#well among other things I just wish that the entire thing was more involved in the overreaching plot

[mcflymemes]

AS SAID BY FENRIS  *  assorted dialogue from dragon age ii, updated version

meeting you was the most important thing that ever happened to me.

i can’t bear the thought of living without you.

you are too willing to involve yourself in the affairs of others.

nothing could be worse than living without you.

before we found you, there was a moment when i… don’t do that again.

you should really post some guards outside, considering all the trouble you get into.

everywhere we go, people try to kill you.

i don't want to hear another word out of you.

and here we are again. for the fourth time.

how much do you wish to test that luck of yours?

it seems you have won the day. well done.

why must you go on about this?

i can do that, if you wish.

i am alone.

i'm afraid to ask what brought this on.

is this going anywhere?

do you want to guess what color my underclothes are again?

you’re squandering something you don’t understand.

you do not like your name?

you'd look pretty in one.

i felt like a fool. i thought it better if you hated me.

nobody asks for their fate.

oh. that. it’s... a talent.

it was better than anything i could have dreamed.

do not make light of this. leaving was the hardest thing i’ve ever done.

whatever you need, i am ready to assist.

the true character of any city is found among its poor.

i enjoy following you.

i didn’t come here to burden you further.

we have never discussed what happened between us three years ago.

is there no one else who has your attention?

you wound my pride with such accusations.

break their heart, and i will kill you.

you keep staring at me. is it my eyes again?

you are more naive than i thought.

did i hear correctly?

that is my hope as well.

i don’t want your pity.

i needed to be alone.

that night... i remember your touch as if it were yesterday.

i shouldn’t trouble you with this. my problems are not yours.

how is it you get into these situations so often?

you did the right thing. many would turn a blind eye.

you do not want to know the answer to that.

i don’t know. it’s just something people say.

you have an entire story written in your head already, don’t you?

a shame that you are going to die, no?

i should have asked for your forgiveness long ago. i hope you can forgive me now.

from what i gather, you like a lot of things.

you wish to do this here? in front of everyone?

i’ve never spoken about what happened to anyone.

why are you watching me like that?

i remain at your side.

i may not get a chance to say this again.

thank you for asking me to come along.

perhaps this is what it means to have a friend.

i suggest keeping your distance.

if there is a future to be had, i will walk gladly into it at your side.

we need to stop and rest when we’ve a moment.

this ground is cursed. only wretched or ignorant souls would linger here.

i cannot imagine what it must be like to lose your family. anything i could say would be insufficient. i’m sorry.

i have never allowed anyone too close.

forget i said anything.

it’s so wonderful having my personal business as someone else’s sport.

well... at least i’m not dead.

you were never ordered to kill?

does it bother you? should i stop?

promise me you won’t die.

do not bare your heart to me, unless you would have me rip it out.

is that a compliment of an insult?

do you intend to go after me, then?

it is always good to be at your side.

thanks for getting rid of them.

i imagine you imprisoned them?

you have my thanks.

i am yours, as always.

the smug sense of superiority does give you away.

you caught them, then?

there you are. were you hurt? what happened?

i don’t know what to say, but i’m here.

surely you can’t hope to best me.

i am yours.

we should move on.

i could ask you the same thing.

i just... am pleased to see you, that’s all.

you are looking for forgiveness, but i’m not the one who can give it to you.

they say death is only a journey. does that help?

i stand ready.

shall we end this quickly?

another battle is upon us.

you frightened me.

oh, you've learned a few new words.

keep going. i'm sure your training will kick in any moment.

to be honest, i see no point in filling these moments with empty talk.

my wounds need attention.

[clockworkdragonffxiv]

So I was thinking more about the dragons in Final Fantasy XIV, as I am wont, and decided to go on a bit of a ramble.

We joke a lot about Midgarsormr being the WoL's dad, which he kind of is from how he treats you. Or rather, he treats you like he would a fledgling dragon. Dragons don't seem to show affection for their young the way humans do. I'm not saying they don't care, but I get the feeling that a dragon hatchling straight out of the egg is more than capable of taking down small game like rabbits and chickens.

But during the story when you're running around he won't get involved because, eh, you've got this. And you won't learn anything if you don't handle it yourself. So fight your own battles, kiddo.

Which actually fits what we see of FFXIV dragons and their mindset, especially the scraps we see of their homeworld and their nature. Dragons are more or less a triumph of evolution because they're incredibly adaptable. Their bodies spontaneously mutate at developmental tiers to address environmental factors, so you get a huge variation in phenotypes among one species, and if pressed can do so with extreme speed. Like the dragon kid in that crafting turn-in questline. She evolved thumbs and grasping hands as part of basically hitting dragon puberty, a thing that no dragon to the best of her knowledge had before. I can only imagine what environmental pressures pressed them to evolve in that way, or if it's a trait common to species from their planet. But either way, it makes sense that Midgarsormr would have this kind of attitude: to him that's how dragons grow strong and overcome things.

It's why he stripped you of most of Hydalen's protections and tossed you in the deep end, leaving the Traveler's Ward mostly as a courtesy to Hydalen, because from his perspective that's how you learn. You hurl yourself at challenges and overcome them and adapt to your environment. While they'll work together because it's demanded of them or out of mutual self-interest, they're by nature individualists and rising and falling by their own strength. Which is what weirds them out about humans: humans are collective. We're small and find strength by, well, cheating. Instead of growing bigger muscles or adapting ourselves to the world, we build tools to increase our leverage. Air is too cold? Sew heavy clothes. Mountain too high? Invent grapple lines and climbing shoes. Powerful enemy? Swarm them with numbers and bring them down by hitting them from every direction. River floods? Change the river with the strength of thousands.

I like to think that's what fascinated Ratatoskr about humanity. I also think it's part of why Midgarsormr and the others seem to sort of like the Warrior of Light in their own way. The WoL, to them, is somewhere in between man and dragon in their thinking by being a paragon of humankind. The WoL's constant need to hurl themselves into the breach and grow stronger by doing so feels natural to them. It makes sense. I really wish the game would spend more time exploring how they're slowly integrating with humanity. But then I'd probably happily have an entire story or game just around the humans and dragons slowly getting the hang of each other and what they can build together.

[brsb4hls]

I know iwtv sometimes looks like a regular queer hipster relationship drama, so it's easy to forget it is an actual horror show and the protagonists are all monsters who eat people.

But if you take that into account how can you see Armand as 'the antagonist' or 'the villain' here?

I'm not playing down Louis' background and the trauma of the trial, the monsters in this show still have feelings and the audience is supposed to feel empathy for them.

But why so much more for Louis? Why pit Louis and Armand against each other?

Yes, Armand was willing to let Louis die. But he didn't plan it. The coven pressured him into directing the trial (recently confirmed by Assad) ad he took the easiest route.

Then saw his chance to change course and he lied to Louis about it.

On it's own that seems absolutely horrible.

Well, so is trying to actually murder your partner, like Louis did (I mean that's what he's on trial for, among other things) and yet everyone is cooing over the Loustat relationship.

Their connection is a red thread throughout the books and they have an intriguing dynamic, but it's every bit as toxic as Loumand.

And yet those celebrating the toxic messy Loustat relationship (mainly because it's so messy) are questioning if Armand 'can ever come back from what he did.

And I wonder why that is.

Maybe show Armand is to passive and subby. (Like I wrote before, he is not a master manipulator sadly, he just goes with the flow and lies and omitts when the opportunity presents itself).

Or people don't feel empathy cause he's not as open and mostly wearing a mask of sorts.(if you miss Assads microexpressions that is, he's actually amazing at portraying emotions like that).

I truely don't know.

I still love the character and wished he was more 'aggressive' in the actual sense of the word, taking action instead of just going with things. He is extremely powerfull and hardly showed it.

And the Loumand relationship was miserable for both of them from the start.

Louis actually used it as a fuck you to Lestat. Like 'see this loser? Well, I rather fuck him than you so chew on that', very romantic indeed.

He hallucinated Lestat the entire relationship and only told Armand during the interview.

He fucked and killed 138 boys he pumped full of drugs first. He still hated Armand for his part in Claudia's death (Lestat also had a part in it, just a reminder) and also found him boring and suffocating.

Nothing about that is wholesome in anyway.

Both of them should have broken the thing off multiple times but they clung to it for different reasons.

That's a regular fucked up monster relationship where the monsters are horrible to each other.

And in that context I don't see a villain here.

Maybe we might get there if we explore Armand's torture chamber and experiments (or Lestat's side of the trial, an interview hints Armand might have had more involvement), which I would actually preferr over the passiveness we have now.

But at this point in the show I see no reason to hate Armand, just like I see no reason to hate Lestat or Louis.

(Hating Santiago is very valid tho for reasons).

[destinygoldenstar]

Is Screen Time An Issue For A Character?

That’s a tough one.

I see quite a few arguments about some shows I’ve watched that ‘oh, this character is bad because they have too much screen time’. Or ‘I wish this character had more screen time to be interesting.’

Basically, too much screen time is now a valid critique to describe why a character is bad or doesn’t work for you. And to that I say…

Uh… no?

I’ll give some examples where I see this critique, but for now I want to state a case of examples where I expected to see this critique online, but didn’t, and I wondered why.

SPOILERS BELOW FOR THE SPIDERVERSE SEQUEL:

The main character of the Spiderverse movies is Miles Morales. Clear as day if you see ANY promotional concept art. The movies nail that home and give you a solid POV character among the Multiverse chaos.

The sequel begins with an over twenty minute backstory sequence involving Gwen Stacy, a side character in the first movie.

(Fun fact: When me and my dad went to see it in theaters together, he said that backstory was over twenty minutes long and that he thought they could've trimmed it down. Animated-phobia gives you weird opinions. He didn't watch Arcane with me and thought nothing of it because 'it was an animated show'. Not kidding.) (Both of my parents are like this, sadly.)

Now, in the context of the movie, it makes sense to include this to understand the full POV of her character going forward. As she is pretty vital to the story.

I tried imagining a version of the movie where we DIDN'T get this intro, went straight to Miles, and we just had to put the pieces together involving Gwen and her actions. And I don't think the movie would've worked nearly as well.

This brings me to another point involving Gwen Stacy in this movie: She's kind of become a protagonist as well, next to Miles.

Is this screen time theft? Under the screen time critique, it probably would seem that way.

And yet nobody I've seen complains. If anything, this solidified her as one of the best movie adaptations of Gwen Stacy out there. In my opinion.

Unlike the first movie, this one is not driven by the narrative of the main character, but rather multiple.

