#while being intelligent to understand that there could be bad consequences or a better choice to make

[dawningfairytale]

mischa: i feel like doing something stupid

noel: i'm something stupid, do me

[floof-writes]

I just figured out why the "Don't hate on Kristen, she's just a traumatized 17 year old girl she wasn't prepared to create and care for a deity and it's not fair to expect her to" argument bugs me so much!

First and foremost, Kristen Applebees owns my entire heart and soul. She saved my fucking life. She and I went through a scarily similar religious crisis at fifteen and she and Ally helped me process it. By extension, I respect Ally immensely. They are integral in what D20 is today, and I can't thank them enough for that, Chaotic Dumb shit included. Whatever choices they make to A) have fun at the table and B) play Kristen to her truest potential, I support them.

Right now, Kristen is certainly acting in character, I'm not denying that, but her character still hasn't learned the lesson she needed to. The argument above boils down to the claim that teenagers shouldn't be held responsible for their actions, and as someone who was 17 fairly recently, YES THEY FUCKING SHOULD. Teenagers are capable of doing amazing things. They are more than capable of making moral and practical judgements, and they should be allowed to. They are intelligent and thoughtful and complex. Kristen proves that every second she's on screen. Denying her the consequences of her actions, both good and bad, is just disrespectful to her accomplishments.

Teenagers should receive unconditional love and support from the adults in their lives, but they do not get consequence immunity that expires at 18. Kristen, more than any other bad kid, lacks parental support. Her connection to stable adults is largely through her girlfriend, and that's not ideal. But Kristen has proven she understands what it means to be the cleric of a new god, that in the same way her devotion raised her from the grave, her apathy could bury her once more. It's happened to [redacted] before. Apparently she hasn't even attempted to spread that responsibility out by sharing the gospel. She hasn't asked for help, which is a teenager's most fundamental right. It makes sense that she hasn't, someone else pointed out that Kristen is still searching for the absolute security in knowing a god is all powerful that she had while believing in Helio and has yet to unlearn that, which is why she struggles with her deities. She very obviously relies on religion to fill a hole in her worldview. But if Kristen kills Cassandra, she kills Cassandra. That's her fault, even if it's a mistake that will one day become a dumb teenage decision in her past, rightfully paid for and rightfully regretted. And the adults in her life, whether that be Aguefort or Jawbone or someone else, have a responsibility to tell her she's out of line, because she is.

Junior year is about realizing that real life is a speeding train and you're tied to the tracks with just the pieces of a knife. Ally themself said this season is about Kristen suffering consequences for her chaotic decisions. Making a bad decision and being held responsible for it is okay. This is a theme that appears with Pete as well. Expecting them to learn from their experiences and behave better gets conflated with hating them and is met with excuses about their circumstances and lack of support, even though both demonstrate an extreme desire to learn and grow.

(Finally, the last piece of this argument that bugs me, is the claim that people criticizing Kristen must not have experienced a faith crisis. Bitch, with Kristen's help I banged that thing out in a year and half. By 16 I was an atheist out to my parents. Unlike Kristen, they didn't kick me out, and unlike Kristen, the existence of god/s isn't an objective reality in my world, so I get that I had it easier. But your experiences with faith aren't universal.)

[selormohene]

day 3 (thursday, july 6th 2023)

It’s curious how the mind (especially the subconscious mind) works. The intention to write about whatever comes up, including the less savoury parts of your psyche, has a way of surfacing neuroses which you didn’t even realise were there. It’s also curious that when those things come up, working them out consciously doesn’t really do much and can even worsen the situation, but very often trying to think through them and experience them, and then forgetting about them and having a few good nights of sleep and ideal some sort of activity that takes you out of your mind, ends up working much better.

It’s also interesting that I don’t think I can really say with any causal clarity how anything I do on a daily basis is related to how I feel or what I think about, but everything resolves itself eventually into a long-term trajectory with clearly discernible patterns. One wants to be able to notice those patterns while they’re being created and played out in the hope of being able to steer their direction (or at least steer into the good ones and away from the bad ones), and some people seem to have a preternatural ability to do this, and I’m not sure why I find such difficulty with it, at least at this point in my life. But it hasn’t always been so and it needn’t always be so. Part of this might be related to the fact (I take it to be a fact, an overlooked one) that intelligence is actually a capacity and not merely a skill. In other words its fulfilment is in orientation towards its proper end, which is truth and reason — what is actually the case and what actually follows from what. What I’m saying is that what seems like the capacity to steer into good patterns is perhaps partly a consequence of having been socialised into good patterns at a time when your capacity for discrimination and choice with regard to such things isn’t strong enough to guide you on its own, and having the strength, once you’ve been socialised into those good patterns and while you’re still strongly adherent to them — the straight and narrow path, so to speak — not to wilfully jump into the void. There’s a problem though of what this is meant to imply for people trapped in cults and so on, people who are stuck in a given pattern which is destructive through no fault of their own but which seems to provide the scaffolding by which they can evaluate what is good for them.

This is the problem with the risk of living, and for instance being unable to avoid the possibility of messing up your kids even a little bit.

I suspect that this effect generalises, but something about studying math which gives you a confidence that can be hard to find otherwise, but which is indispensable to continuing with the expectation of success and actually finding that success, is having done it for a long time and remembering how things which seemed mystifying to you once are second nature to you now. It reminds me of that Grothendieck quote about feeling like a dumb ox labouring up a hill, trying to master all the things he’s been told he has to learn, and going on to achieve more than those who appeared to have been more talented than he was. Obviously he had no idea how talented he really was. But the point is that I remember once having no idea how long division worked, and even when I memorised the algorithm I had o idea why this helped us divide numbers. But now it’s all hard-coded in my memory. Even some of the stuff I studied in undergrad and was completely lost with, stuff like basic metric topology and analysis, aren’t quite second nature to me now but are absurdly close to it considering how little I thought I’d be able to understand them when I was struggling with them. And realising that all I have to do is keep solving and reading and thinking and eventually the neurons will sort themselves out in the background has been immensely freeing, or at least could be even more so if only I internalised it. Knowing or being aware of things is one thing, internalising them is quite another.

High-achieving cultures can arise for spontaneous reasons. The maintenance of a high-achieving culture comes from a continuing culture of high achievement. The greater the concentration of high achievement the more robust and reliable the institutional memory and implicit communal knowledge and competence surrounding guiding people towards the sort of high achievement in question. Individualist explanations which focus on the individual characteristics of the people in question fail to realise this. Obviously someone with talent and drive has a higher chance of success even in the face of obstacles but people do not at all realise how much having an environment in which success is expected and support for it is freely available and so taken for granted as to be invisible helps.

[sniper-childe]

Hello! I’d like to share some of my notes if I were to Beta-read the most recent Archon Quest. I will be going through what worked, what could be taken out, and what could’ve been better. Note that I’m looking at this through an editor’s lens so I’m going to try NOT to change the plot we were given no matter what my opinions are about it BUT some of the said opinions may slip out.

Also, a bit of a disclaimer: I know that Genshin isn’t an actual literary work but miHoYo is known for its writers’ great storytelling and I’ve always loved their work so it really came as a surprise as to what happened to the mess that is Inazuma Act 3. So yeah.

Contains:

1. What was foreshadowed about the characters and why the payoff of their portrayals felt cheap.

a. About Kokomi and the rebellion.

b. About the Fatui, the James Bond villain wannabe.

c. About Ei and the Raiden Shogun.

2. How Chapter 2, Act 3 could have been the turning point that would have us, as the Traveler, cement our perceptions of the Archons and Gods of Celestia OR what I think the death of Signora was supposed to be but was undermined by this one tidbit.

BONUS: I wrote this before Kokomi’s story quest was released but decided to wait for it before posting. And guess what? I think Kokomi’s Story Quest works better as an Archon Quest. At least, some parts of it.

miHoYo teased us this intelligent leader of the resistance that is well-versed in the Art of War. The end of Ch2: Act 2 showed us a powerful Kokomi. So why was she sidelined all throughout the act?

I actually like the idea of the resistance asking the Fatui for aid. But miHoYo chickened out and made it so that they did it unknowingly. To which I say: how? If Kokomi was so smart she should’ve known better. I figured it was the Fatui within a single sentence, so why didn’t Kokomi?

They should’ve stuck with the concept of the underdogs – or in Kokomi’s words, the little fish – of war in an act of desperation. They could’ve shown a calculated Kokomi “making a deal with the devil” and will do anything to win the fight against the Shogunate.

In her Character Teaser, she was willing to burn the enemies’ supplies – to starve the enemy. She can be ruthless, that’s why Kokomi actively giving Delusions to her foot soldiers would have made much more sense to cause the Fatui to be involved rather than the whole “the Fatui orchestrated everything” schtick.

Which brings me to my next point: when did the Fatui turn into a James Bond villain? I hate that trope so much. It’s like the Deus Ex Machina of villainy. It’s lazy. And it doesn’t even fit the Fatui’s modus operandi.

In the prologue, the Abyss Order corrupted Dvalin and the Fatui was just there waiting to steal Barbatos’ gnosis while the Knights are distracted. Morax decided to retire one day so the Fatui swept right in and offered a test of Liyue in exchange for his gnosis.

The last two locations had their own story to tell while the Fatui was just in the background like the opportunistic antagonist that they are.

It also would have been a stronger plotline to have the already set lore – like the tenuous relationship between Watatsumi and Narukami – be the driving force of the Inazuman Civil War.

The prologue and chapter 1 also delivered what we are told we’re going to get in the Story Preview. That’s why they are satisfying. However, with chapter 2, the way it ended turned out to be more about the Fatui rather than “what do mortals see of the eternity chased after by their god.”

Sure, we got the consequences of the war in the World Quests and some of it in the second act. But making the Fatui the Big Bad in the end takes value away from the actions of the characters that are supposed to be the main feature of this chapter.

How much of the Eternity the Raiden Shogun is pursuing is directly from Ei? How much of it is its own understanding of eternity, coupled with Ei’s memories, and its own response? How much of it is the Fatui’s influence?

I have to say though, I’m fine with the puppet actually. Believe it or not. I have had kinda figured that out with the weird shifting of emotions in and out of the puppet. And the dead glowing eyes. So kudos to the design and animation team for that foreshadowing.

It was also said that the current Electro Archon lost someone dear to her and, while I didn’t think it was a twin, I did figure that the current Electro Archon wasn’t the real Electro Archon. So the whole Baal and Beelzebul backstory didn’t really surprise me. So I guess that was foreshadowed too? But my friends didn’t feel the same way so I don’t know. I’m not touching that.

But I do agree that all of the new lore got info-dumped to us by Yae rather than have us find out about them. To be honest, I would have wanted the backstory of Ei to be in her story quest rather than it be in the Archon Quest. A World Quest could work too.

I just feel like the 2.1 Archon Quest ended up cramming so many themes and subplots when it should’ve been focusing on what was promised: the darkness that is brought by their god.

They already had set up the Visions are people’s motivations/ambitions and that taking them away also takes away their agency.

Then they could’ve played with the idea of the people of Watatsumi looking up to Kokomi as their pseudo-god in-place of Orobashi and so with her actively giving Delusions could fit well in the said theme.

They could’ve made Ei and Kokomi character foils of each other and have the final showdown be about them.

And then it’ll all, of course, end up with the people of Inazuma learning how to work without their “gods” or something like that, which is the overarching theme of the whole series if you think about it.

But as I said, my opinions about the plot shouldn’t matter and I’m only here to make what was already written better.

So let’s talk about something that the puppet has done which didn’t make any sense on the surface level but could’ve been clever if it was done right. Killing La Signora.

Okay. So there is a pivotal moment at the end of the first arc of a three-act story where the main character experiences something that will leave them no choice but to move forward. This usually is a physical thing like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. But it can also be a mental or emotional situation.

Over at Honkai, the first arc ended with the death of a beloved mentor and a shattered world (both external and internal). The characters had no choice but to step up and “to stay alive, bravely” (yes, I won’t stop using this line ever). It was so very well done and even after so many years it still hurt no matter how many times you reread/rewatch the scene.

This reread value is what shows how much a twist is well written.

And that is what miHoYo is known for. So I had high expectations with the plot twist (technically this pivotal moment is called a plot twist because it twists the feel and/or pace of the story). Chapter 2 is the perfect spot to end the first act of a seven-chaptered story. So I’m really preparing myself for the inevitable twist.

But then we ended up with Signora’s death.

Okay. So. They could have used that to show us, as the traveler, how Archons and Celestial beings are unfeeling and not to be trusted. We were told this repeatedly by Dainsleiff and by the Abyss Twin. But it is only textbook writing 101 to show NOT tell.

And Signora’s death could have been this portrayal. Although, to be honest, it would have been more impactful if the one who died is a friend of the Traveler.

Them seeing someone die at the hands of an Archon could have their idea of gods shift. Because there is no turning back once you see the proof right in front of your eyes.

But instead, the puppet did it. So what was the point of Signora’s death if not just a power demonstration? We already knew that the Raiden Shogun is powerful. So why did Signora have to die?

Sure, one can argue that the puppet was enacting the Ei’s will so maybe there was a point. But! In Ei’s story quest, we were told that the puppet would have no hesitation when it comes to killing whereas Ei can show mercy.

Which begs, again, the question: how much of the Raiden Shogun’s actions is a reflection of Ei’s will, and how much of it is a logic response of an artificial intelligence from Ei’s memories?

Honestly? I don’t like that they killed off Signora. It doesn’t feel right. I would’ve taken Beidou’s death over Signora’s no matter how much I love Beidou. There was just no build-up to it and it feels weak. I… didn’t feel anything besides confusion. The anger only came later because of the wasted potential.

But overall, I do think they could’ve made it work if it were actually Ei doing the killing.

--

So I just did Kokomi’s Story Quest and man. The soldiers wanting to continue the war is what they really should have made the motivations of the actual war rather than have it as a post-war response and then have Kokomi fix their mess.

Seriously. While it was really interesting to see the usual trauma response of soldiers who had only known war their whole life, they wasted this idea, man.

Before doing the Archon Quest I had thought that the Watatsumi had a hand on the Vision Hunt Decree. Because if I were a tactician, I would have made something to anger the people of my enemies and have them have their internal issues. And while the Shogunate is weak, that’s when I will strike and claim Inazuma for my people and my god.

Then Orobashi will rise once more.

Yep.

Obviously, I really wanted Kokomi to be a more active character in the Archon Quest.

Anyways. If you reached the end, thank you for reading this ~1.5k words of musings. Tell me what you think. Or don’t. You do you.

[jostepherjoestar]

Maybe Jotaro, Risotto, Prosciutto, Bruno and Leone friendship HCs with a fem friend thats llike your generic dumbass but they are just like a soft dumbass, she is just too cute to get mad at no matter how stupid she is. So basically a smol sweet dumbass that just radiate baby energy. Like she just runs up to them saying she want to show them something cool and its just a pretty rock but she looks so happy xjsbkss 💖

Pure of heart, dumb of ass fem!friend with Jotaro, Risotto, Prosciutto, Bruno and Abbacchio HC’s

sfw // fem reader

lemme just say, reader is baby and that’s valid 🥰this is so adorably pure ugh ya done killed me anon 🥺💖✨(can very much relate tho, glad my friends put up with my dumb antics)

Jotaro:

“Why am I friends with you again? Yare yare...” A phrase you’ll hear every time you’re hanging out with this tall bastard. He’ll tease you for being a bit of a dumbass but is incredibly drawn to how kind, sweet and absolutely thoughtful you are.

You remind him of Josuke and Okuyasu which only makes him like you even more. And the added cuteness-factor made him admit to himself he does indeed love cute things, no matter how adamantly he denies it to you.

His favourite thing to do is bring you along to the beach for field research, knowing just how wide eyed and giddy you get when you’re allowed to collect shells and rocks or even poke a jellyfish. You seem very good at spotting irregularities in your surroundings, making quite the good assistant to Dr. Kujo.

You’re even allowed to help with lab research, studying petri dishes filled with algae as you excitedly point out a very important detail he hadn’t noticed yet, too tired from working such long hours. Sometimes you’re quite the genius without even trying.

More than anything he loves the amount of lightness you bring to his life, his studies and general headspace take a large toll on him. Any relief is a welcome one.

He’ll often find himself smiling at the thought of hanging out again, staring at the collection of trinkets he keeps in a cute little Hello Kitty box you once gave him, which rests on his nightstand as a reminder that it can’t hurt to adapt your lifestyle of mindless giddy; even just the tiniest bit.

Risotto:

Being close friends with Risotto seems a bit impossible without being in his squad, he’s very insistent at keeping outsiders of Passione more than an arm-length away. Good thing that the stoic man is your capo, phew!

He’s apprehensive at first, not really sure why the soft round pebble you brought him reminded you of the man as he studied the mineral, admiring its softness. “It’s like you! Soft and worn down, but very sturdy and unbreakable.” smiling sweetly at him, excitedly awaiting a response.

What was this new feeling of being appreciated and cared for? Risotto’s never really experienced a friendship so pure. He’ll quietly thank you for the pebble and keeps it on his desk, staring in awe as he’s reminded of your kind words every time he spots it.

