#& i like how it could be a hint at his inferiority complex. he keeps comparing himself to tsukasa and it just feeds his depression further

[osomatsusanki]

My project sekai OC, Tenma Riku:

Tsukasa's twin brother who was born second. He turned inwards when Saki got hospitalized and fights depression.

social recluse who barely ever leaves his room

has a hard time expressing himself through words

has an inferiority complex because of Tsukasa's achievements. he feels like he's nothing compared to his brother who can do anything

they're on good terms, but Riku secretly has a lot of pent up anger because of this

he feels like Saki loves Tsukasa more than him because his brother has a more direct way of showing his love while Riku doesn't know how to communicate his feelings

he gave up on playing the piano. he was never very good at it and didn't have it in him to keep trying

he's a fan of Nightcord at 25:00

attends evening classes with Ena

outside of school, he only wears black

his voice is soft and timid. he has a mild stutter

wants to join the school chorus but he's scared of singing in front of people

loves cats

has a pet spider that Tsukasa hates

gamer

started talking to Nene through an online game years ago and they're friends who play together a lot

he's also friends with Touya. Riku does library duty with him at school sometimes

he's good with computers and asked Rui if he'd help him improve his coding skills. Rui is really kind to him and treats him completely different from Tsukasa. also he loves the spider

Riku feels comfortable with Rui. he always looks forward to spending time with him again

he has a torrented version of the vocaloid software and writes his own songs using Rin and Len

most of them are sad and some of them are angry

left handed

hates crowds

lives in constant fear of people mistaking him for Tsukasa and approaching him while he's out

the only time he was glad that it happened was when he stopped to listen to Kohane's street performance on the way home from therapy. they talked a little afterwards and he explained that they're twins

he might have a crush on her

one time Saki lost a toy she really liked, and he used all his money to buy her a new one, then gave it to her as if he found it. a long time later, Saki found the actual toy she lost and felt really moved

she actually loves both her brothers the same, even if Riku doesn't feel that way

The forest sekai:

Riku wishes he could go outside more, but he hates the presence of other people. He also loves singing, but only has the courage to do so when he's home alone. These feelings manifest as a sekai where he can sing to his heart's content in a beautiful forest.

In the middle, there's a big clearing where the sun always shines and a set of two swings. A path through the forest leads to the shore with a lighthouse. Sometimes they host tea parties with Miku, Rin, and Len. The wild animals inhabiting the sekai often come around as well.

The other three virtual singers appear as cats who like to meow or mrow along to the melody. Riku loves them a lot, sometimes they play or nap together in the sun. Kaito is a big softie, Luka is really fluffy but sort of a tsundere, and Meiko loves playing, especially with the toys Riku brings them himself.

There's a koi pond, and a lot of room to build sandcastles by the lighthouse. They stay in the same state forever unless the person who made it destroys the castle themselves.

#if you think that he's holding the tsukasa pillow bc i didn't want to put in the effort... well you're not wrong lmao #but also i like to think that their parents offered him his own pillow too he just didn't want it #& i like how it could be a hint at his inferiority complex. he keeps comparing himself to tsukasa and it just feeds his depression further #so he has a complicated relationship with him even if riku is always kind and supportive of tsukasa on the surface #and tsukasa loves him and tries to help. but he has no idea how often riku cries himself to sleep alone in his room #i imagine his voice sounds like nanase riku's from i7 (that's unrelated to his name though) #i didn't include self indulgent parts but. there's a reason why there's two swings next to each other in the forest sekai. and it's me dsgf #anyway feel free to ignore that. but we like to sing there together or just swing or just sit and hold hands.. #i didn't include it in the main text either but the sekai song is toaru ikka no tea party by kururingo. it's one of my faves #thanks for reading #i love riku so much #kinda want to write about him #prsk #prsk oc #oc #project sekai #tenma riku

[honeyfizzly]

A bit of a Sue Miley theory, beware of spoilers

Sue miley is a bit weird compared to the rest of the floor masters. Sue miley is the sole floormaster of her floor with no other dolls, her and Tia Safalin are humans, there's a PERSON inside her room (the one with the ivs attached and such), Sue Miley gave Sara the survival papers, and also Sue miley's personality feels flat compared to other floormasters.

The other floormasters (besides Meister because we don't know much about him yet) all have unique characters:

Tia Safalin is a meek women who seems to be secretly kindhearted or at least have some goodness in her , but makes it clear that she is not our ally.

Rio Ranger is a doll who had all of his positive emotions removed and have a inferiority complex about humans, being extremely jealous about people.

Gashu is an example of the extreme loyalty that asunaru employees have. Despite seeming like a cold and logical man, he threw his life way with a smile just for the main game to keep going

Midori is a sadistic madman who believes he's always in control, and throws a tantrum when things don't go his way (like him holding a ridiculous grudge against Alice who didn't even kill him, and his last moments where he begs for life). Midori is also very manipulative as well, managing to convince all the candidates to sign the paper.

Meanwhile Sue miley is a sadistic evil lady and that's kinda it.

So I'm thinking that Sue miley (and probably safalin too but this isn't about her) will become important in 3-2.

More specifically, I think Sue miley is a traitor.

Way back in chapter 2-1, Keiji mentions that Kai might have been working with another traitor and then laughs and says it would be interesting if Sue miley was apart of all this.

This could be hinting at the fact that Sue miley could very much be a traitor but I have more evidence for this theory.

Sue Miley has given Sara internal documents that were essential to figuring out Gashu's transgression and actively got angry at Gashu for messing with the rules to get Nao killed off (even though she should've gone with it because it was killing off a non candidate).

Sue miley is also very absent in her floor, only showing up in her pink room and then the main game. It's a small detail but it might be important.

She also might have a plausible grudge against Asunaru, as it's mentioned that they drove her lover to madness.

Also during the scene where Keiji and Sara almost encounter Miley and another person, Miley is actively disregars the stolen key and once the person tells her to be more quiet because someone might hear her, Sue miley just responds "then things would get quite fun I suppose".

This is odd because Sue miley does know there's at least one participant on this floor when they shouldn't be and she just told the person how to deactivate the security.

My idea on how this all connects to the story is

Kai and Sue Miley are working together (both have connections to asunaru) and when Kai was alone in the kitchen with Mishima's head, he brought it up the tunnel to the third floor in which Sue miley got the head (the purpose of getting the head was probably for the collar and figuring out how to deactive them, this would explain why Sue miley was so absent in floor one too)

Kai when he killed himself either A. Did actually die or B. Only passed out and now he's the person with IVs in Sue miley's room. Sue miley and Kai could've planned this out of Kai faking his death so asunaru would think that he's out of the game when actually he's still alive.

(Of course there's always different options on who could've been on the bed, another theory is that the person on the bed is Sue miley's lover who was driven mad).

Sur miley gives the papers to Sara to help her out in the main game and also interrupts Gashu's video to confirm there was a transgression and both of these clues were essential to the main game.

I think Sue miley will probably come back in 3-2 and we'll get more character of her, especially since we saw the floor 3 floormasters in 3b (Gashu mentioned in the scene on the computers and seeing human safalin and miley, Safalin in the AI-ceiver area, and Rio ranger being apart of Maple-2)

Yeah sorry if this is messy I kinda wrote this in a rush lol, just wanted to get my general thoughts out

#yttd spoilers #your turn to die #kimi ga shine #3b spoilers #yttd theory

[life-rewritten]

Fish Upon the Sky Episode 1-7 (The Problems with Walls; An analysis on Duen and Pi)

I swear, if I could just settle down, stop running away and actually analyse FUTS the way I usually do. I would have so many essays by now on how authentic and deep this show can get with some of its characterisations. As I  write this FUTS essay that has constantly been plaguing me and making me frustrated that no one else is seeing these themes, I realise again sadly how this director has sadly failed to show the vision of what he wanted for the series.  An essay on how DuenMeen and MorkPi mirror each other so much with their themes, it sounds crazy to think that they do because their storylines on the surface seem different at times. Still, also their love interests act differently towards them, and they have different dynamics with them. But that's what's so great about meta and mirroring in TV, especially in shows that aren't meant to be seen as deep or purposely filled with hints and clues to break down. Fish upon the Sky is one of those shows. It struggles to find a balance between wanting to be more profound and showing exciting themes vs pleasing and appealing to the audience, using humour and other exaggerated performances/narratives to do so. However, the writer of Fish upon the sky novel has always had her works struggle with these issues and themes. Jittirain always writes emotional stories about unrequited love, with different lessons, ideas, or characterisations that people fail to understand or truly value because the meta/depth of their personalities is hidden or misunderstood by their own directors. This is what happened in  2gether; this is what also happened in Theory of Love.

A Misunderstood Duo

In order to really understand how grand the narrative the show is failing to truly flesh out is, you need to understand that Pi and Duen (the two main characters of the show) are the narrators of both their own stories. Pi's is Fish upon the sky whilst Duen is Leech upon the sky (😂😂) but what's great is that you can already see the mirroring/similarities just by their titles. Even though their insecurities and worries seem different, it's the same theme for them;  both struggle with love because they secretly have a lot of self-deprecation and hesitancy from how people have treated them. It's not as noticeable when you see Duen's characterisation/storyline, but if you truly focus on the themes of his narrative without being distracted by the loud comedic routine he has, you'd see that his biggest insecurity, that he tries to be defensive and act like he doesn't care about is his dumbness. He genuinely feels weaker/inferior because he's known as being dumb to everyone around him. He struggles to process anything that is complex and requires more depth or thought.  It's played for laughs because he relishes in the idea that people feel exasperated by his actions. He acts like he doesn't get bothered by how people perceive him because he's still seen as socially acceptable, unlike Pi, who's actually bullied and alienated from society because of his own 'flaws'.

But you can see that it's all a façade when it comes to Duen, just like with how Pi handles his own insecurities and trauma to do with his perceived flaws. It's why Duen chooses to lie to Meen that he's a dentist. He didn't want him to see him the same way others do. This already should show that he doesn't actually enjoy being seen as dumb, but he has walls up to make it seem like he doesn't care. He knows he's constantly being compared to others, but he can't change who he is (just like Pi didn't also want to change how he looked or acted to please people at first). So he jokes and tries to see a positive in being that way; he starts to want to slack off and cheat off others when it comes to work. He stops taking University seriously and repeats classes constantly because he always fails. That is until Meen shows up, and then he starts to want Meen to believe he's something more. Why?

