#the symbolism is awesome and it has a very interesting theme.

[autism-corner]

PLEASE FUCKING HELP

[tarisilmarwen]

Rebels Rewatch: "Legends of the Lasat"

Kevin Kiner please take all my money forever.

Right, attempt two at this. Seriously Tumblr what is the point of having an auto-save feature for posts if it doesn't actually save a decent previous version of the post?

Also WHY THE HELL DID CNTRL+Z DELETE BASICALLY THE WHOLE DAMN POST?!

Anyway.

I'm glad we got to visit this moon space base location again, I think it's such an interesting design.

Another tightly-written opening dialogue exposition scene here, in a few short sentences we learn what they Spectres are here for and why, and that the mission is urgent.

Lol Ezra being evasive about Hondo being his contact. I do wonder how exactly Hondo got that transmitter to Ezra. Did they reconnect sometime offscreen? Did Ezra swipe it during "Brothers of the Broken Horn"? Did Hondo surreptitiously leave it in Ezra's pocket?

However it happened, it's adorable that this once-ruthless bloodthirsty greedy pirate basically decided, "I MUST BEFRIEND THE BABY JEDI, HE'S MY FRIEND NOW I CLAIM HIM."

The camerawork in this scene is phenomenal. This first shot that tracks the Spectres and then dollies just around the corner, as if we are also peeking around it with the characters? This fast almost 270 rotating pan across the Spectres as they make short work of the troopers? Stellar.

(You can also tell they had budget to spare for this episode because the Imperial officer has a face. Lol.)

Love it when they let Ezra be casually awesome.

Hera sounds so aggrieved that Hondo is Ezra's contact lol.

And here we get the reveal, Zeb was captain of the High Honor Guard of Lasan. A bit later in the episode we learn this consists of being a bodyguard protector of the royal family specifically and all citizens of Lasan in general. Sooooo yeah, quite a bit of heavy personal guilt for Zeb here, feeling like he, specifically, personally, failed his entire world. Ouch.

"Hondo could use a little help." <3

Zeb's expressions this scene are painful. :(

Hondo being so dang fond of Ezra aww.

Though not so fond that he doesn't immediately screw everyone over, greedy bastard.

I saw Zeb rolling his eyes there, animators.

So Zeb's interactions with Chava and Grond are very much a Spiritualist vs Skeptic plot, with the expected tragic personal reason for the skeptic's doubt and disbelief. It's also heavily implied that the loss of Lasan, that trauma, made Zeb regress in maturity, made him snippier and more petulant and churlish. As Ezra says later Zeb does act "like a child", so perhaps his being cast as the Child archetype in the Prophecy of the Three was not so off base lol.

Ezra has such cute smiles this episode. <3

LOL Hondo's chipper little "Hello!" at the Stormtroopers.

"Well. This must look... incriminating." This man is a delight in every scene.

I mentioned the camerawork right? This is another nice shot here, this pan down from the cockpit to the nose gun turret to meet Zeb.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The smoke coming from the chimney top of the station.

...Is this Stormtrooper also voiced by David Oyelowo?

Ezra immediately noticing Zeb's scoffing like the empath he is. <3

Love love love seeing the unique cultural way that Lasat interact with the Force, the "Ashla" as they call it, mixed ritual and magitek, prophecies that revolve around certain narrative archetypes and symbolic figures. It's just so cool.

I haven't been talking much about the music yet (oh but believe me we will have much to say on that) but this cue here starts easing just slightly into the mysticism of the Lasat ritual. It's almost Stravinsky-esque in nature, carefully stepping flutes and clarinets, discordant strings. We incorporate just a very soft snippet of the Force theme.

Zeb auto-assuming Ezra is the child.

Lol Hondo putting his arm around that one Stormtrooper's shoulder.

He's so cute asjkhfkajsh. Look at him. He's all like, "Please Dad, can I chant with the weird purple people too?"

HE LOOKS SO FOND AND PROUD AWW.

The score takes a bit of an exotic turn, a mellow arabic flute and possibly a sitar adding to the texture of the melody.

The lighting in this scene egads.

I love this scene I love it so much. Ezra acting as counselor, with his mere presence and curiosity getting Zeb to open up about his past and fears and insecurities. There's so much hurt in Zeb's slumped posture, guilt and grief compete for space in his voice, and I don't think we see him this distraught again until after Kanan's death.

But with Ezra's encouragement, he pulls himself together.

Once again showing off the cool magitek with Chava's staff and Zeb's bo-rifle here and I just love the concept, I love the whole aesthetic of hearing whispers of destiny through the Ashla and then channeling the energy of the universe through arcane, almost magical technology to navigate the stars, like some kind of arcane mariners. And we all thought the bo-rifle was just some kind of standard ordinary weapon, SURPRISE, it's also an ancient Force-magic navicomputer.

And oh wow the parallels with the purrgil next episode and the Chiss sky-walkers in the Thrawn novels.

This is soooooo pretty. The animation here is gorgeous.

After the commercial cut we're in hyperspace and the Ghost is making an almost blind jump out into Wild Space. Hera doesn't seem terribly worried. (Behind the scenes material says she apparently does this all the time.) But the ship's safety protocols flip out when they sense the imploded star cluster and Hera quickly drops them into realspace and one of the most gorgeous moments of the series.

HNNNNNNGHGHHHHH.

This whole sequence is stunning. Some of the best animation of the show, accompanied by one of the best tracks in the score, the star cluster looking like a watercolor spectacle.

And the Stravinsky influenced instrumentation brings the strings front and center; a haunting choir whispers in the background.

Kanan putting one hand on the back of Hera's chair and the other on her shoulder, aww.

Just tell me you wouldn't want this as a wall painting. <3

Chava gives some inspiring words about not pidegonholing oneself into a single role in their prophecy and this motivates Zeb to find a well of inner courage and open himself up to the will of the Ashla.

What I wouldn't give for more on ancient Lasan tech, how their ships must have been designed to integrate with the bo-rifle staffs. It functions as pilot and navigator and also apparently encases the Ghost with a protective shield that keeps it from being crushed by the gravity.

Let that sink in a moment, the staff, when channeling the Force, can literally bend gravity around the ship.

AND AS "JOURNEY INTO THE STAR CLUSTER" WRAPS US IN A VIOLIN SOLO THAT EVOKES MYSTERY AND MYSTICISM KANAN AND EZRA SENSE THEIR HELP IS NEEDED AND CALMLY PLACE HANDS ON ZEB, LIKE THE LAYING OF HANDS DURING CORPORATE PRAYER, AND CHANNEL THE FORCE THROUGH THEM INTO ZEB, WHO LETS IT FLOW THROUGH HIM THROUGH THE RIFLE TO GIVE HIM THE CLARITY OF VISION TO SEE THE WAY THROUGH.

Subtle animation appreciation moment: The sparks that pop from a wall panel on the cruiser as Kallus attempts to have it follow the Ghost.

THE CHOIR COMES IN FULL BLAST.

AND ZEB CLOSES HIS EYES IN FAITH AS THE LIGHT TURNS BLINDING.

Whew! And what a rush! The absolute quiet in the score right afterwards gives us a moment to inhale and catch our breath.

Chopper of course chooses to be a pest, releasing the tension.

Lira San being the ancient lost homeworld of the Lasat fits right in with the whole arcane vibe of their culture, like they were connected to a place and people that time forgot.

And tada, we leave with a character arc complete, a new hyperspace route plotted and everything bathed in an aura of serenity.

This episode is one of the best of Season Two, if not the whole series. Everything comes together beautifully in the third act and the story has a feel of both spiritual transformation and wonder. I've already gushed about how interesting and unique the Lasat culture is, how it's presented as a mix of mysticism and technology, with prophecies and wise women, royal families and warriors, and navigators that explored the stars, guided by the Ashla.

Zeb gets more character growth in one episode than some characters get in a season, and he's largely "finished" after this, his issues with his past resolved. (Which isn't to say I wouldn't have loved more character focus on him, just that this is so phenomenal.) His heart-to-heart with Ezra is touching and illustrates just how close they've grown.

And did I mention this episode was pretty? This episode is super pretty and the music is straight fire.

10/10 no complaints. Would give Kiner my money again.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

That's it, Punk Rocks

Score! This is exactly the type of gag I meant last week. For this next leg of Egghead I want Oda to constantly be asking what absurd ancillary antics the Vegapunks can fill time with. Is it too lofty to note the spooky devil symbols juxtaposed with turning water into well, coffee here for a guy who might have let that death be a planned self-sacrifice to get his message out? Maybe, not like we have our series's big Biblical allusion hanging around or anything. Forget that though, I don't even like coffee and I wanna try Vega-coffee. Keep it up, dicking around like this in the background of scenes is what I want.