This is not uncommon. And it's an even bigger case with Arcane.

Yeah, this show is phenomenal everyone who says so is right Jinx is an icon Vi is my cartoon crush next to Petra I was crying so hard at the ending and for that alone this show deserves every ounce of praise it gets and I'm kind of an Arcane stan-

*Inhales*

I think I just have a thing for dystopian stories where characters walk through hell.

(Yes I consider TD a dystopian setting, that'd be a nice hot take to tackle one day.)

The Hunger Games is my favorite dystopian setting that I've seen, just because it's very memorable and inspiring. But Arcane is objectively the best dystopian story out there. If I fade out of my Total Drama obsession, this show might be my next target.

Cupcakes. El fin.

I could stop there, but lets talk about why we're here.

Arcane does not focus on the two main characters only as the driving force of its narrative.

Advertisement tell you that our main characters are the two growing war machines who go around calling each other sisters, Vi and Powder (Jinx. Idk how mad people get for which name I use for her. Sorry if I offend you). In fact, there's evidence to back that up. Other than they're the people with dyed hair, that's instant main character. They're the first characters we meet in the entire show. They're the characters with the final scene that closes off the season. EVERY ending to an act is with them. They're the main characters. Boom.

But wait. Nearly TWO THIRDS of this show doesn't even focus on them!

We have all the Piltover characters we keep switching back to. Jayce, Viktor, Mel, Caitlyn for Act 2 pretty much, Silco kind of becomes his own protagonist in Act 3. Really, the only people who remain consistent side characters are Ekko, and the two boys that get blown to pieces by Powder. And... some other people I'm forgetting the names of. (Sorry, I only had two watch throughs of this show so far and I know nothing about League other than the sisters become enemies.)

Now, why?

Why is this the case? I'm not saying characters other than our mains don't get fleshed out at all, but to the point where they're basically major enough to carry their own show? That SOUNDS like a detriment to the story if anything, especially how unfocused it kind of all gets until the end where everyone's in the same room.

Had Vi or Jinx interact with these characters, their fleshing out makes sense, and you definitely see that with characters like Caitlyn and Silco, who kind of need them to function.

But the Piltover gang? Jinx doesn't meet them at all, neither of the sisters meet Viktor, and Vi does meet Jayce, but in Episode 8 of 9.

Why does nobody complain about this? If anything, these guys are stealing screen time.

Well, it turns out, this is all done in Arcane's benefit, rather than fault. We are all the protagonist of our own story, and there are multiple POVs regarding the world.

It's basically if Hunger Games was third person instead of first, and we actually got a chance to flesh out the other rebels/children.

Me personally, and I know I'm not the only one out there, but the sisters were the most interesting thing about the show, and other characters that talk to them were how they caught my attention. That in no way means I don't care for anyone though, and it's COMPLETELY a PERSONAL thing.

So whenever we DO focus on the sisters and their story, not only do we get these other POVS on the scene that could clash with our view of them, but it makes it so that EVERY. SCENE. MATTERS.

No scene is wasted in fleshing out the sister's story. Everything has a purpose and drives it all to one heartbreaking simulation. There's no wasted space, there's no lack of attention to a certain detail, darn it, it's just right.

(I mean, I guess I would've liked to see what they went through in that time skip, like how Jinx was raised by Silco and processed her new identity, or better yet how tf Vi survived prison when it's heavily implied she beat people to a pulp and got solitary multiple times. But I think Season 2 is gonna cover it.)

Seriously, imagine a version of this show real quick.

Imagine a version of the show that took the Hunger Games approach, and used first person POV on one of the two sisters, doesn't matter which one, they'd both work. Cut out scenes not involving that sister. The other characters that appear revolve around scenes they're in with that sister.

Would that work nearly as well?

I don't think so.

Now First Person POV isn't necessarily a bad thing. Danganronpa is first person. Minecraft Story Mode is first person. Those are probably not great examples, but it can work. (TDDRI, a fic of mine, is first person, and I had to work around that to flesh out everyone else. It can work.)

This show is very hot topic and weirdly paced than what I'm used to. So take everything with a grain of salt as I am nowhere near an expert with this show. The show's story doesn't even get started until Episode 4, as the first three episodes are all flashback to explain where our characters are and why they're motivated to do what they do.

Again, I tried imagining a version of this show where we DIDN'T get those first three episodes, we started with Episode 4, and we just had to ASSUME all the backstory involving the sisters and the titular arcane and put the pieces together through Vi's words and Jinx's hallucinations. I don't think we would have been nearly as invested.

So with these two examples, WHY does nobody complain about screen time involving a character?

Is it because they're just really good pieces of media? Or is there a reason for this?

After all, Spiderverse and Arcane fall under the category of an 'ensemble cast'. A cast of characters in a story where there is no titular main character to drive the narrative, and everyone does instead. It's like if Harry Potter was 'Hogwarts' instead, or some title like that.

But lets take a look at some examples of ensemble casts where there's been a complaint of some sort with screen time:

Total Drama and RWBY.

Now I only like one of these two shows, so I'm gonna put that aside for now.

Total Drama. It has an ensemble cast. The show is about teenagers suffering-I mean competing for a prize, eliminating each other bit by bit as it goes along. Naturally with that setup, early boots are left to dry. But that doesn't stop people from complaining.

Ezekiel gets the most flack for too little screen time, and major fanboys say he should've had more focus. Personally I don't get that based on what role he's deigned to play. Caleb is a more recent example. I thought he was gonna have a bigger role and character than he ended up having, and him being a first boot gag makes even less sense than Zeke. Dawn is a fan favorite who isn't even in that many episodes. Axel is a ripoff of Shawn because of her lack of screen time. Scary Girl is... Scary Girl, who I don't see the fuss about her little screen time as she's comic relief, but the complaint is there. There is SO MUCH bashing about Noah's lack of screen time it is not even funny. So much so that he's sharing screen time with another person.

And who is to blame for this: Well, the characters who make it really far into the game, or course! How dare they steal screen time away from these guys!

I feel like Ripper is the most recent example of this. His character arc was about him breaking a world record. He broke it. It's Episode 5. Now he can leave the show, right-

Nope. He's around till Episode 8. Out of 13. And even then, in Episode 13, he's Millie's partner, which means screen time.

It sounds unjustified because it is. I'm not the biggest Ripper hater, but I definitely see the complaints. (Ripper and Damien swapping places are the only part of the elimination order I would change. Everything else is pretty spot on.)

We already have MK as a pre-merge antagonist and Julia as a post merge antagonist, we don't need this rando bully character as well as it adds nothing. Maybe Ripper would've been better liked if he wasn't a bully and just some morally average comic relief guy, but also... probably not.

But he's not the only fart based character in this show that gets complaints about screen time. Here's where I talk about the first gen.

For what I have seen, the ones with the biggest screen time complaints are Owen, Duncan, and Beth. I don't count Heather cause it's on purpose. I count Sierra because it's a personal gripe I have.

Owen was the original winner of TDI, came back on the show in the second season for a mole subplot nobody likes, and merged season three. He and Noah also got a spinoff.

Beth was the finalist of TDA.

And everyone hates it, including myself.

Then there's Duncan. Easily the character the show focuses on the most. Season 1? 4th place. Season 2? Winner. Season 3? Gone half the season so he's only in 8 episodes not counting what he didn't compete in, but he scored 5th overall. Season 5? Weakest performance, but he still merged. That's 8th place by the way.

By far, THIS is the character in this show that gets the MOST horrendous flack for his screen time. And from what I've learned, if you think this, you probably hate Duncan as a character.

Like, I haven't watched Winx, but I saw videos on YouTube that made fun of Bloom for getting too much screen time.

Somebody do those but with Duncan! I'm not a Duncan hater, but I would like to get a laugh!

So it'd just be easy to say the writers played favorites, it was an issue, and be done with it, right?

Except no.

My GF watched World Tour just recently. (And she was mixed on it.) Her comments regarding Duncan and Gwen were that she wished they had more interactions to sell them (she was routing AGAINST Duncney, basically) and it didn't help that Duncan was gone half the season. She said that it would've helped all the characters involved if he stayed to flesh that out.

To that I went: "Huh. That's interesting how you take no issue with this character's screen time."

But why though? She's not a stan of him, she's a casual viewer, so that can't be it.

And that's when it hit me.

Beth and Sierra. These two make it through an entire season each. And we both collectively hate them as characters. And we hate seeing them on screen.

That's because it's what the characters DO with their screen time.

See what I'm talking about:

Season 1: Duncan is an established character that develops relationships and friendships and learns to open up to people outside of his comfort bad boy zone.

Trent spends 16 episodes sitting still and looking pretty with a guitar. (Okay that's probably not a great example, and I don't hate Trent, but you kinda get it)

Season 2: Duncan is dealing with revenge on Harold for his spoiled relationship with Courtney where he gets abused by her, fights to hold his own, and dumps her.

Beth spends the entire season talking about a fake boyfriend and cheating on it.

Season 3: Duncan, again, is only competing in 8 episodes out of 26, but what does he do? He establishes a new relationship with Gwen, gets her cancelled, forms a friendship with Alejandro, and gets played.

Sierra is there the entire season sexually harassing Cody and passing it off as quirky. We hate to see it. (Seriously, you guys think the love triangle is worse than this? My GF and I agreed we would rather watch the love triangle ten times again, over Sierra being on screen at all.)

What's the difference here? STORY.

Certain characters have story to follow, that NEEDS that screen time to work. Ironically, the plotline of Duncan's that comes across the least genuine, is the season where he's on screen the least. (Not counting All Stars, but they're kind of equal in episodes Duncan's in.)

Again, imagine if we never had that backstory sequence of Gwen Stacy. Yes it eats up screen time, but without it? She would come across as an ingenuine traitor who supposedly ditched her dad for some cool spider society. We NEEDED that sequence.

Duncan is always doing something when the screen is focused on him.

The reason Beth and Sierra don't work despite having all the screen time in the world is that they do NOTHING with the screen time they get. Nothing of value at least. We could've learned a lot about their origins, Beth's underdog status, or Sierra's fanclub, flesh them out as dynamic characters to route for, with different sides of them that slip through time to time that gets the audience thinking.

Nope. Sexual harassment makes up for all of that. (I question why I put up with this show sometimes.)

That would be the case and that's the answer, just do something with your screen time and you're free to have as much as you want.

Except there's ANOTHER key to the puzzle here.

Duncan is in the top 4 of the TD cast for a reason.

He's a main character.

Something Jaune Arc is not.