But in case I haven't repeated it enough, Duen is like Pi, whose insecurity is easier to see since we watched him get attacked and bullied for it immediately in the first episode. It's Pi's true thoughts and opinions we see in the show as the audience, whilst Duen's story is hidden with comic relief and unseriousness. They both try to act like they're okay with what they are being judged by in society. Thus, they act confident, they're both loud, they're selfish, acting like they don't care how people see them. Preventing others from getting to hurt them by making it look like they are in control of what they have and use that to their own advantage with others.

They both stay heavily in denial about their true feelings in general, but primarily with the critical focus; the people who make them question everything about their flaws that come into their life and frighten them the most. The ones that break down those facades; make them automatically want to run away whilst being unable to stop showing and escaping their true feelings whenever they're in their presence.

The Use of Humour and Sarcasm 

So what we end up with is a narrative with two incredibly annoying and flawed characters who are seen in the audience as exaggerated caricatures for comic relief and shallow storytelling. And it's brilliant because both their unlikable/loud, selfish personalities are just fake walls built, so they don't crumble and get affected by how society views them or wants them to act. So you see, there's the issue that people keep misunderstanding about these two stories, especially about these two brothers. They're realistic; they're flawed because they've been affected by society and the environment around them. They're acting like how anyone who's been hurt before would act, they have built up walls, and they've decided to just stay by themselves and let that guide them in everything. They deal with their issues with sarcasm and humour to reduce the seriousness of the situation, so they don't appear weak or let anything hurt them.  

That's why I love this narrative of FUTS, it's meta and more profound than people think, but because the director doesn't do the best to show it, it can get lost in all the exaggerated humour. For example, with Pi, because he's socially anxious and always overthinks how people think of him (due to his past experiences of being abused and hurt by being ignorant of how people thought of him), his world is wildly exaggerated in his head. The way he narrates the story is played for laughs and is a very telling and realistic representation of how overthinking is expressed in his mind; it's overdone, loud and nonsensical at times. That's what social anxiety does; it makes you cry about one stare, one laugh, one action someone does, it makes you panic over the most minor things, and Pi does that with panic and boisterous, sarcastic humour from the start of the show.

Hence his story also has exaggerated humour because he deals with his issues with that fake jokes and sarcasm. So the show also exaggerated humour too when we are in his perspective.  This is actually similar to Duen's breaking the 4th wall narrative style of his storyline. As with Duen, whose narrator of his story mocks and laughs at his actions ironically. When really that is just literally himself fighting with his inner voice about his true feelings about Meen. He breaks the 4th wall because he's internalising his own emotions and dealing with them as a skit; the narrator is his true self ridiculing him for not accepting that he has feelings for Meen and that he's not as bright/cool as he thinks he is. So if we understand this and notice that the narrator makes fun of him constantly and jokes about his actions, you'll realise that Duen sees himself that way too; he sees himself as a joke. He doesn't see himself as suave and carefree; he actually mocks himself internally for being dumb and being gross.

Pi: The Need for Protection and Avoidance 

So already, just from breaking it down with this point of view, Duen and Pi mirror each other so well, and their narratives because of this focus on the same themes and ideas of self-discovery. Both are flawed characters with a lot of vulnerabilities and pain that they refuse to deal with properly. An id ego defence mechanism catalysed because of their past experiences and protection of their mental space. They both stay in denial, hurting who they love by refusing to let them get to see them without the walls down and more. Pi hates that he loses control with Mork and refuses to let Mork have his heart because he believes Mork is too good for someone like him secretly.  He knows he'll be the one damaged. Hence the choice to intentionally misinterpret his brother's metaphor on the vaccine analogy and view it as the complication with getting with Mork. Let me try and use this to break down his mindset with why he chose to still choose Nan even though he knows (he does know) that he wants to be with Mork romantically. Listen to the analogy his brother uses. He mentions the iatrogenic vaccine, a vaccine intended for a patient that starts helping the patient be well but actually causes more harm than good. The end result is because of the incompatibility of the vaccine and the time it takes for those results to show up in the patient and make their lives affected in a negative conclusion.

 A vaccine ironically is meant to be an antidote, something that saves people, that helps and makes them feel better. And that's what Mork says he wants to be for Pi, it's romantic, but once his brother announces a different version of a vaccine, Pi jumps with that analogy and believes that's the truth about Mork and him that makes sense to him, than seeing it positively. So with this analogy, we can break it down this way:

The Iatrogenic vaccine was too different and incompatible with the patient. Which is what Pi believes about Mork. Remember, Pi doesn't think  (because of what people have told him) that he deserves loyalty and love from people better looking/capable than him. He sees Mork in this light from the start; he views Mork as a rival because Mork is good looking, popular, strong and cool, basically things that are not associated with Pi to others.  So Mork and him are incompatible in Pi's mind.  This is why Pi constantly asks Mork why he wants to be close to him. He just doesn't understand it.  

Second, the Iatrogenic vaccine starts off good but causes damages in an irreparable way to the patient. It's the patient that ends up being affected by this vaccine interaction, not the vaccine that caused it. Before Wan starts this vaccine conversation, he discusses how people around his hospital are patients primarily because of heartbreak; they come in with damaged mindsets, broken hearts and self-harming injuries because of being hurt by love and letting themselves be vulnerable to that. All Pi hears is people hurt themselves over the pain of heartbreak and being abandoned. That's the complication if he does finally trust Mork. Especially after Mork and him get to be close, it'd be just like with everyone who has gotten to know him in the past, who stayed by his side as 'friends', once they learnt about him, what they said is that he wasn't worth being loyal to. So many people used and deserted him, and it almost broke him. This is why Pi grow the walls he has now. Even though Pi is chasing after Nan, he's not expecting an answer from Nan that's positive; Nan is a fantasy, something he can use as a goal to want to keep chasing and distracting himself from that singleness and loneliness he felt at the start of the show. This is why he's doing all of this; he just wants a distraction from the mess of his life. But to Pi, Mork? Mork is real. He's serious; he's someone who Pi actually truly will be damaged by if he's hurt and left by him; he's someone who Pi truly loves and is real to Pi, it's terrifying, and so he rather just avoid that because of the risk of a complication. To be that patient tricked by the vaccine and left to deal with those consequences all alone? Yeh, no, he can't do that.  Pi sees him as a friend and doesn��t want to end that because that's the first thing in a while that has made him feel actually happy being himself and accepted. Being friends with Mork makes him feel safe. So again, it's selfish, but it’s all about him preserving what he already has with Mork rather than damaging it.

Those complications are exactly that result if he lets Mork in romantically and Mork sees his true self and leaves like everyone; it’s not Mork who’d be hurt. It’s Pi who’d have nothing more to believe in if he lets himself be that vulnerable. Again Pi is thinking with his head when it comes to Mork; there’s a massive risk if someone takes the wrong vaccine, that person is damaged because of it. Pis journey with Mork is the same thought process that friends to lovers have. The fear of losing each other if they cross that line, of taking things too far and ruining the foundation they had that made them safe. The fear of the love being false as it always has been from others.  Pi thinks he likes Mork because how can he not? However, Mork is always there, making it hard for him to think. He associates Mork with niceness and protectiveness, but that doesn’t mean he has to accept him romantically, and Mork sees right through him and is fond of breaking down those walls he put so high up to ensure he doesn't get hurt again. Mork is the one pushing Pi further away from him the more he clings because Pi doesn’t like losing control. Same as Duen. And Mork doesn’t let him just figure it out without manipulating everything; the more he does that, the more Pi feels manipulated and tricked into wanting Mork as a partner, and that's too scary for Pi. This is why it’ll be massive when he finds out who Mork truly is on his phone as the guy from nearby faculty.

Duen: The Need for Nonchalance and Ignorance

Duen is the inversion with his storyline; he tries to look cool and better to Meen,  refusing Meen to see him when he's worried, anxious or insecure because he himself shuts off those emotions whenever Meen triggers them. He doesn't want to face the truth, that he hates being seen as dumb and not being seen as a hero to Meen. He lies to Meen because he's trying to keep him by his side without actually letting him see his true self. After all, if he does, he also may judge or leave him too (guess what same as Pi's worries with Mork. Mirroring!).  Duen tries to act unaffected just like Pi does with Mork because again, they both know once they break down and give in, there's no turning back, they will be exposed, and the' truth' about them (which they believe and see about themselves) will push the people they truly want by their sides away.

So instead, they grapple for control by faking lack of care and feelings for their partner; they refuse to apologise quickly and refuse to give in easily to them to further their relationships, increase their trust and let them in. They refuse to let go of their fake personas and fake masks and walls they've built and try hard to hold onto the facade, which hurts Meen and Mork in the end. They both push and pull and show signs of vulnerability and romance only when they're alone with no one else around (like the tent scene with MeenDuen and the after school night scene with MorkPi outside). They show worry, devotion, and they show that they want them by their side. And these are the moments when we actually get to truly see who they are without their walls, their fake personas unshed, and their niceness, their care and protectiveness over them exposed.

Wan: The Comparison and Norm

When we're first introduced to the show, Wan is mentioned almost immediately as we see Pi's struggles. Because of Wan's reputation, people choose to crowd around Pi, and it's sad, but I also think Duen also had this same issue, just a bit different. With Pi, it's about his outer appearance, his beauty standards vs society's. It's exposed to him he lacks those, but it's his intelligence similar to Wan that makes people stay by his side at first.  He also studies dentistry as Wan studied Medicine, viewed by societal standards as impressive and praiseworthy. Pi is used by people who want to both get to Wan and want to profit from his brain and abilities. Duen is the inverted version of this; he is seen as handsome and cool and aloof, a bit messy, but the reason why Meen first leaches onto him is his street smarts and survival skills with social interactions, he knows the right people, he is seen as cool by others including Pi, but he's also seen as dumb. He's failed repeatedly, unlike his brothers at trying to obtain a degree.  So he has the outer appearance but lacks the next valuable thing in society's opinion; brains and the ability to increase your status by your talents and skills. Duen lacks that; he doesn't have any specific things about himself that he can fully be proud of. He's not highly talented, he's not intelligent, and he's also not viewed by women as extremely attractive or awe-worthy. He nonchalantly takes on this persona; he chooses to block any worries about things being serious because he lacks the smarts to think of things deeply or ponder about life's questions.