It's not just that I love this style of humor, don't miss that the shift in focus is revealing how Egghead has elements that fit the performance theming of WCI & Wano. "Punk" Records, a worldwide broadcast, the elements are there. It's not unlike an old anime special where the plot is protecting a final run of a play. Don't want to diminish the rest of what's going on, just this is the kinda undertone thing we've been on about the whole time. Especially when the same core threads keep popping up. Remember what we said about Buggy?

Love how objective focused the Gorosei are. Really solidifies the tone. Big Egg is still holding up which is good, makes me wonder what we aren't privy to going on in there. Still think there's a lot of potential for something truly weird to break this all into an odd direction.

Like a lot of people, pretty impressed by Samurai Gandhi's spooky horse form. he's cleaning up the Pacifista efficiently. This is quite intimidating and while Dorry & Brogy are awesome to see come into play in such a big way you gotta wonder. Sanji's giving the call to run and let them hold the line. Feel like Robonosuke evening up the 5-on-5 has potential. Hard to tell but this is all so wild.

For now though, don't ignore this is still the big themes we've been looking at since back in Wano. The Gorosei have arrived and they're tamping down the morale hit caused by infighting. Infighting that feels generated along a lot of the same lines Tama did. That, the performance, self sacrifice...I said it early on the more you build that the more it narrows down who threads the needle of all of them. That basic concept that Bakura Town still showcased a way of approaching things that would help here, that Luffy discarded some of the real growth we were seeing since hitting G5. It's all still escalating, deeply woven into this story in front of us while there's another one running in the background.

Speaking of leaving, like this panel for both the bamboo visual and uh, I guess that nut shot would hurt Brook...if he had any! Yohohoho! Glad that's resolved. But, there's an interesting mismatch between Sanji giving the order to flee and the change in focus. The Gorosei showed up wanting to stop this broadcast. It's important. Worth mentioning the only big picture idea I've talked about longer than the Grand Fleet was some kind of worldwide story. Hijacking the broadcast or continuing it to expose the Gorosei's monstrous forms? That could be a huge win for the Straw Hats. A possibility no one in play is really thinking about. The broadcast is all in the background. The enemy strategists just leapt into battle to launch their own surgical strikes, right?

I'm just saying, there's still one mystery from the end of Wano I can't help but notice could make good on the anime theme's promise. Reweave time by tying all this off the wall shit together. A more established outlet for mysteries like it was just taken off the table in the front of this chapter. We'll take on the cover serial tomorrow, but very intrigued by all of this still. Even if I don't point it out everytime, we've never left that core wheelhouse lingering just under Wano's surface.

[runninguplenorahills]

The guitar(s) in Mike’s bedroom

I wanted to make a post about what the guitar(s) is Mike’s room could mean because quite frankly, I’m not at all convinced that Mike will play the guitar next season!

Set design says something about the characters and since this is Mike’s bedroom it obviously says something about him. But those props have deeper meaning than simply “they just like this”, like the ONE WAY sign obviously isn’t there to convey the message that “Hey, Mike thinks traffic signs are awesome”. The props in Mike’s room tell a story about Mike, something significant to understand his character and so having the guitar(s)‘s only purpose be that Mike likes playing the guitar doesn’t seem to make that much sense, especially because Mike has never expressed an interest in music ever. Now, you could argue that pre s4 Lucas also never expressed an interest in basketball and that he still likes it but basketball and the basketball team all played major roles in Lucas’ arc this season! We get introduced to Lucas being a part of the team and we focus on that throughout the whole season while with Mike they only really quickly show the head of an acoustic guitar and a completely blurry garbage pail kids sticker which features an electric guitar. It’s a blink and you’ll miss it kinda thing which is why I think it would be weird if it actually just represents Mike liking the guitar [especially because that interest in music doesn’t come up again for the rest of the season!] because you would actually have to look deeper into the set design and look for deeper meanings to actually catch especially the electric guitar on the garbage pail kids sticker!

I think it’s way more likely that we would get a love confession through something like a letter/letters (lettergate) than through a song because letters and especially Mike writing and not writing letters is a reoccurring theme in s4 along with Mike making phone calls (phonegate). It’s simply way more logical to expand on a topic that’s been touched on before than to just randomly add something new that’s never been shown/discussed beforehand. [especially because s4 and s5 go hand in hand]

And well….. I guess I’m gonna say it: Mike being really into music is fanon! Mike is a part of hellfire not corroded coffin! Yeah, Mike tries to be more like Eddie but he doesn’t do that because he genuinely wants to be exactly like Eddie. He does it because he doesn’t like being himself! Mike does not actually aspire to be just like Eddie and do everything Eddie does. There’s of course nothing wrong with headcanoning that he does but there’s nothing in canon to solidly back up that Mike’s really into playing the guitar/making music and therefore it is very unlikely to happen in the show and honestly nonsensical as well (imo). So Mike very probably won’t be playing the guitar next season because for the narrative it doesn’t hold as much value as a letter/letters or missed phone calls! Simply because we’re already familiar with the topic of Mike and letters/phone calls while the guitar and a song would come out of the blue and therefore doesn’t have the same effect as finding out that Mike did write letters to Will [or my personal fave: wrote a letter to Will in 1983 which is signed “love, Mike” which they’ll find in the ud in s5] and did try to call him! The reveal of that is just a better payoff for all their fighting because it directly connects to what their fight was about and clears up the miscommunication.

But the guitar(s) in Mike’s room still exists. There is something to it so what I did is I looked up some guitar symbolism (I only found results for what guitars in dreams represent) and I found some interesting things which I think fit extraordinarily well with what Mike’s feeling and going through:

There is also a theme going on with a lot of props in Mike’s bedroom primarily hinting at his sexuality/gayness, as does the whole scene. So I actually also visited a site which described the guitar as a masculine instrument and that the sound of an electric guitar is also very masculine (and passionate) so the guitar(s) in Mike’s room could of course also hint at the fact that Mike is drawn to masculinity/attracted to men which makes even more sense when we remember that the show has already touched on the topic of sexual electricity while both guitars are surrounded by electricity (= the garbage pail kids card features the image of electricity tightly and directly connected to the electric guitar and our attention gets drawn to the acoustic guitar by a lamp which of course works with electricity and actually doesn’t have any need to be on during the day).

If you’ve read my post about the other garbage pail kids cards you’d know that all of them reflect something that happened to their respective st character (though I’m still unsure with Steve) (I am however sure that all of the cards reflect something that happened to each character as well as something personal about Mike since this is still his bedroom!) so Mike’s card probably also reflects some event from s4 and I personally think it’s the monologue! I also found something about what dreams about getting electrocuted by an electric guitar mean and what I found fits pretty well:

“Live Mike” (name of the garbage pail kids card) is only one letter away from “Love Mike” and during the monologue Mike finally tells El that he loves her but he only does this because Will’s last minute encouragement lead him to believe that El’s live depends on it! So he just starts saying things without actually thinking about them in a desperate attempt to save her life which horribly backfires and only causes more problems in the end! (For this we have to remember that the garbage pail kid in the card literally getting electrocuted while playing the guitar is something negative which is why it works well with this interpretation but doesn’t really make sense if it was to reflect a love confession via song and guitar in s5). Someone also pointed out that “Live Mike” is of course a play on “Live mic” so by turning on the microphone (starting to speak) Mike gets electrocuted (something negative happens = the monologue). The monologue is also of course connected to Mike’s personal internal struggle with his self worth and sexuality/identity and therefore it also connects to the card’s personal meaning for Mike.

[hara-hana]

I watched The Boy and the Heron yesterday with two friends and they enjoyed it but described it as a "fever dream acid trip," and that wasn't my experience at all. I asked them a few questions and realized they had completely missed that it was set in a real, historical setting and thought it was in... fantasy Japan??? So below is my spoilery notes on context that they missed.

Disclaimer that I've only seen it once, dubbed, and while I grew up in Japan and have done research on Japanese clothing, I am not Japanese.

Setting: Fire bombing sirens going off especially while men are sleeping in kimono but wearing western clothes in public = WWII Japan. The setting was instantly obvious to me despite thinking this was going to be a fantasy setting. This is further reinforced by the parades, rationing, and teachers and children being voluntold/conscripted for tasks. Mahito is very privileged to not be conscripted, probably why he gets yelled at by the other student.

