuses more on the dummies bc I love them but I also think that theme of loss of humanity fits well with them {this post will have a lot to do this them and their plot}

{Art I drew}

{Ao3}

Words: ~4,500

- Overview -

Sara Chidouin - The End

Midori - The Web

Sue Miley - The Spiral

Tia Safalin - The Dark

Rio Ranger - The Stranger

Shunsuke Hayasaka - The Eye

Hinako Mishuku - The Desolation

Anzu Kinashi - The Stranger

Ranmaru Kageyama - The Lonely

Mai Tsurugi - The Slaughter

Naomichi Kurumada - The Extinction

Q-Taro Bugerburg - The Hunt

Megumi Sasahara - The Corruption

- Intro -

So to start yttd aligns with tma a lot actually!! First off chapter one had a very strong paranormal theme to it, as well a lot of manifestations/themes that the entities had though out the game. The most obvious because the dolls (stranger) and death (end)

The timeline fits to!! The death game happens April 2017, which is a few months before The Unknowning, around/mid season three(3). The change happens October 2018 which is enough time for the plot.

In case you are here for yttd and don’t know anything about the Magnus archives, tma is a horror fiction podcast where there are 14(now 15) fear based entities/gods, that feed of of peoples fear. And occasionally instead of fearing an entity, some people ‘sympathize’ with it. Becoming an vessel or avatar for it instead. I don’t think you have to worry about not having context to tma because I think I did a pretty good job explaining it. if you are confused a quick Google search will probably answer your questions. I even linked the entities wiki page if you quickly want answers. If you are interested in tma or even just a specific fear but don’t wanna listen to a 200 episode podcast, this is a rlly good playlist explaining the entities.

- Asunaro -

So basically everything is the same except that yttd and tma take place in the same world. I can see asunaro being like the Magnus institute in how it serves the eye, I can see it serving an entity as well, but instead of it being one entity, there’s different parts that are dedicated to different ones, because there’s a few asunaro matches with, the most obvious one is The End, also known as Death or Terminus, is well death. Considering their focus on death and a full on death game makes it fit quite well. I can also see The Web or the Mother of Puppets playing a part because as we see a few times (especially in the mini episodes) they try to control the participant’s lives like how they framed Alice for murder. but also in the way they had the ai simulations. They knew every way it could play out, everyone’s chance at survival, what they do when threatened with death, what they do when they’ve lost everything, playing with them like puppets. Due too asunaro’s assassin history in Kai’s backstory I can see them connected to The Slaughter as well. I don’t think asunaro would have started out serving an entity. The would’ve done what they did in cannon and then found out they exist and that they aligned with some of them and ended up here. The entities that helped them realize that would’ve been The Eye and Stranger. When they started stalking the future participants they caught the attention of The Eye, also know as the Ceaseless Watcher or Beholding. It started to let asunaro use it to get information. The doll thing was also an accident. They started to make the dolls to help with people mourning loved ones like in cannon, but got influenced by The Stranger or the I Do Not Know You and started replacing them entirely, and make them look a lot less human, and leaning into uncanny valley. like something was wrong but you just don’t know what.

- Asunaro’s Employees -

SARA CHIDOUIN

While I know Sara isn’t an employee, her existence still plays a massive part with The End and the company. Like I mentioned in my original post I rlly like the idea of her being deified by asunaro. So I can see her playing a similar role to Angus. Her father was fascinated by The End and very early on he started to raise her for it. Asunaro quickly caught on and was more than happy to help. So along with raising her to be perfect for the death game, They raised her to be the perfect vessel for The End. She didn’t become an avatar until during the death game. They kept her from becoming an avatar before then. She was heavily marked by it, but they wouldn’t let The End take her before that point. So when it did make her an avatar it was very sudden, and all at once. The entities were kept a secret for her entire life, so when she started getting the dreams of how the still alive participants would die during the game, she just dismissed them as simple nightmares what came with trama. But then those dreams actually happened. How she saw them die in the dreams is how they ended up dying in the game. And then the roots showed up. She saw the way death wrapped around everyone in a way only she was able to see. By the end of the death game She becomes The Ends main avatar. She goes from a sort of death prophet to Death incarnate as It and Asunaro takes more and more. She becomes their Angel of death.

MIDORI / SOU HIYORI

I don’t have to much of an explanation for this one. But i remember someone calling him the puppeteer doll, and that he kinda messes with people like puppets or play things, so I think it lines up with The Mother of Puppets. That and I think a simple basic kind of fear would work well with him. I could see him using spiders to subtly scare people, especially the people he’s close with like Shin. He is the reason Shin had an encounter with The Web in high school. I can see him as the head (or at least someone higher up) of The Web section/avatars. He became an avatar rlly young. He had always rlly liked The Web and With his connection to Asunaro he was able to connect with it, and commonly used it to mess with people. Even as a little 5 year old.

SUE MILEY / EMIRI HARAI

As I mentioned here she’s the perfect avatar for The Spiral, also known as The Distortion or The Great Twisting, If not a victim of it. In the game she gaslights people into thinking that their loved ones death was their fault, and she was also driven mad by asunaro. Due to The Distortion also having a theme of hallucinations, the ones we see in game would have been her doing, or at least part of it. This next part is a bit unimportant but I wanna include it anyway, I hc backstory is that she’s Mai’s sister and was taken from them at a young age under the guise of letting her research more of the disturbing stuff that she was interested in. They framed her death and changed her last name. Slowly they started desensitizing her, as she slowly got used to stuff like death and suffering. As well as loveboming her, stuff that can be used by The Spiral. That overall theme fits The Spiral to me. She becomes an avatar as an adult, when she goes mad in cannon. And actively used The Distortion during the death game. Like I mentioned earlier, she used the hallucinations to drive people mad, and made them spiral as much as possible.

TIA SAFALIN/MICHIRU NAMIDA

I originally assigned her The Dark also known as The forever Blind or Mr Pitch, because of the way tma blended science and religion with it specifically with Manuela Dominguez. I can even see her playing a similar role. Ok I have to be honestly I don’t have a lot for this one. I just rlly like the idea of Dark!Michiru. I can maybe see her becoming an Avatar trying to escape an entity. she was a researcher and maybe fell victim to The Ceaseless Watcher, and in a way to stop it she gouged her eyes out to sever her connection to it, and in the process fell into The Forever Blind. Also I’ll get into this when I talk about Hayasaka (in the dummies section) but I like the idea of her serving The Dark while he serves The Eye, two(2) entities known to hate each other. But anyway back to the eye thing, Hayasaka and Emiri helping her after literally going blind. And still being blind during the game and using a cane, and often using the dark during it as well. But yea I just rlly like dark!Michiru.

RIO RANGER

I’ll get into him a bit more with Anzu, but this happens after the death game. Where he is rebuilt and finds out about Sei and has a bit of an identity crisis. That along with the doll thing makes him end up falling into The Stranger. He and Anzu got close after the game. They bonded over liking to dress up/costumes and preforming. Anzu even got him to become a clown. So when Asunaro pushed her into The Stranger he followed, and went on a similar arc as she did.

OTHER

Obviously like I said earlier Mr Chidoun serves The End. I know there’s a theory that he and Meister are the same person but going purely of of Meister I can see either Web or Stranger. Web because of his association with Midori, and probably Stranger because of the doll thing, l can imagine him leaning into uncanny valley, he also looks a lot like Nikola, like if Meister was a clown. Kai was almost an slaughter avatar, and by almost i mean it’s what asunaro wanted, but he couldn’t actually fit it. I don’t rlly have one for Gashu actually. Maybe Stranger because he makes dolls? I can also see him leaning into uncanny valley, but that’s literally it.

- DUMMIES-

(Reminder that this post is important for this section)

The dummies overall story: so it’s the beginning part of that^ post where Midori was fucking around and put their human souls in their dolls and ais. It worked and after the death game they rebooted and rebuilt them. This is where it starts getting a bit different. They were still experimented on, trying to find the exact differences between Human and doll. However this time they are more focused on turning them into avatars. Anzu and Hinako were the easiest, all they needed were a slight nudge and they would keep falling whether they wanted to or not. Ranmaru, Hayasaka and Mai were more difficult. They aligned well with an entity, however they clung to their humanity much more than Anzu and Hinako did. They did eventually fall with a big enough push. Kurumada was the hardest to deal with. First off he didn’t actually align a whole lot with one specific entity. He had some connection to two(2) or three(3) entities, but not enough to become an avatar. They did eventually find one but it wasn’t even fully formed, they had to push even harder.