Hello nemesis my old friend.

Look, I respect people who like RWBY. People can feel any way they want to about a show. Opinions are valid.

If you think Arcane is the worst show ever made, that's valid.

If you think Velma is the best show ever made, that's valid.

It's all VALID.

With that said I think this show is an absolute trainwreck when it comes to writing characters.

Now hold on before you say I hate everything about it, I don't. This show does have SOME merits to it. The music is stellar and I actually listen to the soundtrack from time to time. For a limited budget animation, it's impressive. The choreo is neat. I want these weapons. I actually like quite a few of the side characters. Keep in mind I said side.

But what I look for in a good show is a compelling story and interesting characters to follow.

Something this show just does not have in my opinion.

I keep saying I'll do an analysis post on why Team RWBY are awful protagonists, but I've been busy and my plate has not emptied. But one of my main points regarding them is screen time.

Keep in mind, I've only seen fully up to Season 8. I've only seen clips of Season 9, so whatever I say about 9 may not be accurate.

Team RWBY are the main characters of the show, and yet they have not done a single main character thing throughout EIGHT SEASONS. It's kind of incredible.

If I didn't know the name of the show but saw a clip, I'd assume the main character was Jaune, or Oscar, more on them later.

What have these girls contributed in the battle of Salem's forces?

Season 1: Blake helped stop a robbery. Not even all four of them, just Blake. (So did Sun and Penny.)

Season 2: They broke into the White Fang's secret operation and busted a train into the city to fight off some Grim, in time for Team CFVY to wipe them out. (Those characters appear TWICE in the ENTIRE show, this is the first time. Just to speak my point.)

Season 3: Yang got framed for assault which helped the bad guys. Ruby watched Pyyra die and she blasted an eyeball off Cinder.

Season 4: UH...

Season 5: They housed Oscar, they met Raven, and they took place in the battle of Haven where Yang got the relic. (So did Oscar, JNR, Qrow)

Season 6: They took the relic to Atlas. (So did Oscar, JNR, Qrow)

Season 7: They lied to the general about vital information that could've helped them get one on Salem, and doomed all of Atlas.

Season 8: They caused the death of a kingdom and fell through a hole.

Season 9: UH... (That's not me not knowing what happened in 9, they just climbed out of the hole, basically, as the season has nothing to do with Salem's forces.)

Now, because the main characters are not involved with the main plot very much, does that make them bad?

No. There ARE ways to utilize them outside of driving the external plot.

Some stories are Character vs Self, Internal Conflict. The basis of this show's story is that these kids who grew up to be military soldiers are learning that their lives and the world is not a fairy tale, and they're not the good guys. That SOUNDS like the show is all about internal conflict, right?

Well it's not.

I mean, they DO realize this and make a morally questionable choice with consequences they regret.

In Season SEVEN.

And even THEN, they're treated by gods themselves like they've done nothing wrong!

If you ask me, it should have happened a LONG time ago.

What internal conflicts do these girls have?

Ruby is a naive prodigy who wants to be a huntress and live out a fairy tale reality. And she lives out that dream. Then Pyyra dies and she loses that home. And then she's back to fairy tale land, just doing more crimes and hating authority. And I GUESS she learned a lesson in 9...? I just saw her as depressed.

Weiss is an heiress of a rich company trying to overthrow rule of her father, who hates her. She hates Faunus. She learns not to hate Faunus. And she gains a lot of powers.

Blake is part of a civil rights movement with Faunus and she likes assaulting her own kind and burning their homes. She also has an abusive boyfriend and kills him with a girlfriend by her side.

Yang lost her mommy and wants to find her. She loses her arm. She finds her mommy but doesn't give a s**t because plot. She also gets a girlfriend.

That's like Vi and Jinx's reunion, only they didn't care about seeing each other again after years, they just pointed fists and guns at each other and said, "Where's the arcane?! Where's Silco?! I'm not here for you, I have a police GF now!" "I'm not here for you, I just wanted an easy route to blast Piltover to pieces! Mwahaha!"

See where I'm going with that?

Internal conflict is a key to making characters screen time worth while.

But lets face it, Team RWBY not having very well established internal/relevance to the external conflict is not the full reason why this is a problem with their screen time.

It's their lack thereof.

Three quarters of every season, they're just sitting at some random place that's not even pretty to look at, and the SIDE CHARACTERS do all the plot relevant stuff.

See why I like the side characters better?

Lets look at that chart again:

Season 1: Sun and Penny stopped that robbery.

Season 2: Team CFVY stopped the Grim invasion.

Season 3: Pyyra's story and downward spiral to her death.

Season 4: Nora and Ren the season.

Season 5: Oscar. The tribe.

Season 6: Oscar again as he's responsible for the exposition involved in that season.

Season 7: Ironwood's descent into insanity AND Penny's descent into accidental heroism.

Season 8: Both those characters die. Everyone dies.

Season 9: ...okay, good point, there was no one else.

Okay so maybe Season 9 gets a pass, but the others? Can you really put Team RWBY in a plot summary?

And that's just external conflict talking, let's talk the MAIN CHARACTER with the INTERNAL conflicts throughout the ENTIRE show.

Jaune Arc.

A SIDE character, voiced by one of the writers, has some of the most plotlines to follow due to his internal struggle and conflict in this new war throughout the entire show.

He has something to do in MOST of the seasons of this show. Not unlike Duncan. The only time I think he didn't have anything going on was Season 7.

In the very first season, Jaune has an entire character arc surrounding him trying to find his inner strength with a one off bully character as an antagonist. That sounds fine, so what's the issue?

This character arc takes up FOUR episodes out of 16. A WHOLE QUARTER OF THE SEASON.

"Well, maybe those episodes cut away to other people at some points-"

No. They don't. It's all Jaune in all these episodes.

Season two is less so Jaune focused, but he has a little subplot surrounding letting go of his feelings for Weiss and finding another girl who would gladly take him. I guess it's priority respect because Neptune was into Weiss at the time? But those two wound up never being a thing, so...

The whole time I thought Weiss was just asexual, but then 9 came in to screw that idea.

Season three focuses on Pyyra, Jaune's love interest, and therefore he's vital to her story and her thought process, so much so that the big angst moment in the season is with him and their death kiss.

Season four and five are focused on Jaune's thirst for revenge on Cinder, a member of Salem's forces, for killing Pyyra. He learns about Salem's forces along the way, makes his own opinion about all this lore, and decides to help out due to his personal necessity.

Wow. He has an internal conflict going on, AND he's active with the external conflict. HMM...

Season six is him letting go of his grief after his moral failure from the Battle of Haven nearly getting Weiss killed. And also he pins Oscar to the wall because why not. It's brief but it's also a full on character arc.

Season eight, he kills Penny, a girl he has never interacted with before this point, and he's a grieving mess. So much so that season nine also includes Jaune dealing with MULTIPLE grieving instances and personal failures.

Everyone else got a seasonal break from the story, and yet Jaune could not.

Now, is this a screen time issue?

Yes.

But NOT for the reasons you might think.

Let's go off of Duncan again, a character with a major status in the show's story and conflict from day one. He was designed that way.

Jaune was not designed that way. BUT I don't actually hate his story for the screen time he gets. In fact, he's probably one of the most interesting characters in the show because there's so much time dedicated to his struggle and his story.

The elephant in the room isn't because Jaune has a story.

It's because the main characters don't have a story.

Again, Arcane, that show focuses on a LOT of characters that aren't Vi and Jinx. You could argue Jayce is the Jaune in their universe. But why does it work? Because there is NOT a neglect of characterization of the leads.

In RWBY, there's a serious neglect issue.

And it's not just Jaune. There are other side characters who've been stealing time away from the leads.

Oscar, ever since he debuted Season 4, has been devoted to screen time stealing, and stealing the main character status with a Chosen One narrative and a pretty offensive way of portraying Multiple Personality Disorder. He's the one with the chosen one story, he's the one who interacts with the bad guys, he's toe to toe with Ironwood, he's the one related to Salem, and he does all of it with the personality of a hollow pine tree.

I mean I guess he also has a crush on Ruby, but... I don't want to get into that.

Hell, CINDER, an ANTAGONIST of the show, has more conflict and screen time than the leads. And she's one of my least favorite characters in the entire show, isn't that sweet?!

On top of that, she's a VILLAIN. We shouldn't be routing for her!

Then there's the rest of JNPR. Nora and Ren have a season focused on them, that being season 4. Pyyra is the same case with season 3. Pyyra dies in that season, so she's obviously not getting screen time any further. But Ren and Nora are alive, AND they have a subplot in the Atlas arc. Having a subplot isn't a problem, it just becomes jarring when the main characters don't have an arc and they do.

Penny gets revived and dies in the Atlas arc. That's also a thing.

The fix here should be really simple! Swap roles! Have the side characters sit in the houses with their little arcs, and have Team RWBY on the fields reacting to everything. It wouldn't excuse their lack of inner struggle, but at least they'd be involved with the plot.

There are many ways you could fix this. Like Oscar's role of being related to Salem. Ruby's mom is dead, but like, what if her mom was Salem and was taken out in war and revived/corrupted into this monster figure? That'd be an interesting narrative.

And RWBY is not the only show, the previous season of Pretty Cure, Delicious Party, ALSO has this issue. And arguably they did it worse because I don't even care for the side characters there either. I'd be repeating myself with criticism there:

Yui, the supposed main character, has no character trait other than be a glutton and a stand in for her grandmother, the other Cures are also irrelevant to the plot and just spend their time eating. The boys of this magical girl show are the focus and have all the wishy washy plotlines, and none of them are even that interesting.

I will give RWBY this over Delicious Party to prove I can see its merits:

At least they only have ONE forth wall narration and do know boundaries to that stuff, as opposed to Delicious Party that thinks their viewers are IDIOTS, and needs a narrator to explain EVERYTHING. CONSTANTLY.

(What a new low for that franchise, am I right? At least we have Hirogaru Sky.)

So what have we learned here?

To answer the question: Is Screen Time An Issue For A Character?

No. It's not that simple.

It's what the character DOES with that screen time that matters. And their role in the story that warrants this screen time.

They need to have all the details of their story laid out for you to care about them.

They need every scene involving their story to matter.

They need to have a plotline that justifies the screen time, small role or big role.

They need to be involved with the main story if they are a major character.

They need an internal conflict to keep the time on them engaging.

They need to be doing something.

If they are a minor character, additional screen time is not a bad thing.

A minor character with a lot of screen time could be there to advance the world building, they could be heavily connected to major character, relationship or otherwise.