He's insecure, however, about this, and you see it when he tries to join in with Wan and Pi when they discuss vaccines and love. As Pi transforms for Nan, his lie is that he's well of without other people in his life like Mork; he pretends he's okay being seen as loud, not friendly, selfish etc.  Duen's own lie to Meen is that he is a version of Wan, of what people think Wan is; intelligent, put together and reliable. Because what Duen wants from Meen all the time (he doesn't realise he already has this devotion from Meen for just being himself when he's not trying) is for Meen to want to rely on him since that's precisely what Meen keeps telling him he likes about him, or wants to learn from him; street smarts etc. Duen likes being seen as a protector, a hero, a helper etc., to Meen. And that's why he stays adamant with his lie and refuses to let Meen truly see him below the surface.

Like Pi, he also doesn't want to admit what he knows and has fought to accept, which is, he loves Meen and wants him by his side. It's the fear of losing what he has with Meen that makes him do what he does, which is the same reason Pi also keeps rejecting Mork; it's the fear of losing him. And that's the ironic thing about Pi and Duen, they're ironically trying to preserve what they love, but because of scars, insecurities and walls, they're hurting the ones they love by just refusing to be their authentic selves. It's ironic because they think being themselves is the worst option. Yet, on the surface, they act like they're fine with who they are, they're loud about being carefree of what others think of them, they're okay if these two leave them, but in reality, their worst fears are admitting that they agree with what people see in them as flaws, that they also hate themselves for that. That's heartbreaking because they fought so hard to keep loving themselves, to keep believing in their worth, but society made them genuinely think that they're wrong. And it's painful but realistic.

Again they're all similar and mirror each other. I just want people to understand that FUTS is a deep show; I know the director doesn't do the best job with what he's been trying to show, but it is deep; there is thought at times put to it in the profound moments. In the moments where both Pi and Duen aren't being fake and are their true selves, you'll notice that the jokes and humour slowly reduce whenever they are true; the narrator also reduces for Duen because he doesn't struggle as much with his feelings for Meen like he did at the first time. All the stuff that happens in the show is on purpose, even if done messily and poorly. People love to hate on the show. It has a lot of flaws, I know, but it's not the worst thing; it has deep characters that are incredibly flawed and hurt (even Mork, who we still hope will get to understand his story) it has people that act one way on the surface but hold deep scars and pains below whilst wearing a mask. The characters are unlikable because they are realistic to how people with self-sabotaging habits and deprecation act. That's why I like this show. And I'm sad I wasn't writing out more all about the meta and moments I've enjoyed so far. Anyway, I'm grateful this show has been shown this year; it definitely made me ponder my own ideas about how I view myself and if I have walls up around the people I love. I think many people do relate to Pi or Duen somehow, and it's unfortunate that the director doesn't help us feel the same way about the narrative when it's actually a great BL story to unravel and watch.

#fish upon the sky #futs #morkpi #thai bl #bl series #bl drama #cwg #fvete

[makeste]

Wait. No, wait, I just-I just had a thought, op.

About new chapter, all the new information we've learned about OFA, and how quirkless Bakugou theory is still an option. Or if not him, someone else.

Okay so in this chapter it's practically confirmed that, well, OFA needs a quirkless successor in order to keep on running around without "hippity hippity I'm gonna destroy your body" the next in line person, right.

Okay, cool. Which is why, by lucky chance, Izuku got the real deal "safely" in a way of speaking.

Remember how there's still one "quirk the heck out of someone" bullet on shigarakis possession? One or two, which we were able to see during the war arc but just-I weren't used?

Panels arent drawn just for fun you know, if those bullets were put there for us to see, it means that something could still be under the wraps.

What if- what if someone is shoot quirkless, and THEN OFA is passed to them without all the dying risk and what not?

We already know that the second bnha movie was one of the ideas that could have been the end of it, right? What if the ending that will happen isn't that far off from the movie ending?

What if OFA is passed to someone quirkless, after all? Someone who's been made quirkless via the bullet?

What if!

I honestly wouldn't be too sad if Izuku ended up quirkless all over again. He could make big changes, even that way. In fact, it would be something if be very happy about. Breaking stereotypes, making a change as not what society expects of him, but as him, period.

What if all those analysis he's written over the years and keeps writing, will actually play an important part again? He could become a different kind of hero.

Anyway, these are my thoughts at the moment. What do you think? Is it a far stretched idea or-?

I should probably clarify that a huge chunk of my enthusiasm for the quirkless!Bakugou theory was based on my erroneous assumption that Bakugou was still obsessed with comparing his progress to Deku’s, and hadn’t moved past that mindset. this was based on the “I can’t afford to stay a loser” scene from chapter 275, one of the few times we actually got to see his thought bubbles.

at the time, it seemed to me like he was still overly preoccupied with not losing to Deku, which seemed to indicate his inferiority complex was still alive and well even after all of his recent character growth. this came as a surprise to me, because up until that point I’d been assuming that Deku VS Kacchan 2, his remedial course bonding with Todoroki, and his internship with Endeavor had all helped him to mature and move past this already. so I started wondering if this meant it was going to take something much more drastic to finally shift him out of that mindset. and since there were already hints that something big was going to happen to him in this arc, along with hints that the quirk-be-gone bullets would play a role in the fight, I connected the wrong dots and arrived at the wrong conclusion.

instead of losing his quirk, Katsuki wound up getting stabbed instead. instead of the bullets being used on him, they were used on Aizawa, who ended up losing his leg. but most importantly, it turned out that Katsuki actually wasn’t in need of any course correction with his character development after all. the obsession with keeping up with Deku didn’t stem from a fear of being inferior to him -- it stemmed from Katsuki’s growing fear that something might happen to Deku. it stemmed from his desire to protect him.

turns out, I badly underestimated just how far this kid had come. I ought to have seen this coming, but honestly? the character development in 284 is so spectacular that even now it almost feels like wish fulfilment. it’s everything I ever wanted, really. and so I didn’t anticipate it because it didn’t feel realistic to hope for so soon, I guess. it’s almost too good to be true.

but it happened! and then 285 happened after. so at that point, there was really no reason for me to want quirkless!Bakugou after all. for me, it was always about the character development, and it turned out Kacchan didn’t need that. he was one step ahead of me.

so, while I do still think it would have been an interesting thing to explore, at this point the story has moved in an entirely different direction and I no longer feel like this development would fit well with the current storyline. Kacchan’s arc now is all about reconciling with Deku and working towards his atonement. and of course, helping to defeat AFO, and becoming the number one hero.

BUT, all that said, the quirk-be-gone bullets potentially being used to pass OFA on to someone else is a very intriguing idea. just in general, that’s something I hadn’t considered before, and I always like reading theories I haven’t considered before. as far as I’m aware though, Tomura still has the remaining bullets, so without them there’s no other way of removing someone’s quirk, save for AFO. and honestly, even if the heroes did somehow find a way to part someone from their quirk, I don’t think the story is moving away from the “Deku is the final wielder of OFA” angle at this point. that was the whole point of introducing the “only quirkless people can use it without dying” twist in the first place, after all.

so as far as “what do you think”, I don’t really see Bakugou or anyone else losing their quirk at this point in the story. I do like the irony of the concept, though. if Heroes Rising hadn’t come out, I think it could have made a very entertaining ending. just the idea of Tomura/AFO shooting someone with a bullet and being all “HA HA NO QUIRK FOR YOU”, not realizing they’ve created the perfect opportunity for Deku to be all “oh perfect, thank you!” and pass on OFA in order to unleash the shiny Super Saiyan double team attack lol. so yeah, although I don’t anticipate it happening, it’s an interesting Chekhov’s gun that I hadn’t even realized existed, so thank you for the ask!

#bnha 304 #bakugou katsuki #quirkless!bakugou #bnha theory #bnha meta #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks

[elia-de-silentio]

RECAP ON DOMINIQUE AND NOÉ

So, as finally our girl Dominique has been given a well deserved focus after two years of absence, I want to make another recap, this time about her and especially her relationship to Noé.

Above, here's how Dominique is introduced to us. A confident, charming lady in a somewhat masculine attire, her image surrounded in shojo flowers, claiming to be Noé's fiancée.

Her later appearences at the Bal Masqué seem to confirm her 'Strong & Charming Lady' appeal: she's a graceful dancer, she lives up to the sadistic side implied in her name, she swordfights and her open, assertive personality destabilizes more conventional, 'shy' women such as Nox and Jeanne. She's also shown to be very protective of Noé, worring about him and even torturing Vanitas to ensure he wasn't a threath.

But there's also a softer side to her relationship with Noé - who actually keeps her friendzoned - one made of mutual respect, long-standing affection, comprension and willingness to listen to the other troubles ... partially. She listens to Noé, but doesn't actually tell him her feelings or thoughts, even if our cinnamon roll would very likely listen.

At the same time, some cracks begin to appear in this image. She fails to fight her sister away from Vanitas and Noé (and ends up tied and hanging from the lamp for everyone to see); she's later revealed in her chat with Jeanne about Vanitas that she doesn't know much about relationships, despite what her being so outgoing can lead to think.

Moreover, by this point of the story, Noé's childhood flashbacks have started.

Dominique is the one in the frilly dress, hiding behind her brother. As a child, her personality was very different: a conventionally feminine, shy child. This led people to theorize that her change was brought about by her mourning for Louis, an attempt to keep his memory alive by resembling him as much as she could.

Then we have the Arc of Gevaudan, in which she is barely mentioned, and then we have the latest chapters.

First of all, in chapter 43, we see her interacting directly with her older siblings. And while it was hinted that they didn't have that great of a relationship, here she looks to afraid to be in their mere presence. Every single disparaging remark from Veronica and Antoine (and they throw around a lot of them) gets an almost frozen in fear Dominique as a reaction. It's like, in the presence of her family, she regresses to the shy girl of her childhood, with none of her usual confidence.

Next, in chapter 45, in the midst of trying to keep the "insecure" Jeanne from entusiastically yelling to the world how horny she is for Vanitas, she reveals: 1) that she actually is pretty conventional when it comes to love and relationships; 2) that she sees Noé as dashing and strong and is confirmed as head-over-heels for him; 3) that she doesn't think she is good enough for him.