In order of when they became avatars

SHUNSUKE HAYASAKA

{important} As I mentioned in my Og post Hayasaka Is PERFECT for The Eye. On the wiki page, it says The Ceaseless Watcher fears are focused on being watched, Having secrets revealed, Horrible knowledge, Being exposed and judged, which works VERY well considering he was the one to watch over the rest of the participants. Before his memory’s were erased for the death game, he knew everything about everyone, he’s watched them all for a few years now. The Eye had originally marked him in high school, teasing him with the knowledge thing it has. he didn’t follow it because he didn’t know what it was yet. When he started working for Asunaro and they told him to start stalking the participants, it came back, and it loved him. He fit so perfectly, it couldn’t help itself. Hayasaka hated it. He rejected it for a while, until a few months in Michiru helped him get used to and accept it. Overtime he got more and more comfortable with it. He does become an avatar before the death game. So he has access to The Eye during it. I’m imagining him getting hungry at some point and tries to get a Statement, and ends up going to kurumada and asks him about his encounter with The Buried from when he was in high school. In which after he finishes he freaks out and almost blows up at him, but Hayasaka stops him and explains everything. I would also like to mention that he also acts a lot different during the game now. Going back the the {important} thing, he was much colder and assertive The Eye didn’t let asunaro erase his memory, so he remembered everything anyway. It’s also what tipped asunaro off to what Midori did, because like why does Hayasaka act exactly how he did as a human, and not his ai self. And why does he still know everything. The Ceaseless Watcher also told him what Midori did. And he tried to tell the others about it as well. Especially the other dummies because 1. He genuinely wanted them to know about what actually happened, and that they are really them and not an ai copy, and 2. He wanted to bring them together, so that had each others backs. ‘We are in the exact same position, let’s work together’ they helped each other get used to everything as well.

HINAKO MISHUKU

She started becoming an avatar a little bit before the Death game. Midori recognized that she had a lot of potential for The Desolation. So he started leading her down that path with getting her to go after and destroy the people who hurt her/people she dislikes. Slowly she became more and more destructive. It ended up real bad after the game. She knew exactly what asunaro did to her. How they destroyed her life and took everything from her. The sheer anger that she felt. She sought out to harm the people that did that to her. After that had started she began to spiral. Eventually she started harming more people, people that didn’t do anything to her. Slowly becoming more sadistic. she thrived on that destruction, the pain she brought others. One day She was burning down someones house and got caught in the flames a little bit after the game. She was the first one the rest of the dummies become an avatar. Hayasaka already was one. This made Mai, Ranmaru and Kurumada realize what exactly asunaro was going to do to them. Anzu decent made them realize how bad it was going to be.

ANZU KINASHI

Anzu’s transformation hit everyone hard. They had meet Hayasaka and Hinako after they started succumbing. They basically watched Anzu die. They saw a sweet kid become a monster before their very eyes and they couldn’t do anything about it. Luckily for the others their change weren’t that bad. It was very easy to get Anzu to spiral into The Stranger. All she needed was a push, first Asunaro wanted to get a proper mark on her. Anzu was already a clown and now a doll, both things very associated with I Do Not Know You, so it was very easy to get its attention. The doll thing was already a bit of a mark. But The official mark would’ve been similar to Mag 87: The Uncanny Valley. Asunaro got in contact with a Stranger avatar (probably Gashu if he wasn’t dead) and had them fuck with her(resulting in a very solid mark). This happened relatively soon after the game. Asunaro also got her interested in ‘The Circus of the Other’. (And even tried to reach out to them to let them know they might have a new member soon!!(if their plan worked(it did))). The lack of identity started soon after the marking. After going something so traumatic, she changed quite a bit. That and The Strangers affects starting to plant in her head. She also leaned into it because it had a huge theme of not knowing, she probably wanted to forget everything that happened and live in bliss. The disconnect from her identity only got worse she properly got involved with it. Her personality and just who she was as a person changed a lot, both physically and mentally, which slowly made her feel like she wasn’t “Anzu Kinashi” anymore. I mean “Anzu Kinashi” was dead (legally at least), and because of that, her being a doll now, and having to be cut off from her family. She was kept in asunaro’s facility. Everything was different now. She was different. Anzu ended up changing her name because 1. She didn’t feel like it fit anymore and 2. To let “Anzu” rest. I cant rlly think of a name she would choose but all I can come up with is Pierrot. At her end point she leaned very heavily into uncanny doll. She still Had a lot of energy and emotion but now there was something off about it, almost empty, hollow and fake. She also likes to wear masks. Not the one she used to wear though. That one’s for Anzu, she has a collection of different masks now. She still has the old one, it’s sitting nice on a shelf. A place to mourn who she was. The timeline is a bit weird. It’s main issue how fast can she loose it. because the game happens in April, while The Stranger’s ritual, The Unknowning happens August. I Hope she can join Circus of the Other before the Unknowning but I feel like that’s stretching it a bit. Anyways Breekon (and Hope If he’s alive) go get Anzu and she joins them, and kinda fucks around over there for a while, and properly leaves everything behind. (Also she knows English because she’s an ai now and can download it)

RANMARU KAGEYAMA

Unlike Anzu he had always been connected to an entity. The Lonely was always there. It followed him as he grew up. The ever present fog that was everywhere he was. With the hc from this post, first off I think a lonely ice skater could be rlly cool but also like I mentioned his parents were ice skaters and held him to a high standard and since so much of their love for him came from that when he wasn’t living up to their standards he felt less loved. More alone. He started to become a few years before the death game. When his relationship with his parents got worse and he started getting outcasted. He started falling into The Lonely. It was very very slow. But when he got into the game and found out what was happening, he immediately pushed it away. No matter how badly he wanted to fall into it and let it embrace him, he pushed it away. And clung to his humanity. He didn’t want to become a monster. Especially after what he saw what happened to the others. How they lost themselves. Eventually asunaro got tired of waiting and started isolating him. Soon enough they didn’t need to anymore, and He was doing it on his own. The closer he got to the lonely, the more tempting it was. eventually, he let go, fell into the fog and was never seen again.

MAI TSURUGI

Mai was touched by The Slaughter before due to asunaro seeing an opportunity when she started carrying around a knife but when she was brought into the death game, something touched by The Slaughter, and it’s affects over her got stronger, however it took her much longer to succumb to it than Ranmaru. Partially because she wasn’t as tied to it as Ranmaru was to the lonely but also because she had more self control. She was able to withdraw herself from it for a lot longer than he was. But, she did become. It had been terrorizing her for months to even over a year, and eventually, she broke. She became when she had an outburst of pent up anger and emotion towards asunaro and killed a ~dozen of employees and broke out to try and live normally again (or as normal as you can get when ur an avatar and a doll)

NAOMICHI KURUMADA

Kurumada was easily the hardest to assign. He never fit an entity like the others did. Asunaro bet on slaughter due to how violent he got during the incident, but he didn’t stay angry. He quickly burnt out and just didn’t know what to do. when he was taken into the death game and his memories were erased he did kinda regain his anger but it quickly faded when he got back them and even got worse to the point of being suicidal after he fully realized that everything had changed. He just wasn’t angry anymore. He was tired and did want to do anything. Asunaro couldn’t get him connected to the slaughter anymore. (I also didn’t wanna give the only character who’s not paper white the sudden violence one) he didn’t fit any other pre existing fears so he just kinda sat there for a while, watching the people he loved become monsters. And then The Extinction came into knowledge. The fear of the death of humanity and Catastrophic change. In the past few years everything has changed for him. The loss of his mentor and his dream of being an boxer, his humanity, he’s dead, he’s now a ghost possessing an ai stuck in a doll, he’s now stuck in a facility that did all of this to him. And hell he’s basically a different person now. Even the death of humanity works because he by definition isn’t human anymore. Not to mention he was in a death game and facility where humans die and are replaced with ai dolls. The Extinction also has a huge theme of tech, which works with kurumada considering he’s an ai now. Asunaro didn’t even have to anything to get him to start becoming. The Extinction taking kurumada is what made them realize it existed in the first place. After that they started to subtly push him in that direction. He was the last of the six to become an avatar. After Mai had her outbreak, the only ones left were him, hayasaka, and Hinako though she often went missing for days if not weeks at a time. And even then she’s only really come back to occasionally sleep even though she doesn’t need to anymore. So it was basically just Hayasaka. He did start to see some off the others again after he became an avatar. I like to imagine his avatar-ness being a lot like {this} I don’t know what to add to that, he’s just like that. He’d hang out in abandoned cites. The person finding him could be Hayasaka or Sara maybe.