Hunger and eating of sentient beings: There are constant themes of hunger in this movie, both in real life and in the fantasy realm. WWII was a very hungry time for Japanese civilians and soldiers, with many people slowly starving to death. There are even documented cases of cannibalism. This had a massive impact on Japanese culture. The desperate pelicans and fascist-coded budgies eating people are Very On Point.

Lady Himi: I haven't been able to find kanji for her name, but you could understand her name to mean Looks Like Fire (I don't speak Japanese well, so grain of salt there). I also desperately want Sewstine to make her outfit. Super Alice In Wonderland and Firebird vibes.

Natsuko (step-mother): Her name means summer child. I think it's a relatively common name in Japanese, but all I can think of is the Game of Thrones meme. It was awesome to see her shoot a bow in the dream(?) sequence since her signature kimono has yagasuri arrow/fletching patterns on it. A popular motif for recent brides. Mahito making a fletched arrow as she stops wearing her kimono was interesting symbolism. Also, hella wealthy. Her family home being that fancy and That Big, with a whole western style house, much less an Omnious Tower. So wealthy.

Kiriko: Be still my bisexual heart. Older her has access to bows and arrows and younger her is a BAMP with a soft spot for kids. Ox cart wheels like the ones on her kimono have complex symbolism, but a common motif is for them to be submerged in a stream when not in use to prevent warping. Her living on a boat and providing rides to Mahito makes her motif have extra depth. It also implies to me that she's constantly in motion and not resting in a stream.

[relicsongmel]

Okay so I read your pinned post and omg having pitch-colour synesthesia sounds so interesting! I'm curious if you also see those colours/visions(?) when you yourself are singing? Also, did you notice anything interesting with game OSTs like Ace Attorney? (I don't know much about synesthesia so if any of this was weird, feel free not to answer haha)

Not weird at all friend! I love answering synesthesia questions and this one has made my day <3

Generally since much of my singing is done in either a performance or rehearsal/practice setting (and the latter is in preparation for a performance so they’re not that different to me functionally—and even when I’m singing for fun I still end up treating it like a performance a lot of the time), my synesthetic visions usually take a backseat to the more technical aspects of my performance such as proper breath management, good intonation, strong diction, and important elements of musicality like dynamics and emotional expression among other things. That said they are still very much there in the back of my mind and sometimes even influence my performance a little—for instance keys with darker colors tend to make me want to sing with a darker, fuller tone (this one in particular is a double-edged sword because it can be to my detriment if the piece in particular doesn’t really call for that kind of sound).

I have MANY little scattered observations about the Ace Attorney soundtrack—I’m not sure if you’re asking for synesthesia thoughts or general thoughts so I guess I’ll do a bit of both.

A few synesthetic observations:

The Turnabout Sisters theme is in A flat major which in my head is the same shade of purple as Maya’s haori! I always love when a composer’s key choices match up with my synesthetic interpretations like that <3

Objection! 2001 and Objection! 2002 are in G minor and F minor respectively which are blue ENOUGH harmony-wise to match with Phoenix, but Objection! 2004 is in D minor which is closer to a sea-green so I end up associating it more with Godot. Which is odd but it is what it is

A few general observations:

Distant Traces of Beauty actually shares melodic material with The Fragrance of Dark Coffee! In the former you can hear it in an arpeggiated melody at the end of the loop which is the exact same as the first five notes of the latter, which serves as really awesome musical foreshadowing for Godot’s relation to Dahlia!

First-Class Reasoning (Sebastian’s theme) modulates (changes keys) several times over the course of the loop—it starts in C major, then moves to F major and then G major then goes back to C major when the loop replays. It also uses a lot of decorative accidentals (notes outside the key, so for C major which has no sharps or flats an F# would be considered an accidental for example) in its melody—both of these elements are meant to symbolize Sebastian’s winding and sometimes nonsensical logic <3

[yurisorcerer]

That was really good!

Gosh, I have many thoughts, but I'm not sure how well I'll be able to articulate them given that I'm kind of tired at the moment.

So, my main love here is for the characters. I think people tend to sell Dungeon Meshi on its worldbuilding and I do get that (it's very complex and is quite well thought-out), but the characters are what really grabbed me. I don't think there was a single member of the main cast I didn't love. Laios is such a delightfully weird monster manual fanboy and I 100% agree with the people who say he feels neurodivergent and that this feels intentional. Senshi is awesome and it's very funny how the manga is extremely horny for him. Chilchuk brings a profound Divorced Dad energy to the cast that I think is great for bouncing off of the other characters. Izutsumi is interesting by how she contrasts with the earlier party members, I want to think about her role in the story more. I think she was kind of meant to give us an "outcast's perspective" of sorts? I think she's good at being that, but I feel like having blown through most of the manga in a few days may have hampered my appreciation of some of the more subtle aspects of her character.

Marcille, though, is my favorite; as someone who is also a really fussy eater and just kind of tightly-wound in general I found her really relatable. She's also super, super, super pretty and cute but we don't need to get into that right now. I cannot be the first person to point out how, when she becomes the dungeon lord, her behavior starts feeling extremely manic, right? I suffer from delusional episodes that include very difficult to ignore intrusive thoughts, and I thought the whole bit she went into about how being the dungeon lord feels felt very familiar in that respect, and it really hit home for me.

(On the flip side, having your desires eaten by the demon seems similar to depression. I've been there, too.)

Other stuff! I like the whole overarching theme of eating both in the literal sense and as a general metaphor for going through one's life. In the very last chapter Marcille says something to the effect of, perhaps this journey was to teach us to accept death, and I don't think that's necessarily the entirety of what the series is going for, but that's part of it definitely. There's a whole circle of life thing going on here. The manga is very....sensory? Lots of focus on taste of course but also scent and feeling. Lots of really strong imagery along those lines throughout the entirety of it.

I set the worldbuilding aside earlier but it is super neat actually, also. I still don't love the general conceits of a western-style fantasy setup, but I think this is honestly about as well as it's possible to do this material. Everyone has a motivation for their actions that feels inspired by experience and history rather than just Dwarves Do X and Elves Do Y and so on. There's a LITTLE of that, but not nearly as much as is typical for this kind of thing. In particular, I liked the orcs. Their usage as a symbol is perhaps somewhat fraught (I'm not the person to make that call either way), but it felt like it was coming from a good place and they're just treated so much better here than comparable people in other media, idk. It felt nice to me.

The art! The art is fucking gorgeous, like, if I wanted to get someone to read this manga this is one of the things I'd mention. The entire dungeon feels so wonderfully lived-in and ancient. You can practically feel the stonework in some panels. (Sidebar here! The anime is really good at capturing this, do watch the anime it's fantastic.)

Some other random stray thoughts:

-The circumstances she gets it in obviously suck, but Marcille's dungeon lord outfit honestly serves hard and everyone should get off her case about it.

-I ended up liking the captain of the Canaries a lot more than I thought I would. He's just an interesting character all around.

-I also really love Sissel / Thistle / apparently how you romanize this is a source of some contention. I feel sooooo bad for the guy. He just wanted to keep everyone safe! It's not his fault that his idea of keeping everyone safe ended up being influenced by a lion-headed demon from outside of reality and corrupted into a suffocating hellscape for those same people! OK maybe it's a little his fault

-I like the diversity in appearances across the characters. This is a thing I wish more manga did this well.

-Laios' kingly titles in the final chapter, RANKED from MOST to LEAST badass: 1. Laios of the Three Heads (based as fuck, makes people ask questions when they hear about you in a history book several centuries down the line), 2. The Demon-Eater (badass and very specific) 3. The Vegetable-Armored (basically gets the same reaction as #1, but with a more comedic lean) 4. Demon King Laios (this honestly seems pretty disingenuous but it is dope) 5. The Dragon-Slayer (very generic, also not even the most impressive part of what he did) 6. The Lord of the Dungeon (Crusader Kings 2 auto-generated-ass name) 7. Pervy Tallman (this sounds like a bad comedian)

-I want to kiss Marcille on the lips

-who said that

-haha I wouldn't mind the Canaries coming to arrest me am I right fellow lesbians

-who said that (part 2)

anyway yeah really good manga highly recommended. I'm not sure if it's a (get out the scare quotes folks) "Personal Favorite" per se, but it might become one over time. Usually such things take a bit to settle with me. The fact that I have any interest in reading it again is a good sign, though. 90% of the time when I'm done with media I'm fine with never revisiting it again. Dungeon Meshi I would very much like to revisit, both in the form of the anime that's airing right now and also I think I'd like to re-read the manga in a few years when I'm at a different place in my life to see what I think of it a little farther down the line. I liked it a lot, and I think it will stick with me.