She believes Noé would prefer Jeanne (when he never indicated anything more than a vague curiosity about her), and when reflecting about it, she thinks back to her siblings' insults.

She thinks that she's not as charming as Jeanne, and then she seems on the verge of a panic or anxiety attack, thinking obsessively about Noé.

The ending of the same chapter reveals that there is a good helping from Misha on her situation: he did something to her, to tamper with her control of her own actions, but still her love for Noé is stronger, she fights back against the order of bringing him to the little creep.

The bigger point, as revealed in chapter 46, is: Dominique has zero self-esteem. Like the flowers around her were spewn around by a machine, that first image we got of her was carefully crafted, to hide an extremely insecure young woman.

Since early childhood, Dominique was unfavourably compared to her older siblings; she isn't as strong of a combatant as Veronica, and as Antoine helpfully points out, she holds no political power, unlike him.

And then there's the whole Louis affair.

The story so far has shown the toll his death had on Noé, but here we see the effect on Dominique, and it was devastating.

She wished she had been the one to die. She believes she's at fault for what happened.

And she gets what in her mind is a confirm: the reason why Louis was kept isolated was because he was her twin, and this in the appearently terribly superstitious vampire culture is seen as bad luck. So, in her mind, if she had never existed, her brother would have had a long and happy life.

Moreover, Veronica sees fit to completely destroy her sister's self-worth by bringing up those 'expectations' Dominique failed to live up to.

Then, with an excellent timing, Noé wakes up from an angst-induced fever, and puts the icing of shit on the cake of shit that has been Dominique's day. He essentially confirmed her worst fears: everyone would have preferred Louis to her. Those who theorized that Dominique's new mannerism where due to trying to keep Louis alive were so right, in a likely worst way than they could ever have thought of.

(Random thought I don't know where else to put: Dominique, in all of the manga,has never been seen in her usual masculine clothing around her family. She had either a ballgown or a nightgown, both very frilly and similar to what she would have wore as a little girl; way to represent her feelings of inferiority in front of them).

And so we have it. Dominique's life has been one of regular emotional abuse and a severe trauma; between the image her family tried to force her to live to and the awareness that only a whim of her father and grandfather -independent of any personal characteristic of the children - left her to live instead of her brother, she developed a very feeble sense of self - and what little personal identity she has, she doesn't like. So she tried to hide it all with a mask, to take on herself the identity of her brother to make someone worthier live in her stead ... but it didn't work out very well.

And the saddest part of all of this, is that Dominique has a very definite identity to those who love her, and it's a great one. Despite not reciprocating her feelings (as far as we know) Noé values her the world as his friend. She has always been here when he needed someone to talk to. She worries about him, but respects his choices. Her love for him is so strong, that it overrides Misha's mind control.

And do we want to talk about Jeanne? Dominique barely knows her, but she sees this girl in a social position other vampires despise, and she immediately bonds with her. She encourages her to get out of her shell, tries to give her advice at the best of her abilities, and she was very willing to risk her reputation and the wrath of her family to protect her.

Dominique is a great friend, an observant and caring person, and she doesn't give a damn about her family's racism and classism. If only she could realize it.

Personally, I don't know where her arc is heading. She's in a very precarious position right now. Her death would give Noé a second trauma and a reason to hate Misha that could lead to a clash with Vanitas (who clearly still cares about his younger brother, as shown by his guilt complex), but would also make Dominique's own arc a very tragic one. Her life would have been defined by being used by others, never realizing her true worth. It would lack closure - which narratively is something that can be done to work, but it's not what I personally would like for poor Dominique.

On the other hand, if Noé manages to get her to safety, then she can be helped. She can be cured by whatever Misha did to her, but above that, she can make her own arc one of self-descovery and affirmation, which definitely would have me cheering on for her.

Knowing Mochizuki's reputation, her survival is quite uncertain; but let us remember that the main theme of this work is 'salvation', and that we already got a surprisingly sweet ending for the Arc of Gevaudan, with everyone surviving and happy.

Until next chapter, we just have to wait and hope.

#vanitas no carte #vnc #vnc dominique #vnc noe #vnc meta #the case study of vanitas #vnc jeanne #vnc spoilers #elia's recaps

[rosaliekali]

Hi, I want to get into writing for Ikevamp but I only know so much about characters that are not released in English. So I was wondering if you could give me a brief explanation of all 15 Ikevamp guys personalities.

I don’t play JP but I can try my best. Starting with the ones we know and working down. Here is a word-vomit of what I have inferred their characters are and what I’ve seen people translate. 

Obviously HUGE, HUGE spoilers for unreleased routes and Act 2.

REALLY, REALLY LONG post under cut.

Napoleon: Napoleon’s personality is a little more subdued and hidden by teasing. He’s confident with his MC and calls her affectionately ‘nunuche’. He has an uproarious laughter that begins with a ‘snnnnrk’ and will tease MC incessantly if the ‘bear in her stomach’ growls. He also has a habit of sleeping in until the afternoon and will instinctually kiss anyone who wakes him up without a care as to who they are (and has kissed everyone in the mansion at least once).  When he’s with MC, he tends to be teasing of her and likes to spend time together. He’s the kind of ‘cool guy’ personality you expect coming from an Otome Game. I’d kind of compare him to a mixture of Alyn from MidCin except not as abrasive and Ray from IkeRev in terms of affectionate but still ‘cool’. He is best friends with Jean and Isaac.

Mozart: Mozart starts off very cool and aloof with his MC. He openly tells his MC that he hates her and finds her a nuisance. It takes him a while to open up to MC and realize he actually has a crush on her. Once they begin dating, he becomes very affectionate with her calling her ‘min schatz’, ‘his treasure’, or ‘his muse’. He tends to be closed off with the others but he is open with his MC and tends to have a pretty high sex drive with her. His personality is comparable to that of Louis from MidCin and Jonah from IkeRev. They both start off cold with their MC but end up becoming very affectionate in the end and are all perfectionists who detest messes and germs. He is best friends with Jean.

Leonardo: Leonardo is poised as the ‘older’ LI type. He calls his MC ‘cara mia’ and loves to tease her. He is more experienced than she is due to his age and is definitely very experienced / has a high sex drive as well. He tends to tease his MC more often and MC often feels like he has the advantage in the relationship because he can tease her relentlessly but he tends to be oblivious to her seduction efforts. He ends up falling in love with MC very early on and states that she is the only woman that he has ever loved and will ever love from then on. He does not ever want MC to become a vampire and tells her he would rather spend the rest of her life with her and keep her as is. His personality is that of Sirius in terms of the ‘older lover’ trope and perhaps Nobunaga from IkeSen although I don’t play it. He is best friends with Comte although he does tend to hang out with Isaac from time to time.

Arthur: Arthur is a little more of a complex character. At first glance, he’s a flirt who pretty much sleeps with a new girl (or multiple at the same time) every night and loves to be bold and unapologetically seductive, although more lurks under the surface. Deep down, he’s actually very insecure and traumatized from his time as a doctor not being able to save his patients. He sleeps with women to stave off the nightmares and ends up falling for MC early on in his route although he thinks she will never like him back because he essentially ‘assaulted’ her earlier. With his MC, he is very flirty and very seductive as well as starved for attention. He repeatedly tells her he will not do so much as look at another woman while with her, says they don’t interest him anymore, and likes to be confident in the fact that she is his although a part of him still worries she will leave him. His personality is like that of Leo from MidCin in terms of flirty but affectionate, and he has a VERY HIGH sex drive. He also doesn’t like Sherlock Holmes, his own character, because he is better than what Arthur seems himself as even though they have the same observational and intelligent deductive nature. He is best friends with Theo.

Vincent: Vincent is described as the ‘angelic’ LI in the game. He is very kind and sweet most willing to lend MC an ear when she needs it. He treats everyone he meets with kindness and is known to even draw the darker characters to his side because of his sweet personality. He’s a little oblivious when it comes to love and relationships, I think Theo alludes to the fact that he’s never been in love before, and he falls for MC pretty quickly but takes a bit to realize. When he and MC begin a relationship, he is very affectionate and wants to spend a lot of time together. He’s also very forgiving of other characters that have wronged him and likes to see the best in people. He is best friends with Shakespeare and Theo.

Isaac: Isaac is an unreleased English route (next on the schedule). He is very abrasive upon first meeting MC because he’s so painfully introverted. He gets tormented by Dazai and Arthur who have made him their favorite target of jokes. He tends to be more quiet and reclusive and has trouble expressing himself with others. The people around him like Leonardo have to clarify what he means to MC sometimes because he comes off sounding harsh although he’s actually a very kind person. He was known as ‘old, friendless Newt’ when he was alive because he never really had any friends and is a genius who is most often found with Napoleon teaching the kids down at the town or with Leonardo messing with things trying to fix them. A lot of his event stories show him trying to be more open with MC because he wants to be a better lover and is self conscious about how he comes off to her. He’s also hinted at being a beast because he drinks more blood than the other LIs and is a little more sex driven than the others. I’d compare his personality to Luka in terms of shyness, but he’s a lot more closed off and quiet than Luka and definitely more abrasive. He also hates apples and his apple-falling story and will become very upset if brought up. He is friends with Napoleon and Leonardo (and Dazai and Arthur despite how he complains about them).

Jean: Jean is a more complex character who is hardly ever seen on screen. He’s very quiet and unexpressive preferring to spend time on his own. He hates himself as a vampire and sees himself as something vile. While he took Comte’s offer on becoming a vampire, he didn’t realize what it would mean to accept the offer of immortality. For this reason, he hates Comte and refuses to even acknowledge him often times or do favors for him. He is friends with Mozart and Napoleon. He appreciates Mozart because they’re both quiet and can simply spend time together without needing chatter and Napoleon because they’re both soldiers and train together. He is hinted at suffering from depression and self-hatred and goes as far as to starve himself of blood because he wants to die. In Mozart’s route, he is shown to have a gun capable of killing vampires and refuses to answer why when asked although we can all guess why. In his route, I’ve heard he tries to push MC away for the grand majority of it until they eventually date and he asks her to kill him / stop him(?) if he ever becomes the monster he fears he is. He’s just very quiet and very self-doubting tending to keep everyone at an arm’s distance. I’d compare him to Louis in terms of aloofness but he’s definitely a lot more quiet and less rude / cold.