He knows the others like to tease you for not always being aware of general human knowledge, shooting them an intense glare as a warning to keep any rude comments or jokes to themselves.

Your friendship consists of him mostly listening to you, quietly taking in all the stories you divulge- so full of excitement, telling him facts you picked up somewhere; the source of these often containing varying levels of credibility. He won’t correct you though. (unless it’s something that might actually endanger you)

He values your friendship so.much. He’s not used to being treated so kindly, receiving random gifts, being praised for a job well done, having someone who doesn’t judge him in the slightest. He’ll do whatever he needs to keep you safe, from others and yourself, along with trying to return your kindness and care. (he tries his best and it’s so cute)

(you guys hold hands for safety when you’re out in the city... just saying, it’s adorable)

Prosciutto:

Prosciutto has a chronic case of “caring older brother disease”. Will need to hold himself back from tying your shoelaces for you, the man knows you can do it it yourself but it’s just taking sooo long.

Just like Risotto, you’d have to be a team member to get close to him in any way. Good thing he recruited you ;)

It’s a bit hard to make him open up about anything personal. You feel like he knows everything about you, while you barely know a thing. When he sees your pouty lip and begging gaze that is way too cute to deny, he’ll cave. Perhaps finally realising it’s alright to lean on others.

He’ll still struggle with continuing the openness, but find relief in your loyalty and understanding. The way you intently listen to his troubles, there to hold his hand if he ever needs it, it makes his heart hurt to know how sweet and gentle you are.

Will keep you and Pesci separate during missions, he’s already getting a migraine from imaging everything that could go wrong without his guidance.

For someone who’s a little more on the dense side, you make up for it in emotional intelligence. Whenever you see how stressed he tends to get, eye twitching without even realising while his shoulders hunch together in discomfort, you come over to hug him. It’s something he had to get used to, the small gesture always calming him down enough to keep going.

Does not appreciate you slipping cute trinkets in his suit pocket. Especially not after finding a snail that one time. You’ve been forbidden from leaving pocket gifts since the incident.

Bruno:

It concerns Bruno just how clueless you can be from time to time. That one time they almost left you behind on a busy station with no cellphone because you found a coin on the ground made him realise you need some extra supervision.

He’s not the type to hold you back from doing things that are guaranteed to result in disaster (unless it’s literally deadly), he wants you to experience the consequences of your own actions.

You do make him hold back his laughter when you try out a stupid idea you know has failed in the past, but change your methods slightly to hope for better results. And you know what? Now he’s curious too.

The man has a weird sense of humour that sometimes even surprises you. He’ll copy your habit of picking up strange trinkets or rocks and asks you to compare findings with him. Like trading marbles, he’ll barter with a smirk.

“Mhh, if you give me that cute shell and that pointy rock... I’ll give you this keychain.” His alluring offer making you question if you’re getting swindled or not. “Hey! That shell is at least worth two stickers!” He’ll heartily laugh at your reply, a mischievous smile while thinking over the trade. “Ok, two stickers and a pebble then.”

With a firm handshake the deal goes through. The rest of the gang never knows how to respond, staring in amazement as their grown-ass capo barters with their grown-ass teammate. He loves being silly with you and forgetting all the pressures of life for just a moment.

Bruno takes his time opening up to you, but finds your presence so comforting it becomes very easy to trust you. As a vital part of his team he finds it important to be able to lean on each other for support and is glad you offer him just as much trust and loyalty.

Abbacchio:

Will never admit he can’t live without you anymore. You’ve become the shining beacon of assumed happiness the man never thought existed. He knows you won’t always be go-lucky and have your own troubles and struggles but admires how you handle them.

Don’t get me wrong, he’ll still gladly tease you for your occasional (well, more like frequent) stupidity. He’ll let you know with a big huff you should smarten up; “Read a book that doesn’t have pictures in it for once.”

He’ll be the first to correct any wrong info you’ve been given, unless he thinks it’s funny. Like when Mista made you believe you needed to order dessert at Libeccio or they’ll kick you out for breaking their beloved rule. It’s only when he saw the panic in your eyes when you finished your main course one day -too full for any sweets to come- that he assured you it was a dumb joke. (he’ll put all the blame on Mista)

Abbacchio seems to tether to people who have a positive influence on him without even realising, it won’t be obvious to him, but just like with his loyalty and admiration for Bruno, he’ll make sure you know it once he finds out.

Not that it’s a bad thing, his need to cling to anything that might help him stay afloat just needs to stay healthy. You didn’t even realise your effect on him, you were too busy trying to figure out a way to turn that scowl into that smirk.

After gifting him a handmade friendship bracelet that had the shortened versions of your names spelled on it, he hugged you. So tightly it was suffocating, you were shocked since he’s never been the touchy type. “Leone! I can’t breathe...” He’ll let go after the complaint but that look on his face will never leave your memory. The face of being loved unconditionally by choice, no matter how unworthy he might think himself of it.

[gch1995]

I’m 25 going on 26 now, and I grew up loving the classic Powerpuff Girls cartoon series when I was a kid. Even now when I rewatch it as an adult, it’s still a cute and funny cartoon, especially now that I’m old enough to recognize all of the adult jokes. Like, there’s no way it was a coincidence that Professor Utonium’s despicably dishonest, greedy, lazy, manipulative, selfish, and sleazy former roommate from college was given the name Professor Dick Hardly by accident.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup actually are pretty relatable little girls who have believable flaws and insecurities. They make believable bad choices for little girls. Those issues actually get dealt with seriously, rather than just being brushed aside as no big deal with no negative consequences. They are still endearing and sympathetic in spite of their flaws.

While he had a few OOC moments of bad parenting in some bad episodes here and there, generally speaking, Professor Utonium from the classic Powerpuff Girls is actually one of the best dads in cartoons that I’ve ever seen, which is sadly pretty rare in most cartoon sitcoms, even the ones that are actually aimed at a children audience.

Most cartoon dads are abusive, lazy, neglectful, selfish, and stupid oafs. Granted, those type of dads in cartoon sitcoms can actually be entertaining and funny to watch when they are actually being well-written as shitty and slow-witted, but still essentially well-meaning people in regards to their families, such as S1-S8 Homer Simpson from The Simpsons and even S1-S3 Peter Griffin from Family Guy. However, the entertainment quality of those shitty, but well-meaning cartoon dads was mostly lost when the writers flanderdized their negative traits to the point of making Homer and especially Peter downright despicable with little to no redeeming or sympathetic qualities much of the time anymore. They went from being shitty, but essentially well-meaning parents and husbands to downright bratty and spoiled man-children who were much more intentionally abusive, childish, cruel, neglectful, petty, and selfish in regards to their families and others around them with little to no sympathetic or redeeming qualities much of the time anymore, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why The Simpsons went downhill in quality after S8, and why Family Guy went downhill in quality after S3.

Nonetheless, even as they were originally written on their shows pre-flanderdization when they were still well-meaning, but misguided parents and spouses, cartoon dads like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, weren’t good dads on the whole. There were still plenty of recurring plot lines and/or gags of them being abusive, lazy, neglectful, reckless, and selfish. Back in early seasons pre-flanderdization, it was more forgivable, though, because they also still had their fair share of kind and selfless moments with their families, and their shittiness as parents wasn’t intentionally abusive, malicious, premeditated, and selfish in nature, which balanced them out enough to still be entertaining and likable characters in spite of their flaws.

Realistically speaking, though, dads like Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson would be better off having their kids taken away from them by CPS. Their good qualities and lack of malicious intent, particularly in earlier seasons pre-flanderdization, would still not hold up as legitimate excuse as to why they should be allowed to keep their kids. Bart would have bruises all over his neck, fractures in his neck, and he could possibly be killed if Homer strangled him hard enough to actually break his neck and/or cut off his air supply long enough in real life just once. Meg, Chris, and even Stewie would not only be injured, but actually outright killed in real life from some of the abuse and neglect that Peter and Lois put them through in later seasons of FG. All of these kids, especially Meg, would have serious self-esteem issues for the rest of their lives because Peter, Lois’, and Homer’s abuse and neglect of their kids went beyond just a pattern of being physical in nature, but emotionally and verbally abusive as well.

So yeah, Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson are really not good fathers who you’d ever want to deal with for a parent in real life, even pre-flanderdization. The major reoccurrence of the abusive, bumbling, idiotic, lazy, drunken, neglectful, and selfish dad trope in cartoon sitcoms is exactly why I really love Professor Utonium from the classic PPG cartoon. I don’t necessarily mind it in absurdist cartoon sitcoms when it’s done well as a trope, but I’m also getting tired of mostly just seeing bad and stupid dads in cartoon sitcoms, and not enough good ones.

For the most part, the OG Professor Utonium is a great dad who goes above and beyond to make sure Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are happy, healthy, disciplined, and safe. He’s usually the parent most of us wish we could have in real life, if we don’t already. It’s refreshing to actually see a good dad in an animated sitcom for once.

Professor Utonium in the classic PPG cartoon is generally a very kind, loving, selfless, and supportive dad to girls. However, he also knows when he has to discipline them and be strict without ever being mean about it. He gives them good advice. He’s very selfless, and even though the girls are superheroes with superhuman abilities, he’ll still risk and/or sacrifice anything to protect them when they’re unable to protect themselves with their powers, including his own life. He didn’t need to be the stereotypical cartoon sitcom abusive, bumbling, dumb, and neglectful dad in order to be funny either. He was funny because he could sometimes be overprotective of the girls, and he could sometimes embarrass them by calling them sickly sweet terms of endearment and telling embarrassing stories that he shouldn’t have about them in public. He was socially awkward. These are relatable flaws in parents that even the best ones have.

While the girls don’t have a mother, Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane were very brave, kind, and intelligent strong women who were good role models.

Also, the Professor did many activities with the girls and chores around the house that get gender-coded as “mother’s work.” Some of these things include begrudgingly playing dress up as Bubbles to make her happy when she was playing PowerPuff Girls with Buttercup and Blossom on a rainy day inside of no crime when he saw that she was upset that no one wanted to be her, cooking, cleaning, and actually sitting down to talk with the girls, listen to them, emotionally support them, and give them advice. He’s also not afraid to be openly affectionate, doting, and emotional with the girls. There’s just not enough good dads in cartoon sitcoms, which is why I really like Professor Utonium from the OG PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie. He mostly defied all the bad dad stereotypes, and was a really great one to the girls more often than not.

The main villains from the classic PowerPuff Girls cartoon are incredibly entertaining, especially MoJo JoJo. Him was always the creepiest to me because he was the most devious, insidious, and manipulative one. All of the psychological abuse and manipulation he put the girls and Townsville through was always the scariest to me when I was a kid because out of all the villains on the show, the torment that he wreaked upon the girls and Townsville by brainwashing them, gaslighting them, and/or exploiting their fears and insecurities often was played as dead serious with really scary results, especially in early seasons of classic PPG. While Him had a few human moments here and there, for the most part, he was pretty consistently played off as being seriously scary and dangerous.

MoJo JoJo was an egomaniacal asshole hellbent on destroying the PowerPuff Girls and world domination, and on a few occasions, he actually came close to succeeding. On a few occasions, he genuinely was more scary than camp evil. But he still had a lot of humorous, human, fallible, and relatable moments, too. My favorite MoJo moments are the ones where he is making jokes, irritably going grocery shopping to get eggs, getting too frustrated by the girls antics and childish behaviors and reactions to actually go through with his plans to destroy them at certain points, and getting angry and jealous enough to actually destroy the alien/robot invader from another planet who was destroying Townsville in all the evil ways that he always wanted to himself. He was highly intelligent at coming up with clever schemes and inventions with all his science and technology to take over the world, destroy Townsville, and/or destroy the PowerPuff Girls. However, his arrogance, impatience, and impulsivity always doomed him to fail to succeed in the end, though he did come pretty close on a few occasions, especially in the 2002 prequel origin story movie, and he did actually get to rule the world in “The PowerPuff Girls Rule the World!” Surprisingly, he actually was a kindhearted ruler who did good things, but then he gave it all up and went back to being evil because he got bored.

Originally, MoJo was a well-intentioned extremist who wanted to create a utopia ruled by primates where they would never be controlled or rejected by humans again. As much as Professor Utonium’s irritation with JoJo for being a destructive chimp lab assistant was completely justified, it’s also hard not to feel kind of sorry for Mojo Jojo and understand where he’s coming from in his motivations to become evil, particularly in the 2002 prequel movie because originally all he really wanted was to be loved by his owner, too. He understandably felt rejected when Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup became the center of his universe instead. Of course, that doesn’t excuse him for choosing to respond to the Professor’s rejection by becoming an arrogant, evil, cruel, hateful, hypocritical, domineering, manipulative, petty, selfish, and vengeful villain going on a quest for world domination, attempting to commit homicide several times, probably committing voluntary manslaughter of citizens several times that we didn’t see on screen when destroying Townsville all those times, turning the rest of the world into dogs to try to take over the world, and trying to destroy the girls. However, you understand why Mojo became the villain he did with his backstory. He’s relatable. Occasionally, he does have some genuinely sympathetic moments where he’s actually willing to be friendly with the girls, team up with them, and do the right thing.

HIM was just the personification of evil for no other reason than the fact that he was satan. While MoJo was a complex, human, and relatable anti-villain with his origin story as the Professor’s lab chimp, who gained genius-level human intellect from having Chemical X splashed on his brain, and then chose to become evil after feeling rejected by the Professor when he saw how he pretty much forget about him once the girls became the center of his universe instead, HIM was evil, manipulative, and hateful for no other reason than the fact that those traits were a part of his nature as the very embodiment of evil. Many times, a fictional villain being portrayed as one-dimensional with no sympathetic qualities or relatable motivations will annoy me, but with HIM being evil just because that’s who he is, it actually works because he is literally Satan. There doesn’t need to be a deeper sympathetic story behind why he is evil. Committing crimes, wreaking havoc, corrupting people, manipulating people, turning people against others, exploiting the fears of others, and deceiving others for his own amusement is just who he is, and in the early seasons of classic PPG in particular, that made him really scary to me when I was a six year old little girl watching the cartoon on TV.

You get the idea...The classic PowerPuff Girls was a fantastic cartoon, particularly the first four seasons. Granted, there was some series seasonal rot going on in the writing in S5 and S6 after the 2002 prequel movie, and Craig Mcracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure from the crew. Like, the characterizations of the characters and/or storylines in S5 and S6 felt comparably flanderdized, ooc, immature, inconsistent, pointless, shallow, and underwhelming at certain times to fit the plot, such as in the episodes “Keen on Keane,” “Pee Pee G’s,” “Seed No Evil,” “Reeking Havoc,” “Toast of the Town,” “Say Uncle,” “City of Clipsville,” “”Bubble Boy,” A Made Up Story,” “Mo’linguish,” and “Simian Says.” Even the good episodes of S5-S6 still didn’t ever reach the same level of greatness of the ones from S1-S4. However, the seasonal rot in the classic PPG cartoon of S5-S6 after Craig McCracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure still wasn’t nearly as bad as the seasonal rot on The Simpsons after S8, Family Guy after S3, and SpongeBob SquarePants post S3–S4 ish, so I’m still willing to consider most of S5-S6 of classic PPG legit canon.

However, it sounds like the 2016 PPG reboot fucked up everything that was originally good about it to go for a more slapstick comedic feel without substance without consistency, depth, and intelligence. Now, I hear that the CW is making a live-action TV show spin-off of the PowerPuff Girls being jaded and resentful young women who’ve given up crime fighting as result! No, no, no! Why? Why does the CW keep making dark, nitty, and gritty live action teen soap operas out of beloved childhood cartoons?

Yeah, the original PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie had dark moments. The girls could be bratty and make bad choices sometimes. However, it was still very much a fun show about normal little girls born with superpowers, which they chose to use to defend their father, their city, and on some occasions, the whole world, from crime. No one ultimately forced them to be superheroes for everyone in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. They chose to do it because they had brave and selfless hearts. There was ultimately no obligation for them to be superheroes in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. Sure, they got tired of fighting crime at times, but they still ultimately enjoyed doing it when push came to shove. They weren’t weighed down by the darkness of the world, hatred, and resentment. They still were relatively normal little girls with happy, peaceful, and normal lives of little girls whenever they weren’t fighting crime after the events of the prequel movie about their origins. That’s what made the PowerPuff Girls classic cartoon so special.

By turning Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup into jaded young women, who have given up on being superheroes because they’ve grown resentful of “losing the normal childhood to crime fighting” that they basically are shown to have in the original series for the most part in their spare time aside from having superpowers that they chose to use to fight crime to defend their dad and Townsville from, anyway, where is the fun in that?

[ladykissingfish]

Under the Mistletoe with the Akatsuki // Part Ten // Zetsu

“So how are they doing?” Zetsu took a moment, to gather his thoughts before answering. Madara would call on him every so often to give updates on the members of the Akatsuki, their successes and failures, their personalities. He asked Obito the same questions, but in truth he trusted Zetsu’s observations a bit more. “The boy has a tendency to let emotion and attachment cloud his overall judgment,” Madara would tell him, over and over again. “I rely on you to give me the facts, and nothing else.” Madara is right in that Zetsu doesn’t have the same connection with the group that Obito seems to have; however, he’s had more fun and more amusement being around this eclectic gathering of souls than he has around anybody else in his long, long life. After his “visit” with Madara, he travels back through the ground to the Akatsuki hideout; just in time for his turn in the Mistletoe game.