[chattegeorgiana]

I admit I didn't really like SasuKarin back then but I decided to give it a chance after reading On Sasuke Uchiha and his bonds with Itachi Uchiha, Naruto Uzumaki, Karin Uzumaki and Sakura Haruno and your posts concerning them. I still don't ship them but my opinion has changed of it a lot and I actually think those two had a better chance at becoming a pair. But I think what raised my respect for it even more was their fan children. I have a soft spot for fan children so it's not really a surprise, but they are all so cute and beautiful! My personal favorites are Akari Uzumaki and the U-Twins! Speaking of the U-Twins, you and Pumiih did an awesome job on them! They look so cool and mysterious just like their parents and I love what they are meant to represent! They're hairstyles also remind me of Madara so that's funny to me lol. I also really like the idea of Sasuke growing his hair out into a ponytail to honor Itachi. The side shavings on his hair makes him even cooler in my opinion. I also noticed something. I don't know know how to properly explain it but I'll try. We see more male Uchiha clan members than female (despite there being some such as Naomi, Izumi, and Mikoto) and we see more female Uzumaki clan members than male (despite there being some such as Ashina, Nagato, and Naruto). It's almost as if those certain genders hold the more importance. So I think it's interesting that it's reversed with the U-Twins. Sorry if I didn't explain it well (couldn't really find the right words) but all in all, I'm excited to see what you'll do with them in the future, make sure you don't rush, take your time and rest, and again, awesome job! 💜❤️

Anon, I don't know who you are, but first of all THANK YOU for your kind and introspective message.

I want to say this is one of the messages that definitely won my heart because you SAW what I meant to do. You explained everything PERFECTLY! That's exactly what I wanted to do. A "gender roles swap" to show that change that is meant to bring in more ways than one.

Because while I do express these changes through my preferred ships, I never really forgot about the CORE elements of what made the Naruto story so beloved, and one of that is the clans & the shinobi system.

Their design have a thought about element from the very strand of hair to their overall design... I don't know if you know me for a long time or not, but one of the things I'm obsessed about is symbolism. So when I create something, there's a symbolic meaning behind almost everything!

When studying Literature, symbolism has been one of my favorite parts. I just love how one can transmit certain themes, ideas, beliefs etc in a symbolic way.

I feel as if this manages to stay with the reader/viewer better. It somehow enters your soul.

Being part of the Shinachiku Kosen team & doing Kaika myself, I can tell you that both Akari & the U twins have a great deal of symbolism behind them & were created with much love.

I know people don't taste SK that good, especially given how the great metas of the past about them has been lost. I only touched in that analysis you mentioned like a small, surface-level way.

If you would've been here in the past when Skania or Homusubi wrote their metas (both great known names in the SK fandom), you would've at least been able to understand where the SK fandom comes from. Or came. There aren't many left anyway.

You don't have to ship them, ofc.

I didn't particularily do it either in the beginning, but then when I saw the symbolism that was building up, Sasuke awakening such power to protect Karin and their similar backgrounds, I couldn't help but fall for the possibility of it. Plus, the comedic act of it. It was something different about them. But alas...

Once again thank you for your kind and introspective message! I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart. And trust me, as a writer-wanna be, it lit my soul on fire to see someone properly getting the "underneath beneath the underneath" I was trying to show there. Gives me a lot of mood to keep pushing through this, even if I'm so late with how I planned for the project to go & all that. But hey, adulting will somehow do that with your plans lol. This year has been quite busy on a personal level for me. But now things start to look up, so I should be able to soon get back to it & bring about all this vision I had in my mind to life. So thank you once again for your message and your interest in Kaika! All the best,

Chatte.

[demonstars]

this is literally so serious to me Please all criticisms to my inbox ok FALL OUT BOY ALBUMS RANKING

infinity on high cause she's THAT GIRL. i didnt even know ENGLISH when i listened to this album for the first time and still i got hooked and every bit of lore i learn makes me want to kill myslef in the best way. this is the album my sister calls the gay one because of how many times i've talked about the symbolism and the gay sex. Wishing to be the friction in your jeans, man..

folie I actually only knew i dont care until 2017 and then my life fuckign changed LIKE WHAT DO YOU MEAN. wams and tiffany blews are part of my top five fob songs ever it that serious. BUT ALSO GOLDEN?? HEADFIRST?? WHAT A CATCH. COFFEE'S FOR CLOSERS. THREE TIMES FOR THE HOLY GHOST! it would be the first if infinity hadn't actually properly changed my brain chemistry

from under the cork tree: something about how the themes of this album talk to infinity makes me seriously want to wed it, it's so delicious?? like do you guys ever read something that's so well done that you just want to kiss it. they call it competency kink i just call it being in love with their work. anyway. beautiful album. nobody pits baby in the corner

mania Like i spent these few minutes talking about it. UNDERRATED!!!!! UNDERRATED!!!!!!!!!!! NOBODY GETS HOW FUN AND AWESOME SHE IS BUT I DO!!! HOLD ME TIGHT anthem for high school me. also one of the first ones i could understand without fully googling the lyrics

so much for stardust. I think she single-handedly made me go thru 2023 Sorry for relying on albums to stay up and about. The way they refer to their own previous musical identity has me on a chokehold. also it's so clearly a pandemic album and i find that really interesting, the commitment to refer to their context. WHEN I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE THIS ISNT QUITE WHAT I MEANT I GOT THE QUARANTINE BLUES WHAT'S LEFT? ??? <- written on my wall

take this to your grave is so awesome to me sorry i literally have to put it here its not top 5 but IT IS LOVELY TO MEEEEE i like it so much but its clearly a very experimental one idk

save rock and roll I like the songs individually Idk why it annoys me so much the order they are placed that i cannot in my good conscience put it up. also i havent watched the mv movie entire SORRY I HAVE TROUBLE FOCUSING ON MOVIES ON MY OWN AND I HAVDNT CONVINCED MY SISTER TO WATCH IT WITH ME

ab/ap: i have Heard there's controversy with this album I just have a lot of fun with a lot of songs but there's a lot of skips so last my bad. uma thurman irresistible fourth of july and immortals songs of all time tho. ARGUE WITH THE WALL

evening out with your girlfriend is their first one for a reason

[original-character-championship]

hello everyone it’s time for the Verity / Cygnet Sys propaganda post

I’ve been making OCs for a really long time but Verity is one of my most recent shining stars. my true pride and joy.

I’ve always been really keen on making OCs and writing stories just as an art/writing hobbyist but Verity is one of my biggest faves since ey’re essentially a love letter to a lot of my special interests over the years and she’s just a combination of so many different design elements I love in media and storytelling! Like simple and effective silhouettes and characters who have to grapple with their identity and make compromises with their future.

People might’ve read this on her toyhou.se but Verity is essentially the mind of a (basically) very powerful beast that was revered as a god in her universe ^-^ her other half/true physical vessel is Vanitas who was designed by my awesome girlriend! She’s currently borrowing Teth’s body while they search for a way to reunite amidst the tense political climate of Deihexis where a revolution is currently taking place directly related to Van’s sudden disappearance from the capital city ^^

Besides that Verity has system swag and ey’re the host of a system, though she and the others don’t figure that out until later on shhhh.

Verity incorporates a lot of my favorite design elemenets, like glasses, heterochromia, braids, capes, frilly and flowy clothes…but I’m really fond of how I incorporated infinity symbols into her design

and I love this alternate design I made for her!

I have a playlist for her here on YouTube and a very dear friend of mine translated this song 春隣、風となり which I consider her sort of unofficial theme song! (The lyrics are really good please look at them)

Thank you for considering voting for Verity/Cygnet sys!!!!!!!! It means a lot to me as a multiple creator that wants to get more stories out there about us…

(P.S. I’m the artist but I’m submitting this from my personal/main blog!)

[spookyserenades]

Hi Dana!!! Just wanted to stop by in your asks to let you know that I absolutely love Trouvaille! I can't believe you've been pumping out +20k chapters for this, but I appreciate it a lot (I can't imagine the amount of time you take to work on them). Overall, I really love the concept and world building you've done in only 3 chapters. Especially the originality of adding in the occult/paranormal/supernatural to the story. I find it so interesting, especially now that there's been more interactions and insight into MC's past with the spirits and ghosts.