Theo: Theo is Vincent’s younger brother and described as the ‘devil’ to Vincent’s ‘angel’. He is rude, abrasive, and does not bite his tongue. He calls MC ‘knabbeltje’ (morsel) to remind her that she is food in a mansion full of vampires and ‘hondje’ (dog) to needle her. While friends with Arthur, he detests his ‘skirt chasing’ ways and is very cold / harsh when rejecting any women that want to get near him. It takes him a long while to open up to his MC, but, when he does, he is shown to be a very kind person. In his route, he lies to MC telling her that they are NOT vampires so that she will not be afraid while she has to stay with them and actually is shown to look out for her even outside of his route. He only pretends to be rude and condescending because he wants people to compare him to Vincent and like Vincent more. He was their parent’s favorite while Vincent went ignored and this has made him feel very guilty so he purposefully makes himself seem as worse as possible to make sure Vincent looks better. Really, he’s very emotionally mature when it comes to relationships and is very respectful of MC as a lover although he still teases her and likes to rile her up by mocking her. He acts as Arthur and Vincent’s wingman / relationship counselor and isn’t afraid to call them (mainly Arthur) out when they do something to offend MC in their own routes. I’d compare him to Kyle from IkeRev in terms of abrasive but very emotionally mature although he is much more cold than Kyle. 

Shakespeare: Will is the ‘yandere’ of the LIs and the main villain in the Act 1 arc. He is one of the first people, if not the first, Comte brought back and used to live in the mansion before he had a falling out with Comte and left. He is the only person that can get under Comte’s skin and he hates Leonardo. He has paired up with Vlad and seeks to write a tragedy starring whatever LI MC is with and herself. Deep down, he is very self conscious of how he ranks with the other Mansion Residents because he sees them all as geniuses in their own rights, but sees himself as something inferior to them. He has a particular way of speaking, speaks in poetry which I’d recommend using a Shakespeare translator when writing for him, and cannot see out of one eye. With MC, he is cold at first but has a way of masking it by making himself sound polite. He does not think much of her at first, thinks she is like any other girl out there, but ends up realizing she’s much more and falling in love with her. He states numerous times that he would love to lock her up somewhere where only he can see her and keep her for himself. The other characters (minus Vincent and Comte depending on the day) dislike / openly hate (like Theo and Leonardo) him and try to keep MC away from him. I think people have compared him to Kenshin from IkeSen although I don’t play the game.

Comte: Comte is the father figure of the mansion and a very complex character. He is the one who brought back all the residents using a magical door. Upon first glance, he is very sophisticated and a true gentleman, but Leonardo tells MC he used to be a wild child who would ‘smoke like a chimney’ and get into random fights back in the day. He is childhood friends with Vlad and they both decided to bring back historical men as vampires in order to ensure their talents are still used to further humanity. However, now he and Vlad do not speak because they had a falling out a long time ago and Comte took the door from him. Comte is hinted at having fallen in love with MC in every route although he tries hard to push her away in his own route. Deep down, he is a very lonely character and has seen centuries worth of humans he has cared about die. He tries to keep MC away from him at first because he is tired of falling in love only to lose someone to time. He rejects MC at first in his route but slowly falls in love and lets himself be open to her. In the end, he becomes a very affectionate LI and realizes that he should value the time he has with her rather than keep her away. Comte also wants to turn MC into a vampire and has offered to turn her in other routes if that is what she wishes. He sees no problem with turning MC or any other human. He tends to show his affection economically showering her with gifts and loves to go shopping with her so that he can purchase whatever she likes for her. The other characters have called him ‘daddy’ as a joke and he takes care of them economically as well (giving Arthur an allowance when he asks) and anything else they want that he can buy without complaint (unless its Leonardo because then he’ll call him a ‘drain on his resources’ and complain about spending money on him). 

Dazai: Dazai is the next character up on the JP game. He and Comte are the first two members of the Act 2 story line and are very cryptic. Dazai presents himself as the ‘class clown’ upon first meeting and seems to always be smiling and upbeat. He loves to tease Isaac with apples and often teams up with Arthur to rile him up although Arthur does not like him as a friend outside of that. Upon meeting MC, he pretends not to remember her name and instead calls her by several random Japanese names. In truth, he does remember her name and grows close to her, but he does not want her anywhere near him. Dazai is a very lonely character who suffered from horrific depression in life that culminated in him taking his own life, and, for that reason, cannot see himself as anyone desirable to anyone. He thinks MC is a very kind and upbeat person that would have to give up too much if she were with him, so he’d rather she stay far away. He does, however, spend time telling the children in town stories and does tend to step in and counsel MC or her LI in some routes if they’re willing to hear him out. Like Arthur, he is a writer and spends his time writing in the mansion, but he gets very upset if MC reads his stories because they are too dark for someone like her. He also tends to look after MC and the others worrying over their well-being when they are in danger and watches after MC specifically whenever Shakespeare gets too close. Really, he’s a complex character with a lot of layers and sadness. He might look upbeat and carefree upon first meeting, but the reality is anything but.

Sebastian: Sebastian is the only human at the mansion asides from MC. His real name is Akihiko (Akihiki?) Saitou. He is from Japan like MC and is a historian who is obsessed with history and keeps a record of the residents and what goes on in their daily lives. He greatly admires Napoleon and Leonardo and gets very excited when they compliment him or show they admire him as well. With MC, he tends to be very teasing and slightly distant. He is in charge of the chores with MC and is shown to order MC around and teases her when she gets something wrong. He is prone to flicking her on the forehead whenever she makes a mistake (MC calls him a tyrant as a result of his disciplining her), yet he does like MC and is willing to lend her an ear when she needs someone to listen or some advice. The others seem to have a lot of faith in him and he is the one running the mansion by keeping up to date with everyone’s meals, routines, habits, and needs. Really, he’s a kind character deep down once you get past the abrasive, cold, and teasing remarks. He also loves to tease MC and her LI in other routes and will root for her to get with the person she ends up with especially if its Napoleon. He is Comte’s confidante and is often found with Comte or doing chores.

Vlad: Vlad is the main villain in the IkeVam series. While Shakespeare is the villain in Act 1, Vlad is the true villain behind the curtain. He and Comte used to be old friends before Vlad traveled to the future and saw that humanity had destroyed itself. From then on, he decided he wanted to bring back famous historical figures and use them to fix / save humanity. However, unlike Comte who brought them back with freedom and with a desire to form a family unit with them, Vlad wants to enslave them to make sure they obey him and will work to save humanity. Vlad is shown to be very polite and kind although distant at first meet, but darkness lurks beneath the surface. In actuality, he sees everyone around him as tools to be used and hates weaknesses in any form. If someone or something is weak, he will discard them because his plans to save humanity have no room for disobedience and error. He runs a flower shop which MC has stumbled into independently (and I think Vincent too?). He appears to be a very sweet character and polite in the beginning but he is very aloof in actuality and, although he likes MC, he will not hesitate to use her to hurt Comte. He has brought back other historical figures in the past like Comte using a door that he has, but they come back incompletely or insane because he does not care to bring them back properly. He also is the one that brought back Napoleon and presumably brought Charles and Faust back since they both call him ‘His Excellency’ or ‘My Lord’. On a lighter note, he loves strawberries and loves gardening with a field of sunflowers that he and Comte used to hang out in being his favorite spot, and, like Comte, loves humanity deeply.

Charles: Charles is the second ‘yandere’ in the series and the former executioner of Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI. However, he hates the fact that he used to be an executioner and goes simply by ‘Charles’ now. He is a doctor as a vampire and is shown to be very sweet and flirtatious. Like Arthur, he too goes home with a new girl every other night and flirts with MC upon first meeting her, but he tends to use a ‘sweeter’ and more ‘innocent’ flirting approach like Loki from IkeRev than Arthur’s more seductive flirting techniques. Upon first meeting MC, he falls in love with her right away and asks her multiple times in different events to ‘take him home’. However, his sweeter nature hides some darkness beneath. Like Shakespeare, he is a yandere and obsesses over MC. I’ve said before I consider him to be more dangerous than Shakespeare because, when Shakespeare is caught as a villain and Vincent / MC realize he has been using them, he drops the act-Charles keeps it going for much longer. Plus, Charles is not above kidnapping MC and tricking her into thinking that he is her lover (as was seen by an event story-although the premise of it was ‘horror’ so it may have been exaggerated) and is better at hiding his obsessive nature than Shakespeare. He’s more often seen with Faust and calls him ‘doctor’ although Faust doesn’t seem to be very close to him. He greatly admires Vlad and calls him ‘My Lord’ and will do his bidding although he does think it would be great if Vlad and Comte could get along and both sets of vampires could be friendly. 

Faust: Faust is the final character in the Act 2 storyline. Faust is a doctor / pastor who works in the local church. He comes off as extremely cold-hearted and harsh when first meeting him. He sees people as guinea pigs and would love to dissect MC or any of the other vampires if he could to experiment on them. He is based off of Johann Georg Faust, the alchemist, and is a ‘doctor’ with a great intrigue in human experimentation. There is an old legend about him trading his soul with the devil for immortal life which is ironic considering the fact he serves in a church. He has a very harsh outlook of religion and does not like the christian god or the christian church thinking that both are useless and religion isn’t worth the faith people have in it. However, while all these things make him seem harsh, he is hinted at being a kind character deep down. He looks after the orphanage as a member of the church and does seem to have some sort of soft spot for children. He also may abhor religion, but he does allow people to take comfort in him as a priest / pastor? when they need it. In one event story, he listened to a teenager’s confession of robbery and ‘forgave him’ for his sin because the teenager had just lost his father and needed comfort. Really, when it comes to young children, he is shown to be kind-ish although he still acts very harsh and aloof. He falls for MC slowly and without even realizing it with his first birthday story event showing him smiling at the thought of her without knowing. Meanwhile, when it comes to the other characters particularly Vlad and Comte, Faust seems to have some respect for Vlad, calling him ‘His Excellency’ but he isn’t the loyal follower Charles is. He tends to be more cold with Vlad and has remarked that he doesn’t care what happens to the ‘old men’ (Comte and Vlad) or which side wins as long as he has guinea pigs to examine.