Pein

Pein sighs as he approaches the plant-man. He had been hoping that he could avoid this altogether, but apparently his luck had run out. Nagato won’t admit this, because to admit weakness is a failure, but ... Zetsu creeps him out to catastrophic levels. Nagato has dealt with sub-human species before during his travels, but what even was Zetsu? A plant? A man-plant? A mythical creature, a result of an experiment gone wrong? Indeed, Zetsu looks like the type of creation that would step out of one of the traitor Orochimaru’s labs. “Good evening, Leader.” The Pein-body nods and steps closer, steeling himself did this. Zetsu smilles, and Nagato (through Pein) can see splotches of blood dotting the man(?)’s teeth. He must have just eaten, which is good ... not that he would have found the artificial Pein body to taste in anyway pleasant. He gives Zetsu a quick kiss on the forehead, struggling to keep the grimace off his face as he notices how cold, and clammy, and ... inhuman the skin. As he walks away, he could almost swear he can hear Zetsu chuckling to himself ... not that he’s willing to turn around and check for sure.

Konan

Konan’s heart drops when she sees how excited Zetsu looks to see her. He’s smiling and waving to her. “Konan-san! Konan-san!” Still, she can’t help but smile; the voice unmistakably belongs to White Zetsu, the decidedly more friendly (if you could call it that) of the dual-personality plant. When it had been Konan’s turn under the little green plant, Zetsu had refused to kiss her because White Zetsu had proclaimed he “wasn’t ready” and Black Zetsu had berated him for it. Things had changed, apparently, as evidenced by Zetsu reaching out and taking hold of her hands. “Be gentle with me; I’ve never kissed a woman before.” Konan nods, and then she reaches up with her small hands, cups Zetsu’s face, pulls him down to her level and kisses first his forehead, then both cheeks, then his nose, then his lips, softly. Zetsu is stunned: he never imagined his first on-the-lips kiss would be so ... pleasant. “T-thank you, Konan-san.” She nods and smiles, before walking away back to her room. As he watches her leave, he starts to talk to himself. “She smelled good.” “All humans do. It’s their blood.” “It wasn’t her blood; it was just her. Her skin. Her hair. She was —“ “The last thing we’re going to do is act like a fool over some human woman.” White Zetsu blushes; he doesn’t think he’s acting like “a fool” at all. Kissing Konan was just an interesting experience, that’s all. Another checkpoint on a long, looong list of interesting experiences.

Kakuzu

“This is it, right? This is the last one? Thank God; now we can all go back to doing more productive things with our time.” Zetsu blinks when Kakuzu says that; out of all the members of this group, THIS man was the most no-nonsense, serious guy Zetsu had ever met. He always had his eye on the bottom line, and was more focused on money than Zetsu would have believed possible. About a year back he had approached Zetsu with his idea to start a vegetable garden in order to cut back on market cost of food, to which Zetsu agreed. Taking care of plants was second nature to him; what he DIDN’T expect was that, quite often, Kakuzu would join him in the garden. The old guy had a surprisingly green thumb, and being in the garden seems to give him some much-needed peace. It was during one of these quiet times, as Kakuzu was tending to some tomatoes, that he confessed, quietly, that working in the dirt reminded him of his mother. “We had no money. My mother used to labor on neighboring farms for food or vegetable seeds. She created a beautiful garden, better produce than any of the farms around us. So we never went without.” Kakuzu approaches him now, his mask already lowered, and he delivers a light kiss to Zetsu’s forehead. As he’s about to leave, Zetsu informs him that he’s gotten hold of some rare flower seeds, and asks if he wants to plant them later. “You can’t eat flowers; if you’re not growing something for food then what purpose does it have?” “It provides beauty. Doesn’t that count for something?” Kakuzu rolls his eyes but there’s a smile on his face, which he quickly covers by pulling up his mask. “I’d be glad to help,” he says, gruffly, before leaving.

Sasori

Another no-nonsense, extremely straightforward Akatsuki member. One thing about Sasori that Zetsu will never understand is Hiroku. Why does the redhead choose to hide himself in that hideous carapace when his OWN puppet body was undoubtedly stronger, faster, and had a higher-level weapons capacity? For that matter, why would a perfectly healthy young man choose to rip out his own humanity and turn himself into such a creation in the first place? Mysteries bounded concerning Sasori of the Red Sand, and even someone as world-weary as Zetsu was in no hurry to uncover them. “Good evening, Sasori-san.” Sasori grunts in return; for once, he’s in his own body. Sasori doesn’t seem at all eager to take the initiative, so Zetsu leans down and kisses him on the forehead instead. He licks his lips at the pleasant woody taste that floods into his mouth; being near Sasori reminds him of peaceful days spend photosynthesizing in the forest, taking in the air of nature while the sun beat down on his face. Sasori leaves while Zetsu is lost in this lovely thought.

Itachi

Zetsu would often look at Itachi and think, this child is in trouble. His scent was wrong, his chakra was wrong, and his mental state ... couldn’t have been all that good. Zetsu is the Akatsuki’s spy but he knows for certain that Itachi is one too, that he never cut his ties to that village of his and centered his (and everyone else’s movements) away from his home as much as possible. Zetsu could expose him to everyone, but ... what would be the point? After all, even Madara is only an unwitting puppet in the grand scheme of things to come, and Itachi ... the group was made just that much more powerful with him in it. Zetsu often wishes that Itachi, not Madara and not Obito, was the Uchiha “in charge”; but that wouldn’t work. Itachi’s raw intelligence was a force to be reckoned with, and he wouldn’t take lightly (or at all, really) to being “used” by anyone. Although, in Zetsu’s opinion, nobody on earth could possibly use the sweet boy worse than his own village had. “Good evening, Zetsu.” So polite. So pleasant, even to those who didn’t deserve it. This child, it would be a tragedy when he passed. Zetsu quickly leans down and kisses his cheek, noting how cold the young Uchiha was. “You should warm up with a blanket, Itachi. You’re freezing.” Itachi nods, and then he bids Zetsu a good evening as he walks slowly back to his room.

Deidara

“Oi, Zetsu! Look at what I made!”, Deidara exclaims as he approaches him, holding up a small clay bird. “Isn’t it sublime?!” Zetsu simply nods; in truth, ALL of Deidara’s creations, no matter what they are, look boringly similar to Zetsu. And he didn’t understand the young blonde’s way of taking such careful, meticulous care in sculpting these things ... only to have them explode a few seconds later. And the art pieces weren’t the only closure things about Deidara, as Zetsu had observed many times that the kid just wasn’t the best at controlling his temper. Zetsu would often question Obito as to why he continued to let himself be partnered with him, as Tobi’s idiotic tendencies would surely get Obito killed one day. All Obito would do is shrug and say that Deidara wasn’t that bad. Well, whatever; Zetsu didn’t intend to spend too much time thinking about it. Thinking that it’s about time to do something different with this game, Zetsu takes hold of Deidara, tilts him backwards by the waist, leans down and kisses his neck. When he keys Deidara back up, the guy is as red as a tomato. “What the hell? What was that for??” “Has anybody ever told you that you’re very aesthetically pleasing?” “Aesth-what? You’re not making any sense, weirdo!” Zetsu just smiles and pulls Deidara back to him, this time enveloping him in a soft hug. “You make a tedious time much more bearable. Please continue to do so ... with your art.” Deidara doesn’t really get what Zetsu means, but his ears did pick up Zetsu’s compliment(?) to his art, so he walks away happy.

Kisame and Hidan

The half-shark and the half-plant relate to each other on their carnivorous tendencies, and Zetsu at least is glad to have at least one other person in the Akatsuki that understands his dietary choices. Well, almost. “I’ve eaten a lot of weird meats, Zetsu-san, but I’ve yet to taste human flesh.” “A shame; it really tastes a lot like salty pork.” Then Zetsu lowers his voice and asks, with an unsettling smirk, “Say you decided you want to try a human. IF you could eat any member of the Akatsuki, consequence-free, who would it be?” Zetsu is half-kidding and doesn’t expect Kisame to answer, so he’s surprised when he answers, without hesitation, “Hidan.” “That’s odd; that would be my choice, too. The scent of blood is always on him. Well-seasoned entree.” Kisame bursts out laughing, and Hidan, who happens to be walking by, hears him and stops. “What’s so funny, freak? You laughin’ about mouth-fucking Bigger Freak over there?” Kisame smiles, showcasing ALL of his sharp teeth; and Zetsu says, quietly, “You smell good, Hidan. Can you come closer so that I can catch a better whiff?” and something about the look he’s giving him makes Hidan’s blood run cold. “No fucking way, you crazy weed!” He informs Zetsu that he’s not going to kiss him, and he walks backward to his room, keeping a close eye on Kisame and Zetsu until he reaches his door ... and locks it. Kisame laughs once more, and then he leans into Zetsu and kisses his cheek, before returning to his own room. On his way down the hall he stops at Hidan’s door and says, sweetly, “Have a good night, brat!” which is met with loud cursing behind the wood.

Tobi

When Zetsu first laid eyes on a much younger Obito, he was positive that the kid wouldn’t live through the night. Bloodied, bruised, and with half of his internal organs either rearranged or crushed entirely — “No. He is strong.” Zetsu could only look at Madara in disbelief; what about this dying child seemed in any way “strong”? But then Obito lived through that night, and the next, and before Zetsu knew it, he was taking his place in the grand scheme of this Akatsuki Madara had put together. But for the longest time, Zetsu was sad anytime he so much as looked at “Tobi”; he had watched a bright young boy whose hope couldn’t be crushed even by a boulder deteriorate into an angry, vengeful man who had witnessed (and been mentally and emotionally damaged by) the deaths of all that he once held dear. But a miracle of sorts began slowly unfolding; the more time Obito spent around these people, the happier he seemed to become. It was as though he’d regained his family; and although these individuals are really nothing more than fodder for what’s to come, Zetsu is happy that they are managing to provide Obito with the peace that he deserves. “Tobi” approaches him now, and, seeing that they’re alone, chances it to take off his mask. “Long day,” he says, using his own voice, to which Zetsu agrees. “Longer when you’re starving.” Obito smiles at the comment, and his childlike grin shows flashes of the boy who danced in triumph when he was able to complete a set of push-ups on his own. “You’re always starving though.” “You’re not one to talk; I watched you put away at least eight trays of dango yesterday.” The two chuckle, and Obito moves closer, looking shy now. “Ready?” Zetsu nods, and Obito leans in and kisses the corner of his mouth, just barely touching the bottom of Zetsu’s lips. During the kiss, Zetsu closes his eyes and inhales; all of the candy and pastries that the man ate gave him a delightfully natural, sweet scent. Obito slides his mask back on and turns to go, but before he gets far, Zetsu calls out to him, “Hey?” “Yeah?” “I have a serious question for you.” “What is it?” Using White Zetsu’s voice, and making his grin even wider, Zetsu asks, “All that crap you eat ... does it make you have to crap a lot during the day?” Obito’s face turns red behind the mask and he bursts out into a raucous laugh. “All these years! All these YEARS and YOU’RE STILL ASKING ME ABOUT CRAPPING!” He laughs so hard that he wakes up Deidara, whose room is closest to the living room area. “Tobi, what the fuck?! Go to bed before I stick a kunai up your ass!” Obito immediately goes into Tobi-mode and apologizes to his Senpai. Deidara goes back to his room and Obito gives one last wave to Zetsu before going to his own.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 277 “Operation ‘Protect Yuusaku’s Virginity’”

Sorry, I’m obviously late with the ramblings but the scanlations were out late and, due to work, I didn’t have any free time once they were out. Anyway here’s there are the new ramblings and...

...yeah Kaeko’s attempt at stealing Sugimoto’s virginity gets a special place in the GK horror scenes... but let’s got with order.

We start with Tsurumi sitting on a chair in the Imperial Japanese Army 1st division Headquarters pretending he had no idea the Ainu gold ever existed in front of Lieutenant General Okuda Hidenobu, Commander of the 1st division. The latter wants Tsurumi to find the gold for the Central Government as Tsurumi’s information-gathering ability is highly regarded.

Just this should make Okuda realize Tsurumi is lying when he pretends not to know about the Ainu gold but whatever, Okuda is clearly not the sharpest pencil in the box.

Anyway Tsurumi asks Okuda if this means he should report to him instead than to his superiors. Okuda waves off his concerns saying Hanasawa is in his debt so of course he wouldn’t mind if Tsurumi were to report to an officer that’s not him… especially if he never discovers about it because I honestly doubt Okuda is planning to warn Hanazawa about this.

Whatever.

Okuda, who evidently has no idea that everything he’ll say to Tsurumi will be used against him and for Tsurumi’s advantage, better explains him the whole entity of the problem.

We learn that inside the Army people from Satsuma domain and people from Choushuu domain, are held in high esteem and considered the only true military men, likely due to them being the winners in the Boshin war and Meiji restoration. However, despite their past alliance, they basically can’t stand to each other and are always struggling one against the other.

Hanazawa is from Satsuma so, of course, he doesn’t want a scandal to befall to his family for fear of consequences from people from Choushuu.

He asked Okuda’s help because Okuda is from the Kokura domain and so he looked like an impartial and safe choice, proving Hanazawa’s understanding of men is quite terrible because Okuda fully plans to take advantage of what he knows about Hanazawa and, as we’ll learn later from Tsurumi, he’s likely on the Choushuu side. Really, Hanazawa can’t even pick up his allies. -_-

Okuda is no better.

He knows Tsurumi is from Niigata, from a highly-esteemed family of former samurai from the Echigo-Nagaoka Domain which had an awful time during the battle of Hokuetsu (one of the last battles of the Boshin war) against the imperial forces composed mostly by people of Satsuma and Choushuu so he thinks Tsurumi would be willing to help to put an end to the control those factions have over the army because he should have a grudge against them.

We see that Tsurumi’s face darkens, which might mean that yes, Tsurumi has no sympathy for them, but Tsurumi is the sort of man who doesn’t merely follow his feelings, but remains calm and plans the doom of his adversaries quietly. The Akō vendetta probably felt like an amateur work to Tsurumi.

In fact, instead than asking more about the Ainu gold he’s supposed to find, Tsurumi asks more about the scandal in which Hanazawa is involved, planning to use it as ammunition in his own personal plans.

Then, as he leaves the place with his men, he shows his true colours.

He didn’t buy at all Okuda’s words that he’s “impartial” believing he’s actually on Choushuu side and afraid if Hanazawa were to get the gold, it would strengthen the Satsuma position. Tsurumi, who’s much more intelligent than Okuda or Hanazawa, finds all this a pathetic face, admitting he’s sick of Central.

He also confesses that yes, he knew about the Ainu gold already from his time in Russia (it’s unsure if from his time in Russia as Hasegawa or from his time in Russia with Tsukishima), and that Okuda’s words merely corroborated the info Tsurumi had about it… which is interesting because it confirms Okuda learnt about the Ainu gold from a source that’s not Tsurumi.

Then Tsurumi informs his men they’ll pay a visit to Yuusaku and Kikuta because evidently Okuda had told him also who he had tasked with protecting Yuusaku’s virginity.

Meanwhile Kikuta informs Sugimoto Kaeko wants to meet Yuusaku again at the Imperial Hodel.

Sugimoto worries about what will happen should Kaeko find out he’s a fake.

Kikuta thinks he’s worrying for himself and tells him he’ll just have to return the uniform and go on his way… although as he says so we don’t see Kikuta’s face.

Sugimoto is actually worried about Kaeko as if she were to figure out, this would mean she would know something dirty about the Army (read= Hanazawa).

Kikuta gives him a sideway look, his face slightly shadowed as he tells him he has a plan B Sugimoto doesn’t need to know.

It’s interesting how Kikuta never asked Sugimoto his name. Of course the Doylistic explanation is that so he won’t recognize him when he’ll heard his surname from Tsurumi during the gold hunt but I wonder if the Watsonian explanation is this was to protect Sugimoto. Sugimoto too by now know things he would be better not knowing. If they were to tell Kikuta to kill him he could let him escape and then cover up for him by saying he didn’t even know his name so he can’t track him. Alternatively it can be to protect himself, as he might be trying not to get too close to Sugimoto.

Meanwhile at the Army Academy Mrs. Suzuki accidentally asking Yuusaku if Kikuta had relied to him the message, informs him that today was the day in which ‘the matter at the imperial hotel’ (帝国ホテルの件 Teikoku hotel no kudan) was scheduled. To make matter worse a man immediately scolds her as she wasn’t supposed to talk with Yuusaku about it. In the end they’ve to confess that they were told to pass all the letters and telegrams for Yuusaku to Kikuta which prompts Yuusaku to decide to go ask him directly.