- Other participants -

Q-TARO BURGERBURG

Q-Taro had a similar arc to Daisy. He was first properly marked by The Hunt when he went to America to learn how to use a gun. The person that taught him was a Hunter and they noticed that he he reeked of The Hunt, and used that opportunity to properly mark him. His affiliation with The Hunt became more obvious when the he was put into the game. The way he was so quick to weed out the weak and leave them for dead is something strongly associated with The Hunt. Because as mentioned by Jon in S5, ‘yes the hunt is associated with the Chase but it’s mainly the fear of being seen as weak and being left for dead, and being prey.’ His connection to the Hunt only got stronger as the game went on. During 3-B Safalin (or someone with asunaro (maybe Hayasaka)) mentions he’s becoming an avatar for The Hunt, and that he’s going to become a monster at some point. And this adds another reason he sacrificed himself and died in Keijis place. I also rlly like the idea of Q-Taro having a more animalistic fear. I also like the idea of him and Mai feeding together, since The Hunt and Slaughter are similar fears.

MEGUMI SASAHARA

Megumi has always been touched by The Corruption, especially after she joined the police force and made her way to the top. but her death was what made her an avatar. she comes back probably in chapter 2 and attacks the cast. She's a Corruption avatar because I want her to be as disgusting on the outside as she is on the inside (and because of the corruption in the police system)

- Closing -

To end this off I would like too add some hcs, specifically encounters some of the people had with entities, as well as some alignment due to most of them dying before they could possibly become avatars. I already mentioned that Shin as well as most of the cast, had an encounter with The Web due to midori. Whether it was more subtly like most of the cast or more obvious like with shin.Kurumada had an encounter with The Buried, that’s why his first trial was like that. The real Hinako was end aligned. Keiji is touched by the corruption due to being part of the police force. In my original part I mentioned desolation!joe and vast!mishima. Desolation Joe could’ve possibly happened by him finding out about what asunaro did to his father (and what they did in general) and wanting to burn it to the ground (think Tim stoker). Vast Mishima actually could’ve happened before the death game. I can see him a lot like Simon, painter who fell in love with the sky. I feel like his also pretty curious so maybe he’d have an encounter with the vast thought it was fascinating and wanted to figure out what it is. But as soon as he realized what he was dealing with, he would’ve tried to get away. The main story/ death game is still relatively the same, just with the entities added in.

Thank you so much for reading!!! This has been something I’ve been working on since October, ever since I started The Magnus archives. You reading this and listening to my ramblings means a lot to me!!

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zmayadw · 4 months

Text

Okay, so I feel a bit calmer this morning, even though I still feel very much sad and disappointed with the whole Moonvale thing, but I'd like to share a few thoughts with you all, both bad and good, concerning the game.

And if you know me by now, you also know I can't write short posts expressing myself, so feel free to skip this long post! ��

Alrighty, so let's begin:

From the moment Everbyte announced Moonvale I was very excited. As Duskwood was an amazing game, I only expected for the new game to be even more amazing. Logical, right? I never expected it to be a Duskwood sequel, and that was absoluetly ok for me, because no matter how much we all wanted and hoped for it, I was more than willing to give the team that made so wonderful and amazing game as Duskwood a chance to amaze me once more. And when they said that Duskwood will be a part of the new game as a side story, that excitement was only getting bigger.

And so here we are, two agonizing years of waiting later, only to be welcomed with this huge disappointment.

When I started with Moonvale, I really took it slowly, exploring everything carefully before even opening the chat and actually starting with the game and the story itself. And lo and behold, what do I see? No possibility for a premium package, but a lot of options for a ridiculously priced packages to buy jewels for, at that moment, who knew what, but I had a suspicion what it was for. Nonetheless, I dissmissed it for the time being, even though it was getting me a bit frustrated, and decided to move on and start with the story.

The story itself started quite good. I even started to laugh at one point realizing and thinking to myself Gosh, those Everbyte people really like the woods! The character/actor of Eric is nice, I like him, even though he seemes to be pretty clumsy! 😄

Now, the actor/character of Adam is probably the one of the rare things that amazed me from the start! His performance was so great, and I think I read it in someones post this morning how someone also thought he looks alike Rami Malek, and that was my first thought, too! Ok, so far not bad at all one would think, right? Wrong!

At first I didn't really pay attention to, or even realized it, but as other characters started to appear in the game, everything started to scream AI. The chats with those characters just didn't really feel right, you know? And I was really appalled by it. I mean, come on Everbyte, did we really come to this? Are you doubting in your capability of creating something great so much, when we know you damn well CAN do it? Or has the usage of AI became so much needed/mandatory ( I don't know what word to put here really or to explain it better), that you cannot do anything without it? Considering so many creators of all kinds are fighting so hard to stop it from being used in everything, I suppose no. But then again, I don't know if my knowledge about it is sufficient enough, but I can voice out my opinion, and I don't like it at all!

Ok, I have to admit, the chat with Ash about us and Duskwood wasn't bad,or the chat between Ash and Charlie about us, but that is all good(ish) I can say about that.

By this time I was really getting annoyed and frustrated, and as some of you might saw one of my post from yesterday, when it gotten really interesting in the story and my insufficient amount of jewels prevented me from seeing some photos/videos, I was so fucking angry and disappointed that I was very VERY close to just drop the whole thing and stop playing. But I continued, just for the sake to finish it.

And when I finally did finish it, not even the last video of Alan's body camera, or the message after that from Jake, lifted my spirit. All I could think of was how sad and disappointed I was. :(

I really expected an amazing and great game from Everbyte, considering Duskwood is one of THE BEST games I have played. But to get money grabbing, AI screaming thing, that was looking so promising...it just saddens me. I know they need to make money somehow, I'm well aware of it, but not like this. Not like this!

Will I continue playing it? Yes, I probably will, but mostly because I want to see how it will continue with the Duskwood sidestory. Also, I read people are considering using the mod pack if/when it becomes available so they can see the premium/special options, but I won't do that. I don't judge anyone here, do what you want, this is just my opinion, but no matter what, I still have respect towards the creators, and using those mod packs just doesn't feel right to me.

So again, yes, I will continue with Moonvale, but neither will I pay for special options (unless they by some miracle make it like with Duskwood, which I doubt but one can hope!), nor will I use the mod pack of any kind. And I really REALLY hope by all thats sacred, that as the Duskwood side story advances, those jewels won't be necessary to use there, because in that case, that's it from me, sayonara/ goodbye/farewell/adios to Moonvale completely. At least I will always have Duskwood.

Thanks to anyone who managed to read till the end! 💚 Take care all, and let's hope that all this won't get any more worse than it already is!

#moonvale #duskwood #everbyte studio #personal #zmaya talk

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koreanbibliophilegirl · 5 months

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Can I see your oshi no kono but happier au?

!!!! HELLO I ONLY JUST SAW THIS ASK, YES OF COURSE YOU CAN SEE IT :DDDD It's still in WIP jail for now, but I can give you a basic rundown! I'll put it under a cut:

So, Tommy is the main character because I'm an unapologetic Inniter, lol. He is both Aqua and Ruby, and maybe Ai too a little bit!

Originally, he was Tommy Innis, a sick orphan who'd spent nearly his whole life in hospital under the care of Doctors Sam and Ponk(they both have the role of Goro, though not Aqua).

He dies right before his 16th birthday, and on the same day is reborn as Tommy Craft, the son of superstar actress Kristin Trix and famous artist/sculptor Philza Craft. Tommy's a huge fan of both, but he didn't know they were married bc it was kept under wraps. He's really happy he gets a second chance at life though! He wanted to be an actor/singer/whatever-involves-artistic-talent, but he was too sick to do any of it properly- except maybe writing.

Also, Technoblade Craft is his teenage(?) uncle who's already making a name for himself in writing & various sports. Tommy is a fan of him too. Hehe👍

So anyway, Innis!Tommy used to be online friends with this one guy, idk which guy it's gonna be yet. Let's call him Guy for now.

Guy was an aspiring movie director, he* and Tommy often talked about how Tommy would appear in Guy's movie, and they'd both be super successful, and stuff like that- but Tommy died before any of it could happen...

(*: I'm assuming he's gonna end up being a he? Niki, Hannah and Tina all have roles already, and I'm pretty sure Puffy's gonna be Foolish's mom or something, so yeah.)

But!!! He follows Kristin to one of her movie sets, and lo and behold, the director's his old online best friend!

Guy, being 21(?) now, is rising fast in the movie industry. He has Purpled on set as a child actor, but he makes a spur-of-the-moment decision to have Tommy appear with him. Purpled, who's been acting for a while now, understandably isn't too happy at having to act with a complete newbie.