[loopf]

Inflection

Paring: Hitoshi Shinsou x Reader

Summary: Having had a long day of patrolling, the pessimistic Shinsou decided to attend your ‘pretentious’ Gig, only to realise you had written a sing about one specific, special person.

Author’s Note: I am so sorry; this is so late! I just haven’t had the enthusiasm! It’s really hard... I hope this is good enough!!

Love was such a ‘superficial’ feeling.

It manifested itself in such a deceiving way. Insomnia, exhaustion and depression. Were these all symptoms of such ‘love’? Did this emotion, laced with the appearance of beauty and comfort, bare thorns in the hands of its beholder?

Perhaps that was why Hitoshi had found himself in this place. A ballroom. The ceilings reach a height that only made him feel more insignificant; they arched above his head - stretching at least two-hundred feet above him. Embedded were drapes of silk - or another type of extravagant material - engraved with crystals, reflecting the ‘upscale’ shandeliers, scattered all too pretentiously. No object escaped the overwhelming motif of pearly-white and regality; even the flowers were white - if not they had to be painted.

It was a pretentious theme, which made Shinsou stick out even more. Black clothing was obviously note the suitable attire as most attendees wore great gowns of red; dresses of glittering gold - tuxedoes of royal blue... Not a hint of pure black. Neither the sight of a hood - an expression on Shinsou’s clothing which he used to cover his head. Even his gloves were tainted with the same ebony shade, fingers wrapped tightly around the champagne served only a few moments ago.

He took a gulp.

He didn’t belong here.

It’s was just like love - to lead him to a place he didn’t belong. To allow him to wander into this prestigious, upper class ballroom with people who acknowledged his presence with a curled upper lip. He could feel love’s thorns pressing deeper into his palms...

Patience was a gift - a lesson Shinsou had learned all too well. He had spent most of his life waiting... Waiting and working until he got what he deserved - his gift.

In this case, his ‘gift’ came in the embodiment of your adorn. It was pink - no - almost pink... Salmon? He questioned himself on the right colour of your dress and the right way to process how the silk slipped onto your shoulders, peppering your body with a sensual touch. It’s fabrics paved an hour-glass, moulding around your waist. The bright light reflected from the sequins were not intense enough to distract him from your... Beauty?

It had taken only a brief moment for him to realise that he had never seen you like this before. Or to realise how much you belonged here. How you blended into the royalty and wealth... How much he was casted as a shadow in the corner of the Ballroom.

The announcements after your entrance were irrelevant. Your smile was all Shinsou needed to keep his attention on... Only those pearly white teeth, sparkly in your crescent shaped smile. As perfect as the moon.

You were perfect to him.

But more so was your singing.

Swells of power rose from your throat - an oxymoron compared to your frame. Your tone rolled over hills of sorrow in rhythmatic waves... It’s amplitude a powerful belt, it’s minimum a ghostly breath.

The story was simple, but laced in complexity. A boy, who wished to be someone big - someone impactful... Someone special.

Someone who was smart, with a soft heart. But, his exterior portrayed a different personality. He looked mysterious, with incantations of evil and terror.

He was mistaken.

Yet, he did not give up. He continued to try - he continued to battle, to fail.

He felt useless. Without acknowledgement or attention. What use were his efforts if nobody ever acknowledged him?

But there was one person. A ‘special’ person. She saw his beauty and tenderness. She saw his soul and it was pure.

It didn’t take long for Shinsou to know who this boy was... It was him.

And with his eyes widened in realisation, you sung - your voice ghostly, shallowed in an uncertain breath...

‘I love you.’

Shinsou made sure to find you after your performance. Rationality would’ve stopped in from charging towards you, barging passed the body guards, confronting you in the corridor.

But his mind was so convoluted. So many thoughts danced around his head, intermingled with ideas of hope, attacked by the reality of self-depreciation.

A deadly Tango.

“Do you love me?” His Lavander stare interrogated you. You became tense, paralysed - unable to move. Not because of his Quirk, but your own fear.

“Do you love me!?” His voice became louder - more desperate. His mind was clouded, too clustered to organise.

“This whole time, were you leading me on!? Making me believe - making me...” His words did no justice. His mind too disorganised with an overriding sense of hope... But...

No. You could never love him. This was just love being... Superficial. Yet he grasped love, with its thorns sinking deep into his palms. He was bleeding.

With that same hand he grasped his chest, fingertips pressing his nails into his skin, clawing at his heart, suppressing whatever pain was already present. He wanted to rid of it. To banish the deceiving hope - to tear heart from his chest.

“Please, answer me!” He wailed, wincing to release whatever pent-up emotion had burrowed itself into his heart - if he couldn’t rip it out, he would flush it out. His eyes began to tear.

“Hitoshi... I.”

“No.” He interrupted. Did he even want an answer? Did he want to hear your true feelings? To rid of the hope that had allowed him to function. The only thing he thrived on. Not even food provided as much energy as the suffocated hope that had allowed him to wake up in the morning. Shinsou existed on it - craved it. What would happen if it disappeared...?

“I know you don’t love me. It’s... Look at you. You’re...” Hitoshi stuttered. How could your beauty, intelligence - your perfection be condensed into only a few sentences. Even a whole monologue!?

“You’re just... Not right for me. You don’t want me.”

He was useless. Inferior to you. A coward in your presence. All was too clear as he turned his back to you. Regardless of the alarms, he barged his way through the emergency doors, embracing the sideways rain, such had intensified since he left his Patrol.

It was useless to put his hood up, yet Shinsou did anyway. He needed to hide himself, seclude himself from the embarrassment he had caused. Not for himself, but for you. What if people were watching? Your management team? What if they...

“Not only selfish, but a coward.” Words were hard to exhasperate as his throat tended up at reality. It was even more difficult to continue forwards when his legs began to buckle. He wanted to fall, to collapse - to condense into a ball of nothingness... To cease existing.

“Wait!” Your plea was enough to enlighten whatever secluded hope remained in Shinsou’s chest. His stomach tensed, turning around to face you. You were a sorry sight - your dress drenched by the rain - your hair tangled in a hopeless, convoluted mess.

In such situations, words were irrelevant. It was the language of actions that could only communicate your feelings. But some inctricate instinct, you lunged yourself at Shinsou.

The feel of your lips were an experience only imaginable in dreams - many of which Shinsou failed to have. He might have imagined them to be warm, smooth and untainted. But their touch against his own were indescribable. His eyes closed, enveloped in desperation.

He no longer gripped the thorns of Love. His palms were now free, able to cusp the shape of your jaw - perhaps the blossom which the thorns had guarded.

#shinsou x reader #bnha x reader #shinsou hitoshi #mha x reader #mha #my hero academia #bnha imagine #mha imagine

[tiaragqueen]

Yandere One Punch Man Headcanons Pt. 2

99-nct asked: “If it’s not too much to ask, could you do a couple more for characters like Garou and Amai mask (with maybe some s-class heroes)?”

Anon asked: “Hello!! Can I please please get a yandere garou headcanons, tyy :)”

As per requests, I’ve decided to write the second part of Yandere OPM headcanons. I admit, Garou was a little hard for me to imagine but he certainly has a yandere potential. So, I apologize if it’s not up to your liking. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it!

If you like my writing, please support me on ko-fi!

Amai Mask

Pretty boy... I honestly love his short hair more than the long one

Probably the busiest yandere out of the others

Vain

You might catch his interest due to your strong power and beauty

Though I can see him liking a celebrity as well

But you know, cameras are on them all the time

So it decreases his chance of ‘owning’ you

Amai Mask is very generous, you see

There’s nothing he won’t buy for you

Clothes? Just take them

Cars? Pick any brand you want

Vacations? Where do you have in mind, darling?

Tries to organize his time evenly, but fails miserably

I mean, he's still human and juggles tons of jobs

Hero, model, actor, singer

Each needs his attention just as much

It’s hard to be organized when you always have something to do

But it’s a hidden blessing, you know

You can escape anytime he goes to work

Which is almost all the time, to be honest

But you gotta know that he’s famous and therefore, has many connections

You can escape to other countries and he'll be there to bring you back

Or one of his lackeys

Or even his GODDAMN fans

Whoever and whichever works the best

He’s not delusional per se

More like he doesn’t understand why do you want to leave after he provides you with literally everything you need

Though, not exactly self-aware either

Harsh in punishing

Bondage, starvation, isolation you name it

Prefer sexual punishment than physical one

Merciless in killing anyone who even injures you in the slightest

Especially monsters

Has a burning hatred in everything he deems evil and ugly

And anyone who taints your beauty shall not live long on his hands

Definitely obsessed and possessive with you

Likes to mark you

He’s not too forceful in showing you off

Because he knows that you’re his

The world knows, all heroes know, his fans know

You literally have no chance in escaping

So you might as well give up and start enjoying the luxury he happily bestow upon you

Before he takes them away

Garou

The first time I saw him I thought he was Bang's younger self

Surprisingly nice to kids

Therefore, he might be more attracted to younger partners

Won’t tolerate being looked down upon

A mere scolding is enough to set him off into an enraged state

So you have to tread carefully with him

Very carefully it’s ridiculous

It’s like walking on an extremely thin rope or a brittle ice with bubbling fire underneath

Which is his temper, by the way

Unless you’re feeling suicidal enough to get a taste of his anger

Doesn’t mind hurting you to prove his point

You might be one of those wallflowers as he hates popular ones

Despite that, he's always protecting you from any bullies

A good shoulder to cry on

He knows what it feels like to be bullied so he easily sympathizes with you

Yet, he often belittles your low self-esteem to disguise his good intentions

After all, he doesn’t want you to think that he’s gone soft on you

In a way, he’s like Tatsumaki but meaner

Sometimes you have to hold him back from fighting any heroes who have the misfortune on crossing paths with you

Absolutely wants to start a family with you at some point

It doesn’t matter if you’re not ready

He likes children and he wants one

So either he forces you to make love with him or adopt a child

Stalks you at all times

If anyone has the audacity to harm you, he’ll kill them right in front of you

Won’t lie and instead boast when you ask him if he’s stalking you

Not clingy, has too much pride for that

Possessive

But he doesn’t mind if people talk to you

As long as they keep the boundaries in mind, he stays chill

Like Saitama, Garou won’t kill humans

Unless provoked

Then again, who wants to provoke such a dangerous man?