But the minor characters don't become favorites and neglect focus on the people the story is revolving around.

First Person POV is a difficult storytelling technique when it comes to screen time, but it's not a bad tool. It can be used as a certain perspective for every character involved if done properly.

And just... screen time alone isn't a valid criticism in my opinion. It's WAY more complicated than that.

What's your opinion? Reblog your thoughts, I'm very curious, especially with media with this issue I did not cover.

[imp-furiosa]

Goncharov is a Bad Meme...

...because it’s a bad movie. I don’t begrudge anybody their cult movie favorites, but so few people have heard of Goncharov that there’s a joke going around that it doesn’t exist and people have made it up just to troll. Ironically the things that have won it acclaim as a cult success are the very things that doom it as a work. You need look little further than the box office reception for proof.

Check out the top grossing movies of 1973 and you’ll notice that Goncharov doesn’t make the list. The Exorcist tops things out with a gross of $193 million. The bottom spot goes to Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid with $8 million. Goncharov on the other hand was a commercial failure at release, barely recouping its unnecessarily bloated budget. Not that the budget was big, it was really a shoestring, but a list of production issues and re-shoots ate more and more time and money just to get something out the door.

Now I’m not trying to argue that box office revenue is all that matters for a good movie. It doesn’t at all. But in the case of Goncharov, the box office flop is informed by the way the film was made and thus informs its unique problems.

You see, Goncharov was filmed on location in Naples in the early 1970s during one or perhaps two extended “vacations” for most of the cast in the film. Highly unusual. But that’s sort of how things work when Stefano Pessina of Walgreens Boots Alliance (then Petrone Group) has an urge to play in an American mobster movie. He footed the bill himself (or rather convinced his daddy to), and the mess they shot was largely derivative and not worth any notice.

Scorsese wasn’t even involved until De Niro and Keitel approached him for help. Doing what he could to piece together what he assessed as workable bones, Scorsese tied together formerly loose threads and themes (notably the clock motif wasn’t nearly as significant before he took to work on it). The biggest thing is that he insisted on re-shoots as possible, adding new scenes, cutting scenes entirely, and notably excising all but a cameo of former star Pessina--the man can’t act. But he was paying the bills and while he’d find himself lucky to break even on the venture, his checkbook did at least allow the thing to see the light of day. Saved as much as possible by Scorsese’s talented eye.

All that cut material was saved, possibly at Pessina’s insistence, and has found its way to the public in the half century since its debut. Which has resulted in a number of new cuts and editions. It’s a favorite for film students to practice editing because the copious extra scenes allow wildly varying stories to be told. Since most people aren’t even aware of the movie in the first place, those that see it happenstance may well have found an unofficial edition. This is why we see many wildly varying “canonical” scenes. They all exist, but very few of them actually showed up in Scorsese’s theatrical release back in ‘73.

This is also why it’s lauded on that famous poster with “Martin Scorsese presents.” Despite his extensive work directing re-shoots and new scenes, editing and producing, Scorsese saw it for the train wreck it was and chose to distance himself from the thing. Al Pacino once joked in a TV Guide interview that he wished he had been “able to distance my name from it in that manner. I think we all do.”

Look, who among us has watched Mean Streets or Serpico? Both of those are better works than Goncharov and came out that same year. For a modern audience they would have worked just as well for this joke. Except then instead of topping it off with the ultimate punchline of hunting down the thing and being disappointed you wasted two hours of your life, Mean Streets or Serpico would be enjoyable watches. So save yourself some disappoint and go watch one of those instead.

[deathlessathanasia]

One has to wonder what is it about the marriage of Aphrodite and Hephaistos that lends itself so easily to sanitisation and romanticisation. Sure, it is not even comparable to the romanticisation and sanitisation of Hades and Persephone, but at least this second one has in its favour the fact that the relationship seems harmonious enough after its violent beginning, and that Persephone becomes her husband's equal with unparalleled authority over the Underworld. But Hephaistos and Aphrodite… What do we have there? An arranged marriage, a public infidelity scandal, a public humiliation, a separation (in the Odyssey Hephaistos demands that the gifts he gave to Zeus in exchange for Aphrodite's hand be returned to him,, in the Library of Apollodoros it is claimed that Hephaistos tried to rape Athena after he was deserted by Aphrodite, and Nonnos mentions their divorce as well), even an instance of the betrayed spouse taking revenge on their partner's affair child. If anything, it could be argued that these two have far more in common with Zeus and Hera than with Hades and Persephone. And yet…

In one of the retellings I've read recently, Aphrodite is portrayed as an entirely devoted and loving wife to Hephaistos; incidentally, Zeus and Hera are the only unhappily married couple in the pantheon. In another, Aphrodite and Hephaistos have a complicated but ultimately mutually loving marriage; she was married off to him without being asked, but she wanted it actually and even if she cheats on him, she loves him and wants him to pay attention to her. By contrast, Zeus and Hera's relationship is completely terrible; she only married him because he raped her, she hates him, and it very much looks like they are the only example of a loveless marriage among the gods. In another one, while Zeus and Hera are portrayed in a pretty mythologically accurate way with everything that entails, Aphrodite is once again the incredibly loving and devoted wife of Hephaistos and she even turns against all the other gods for his sake. And in yet another, Aphrodite does sleep around, but she is supportive and kind and loving to Hephaistos, whereas Zeus is an one-dimensional, evil bastard who is incredibly abusive towards Hera and nothing beyond that. And these are just a few examples, all from books I've read these few past weeks, but these kinds of interpretations are quite popular and commonly encountered in Greek myth-based stories. I could list so many titles, of both published books and retellings on the internet, where this spin on the myths is used, where some "problematic" relationships are made pretty and sweet and loving, while others are allowed to stay problematic or are deliberately made even worse.

But why are these interpretations so common? What is this all about? Is it the fact that Aphrodite is a woman, so it is easier to disregard her infidelity? Or that people find it very easy to sympathise with Hephaistos, so they like to imagine that his wife does actually desire and love him whereas Hera is a far less sympathetic character and people enjoy to portray Zeus in the most negative manner possible? Or is it the appeal of an unattractive man (obligatory note that Hephaistos is never called ugly in ancient Greek sources) being loved by the most beautiful woman? Is it a way to "redeem" Aphrodite, as if she needs such a thing and as if that's the way to do it? Is it all of that? Something else? I wish I knew. I wish I understood on what basis people decide which mythological relationships deserve to be whitewashed.

Currently, my theory is that generally it is all about the male characters involved; not really about the women or about the myths. That is to say, it is about whether or not people love the male characters. People generally love Hades, so they like to imagine that Persephone loves him too, that she went with him of her own accord, that she wanted him from the beginning. If it was about her rather than him, retellings wouldn't so frequently have her be sexually assaulted by other gods or men, wouldn't so frequently make her a nobody when she is at Demeter's side and entirely dependent on her husband for power and respect, wouldn't so frequently disrespect her relationship with her mother. If it was about the myth, they wouldn't so frequently remove the kidnapping. People generally dislike/hate Zeus, so of course he must be the worst™ and whatever. The idea that he raped Hera and she had no choice but to marry him (source?) is not as popular and frequently used in retellings as it is because it is just so well attested in the myths (it is really not), or because people care oh so much about Hera (she is among the most hated mythological figures), but because it reinforces the image of Zeus as the worst™. And since he is the worst™, of course he doesn't care for the one goddess whom he has chosen to stay married to forever regardless of all conflicts and betrayals. People generally love Hephaistos, so Aphrodite has to love him too, or she must be a villain if she does not. If it was about Aphrodite, not being faithful to her husband wouldn't be considered something that needs to be fixed. To be fair, maybe it is not so much about Hephaistos either, since he has other wives and this marriage is not an essential or central aspect of his mythology any more than it is for Aphrodite, yet all too often it is treated like it is.

[asherlockstudy]

I enjoy gmm because it's low impact and relaxing. Wonderhole (especially the sci fi one) is really heavy even in the first few minutes and I don't know when I'll be in the right head space to watch it. after making me love Sandy and Horst and killing them off (same as killing off the guys weirdly in their second season of Buddy System), i'm wary of their fictional efforts. Don't get me wrong, the cloud episode was lovely! But their work can be very hit or miss - sweet and enjoyable, or *very* dark, often both. I don't have the capacity for weirdly dark codependent death stuff right now. They do tend towards that, however artistically, however deep they want it to be, and NOT everyone loves watching death stuff about characters they like. I don't want to watch dark humor right now. IMO, their daily show is easy, calming, background content - but their fictional efforts are (often) extremely dark. I don't know why people are pretending the audience should be the same for both. Yes they're in L.A. but realistically not everyone loves dark experimental fictional short films. I would be more impressed with a promise of happy endings than how much budget / creativity their work involves. So I am not the audience, and I am not the only one among regular viewers. I wish them well, of course, but really? How is this shocking to anyone? The audience they've cultivated really doesn't like surprises. (Sometimes due to mental health or neurodiversity reasons, sometimes due to life situations, etc. They like the routine shows, the familiar format.) Don't make me love a character and then kill him (and his best friend or other half) off so you can feel something. I really do wish they can get what they want out of the series. I just find it odd how they don't understand it's not for everyone.

This is an interesting take. I admit I never considered their scripted work “dark” but just having some dark moments but now that you said that I am literally surprised at myself because I have been making these very posts about their scripted content largely being about one sad story… I’m not being much of help here but I remembered that one thing Rhett has said that made the most profound impression on me, many years ago, I remember it vividly, in the EB about laughter and jokes, he had said “We are fundamentally sad people”. It’s the one thing that left a mark and shaped from that point entirely the way I view them and what I think of them.

We don’t disagree though. That’s pretty much what I was saying - they have created a fanbase that does not exactly match their artistic vision. GMM, sure. But their art style needs to build a separate fanbase, with some overlap of course for people like me. However, they base all their hopes on people of routine, on people who want only lighthearted inconsequential content, on people who watch with their kids. It never ceases to amaze me how they have all these dozens of people working and monitoring and quizzing for them and they still can’t bloody understand their own fans.