A moment later Tsurumi drops at the place and he’s told that Yuusaku just left and the same guy who has scolded Mrs. Suzuki for informing Yuusaku about the meeting has no problems telling Tsuurmi about were Yuusaku went.

So we jump at the Imperial Hotel where Sugimoto expects to have another luxurious dinner with Kaeko and, instead Kaeko’s maid drops the beef stew all over him.

Using as excuse that Yuusaku has to absolutely change himself Kaeko pushes Sugimoto upstairs, claiming she booked a room there. As they walk they’re spotted by Tsukishima who informs Tsurumi while a worried Kikuta follows the action with his binoculars.

Once in the room a panting Kaeko urges ‘Yuusaku’ to rip off his clothes and strip naked in the bathroom.

While a naïve Sugimoto worries about how pretty the room is, Kaeko drags him in the bathroom and tells him to wash up.

Sugimoto finds a little odd how the bathtub is already filled but strips naked anyway.

Meanwhile big bad wolf Kaeko, with an expression that would make Jack Nicholson in “The Shining” proud, tries to get into the room. To Sugimoto’s credit he doesn’t scream like a banshee as Wendy Torrance did but tries to close her out of the bathroom.

Kaeko asks him to not bring her shame as a woman. Sugimoto weakly defends his own virginity by claiming she doesn’t know him well. Kaeko claims she doesn’t mind as he looks handsome and steals his clothes from under the door before threatening to let ‘Yuusaku’s’ situation be known to other people if he were to refuse her.

Sugimoto worries as he knows he has been called in as a stand in to avoid this kind of situation.

Meanwhile outside Tsurumi asks to Kaeko’s maid, Hamako, if she has seen a candidate officer. She denies it as she’s clearly there to stop everyone from interrupting but Tsurumi hears Kaeko calling Yuusaku.

Tsurumi says out loud to his men that Kikuta was ordered to break off the engagement so he doesn’t understand why Yuusaku and Kaeko are in a room by themselves.

I wonder if Tsurumi came there because he was hoping to be the one to save Yuusaku’s virginity so as to put Hanazawa in debt… or if he’s saying this out loud so as to let the maid know about Kikuta’s involvement. We’ll see.

Usami instead tells Ogata this will be the first time he’ll get to meet his little brother, a man worthy of waving the regimental flag.

Usami again calls Ogata just Hyakunosuke, as if the two of them were friends… or if he just were looking down on him taking confidence when he shouldn’t, as Ogata in past chapters always called Usami by surname.

Whatever, this means that Usami, and by default Tsukishima and Tsurumi, are informed of Ogata’s parentage. Does the whole 7th know? Maybe. If that’s the case I wonder who told them.

Back to Sugimoto he asks Kaeko if this is all because Yuusaku’s mother wants to keep him away from the army. Kaeko explains Yuusaku’s mother worked as a nurse at a special military hospital in Hiroshima during the Sino-Japanese war. This experience pushed her to decide her son shouldn’t take part to the war. Kaeko adds Yuusaku should show consideration for his mother’s feelings.

Sugimoto says this is something Yuusaku should decide by himself as it’s his own life, basically betraying the fact he’s not Yuusaku. Kaeko is confused while Sugimoto tells her to ask Yuusaku which he wants to chose before signalling to Kikuta there are problems.

In that same moment Tsurumi and his men barges in the room claiming they’re there to protect Yuusaklu’s virginity.

I wonder if Tsurumi is practising for when he’ll have to ‘rescue’ Koito.

As for Kaeko, she thinks Tsurumi is working for Hanazawa and tells him if he doesn’t get out she’ll tattle everything to the Army. At this Tsurumi threatens to kill her and Sugimoto, thinking killing Kaeko is Kikuta’s ‘plan B’, decides to barge out completely naked, threatening to kill them all.

Ogata, who has no idea the naked man with murdering intentions is not Yuusaku, grins, likely thinking ‘Yuusaku’ is rather far from pure.

Likely he believes Yuusaku’s state means he was about to sleep with Kaeko, and Sugimoto’s statement about murdering people might have caused Ogata to think the ‘oh so perfect’ Yuusaku, is actually not perfect at all.

I feel bad for him because, when he’ll discover Yuusaku isn’t the guy in front of him, he’ll be in for a disappointment.

Anyway this chapter ends here.

This chapter gives us some interesting info about the Army, Tsurumi and how Ogata’s status of bastard son was known to Tsurumi’s inner circle and, possibly, to the rest of the 7th. It fleshes more the Hanazawa family, although I’ve to say I noticed when Noda has to talk about Hanazawa or his wife he recycles always the same image.

Well, I guess that’s all. Sorry if it’s late and kind of jumbled but the whole timing and work didn’t help me at all.

[apriorisea]

Ok I’m seriously convinced you’re secretly one of the members...(Joonie is that u???) loool but for real, you write their personalities so well. So not a request, but a question?? Their “concepts” aside (like, “golden maknae etc”)... key personality traits & flaws for each of the boys? Like “passionate, sensitive, a perfectionist, or overly self-critical, etc” Which member(s) is hardest to write?Hope this made sense, I’m just super interested in your take on this :)

--First off, you’re so nice!!! Thank you so much:) And also, thank you for this question! I love things like this---even though it’s obviously all just my personal speculation 😅I listed my thoughts down below, but I would love to hear any thoughts (whether in agreement or disagreement!) anyone else might have!  As for which member is hardest to write, for me I typically struggle a little more with Taehyung and Hoseok. For Taehyung, I think it’s probably because our personalities are pretty opposite (again, HUGE grain of salt, since I don’t *actually* know any of them in real life, so I’m just going off the little info we have), so it takes me a little longer to write his stuff. For Hoseok, I think it’s because there is so much more to him than meets the eye and his personality is difficult for me to pin down sometimes. 

Again, thanks so much for your sweet words and thought-provoking requestion (it’s a word now)! I hope you find my take interesting! 💕💜

Seokjin: 

Conscientious - I think Kim Seokjin is very, VERY aware of his role in any given setting. He knows what’s expected of him and how to do it without bending any of his personal boundaries/rules.

Private - I firmly believe that we will never know the true personality of our Mr. Worldwide Handsome. I think he decided early on that to survive in this life, he was going to have to separate his stage persona from his personal life---and he guards this separation fiercely. This is also one of the qualities I admire the most about him: his unwavering commitment to keeping pieces of himself just for him. My personal opinion is that he is the member that gave up the most of a “normal” life and, while he did so knowing the consequences of this choice, he’s found ways to “rebel” and keep his own autonomy (think: responding to fans in a very “blunt” manner [Marry me? No.], cutting/coloring his hair against company wishes, refusing to give-in to fan-service he is uncomfortable with  [thinking specifically of that one time the host tried to get him to kiss Taehyung and he just started yelling over them when they tried to insist], his penchant for avoiding overly ~revealing~ outfits, etc etc).

Professional - I mean, just a continuation of both of the points above. He always knows when the cameras are watching and how he should act accordingly. But---and this is important---I am in NO WAY saying he’s being fake or disingenuous. The Jin we see on stage, in MVs, RunBTS, and even Bon Voyage/In The Soop is the real Jin---it’s just not all of him. He chose the Idol Life as his career, as a profession, so he would never be caught violating the terms that he himself has set to fulfill his responsibilities. What little we know of his family leads me to believe that he was groomed from a young age how to navigate high society and the professional world; now it’s just a slightly different world and society he floats through. 

Responsible - He takes the job of eldest brother very seriously. Though the baby in much of his younger life, as soon as he got 6 little brothers he stepped effortlessly into his new role. Making them food, driving them to school, helping them feel at home in a new place, providing silent but tangible support... My personal favorite is the way he willingly makes a fool of himself to relax the others, to help them calm down during stressful situations and break the ice. 

Good memory - I want to be careful how I explain this, because I don’t want it to come out wrong. I think Kim Seokjin has a very good memory. If you were decent to him and his brothers during the hard times, he’ll remember that going forward. If you were cruel to or dismissive of him as a young exchange student abroad, he’ll never forget. However, I also think he’s cunning enough that you would never be able to tell which category you fall under unless he wants you to know. 

Hard-worker - I mean, just the endless amounts of anecdotes we have about him practicing his vocals and choreography all night long should be enough evidence for this point, but I still sometimes feel like he doesn’t get enough credit. We all know the story of how he got placed in BTS, but I don’t think people appreciate how damn hard he has worked to grow into this life. He was a college student, set on a completely different life with completely different expectations, scooped off the street and told to learn to sing and dance and look. at. him. now. Listen to that vocal range, look at the Black Swan choreography or the way he seamlessly joined the dance break of ON---he has worked HARD and I don’t think we should forget about this. Just because something doesn’t come easy to you, if you’re not naturally gifted, it doesn’t mean you can’t work to achieve it. 

Basically I just love Kim Seokjin with my whole heart.

Yoongi:

Empathetic -  This word is the beginning and end of how I would describe his entire being. I think Min Yoongi is a very empathetic person. He sits back and observes, and he’s aware of everything. You know when you first get into BTS, there’s always the stories of him being the “scariest” member or the “toughest” or the quietest (especially in the earlier days of BTS, because can we just talk about how much happier he has been this last year-year.5?? How much more himself he is at all times? How much more comfortable??? We love to see it.) But I think his quiet watchfulness just gets frequently mistaken for scary or tough. In addition, his empathy allows him to connect with others in a special way, to acknowledge them and build them up (thinking of that one V-Live or whatever where Jungkook says something kind of under his breath---something about a past life?---and Yoongi not only hears him but turns to him and explicitly validates his feelings and thoughts, OR the times when he tells Jimin that he really likes his singing voice).  

Protective - He doesn’t like unkindness in any way, shape, or form. He doesn’t tolerate cruelty or bullying. And let’s not forget: he sees everything. Every slight, every intentional dismissal, every dig or jab, every “diss track” lyrics. Every single injustice. Now, he can stand up for himself (when he deems it appropriate, because I also think he’s pretty good at picking battles), but his true force comes out when those he loves are belittled/threatened/disrespected. He is fiercely protective of those he loves. 

Emotionally Intelligent - Obviously, I think he’s also just intelligent-intelligent, but I want to focus on this aspect for a moment, because I think this is a quality that gets overlooked in people in general. He is aware of the importance of emotions, both his own and other people’s. It’s in the way he recognized that he and Taehyung were polar opposites and made a concentrated effort to understand him better. It’s in the way he unabashedly announces that they hold hands when they’re arguing. It’s in the way that he insists that there is more to life than school, grades, others’ expectations. It’s also in the way he knows exactly how to make the others laugh, the way one of his sharp-witted comments or physical-comedy bits can break a tension or diffuse the moment. It’s all over every single one of his songs. It’s in the way he calmly handles challenges and has a unique relationship with each of his brothers according to their needs. He treats his relationships---with the members, the fans, staff, friends, family, whoever---with care and respect and maturity. 

Compassionate (read also: Cinnamon Roll) - Yoongi understands darkness because he has experienced it himself, and he will do whatever he can to make sure no on else suffers in the same way. He takes care of the people in his life, usually by doing little things or quiet things (think: the reason they call him the “dad” of BTS). He’s not afraid to correct people when they’re wrong, but he always manages to do it kindly. He’s also a complete pushover for the ones he loves: think of how he each member of the maknae line has a different but special relationship with him, think of how Jungkook can basically crawl all over him and hit him and annoy him and bother him and he never bats an eye, think of the way he showed up with chicken because he didn’t want Hoseok to be alone, think of the way he goes fishing with Jin because he knows his big bro loves it so much, think of the way he never ever yells at anyone when he’s angry, think of the way he softens his tone when explaining things. Cinnamon. Roll. 

Straight-forward - He’s blessed with the ability to be blunt but not cruel. I actually personally really hate the word “blunt” because, in my experience, it usually comes into play when someone is explaining that their rude, offensive, and ignorant comment *isn’t* rude, offensive, or ignorant---they’re “just a blunt person.” But I think Yoongi is someone who is actually able to be straight-forward (a much better term than the dreaded b-word) without slipping into carelessness. He says things how they are, but, using his emotional awareness and intelligence, he’s able to say it calmly and kindly. If you’ve messed up, he’s going to tell you you messed up---but he’s also going to help you figure out the next steps and volunteer to walk with you while you take them. He’s going to call out bad behavior---but always remind you that he loves you no matter what. He’s going to critique the song you wrote---but it’s going to be 90% positive comments and 10% suggestions of what could be better/smoother/more understandable. I also feel like he is someone who expects the same in return: he hates liars and has a low tolerance for bullshit. 

Basically I just love Min Yoongi with my whole heart.

Hoseok: 

Duality - Now, I don’t mean duality in the way you can compare his precious ray-of-sunshine moments to the times he absolutely blows everyone away on stage (though this is obviously a thing). I’m referring more to the way he can be both ray of sunshine and serious-business all at the same time. Like Jin, I think Hoseok chose an Idol persona (though I think his decision was prompted more by a desire to be uplifting and cheerful and our hope) and exists comfortably within those parameters. However, unlike Jin, I think Hoseok doesn’t mind if people see the other side sometimes, too. He’s not afraid to set down the bubbly-Hobi persona, even if cameras are rolling. He’s not afraid to be emotional,  whether that’s over-the-top happiness, or genuine overwhelmed tears. He can wear a flower around his face and make cute noises and then the next second he can snap at the maknae to not fool around near a pool so he doesn’t get his clothes all wet. It’s not an act either way, he’s just both. 

Good judgment - Obviously, we know that Jung Hoseok is a hard-worker. We know he’s dedicated his life to his craft, first with dancing and then with rapping. He can be an intimidating dance captain, someone who takes it seriously and pushes everyone to be the very best they can be. His work ethic is insane, and he never accepts less than his best---but, in comparison to others on this list, I think he is able to critique himself fairly and kindly. While he demands perfection, he doesn’t tear himself apart to find it. I think he has the ability to assess something or someone and come away with a fairly unbiased opinion. 

Comfortable - This is hard to describe in just a word, but I think he has a way of making people feel at ease in his presence. Even as one of the biggest superstars on the planet right now, you get the sense that he never wants to make people feel uncomfortable or intimidated or uneasy. Something about his mannerisms, his bright smile, his personableness, make him seem approachable. I think it’s also why Namjoon’s been known to say that BTS couldn’t exist without Hoseok, why Yoongi values his friendship so much, why Jungkook is constantly snuggling him. My personal opinion is that he was instrumental in bridging the gap that sometimes might have occurred between Namjoon and Yoongi in the early days; his comfortable presence eased some of the tension that (I’m guessing) may have naturally arisen between two of the greatest young rappers in the game when they were first working together. Hoseok just wants everyone to feel comfortable and at ease around him.

Kind - I think Jung Hoseok is just a genuinely kind human being. I think he is trusting and loyal, but also just the sort of person who will make it his mission to make you smile on a bad day. Just the fact that he chose to make his stage persona someone who is full of hope and happiness speaks volumes. Knowing his own personal struggles, he extrapolates this knowledge to guess how others could feel, and throws himself into the role of positive, happy, sunshiney, hope. It’s his kindness that motivates this behavior. 

High standards - This goes along with his good judgment, but I think Hoseok expects a certain level of competence from everyone around him, in whatever capacity they’re working. Again, this goes along with his desire to have the entire group work on a bit of choreo until it’s right. I think that, because he pushes himself to be the best and fulfill expectations, he looks for this same dedication in others (what comes to mind is that moment in some interview where Namjoon is struggling a little [cos English is the WORST, ugh] so Hoseok looks over at the interpreter like “what exactly are you doing, do your job, help him translate”). 

Basically I just love Jung Hoseok with my whole heart. 

Namjoon: 

Unbelievably intelligent - I know this one isn’t exactly shocking, but I still feel like it needs to be mentioned first and appreciated more. Namjoon is crazy intelligent, academically speaking. He thrives on the pursuit of knowledge, on contemplating and discussing higher concepts, on learning new things that feed his curiosity and his soul. While I also think this crazy-high intellect can sometimes hinder his ability to connect emotionally with people, it’s also this exact quality that makes him so well suited for the role he has been thrust into---not just in the group, but in the world. 

Nerdy - Bicycling, bonsai trees, reading, tiny creatures, art exhibits. He is unabashedly and desperately passionate about the things he likes. He isn’t afraid to love something just because he loves it. He goes all-in on things that he’s interested in, whether they’re “cool” or not. His curiosity pushes him forward, needling him to learn everything he can about things he’s passionate about. He sinks himself into these hobbies wholly (think: carrying a book or two with him everywhere so he can get some reading in, visiting as many art museums and exhibits as possible on days off, making cutesy noises at stingrays and scooping teeny-tiny crabs out of the sand to tell them how beautiful they are).

Macro-focused - He strikes me very much as the sort of person who loves to talk about concepts and ideas and philosophies in great terms. He loves clever wordplay, he likes to reflect on his place in the universe, he wants to discuss the complexities of life and human nature. His quick-mind devours these topics, and I can imagine he could sit for hours with you debating philosophy and discussing art. On the flip side, though, I think he isn’t so good with minutiae---and by “minutiae” I mean everything from being more aware of his physical surroundings to dealing with personal things. For example, I think he’s brilliant when he discusses happiness and hardship and joy and pain and love and humanity in the songs he writes...... but he’s not exactly the first person you would go to if you were having a tough or emotional personal time. Don’t get me wrong: obviously he cares about the people in his life, he cares about people in general---but sometimes all you need is a hug and pat on the back to encourage you and Namjoon would instead launch into the greater implications and consequences of human nature in an attempt to help you feel better.