He doesn’t get a nickname ‘Human Monster’ for nothing, you know?

Metal Bat

If his sister doesn’t like you, then he won’t

Depending on how you see it, it can be an advantageous situation for you

You just have to make yourself as unpleasant as possible

Then Bad would certainly release you

But he's not all temperamental and cockiness

He’s smarter than he looks

So he'll catch on your attempt rather quickly

Let’s just say that you’ll be traumatized so much you won’t be able to look at Zenko in the eye again

Hard on the outside, soft on the inside

Loves spoiling you

But he’s a little tsundere

Secretly clingy it’s almost endearing

Overprotective like hell

Sometimes stalk you from the shadows

He just wants to make sure that you’re okay all the time

Blushes heavily whenever you show any sign of affection to him

Not above threatening you, either

Quite terrible in lying, so subtle manipulation doesn’t come as easy for him

So he uses fear instead

Won’t force you to start a family with him

But wishes for it anyway

Sometimes comes to your apartment/house unannounced

Loves cooking for you

Especially when you’re the type who eats snacks all the time

He can easily excuse it as ‘you need to more healthy food’

If Zenko likes you, you’ll probably spend the majority of your time in their apartment

Thus giving him more chance to get close with you

Or if you’re a hero, then Bad will find a way to work together

It doesn’t matter if you refuse

Bad’s stubborn

Therefore you need to suck it up

Unless you want to suffer again

Zombieman

Serious and strict

Doesn’t really care about your feelings

Won’t hesitate to kidnap you

Secretive about his past

Very jealous

You can stab him all the time you want and he’ll still alive

He’s immortal, you see

Hence his name

So if you want to leave, you need to step up your game

And you can’t give any hint that you’re scheming something either

Intelligent with a detective-like thinking

If you even show the slightest odd behavior, then he'll immediately be suspicious  

However, he’s fairly forgiving

As long as you apologize sincerely and promise that you wouldn’t repeat that mistake

Openly shows his annoyance at your habits that he finds irritating

Such as eating greedily or with mouth open

Prefers modest partner than loud-mouthed ones

Thinks that they’re easier to be ‘taught’

Not at all bothered with death or gore

Doesn’t mind killing in your sight

Because you should get used to it now or force yourself to do it

A lone wolf

If someone is bothering you

Rest assured he’ll come home with their head as the ‘souvenir’

Suppose you’re a powerful hero

Might develop an inferiority complex to you

But he won’t show it, of course

Don’t be surprised if he asks you to be his sparring partner someday

Knows his limit very well

However, it doesn’t mean he’s giving up either

He'll create a plan

And when the time comes

Your enemies/anyone who harms you will disappear

King

Looks intimidating at first glance

A HUGE otaku

Don’t get me wrong, tho

He can bluff his way out of everything

Too much of a coward to actually kill a person or monster

But can be pretty possessive

Peacemaker

Doesn’t like to argue with you

Willing to throw away his stashes of otome games in exchange for your affection

Or if you show any sign of jealousy

Obsessive, secretly collects your photos or posters

Especially if you’re famous

Gaming together as a date

Always win

Unless you’re an expert like him too

Then be prepared for lots of rematches

Not that you complain

Dominant in public, submissive in bedroom

I feel like he’s suitable for a quietly assertive partner that seems submissive on the outside

Needs guidance because he’s pretty clueless in real relationship

That’s why you can easily escape from him

If you’re famous

Then he would be one of those obsessive fans

Always sending you love letters and tells you to stay healthy

Might stalk you too

But he always excuse it as ‘passing by’

And you’ll believe him of course

Because why would a hero like him stalk you?

You feel honored to have the strongest man on earth as your fan

Whenever he meets you by chance, he’d get tongue-tied

But it’s endearing

You’d never know that he’s a yandere

Mumen Rider

I know he’s not an S-class hero but I have a soft spot for him, okay? I mean, do you see how precious he is in this gif?

The subbiest yandere out of any yanderes

Like, he wants to do everything to ensure you’re comfortable with him

You want food at three in the morning? Okay, let me put on my helmet first

You’re feeling ill? What kind of medicine do you need?

Your feet hurt? Here, let me massage them for you

You’ll feel like you’re a royalty when dating him

Which is his intention by the way

He wants to make sure that your needs are met

Feels sad if you talk to other men or purposefully making him jealous

Because he’s done so much for you

He’ll take it that he needs to improve more

Extremely hardworking to the point of being a perfectionist

If you show the slightest displeasure towards something, especially if it’s his action, then he'll blame himself

Tends to ask or send you messages with ‘are you okay?’, ‘how are you feeling?’, or ‘do you need anything?’

Puts your feelings above his

Loyal

If someone bullying you, then he'll step in like a brave hero he is

He's weak compare to other heroes

But his determination is admirable

Dominant in bed

Only because he wants to make you feel good

However, he doesn’t mind giving the reins to you if you’re the dominant type

Loves to appreciate every inch of your body

Very supportive in any hobby you do, even if he doesn’t particularly like it

Won’t hesitate sacrificing himself should a danger ever arises

You often lecture him on the importance of self-preservation

If you ever save him, be it accidental or intentional

Then he'd be your BIGGEST fan

Like King, he'd send you love letters

Considerate and sympathetic

He'll charm you with his pure heart and sincere kindness

You don’t want to leave him

Because such a man is very rare amidst insincere heroes

Or maybe it’s just me but oh well

#Yandere opm #yandere opm headcanons #yandere opm x reader #yandere one punch man x reader #yandere one punch man au #yandere one punch man #Yandere zombieman #Yandere garou #Yandere amai mask #Yandere sweet mask #Yandere king #Yandere mumen rider #Yandere licenseless rider #Yandere metal bat #Yandere bad

[moontheoretist]

Another episode of Hoshiai no Sora and as we could expect we got another swarm of information. This time though there was no big drama in the center of the episode. Instead we got glimpses of future storytelling plot points, old ones and new ones, as well as some hints to the personality traits and reasoning of certain characters. First of all I want to start with Shinjo himself, because we get the most about him in this episode even though it's scattered around. 

A lot of people knew he has anger issues and not really good relationship with his mother. In today’s episode his anger issues were mostly at bay, but I think I managed to grasp from where they come from. Inferiority complex. In each scene in which Shinjo appeared today he seemed to be unhappy or pissed at someone for either being good at something they do or being bad at something they are supposed to be good at. His behavior was a total opposite of Maki's and whole teams attitudes to the matches, as well as the picture of a person who deeply at heart expects the best from himself and people around him. 

(She has a point. Irregular eating schedule can make you unable to eat).

That's also the reason why he criticizes his mother, because she isn't good at something she should be good at as a mother and housekeeper (which is kinda sexist, to be honest). He even proceeds to say that their father hates her cooking too, hence why he never eats at home, which may be true or completely made up. Doesn't mean that he should say it to his mother anyway. It just made their relationship even worse, because she finally stopped running away and told him she never wanted to be his mother as we could all presume from her previous words about how much she likes her older son more than Shinjo. She isn't just favoring one child over other. She is just afraid of the second child, afraid to the point of not wanting to be his parent, which literally makes her want to forget that he is her child, which bears the question... what did he do at home to make her act in such a way? To make her wish she only had one kid? And what Ryouma has to do with this? How did he stop her from not becoming Shinjo’s mum? Did she become pregnant because Ryouma had a wish to have a brother? Or maybe she didn’t give up Shinjo, because Ryouma intervened? Too many mysteries here and I really dunno if it’s about not wanting more than one child, societal expectations for women, adoption, second marriage, abandoning a baby or something completely else. Everything above fits.

Speaking of whom, Shinjo also doesn't like being compared to his older brother precisely because he knows his brother is good at soft tennis, but also because he is this “wanted son”, so even though he likes him and respects him and wants to be noticed and praised by him, he just cannot deal with being compared to him at all. It was pretty obvious  from his encounters with his mother, but as we saw today and also in one of the previous episodes, he hates listening about Maki too. Especially when his brother is the one talking about him, his skill and how his existence makes Shinjo able to win a match. It's probably because he wishes his brother talked about him like that, and he feels that his brother thinks of Maki as better player than Shinjo is, which is complete bullshit he made himself believe into. Now after everything he heard from his mother and seeing how good Maki is, it all just makes him feel even more inferior and angry. 

And his teammates losing despite being in better pairs than before doesn't really help him, because it shows that even if you are good you can lose. He is completely unable to see the matches as positive, no matter what, and keeps pushing himself into a deep, deep hole he created for himself with his high expectations. His inferiority complex becomes even more visible in a scene with Arashi and the twins from the other school. At the very mention of his brother he already gets angry, and he gets even angrier when twins highlight that "good times" for Shijo Minami are all in the past. Two lost matches seem to convince Shinjo that everybody are right about them, which also makes him take the responsibility for that and try to fix that on his own. 

The biggest tragedy which could befall him now is if he lost the game, because then he would blame himself the most and lash out at everything in the sight due to not being taught how to properly release anger directed at himself in other way than being shitty to everybody. 

If that wasn’t enough he not only feels responsible for his club as a captain, but he also feels detached from them and alone, unable to get into their group in the same way Maki did, which once again contributes to his inferiority complex and makes him resent Maki even more, but never express it. 

(And to be honest I did that too, hence why it's so familiar behavior to me. I was shitty person and was resenting people I spent time with, even though I liked them and wanted to be friends with them, because it's very easy to resent people silently instead of trying to talk out issues with them. They may not understand and contribute to feelings of resentment).

#hoshiai no sora #shinjo touma #hoshiai no sora spoilers

[bypowers]

stranger things 4...