I guess I'll put in a theory (?) regarding future chapters...? I have a feeling JK and Namjoon are going to be important or instrumental with MC's dive back into the paranormal. Looking at their moonboards gives some hints towards it, too. I feel like JK was either in a cult or grew up in what seems to be the Catholic church (I thought I saw a rosary behind the crucifix). Also, with the ghosty hands and stuff, it just feels like he'll be important. Even in Norse mythology, elks are symbols of protection against physical and spiritual danger. As for Namjoon, we already got a hint that he had known MC's mom before. Plus, his moonboard has so many books about the paranormal/criptids. Idk, the nightmare, thinking his eyes are really familiar, etc. It just seems like there's something to it. (Lowkey, I just keep reminding myself of the: "You have 2 wolves inside of you" meme and laugh when i think of him).

To end off, i guess I love what you're doing with this series!! And I'm so excited to read more whenever you release the chapters! I'd love to be on the taglist for it also, if that isn't a problem. As a last note, Tae and Jin are the best boys!!! Love them so much, but all the guys are great in their own special ways😂 I hope you have a great day/night!!! Much love💜💜

!!! Hi darling!! AHHH you've sent me such a lovely message <3 It makes me so happy that you love Trouvaille! And LOL I love a good lengthy update, there's so much I want to squeeze into each one I find it hard to stop writing sometimes. If I'm having a lot of inspiration, I can usually crank out a chapter in a little over a week... but there have been times where I don't have as much time to work and it can take me about a month! I'm trying to be dutiful with my writing schedule so I can continue to update consistently :) All of my chapters will be at least 20k, though!

YAY I'm really excited that you're enjoying the paranormal/spookier aspects to Trouvaille! I love these kinds of subjects, so writing a BTS fic with these themes have been very... self indulgent? LOL! But it makes me so happy that you and others are interested in it too <3 There will definitely be more ~haunted happenings~ in future updates!!

Which leads me to your awesome theories!! You're right on the money, Jungkook and Namjoon are totally vital to the paranormal aspects of the plot, especially regarding MC's return to her mystical past. I really love your idea that Jungkook may have came from a cult, that's definitely a theory I have not yet heard. As a little hint (actually, it's a big one), I've loosely based Jungkook off of Keanu Reeves' character in the movie Constantine. The Norse mythology fact you've brought up is SO COOL!! I had no idea that's what elks represent, what an awesome synchronicity! Namjoon, true to him IRL, is definitely the bookish part of the operation here... he's read quite a bit about these supernatural subjects, perhaps experienced a thing or two prior to his adoption ;)

SCREAMING at the two wolves thing!! It totally fits him, his character is a bit of an edgelord. I think of those meme pictures of the anthropomorphic wolf tearing off its clothes or moodily staring at a lake LMAO!

Thank you so so much for reading and offering your awesome insights <3 Right now, I update on the 7th and the 20th, but that may be subject to change as I'm taking some summer classes that will be taking up a bit of my time. I'll absolutely add you to the taglist, darling! You're so right, Tae and Jin are the bestest angels... they deserve the world <3 Have a wonderful week yourself, and thank you again for your love and support!!!!

[raayllum]

Hi! I saw in the tags of one of your reblogs you talking about how sometimes magic systems need to be malevolent and that you sometimes write parasitic magic systems. I was wondering if you could recommend anything with a magic system like this? I find in my reading I usually gravitate towards neutral magic systems, where it's kind of like using a sword. But I'm super fascinated by the idea of a story where perhaps the magic itself is evil, rather than the evil side to a good half (like the Sith and the Jedi type of thing.) I hope my question was articulate! And thank you for your time and the awesome blog, of course.

Re: this post. So I would argue Dark Magic falls under a malevolent magic system with primal magic under a beneficial to volatile magic system (aka it can still be dangerous but is mostly about control), since Dark Magic consistently damages the body and the souls of other beings (re: Through the Moon, Bloodmoon Huntress, and even the containment of Sarai's last breath saying "No" before Thunder is slain). Also obligatory mention of TDP's Jewish themes and its implementation of Kosher / views of nature and animals.

ATLA gets close to having a mostly spiritual and tool based magic system, as sometimes bending is linked to spirituality (illusion of separation, which bloodbending arguably violates because it doesn't separate enough)

(And is now making me curious as to how Aaravos' body has withstood centuries, possibly millennia or more, of dark magic use)

I myself write a volatile to parasitic magic system, in which the danger is of constant excess of power in the body. The limited set of magic users are more in tune with the world; with each other, with certain elements (more awake at night, alert when it rains, or out in nature, or when surrounded by death, etc etc), so in some ways they're living a fuller experience than ordinary humans. But the magic is also latched onto their souls and does not care for them as a vessel, and will consume/destroy them if they use too much. Cue this snippet from my drafts:

“Better nothing than too much,” Rynn said, eyes flashing. “Your nea is not a game, Ally. You have no idea how much power is held behind that block of yours, and what it will do if too much of it leaked out before you were ready. It is not something to push—or it will consume you.”

which was heavily inspired by interpretations of the Force in Star Wars from certain materials, expertly laid out in this post, and a type of magic system I find very compelling (and why I think I love Dark Magic and its various allegories - for cannibalism, hunting, and fossil fuels - because the characters themselves also hold those matching, allegorical attitudes towards it).

Malevolent magic systems used to be far more common in like, older tales and mythos (think anything with traditional fae) because magic was a symbol of the Unknown, and the Unknown was always Dangerous (a lot of cautionary tales, for example) but it's not nearly as common an exploration nowadays, which is too bad. I don't read nearly as much fantasy as I should, so i don't have any strong recommendations in that regard - and I would say most fantasy leans on magic being neutral and it depends on what the user is well, using it for. Which has its own interesting set of ethical and moral implications / explorations & allegories, it's just not what I'm super keen to explore!

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Dark out, I’m cloistered inside where it’s warm because I’m built for triple digit temps and we have snow. Perfect circumstances for a little Late-Night Togashiposting! How could I muse on Oda’s relation to such an influence starting from Okiku and not delve into Hunter x Hunter’s biggest sweetiebaby? Introduced here in one of my favorite panels in the entire series. All that buildup about this horrific, otherworldly monster...then boom. Cute little muffin and all her stuffies. Cracks me up everytime. 

Clever introduction too. Symbolically looking like one of the dolls as a reflection of how her family sees her. Excellent contrast with the cutie that perks up when she sees big brother Kil. The idea of “something from afar” as a motif for a trans character given all too often we see Japanese hatemongers writing off queer identities as unsavory Western influence. Not to mention laying seeds for the Dark Continent down the line. Good stuff.

It shouldn’t be hard to guess why I might want to look at Alluka Zoldyck and Okiku side-by-side. We dipped a toe, but they deserve more. They deserve everything. If nothing else we have two high-profile trans characters slipped into some of the biggest ongoing series in Weekly Shonen Jump. They were both very prevalent in their arcs and served as a pillar of the core themes. We have some easy shared territory like exploring them through a sibling bond and this core element of duality. That’s barely scratching the surface though.

First, what we won’t do here. I’m not even going to try and judge which of these two is most baby. They’re both sweetie muffins, they’re both perfect, neither has done a single wrong thing in their lives. I want both as a little sister. Existing in the same series would spark a religion that finally establishes world peace. Eat your heart out Prince Tyson.

The angle I want to approach this from...ever seen much of the correspondence between JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis? It’s honestly as interesting as Narnia or Lord of the Rings. A masterclass on the philosophy of fiction. That’s how I look at these two. Dead serious. And I have for a long time, even before Oda’s glowing statements for Togashi’s exhibition. Looking at the landscape now though, these two are contemporaries even if Togashi’s the senior on paper. Because of his frequent breaks, One Piece has published more chapters than the elder’s three main series combined.

Stands to reason if an author wanted to do a big trans character they’d look at others in the genre. If I was doing so in 2018, Alluka would be a first thought. Hell, Punk Hazard is getting started right as the 13th Chairman Election is concluding. Especially since there’s potentially a similar dynamic getting from Miyuki in Yu Yu Hakusho to Rurouni Kenshin’s Kamatari. The latter pair were part of a big trend of similar characters, WSJ’s answer to a largely shoujo phenomenon. Which tracks with Japanese politics at the time as well as hitting the point new authors who grew up at the height of Stop!! Hibari-Kun’s popularity were coming onto the scene. 

Let’s start somewhere easy for the compare/contrast. Both of these little angels have a core relationship with a big brother we already knew by the time we meet them. I’m not going to say one is better, but I like One Piece’s take more and it plays into a way One Piece distinguishes itself from Shonen contemporaries including HxH. Alluka is wonderful, a great story that makes excellent use of the trans aspect as a parallel to the events going on. Much like we’ve said a lot about Kiku. Still...at the end of the day she’s an accessory to the 2nd most important character in the series. It’s about Killua being a good brother first and foremost. Trying to teach the main audience how to respect someone different. Likewise with the trans aspect just being handed to you up front. For all the ways HxH subverts common tropes, even with Alluka, letting Kiku lead her own story is awesome. Doing in a way that couches her in themes most women could relate to even better. You almost never get that and definitely not in something so mainstream. 