But turns out, Tommy's a natural! Purpled is kinda jealous, though he's also impressed. (You can probably tell by now, but Purpled is Kana. Kekw) Then Tommy teaches Purpled a bunch of new swear words, much to Kristin's amusement and Guy's exasperation. They become friends-for-the-day after that👍

Uuuuhhhh not entirely sure how things are gonna go from here, but something about Techno nearly getting stabbed? He's fine though DW, it's called Oshi No Ko But Happier AU for a reason! :D

Guy dies though.

.......Yeah.😬

BUT that will come later, for now Tommy's gained quite a reputation as a child actor with tons of potential! Under a pseudonym of course, bc he can't really announce himself as the son of two of the most influential artists of the century, not to mention the nephew of one. He gets to learn how to play a bunch of instruments too! (Innis!Tommy, being a sick orphan, had only gotten to learn a few that were easy/cheap to learn, and could fit in a hospital room.) Techno nearly getting killed puts the family on edge though, so they all agree to keep the acting jobs to a minimum until Tommy's older.

Fast forward to 13 years old, Tommy's just started to attend a super-prestigious school specializing in the arts. Turns out Purpled is here too! But Purpled's changed a lot during the time they didn't see each other. He's a lot less expressive- it reminds Tommy that all of Purpled's roles, during the last few years, have been apathetic acts. Tommy's a bit concerned, but Purpled is in the year above his so Tommy can't really catch him in school.

He makes a friend in writing class though! Their name is Ranboo, he's pretty cool! Ranboo introduces him to Tubbo, who's attending a technology-centered school.

Turns out, Ranboo's older sister, Niki, is friends with Techno. She & her queerplatonic partner, Jack Manifold, are co-leaders of the dance team 'Rocket'. Tommy's been calling them Team Rocket as a joke.

Shenanigans happen! Oh and Tommy's family is still searching for the person that ordered a hit on Techno, because what the f*ck.

Around this time Tommy's accidentally gotten super SUPER famous, and he starts to see that a lot of murders have been happening in the entertainment industry for years. The family lawyers & the authorities hadn't made the connection bc of different methods/seemingly different motives/different culprits, some of whom have been caught- but Tommy thinks there might be a connection. It's kinda irrational, he has no evidence, but murders/murder attempts HAVE been happening more often in the last decade or so than before.

Oh yeah!! I haven't drawn any concept art yet, but I have a list of "star pupils". (no pun intended, I genuinely did not expect that to sound like a pun, what the heck.😅)

If I do get around to drawing some characters for Oshi No Ko But Happier AU, I'll be changing the Star Pupil rules from the original manga/anime.

I'm thinking talent in creation- drawing, painting, writing, etc. - would be four points, shaped like a + sign, while performance- acting, singing, playing instruments, etc. - would be four points, but shaped like an x. Talent in only one aspect of each category- ex. Good at writing but bad at drawing, Good at dancing but average at singing- would be a single line or thin shape.

Additionally, the center of the star would get bigger according to your confidence!

So, Phil and Kristin have four-point stars, with Phil's being a + shape and Kristin's being an x shape. Purpled also has an x-shaped four-point star, but his stars have a big center in childhood and grow small in teenage years- and then grow big again, bc as I keep saying, it's Oshi No Ko But Happier AU. Ranboo has a cat's eye pupil-shaped pupil, while Niki and Jack both have lightning bolt-shaped pupils.

Techno has six-point stars, and Tommy has eight-point stars :) Hopefully I can avoid making them too OP by nerfing them in other aspects lol.

Uh, I think that's all for right now! Thank you for the ask, hope you enjoyed my ramblings haha😅

-Lilly xx

#tommyinnit #technoblade #philza #misstrixtin #sbi #sleepy boys inc #sleepy bois inc #dsmp #dream smp #Oshi No Ko But Happier AU #(I don't think it has a tag but eh. it does now)#Lilly writes stuff #Lilly gets an ask

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desultory-novice · 1 year

Note

Got your reservations, eh? (Feel free to DM or disc if you'd rather not air 'em in public)

Oh no, I'm HAPPY to talk salt about the novels!(1)

(1) Prepare to find out why my nickname is "Salty Dess"

...Now, I probably shouldn't be. I really hate to complain about someone's work when I know that alllll sorts of stuff go into the creative process. Including real human stresses about life and deadlines and having to meet various corporate imposed standards. Writing in accordance with reading levels, brand image, etc, etc. Even with all those piled on top, we're not yet in the dark future where AI writes everything and that should be celebrated! Even an author with flaws/hangups means they're still human and it's human-made art I want to see discussed, studied, and cherished!

Though...

...Man, just WHAT is up with Takase-sensei's treatment (or lack of??) of Magolor and Kirby's friendship! Why is it like this?? Where is she GOING with this for three, or really, five books now!! (2)

(2) I mostly ignore Dreamy Gear and Kirby Clash in this lengthy rant, but those don't treat Magolor much better.

Actually, before I get started, brief tangent:

Probably the thing that gets the most groans from me is Takase-sensei's Meta Knight bias. Back when everyone was speculating if we'd get a Magolor Epilogue novel or not, I was so CONFIDENT it wouldn't happen I would have put real money down on it, because there was no way for her to work Meta Knight in. And Takase-sensei always works Meta Knight in. Usually in a leading role. Lo and behold, the Magolor Epilogue novel didn't happen. Now, I'm not the person to talk bad about having a character bias :cough: Marx :cough: Magolor :cough: so I won't, but I also won't hesitate to note that she is showing a pretty obvious bias there.

So, back to Magolor and Kirby. By now, it should be clear I'm someone who thinks really highly of their bond. I've always thought of (the original) RtDL as a tragedy. I just refused to believe that the takeaway of that game was supposed to be "And that's why you should always be cautious around strangers, kids!"

I suppose there was always the turn-around that Magolor seems to be in trouble but it was actually the ship that was in trouble the whole time, but that "rescue the princess" narrative went out the window a year later when Magolor and the Lor are depicted as loyal partners again in Dream Collection. A bond that is staunchly re-affirmed in Star Allies.

If the point is not to save the Lor from Magolor, what is?

Now, I also think that RtDL DX's many (subtle) changes to the narrative were informed by a desire to grow Magolor's character after a decade of fan speculation and brand growth. And I think he was consciously MADE into more of a tragic figure as a result.

...True Arena...

But there always had to be something to inform that growth. And even in the original, he has that "Let's always stay friends!" line.

So, RtDL gets adapted in book form and Takase-sensei seems to do her darndest to like... write Magolor out of his own story? Which becomes especially weird when you take into account the Labyrinth novel, where Magolor is a villain all the way through.

Now, unlike most other Magolor fans, I actually kind of like that book. I thought the idea that everyone calls Magolor out on being sus in the beginning was pretty cute coming so soon after his villainous turn.

I think the joke where he uses the mirror to become all powerful but just becomes a giant, funny-looking squeaky toy is hilarious. I think the fact that Takase-sensei highlights that Magolor does.not.know. the different between fighting Kirby and playing with him is probably the smartest thing she's ever written about him.

It is, in fact, something that informs my own characterization of Magolor. At least, the implication that he's been too alone for too long to know how to socialize with people properly.

And there's his breakdown in the end that it's not fair that he lost because he's never had any friends! (Marx: "......") The fact that this appeal causes Kirby to spare him and then he runs away and steals Kirby's cake was also cute in a Saturday morning cartoon freeze-frame ending.

It wasn't an amazing novel (what I really dislike in it is how Takase-sensei characterized Claycia. What the HECK was up with that? She's just...crazy and mean about art to the point that she leaves her girlfriend best friend in tears randomly every other week, I guess?) but it was fine on it's own...

"If only the story ended there..." to quote Smash Bros (EU)

So yeah, Starcutter and the Lying Wizard once again gives Magolor like one or two moments of interesting pathos, generally involving the Lor. But then Takase-sensei refuses to let Magolor build any bonds with the mains or let the mains bond with him.

Nope, we have to spend an unnecessary amount of time in Raisin Ruins with Meta Knight explaining to Kirby about how dangerous that mysterious new power might be when, oops, it never actually turns out to be dangerous! 'If you put the gun on the mantlepiece in act 1, someone has to fire it in act 2' is one of THE oldest pieces of writing advice in the known universe...!!!

And it's not just the wasted time on red herrings. (Or skipping Egg Engines....) It's the the whole concept of her leaving Kirby and Magolor becoming friends on the table that I just.don't.get.