[strangefable]

i have some strong feelings about nanowrimo. (edit: and i'm putting it all under a readmore now, since I had a lot to say actually.)

i was there in the early years. i was an ML for a few years. i had a very strong community, and many friendships, and even one of the most important romantic relationships of my life, (as well as one of the worst) because of the community i found there. it fueled so much of my creativity while i was in college and in the confusing years afterward. i wrote SO MUCH because of nanowrimo. i found a home among other weird writers.

then baty stepped away. others stepped forward, and i watched year after year, as the entire organization slowly shifted to... something else. something without the heart or purpose or vigor or soul that the was the whole point of the exercise. some were good things, at first. attempts to expand spaces for younger writers. outreach with schools and libraries. and some things were never good. there became more and more focus on SPONSORS and 'prizes' in the form of endless adverts for said sponsors as 'coupons' for their products. some of this was good, actually, i got scrivener because of one of those early deals, and it changed how i wrote significantly for the better. but that was when there was only two or three 'sponsors' involved, and they were very much also indie projects at the time.

then things started getting sketchy with how MLs were treated and community functions were mishandled. then there were rumors and whispers about things being a bit... off in the YWP. and the sponsors were everywhere. tons of them. constantly. the people i'd known forever started to leave in trickles and then in droves. the community was gone. the MLs left were unsupported and struggling to get communication from hq. it was readily apparent that the head office had become a fucking shitshow.

then came the truth about what was going on in YWP. which was horrifying. and yet. they did nothing. tried to sweep it under the rug. pretended it was just a misunderstanding, same old bullshit. and i cried, because i saw what had become of a once wholesome beautiful thing, now marred by greed and people with ill intent and no interest in the craft whatsoever.

and now everyone is talking about this AI touting from them as if it's a shock. a surprise. it's not. this has been the path chosen for years. by people who took over a nonprofit that was never meant to be a large unwieldy organization in the first place. they treated it like a business. they're running it like a corporation. they have been for a while now.

those of us who were there, we know this. we watched it happen, year after year. this isn't a surprise. it is a betrayal, but it's not a surprise. this was never the spirit of nanowrimo, that was lost long, long ago.

the spirit was always the mad, unfettered joy in the act of creating. of shutting out the world, of shutting out all the voices in your own head telling you you couldn't do this, and just. doing it anyway. for the joy of it. for the challenge and love of it. and you can still do that. any damn time you want. with any people you wish to include. you don't need corporate overlords for that.

baty started this whole thing by getting a bunch of friends together, and essentially double-dog daring each other into 'we're each going to write a whole novel in 50k words in this month, and we're gonna cheer each other on as we do it'. and they just did that. at coffee shops and bookstores and each other's dining rooms all over san fransico.

so. like. just do that. fuck whatever those chucklefucks are doing with the name on it. they're not necessary. they never were. just do it. make it your own. that was always the point anyway.

[makeste]

BnHA Episode 122, a.k.a. NOBUHIKO YOU'VE DONE IT AGAIN

THEY CAN'T KEEP LETTING HIM GET AWAY WITH IT!

oh my god.

so first off, let's just get the one big major criticism out of the way: this episode was definitely not up to the same high quality standards as the first third of this season. and hey, I get it! you're doing 24 episodes in all, you're on a time crunch, and you've only got so many animators to go around. and the quality of some of these earlier season 6 eps (118 and 119 especially) was seriously some of the best this series has ever had. by contrast, chapters 284 and 285, while still easily ranking among my favorite chapters of all time, definitely do not go as hard with the visuals as some of the other War arc chapters (that very last 285 page being the one standout exception).

anyway so yeah, it was still a slight disappointment, but I'm fine with it. it does mean Deku vs Kacchan 2 will still retain its crown as my all time fave, but the real meat of this episode was never going to be about the flashy visuals -- it's all about that sweet, sweet character development.

two more very minor criticisms before I get to the OMG nonstop gushing part of this post! one, they did cut out this scene from ch 282 where Tomura originally had TWO quirk-be-gone bullets in his possession and Kacchan actually destroyed the second one.

YOU THOUGHT WE WOULDN'T REMEMBER, BONES. BUT WE DID. so for everyone who is giving Kacchan his well-earned love, praise, and admiration today, don't forget to also give him props for saving Aizawa's other leg, or whichever other appendage this doubtless would have hit. my boy out here lowkey saving his sensei from being ReDestro'd.

and then one final nitpicky little quibble, which is that the anime subtitlers declined to use the "Catch-A-Kacchan" translation, despite it being the single cleverest translation of all time, and by far Caleb Cook's biggest and most important contribution to the BnHA canon. alas, twas not meant to be. BUT ANYWAY NOW ON TO THE GUSHING.

okay so first off, we all know that Aizawa is an absolute badass and the most metal motherfucker in this entire series, and that Shouto has by this point all but perfected the art of swooping in to save the day at pivotal moments, and that the U.A. kids all need ALL OF THE THERAPY GODDAMMIT, and that Deku is a COMPLETE LUNATIC who thinks that HAVING FUNCTIONAL ARMS IS OVERRATED ANYWAYS. yes and yes and yes and yes. and if you wish, you can read all about my thoughts on these things and more, here and here and here and here.

but you already know what I actually came here to talk about today.

first of all, YOU GUYS. the music. THIS FUCKING MUSIC, THOUGH. they used the exact same OST track that was used for the "why was I the one who ended All Might?" speech all the way back in DvK2. THIS IS OFFICIALLY THE "TIME FOR NOBUHIKO TO FLEX HIS VOICE ACTING CHOPS" MUSIC. A TRADITION HAS BEEN BORN.

anyway so if anyone needs me I'll just be sitting here playing this scene on repeat until the end of time. no big deal though. I can quit at any time. not like I'm obsessed with it or anything. I definitely love this scene and this character a perfectly normal amount.

All Might talking about how Katsuki understood from the get-go about how OFA was a secret that could put other people at great risk really hits hard in hindsight. especially when you realize that Katsuki really did know right from the start, and he willingly accepted that risk with no hesitation, and he absolutely did suffer consequences for it (it was his knowledge of OFA that led to him following Deku and subsequently getting involved in this battle). and I don't doubt that he has absolutely zero regrets.

okay but can we seriously just talk for a sec about the way Kacchan's anxiety is practically boiling over when he starts to ask All Might about the Fourth's cause of death?? I feel like this is one thing that kind of got overlooked at the time in the manga because we were so completely distracted by EVERY SINGLE OTHER DAMN THING IN THAT CHAPTER lol. but hearing it again here, you feel how worried he actually is about Deku, and idk why but it all of a sudden just hit me so damn hard.

"I'm worried about him. you are, too." because that truly is what this whole conversation is really about. or at least that's the driving force behind it. behind this whole episode, in fact. it's simple, when you get right down to it: Kacchan is afraid that Deku is going to die. it's literally been the biggest fear on his mind ever since Deku unlocked SIXQUIRKS. right from the start, his mind was immediately going to the worst case scenarios. he immediately deduced that OFA might have a deeper connection to AFO than any of them realized (shoutout to Kacchan for being the original "Deku is a horcrux" truther lol. ONE DAY HORIKOSHI WILL FINALLY REVEAL THE TRUTH AND PROVE US RIGHT). he instantly zeroed in on the sobering fact that all of the previous OFA users died young. and as he reveals here, he took particular notice of the fact that All Might seems to be hiding something about OFA IV's death, and he is goddamn PRESSED about it.

and I absolutely LOVE the way that Nobu voiced this part of the conversation. when he starts to question All Might, his breathing starts to pick up a little, and his voice starts to get louder, and the words start to spill out faster and faster almost like he's in a rush to get it all out, and his voice starts to crack just a little, and he goes from not looking at All Might to hesitantly, almost fearfully glancing at him from the side, and then finally turning to face him head on with his eyes all wary and his teeth gritted like he's bracing himself for the very worst (because he is).

and then he finally just asks him, "was it because you realized something?" and then he takes in this achingly hesitant little breath before finishing with, "...about One for All?" and just. the whole scene is just SO well done. like, he's seriously so fucking scared about this, though. but at the same time he just needs to know, and just. oh my god. and Nobuhiko manages to emote all of this so clearly, and that is such a difficult line to walk when you're dealing with a character like Katsuki who's always so hesitant to show his vulnerability. he has to portray these two separate layers of Bakugou at the same time -- the part of him that is trying his hardest to be nonchalant and matter-of-fact in order to hide his fears and emotions; while at the same time also portraying said emotions which are clearly seeping through anyway, regardless of his efforts.

anyway so yeah. I could talk about this for eighty years and never get sick of it honestly but let's move on.

let me tell you guys, I've been bracing myself for this scene for two full years, and it still kicked my ass. THIS SCENE HAD NO REGARD FOR HUMAN LIFE. literally RIGHT IN the feels. direct hit.

"he's always been that way." no, but guys. the regret when he says that. the way he states it with such simplicity and clarity. almost profound. this is just a truth of the world. this is just how Deku is. this is something that took him so long to understand, but now that he does, he can't fathom how he was never able to see it before. and then that ever-so-slight bitterness that creeps into his voice as he goes on to describe how he fucked it all up. ;_;

and then last but not least!!

"ijimeta." one word, in Japanese. it all comes down to that. and his voice gets so quiet. this whole last part of his speech is so quiet and so soft. but when he says this very last part, his voice wavers perfectly on that last word, and it just. sounds so resigned, somehow, but also just... almost faltering, for just a moment. you can hear the regret as clear as day, but you also hear the fear once again as he finally reveals this fact -- literally his biggest shame; the worst thing that he's ever done -- to All Might. his hero. just, damn.

anyway. so needless to say, despite my expectations being SKY HIGH, this scene absolutely met all of them and blew me away. as expected from the best fucking voice actor in Japan, according to me, a single lone person, whose subjective opinion is absolutely definitely not biased in any possible way.

back to the action! and Nobu getting to do his very best Deku impression lol.

can you believe this kid. one single nerdy analysis speech was all it took for him to start emitting such powerful Main Character Energy that even Endeavor got taken in and was just automatically following orders lol.

awesome choice of music here while Deku and Tomura continued to battle and Bakugou laid out his plan. you know it's good when they still manage to make you feel the tension even though this is basically just a generic action scene, and you additionally already know exactly what's going to happen.

I have no idea why, but that part with Deku's "Kacchan... my 'Deku' means 'you can do it!'" speech juxtaposed against the image of him going all out against Tomura with such fierce determination hit me like 100x harder than it did in the manga. I was NOT expecting that to be as powerful as it was. damn near gave me chills.

literally the only time I've ever been on board with the whole "FUCK YEAH, I'LL JUST BREAK ALL MY BONES AT YOU!!" deal lol. it literally makes no goddamn sense but this scene is just so raw.

THEN WE YEET THE ENDEAVOR!!!!