Why? Because it frees her from having to do as many beats about figuring her out. Killua is a nice evolution, being the one who gets his little sister compared to the rest of the family, but Kiku gets to just be her. None of her story is about being alien to begin with. It isn’t really that hard of a concept, getting to One Piece in general. Hunter x Hunter is subversive in many ways, I’d call it the more mature of the two series in terms of content...but it’s still at heart a “coming of age” story. One Piece isn’t. It’s a young man’s odyssey. That’s why we meet Koby in Romance Dawn. Why we don’t spend East Blue bumbling along as an apprentice. To show Luffy is past that kind of motivation and already the type of figure who can inspire others like Shanks did for him.

That same ethos is all over, and for Kiku it ends up being this awesome manifestation. Seriously...how many trans stories have you seen that aren’t about “finding your true self” or something like that? I’d call hers a step that can only happen past that; someone who has done that grappling with the past catching up to you. An adult who has found her own strength tested with regression, the danger of “becoming the mask” again. It’s Yamato and even Sanji who have more common beats you’d see for a trans narrative. Not trying to twist the knife...but that’s why I knew the former wouldn’t be tagging along at the end. Fans ended up telling on him; so much of the appeal was in “seeing him grow.” Great for most Shonen, not so much for One Piece.

Hmm...this is getting pretty long already. Oh darn, guess that means we have more LNTPs to come. I’ll leave you with this fun thought for now. Just consider the timing. Maybe it’s all one big coincidence. But like I said, Punk Hazard starts as Alluka’s arc is wrapping up. We were laying seeds that would matter for Kiku right from meeting Kin’emon. That’s not all though. Just...find it interesting where Togashi’s huge hiatus lines up with One Piece. Last chapter before released concurrently with the beginning of Act 2, Hiatus ends concurrently with Blackbeard showing up again. From one actress with him (Catarina) to another (Pudding). Is it a bit crazy to speculate on two authors collaborating on something funky? Hell yes, massive reach. But if any two would...

[the-rookinator-3000]

IM SORRYYYY I LIKE CALLIE! SHES SILLY AND GOOFY AND VERY NICE I CAN ADMIT THAT! I JUST... don't really have a favorite... i always cared way more about salmon run stuff than literally anything else in the game...

and speaking of which oh my god FINALLY someone who also loves salmon run. i'm so enamored with the horror aspect of it. just the whole system of going to war with the honor of accepting a death fought tooth and nail for... a massive swarm of bloodthirsty fish who want nothing more than to see your ink on the walls... and man it is INTENSE. splat3 salmon run is SO MUCH HARDER than splat2. way more mobs and way tougher ranks - the danger percent can go up to 333%. insane. and then of course the lore of the gamemode itself is great too - even beyond splat3's story mode, it's so fascinating to see their culture and the kinds of fish that can develop depending on conditions. and of course the aesthetic of it being much more grungy and dark and industrial than the rest of splatoon is just so very good.

i doubt you have a favorite fish (i mean what kinda crazy guy would! hahah °_ °") but please allow me to tell you how much i LOVE horrorboros. first of all he looks so fucking awesome. very solid design and detail. and he looks like a SNAKE FISH. two of the world's greatest creations in ONE... AND he KILLED it in the first impressions department! like:

HOW AWESOME IS THAT??? i'll tell you just how awesome it is: HELLA!!!!!

secondly, the symbolism of horrorboros' original symbol (uroboros as i'm sure you're aware of) is just SUCH an incredible pick for salmon run. first of all, it's just a very good ancient symbol in general (i'm a sucker for cyclical motifs that embody infinity...) and secondly it is very fitting to the salmonid's culture in general! the strong focus on consumption and a salmon's life cycle in general, with the babies using the nutrients from their parent's corpse (it isn't exactly pretty) to survive, both make uroboros an incredible pick to draw inspiration from for a king salmonid. i love horrorboros so very much. what a great snake fish <3

(if you do happen to have a favorite salmonid... feel free to tell me... :-) i quite enjoy the salmonids if you couldn't tell already)

GOOD. BE SORRY >:[ and HEY YEA i've always been a big fan of salmon run's COMPLETELY different vibe from the rest of splatoon (u could argue it fits with splat 3, but that also is cuz of the whole "chaos" theme ehehaha) (<- just realized u already said this whilr i was reading back whoops)

im gonna put more of my opinions here...

OKAY SO yes!!! i really love the horror parts of salmon run! usually splatoon handles horror in very subtle ways, like the unnerving sounds hidden in splat 1 + 2 and octo expansion's whole sanitization thing, but salmon run went ALL OUT and i love it

i had stopped playing splat 3 around the time horrorboros was introduced, but the posts i saw abt it were HORRIFYING, especially it's scream! splatoon could traumatize an 8 yr old child...

salmon run has always been very interesting, from the design taking the "octos use scrap for their tech" concept to a WHOOLE another level never ceases to amaze me how much effort the splatoon team put into that mode... especially with the symbolism you mentioned earlier! salmon run has a very unnerving feel to it, i recall it's lore also had something to do with splatoon's religion themes?? although it has a good chance to be another reference, it is very interesting...

also, my fav salmonid is the maws and the big shot!! i dont know i jus like them... ive killed a lot of maws but i think they are growing on me....

[thedreamparadox]

What would you like to see in a new NiGHTS game?

Postgame ability to free roam ALL LEVELS without dealing with Awakers/Alarm Eggs/a potentially new wake you up "enemy." JoD doesn't let you free roam super far from my recollection, and NiD has a larger capacity to free roam by base since you can stun the Alarm Egg but it doesn't last forever. Plus the levels in NiD are small, I have tried to explore zones but straight up the areas in Mare 4 do not exist until they're called in by completing the relevant laps. You can do unlimited freeroam via a Game Shark on the Saturn version (which I have done, but I don't have a capture card to show it off), which is very neat, but I'd want that to be a basic feature.

New outfits for NiGHTS and Reala because I love seeing them in new costumes.

A Jackle cameo if it wouldn't break the plot. I like the idea of getting new Second Levels every single game, but Jackle is a fan favorite. Maybe have them as a bonus unlockable skin in the vein of Reala being playable in Christmas NiGHTS on April 1st (Reala Day) sort of like Claris and Elliot were unlockable in JoD if you got all the Dream Drops. (I did, in fact, go out of my way to get all of the Dream Drops in JoD. It was a nice little addition to the game even if some of them were fiddly as HELL to get.)

I've warmed up to the light puzzle platforming as the kids thing from JoD, so I'd want to keep that in to some degree. There NEEDS to be better control over Blue Chips though, those controls felt so fiddly.

Fix the My Dream system or remove it entirely. A-Life was the reason we later got Chao, so there's no reason we can't have a Chao-adjacent system. I love the idea of which levels you play the most influences the space, but in practice the changes are so minimal it's really annoying. Maybe let some features of the level be unlockable based on X number of replays or Y score.

I don't really have any particular wants for the story. I guess "less clunky" from JoD. The original NiD is a masterpiece, even if most of the plot is hidden in the manual. I was able to enjoy its story not having the manual as a kid and having zero concept of what was really going on. Owl can stay, but they NEED to not use his voice clips to the point of annoyance.

I've floated the idea of reversing the sporty and artsy thing, ie having an artsy inclined boy and a sporty girl, before, and I still think that could be nice. I've toyed with this concept for my own fics, but ultimately after writing Journey into the Dream Within I don't think I could do anything that interesting in this concept in a way that wouldn't be retreading what I'd already written with my JoD fic. Piano boy is my vote if we gotta pick an instrument, I don't sports so idk on the girl front. (In theory you could get away with a customizable Dreamer character but given how entrenched in symbolism and how much the series leans into Jungarian ideas, this could make the levels wholeass make no sense. I'd be down for doing the Pokemon or Balan Wonderworld thing of "you have a set protagonist but can pick their appearance" though.)

Soundtrack just needs to keep consistent quality. For all the flaws of both games, the OSTs always slap. Bring back the Nightopian mood mechanic from NiD though that's awesome. Love those remixes. I'm a sucker for variations on a theme.

MAKE PARALOOPS INCENTIVIZED! Having Nightmaren eat half my Nightopians after paralooping them because it throws them into the My Dream area was annoying as hell and I hated that.