If your heroes have no emotional stakes involved in fighting the big bad, that's... bad. Everyone knows one of Magolor's keywords is "betrayal." He "betrays" Kirby and the others. But not in the novel. They barely know him. He used them, but he didn't betray their trust or their friendship. Because he didn't HAVE either of those things to begin with. (Anyone remember the scene where Magolor calls the others "friends" and NO ONE responds to him? Because I do.)

Heck, I'd go so far as to say that the Lying Wizard barely LIED to them there. (Especially if you buy into him possibly being a secret descendant of the Ancients, born off-world.)

His offer to have Kirby be his lackey comes so out of nowhere. His offer to Chilly to rule the galaxy at his side in the manga, despite being based on a joke relationship, came off as so painfully sincere there that there are dedicated MagoChilly fans to this day!

And Kirby doesn't engage with him during the fight either. He responds to the things Magolor says with this "eener-neener nuh-uh" tone that is just... weird. I think most people have noted that Kirby comes off a little more mature in the novels than in other media. Still a "youth" by definition, but he talks and is capable of deep thoughts. But in the fight with Traitor Magolor, Kirby almost slips back into being an anime-esque infant. No thinking, no willingness to engage or even look at what he's fighting. (His one comment about the eye is almost embarrassing given the lack of everything till then.)

...Oh and DO NOT get me started on the fact that Takase-sensei specifically make the gang fight Magolor Soul and then changes his last words so it is now a meaningless groan of defeat?! I was SO upset at that choice (why not stick with his regular form in that case) but I told myself, hey... it's not like we know with definitive proof what Magolor Soul is actually saying...

...

Oh, NEVER MIND, WE DO. And we know via the end-of-book text that Takase-sensei had access to everything she would have needed to write an informed Magolor Soul battle.

No. For whatever reason, making Magolor unrepentant in Labyrinth, making Kirby disinterested in the person who would later go on to say (... in the remake) that he hoped to be Kirby's most reliable friend in this or ANY dimension, and, oh, lest we forget...

There's the Samurai Kirby novel...

So, I mentioned above that I knew there wouldn't be a Magolor Epilogue novel. But I had to admit I was a little surprised we'd get an adaptation of the Samurai Kirby game to go along with the release of RtDL DX. It felt like an odd choice at the time.

Slightly less so once you know the plot so, okay... Here's what's weird about Samurai Kirby. And I'll try to keep it short and vague but talking about Magolor's role in it necessitates SPOILERS.

...

Magolor is the bad guy. Again. Yes. And he makes a passing attempt at getting Kirby to be friends with him this time too and Kirby once again refuses to engage with him and then, Magolor says to himself that he could never imagine being friends with Kirby.

...

I just want to point out once more that this novel came out two weeks after RtDL DX. We go straight from a game with Magolor using his vast magic powers to help Kirby out of pits and bring him food at regular intervals, a Magolor who, at his worst, begs Kirby for help while Kirby's own inner voice encourages him to "...save a new friend" and also a Magolor fighting through a hell-parallel to get back to "...his friends." And just...

Why would you write that, Takase-sensei?! Why would you write that book NOW?

And now we come to the present. And I've gone from upset to...mildly curious. Because the most interesting things about Magolor in the Samurai Kirby novel is that A) He says he gets the feeling maybe he and Kirby knew each other in another life and B) His goal is to get to a place that is OBVIOUSLY Halcandra. It's not written in Katakana but the place name and the methods Magolor wants to use to get there make it really, really obvious. It's either Halcandra or the Samurai Kirby equivalent. Except that I think he really IS trying to get to THE canon Halcandra.

DX has now canonized Magolor as "the dimensional traveler." So it's not strange at all if these curious AU worlds and events start to occur around him/because of him.

While I'm currently pretty apathy for the way Takase-sensei writes Kirby and Magolor's friendship currently, I can't help but wonder if this dimension stuff isn't all building up to something...?

At the very least, canon Magolor built Magoland for Kirby and friends, so either this novel will HAVE to acknowledge that or...no one will mention that and we'll have another book where Magolor is the villain (...because come on, he's probably going to behind everything in this book too. After being consistently sus through all his novel appearances, it would be weird and jarring if he were completely innocent this time) and it'll end with him and Kirby coming to an "agree to disagree" relationship.

Or maybe this time, things will be different and it will end with Novel Kirby and Novel Magolor actually becoming friends in a way that mimics their game selves.

I really can't say for sure. But those...

:pauses to take a breath:

...are my reservations.

Brief Bonus: So, before you file everything I wrote up above as the ramblings of a crazy aspie, I am not the only one who has taken notice of Novel Kirby + Novel Magolor's non-friendship.

A couple of fanartists I follow on Twitter have even begun drawing humorous comics about things like "...threatening Magolor with Novel Kirby if he doesn't behave and it working" or "...Novel Magolor complaining to Game Magolor that he just can't get Kirby to like him." So, the vast difference in the treatment of their friendship (or lack of one) is something others have taken note of.

I'm not going to say anything like "I expect this novel to let me down too" in regards to Magolor. Nothing of the sort, really! I've come to terms with what the novel is, and I mean it that I'm curious if these Novel Magolors who continually fail to make a connection with Kirby will build up to something. Maybe something truly fascinating!

And hey, in lieu of (ever) having Marx appear, I can enjoy a villainous Magolor just in the meantime. (But seeing other people make fun of "Novel Magolor" definitely helped take the sting out of it.)

Phew...

I didn't realize I had as much to say about that as I did, but apparently, it was something I needed to get off my chest!

...Before everyone goes, just because I don't know when I'll next have leisure to rant about novel-verse problems but...

I want to say that I'm also a little :side-eye: about Takase-sensei having Meta Knight give us "word of god" evidence in the novel that the Master Crown wasn't evil, it was just Magolor's OWN inner wickedness that made it that way when A) even Star Allies casts aspersions on that theory and B) the remake brings out some credible evidence for the theory that the Master Crown is, in fact, AMAZINGLY EVIL. There is even reason to believe it was brainwashing Magolor almost from day one!

...But that's a story for another essay.

#Kirby #Magolor #Kirby novels #Dess Text Post #Long post #Really long post

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stargazerlilly-electricindigo · 6 days

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Unveiling My Unique Perspective: A Journey Through Words and Ideas

Hello, I'm Liz!

Welcome to my humble corner of the internet. My blog is a reflection of both my intellectual and personal journey.

I've always been fascinated by a wide range of topics—philosophy, romance, writing, music, films, the color spectrum, chivalrous courtship, quantum computing, and the ethical implications of AI. My insatiable thirst for knowledge comes from a deep curiosity, and with a racing mind and short attention span, I often juggle countless ideas, creations, questions, daydreams, and even entire story universes.

Beyond tech, I love diving into personal growth and creative expression. Here, you'll find a bit of everything: technical insights, personal reflections, occasional poems, creative musings, and a touch of randomness, too.

I hope you enjoy what I share, and thank you for taking the time to read it!

What makes this blog unique is the way I blend these diverse interests. I often surprise myself by finding connections between seemingly unrelated ideas—whether it's discovering philosophical meaning within STEM or using creativity to explore personal growth.

I'm often forgetful, but I'm grateful to have rediscovered my love for writing and to have recently picked up journaling as a new hobby. This is a place for learning, exploring, and reflecting on both the world around us and our inner selves.

I look forward to having meaningful conversations with you. Please know that I never intend to cause discomfort, and I apologize in advance if anything I write is unintentionally triggering.

Whether you're here for the tech, the philosophy, or just curious about my journey, I hope you find something that resonates—or at least satisfies a curious mind. Welcome! Stay tuned for posts that will range from deep technical dives to thoughtful reflections on life.Original Transcription

I want to share my unique perspective. More than just sweet words, or a genuine reflection that satisfies all the senses and enchants my mind with the aesthetics. Even a fleeting glimpse I catch, I cherish—the slightest meeting between my eyes and yours. I want to tell you you're beautiful, not in such a basic form, because, for me, it's something meaningful to distinguish an adjective I'm sure you've heard before from the essence I behold.

Edited Version

I want to share my unique perspective. More than just sweet words, a genuine reflection that satisfies all the senses and enriches my mind with the aesthetics. Even a fleeting glimpse I catch, I cherish. The slightest meeting between my eyes and yours—I won't tell you you're beautiful. No, not in such a basic form, because, for me, it's something meaningful to distinguish an adjective you've surely heard before from the essence I behold.

Haiku

Unique perspective,

More than an adjective, it’s

Beauty! I behold.