SO ON-BRAND. NO DEKU-INSPIRED PLAN IS EVER TRULY COMPLETE WITHOUT A GOOD YEETING.

and then the next few moments are some of the most legitimately unsettling of the entire series, as we have Tomura screaming at the top of his lungs while being burnt to cinders (and I mean, I love Tomura dearly, but I get it; he literally just Thanos'd tens of thousands of innocent people), followed by AFO's creepy fucking ghost hand reaching out all "LEND ME YOUR BODY~~~" which is a scene that absolutely NO ONE ASKED FOR but okay.

but then right afterwards though! when AFO finally did take over, and you hear that "TV shutting down" sound effect all of a sudden? and then the next few scenes with all the BKDK flashbacks are also weirdly TV-themed? I could not for the life of me figure this out at first, but now I'm actually thinking it could be a reference to the chapter 306 color page?

OR MAYBE NOT? I actually have no idea. anyway though it may have been random af but it worked for me, what can I say.

AND THEN THE MOMENT OF TRUTH AT LONG LAST.

THIS ACTUALLY IS SO PRETTY THOUGH?? LIKE I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT COLOR COMBINATION AT ALL?

AND IT HAPPENS SO QUICKLY!!!!??? YOU BARELY EVEN HAVE TIME TO BLINK?!?!!

oh. my. god.

THE WAY THE MUSIC SUDDENLY GOT QUIET. THE WAY HIS NARRATING VOICE CAME ON AND, PRAISE EVERYTHING, IT REALLY WAS DEEPER. THAT REALLY WAS THE ADULT HIM. SAME AS DEKU. MY FEELINGS ABOUT THIS ARE SO FUCKING MUCH RIGHT NOW.

AND THEN THE FLASHBACKS!! THE SCENES OF THEM IN MIDDLE SCHOOL!! AND GROUND ZERO!! AND THEN CUTTING TO THE TWO OF THEM AS LITTLE BABIES, AND THE TV SCREEN ALL OF A SUDDEN SWITCHING TO COLOR??? AND THE HANDS??? THE REACHING?!?!

AND THEN?!?!?!

"HEY MAKESTE, IF WE GO AHEAD AND ACTUALLY MAKE THE VOLUME 29 COVER CANON, WILL YOU FINALLY FORGIVE US FOR ALL OF THE HALF-BAKED PAINFULLY OOC FILLER EPISODES AND OVAS?" WELL, STUDIO BONES, YOU DRIVE A HARD BARGAIN, BUT HOW CAN I POSSIBLY REFUSE.

AND THEN THEY FULL ON MURDERED ME!!!!!

that's right bitches. DREAD IT. RUN FROM IT. THE CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT ARRIVES ALL THE SAME.

holy shit. and then THE END CREDITS oh my freaking heart. words can't even describe.

Studio Bones out here not resting until they've succeeded in making EVERY SINGLE PERSON feel the MAXIMUM AMOUNT OF SADNESS THAT A HUMAN BEING CAN SUSTAIN. their callousness truly knows no bounds.

anyway so there we have it! part one of the spectacular season 6 Bakugou Katsuki Redemption Saga. I laughed, I cried, I cried, I cried, I cried a little bit more, and then I cried a little bit more after that. final verdict: yeah, it was pretty good.

[yveltalreal]

OOC POST. ABOUT TARAKA AND CURRENT COMMUNITY DRAMA

im gonna be real im so fucking glad that like shit about taraka has finally been brought up because i, among others, had to deal with his bullshit and inability to learn from his mistakes or understand consequences for months.

from not understanding basic rp etiquette, to repeatedly harassing and guilt tripping people about plots he did not like but was not involved in at all, many people were made uncomfortable by him, and several people outright set boundries while telling taraka that he had made them uncomfortable. taraka would regularly guilt trip us as well by threatening to leave the server whenever we pointed these things out, and when we pointed out it was guilt trippy, he would say he was simply expressing his feelings.

THAT IS NOT EXPRESSING YOUR FEELINGS. THAT IS A THREAT.

obviously i'm not going to say i am an unbiased person. i am incredibly biased because i had to deal with taraka from around mid to late febuary all the way to mid july, and have only just now been able to rant about and discuss the quite frankly childish behavour taraka demonstrated for that entire period of time. but i will say that i am among SEVERAL who have made their issues with taraka clear to me and discussed his behaviour at length on discord.

there is a lot of screenshots i wish to send, but as several people are not online for me to ask their permission, as well as the fact i sure as hell am not asking taraka for permission for any of these, i will refrain from sending most of them. a screenshot from me setting a boundary (which admittidly, taraka regularly brought up in a manner that felt guilt trippy and seemed to regularly try and get just close enough to crossing without actually doing so) was already shared with my permission in the reblog thread anyways.

i have a lot more i could share, but without my ability to share screenshots at this time, i am refraining to. i don't want to throw around accusations that while i know are true, and have many friends who can back me up, i don't have photo evidence of.

in the end though, i, as well as many others, were often made incredibly uncomfortable about taraka and to see he has not been able to learn from his mistakes even after being removed from a discord server and spoken to by both mods and players about it is saddening. taraka is an adult. many people involved are minors, myself included, and the fact that we've had to be the bigger person is upsetting.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Sorry in advance for this long ask.

So I've noticed with kpop that most of them just go with whatever the hype or narrative fed to them is. This includes the fans or even the groups themselves.

No matter how annoying ARMYs are, I actually feel they do this slightly less than the core kpop stans because so many armys start off as locals but still within the BTS nexus also we have so many dumb narratives that just get baked into the fandom. VMin being soulmates, Jungkook being the golden maknae, Bighit being 'different' from other KPop labels, Jimin being the king of fanservice, Namjoon and Yoongi being the best at rap (so presumably over Hobi) - all this is just bs with little basis in reality. Within kpop, things are even worse imo - literally sometimes it feels like they don't listen to songs, they just decide whether things are good based on concepts or vibes or some superficial crap like that.

Anyway, so the Jungkook is the golden maknae thing, the one who will breakout narrative has been pushed for ages. The reality is that the entire maknae line is somewhat recognised among the GP and pretty popular overall. If Like Crazy had the same push as Seven, it would have done the same or better. But for better or worse, JK is the chosen one. And the reason JK acts so bratty is because he knows this too. At his core I don't think JK is a bad guy but being positioned as "the one" for years and then being actively told so by 🛴 and Bang PD now has just fueled his negative traits. The latent bratty and cocky vibes just went up exponentially during the seven promo.

I also think JK got the gist of what fans were saying about his interviews and BB Hot #1 acceptance from last week and perhaps about the preferential treatment because this week he's been doing a lot of damage control. Oh I'm so surprised I won Mnet, omg you guys I /never/ expected to win Inkigayo. He acted so weird for BB #1 but suddenly he's back to good ol' humble Jungkook. Suddenly Jimin's commenting on his lives. Tae's coming to visit him at the music show. Look how happy the members are for his success everyone. Meanwhile JK does multiple lives almost everyday this week. Seems like he's going overdrive cleaning up all the missteps from last week.

Jimin is starting to piss me tf off as well. Who keeps laughing while they are getting whipped and humiliated? A fool. He wasn't always like this but I think Bighit's harsh contract and the other members gaslighting him with fake concern and love have trapped Jimin into this zombie puppet state. I just wish he leaves Bighit. They don't care about him. They care about their chosen golden maknae and he knows it but he stays there like a fool. The mistreatment has been going on for a long time so he could have left years ago before Bighit became this powerful Hybe but he chose to spend his time drinking and being unmotivated. Although I also think its the company's fault for not motivating him. Maybe he has PTSD that Hybe is using to manipulate his behavior, in addition to his harsh contract, and that's why he played along with JK on lives to do fanservice.

***

How odd. Did you actually mean to send this ask to me? Because the way this is written reads exactly like how I'd expect a solo stan to think. And you can't possibly have sent this to me, expecting me to take you seriously.

Anyway, I'm not sure what's happened in the last week for me to be receiving the barrage of weird asks I've been getting. Did one of you suddenly stumble on my blog and send it around a GC or something? Jung Kook got #1 on the Billboard Hot100 last week but it's not like it was unexpected. I mean, I did say shortly after Jimin's achievement in early April that others in the maknae-line will possibly achieve a Hot 100 too, and that was before we knew Seven was coming, that it was an English release that would get the PET treatment, that D2C sales were banned and Hybe America got involved meaning it would get even more support. So, that can't be the reason y'all are this animated. Really, nothing unexpected has happened so I don't understand why y'all are so agitated you've taken a liking to my inbox recently.

Anon, I have nothing to tell you except that if you had any self-awareness, you'd realize what's happening to you and take a clean break away from everything k-pop for a good long while. Not even just BTS, cause this, especially that last paragraph, all reads like it was written by someone who has gotten completely sucked in. And you need to get out.

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

tbf, lxc is valid for noticing how one-sided is the wangxian dynamic and it's true that wwx didn't give an f about lwj in his first life... and except for some moments when he went "oh no, he's hot", lwj is the reason people ship them because that ship has no real basis on wwx's part...

In the end, it feels as if he falls for lwj only because he's literally the only one there for him. What's ironic is that he even ponders on how it used to be the other way around and he used to have jc by his side and lwj against him...

MXTX created a mess of a fandom because of all these mixed signals she gives so no wonder there are a lot of wwx / jc shippers. I mean, it's OBVIOUS that she didn't intend for jc to be a love interest at all... but she still made him "ex"-coded. The fact that he's the one wwx made a big sacrifice too for, and not lwj when, on the other hand, lwj sacrificed a couple of important things for a wwx that didn't care about him in their first life, and that won't get the same devotion in return is just. weird.

Well hello there, little troll.

This is certainly a bad/sad understanding of the entire point of Lan Xichen's angry rantings, as the audience was supposed to be exasperated on behalf of all involved due to each one only having their own perception of this entire situation and the ongoing theme on relying on self-biased thought and perception.

Just as Lan Xichen has only his own understanding of one-sided reciprocity(on Lan Wangji's behalf), Wei Wuxian was terrified of being the only one to have thought he was taking his feelings to an inappropriate level that was not reciprocated, mind on the heels and only hours after Jiang Cheng accused them of being more and mocking Wei Wuxian.

1:

In the time they’d been traveling together, he’d gotten the feeling Lan Wangji thought highly of him. That he thought of him differently than he once had. But at the end of the day, he didn’t dare guess how far that “highly” stretched, nor whether “differently” really was the kind of “different” he assumed.