Logical - I know this seems like a given, but while I think others on this list are more emotionally-intelligent, I think logic is one of Namjoon’s greatest strengths. For example: if another member is crying or upset, Jimin would notice they’re upset and immediately go and hug them and wipe their tears away; Namjoon would notice they’re upset and immediately look for the source of the problem. Once identified, he’d take the next steps to rectifying the problem, because logic dictates that if the problem gets solved, then the other member would be happier. If there was nothing to rectify, he’d attempt to comfort them with cold, hard facts. (I’m thinking about that time when Jungkook got upset because he felt like he messed up his performances, and Jimin immediately hugs him and comforts him and tells him he was great, while Namjoon assesses the situation and starts talking about how he himself actually, objectively messed up, so there’s no logical reason for Jungkook to be upset right now.) He dreams and enjoys literature and the arts---but when it comes to handling practical, inter-personal issues, he’s much more comfortable with logic. 

Vibes - I really didn’t have a good word to describe this thought of mine, so let me just get right into explaining: I think Namjoon is, generally speaking, one of the smartest people---if not the smartest person---in the room. He’s aware of this fact without being arrogant about it, but it is the truth. Because of this, I think he’s frequently called on to explain things, to expound on them, to teach or interpret or decipher. I think he enjoys this role, because he loves talking about things he’s passionate about (see above: nerdy) but sometimes...sometimes I think he just desperately wants someone he can vibe with. Someone who can match his level intellectually. Someone whom he doesn’t have to teach. I think he is over-the-moon ecstatic when he meets someone he can vibe with in any way---whether that’s intelligence-related or passion/hobby-related. I don’t know, I just sometimes feel like he chooses to spend his personal time with people who can match him in some way, whom he can vibe with.

Basically I just love Kim Namjoon with my whole heart.

Jimin:

Caring - For me, Park Jimin starts and ends with this characteristic. He cares. A lot. About a lot of things. He cares about his brothers, he cares about his family, he cares about his friends, he cares about ARMY, he cares about music, he cares about his dancing, he cares about fashion, he cares about how he’s perceived, he cares about doing his very best, he cares about the future generations, he cares about those who are less fortunate than him, he just cares so much. Along with Yoongi, I think he is incredibly empathetic. How many times do we see him basically sprint across a room or a sandy beach or a campsite or a stage to get to an upset member? He reads people’s emotions and has a natural instinct to take care of them. Like anything, though, I think his biggest strength can also be a great weakness: sometimes he cares too much. How many times has he worked until his body is covered with pain patches, until his feet bled, until he almost passed out? All the weight he lost, because he cared about his appearance? How hard he worked at being “hardcore, manly” Jimin, because that’s what he thought people cared about most? All the times he cried after a tiny mistake, because he cared about being perfect, because he cared about others’ perception of him? Park Jimin cares so/too much and it’s one of the most defining things about his personality. 

Social Intelligence/눈치 - One thing I love the most is how he has such a unique relationship with each one of his brothers. Now, obviously, every single combo in Bangtan is different and unique and special. But I love watching Jimin’s relationships with the others so much, because he’s so aware of what they need. Truthfully, I think Jimin is hyper aware of others in general. If you’re trying to sneaky-cry at a crowded party, Jimin is the type of person who would somehow appear at your side, ready to help you feel better. His empathy and sensitivity allow him to assess what each individual needs the most from him and act accordingly. He knows Taehyung should never be left alone when upset, knows that if Jungkook is actually crying then something is very wrong, knows that Leader RM sometimes needs to just be his one-year-older hyung Namjoon, knows exactly how far he can push Yoongi’s buttons, knows to laugh at Jin’s dad-jokes (especially when they’re for the benefit of the group), and knows that Hoseok needs to be reminded how much cohesiveness he provides the group in general. 

Self-Critical - All right, I feel like this one might be a little controversial, so hear me out. Like I mentioned earlier, he cares a lot, and part of that translates into caring about himself---caring about his achievements, his performance, his appearance. It’s partly the classical dancer in him and partly just his personality. He wants to do and be his best always. But.... I do think that he has learned to be much kinder to himself over the years. Gone are the days of starving himself to get rid of his cheeks, the tearful breakdowns after a single missed step in a performance, the acting outside of his true personality because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to be. I think we now very much see a Jimin who has come into his own, who has accepted himself for who he is (including his flaws), who has embraced every part of him. This doesn’t mean that I think he never has to fight the nagging voice in his head, or struggle with insecurities, or swallow down the urge to berate himself after a less-than-perfect performance---he still expects the best out of himself, still wants to be the best. I just think he’s found a way to critique himself without absolutely tearing himself apart. 

Cunning - Yet another word that looks and sounds derogatory, but isn’t really in this context. Like a lot of other empathetic, sensitive, socially-intelligent people, knowing exactly what people need and are feeling also allows him to know weaknesses. Weaknesses he would never exploit---unless he wanted to. I actually don’t think we see much of him using others’ weaknesses against them, but in my opinion, this quality is linked to two of his other quirks: 1) his talent and complete lack of guilt for cheating at games and 2) his penchant for pettiness. I don’t really know how to explain my thought-process here---not well, anyway. But I feel like Jimin is so tuned into the important things (so concerned about the important things) that little things, like cheating at a game, don’t matter to him much. And, if he can use his usually sweet and helpful and hard-working, honest self to get away with it, even better. On the flip side, I don’t think he enjoys or endures confrontation as much or as well as, say, Yoongi might---so he expresses himself in a quieter, underhanded way. (The moment that’s coming to mind is that one time they were at an American event and he commented, in Korean, about how unorganized things seem to be.) Jimin is the sweetest, most sensitive, empathetic little cinnamon roll---until it’s time to win a game, or until he’s feeling a little prickly and petty. 

Basically I just love Park Jimin with my whole heart.

Taehyung: 

Individualistic - Kim Taehyung knows who he is. He knows what he likes, what he wants, what he thinks. He is going to wear whatever he wants, paint whatever he wants, say whatever he wants, and do whatever he wants. He’s a person who seems to have figured out a long time ago what makes him happy and how to be his true self around others no matter what---and this something I greatly envy. If he wants to learn the violin, he’s gonna buy a violin and play some scratchy Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on a hotel balcony---because that’s what he wants to do. If he wants to write a song, it’s going to be in his style, the way he likes it. If he wants a really cool, avant-garde piece of artsy clothing, he’s going to spray-paint it himself. If he has an opinion on something, it’s highly likely that he’s spent quite a bit of time forming this opinion---but once that’s his opinion, that’s his opinion. That’s what he thinks, there’s no need to listen to others or change. I think this quality, this ability to be himself so  freely and earnestly, is both one of the reasons he’s able to make friends so easily and be beloved so quickly (see: “Bangtan’s True Baby” and “Wooga Squad darling”); and one of the reasons others (including the other members, by their own admission) can’t understand him well at first. I think it has brought many good things to his life, but has also played a significant part in some of the struggles that he has had. He’s precious, but also very easily misunderstood.

Not Very Outward-Sensing - Notice I very purposefully don’t go anywhere near the words “self-absorbed” or “self-centered”---because he’s not. On the contrary, I think Taehyung feels very deeply for the people in his life (see below: Emotional), but his ability to care for them is sometimes inhibited by his lack of outward-sensing. If Jimin is the king of 눈치/social awareness, then Taehyung is the absolute opposite (which is why it is unendingly intriguing to me that two of his closest relationships in BTS---he and Jimin, he and Yoongi---are comprised of one person who lacks this awareness [Tae] and one person who has all the awareness [Jimin, Yoongi]). He would never hurt someone’s feelings on purpose, but quite often he’s just not paying a whole lot of attention to what other people might be feeling or experiencing. He’s not concerned about walking on eggshells, because he feels that as long as his intentions are good, nobody can be too hurt or too uncomfortable with him or his behavior (A great example of this is the infamous Spring Day Dance Debate from “Burn the Stage.” In Taehyung’s mind, he saw something that should be changed and needed to be addressed, so he called it out. It never in a million years would occur to him that the way he phrased it or the way he kept harping on it could be a source of irritation or discomfort to Jin. To him, it was a very black-and-white, clear-cut situation: something was wrong, he had an idea of how it should be fixed, therefore nothing bad could/should come of him speaking his mind in the pursuit of this perfect solution he created). He seems like the sort of person who, after accidentally hurting your feelings, would sympathize with your hurt and want to make it better, but focus more on the fact that he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, so it’s not really his fault. 

Emotional - I think he is very in-touch with his emotions, which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. For example, if he’s upset, he wants everyone to know and acknowledge that he’s upset. He doesn’t like feeling ignored or passed over, and where others might let it slide, he’s not afraid to speak up about it (I’m thinking about the time there was a question directed specifically to Yoongi about being from Daegu and Taehyung immediately pointed out that he was also from Daegu, and kind of pouted a little until it was acknowledged). Also, although it’s never been said explicitly, I think he is one of the members who potentially struggles with depression. He can take things very personally and to heart. But this is likely because he has such a big heart. He loves unabashedly and he’s very vocal about who he loves---think of all the times he’s said and posted comments along the lines of “Please love all seven” and “Please love each of us equally.” He also can be very protective (thinking of that one Weverse post where he lowkey chewed somebody out for posting an unflattering photo of one of the others) and blunt when defending those he loves. I mean, he created a whole new word just to express how much he loves ARMY! When he’s sad, he cries. When he’s happy, he giggles. When he’s angry, he expresses it. When he’s disappointed, he doesn’t hide it. To me, he is a near-perfect example of someone who wears their heart on their sleeves. 

Contradictory - One of his most endearing qualities. He is not very outward-focused---but he bought a pair of gloves because he remembered that Jimin offhandedly mentioned that he needed some. He doesn’t read other people easily---but he (so far) is also pretty darn good at completing accurate Vibe-Checks for those who come in contact with BTS. He doesn’t always see as much as the others might---but he also notices certain things they might miss. The beauty of his being is that he can be both things at the same time and not seem out of place.

Basically I just love Kim Taehyung with my whole heart.

Jungkook: 

Confident Yet Perfectionistic - Now listen: when I say confident, I don’t mean that he never struggles with insecurities. I mean confident in the way that his whole life (at least his whole Idol life) he had 6 older brothers who encouraged him to try and do anything he wanted---and then supported him no matter the outcome. Being raised in an environment like that, where you’re encouraged to try things, where you have people who love you constantly praising your efforts and providing a safe space for you to fail, you gain a certain amount of confidence in your abilities, in yourself. I think this is actually a big part of the Golden Maknae moniker: yes, I think he is the type of person to whom things may come quite easily and who is naturally skilled in several areas---but it’s also a little easier to conquer new things when you have years of encouraged-successes under your belt. He has gained a confidence in himself over years of trying and working his tail off and eventually succeeding; he knows he can do anything if he works at it enough because he’s always been able to do everything he works at. Where the perfectionistic aspect kicks in especially is this: there are a lot of people who have a natural affinity for lots of things. There are lots of people who can pick up something new and be decent right away (I honestly think Taehyung is another person like this, someone who can pick new things up pretty easily)---the difference is that Jeon Jungkook is the type of person who takes that natural affinity and runs with it. He’s not satisfied with just being good at something; if it’s something he really wants to do, he throws his whole heart and soul and self into it. In my opinion, this sets him apart from people who could be considered “Jack of All Trades, Master of None.” He trusts his process and uses it to be the very best he can be in whatever he does.

Introverted -  Obviously he’s not the only introverted member of Bangtan, but I do think that his specific life experiences require a little more discussion on this topic than the others. By his own admission, his childhood ended really early. He didn’t focus much on school because he was focused on his career; he never got to have the typical high school experiences most of the others had. At an incredibly young age he was thrust into a totally different life that required being in the spotlight---and while this definitely brought unique challenges, he loves his life as a musician and performer. I think out of all BTS, Jungkook especially lives for performing. He lights up on stage and is at his absolute happiest when performing (and performing well). And yet none of this changes the fact that he is absolutely an introvert, someone who needs to recharge with just a little alone time. Alone time. Not easy to achieve when you live in the same tiny dorm with 6 other boys. Not easy to achieve when you are constantly surrounded by brothers, staff, instructors, producers, cameras, and fans.  

Maknae - I can’t explain this well, I know I can’t, but it just is such a huge part of him that I feel like I need to try. In so many ways, Jungkook is a typical baby of the family. It’s evident in the way that he unabashedly idolizes his Rap-Mon-hyung. In the way he constantly cuddles and sniffs and snuggles Hoseok. In the way he’s not afraid to pester Yoongi or tease Seokjin. He also seems like someone who is much more of a fixer than a listener; meaning, if you go to him with a problem, he’s going to be focused on how he can fix the situation, not on just listening and sympathizing/empathizing with you, a trait that I feel comes easily to babies of families (not that *all* youngest children have this, mind you) because they’re typically not the ones confided in, so if something is brought to them they want to help make it right (massive generalization, I know, don’t kill me). As discussed above, he’s also confident in himself because he’s been raised with older siblings who have always told him “yes, you can.” He’s just Baby in all the ways that stick with a person even as they grow older. 

Trusting - Jungkook strikes me as the sort of person who trusts fairly easily---and, more importantly, unshakably. He has no problem admitting to millions of ARMY that he ripped his pants on stage or V-Living while drunk (I don’t care what he says, babyboy was at least a little buzzed) because he trusts us. He could easily follow Namjoon (or any of his brothers) to the ends of the earth. He takes every opportunity to speak earnestly and wholeheartedly about how much he genuinely loves ARMY, because he trusts that that love will be returned. 

Basically I just love Jeon Jungkook with my whole heart. 

[trash-but-respectable-trash]

Headcanons of what life in the Devildom would be like if my best friend and I were both exchange student at the same time:

Heads up! This is completely self-indulgent content. I made this as a gift for my best friend: @beel-is-a-snack love you bitch 😘

Lucifer:

- Lucifer would probably really hate us at first.

- It’s feels to him like everywhere we go together, something really weird will happen

- It’s things he cannot link to us, but he knows it’s because of us because these things never happened before

- At first, we probably wouldn’t listen to his orders, we didn’t leave a controlling household just to go to another one

- A single punishment (and not the kinky kind) would be all it takes for us to never disobey his orders again

- It would come at no surprise that I would immediatly have a fat crush on him and that I would talk about him all the time to you, even though you wouldn’t understand what I see in him at first

- The more you would notice how much he cares about his brothers, the more you would like him. You two would developed a mutual understanding about taking the role of the parent by default even if that wasn’t your choice

- You two could probably also relate to each other’s daddy issues sorry love you

- With time you two could be really close friends, but probably not more than that, because he’s mine

- Don’t worry we’ll find you a more suitable boyfriend

- He definitely wouldn’t try to come between our friendship and would never be jealous of it either

- He would give us plenty of time alone, but even if he didn’t, we couldn’t even try to speak French around him because I’m 100% sure he also speak French as a second or third or fourth language

- We would probably found out about it the hard way while I would either tell you how handsome he is or you telling me he’s a control freak and he would just reply to us in perfect French

- Yeah we would only make that mistake once

Mammon

- Mammon also hates us at first, he has to take care of TWO humans?? That’s asking too much of him, he can barely take care of himself

- After a while, it would probably be the other way around as we would be the ones taking care of him

- He cannot decide which one of us he loves more (probably the one who gives him the most attention and positive reinforcement)

- He quickly becomes jealous of our friendship and tries to hangout with us every chances he gets

- It can be a bit awkward when we’re trying to talk about boys, since we’re likely talking about his brothers

- We would need to have codes to refer to the brothers or we could use French when we don’t want him to understand what we’re saying, since he’s definitely too dumb to understand French

- It was 100% clear in our minds that neither of us would end up dating Mammon as we both need someone who could mentally stimulates us

- Also he would for sure steal our stuff out of our rooms and try to sell them

- After a full week of silent treatment from both of us, he wouldn’t ever try to steal our stuff again

- He would try to trick us in participating in his shaninagans, but we would probably report it to Lucifer just to see Mammon get punish (ok mostly me, but I would drag you with me to see the aftermath)

- Never suspects us of being the one who snitch him all the time to Lucifer, he probably thinks it’s Levi

Leviathan

- Oh boy. Opposite to Lucifer and Mammon, it’s us who hates him at first

- What the fuck is that hair style, why is he always screaming and talking an hundred miles an hour rambling about animes and Ruri-Chan, who’s Ruri-Chan??