Remove Personas unless it's for cosmetics. Honestly remove Personas entirely. NiGHTS fluidly changing form in NiD made much more sense than in JoD. (Attempting to justify their existing in my fic was suffering honestly.)

I'd really like it if the game leaned more into NiGHTS' origins. Not their backstory, but the fact they're a Nightmaren. They're not all sugar and rainbows they were made to torment humans. Lean into that. More gremlin former Nightmaren energy in my protagonist please. (It wouldn't even effect their characterization much. NiD NiGHTS can be sassy too, if you make them bonk their head on the Ideya Palace enough times they'll refuse to Dualize with you.)

[mrmallard]

So I was just struck with a thought about Final Fantasy. I've been living and breathing Final Fantasy for months now, first with my FF13 posting and then with Kingdom Hearts, and then with playing FF13-2. I've also been catching up on the Snapcube playthrough of Final Fantasy 7 Remake as I grind in Old-School Runescape, and I'm literally on the last stream of the base game as I type this, so like I've been in the fuckin Final Fantasy trenches lately.

Here's the thought:

Final Fantasy can be divided into "ages" or "eras" pretty easily, and Final Fantasy 7 Remake is arguably the beginning of the current age of Final Fantasy. Furthermore, the third and final FF7R game - whenever the fuck that comes out, probably around 2028 or something - is probably going to be the capstone on this era of Final Fantasy.

I'm doing the classic conspiracy theory method of coming to a conclusion and working backwards, but hear me out.

Final Fantasy 1-3 are the Age of Innovation. FF1 comes out and does its thing, cribs a bit from Dragon Quest on one hand but innovates its own class system and magic and stuff on the other. Final Fantasy 2 comes out and it has this keyword feature where you can learn keywords and bring them up in conversation to advance the plot. It's a bit of a slog, and the levelling system has been overhauled so radically that one of the most efficient ways to grind is to have your characters beat each other up - it didn't stick. But it was an earnest attempt, and it was really interesting. FF3 was then the birthplace of Final Fantasy's job system, which FF5 and X-2 would run with.

Final Fantasy 4-6 is the Age of Refinement. The storylines of the first three games weren't... unambitious, per se, but Final Fantasy 4 kinda bumped it up a notch. You have this story of a dark knight who realises the error of his ways and decides to travel and better himself and is symbolically reborn, and you have this apprentice and this king, and there's a summoner character who the main guy is looking after - I haven't finished FF4, but the part I have played was very good.

FF5 takes FF3's job system and really fleshes it out. The plot is a bit breezy - unfairly maligned by people who want to shitpost about the main villain being a Soul Jar and a large ham - but it's an extremely fun play. Lots of job combos and character specialties and stuff.

And then you have FF6, which I can't speak about very much, but it's widely considered the pinnacle of the 16-bit era of RPGs. Huge, dynamic story, ambitious gameplay, dark themes - at least in America, Final Fantasy 6 was kind of this great marriage and refinement of everything that came before in the franchise.

And that kicks off what might arguably be the Golden Age of Final Fantasy.

Final Fantasy 7. Cutting edge graphics, a wealth of things to do and see spread over multiple discs, pushes the boundaries of video game storytelling. Final Fantasy 8 - takes the stocky little Lego men from FF7, turns them into fully detailed, proportionate and fleshed out people and renders an awesome video game weapon that never quite caught on as much as the Buster Sword. People complain about junctioning, and I can't say anything about that, but comparing FF7 and FF8 graphically is night and day.

Final Fantasy 9 then takes the improvements in modelling, texturing and proportion - and it uses it to render a fully realised steam-fantasy world full of hulking knights and skittering mice children, big angry antlions and small, hopping frogs. The 3D games went from little stock approximations of people, to realistically rendered and proportioned human characters, to a wide menagerie of characters from different species, of different heights and builds, textured as well as possible to convey one of the .ost ambitious fantasy worlds in video games up to a point.

Final Fantasy X, warts and all, represents the end of that golden age in my opinion.

It was the final game in the series to be developed by Squaresoft before they merged with Enix. Hironobu Sakaguchi was credited on Final Fantasy games up to X-2 as a producer, though I think he left the company before FF11 came out - I think X was the final game he was involved with from start to finish. And it's an interesting mix of old and new - this is one of the few games not to use an Active Time Battle system, using turn-order instead, but the technology was a step beyond the pre-rendered backgrounds and text-only dialogue of the PS1 trilogy. The setting is also notably unique; I think it's visually based on the Philippines, as opposed to like a steampunk fantasy setting or grim dystopian cyberpunk.

Final Fantasy 11 and 12, imo, is kind of like an Age of Expansion. This is where Final Fantasy began to really transcend what a Final Fantasy product could be. There had been spinoffs like Chocobo's Mystery Dungeon, Chocobo GP and Mystic Quest, as well as stuff like the SaGa games on Game Boy that were localised as Final Fantasy Adventure - and shit, you had an anime OVA based on FF5 and a blockbuster movie which bombed at the box office - but to bring that into the main series for the first time, Final Fantasy 11 was a fucking MMORPG. That was... well, maybe not unheard of given Ultima Online, but it was certainly a bold move to take, especially chasing the success of World of Warcraft.

Final Fantasy 12, to my understanding, takes the sort of tone and ambition of a game like Final Fantasy Tactics and combines it with state of the art gameplay systems that were unlike just about anything that was on the market at the time. And even the spinoffs of the time were especially weird and ambitious, like Crystal Chronicles on the Gamecube. This was also where Square Enix began to publish sequels to older properties like Final Fantasy 4 and 10 - the franchise was expanding and testing the boundaries of the franchise, almost aggressively so.

Final Fantasy 13 then began one of the most notorious flop eras in gaming history.

In hindsight, this era of the franchise was moreso defined by growing pains. The jump from the 6th gen to the 7th was pretty huge across the board, and this is where a lot of Japanese gaming giants had a ton of trouble on console hardware. Capcom had a dogshit generation on the PS3, for example - it wasn't just Square Enix.

But the next step in the main franchise, Final Fantasy 13, was struck by bloat and ambition. They built a whole new engine for the game which cost millions of dollars, and it had a lot of shortcomings - you couldn't really render large, populated areas without slowdown, not on the scale that current-gen hardware kind of demanded in that exponential-improvement kind of way, and the development was beset by logistical issues - my understanding is that at one point the team entertained the idea of making Vanille the main character, but they'd already released the announcement trailer with Lightning at the forefront so they were hamstrung by that creative decision.

This was the period where Square Enix execs began saying stuff like "turn-based combat is dead, players don't want that any more, we want to pivot towards more action-driven combat that provides more immediate feedback to the player". And even then it felt kind of like a desperate pivot to further dig their heels in and double down on FF13's differences - even moreso after games like Persona 5 proved that there was still a ravenous, fanatical fanbase for turn-based combat, and that those types of RPGs were still popular and profitable - but this aspect of the corporate narrative would end up staying the course and defining the next era of Final Fantasy.

The game looked gorgeous, but the resulting release caused such a crisis that instead of moving forward on the other two Fabula Nova Crystallis games - Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Final Fantasy Agito XIII - the core creative team would desperately pivot into a trilogy of games that continued the narrative of FF13, basically trying to iterate on it until it was fixed.

Instead of a thematic trilogy of Fabula Nova Crystallis games, they had a literal trilogy of XIII games, a loosely connected instalment on the PSP that kind of carried the spirit of the original series plan, and a hotly anticipated game - Nomura's baby - that had been in development hell for almost ten years straight. That game would be completely divorced from the Fabula Nova Crystallis series and released as Final Fantasy 15, helmed by a new director and buoyed by an entire self-contained multimedia franchise unto itself, which subsequently had a rough launch and was iterated on with DLC for years until the director quit. At which point Square cut their losses, cancelled the rest of the DLC and released a book to tie up the material that never got released.

And like FF13 and FF15 had its fans, and they ended up being pretty okay in the end. I know someone who adores FF15 and its cast. I have a lot to say, positive and negative, about FF13 and 13-2 - I really love FF13-2, actually, and I'll defend the writing of the first game pretty voraciously if prompted.

But with all that said, I haven't even mentioned Final Fantasy 14 yet. And I'm going to keep it short by tying Final Fantasy 14 into the ethos of this era of Final Fantasy. It is a microcosm of this entire era of the franchise.

Final Fantasy 14 launched as an ambitious, user-unfriendly BOMB.

The developers weren't great at communicating with the playerbase. I think the graphical requirements were pretty high, so a lot of people couldn't play it, and players who COULD play it didn't particularly like it. People stuck with it, but it was a dead game being outpaced by its own predecessor in Final Fantasy 11 and it was something of a millstone around Square Enix's neck.