Wei Wuxian had never considered confidence a bad thing and was often smug and frivolous as a result. The cultivation world had once gossiped that the Yiling Patriarch was the sort who frolicked among the peach blossoms, always surrounded by the sweet smell of their fragrant flowers. But in reality, he had never experienced this kind of flustered confusion before. In the past, he had thought Lan Wangji was an open book, but now he found him difficult to read. He was terrified that he was lost in this fantasy all alone; that all of this was only his own wishful thinking and that he was overly confident to presume

otherwise.

2:

Wei Wuxian could not believe that had just happened.

It seemed like a nightmare had intruded on his tender, enchanting dream—one that upended a basin of cold water directly over his head and chilled him to the bone, from head to toe. It was also like he’d been slapped hard across his face, so hard that his ears rang, his heart pounded, and his world spun. He couldn’t react for the longest time. It was with difficulty that he managed to open his mouth, but his voice was hoarse.

3:

One of his worst theories had just been confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt. Lan Wangji was indeed very nice to him, but…it was probably not the kind of nice he had been hoping for.

4:

Do not take it to heart?” Lan Wangji echoed again.

He’d initially thought he’d rather have Lan Wangji think him fickle and abominable than endure the awkwardness of knowing his feelings, which would surely make their friendship delicate going forward. But now, he regretted all the foolish things he had just blurted out without thinking.

"...Sorry,” he muttered under his breath.

5:

Wei Wuxian reached out and brushed a hand across two figures with puckered lips kissing on the wall, before trailing up to the words “Lan Wangji was here.” The sentence needed to be cleaned away, but before Wei Wuxian did so, he traced the strokes of Lan Wangji’s name with his fingertips.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The more he traced them, the more he was loath to part.

6:

While leaving Lan Wangji behind and freely roaming the world alone did not seem an impossible thing to consider…

...a voice deep inside Wei Wuxian told him the clear truth: It was impossible.

The nonsense he’d spouted back at Golden Carp Tower had really come true. The Wei Wuxian of today could not do without Lan Wangji.

Wei Wuxian has only stopped trying to rationalize (comphet) and explain away their close relation as only being friendly, he knows very well his own advances can't be explained as being a joke any longer and, doesn't want them to be seen as such especially by his own self. He is terrified of Lan Wangji seeing this as either a cruel joke or Lan Wangji not feeling the same. He wants it to be reciprocated and always has.

And within the extras we see the blatant proof, while he may not understand he was in the midst of a crush, given he was fifteen and once more, he have Jiang Cheng being nasty, he much exhibited his fixation upon Lan Wangji by mentioning him within Lotus Pier and being happy to discuss him with Jiang Yanli without the excuse of wanting to just mess around with him.

1:

Jiang Yanli sat down between them. “Who are you two talking about?” she asked. “A friend you made at Gusu?”

"Yeah!” Wei Wuxian answered happily.

"You have the cheek to call yourself his ‘friend’?” Jiang Cheng said. “Ask Lan Wangji about that, see if he’s willing to accept you as one.”

"Screw off. If he doesn’t, I’ll just pester him—we’ll see if he caves.” Turning to Jiang Yanli, Wei Wuxian asked, “Shijie, do you know Lan Wangji?”

Yes,” Jiang Yanli said. “He’s the second young master of the Lan Clan, the one everyone says is very handsome and capable, right? Is he really very handsome?”

"Very!” Wei Wuxian gushed.

"Compared to you?” Jiang Yanli probed.

Wei Wuxian thought for a moment. “Perhaps just a tiny bit more handsome than me.”

He held two of his fingers a tiny distance apart to demonstrate. As Jiang Yanli collected the plates, she smiled.

"Then he must be really very handsome. It’s a good thing to make new friends. You guys can drop in on each other to have some fun in the future, when you have nothing to do.”

For the very next extra to make good on this, almost 20 years later and Wei Wuxian to admit he had always wanted Lan Wangji's attentions romantically and poking at Lan Wangji seemingly not sharing that interest, that was dispelled as soon as both were able to out their shared romantic love.

1:

He turned his head and said to Lan Wangji, “When I was at the Cloud Recesses way back then, I kept urging you to come visit Lotus Pier. I especially wanted you to come with me to steal lotus seed pods from him. Do you know why?”

When it came to Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji always answered every one of his questions and acquiesced to all his requests. And so, he answered him seriously, “I do not know. Why?”

Wei Wuxian winked at him and snickered. “Because that old man sure was something whenever he hit people with his boat-pole. It hurt way more than your family’s disciplinary ferule. I thought I just had to trick Lan Zhan into coming here and let him take a few beatings too.”

Lan Wangji smiled slightly at this. The cold glow of the moonlight on the lake melted at the sight.

In that instant, Wei Wuxian felt dizzy. A smile also unconsciously rippled its way onto his face.

"All right, I admit—” he began.

2:

Amid smiles and laughter, they grabbed hold of each other and embraced in the water before exchanging a kiss.

After their lips parted, Wei Wuxian raised his hand and continued their earlier topic of conversation. “I admit it, I was talking nonsense. I just wanted to hang out with you back then.”

Lan Wangji lifted him from behind, and Wei Wuxian clambered back onto the boat. He looked back and held out a hand to grab Lan Wangji.

“So tell me honestly, Lan Zhan.”

Lan Wangji got on the boat and handed him a red cord. “Of what?”

Wei Wuxian held the red cord with his mouth as he pulled back his hair, which had come loose in the water. “Tell me if you felt the same way,” he said solemnly. “You know, your callous rejection of me every single time I asked really made me lose face

back then.”

"You can try and see if I would deny you anything now,” Lan Wangji said.

The unexpected statement hit him right in the heart. Wei Wuxian choked for a moment, but Lan Wangji was still as composed as ever, like he didn’t fully grasp the weight of what he had just said.

Pressing his palm to his forehead, Wei Wuxian said, “You… Hanguang-jun, let’s agree that you’ll give me a heads-up before you say sweet nothings in the future. Otherwise, I won’t be able to take it.”

Lan Wangji nodded. “All right.”

"Lan Zhan!” Wei Wuxian said, “Oh, you…!”

Of all the millions of possible words, there was nothing left to say. There was only laughter and hugs.

As for Jiang Cheng, yes he is jealous, yes he is a homophobe, no there is no mixed signals from Wei Wuxian to anyone other than Lan Wangi. Me, unlike you, understand what logical comprehension is and can read what MXTX meant for her CP. Have fun with your salty Jiang Cheng/Chengxian fic ideas though, save that energy for that instead of bugging me.

[officialleehadan]

Artifact Examined

Computer Science 101

+++

Quintus was, among many things, an expert on magical artifacts.

It was, in fact, how he started as a mage. Not as a battle-mage, or a healer, or any of the other things that many Guildmasters did before they became a Guildmaster.

Better yet, Quintus wasn’t just a Guildmaster. He was the Archmagus of the entire Mage’s Guild, and had been for most of twenty years.

“This is a nasty piece of work,” he said when they were seated in his workroom and he was eagerly investigating the artifact they brought him. “Beautiful, but nasty. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Can you tell us what it does? I’m not a specialist in artifacts,” Nathan said. Quintus made tea before taking them into his workroom. It was a strange mix of herbs and spices that almost tasted like Adrienne’s favorite chai from the tiny coffee shop around the corner from her dorms. “We found it down in a lizard cave. One of their own was mutated into a monstrosity. It turned back when we deactivated the artifact.”

“It’s a multi-stage transformation device,” Quintus said after examining the artifact a while longer. “the first stage is fear, targeted on a small area. In a town, or in the lizard cave you mentioned, it would produce an effect just on the creatures nearest. Say, a few shiplengths in every direction.”

“Enough for a smallish town or a largeish castle,” Adrienne said after some calculation. She wasn’t entirely sure how ‘shiplengths’ translated to ‘feet’ but it was reasonably easy to get a general idea of the whole business. “So that’s the first stage, what’s the next?”

“The nearest creature with an appropriate temperament begins to mutate,” Quintus explained. Nathan left his tea beside Adrienne and went to examine the artifact. Adrienne wasn’t sure what they could see, but she was sure it was more interesting than whatever she could see. Nathan mentioned that mages could see magic, something not in the game mechanics, and that he was learning to do it himself. “As you observed in the lizard cave. Likely the one that was mutated was their leader, or their most powerful member.”

“They were trying to keep it in their cave, but it wasn’t going well,” Adrienne remembered aloud, although she wasn’t all that involved in the discussion. “it got out. Killed a bunch of people. Looked like it was doing the same to its own kind when it could.”

“Unrestrained aggression is part of the mutation glyph,” Quintus said. He turned the artifact to her, but Adrienne only shrugged. It looked exactly the same as it did before, as far as she could tell. “You said only two of the glyphs were activated?”

“We couldn’t figure out what the rest did,” Nathan said, and turned it over so Quintus could see the signature on the bottom. “And as much as we do want to know the rest, this is what we’re most interested in.”

“Ah,” Quintus said and his face darkened. “We do see this sort of thing now and again, as you both know, but it is rare for a troublemaker to be so obvious in their filthy work.”

“Do you know the signature?” Adrienne asked hopefully. It was a long shot, but there was a chance. “If you can point us at the problem, we’ll handle it.”

“I have no doubt you could and would,” Quintus assured her and offered a consoling smile that did not promise anything good. “You are both more than capable, especially together. I wish I could do as you ask.”

“You don’t know them,” Nathan said and returned to his seat beside Adrienne. “Is there anything you can tell us about it?”

“I can tell you that the next phase is the same as the first, on a much larger scale,” Quintus said darkly as he turned the artifact over in his hands. “The fear would radiate for leagues until everything in range was in a terror. Animals would flee uncontrollably. Humans would be in a constant state of anxiety, or aggression depending on their temperaments.”

“And after that?”

“Mutation again. Spread larger. Dozens or hundreds of targets rather than a single one.”

“And the last glyph?’ Adrienne was almost afraid to ask, but they needed to know. “What does the last one do?”

“It absorbs the power of every death caused by the victims,” Quintus explained without flinching, but his fury was visible. “Vicious work, but work we should, in a small way, be grateful for.”

“Why?” Nathan asked. He was pale at the explanation of the artifact’s effect. Adrienne couldn’t blame him. She was pretty shaken too. “If you don’t know who made it, how do we deal with this?”

“There is a clue that does provide a direction,” Quintus said, and allowed himself a small, hard smile. “The artifact is made of water-quartz. This particular shade of blue is only found in the highest mountains to the west, and a piece this large would be incredibly expensive. The dwarves will remember who bought it.”