- Probably calls us normies until he finds out you had a Naruto collection when you were 13 years old and that you used to love mangas

- And that I now enjoy some animes and mangas myself, so now he calls both of us weebs, which isn’t much better honestly

- We would TOLERATE gaming with him if he isn’t screaming all the fucking time

- We would immediately leave any room we’re in everytime he says “Woooooaaaahhhh”

- He needs to shut up or else we can never be friends with him

- He also gets jealous of our friendship, he wish he had a best friend with such a strong bond, yeah he has Henry 2.0 but it’s just not the same you know

- He wonders if his friendship with Ruri-Chan would be similar to ours if she was real

- He tried to become really close with Solomon to recreate our friendship, but Solomon spent his time trying to form a pact with Levi so he ended it

Satan

- I have to say that I think that Satan and I are the most similar

- We’re both intelligent, independent and observant individuals who do not tolerate dumb people, we both enjoy reading a bit too much, we’re both messy, we’re both way too honest and we’re pros at hiding our anger (especially towards stupidity)

- Ok, so I’m not saying you wouldn’t get along with Satan, I just think you wouldn’t have much in common with him and by that I mean that’s he’s a very rational being and the best form of art in his eyes is writing

- I think what would make it or break it for both of you is his and your knowledge on all forms of arts and the history being it. Satan would probably test you and if you pass in his eyes, you can be friends, otherwise he would consider you unworthy

- Yeah I know it’s rough, but you don’t need a friend who needs to test you on your knowledge about art to see if you two can be friends

- Even if you pass the test, I don’t see you two being super close as he is mostly in his room reading and you would be in your studio, doing all of your art projects

- In any case, you guys would have to get along somehow since he would probably be the one I would be closest with and you’re my best friend so obviously you two would have to hang out by default quite a lot

- When you would be in your studio, I would probably be at the library or in Satan’s room reading

- We would also all study together and use Satan as our tutor for classes were we have more difficulty (but you’re lucky, there’s no French class given at RAD so you should do fine)

Asmodeus

- If we push aside the lust part of him and focus on his other personality traits, Asmo would like us from the start

- Two best friends how fun! He would probably tell us how Solomon is his best friend before finding out later by Solomon that it isn’t true

- Asmo is a lonely demon, sure he gets plenty of physical attention, but no one cares about him past his beauty

- We would be the one to change that, we would both see further than his beauty, but also further than his narcissistic ways to find out who the real Asmo is

- He’s the insecure one who only wants to be love. We would both act as his therapist. Sometimes he would confess to us while doing our nails and makeup or sometimes he would just start sobbing on my lap or your lap, pouring his heart out and telling us his deepest fears and secrets because he finally feels safe enough to say these things to someone

- He would probably crave our attention and comfort the more and more we listen to him. We would need to set boundaries or else we would feel like we’re suffocating. We both need our space and Asmo would have to understand that fact

- We would rub on him and he would slowly stop going out so much, instead appreciating his alone time the better he feels about himself

Beelzebub

- At first I would be a bit scared of him, he’s big and he keeps making comments about how delicious we look (and again, not in the kinky way)

- You on the other hand, would probably feel that he isn’t a bad guy at all and you would definitely see more than his angry looking face and his never ending comments about food

- Just a few conversations with him can tell how much he cares about his family and his twin in particular

- That man is such an himbo, but he also have a big heart just like you and you’re both so cute together

- Everyone ship the both of you even though you’re both emotionally dense and it would take a while for you and him to FINALLY be together

- It’s not that you didn’t love each other, it’s just that you never took the signs that the other one was sending you, mistaking it for simple kindness and nothing more

- He would probably have to just straight up tell you l that he’s in love with you for your relationship to go anywhere

- Basically everyone’s like “FINALLY” the moment you both annonce that you’re officially dating

- Wedding and kids would come shortly after that

- You’re both very family oriented and are both super vanilla so that’s a winning couple if I’ve ever seen one

Belphegor

- Ok first of all, if we were the MC, Belphie would 100% still be locked in the attic

- It would only take one warning from Lucifer for us to never go up those stairs again

- But for the sake of this, let’s say you knew this was Beel’s brother and you loved Beel so much that you were ready to face the consequences to save his brother

- And let’s say I wasn’t aware of this, because if I were and we both decided to go up the stairs anyway, it wouldn’t take me long at all before realizing that Belphie is lying to us and that we cannot trust him

- If I wasn’t aware of you going up the stairs by yourself, you’re so trusting of everyone that you would for sure do the same thing as the MC and free Belphegor just to get yourself killed. I told you dozens of time, don’t trust everyone!

- Anyway, let’s say we both died somehow (I probably got killed by Lucifer once he found out what you did) and Barbatos and Diavolo brought us to a timeline were we didn’t die

- Well, let’s say the saying “I forgive but I never forget” would represent me 100%

- I would be forgiving for the sake of Beelzebub, but Belphie and I would NEVER be close, whether it appears to be the case or not

- I might let him sleep on my lap or listen to him talk about how he loves his twin, but don’t get me wrong, I would never trust him or be his friend

- In your case, you would either be like me or you wouldn’t ever forgive him

- Forgivness isn’t always something you can control and you might always hold a grudge against him after what he did

- That could either destroy what you had with Beel, because he cannot date someone who hates his brother so much, or he could also understand how you feel, but he would still try to make you and his brother friends good luck with that

Diavolo

- Oh boy that’s my type of man right there

- What a fucking piece of ass

- Ok back on track, Diavolo would obviously be the one who’s most excited to have us in the Devildom

- He would always invite us for tea, asking us questions about the human world and laughing at our dumb stories

- We would troll him with human traditions that don’t exist like how you need to pray before eating chocolate truffle or how humans eat St-Hubert (a rotisserie restaurant comparable to Nando’s) every Sunday and how What Makes You Beautiful by One Direction is the national anthem of our country

- I can imagine him watching the video clip of What Makes You Beautiful that same night and being like “wow! That is beautiful!”

- Lucifer would be so mad at us, but it would be worth it

- We would also tell him that “thug life” and “yolo” are commonly use expression in the human world when you’re excited about something and he would start using them at the most random moments while everyone is like “???”

- We would totally hate every party hosted by Diavolo and we would 1000% leave to explore the castle only to get lost and then brought back by either Barbatos or Lucifer (lord have mercy)

- It doesn’t matter, we would do it everytime, choosing a different path everytime until we’ve explore every part of the castle (which would realistically never happen)

- Diavolo would probably give us a plan of the castle behind Lucifer’s back so we can explore the castle however we want. He himself, isn’t a fan of these events and would much rather hang out with us than be stuck making conversations with nobles he doesn’t care about

- Other than that, you would have to listen to me talk endlessly about how it isn’t fair that I cannot date both Lucifer AND Diavolo until I actually do

Barbatos

- This one is a difficult one, since we basically know nothing about the Butler

- We would probably have a good grasp of who he is if we were in the devildom, since we have pretty good intuitions on people

- I would probably talk to Barbatos about baking and all the different variations of tea, probably dropping way to soon a reference to Black Butler like he never heard the comparaison before

- Much like his devilgram story, he would probably invite me to get some specific type of tea that can only be purchase out of town, never implying that it’s a date even though he qualify it as one in his head

- There’s not much more to say about him, I think you would see him as Diavolo’s Butler more than a potential lover or close friend

Simeon

- Ouf poor sweet angel. Let’s state the obvious first, he would probably be very disappointed in me and my very obvious lust for certain demons

- Wouldn’t be happy with me straying further away from god each passing day

- I would defend myself by telling him I do pray and go once a year to church to ask God for forgiveness for all of my sins

- Yeah if I was in the Devildom, my list of sins I committed during my stay would be particularly long

- Still, I would have no regrets

- Ok, I have to say it, this angel is shady. I think we would sense that something isn’t right with him. His smile and energy are a little off, he’s definitely hiding something but what?

- If we had time to kill we could do some research on the matter and ask people around about what they know about Simeon, maybe spy on him while he’s out in town?

- We would probably get caught and ask by a very scary Simeon, to stop whatever we are doing

- Yeah let’s take the wise decision of staying away from him from now on

Solomon

- He would need to understand that it’s not because we’re all humans that we NEED to hang out together

- I would have to keep you away from him, or at least not let you hang out alone with him. I don’t think he’s evil, but he might use you as human experiment for his potions and spells and I don’t want you to accidentally be turned into a pig or something

- I’ll accept the occasional vines references wars and the team up to tell Diavolo even more made up things about the human world, but that’s all

- I would probably compare him to Harry Potter all the time

- Let’s just stay far away from the shady sorcerer

Luke

- I have no motherly instincts, but I would protect this child from all of the brothers teasing, but that’s about it. I really don’t care about this child, SIMEON COME PICK UP YOUR SON, HE POOPED HIMSELF AGAIN “Stephanie that’s not true!!” Luke would bark back as he tries to hide the streak of poop on the back of his white pants (sorry I don’t know why this came to mind, but I have this headcanon that sometimes when he’s afraid, Luke will poop his pants and this boy is VERY scared of Lucifer, so it happens quite often)

- You would probably be way more motherly towards him than me and you and Beel would basically adopt Luke as your own child

- Just always carry baby wipes and a clean pair of pants with you at all times and you’re all good

- I hope you like baking sweets, because your son will surely want to spend some bonding time with his mom over baking time, and of course you have to enjoy the sweets you both made over a nice cup of tea that Barbatos made for you two

[katzkinder]

this is very rambly and probably won’t make much sense so apologies for that in advance, but I’ve been thinking about this for a LONG while

Mahiru has been pretty pivotal to Every Character arc in Servamp, either through being an active participant who moves the hearts of the people involved, or being the starting point for change in an individual by giving them a gentle nudge down their path. There are only two arcs he actually has very little to do with, and coincidentally, both of these arcs involve character who instead have larger impacts on HIM

Greed pair, and Wrath pair

Greed pair is interesting because you can actually make an argument that he did play a pivotal role by being the starting position for Lawless and Kuro's repaired relationship because he was very insistent upon meeting with Lawless, or through his interactions with Lilac. However, he did not actually have anything to do with Lawless overcoming his feelings of grief, and instead was moved to action by Licht and Lawless, considering things he never did before because of things they said to him.

Lawless forces Mahiru to consider the important questions, the way he’s going to go about doing and achieving and moving forward with whatever nebulous plan he has, because at the time of the theatre fight, Mahiru really didn’t have anything in mind beyond a blanket “I need to stop Tsubaki” and the plucky boldness to attempt to go through with that.

Meanwhile, Licht is a perfect example of someone who has ideals, the gumption to go through with them, and the skill to back up his claims. His capture at the hands of Higan while protecting Mahiru also forces Mahiru to consider the consequences of rushing into things without a proper plan, as well as face the reality of what it means to protect someone.

Even through these changes, I feel like Mahiru planted some seeds within the hearts of both halves of Greed pair and his interference was the starting line for their bettered relationship down the line.

But Wrath pair? Mahiru had literally nothing to do with Iduna or Shamrock's growth, and only a barely passing interaction with Shuuhei that was actually set up for Iduna to come forward and say something powerful to Mahiru instead "A world of hate... Is a sad, sad place." (Chapter 15) And I love that the characters that move Mahiru at his core and spur him onward in his growth as a person are the humans, the ones who put their heart and soul into creating, these ephemeral creatures with so little experience under their belts in comparison to the immortals in the series but still hold so much wisdom.

And it is very rare for there to be a series where the protagonist isn’t the catalyst for every bit of development a character or set of characters goes through, even rare for there to be a female character who controls her own narrative and is the one pushing it forward instead of being the motivation for a male character. For Iduna, it’s quite the opposite!

I love that the first time she cut her hair, it was an act of solidarity with her friend mourning the death of his father. A promise to herself to support and aid him however she could. The second time... Was a promise to save him from the cliff she had unwittingly pushed him off of, yet again resolving to change and grow in order to become better than she was before.

Speaking of which! She also has the strength of heart and mind to look at what she’s done and say “I’m going to do better. I’ve hurt people. This time, I’m going to be different. I’m going to help them.” That takes heart. That takes courage. That takes humility and understanding and so much love for the world. Because there’s absolutely no guarantee that anyone will forgive her for what she’s done. But it’s not about receiving forgiveness. It never has been.

Like, Iduna is literally SHOT IN THE BACK by Shuuhei, and merely admonishes him for it before continuing to HELP HIM. (And maybe she views that as her punishment for letting things get as bad as they did. For letting thing go as far as they did.) And then she chooses to spare the man trying to murder them, because she can see... He’s let go of his anger, and left in its place the sad, pathetic man struggling for a reason, a justification, something

Some people might see this as her being too perfect, too sweet, too naive and kind and mary-sue-ish.

But

Depending on how you look at it, her actions are rather cruel. Shamrock is going to carry that guilt and grief for the rest of his existence. The same way she will carry hers. She is so much more than bubbly sweet cupcakes and girlish antics.

She is strong, and brave, amazingly intelligent, hell, even Touma praises her! She's not stupid by any means. She's a remarkably well crafted character

God though, what gets me about her sparing Shamrock is that... She knows that punishing him is not her choice to make. It's the choice of the person he's hurt

And she believes in Shuuhei and his ability to claw his way back up and take the hands of the people who love him, before he does something he can never take back.

Revenge is not rational

Shuuhei only plays at rationality when he's actually a very emotional person who makes impulsive decisions and clings on to anger because it's the only thing keeping him going, and he's scared of what will happen when he doesn't have that anymore. Iduna, in contrast, despite appearances, is actually a very logically minded person.

But logic doesn't make you cruel any more than emotions make you kind, now does it?

[itsclydebitches]

(Bad anon) Got some counters. Agree with Amity. My issue is them not caring the lamp was stolen. DESTROYING MANTLE AND ATLAS WAS NECESSARY? The conflict was Atlas leaving or evacuating both. When would destroying either city ever be necessary? That was never a suggestion with Vale. Vacuo or being killed by Salem? My problem is they chose Vacuo. Friends and I talked about how they could’ve spread the civilians out, send them to Mistral, Menagerie, PATCH. Not the worst place on the planet!

Oh, agreed about the lamp, which really just shows that there are multiple levels of bad choices here lol. I can understand the perspective that, however important the lamp is, there are more important things going on. I could easily buy the group going, "We need the lamp back, but we have no idea where Neo is and there are so many horrible things going on now, we can't afford to waste time trying to track her without a lead." The problem is... no one said that. The lamp is stolen and everyone just ignores that problem. Yeah, as always we can assume they had this thought process, but showing that on screen is actually pretty important to demonstrate the current stakes, how the group is weighing their options, and what they conclude has the best chance of success. If you want your characters to be smart and strategic, you have to show them being smart and strategic, not have them making a call and banking on the audience assuming it was automatically the best one. Hell, that could have been the conflict instead of Amity: are we going to help the people down on the ground, or are we going to try and find/take on the villains?

Vacuo is another major problem and you and your friends are far from the only ones to take issue with it. Like I mentioned in regards to the "Clover would have dropped the bomb" conversation, the story doesn't even try to justify this choice. We know they're going to Vacuo because the story, as a story, is using kingdom hopping as a structure, but the characters still need to justify that somehow. And they don't. There needs to be a reason, an in-universe reason for why they're choosing the most dangerous kingdom and putting all the evacuees there. And those reasons can very easily exist! RWBY is built around a very malleable magic system, meaning that any rules the authors need to follow their plot plans are rules they can introduce. Come up with some limitation of Ambrosius' that forces them to go to Vacuo; come up with a reason why the group needs to go there and introduce a magic/time limitation that means the evacuees either go with the group or don't get out at all. The problem isn't having the group go to Vacuo while the audience goes, "We get why they really went there, and maybe the explanation is a little shaky, but at least it mostly makes sense." The problem is not even trying to justify that choice. It just makes the characters look incredibly foolish in a story that otherwise wants to paint them as intelligent and heroic. By writing a canon in which they don't appear to realize — let alone care — that they're choosing the most dangerous option out of safer options, does not a heroic team make.

As for the kingdom's destructions, it's less that you have to destroy the kingdoms to save others and more that the destruction is presented as an inevitable byproduct of saving them. It's not, "We WANT to destroy these places. Destroying these places leads directly to the people being safe" but rather "We want to evacuate the people and in order to do that using the staff, Atlas has to fall since only one wish can exist at a time. Getting the people out this way results in the kingdom's destruction and while that's definitely bad, it's better than allowing everyone to die." It's like... Tyrian dislocating his wrist after the airship crash. No, dislocating wrists as a rule does not free people, but in this specific case, if Tyrian wants out of those cuffs he has to bear the consequence: a dislocated wrist. Destroying kingdoms isn't necessary as a general rule to save people, but given how the staff's magic is set up, if they want to use that magic resource to evacuate they have to bear the consequence: Atlas falls. And the byproduct of that is Atlas being destroyed and taking Mantle with it.

The problem with this is not only that, as said, they made this choice when that sacrifice was no longer necessary, but that they introduced this "Atlas will fall slowly" nonsense. If you introduce Atlas slowly meandering its way to the ground to explain why the group doesn't instantly kill everyone in Mantle when the portals appear, you should also introduce the concept of getting Atlas floating again after the evacuation. We've established that there's time, so do things quickly! Get the people through the portals, into Vacuo, and tell Ambrosius to start floating Atlas again the second everyone is through. Which, incidentally, might also be their excuse for why they bring the staff with them. They want to keep it safe, but leaving it in the vault means they can't make another wish and save the kingdom from destruction. If the group wants to escape to Vacuo and the group also wants to ensure Atlas doesn't crash as soon as they're done using the portals, they have to have the staff on hand.