Personal Reflection

Writing this poem taught me how much I love expressing my emotions. When I feel free and able to do so, communication comes easily. My favorite part of this process was rediscovering little gems from myself, like finding self-love notes. In a way, I'm also manifesting my kindred spirit through these words.

It’s supposed to show how chaotic my mind works and how I struggle to write my ideas as they come. The edited version shows me going back to finish the idea. I love that it captures the essence of editing in writing. You can write something and always be able to edit it, and it’ll keep changing. "I'd love to hear from you!

Have you ever found unexpected insights in your writing?

How do you express your emotions through creativity?

Do you remember the first piece of writing you shared publicly? How did it feel?

Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below!

Thank you for reading this.

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all-the-pacs · 11 months

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#4 - Pac-Man (Coleco Tabletop) (1981)

Now now, sweetie. We have Pac-Man at home.

Remember last week, when we said we were playing something that was officially sanctioned by Namco? Weeeell... We never said it was developed by Namco, just licensed.

Oh yeah, if Galaxian Hardware was us dipping our toes into the world of odd hardware, this is us full-on taking the plunge into the depths of the weird, obscure stuff we have to play. Behold, ladies and germs, the first official home port of Pac-Man! ...Technically, anyways.

For a tiny bit of background context, the Coleco Tabletops were Coleco's own foray into the handheld gaming market. Yes, handheld, albeit maybe only on technicality. These things were no larger than something you could rest on your desk, though you could perhaps hold them directly if you really had the dexterity for it; they were approximately the size of a lunchbox, though, so uh, good luck! Oh, and these were shaped like tabletop arcade cabinets. Coleco had the pedigree to handle electronic games by this point--after all, they made the ColecoVision console just a year after this, so we sure hope they would--so this isn't too shocking to see them here.

As for hardware... Look, we're not gonna sugarcoat it--these are Game & Watch-esque, Tiger Electronics-esque "sheet that lights up certain segments depending on the gameplay" graphics. This is why we had to expressly define what "video elements" meant, because if we didn't, we'd have to decide for ourselves whether to either include or exclude these sorts of games. Ultimately, we decided there was no harm in including these even if there aren't exactly any liquid crystal display elements to the display.

Now, you may be asking--how the heck do we plan to play this thing. This is a full on physical unit, and these things are like, 60-to-100 US bucks secondhand nowadays. And sure, this thing is definitely fair game for emulation, but how would you go about emulating this sort of device?

The answer's a little easier than you might've been expecting.

Thanks, Internet Archive! They have been and are continuing to be invaluable for this project. Case-in-point, they have several pre-configured setups powered by MAME right for you to use in-browser. Handy!

Let's zoom in a bit, and start the main game up.

...Gross. And we're not talking about the visuals, but... Maybe we are, because look at those ghosts! While the original Pac-Man hinted that the ghosts may have secretly been slug monsters, here they look more like... amoebas. It doesn't help that one of their eyes is just identical to the slice they're using for pellets, and inside their foreheads is... Pac-Man??? These look a lot like they're gelatinous blob monsters that already ate a Pac-Man! This is NOT how we expected the first game to display multiple concurrent Pac-Men (Pac-Mans?) would go.

As you can imagine from a game that looks this rudimentary, its sounds and gameplay are also pretty bare-bones. Pac-Man, the Ghosts, everything moves with strict adherence to the grid, as you can expect from a Game & Watch-style game. The maze has been simplified--so much so one of the ghosts has been kicked out of the pen and starts the game outside of it! Yet there's also dots immediately surrounding the ghost pen, and with that, zero spot for a Bonus Fruit whatsoever (We'd guess there was just no way to put it on the display, to be fair...)--fundamentally, this game does not, in fact, score like the Arcade version. Which we wouldn't remark upon if the manual didn't brazenly declare it scores like the arcade version. (More on the manual in a bit.) And yet they still somehow got Pac-Man starting by moving left perfectly intact? How baffling, but we're not complaining.

And, perhaps most importantly, the ghosts/amoebas lack unique colors... And indeed, unique behaviors of any kind. The colors are understandable, but the AI is definitely a major downgrade. Now they all act more-or-less the same, and seem to behave a bit like a reverse Clyde, wandering around aimlessly but trying their best to get to Pac-Man when he's nearby.

Probably the biggest change is the fact that these ghosts/amoebas can turn around 180 degrees. In Pac-Man, the ghosts will never reverse directions unless the player eats a Power Pellet--otherwise, they will only make 90 degree turns. Here, however? They will gladly turn around entirely and you have to be careful to avoid that. Being able to turn around freely when the ghosts couldn't was a huge advantage that the player had, but now it's gone! This definitely makes things more frustrating, and while this behavior is often associated with unofficial clones of the game, if you can believe it, this won't be the last time we see this in an official version of the game.

For whatever reason, when you eat a Power Pellet--er, a red pellet, seeing as there's only one type of pellet, just two colors for it--the Pac-Man inside the ghosts vanish? This is what actually clued us in those little dots were meant to be eyes, but then that raises a whole new conundrum... The pellets have pupils now.

Admittedly, this is kind of a Morton's Fork situation that naturally comes from trying to represent every game state in a little drawing like this--either one of the ghosts' eyes would not have a pupil, or now the dots have pupils--but honestly, we feel like maybe the former would've been better, because the latter just kinda looks plain creepy!

In any case, that's the end of the main game, but if you paid attention to the header, you'd know we have two entire other game modes to cover! Yep, this was technically the first Pac-Man game with side content to it.

The second mode, described as Head-to-Head Pac-Man, is... Weird. Another first for the series is concurrent multiplayer! Yep, it debuted here, and we guess a second player mode that happens simultaneously was seen as so impressive that they just had to call it a whole new mode. Fittingly, the handheld has a second joystick just for this.

But... y'know, it's not really all that incredible, mostly for no fault of its own, just because Coleco Tabletop Pac-Man just isn't exactly powerful to do this concept justice. Still, very strange to see simultaneous co-op Pac-Man on this dinky thing from 1981!

The third game mode, Eat & Run, is perhaps a little more interesting, though...

So, a lot of firsts here. Pac-Man has entered the ghost pen--er, the "base" if the manual is to be trusted--for the first time! Not only that, he starts in the base. And the ghosts are in the four corners with four power pellets, with zero normal pellets in sight! This is definitely weird to see so early on in the series, alright.

So, in this mode, you effectively have to play Capture the Flag. The ghosts are already out, and they're guarding the four power pellets--your flags, so to speak. Leave the base when it's open, grab as many of the pellets as you can, but victory doesn't happen when you eat all four. No, victory is only called depending on if you make it back to the base, and the more pellets you have, the more points you get! This means it's actually possible to die with zero pellets left in the maze.

And, of course, the base isn't always open--sometimes, its doors will open and shut, so you have to make it over where while it's open, unless you want to try surviving a cycle until it re-opens. This is a pretty interesting take on the game, and to be honest... It's probably as complex as this thing can handle. We kinda wish we saw a version of this with proper ghost AI and a proper maze (and if that's coming up, don't spoil us.), because it's a fun concept! It's just bogged down by this game and its... eccentricities.

...Oh, right, let's talk about the manual. We never had a better time to elaborate on this, but uhh... It's more than a little flowery, which is a double edged sword. The upside is that it's extremely funny for it! The downside is that it takes a bit of trial-and-error to learn how to work this thing on the Internet Archive's embedded emulator, because instead of clarifying how to start a game, it...

Okay, um. Let's just. Show you a collage of some of the headers in this manual. You'll see what we mean when we say it's extremely funny unintentionally, but also unhelpful when you're trying to find something about, say, how to play the game.

Goodness. Overdramatic, much?! It's just a Game & Watch-esque downscaling of Pac-Man! It's really not that heartfelt, adrenaline-filled, and sobering! Just tell me the button to press to start Eat & Run mode! ...Though, this could serve as a great fodder for blackout poetry, if anything, and as you can see above, it definitely makes for great snippets.

...Well, that's about it for the Coleco Tabletop Pac-Man. But we're not quite out of the woods just yet. So, um, next time around, expect something... Well, a little similar to this, but also a bit different. It's published by Bally Midway themselves, too! ...Technically, anyways. Look, it's complicated. We'll just be seein' you around.

#all the pacs #pacman #pac man #coleco tabletop #1981 #man if halloween wasn't last week we'd totally consider those amoeba ghost things to be a fitting halloween thing #unfortunately that's not what we got. or maybe extremely fortunately depending on how you view things!

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yumiakikaze · 10 months

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Behold, PMD EoS Gijinka Yumi!