Final Fantasy 14 went from being one of the worst reviewed, worst selling, worst regarded Final Fantasy games - and a real turd of an MMO to boot - to being one of the most successful, most celebrated and most well-regarded MMORPGs ever.

And it got there by TEARING THE OLD SHIT DOWN A D REBUILDING IT FROM SCRATCH.

Square Enix did that at great cost, relying on the word of a young upstart named Naoki Yoshida, and pulled one of the biggest hail maries in video game history.

And that kind of sums up FF13 and FF15.

Final Fantasy 13 was a rough game. The team decided to make a direct sequel in Final Fantasy XIII-2, and then another one in Lightning Returns, to salvage the engine they used and to try and bank on the momentum of its narrative and characters for the entire generation of video games.

Final Fantasy 15 launched in a rough state. They spent YEARS patching that game, releasing DLC (free and paid) and banking on it as a franchise unto itself.

Neither of them succeeded as much as FF14 did, but they managed to eke out their own niches. Square Enix spent almost ten years iterating, polishing, salvaging. I maintain that this era was extremely fucking rough to maintain or justify, but it did lead us to the big moneymaker - Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

So far I've argued for five different "ages" or "eras" of the Final Fantasy franchise. We've had Innovation and Refinement leading into a Golden Age, leading into a rapid Expansion and being stymied somewhat by... well, let's call FF13 to FF15 the Iteration Age, because "Clusterfuck Age" isn't kind. The games were extremely rough, so they were ultimately saved through iteration.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake aimed to evoke the Golden Age of Final Fantasy while refining the gameplay that had defined the Iteration Age of Final Fantasy.

The mindset behind Final Fantasy 13's combat is that turn-based combat was a dying genre, and the executives wanted to move the brand forward into more action-based combat that would grant the player more immediate feedback. That game used a simplified ATB system, bolstered by a Paradigm Shift system which kept the player on their toes. Final Fantasy 15 had more of an action RPG bent to it, but it was hit and miss - I tried it once, and I couldn't get into it.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake finally signalled the franchise's shift into hard Action RPG combat. It still relied on classic RPG menu mechanics, but this is where you had that immediate feedback they were talking about back in 2010.

The game had a stagger gauge, just like Final Fantasy 13. It had free-wheeling action combat, just like Final Fantasy 15. And it catered HARD to the lofty, lofty expectations that diehard FF7 fans had developed over the years, carting over as much of that Golden Age appeal as they could and welding it to the highest triple-A standard they could.

It was aesthetically based in the old aspects of the franchise. But its core mechanics stemmed entirely from the franchise post-FF13.

That momentum continued with Final Fantasy 16, which was straight-up an action RPG helmed by the gameplay director of Devil May Cry 5. And we now have the second game in the Final Fantasy 7 Remake series, taking the more menu-based approach of FF7R and expanding it to an entire fuck-off overworld map on 2 PS5 discs. It's a part of a trilogy, but Remake was fleshed out into its own unique, standalone entity, and Rebirth - as a sequel and continuation of that game - takes the expansion of Remake and takes it in a new, crazily ambitious direction: marrying the PS1 era Final Fantasy overworld map with modern open-world gameplay.

It being a sequel isn't reactive like Final Fantasy 13-2 and Lightning Returns was. I mean, as an adaptation of the same source material as the first Remake game, it kind of can't be reactive in that way. I dunno, I'm tired as shit. But I still think despite that, there's a clear difference between 13's mad struggle to salvage itself and the way that the 7R games have been coming out. The iteration is still there, but it's in more of the way that FF7 became FF8 which became FF9, more than how FF13 became FF13-2 into LR:FF13.

That might be giving the FF7R games way too much credit. The way FF7 became FF9 is a way different story to how Remake became Rebirth. But my point is that 7 Remake kind of represents the series finding its footing, with later games - including the latest mainline Final Fantasy game - kind of following in its stead.

It's building a brand new ship based on the previous ship, using what worked in the previous ship while discarding the old. The stretch between FF11 and FF13 was like trying to take an old ship and turn it into a speedboat, and it kiiiiiiiinda worked - but man, it was not an ideal way to sail.

Final Fantasy 7 Remake takes what Final Fantasy 13 started - in spirit, ala moving away from turn-based combat, as well as in function, ala the stagger bar. It's coached in the distant past, but it's built on the bones of the immediate past. And it managed to marry the best aspects of the two.

To strain this already labored metaphor - Final Fantasy 7 Remake retains the form of what it's adapting. It relies on how it looks and how it conveys that air to appeal to an audience.

But it keeps that audience, and any newer audience members, engaged with modern function.

So Final Fantasy 7 Remake keeps everything you love about an old ship. But it never gave up on being a speedboat, as roughly as that worked out the last couple times, and now they've spend thousands of man-hours working out the kinks? This ship has the functionality of a speedboat. Or at least, it offers what people love about speedboats without compromising the image of a ship that people have in their minds.

Look I know that's nonsense, it's almost 5am and I'm tired. Let me wrap this all up.

I wouldn't be able to name this "era" of Final Fantasy, but I know that FF7R signalled the start of a new era for the franchise. We went from humble innovation, to the refinement of those innovated concepts, to a point where the core iterated experience could be taken significantly further than expected in scope. That gave way to a period of technological exploration and a pushing of boundaries and norms, shifting into something of a stubborn decline born of impotent overambition, before the series was finally able to meet its loftiest standards and make good on the decade's worth of promises they started off with.

All I can say for sure is that the same way FF1 signalled what this franchise would become, the way that FF4 refined the best aspects of those first three games and defined the strengths of the franchise going forward, the way FF7 expanded the scope of the world-building and presentation to unseen heights, the way FF11 toyed with what a mainline Final Fantasy game could even be and the way FF13 showed how much you could bungle a mainline release and subsequently salvage it if you try hard enough - and how every game between those keystone releases managed to iterate on and expand on what that initial keystone release did, for better or for worse - Final Fantasy 7 Remake signalled the start of a new cycle of Final Fantasy games. I've tried to explain what I mean, but at the end of the day, that's all I've got.

And the reason why this was significant in the first place when I started writing it is because I was just thinking.

What then?

What happens after the last Final Fantasy 7 Remake game?

What do the 2030's look like for Final Fantasy?

Where is there left to go?

I think the future comes from devs like Naoki Yoshida, the dude who managed to finagle Final Fantasy 14 out of being one of the worst MMOs of its era to being one of the best MMOs of all time.

I think FF7R3 will probably have to mark a changing of the guard, and a bold push forward into the unknown. A new setting, a new standard, breathing new life into a broadly iterative franchise that's mostly relied on the scraps of the past for the last 14 years.

Those scraps have fed some fantastic video games, but I feel like it has to build to a big finale and the next era has to work to define itself. Fuck it, let's get weird. Let's get a Final Fantasy with prominent aliens. Let's get a whole hero's journey in the vein of a Very Specific Video Game I'm Referencing, and have it so you're some random dude who has to get a thing to save your planet or your people, but by the time you return to rescue your people, you're so fundamentally changed that you can't stay there with them any more. That hasn't been done in a hot second.

And I say stuff like that because Yoshi-P's revamp of FF14 was the exact shot in the arm that Square Enix needed. His success in assembling a team to rebuild that game from scratch, and then subsequently becoming the figurehead for one of the most successful Final Fantasy titles ever, partially comes from being new blood to the franchise. He liked it enough and was familiar with it, but he was working on Dragon Quest when he was asked for his opinion on FF14. Final Fantasy 16 was a bold, mature step in a new direction that ended up being hampered by an arbitrary lock to a single platform. It was new - referential as always, but refreshingly new.

We're seeing just how far old concepts can be stretched. But when that's over, when that pet project ends, what's next?

I want to see what a new generation of devs - in proximity to the Final Fantasy franchise, not necessarily in experience - brings to the table. I want to see the next Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn, not the next Final Fantasy 7 Remake.

And 7R is fantastic - I'm loving my 7R experience. But there's one more Remake game coming out. Maybe one more mainline instalment between then and now, if we're lucky. And I think that will bring this era of Final Fantasy to a close.

So what does that mean for the next era of Final Fantasy?

Personally? I want to see ambitious new talent take their crack at making their own Final Fantasy 7 - bringing this innovated technology into its own - instead of remaking a shiny new FF7 Remake. I'm definitely not asking for a new Fabula Nova Crystallis situation, that was a multi-car pile-up, but I am thinking about a future for Final Fantasy that is actually a Future.

Man I'm going to bed, sorry for the long post.