Another quest. One that took them even further from the tower they were supposed to be seeking out. Still, Adrienne couldn’t turn away from this kind of evil. Not knowing how terrible it would be if the creator was allowed to run rampage. She met Nathan’s eyes and found the same decision in his eyes that was surely in hers.

“To the dwarves,” she said, and sighed. “I don’t suppose you can make us a portal at least part of the way? If this mage is causing problems, we need to get ahead of them as soon as we can.”

“I will do better yet,” Quintus said, and set the artifact into a chest that shone with wards so powerful even Adrienne could see them. “Stay here as my guests for the night. Tomorrow I will have transportation arranged, and a letter of introduction written. The Mages Guild will back you, with all the might our Guild may provide at your call.”

 +++

Computer Sciences 101: (FULL COLLECTION)

Computer Science 101 Volume 1

+

Computer Sciences 101 - V2 (for full collection, see V1)

Artifact Examined (NEW!)

[sunhated-a]

Hello! Welcome, this is a blog I've created to curate inspiration for Muzan Kibutsuji. But I am open to interactions, so I may dip my hands in some writing for him as well.

My portrayal of Muzan is quite canon divergent and based on equal parts headcanon and canon material.

I'm very laidback on this blog, so expect minimal formatting and icons, sporadic activity, and varying post length.

Guidelines under read more.

Basic RP etiquette applies. Do not control my character without my permission, in character =/= out of character. Muzan is a very abrasive muse. So please don't take his rudeness personally. If you are a personal blog, you may follow me and send in asks or like headcanon posts. I have anon enabled if you'd prefer to use that. However, I would ask that you do not reblog my headcanons or threads. Please understand you are a guest in this space and be mindful with how you engage. Other than that, you're welcome on my blog! I hope you enjoy!

Fandom is a space meant for everyone to enjoy. Period. Bigotry of any kind, racism, sexism, transphobia, etc. Will not be tolerated. If I catch you engaging in any of these behaviors it's an immediate block from me.

Do not involve me in interpersonal drama. Roleplay is a fun hobby to me, and drama exhausts me. And to be frank, I am too old to care to keep up with who did what and why. I don't engage in dogpiles. I am just here to write my characters and stay in my lane. However, if any issues were to arise, I'd prefer to talk it out like adults. But if you'd no longer wish to interact for whatever reason, feel free to hard block me. There will be no hard feelings.

I am neither pro-ship nor an anti, nor do I care what camp you fall into. I'm just here to do my own thing. I will be exploring darker content on this blog: Including manipulation, abusive relationships, cannibalism, obsession, twisted dynamics among other things that come with the muse. I do have hard limits, however. I will not interact with you if you engage in noncon, underage smut, or adult / underage muse ships. All triggers will be tagged accordingly. And as always, if you need something tagged do not hesitate to let me know!

I run my blogs primarily on an interest basis, I also manage a household and I work. So my activity will fluctuate and be sporadic. I manage chronic depression and unmedicated ADHD both so I will probably be all over the place. IRL > Anything else. I will always prioritize the comfort level of a mun over writing and roleplay.

This is a canon divergent blog, as it says on the tin. There are a lot of aspects about Muzan and his story that I interpret differently, or omit entirely. If something about my portrayal isn't to your liking, I completely understand. You are entitled to your opinion, but please don't try to argue with me. Feel free to unfollow or block.

OCS. I love them. Feel free to send them my way, just be sure to have a page where I can read about them and we're golden. I am also duplicate friendly.

I am not open to shipping on this blog. I, however, will make exceptions if we have interacted OOC or if we're on the same page on what we want out of a ship. I'm uncomfortable shipping with people I don't interact with, this is purely for my own comfort and because of personal experiences in the past. But, if we've interacted and you think our characters would mesh well and have a good dynamic, by all means feel free to bring it up. I will not be posting smut or sexual content on this blog. So anything veering into that territory, I will ask to move to discord or another platform.

[kiealer]

For the 'be honest' meme: 4, 7, and 12!

the be honest meme.��

4) How do you explain rp to someone in the real world?

I have actually had to do this -- explaining RP to my fiancée was a trip. I explained it as basically crafting a makeshift book together; we take two (or more) characters, and write out a back-and-forth based on an interaction or overall story concept. I'm trying to write out something with the ankian boys funnily enough with her. she doesn't entirely understand yet, but I'm hoping that it makes more sense in practice for her.

7) What’s your opinion on call out posts?

I'm... hmm. I don't really know. I haven't seen one in a long while on this platform in particular. It... depends, I suppose? These can be used for smear campaigns just because someone is hurt over something so minor, but they can also be used to inform and educate others on someone who may be potentially very dangerous/has outrageous behavior. That said, people are capable of change if they wish to do so, and so to some degree I feel callout posts CAN be unfair or unjustified. Like, unless the matter is serious, keep it private, see if you can work it out among yourselves first.

12) Have you been involved in drama? Do you regret it?

uh. gonna throw this one under a read-more--

it's been a few years since then, so a good number of people don't know about this (while those who have been Around Awhile may remember) -- I had something of an altercation with someone on this platform who I thought I was close friends with for a few months to a year.

to call it 'drama' honestly feels undermining, because it was very real to me, to the point it triggered PTSD reactions in me and made me realize I had PTSD in the first place. tl;dr, as I remember it, there was one day I spent with others instead of this person, and that resulted in a total meltdown from this person. I asked for space because I was heavily triggered by the onslaught of demeaning insults and demands that I apologize. I was DM'd, I was called (on my phone, through my phone number), I was sent items like gifts and food to my house (for some context, I had housed this person for about a week to help them get out of a situation, so they knew of my address already), I learned awhile after that this person had gone to other people in order to get to me. I stepped away from tumblr for a little while. In that time, my friends were harassed, as was I. Eventually, I had a call with this person, to try and clear things up and maybe try to fix any problems, and they were just... unreasonable. That was the last time I ever contacted them, but not the last I'd heard of them. They proceeded to launch a smear campaign of me on this site, to luckily no avail.

I was fine if they decided they wanted to keep writing here. I didn't mind that. I encouraged people to still write with them, I wanted them to have interactions, as long as we stayed separated. I haven't heard anything of them in at least 2 years, I think.

As for regret, I... well, of course I regret it, to some extent. I wish it hadn't blown up as big as it did. I wish it hadn't happened at all. But, part of me also fears for if it didn't happen, and what state I'd be in now if that didn't happen. I don't think about this as often as I used to, but every once in awhile, it still crosses my mind and makes me incredibly sad.

[imagination-void]

For a few weeks now I’ve been a part of the Inphinity SMP, which is a Phighting Minecraft server that I think is popular on Twitter? I wouldn’t know, I try to stay away from it for the most part.

I got the role of Icedagger in it and it brings me much joy hehe! A give to you my ISMP Icedagger design, lovingly called Pasteldagger by me

His design has changed a little bit since making this doodle but he’s the same for the most part. If it’s of any interest to you at all, I ramble about ISMP!Icedagger and some design + personality things under the cut along with an extra little doodle and some screenshots I and others have taken with him hehe.

I enjoy the beans people make on twt, so I give you the gift of Beandagger hehe

I don’t wanna say I’ve changed his design from canon too much but also I changed his entire palette so whoopsie daisy.. I enjoy his canon palette but I personally have a hard time with designs like that so I gave him a palette that still gives the feeling of ice and snow while also being a bit more in my comfort zone.

Previously I was thinking he should have had a reindeer motif, which is present in him having little hooves and hoof “fingers”, and he’s already got the antlers to match! However I’ve since shifted into a snow leopard motif as I feel it’s more fitting to him now, and also I just love snow leopards <3

Icedagger doesn’t have the most content to go off of unfortunately, I'm mostly just stretching what I do know here. Icedagger, as I interpret him, is shy and awkward at his core, but outwardly gives this persona of being brave and energetic that he doesn’t keep up very well. Sort of like an awkward teenager trying to find his place among his peers in middle/highschool by pretending to be a cool kid? He tries a little too hard to prove he’s not some little kid, how he’s independent and doesn’t need anyone’s help because help is for CHILDREN (of which he is NOT) and FOR THE WEAK!! And he’s a big strong man who is very adult and independent! You know, young teenager thoughts.

It makes for some awkward situations as he’s stumbling to live up to this glorified version of him in his head, one that’s on par with his regal and powerful siblings, but in reality he’s just an anxious kid.

The other half of him, one that he feels internally more than externally, is that he wants to be able to make friends and not be treated differently because of his deity status. He’s seen how demons go to this temple they made in his honor, one that he doesn’t even really want, and pray and give offerings, but none of it really… interests him? He wants to make friends and have fun and feel normal, just like any other kid.

He avoids mortals for this reason, because he just doesn’t wanna deal with being basically worshipped.

Overall, he’s socially anxious and awkward from a lack of proper socialization but tries his best to seem like the kind of guy you’d wanna be friends with while not coming off as pompous or demanding. He kind of wishes he wasn’t a deity sometimes and sort of pushes down his power in attempt to be closer to the “power level” of mortals. He just wants to play hide and seek with the neighborhood kids and go for ice cream after :(

Icedagger spends a lot of time hiding and sleeping the years away, entertaining himself in frozen wastes that mortals prefer to not venture in. His favorite thing to do is to sneak around low-populated areas and hiding because he finds amusement in being able to go undetected. His stealth skills are sharp, and they always have been! His most dangerous move involves sneaking up and attacking his opponents from behind, a trick his siblings learned well when they sparred on the heights. Be not surprised that his favorite game is hide n seek.

That all said, that all fits pretty well into snow leopard behavior, being rare and elusive and difficult to find (look up snow leopard camouflage and have fun) but also very expressive when you get the chance to see them in action. A stealthy big cat that roams the unpopulated snowy mountains..

He loves and cherishes his family deeply, even if they bicker a lot. He’d be at their side in a moments notice if they were in danger. He is fiercely protective of Ban Hammer, Sword, Dom, and Valk especially. Can’t speak for Flipside’s parents because we don’t know them yet..

He has trouble with how he’s perceived, but he’ll get through it and learn to not care as much and just enjoy himself. It’s hard to be upset when you’ve got such cool siblings anyways!

A couple things here may not be accurate to ISMP, as they are my own head canons. Specifically the SFOTH sparring all the time on the heights and Icedagger’s own strength. My head canon is that before mortals, when SFOTH came into existence, all the siblings did was fight because they were strong and it was fun. I also believe (again, head canon) Icedagger is the strongest of his siblings since his gear in-game is a one hit KO.

If you actually read all of that then I love you??? Why are you still here??? Thank you, it means a lot 🥺

As a reward, you get screenshots <3