Basically, it's the lamp all over again. The problem is not that Atlas fell, but that the group didn't try to keep it from falling. They don't care! We could have oh so easily gotten a plot where the group established why they needed to go to Vacuo over other places (idk what that excuse is yet — that's why you think about your story!), figured out how to create the portals, and were poised to get Atlas floating again the second everyone was through. Hustle, people, hustle. No joyrides on hammers. No funny moments where Jaune is hit by a rock. Everyone is focused on completing the task as fast as possible because every second these portals exist is a second that Atlas gets closer to slamming into Mantle and they cannot destroy both these peoples' homes and Remnant's last resource for technology. They fully intent to go for both: evacuate the people and get Atlas flying again before it causes any damage. But then Cinder attacks. Cinder gets the staff. She makes the next wish and it's not to keep Atlas in the air. The group failed, but at least they always intended to save the kingdom. It's still heroic if the heroes only fail because the villains were better. As it stands, the group decided that saving the people was more important than the kingdom after the people no longer needed immediate saving and without any effort to even TRY to save the kingdom as well. RWBY (and many in the fandom) act as if anything the group doesn't do wasn't possible in the first place, when in fact it's just a badly constructed story that has the characters ignoring other options at their disposal.

[sepublic]

Gus Porter and Amity Blight

          It’s fascinating, really… Writing about Gus and the Blight Twins interacting, I realized more and appreciated just how similar Gus and Amity are, while still being different- Like two sides of the same coin! Which ties back to another post I made, giving Gus the elemental motif of Water, which led to my speculation on how this might character a relationship with Amity and her Fire (amidst Gus being a counter to Boscha’s Fire).

           Gus and Amity are both precocious kids, sure… There’s this idea that they DO enjoy learning, and have a family lineage they’re ‘proud’ of. These kids are intelligent, and they come across as confident… But admittedly, there’s a bit of loneliness, of not being heard/taken seriously. But despite having more family members, Amity’s loneliness was a lot more damaging and potent, and her issues of not being heard came from her family members dismissing Amity herself! Whilst with Gus, this mostly came from his peers, who were older than him anyway and thus had more ‘reason’ to underestimate the kid.

           Not to mention, Gus and Perry clearly get along, because even if Gus DOES have some insecurity, here or there… He IS a person and so of course he’s going to have ‘flaws’, just like anyone else! Not to downplay them or anything of course. But it’s obvious that ultimately, Gus is happy, confident, and self-assured, and he knows who he is and doesn’t have to hide it, or be different from it despite being an Illusionist… In contrast to Amity, who clearly isn’t happy with who she is, feels like she has to make up for it, and wears a ‘mask’.

           Gus uses his Illusions to bolster, to show off, and to enhance his own identity, while Amity hides who she is, telling herself to shut up and be a quiet and obedient kid who doesn’t stick out amidst the rest of her family, she’s ashamed of herself. Amity dyes her hair because of what Odalia told her, and she actively sees herself as someone to change and ‘improve’ upon, in order to live up to the Blight family standard… But Gus? Gus is happy with himself because the Porter lineage consists of dweebuses… They’re people who are happy with who they are, and they’ve transmitted the same sentiments towards their children!

           Gus looks up to Perry, but it’s a healthy relationship… He genuinely admires his father because of his own choice, because Perry was good and kind to him! But Amity, she looks up to her parents because they made her dependent upon them, they indoctrinated her… They made Amity base her self-worth upon their approval. The Blight name is a curse to Amity, a reminder that she’s never good enough; Whilst the Porter name tells Gus that whoever he is, that’s valid and he should be proud of it!

           How fitting then, is it, that Gus helps lead the rebellion against Belos alongside Willow and his father Perry, who seems intrigued by what his kid has to say; Whilst Odalia and Alador would never listen to what Amity has to tell them! Gus is the one who is reassured of his own self-worth, that he’s perfectly valid as is, by the Oracle Orb… while Amity still has doubts over herself, even if Luz IS helping her overcome this. Amity is of a higher-class, nobler status in life, she comes across as more presitigous as a top student and tries a lot…

           But Gus, who definitely DOES participate, is still a lot more talented, and managed to ascend a few grades when Amity couldn’t, and is still happy with learning at school. Gus’ life comes across as less glamorous, he had less friends with just Willow, and then Luz… But those friends ended up a lot closer and more genuine to him than Boscha and her group were to Amity. And in the end, Gus gained even more friends through Eda and King… And while Amity ‘lost’ Boscha and the others, she alsojoined in on the friend group with Gus! So they have each other in a sense, because actual friendships are reciprocal and two-way.

           They both had a passion for an extra-curricular activity that they were in charge of, too; Amity had the Hexside Banshees, Gus had the Human Appreciation Society! And both willingly ousted themselves from membership entirely from said group, despite their legitimate enjoyment of it. Gus and Amity did so because they ‘paid the price’ for hurting someone else… in Amity’s case, this was herself being too critical of herself for accidentally injuring Boscha and Amelia with the Thorn Vault.

          With Gus, he DID accept the consequences of his genuine mistake, and by doing so, allowed Luz to enroll in Hexside! Amity only hurt herself, but Gus ended up helping Luz and his relationship with her and others in the end. Finally, Amity’s departure was wholly her own decision, while Gus was somewhat forced to leave because of Mattholomule’s antics, and Principal Bump’s punishment. Either way, what Amity did was bad for herself, while what Gus did was a moment of maturity and growth!

          It works with how Water and Fire are polar opposites, but they’re also intertwined with one another… Gus is the ideal to Amity’s life. He’s not as extreme in his differentiation as Luz and her colder Ice, so there’s still plenty of similarities… Just as Luz reflects Amity in one way, so does Gus in the other! He’s an Amity who is happy with himself, who has a family lineage he can actually enjoy and be a part of, etc. The more I think of it, the more fascinating it is to me, how similar yet different the two are; Especially since Gus and his motif of Water provided unconditional friendship to Willow, in the wake of Amity and her Fire damaging the girl’s self-esteem.

          And while Amity and Gus have their academic skill and surprising ‘maturity’ acknowledged… Amity’s maturity is superificial, more blind and quiet obedience than anything else, while Gus’ maturity is real and applies to his self-worth. Not to mention, Amity’s ‘maturity’ causes others to not see her as a kid who still needs emotional support and has insecurities, whilst other people recognize Gus as still being young and needing help; But at the same time, they don’t infantilize him! Gus has needs, sure, but he also has a lot to offer. People generally seem more fixated on what they can do for him, VS Amity’s parents asking so much of her.

           Sadly, the interactions between Gus and Amity have been practically zero. I guess I can’t blame Gus, he’s seen how terrible Amity was towards Willow, so he might be reluctant to know her personally… And similarly, Amity is too shy and reserved to extend friendship readily, already has this with Luz, and might be afraid of disappointing Gus, amidst him having witnessed Willow’s abuse longer than Luz did. To Amity, who was likely afraid of losing Luz’s opinion of her when Willow’s memories came into play; She probably assumes that Gus has a bad opinion of her.

           Whether or not he does, I can’t say for sure… But the kid seems too good-natured and open to bear a grudge. At the very least, Amity has improved a lot, and Gus has been busy in other interactions, such as with Eda, King, and regrettably, Hooty. But if they DID interact in Season 2, I’d love to see Gus and Amity take note of the comparisons and dichotomy of their lives… Perhaps Amity becomes envious of Gus, or at least wishes she had what he does, while deciding to look after the kid- She doesn’t want him to become like her!

           Gus realizes that Amity is unfortunate… He better appreciates his relationship with Perry, as if he doesn’t already, and I can see him offering a lot of confidence to Amity! Maybe helping her relax, listen to what she has to say… We never see it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Gus was someone who listened a lot to what Willow had to say in the past, just as Luz does to Willow AND Amity! Gus becoming friends with Amity could help the girl make new connections and solidify them, to both her and Luz’s delight… And Gus is elated to have another audience member to entertain with his illusions, someone who will listen to him!

          Because like King, while he does have issues with feeling unheard… In the end, he makes a point of letting himself be noticed, hence his enjoyment of Illusions, self-confidence, and one-time stint as MC at Grom! Whilst Amity tries NOT to be noticed, at least not in the individual sense- She’ll draw attention to the façade she has the Blight Child, and as a faceless member of the Emperor’s Coven one day… And that’s another dichotomy; The Blights are covenscouts and support Belos’ reign, while Perry Porter works with the news, reporting on some of the less desirable parts of Belos’ rule, and his own role is used by Gus to help lead an uprising against the Emperor; To show the truth to Belos’ cruelty, which is ironic for a kid who specializes in Illusions!

           As the son of a reporter, Gus has likely heard a LOT of gossip… So it’s possible he’ll be a lot more privy than most to Belos’ corruption, in the event that Perry likely does some investigation, or at least a lot of reporting and inevitably gets assigned to a thing or two. Whilst Amity’s parents keep her shielded from the truth of the Emperor’s Coven, or at least try to justify it… But Gus, he could be someone who helps Amity realize how corrupt Belos is, and how a good relationship with a parent that discusses the family name actually looks like! He can help Amity realize the truth- Again, another ironic contrast to his Illusionist talents. Assuming what happened with Luz, Eda, and Lilith isn’t already enough for Amity…

           Obviously Gus doesn’t HAVE to be friends with Amity and vice-versa. I can understand if he wants to avoid her because of what she did to Willow. But I think if the two WERE to interact, there’s some potential… At the very least, there’s a lot of thematic connections, similarities, and differences that are worth noting and appreciating. I’m just imagining Gus seeing Amity as being all down and in the pits, cheering her up with Illusions… And Amity listens to and understands Gus when he has to vent a bit.

           Amusingly, he’s also a self-proclaimed ‘Human expert’! So I can see Amity looking to GUS of all people on guidance on how to woo Luz, and navigate her human culture… And Gus, despite meaning well, just sets up Amity for failure and antics as he teaches her all of the wrong things! Imagine Amity nervously coming up to Luz, dressed in a rain poncho because it’s apparently a ‘display of romantic affection’ while Gus unblinkingly flashes her a thumbs-up from behind a bush! And then that leads to his disappointment as he realizes he screwed up…

           Or, Luz is such a goober who loves Amity that she takes it all in stride and genuinely enjoys it, leading to Gus being triumphant in his knowledge, while telling Amity ‘I told you so!’ Amity can’t BELIEVE she actually listened to him- But it paid off in the end, didn’t it? And hey, maybe she can use her power as a Blight to nab a human artifact for Gus… Or at least show him of Azura, assuming Luz already hasn’t! But given that book series is about witches and not humans themselves, I can see Gus not being too intrigued.

           To Amity, Gus is this weird, unusual little kid with a lot of ideas, surprisingly precocious… But she appreciates his confidence in himself, and how sweet he can be! While Gus sees Amity as Willow’s former friend who REALLY hurt her, but has since improved… And he knows through Luz and Willow that her parents are outright abusive, maybe he’s even had past interactions with Emira and Edric, as members of the same track! Either way, Gus has a lot of natural curiosity that wasn’t quashed or taken advantage of by his father, but actually supported… Maybe he’ll be interested in interviewing Amity, getting to know the REAL Amity Blight, encouraging her to come forth! And Amity is uncertain, maybe flattered… Maybe she humors him and actually DOES open up a little, maybe not.

[hurremshiv]

Poison is Queen: What Made Livia such a Fantastic Villain in I Claudius (1976)

(TW: Mentions of sexual assault and incest)

The miniseries I Claudius (1976) took the historical figure of Livia and her portrayal in Roman histories (by authors such as Tacitus, Suetonius and Cassius Dio) and how Graves adapted that for a novel and then turned her into a charismatic, well written, entertaining and memorable soap opera villainess. She is one of the most memorable characters on the show due to how she is written and acted. Personally, she’s my favourite character on the show, even though I sympathise more with other characters. She was the smartest character on the show and someone who always achieved her goal, she embodies the show’s dark humour, and she straddles the line between a pure evil and a complex evil villain without losing character consistency. Overall, she is a well-rounded and well-written character

One of the most important reasons why she was such a villain was how intelligent and effective she was. The best example of this can be seen in how she killed Augustus in Episode 4 (Poison is Queen). In this the show takes for its inspiration an accusation that Cassius Dio made of Livia. According to this story, Augustus refused to eat any food that anyone else had prepared. Therefore, in order to poison him Livia painted the poison onto the figs on a tree that he would pick himself. Even though though this owes itself to historical sources written decades after the events they describe (and is apocryphal), it is an incredibly creative and clever method of killing someone. In addition to this, she clearly embodies patience and uses time to her advantage in order to get what she was. Not only can this be seen in the Prophetic Chickens speech in episode 1 (which is a brilliant introduction to her strategic insights and political awareness, as she could see how things were eventually going to turn out, gambled and patiently waited in order to see the results of her decisions take their course) how she waits for the right moment to kill people (such as Agrippa and Augustus), but Siân Phillips herself discusses it in her interview in I Claudius: A Television Epic. She may not achieve her goals quickly, but she succeeds in the end. Her strategy is the definition of playing the long game. And using her brilliant foresight and strategic political abilities, she accomplishes what she sets out to extremely well. She played a risky game, but ultimately for better or worse Tiberius did become emperor, the Republic never returned and she was eventually deified by Claudius. And even though there are implications that the corruption that the choices she makes brings risk destroying the empire and will bring about the fall of Rome, ultimately the final word on this is said at the end of the final episode (Old King Log) by the Sibyl to the dying Claudius. She says that there will be many emperors in the future and they “won’t all be a bad lot”. This, and Livia’s argument that keeping the Republic would have doomed Rome contribute to the possible argument that ultimately while what she did was unethical and immoral, in a sense Livia was right at the end of the day. It is certainly unclear whether or not she doomed Rome or saved it. There are obvious pitfalls of this, however. It is important to acknowledge imperialism, monarchy and dictatorship are deeply flawed political systems. Of course, because they are examples of absolute power, corruption and the abuse of power tend to be at their very core. And this also reinforces the misogyny of Graves’ original book because it shifts the blame from Augustus being responsible for the political decisions which he took that allowed him to set himself up as the answer to the crisis of the late Republic and the slow accumulation of more absolute power in the hands of individual strongmen. Although, these problems don’t in my opinion take away from the way in which Livia is set up to have far more political savvy than the men around her, as she is the character who sees the clearest how the winds of history are blowing. This makes her a compelling character because it makes her truly awesome: her methods are terrifying, but her intelligence and her effectiveness are impressive.

In addition to this, she embodies the link which the show makes between its most horrific moments and it’s funniest moments. This is contributed to by the employment of dry humour and dramatic irony in her dialogue. One of my favourite examples of this is when Marcellus telling her that cooking his food for him personally is a good thing for her to do and she replies that “Goodness has nothing to do with it.” This is a good example of how well the show used dramatic irony, especially in respect to Livia. While Marcellus thinks that she is simply doing something kind but smothering for him, both she and the audience understand that there is more to this (i.e. she’s going to poison him in order to free up Julia in order to marry Tiberius). Not only is this simultaneously a shocking moment (since as far as the audience is concerned she has practically admitted what she’s going to do, even though Marcellus is unaware of what she meant), but the fact that this is hidden behind what would otherwise appear to be a kind but empty platitude is both clever and hilarious. This is an important moment because it sets the bar for the dry wit, sarcasm and dramatic irony that often accompany Livia as a character, even in her most horrifying moments. Other examples of this include the “food poisoning” scene between Livia and Musa in the same episode after the death of Marcellus, the “don’t touch the figs” scene, and her brilliantly hilarious speech to the gladiators. Not only does this add to the characterisation of her intelligence, but it also adds to the entertainment quality of her as a character. As villainous and evil as she is, she is also genuinely entertaining and fun to watch, which makes her show version so enjoyable to watch and memorable in comparison with the version of her character in the book (This is a comment that other fans of the series, including Prof. Mary Beard herself, have made and I fully agree with it). By contrast, in the book, there is often very little ambiguity as to what Livia’s schemes and activities are, and there is very little dialogue. This means that one of the things that show!Livia is most memorable for, her one liners, were added in Pulman’s script, and they make for a far better character than book!Livia. Through the dramatic irony, we get a far better sense of her intelligence because the audience has to work out on our own what she has done before it is confirmed (which adds to the perception of her intelligence as we have to think it through for ourselves) and that and her humorous moments make her a far more enjoyable character than her book counterpart. Therefore the dramatic irony and humour that characterise Livia as a character make her a great villain because they make her more memorable than she otherwise could have been.