A determined, blunt yet observant Beautifly gijinka with an aggressive nature, but having a few insecurities from the inside.

FRIENDLY REMINDER:

DO NOT REPOST & EDIT WITHOUT CREDIT/PERMISSION AND THANK YOU!

DO NOT USE AS AI ART AND NFT!

Headcanons and extras under the cut:

Beautifly Yumi and Riolu/Lucario Ulrich are both interested in legends and lore of various Pokemon. During the Primal Dialga arc, Yumi was slightly bummed when she wasn't allowed to enter the Hidden Land and Temporal Tower.

Beautifly Yumi has been interested in exploring when she was little (aka still being a Wurmple). However, when she finally evolves into a Silcoon, she tried to save a lost Wurmple, but failed miserably because Yumi got attacked by an ominous force (the wind thingy if you get too long in a dungeon). And because of that, she's feeling insecure and wanted to get stronger. So she moved to Mt. Horn when she met another Beautiflys and take care of other hurt Pokemon.

Yumi in Mt. Horn really despise some Aerodactyls that try to disturb her during her sleep.

During the outlaw monster house mission that Aelita (Skitty) and Ulrich (Riolu) took, Aelita initially attacked an Aerodactyl with doubleslap, and then Yumi in the corner was like: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I want to join your team." or something like that. But she doesn't directly join tho, before defeating the outlaw, Aelita landed a tackle attack towards her (well thats what they do to make a Pokemon join their team, most of the time), however Yumi earned her trust and joined them anyway. (This monster house mission is planned to take place before the Amp Plains arc)

In the Jirachi arc, Yumi is the only one that get excited for recruiting it. She has one wish: She wanted to apologize for the Wurmple she failed to rescue back then. A few days later, after Jirachi joined the team and her wish got granted, the lost Wurmple was immediately found by Magnezone and its 2 Magnemite partners. (Jirachi arc and Wurmple rescue will take place after 7 Treasures + Ho-Oh and Lugia recruiting arc)

#code lyoko #yumi ishiyama #fanart #my art #pokemon #crossover #pmd eos au #pmd eos #pokemon mystery dungeon: explorers of sky #pokemon gijinka #beautifly

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ellascreams · 6 months

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You know I frequently think about what Magnus Archive entities different characters from things would be warlocks for but I don’t think I’ve ever really talked about any of my thoughts on it before. Maybe I should start doing that, just for fun. Someone might find it interesting. This one is for IEYTD because I don’t expect this hyperfixation to die very soon. Spoilers for all the games. Oh and if you want to use this as inspiration for some weird crossovers you can, but please tell me if you do, because I wanna see it.

Agent Phoenix: The End This one is especially fitting if you think of the time loops as being in universe, stuck dying again and again, but it works even without that. Constantly close to death, feeling the fear of death, but never actually dying. Causing others fear because their friends have to deal with grief and their enemies have to be terrified every time they survive something they shouldn’t have. You could make an argument for The Beholding, you can for most protagonists, but it doesn’t make as much sense to me.

Handler: The Beholding He watches his agents do such dangerous things and can’t do much more than watch. He can help in someways but not too many. I imagine it would also be uncomfortable for Zoraxis agents to know they’re being watched by someone who they can’t see, someone other than the agent in front of them. Alternatively, he could be The Web. (“A mere puppeteer, they only enslave you,”) I just don’t think that works as well since he also has to answer to The Agency and he doesn’t have any malicious intent with his manipulations.

Dr. Zor: The Web Constantly orchestrating schemes from the shadows, has no loyalty to anyone and will kill their highest ranks without remorse if they interfere with their plans, too clever to ever be caught, and knows what Phoenix will do well enough to leave messages for them. Could also make arguments for The Stranger, The Beholding, The End, and The Extinction, but I think all of those connect back to their plotting and masterminding.

Daniel Sans: The Corruption Very minor character but I felt like adding him here. He made a super virus. That’s it that’s all I’ve got.

Zoraxis AI: The Buried Specifically the one in the escape pod. Does this even count as a character? No idea, but you can’t tell me that escape pod doesn’t sound like it would be the subject of someone’s statement if they got out of it alive.

Hivemind: The Corruption He’s literally just bees. Like, a bunch of bees. His name is Hivemind. What else can I even say?

Solaris: Uh The Vast Maybe? Because space? I’ll be honest I’m not really sure about this one, if anyone has any ideas I’d love to hear them.

The Fabricator: The Desolation She seems to enjoy the pain she causes with her inventions, whereas some of the scientists in game seem more like they’re just hurting people for the sake of their science. I’d also definitely accept The End for her since death traps are kind of her main thing.

John Juniper: The Stranger He’s got the masks, the acting and lying, he impersonates people, it seems like a perfect fit honestly. I guess he could maybe work for The Spiral but that’s mostly because it’s so similar to The Stranger.

Gibson: The Beholding Ok this one might sound a bit weird but hear me out. Phoenix pretends to be Gibson for a reason, his radio allows him to eavesdrop and he probably does eavesdrop just so he won’t miss Juniper’s commands. Gibson is just a butler, but he hears all about these worldwide conspiracies and gets caught in the crossfire, and there really isn’t much he can do about it. Except threatening to share the things that he’s heard, which is very affective, because he’s heard a lot of important secrets.

Shawn in HR: The Beholding Honestly he really does give me archive assistant or object storage vibes. Just doing his job hearing about and sorting the horrors. The big difference is that the horrors in this situation are corporate espionage and conspiracies.

Dr. Prism: The Extinction Ok once again, this may seem a bit weird, but hear me out. Her main goal in game is to replace the agents with robots and there is an element of humanity being replaced to The Extinction, not just everyone dying. Then there’s Zor’s betrayal destroying all her robots at once. Then she helps Phoenix save all the agents in the world from death. Even if it’s never an extinction of humanity she certainly has experience with extinctions. An alternate might be The Hunt because of her obsession with revenge and killing Phoenix or Zor, and the Agency trying to track her down.

Robutler: The Stranger or The Spiral He just seems so friendly and happy to talk to you while he attempts to kill you.

Ollie: The Lonely I swear this isn’t just because Ollie’s voice reminds me of Alexander J Newall’s. The poor guy just got abandoned in the ocean for like at least a month. His coworkers and bosses seem to be pretty mean to him too.

Director Morales: The Web He really is just running The Agency behind the scenes. We really don’t hear much about him orchestrating anything but maybe that’s just because he’s really good at it. Out of all these characters, he would probably be the creepiest to me if he was actually a warlock for an entity.

The Phantom: The Web We really don’t know much about them but they manage to leave coins for Phoenix to find everywhere they go knowing that they’ll find them. Very Web like behavior. Maybe The Hunt. The coin thing is kinda like a scavenger hunt and they do have to track down Phoenix to leave those clues.

#You could probably make all these characters The End if you wanted to #the game’s named after death for a reason #but that’s not as fun nor as fitting for most of them #Oh and about Ollie’s voice it’s not really his voice itself that reminds me of Alex but something in his delivery #Like something about the emphasis and tone sound a lot like him and his characters to me #ieytd #I expect you to die #the magnus archives #ranting #If you have thoughts on this wether you agree with me or not I am very open to hearing them and discussing it with you btw #tma

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captain-astors · 2 years

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Hi, can you do 003 for Arima Kishou please?

I ABSOLUTELY CAN! Fun fact this is about the length of Edgar Allen Poe’s The Telltale Heart. God I was hoping someone would ask for him yet, despite my excitement I feel like I'm going to disappoint the Arima likers and dislikers twain, but no matter.

Mood for this entire thing: Screaming.

Behold the most horrendous thing I’ve ever written.

How I feel about this character: all caps warning for about a paragraph bellow the first sentence.

Places him in a shoebox with no notable amount of affection nor violence, simply acceptance that this is where he belongs.