She goes between being a pure evil villain and a complex villain, although this is never made to feel contradictory as it is completely within her established character. She is perfectly willing to the lengths of murdering Augustus’ heirs and disappearing other people in order to get her way, but when she finds out how bad Tiberius has become and Caligula is, she calls their behaviour “disgusting” and refers to Caligula as a “monster”. Since their villainous actions are so different from what Livia does. She’s OK with herself murdering people in order to get what she wants, but she draws the line at incest, sexual harassment and assault. This also works well because it highlights her self-serving narrative: that she is doing everything for the good of Rome. Which is even emphasised by her outrage at finding out what happened to Lollia. She does not want to admit her role in turning TIberius evil by separating him from Vipsania (forcing him to divorce her and marry Julia, the original Disaster Marriage) and Drusus (by murdering him when he was injured, the one thing she can’t admit to Claudius), his two anchors. In episode 1 when he is speaking to Drusus, Tiberius says that they are the only two people whom he loves and describes his brother as his “lifeline into the light”. Therefore, by murdering Drusus and also forcing Tiberius to divorce Vipsania, Livia has a role in turning him into the evil person he becomes later on, and her outrage could be interpreted as a way to avoid the consequences that her toxic behaviour has had. I am not saying that she is responsible for his actions (that’s all on him), but she is responsible for turning him into the type of person who would do them, and that this is a fact that she conveniently ignores as a part of her self-serving narrative. While in some ways she is willing to revel  in evil, there are things that she cannot bring herself to admit to. So she both has the motivations of a complex villain and the entertainment value of a pure evil villain, and this works flawlessly.

What makes Livia such a great villain is that she is such a well-rounded and intelligent character.This can be seen in the characterisation of her intelligence, the humour that accompanies her and the way in which her depth as a character does not diminish her evil. She is a more interesting, entertaining and enjoyable character than her counterpart in Graves’ original book at least in part due to these reasons.

[prompt-master]

Would you be willing to share how you might rewrite Yukizome, Sakakura, and Munakata to make them likable characters (if not ppl Bc there’s a big difference)???

ahhhhhhh this ask got me so stupidly excited that I was like wavin my hands around. I think about how to rewrite their characters OFTEN. very often. I’m gonna go with likeable character over likeable people because I think they work better where they’re actually not that likeable people. 

The one I think about the MOST is Munakata. He was SUCH wasted potential and I partially blame the medium for that (a single season anime is too constrained for future, it needed more time and care to be a proper story). But Munakata is actually so close to being a compelling character but they made some MAJOR mistakes with him. This ended up getting really long and more like a 3 page ADHD ramble essay. SO IM VERY SORRY to anyone who cannot read this but TYTYTY if you did because these ideas make me very happy! Oh it’s only about Munakata btw because of how long it got

The thing about Munakata is that he is designed to be a foil to Naegi. In fact a majority of dr3 future FOCUSES on this foil dynamic. It is Naegi’s hope vs Munakata’s hope. The World’s hope vs The FF’s hope. And more importantly it is True Hope vs Corrupted Hope.

This is a fantastic concept...so why didn’t it work in canon? I think that the biggest most glaring issue with Munakata’s hope is his logic. Munakata is meant to be a logical man, although with corrupted morals that lead him astray. Yet in canon his logic is laughably infallible. For example as a major figure in the FF and someone who wants to spread hope....why would he tell Naegi to kill himself? More importantly why does he continue to try and slaughter Naegi? The issue here isn’t from the fact that he wants him dead but from the fact that he is under the IMPRESSION that this entire game is being broadcast to the world.

Think about this for a second. In Munakata’s eyes he is going to kill the Ultimate Hope, an international symbol of a better life, live on TV. He doesn’t just want to kill the Ultimate Hope..he wants to do it BRUTALLY as a MAJOR FIGURE OF THE FF. IMO this should have happened later on as the game furthers the emotional turmoil in Munakata’s head and he eventually snaps and gives in to the desire to kill Naegi despite the fact that this is live. And then there should be CONSEQUENCES for that. I wanted so badly a realization where Munakata realizes that he is hurting the Ultimate Hope in front of what he believes is the entire world. 

Another issue with Munakata’s logic is saying things such as...implying that the HPA KG was...just a game. I mean...people DIED. it's not hard to see how wrong that logic is. you can't say “this is the real world now” when what Naegi experienced WAS the real world. I think that this could be fixed through a bit of world building. DR3 Future is rather isolated from its world. We don’t really know much about the world and its dynamics. I think it would make perfect sense if the general public viewed the HPA KG as a tv show, they got numb to the sight and even those untouched by despair had a hard time connecting that these are REAL people suffering. With this previously established Munakata expressing that the KG was not real would make a lot more sense and play into his corrupted idea of hope. 

There is also Munakata’s connection to his other friends. Now I’ve talked about this before but the game was clearly designed to BREAK Munakata and Naegi. This way the FF would die, both the FF and World’s hope would be broken, and upon seeing this Mitarai would have no choice but to deploy his own forced hope. So it makes perfect sense that Yukizome’s death would break him (in fact if she hadn’t died in that way, her NG code was designed to be Munakata’s fault). But something about it felt...superficial. Again I think this is the mediums fault but it almost feels as though Munakata just forgets about Yukizome until later. I think they should spend more time establishing his pain and what he has lost and why this pushes him to kill. In his eyes if she can die then nothing else matters. It should be THE breaking point, not the first push. I do like the betrayal he feels towards realizing she had despair but it needed more time to fester. 

And his relationship with Sakakura also felt weak. In all honesty it was hard for me to feel as though they were ever friends. Sakakura is written as though he just follows Munakata like a loyal dog and Munakata just orders him around. Establish their relationship more! Why are they such good friends? Why is Sakakura important to him? And more importantly why did Munakata decide to cruelly gut Sakakura knowing he was about to confess? This is because he believed that Sakaura was despair and that his confession was more manipulation, but they didn’t show this well at ALL. Munakata just comes across as a major a-sshole who does not care. I also personally found it distasteful that when changing his heart Munakata only seemed to cry for Yukizome. I understand that was his love interest but Yukizome at the end of the day killed herself. Sakakura however was an unnecessary betrayal he took into his own hands AS HE HIMSELF KILLED HIM. He should have more guilt over that! Not just in that moment where he runs to Sakakura, but ahead of time as well! Maybe even DURING his rampage they could have shown him having moments of guilt but he is so absorbed in the idea that all despairs have to die that he doesn’t even realize he has become despair in the name of hope.

A BIG weakness on Munakata’s part comes with interacting with other characters. He is a man who should know how to take charge, lead, and doesn't know what to do when things are getting too crazy even though he THINKS he does. Munakata is heavily flawed, OBVIOUSLY flawed, but many of the interactions with him are as tho his rampage isnt a big deal. There should be reasons for this! Why do people trust Munakatas guidance so much? I dont know! All ive seen from him is that hes insane! Maybe even pieces where around others hes a lot nicer so you can understand why they follow him, even though hes ready to gut Naegi alive with a flaming katana. His interactions with others feel like the writers just wanted to see the next big evil thing they could think of, but for Munakata’s character this doesn't make sense because he was appointed a high status in the foundation for a reason. Maybe even have people say they disagree with some of his methods but at the end of the day he gets the job done!

There is another major missed opportunity here and it's why Muanakata wants Naegi dead so badly in the first place. The remnants. Hiding terrorists in the apocalypse is a PERFECTLY valid reason to want someone dead and think they're a bad guy! But I think since Naegis initial arrest was already so hostile and violent we get the sense that the FF is simply just...crazy. 

And let’s think about what Munakata WANTS from Naegi. He does not just want Naegi dead he wants something worse. He wants Naegi to suffer first. He thinks that Naegi doesnt understand his own personal pain. He thinks that because Naegi protected the remnants he must also not care about the suffering the remnants caused. He wants Naegi to feel despair and then die. This is important to his corrupted hope. He thinks the suffering must be shared in order to understand who must die, but he is creating a cycle of pain. Tie this back to the broadcasting issue. He wants Naegi to break for everyone to see. I think..and this is just a concept..I think it would have been a great idea for Munkata to force Naegi to watch the despair video so that he has no choice but to understand. 

AND themes are majorly important to Danganronpa. And I don’t think its a stretch to say that there are parallels between Munakata and Naegi. In fact I would say that there are aspects of the og trio in this new trio. I think it would have been really cool if they showed how our favorite trio could have ended up if they had been corrupted as well. But the parrellels dont stick strongly. I think it would have been cool to show a past where Munakata’s idealism lies more strongly than Naegis. As the student council president there was a time where he himself had to use his words to solve problems. Perhaps he learned that sometimes his words made things worse. Munakata does not have Naegi’s talent of emotional intelligence. He is a man of action over words. So he interprets this as WORDS being the problem rather than understanding he does not have these skills. Especially when the apocalypse breaks out, it becomes all action over words. So he sees Naegi who is all talk as a genuine threat who will let everyone die through his “weak ineffective” idea of hope. 

Another parallel could be drawn from the fact that they both have hope based careers. Their job is too keep things hopeful. Maybe Naegi stays safe doing public broadcasted speeches, while Munakata is on the field weeding out despairs. This would cause Munakata to feel as though Naegi is doing no real work yet getting all the credit for being a savior.

Munakata constantly complains that Naegi does not know true pain. But he and we as an audience have followed Naegi through his entire process of trauma. We know he is in the wrong. But what do we as an audience know about Munakata’s suffering? We are shown almost nothing! There are some implications, but for how intense he is implications are not enough. We need to see his suffering. We should see how he has witnessed death. Yukizomes death is not nearly enough for this because he talks as though he has suffered for years. How can we as an audience understand that when we have never seen it? How can we understand Munakata when he is outright denying Naegi’s trauma that we KNOW existed with no proper justification for his reasoning?

I also believe that Munakata should have died. It actually upsets me a bit that he was PLANNED to die but didn't. He should have died protecting Naegi after all that suffering and relentless brutality he offered him. Munakata again is a man of action over word, and protecting Naegi with his last breath is the perfect way to show how in the end he changed. Especially when all he wanted initially was for Naegi to die. I find that much more satisfying than just…...walking off to who knows where.

So lets recap some changes. Munakata needs a proper display of his past traumas and his relationship with Sakakura and Yukizome. Munakata needs a proper display of his work relationships and the respect he has earned. Munakata needs to fall into corruption at a better pace, and have geniune reasons for his illogical attacks on Naegi. Munakata needs to care more for his friends. Munakata needs to deal with the turmoil of wanting to hurt Naegi while he believes the world is watching. Munakata needs to die for Naegi

This has gotten long...and I still have things to say. There is so much to make Munakata a good character. Future had a lot of potential and is amazing for a rewrite concept. As for Sakakura and Yukizome since this has gotten long feel free to ask for another round of this individually when asks are open again! If you read all of this somehow….TYSM

[sugoikawaiimiyafuji420]

My Life Can’t Be This Boring! (My Mahjong Tournaments Retrospective)

The Wheel of Fate Is Turning.

Riichi mahjong is a strange game. At its core, it is traditionally a gambling game where players’ necks are at the mercy of Lady Luck’s guillotine. One decision, a doorway brimming with light and hope, could house a grim reaper behind it, waiting to behead you. Obviously, it would sound foolish to compete in such a game where a stroke of misfortune can sway your tournament results, right? Well, jokes on you! I was born a fool, nya!

In these past months, probably nearing two years by now, I have had the chance to participate in multiple online mahjong tournaments. Not that I was bored or anything, but really I was bored and felt like taking a stroll into a psychedelic inner chamber of insanity. And while I may not have had any success in any of the tournaments except for one, going through a mental Hell back and forth was a worthwhile journey, as disbelieving as that may sound. To fight through the unknown, taking on risks, gathering courage while all the same seeing it shattered immediately. In a chaotic, frenzy environment, a slight misstep in decision could lead to a disastrous fall, the end of a tournament life. 

To combat, players equip themselves with knowledge and information accumulated from experience and study materials, allowing them to more accurately read their opponents hands and possibly deduce what they hold. The problem is that with the impact of luck, deduction skills are not foolproof. It is near impossible for players to have a correct assessment at all times, as such skill is resemblant of an upper deity’s. Multiple variations of patterns can occur in a single situation, and using process-of-elimination to narrow down to a specific shape is not viable in nearly all scenarios. As a result, players take every possibility into consideration and assign a risk percentage to each one, leaving the ultimate choice to be a gamble if they want to pursue victory.

With the risk management mindset and the random element established, a single mahjong game is not enough to determine who is the better player. Sure, it may be enough to see the difference between an incredibly bad player and a good player, but it’s not enough between two players with close skill gaps. Only in the long term, as more samples and statistics are recorded, the difference in capability becomes more apparent. With that said, what’s the point of tournaments, an environment where a single game of randomness can decide your tournament life? Why go through such an ordeal only to be unluckily busted out by newbies and pros all alike? I probably have a better time with my tummy out, snacking on ranch doritos while watching Joshiraku and not getting any of the cultural jokes again.

Competitions can turn a man upside down, twirl him around, and put him back upright. A man of pride can enter a competition and leave with the lowest self-esteem. Thoughts of doubt, thoughts of hatred, intermingling with thoughts of confidence and thoughts of goodness in a short span of time. Repulsive elements chaotically intertwine in a downward spiral through a game of randomness, conjuring an experience of pointless meaning but simultaneously a newfound perspective of what it means to fight. 

As one passes through the nauseating wave of emotions and competitive turmoil, stumbling and tumbling, the ocean of misfortune plunges them into the deepest depths of despair. And then at some point, at some space and time, what was left of an emotional resistance becomes a reprieve of the soul. The still body, battered and scarred, floats back to the surface and reaches the shores of enlightenment. 

A state of no expectations, 無心 (mushin), a state of no mind.

A concept in Zen philosophy, mushin is a mindset where one does not expect anything, great or less. What happens, happens, and one reacts accordingly in a simple manner, with no fear and no euphoria behind their actions. Prior, in the whirlwind of emotions, focusing on a grander goal, emphasizing victory, fearing defeat, the dopamine shots of riichi and the dread of dealing in. Packs and layers of such thoughts could obstruct decision-making and lead one astray from the golden path. Reading defense theory, paying attention to the discarded tiles, and calculating probabilities may put one into a state of comfort and control. But that amount of knowledge they put forth does not prevent illogicalness. The tower crafted from collecting information can be easily toppled by a pebble of whimsicality, creating a double-edge sword that challenges one’s beliefs in their learning and casts them back into the fear of the unknown. Thoughts of self-doubt and uneasiness reverberate through the corners of the mind, otherwise known as ‘tilted’. But at the end of the day, all the worries and frustration belong to a natural cycle that one must accept. Being slighted and rejected, experiencing mental pain, expressing sadness is all part of living. Getting hurt is part of the risk and acknowledging that is part of the maturity. Putting forth energy into the extraneous, echoing thoughts hides the core question of what one should be facing at the mahjong table: “Which tile do you discard?”.

Carrying no expectations, be void of outside noises and focus on the task in front of you. The simplicity of it all is in reality, hard to practice since there is a sense of hypocrisy. Mushin is a state of no mind, but that does not mean the absence of critical thinking. Intelligence is not mutually exclusive from mushin. Rather, what mushin means is to free oneself from unnecessary, cumbersome thoughts, to have a quick wit. A punch is thrown and a person dodges. He doesn't think about what happens when he dodges, how to dodge, the advantages of dodging, the fear of failing to dodge, and all those big and however small miscellaneous assortments of dodging thoughts in the heat of battle. He simply dodges with no hesitation.

It lies here where a form of self-confidence starts to sprout. Not being tied down by extravagant thoughts, an appreciation for the simple and mundane act of doing and not doing. Even if a failure occurs, or when things don’t go in a favorable way, to decisively make a choice and accepting all possibilities of the outcome leads to a renewed faith in oneself. The willingness to accept the truth of their existence and dying in comfort knowingly. In mahjong, one can calculate the Bayesian probabilities or make a chart to weigh the benefits and consequences of each choice, but at the end, it is simply whether they want to take the risk and discard that tile. And once one full-heartedly embraces everything about their decision with no hesitation: the worst case scenario, the best case scenario, and everything in-between, their action is an honest and confident representation of their true self.

And there is something unique and transcending when people in earnest are in battle for glory. An experience that is difficult to translate to words, and can seem contradictory. Like two climbers clinging desperately towards the peak of the mountain within the harsh, unpredictable wind of fortune blowing in folly. In those instances of times, the brief silent moments of the cruelty of battle, spark a connectivity between humans. A passage of relatability and a source of warmth in the blizzard. The duality of understanding each other and the acceptance of the death of another, no words spoken in-between. A high-stakes, ephemeral stage: the proof of exchange of one’s life’s emotions and hardwork.

As the conclusion nears, as one eventually falls from the mountain peak, they stare back in wonderment if they were honest in their struggles. Their efforts fading like sand in the wind only to be caught by the love of the sport and rebuilt again.

In turn, the wheel of the competitive cycle continues to spin, the experiences and exchanges among different people help build a steel foundation of perseverance and respect amidst the unexplained insanity of luck and flow. Shifting fortune can strip a person bare whilst making a person wealthy, underlining adaptation and calmness as landscapes morph haphazardly through the flow of time. And while sceneries change into unrecognizable crossroads, walked by new, ever-changing people on their own mental journeys amidst the formidable chaos, the familiar lingerings of the bond that was once felt among the glory mountaintops still remain.

The Wheel of Fate Keeps Turning.