THIS IS A MAN THAT SLEEPS WITH BLANK, WHITE SOCKS ON IN THE MOST NEUTRAL, BORING NIGHTCLOTHES YOU’VE EVER SEEN. AS A CHILD ANY POTENTIAL EXTRAVAGANT FASHION TASTES WERE FORCEFULLY SUCKED OUT AND ABSORBED BY SOUTA LIKE A BLACK HOLE OF REPRESSED HOMOSEXUALITY AND TOXIC MASCULINITY, AND THE SCRAPS OF ANYTHING BARELY NOTICEABLE LEFT BEHIND WERE TAKEN BY RIZE TO MAKE THAT LOVELY DRESS. HIS UNIQUE HAIR COLORS ARE A GIFT OF PITY FROM GOD BECAUSE OTHERWISE HE WOULD BE SO TERRIBLY NON-DESCRIPT THAT ABSOLUTELY NO ONE COULD RECOGNIZE HIM, EVEN IF THEY’D KNOWN HIM FOR YEARS. HIS FACE AND CLOTHING ARE TOO NEUTRAL TO BE IDENTIFIED BY THE MOST ADVANCED AI. GOODNIGHT. Okay. Now that I’ve cleared up the feral screaming, funny story. I don’t know if I’ve ever detailed my terrible facial blindness here (probably not, it’s not a crucial detail about myself) but that applies to fictional characters as well. Things like moles, hairstyles, clothing, and speaking mannerisms are lifesavers. I do genuinely believe him to be a very neutral looking character, but half the reason for my rant above was the fact that I kept wondering “Why is Kaneki fighting himself” for 2 pages of the end of the first manga, and did not recognize him as the same guy for a truly unfortunate number of chapters in the second despite moving on to :re very quickly after finishing the first tg. Then I thought he and tatara were the same person for a while. It was bad. And I don’t know why the glasses didn’t mark out SOMETHING for me, I think I’m just too used to seeing them on and off faces at different times that it just… didn’t register? But I really don’t have any good justification for it.

I don’t understand why some people hate him so violently but at the same time his adult version falls into the “a guy” category for me. Had his moments, but I definitely could’ve found more constructed sympathy for his plight had the story not been so afraid of allowing the reader to be bored by focusing on someone else that it wasn’t constantly bashing me over the head with “but don’t you care about how KANEKI is affected by this?!?” No actually I don’t, because I understand him well enough from the last hundred-something chapters that have revolved around this guy to have a good idea of what’s going on inside his head. Arima remains a mystery, his choice to put the responsibility of the fate of this all on Kaneki instead of someone else when he passes or trying to tough out his inevitable fate up to interpretation, and I think that’s a portion of the reason he’s passionately disliked by a large portion of the fandom. This is all speculations of a madman, but from my point of view his mistreatment of Haise/Kaneki/Whatever, while ultimately motivated by the desire to exploit, wasn’t the byproduct of explicit malevolence, but rather in that aching pattern of every garden child, say it with me folks, being afraid to/not knowing how to healthily love, or even care about a person in a genuine way that doesn’t end up hurting both people involved. He did care about Kaneki, but first and foremost he felt a responsibility to use him. Tangent to more general and less Arima-focused thoughts, this isn’t to say that writing a character in a way that leaves things up to imagination is a bad thing in writing. In fact, I really enjoy taking the broken pieces of a puzzle and attaching them together into an image of my own liking after being left with little to work with (Hi Shikorae), but the thing about Tokyo Ghoul is that this is the case for a lot of characters. It’s the inverse of the Arcane (the show not the game) problem, instead of every side character being so deeply fleshed out when they don’t always need to be, the vast majority of side characters are left to interpretation though some of them logically shouldn’t, we could’ve been given a little more to work with… maybe. I’ll never know if this is just my sadness over the lack of content for my own favorites when I speak like this but still, I feel like every character I’m attached to is left in this awkward “almost works perfectly but not quite” area as a byproduct of lack of attention, whereas Kaneki does the same but as a byproduct of too much (Juuzou lives in the middle ground good for him). I am filled with righteous fury that is only quelled by unending love for this story, somebody sedate me.

Not the worst option for “One-Eyed King” placeholder but I’m not even going to pretend I understand the why of it enough to criticize or praise. I don’t think it was necessary if the One-Eyed King was more of a symbolic concept of revolution than a person to begin with but honestly I could just be missing content. Such a cool name for something that seems ultimately underutilized, but I do like the note of Arima being unknown as the One-Eyed King when, similarly, unlike his brother’s, his revolution is a quiet, bitter and clever thing that takes years instead of equally clever but flashy, impossible to ignore. I could ramble for hours on the dichotomy of their plans to take down the circumstances and system of the origin, the merit of taking things down from the inside out and planning for the generation to come, vs. screaming the injustices of the world in everyone’s face, making a mockery of it all until you can’t look away because it’s always been everywhere but now you can see it too. How unfortunate the conclusion of their plans both ended up in the hands of Kaneki to execute, by design or otherwise.

Oh hey back to my issues with the lack of focus, those were almost completely gone with Jack! I love Jack-Arima and half of the reason for it is his dynamic with Fura. I live for the extremely controlled, calm, quiet, powerful and intelligent yet isolated Arima being temporarily pulled out of his almost machine-like world by the aimless yet fun-loving Taishi, who in turn learns what it means to be striving to protect something, and what it means to take a life. My qualm with it? I wish it was longer. It would’ve hurt even more to know he had to live the rest of his short life pressed back into a stifling role if he actually got to learn, even briefly, what it means to live normally. But, something something in order to know how to love you must be loved, the world didn’t raise him right and even that small period of time would have thrown a ripple in the chain of events that led to his choices and bad father figure role. Even so I like to imagine he looks back on those few weeks where he got to try to “live normally” (even if it trailed right back to ghoul extermination) with fondness.

Anyways to summarize Arima is another one of those characters I am choosing to be oh so normal about. I say choosing but I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Just a guy, but in a way that makes me want to pelt him with beanbags affectionately. It’s funny how little and how much I care about him simultaneously. The disjunction of man, am I right?

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: And thus the disappointment of everyone commences. Congratulations on being the first person to pick a character I actually have opinions on. I see the arieto in your icon, you’re so right for that, but I flip between seeing eto as aro or shipping her with Itori, Rize, or both, and I want everyone to die alone unless it’s tragic, witnessed, unpreventable or caused by themselves, seeing their lover in their final moments is not a kindness to either but a cruelty. Hello, yes vashwood and lawlight did shape me fundamentally, and I am the world’s most spiteful creature, a russian nesting doll of mutually assured destruction. Anyways I especially want Arima to die alone, besides Kaneki, unloved with that as an exception and staring the one child who latched on to him and hoped for so much in the eyes with the guilt of knowing “I did this to him and because of me there’s a good chance he will get worse from here on out.” Arieto is a hilarious pairing conceptually and personality wise, and outside of a canon universe I can absolutely get on board, the hijinks would be legendary, but in-universe? Eto’s LEAGUES too good for you Arima. Love you, but you could stand to suffer some more.

Oh also I’m not quite sure if I ship them but Arima and Fura kind of have the energy of guys who kissed once in highschool and have adapted the mentality of “if I don’t talk about it, it didn’t happen.” But they do think about it. So maybe I ship them in the Jack era for 5 minutes of poor judgement, teenage-ness, and the intrinsic desire to make that rivalry homoerotic, and then I’m just here for the bisexual denial.

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: H a i s e that is his son and he does not know how to raise him and I can’t even say he’s really trying but he’s definitely there and just. Oh I wish he knew how to lead a normal life. Also Furuta, they never met in the parts of the story we’re shown, and they don’t particularly need to for me, but just conceptually they’re such fascinating foils. Living manifestations about everything I love and hate in the non-protagonists of Tokyo Ghoul, they should both burn. The most siblings to ever not sibling.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I don’t care what power scaling this universe gives us and how far up on it they place him. I could beat up this old man in a fight. I COULD. I WILL. I’M GOING TO KICK HIM DOWN A FLIGHT OF STAIRS, WITNESS AND REVEL IN MY SPECTACLE. Also he has no charisma. None. He’s strong and intelligent, that is all he has going for him. And some nice hips but you didn’t hear that from me.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: The realization. Some kind of spinoff that further detailed the schemes and functions of his collaboration with Eto behind the scenes. Give me the forbidden one-eyed monarchs, not their narrative child.

Favorite friendship for this character: Oh… the potential of Kureo being a healthy mentor figure (if you don’t elaborate enough on what happened with him teaching arima about quinques, I will assume the best for today), Akira (take notes on how to parent, Arima), Fura (but particularly the potential of them growing more distant and formal over the years as Arima is absorbed by his work and quiet aspirations.)

My crossover ship: I don’t have one so I’ll just note that I listened to “The Way It Ends” from the Death Note musical for most of this and by god I have never felt so cringe.

Oh wait actually Elendira the Crimsonnail but just the Trimax version obviously. Trans queen.

#kishou arima #Dear god what have I created and what compelled me #I swear I don't hate Kaneki I just hate the writing. Kaneki is a very nice boy and though I do want him to die alone as well #he can be happy if he wants to.#tokyo ghoul #mediocre art #miscellaneous not-art things #technically it is art but it's not art centric alright.#zeph answers questions about media/characters/ships

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