(this is basically just a rant about the next season and what could/will/might happen)

i was having a hard think about stranger things 4 and where they’ll take Will’s storyline and my thoughts were just a battle between ‘what could stranger things give us’ and ‘what will stranger things end up giving us’ since we all know we want certain endgames, certain storylines explored and different things from the show and it’s really upto the Duffer Brothers in the end since they hold the power to decide where things go and not all of us will end up satisfied but here is what i had some thoughts about:

it’s most likely the duffer brothers will not give us byler in terms of them as an actual ‘endgame couple’ - but we can all still get canon byler if season 4 does them justice - and they write in the LGBT story-line well -- since they have hinted at Will’s sexuality throughout the entire show. may we please have half (+ more please!) of what the reddies got, thank you. i mean canon byler as in the show recognising this ship and incorporating scenes in the show in reference to this! if we get more than this - obviously that is fantastic but as people have previously said that we should be ‘realistic’ or whatever... (however - with the build up with Byler - Mike and Will in particular’s relationship and interactions - there is more at large that needs to be looked at, revealed and dissected because of all the hints! - i’d rather not have to dissect the part where they suggest ‘Oh yeah by the way, Will likes Mike - but we’re gonna make you work it out’ you know? just give it to us Duffers)

mileven may re-couple after their breakup because season 3 confirmed that lumax had broken up 8 times - suggesting that they had gotten back together multiple times and mileven is going through their first breakup so there’s a high chance the duffer’s will put them back together to make them endgame, perhaps for the plot of their story and also fan-service. they may be trying to show the struggles of kids and their first relationships - we see this through lumax and are now seeing eleven really question things - the 2 outcomes of this will be the duffer’s putting them together again, making them endgame really just saying ‘they overcame their problems’ or they’ll keep them separate and suggest that ‘they had a relationship but realised that sometimes it doesn’t last forever, and that you can be your own person, especially during your childhood where things are always changing’ which would allow mike and eleven to develop separately yet still be friends. 

another reason i think they will make mileven endgame is because in Mike and El’s fight - Eleven asks Mike ‘why do treat me like garbage’ - which is what Max says to Lucas in Season 2 ‘but then you just treat me like garbage’ and they become a couple by the end of season 2. whilst Lumax was not a couple before this particular fight - they did become endgame BUT are broken up by the end of season 3...it’s hard to ignore this parallel although because both couplings are broken up - it might not amount to much in the end. just that the choice of words is interesting because it may lead to a sense of freedom and women solidarity from max and eleven not wanting to be treated as inferior by boys if these couples are SEPERATED, but Lucas and Max’s relationship from Season 2 has changed - they trust eachother and got together, broke up but are still friends and Max did end up breaking up with him in Season 3 sooo we don’t really know. BUT it’s likely that if the duffer’s do not make lucas and max an endgame couple by the END of stranger things - it will not look good - similarly to why mileven may be just that ol’ ship that ends up together anyway...

similarly to love and relationships during your childhood - gays existed in the 80′s! it’s just a fact - children like Will - who is canonically/canonly ‘struggling with his sexuality’ can have multiple feelings - it’s not absurd to think he may have a/develop a crush on his BEST FRIEND - as many, MANY people do throughout their lives - many young boys are faced with this as well, the world is complicated and feelings are complex, it’s not absurd to be able to admit this. if the duffer’s do make byler canon - in any shape, way, or form, they are suggesting this narrative well - that young boys, young children face a lot of feelings and emotions - Will happens to be struggling with his a bit more than let’s say another child would be. 

comparing the byler fandom to the mileven fandom, it’s sad to think about how the duffer’s have the power to do whatever they want - and even if it’s not amazingly satisfying - Will’s sexuality coming to terms will be brilliant and some indication to his ‘crush’ on Mike would be great. stranger things was after all inspired by IT (Stephen King) too.

with all that being said/typed... i just need byler endgame - IN ANY FORM! it needs to be CANON. otherwise that is very obvious queer-baiting. give will byers happiness and everything will be okay :) he deserves his LGBT well-written story line goddammit! max and el should just become a couple as well - could they also give us canon elmax? feelings being acknowledged? that’d be superb. also give lucas and dustin (and all the other good characters) happiness, but that goes without saying.

#stranger things #st4 #will byers #byler #lumax #endgame #stranger things endgame #canon byler #byler endgame #mike wheeler #lucas sinclair #max mayfield #eleven hopper #stranger things lgbt #give the gays what they deserve #The Duffer Brothers #duffer bros #Suffer bros

[eggoreviews]

9 Things That Need to Happen in Breath of the Wild’s Sequel

Just as I was getting over my intense love for Breath of the Wild, Nintendo go and drop that trailer on us at E3 and stop my whole ass heart. Hi, I’m two months late to the party on this one, but I’ve had a lot of time to think over what this sequel can learn from its predecessor and the rest of the series, as well as what brand new stuff can be brought to the table to make this sequel as spectacular as the first. Without further ado, here’s my list of 9 things Nintendo should do to make this amazing, as well as my own personal theories on what they could do to make it happen. Enjoy!

Spoilers for Breath of the Wild ahead!

1. Ditch the shrines

Don’t get me wrong, I loved the shrines in Breath of the Wild, I loved how difficult some of them were to find, how they brilliantly utilised each and every mechanic in the game and testing you on everything you’ve learned. These shrines were the ultimate compliment to a game that really wasn’t about holding your hand. But I think they’ve had their time, and it might be a nice idea to go back to some of the larger, more traditional dungeons of Zelda past. I’m not saying to go back to the old way of ‘you get given an item, it’s useful for one dungeon and that’s all’, I’m saying they need to definitely keep the massive variety of ways you can approach dungeons to keep that sense of freedom intact, but at the same time give us whole new types of dungeon with more visual variety. Abandoned forts, weird Lorule-esque dark versions of dungeons, towers, there’s really any kind of location they could explore when designing a new set of dungeons. Oh, and I adored the divine beasts, but I’m hoping for something completely different and surprising when it comes to main story dungeons this time around.

2. A whole new world map

If there’s one thing I think basically everyone agrees on, it’s that Breath of the Wild absolutely nailed its world. A huge, sprawling map with a variety of locales to explore and all of it packed to the brim with extra content and adventure-y fun. But we all know this world inside out, and even if they strip it bare and fill it with brand new secrets, it’ll still feel too much like something we’ve seen before. So from what we know from the trailer, it seems like Link and Zelda will be delving into the underground in this latest installment, so a fairly safe theory would be that they’ll uncover a whole new world down there, perhaps a forgotten and buried civilisation from thousands of years ago, now overgrown with Ganon’s influence and bizarre plants and animals that don’t exist on the surface. If they’re going full Majora’s Mask on this one, I think Nintendo’s best bet is to fully embrace this new darker tone they’ve shown to us and give us a world that is as twisted as that trailer.

3. Keep Zelda’s importance to the plot

I could honestly make a whole separate blog post about the evolution of Zelda as a character throughout the series, from her literally being asleep the whole time in Zelda II, to her role as more of a quest-giver in Ocarina and more recent games like Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword where she plays a much more active role in the plot. In Breath of the Wild however, they did something completely different that I adored; they made her into her own person. I mean sure, she was never completely devoid of character, but between the games where she wasn’t really there and the games where she’s outshone by every other character, Breath of the Wild really felt like her time to be properly fleshed out and have enough depth to be remembered. Sure, Zelda doesn’t turn up in the flesh until the end, but you spend the whole game with her voice guiding you, with you finding memories of your past with Zelda; how she seemed to have only contempt for you at the beginning because of Link’s fulfilled destiny compared to hers. You form your own opinion of her through her actions and how the champions perceive her (Urbosa as her sort of mother figure, Revali sees her as ever so slightly inferior for not being able to access her power and the mutual respect between Mipha and Zelda). Then you watch their relationship grow and change into something neither of them can really understand, but they become so close and so integral to each other that Zelda is the one to finally make him open up about himself. And that makes it all the more heartbreaking that Link has had all these memories snatched away from him and, of course, all the more gratifying when he finally gets them back so him and you, the player, both understand that you’re not just fighting for the safety of a realm you’ve been shoved into with no recollection of what’s happening, you’re fighting to be reunited with Link’s closest friend. Very probably more than friend, considering that final memory in Korok Forest. Nintendo did a brilliant job of laying the groundwork for Zelda not as a plot device or a damsel in distress, but a real, complex human being who enriches the story and makes the world you’re living in and what you’re fighting for feel more alive. So build on top of this! Keep developing Zelda, ask those questions of how Zelda feels now she’s free of Ganon and her constant fear of her power failing, how 100 years alone facing a demon has affected her mental health and, most of all, how everything that happened in Breath of the Wild changed their relationship. Are they together now? Do they have any idea what they are really? Do they just pick up where they left off or do they have to make an active effort to regain that close relationship they had before? I don’t know, but I’m really hoping we find out.

4. Ditch the sheikah slate

Get rid of it. Do it, cowards. Make Link drop it over a ledge in the first 10 minutes or something. Much like the shrines, the sheikah slate was such a fantastic idea and gave you 4 brand new powers to play around with in the massive sandbox world full of puzzles and it was great fun! But again, we know those powers too well now; we know how they work and how they can be exploited when you think outside of the box. What I want is for Nintendo to keep that brilliant creativity when it comes to gameplay mechanics, don’t just give us bombs and an ocarina again, give us something unique to this experience! I mean yeah, they could just give us an updated sheikah slate; a different model perhaps that dates back even further than the original one that has some weird abilities (maybe even a slate that’s somehow been infected with Ganon’s influence, that’d be funky), but my hopes are riding on Nintendo pulling something completely different out of the bag for this one. Making Link lose everything and only be able to use whatever he can salvage in this ancient, evil place is surely going to have a whole host of ideas behind it so I’m curious to see what they can come up with.

5. Embrace the darker tone

This sort of goes without seeing considering what we’ve seen so far, but I really want them to go full in with this darker atmosphere they’ve shown us. I mean, Breath of the Wild was never a ‘light’ game so to speak, but most of the games darker elements were masked by its beautiful landscapes and huge array of colourful characters that made Hyrule feel alive. There hints here and there of a much more macabre side to the realm; destroyed battlefield littered with rusty weapons, old structures covered in Ganon’s malice and the general feeling that Ganon was always watching you from the castle that you can see basically anywhere on the map. I want them to take that mild dread they instilled and turn it up to eleven. And one way that can be accentuated is through the plot. For example, we know a fair amount about the Sheikah tribe at this point, but what if there’s a side that was never explored? What if there’s a much more sinister reason why the Sheikah tribe were suddenly shunned by the royal family all those years ago? Or maybe the Sheikah found something under the castle as well as the divine beasts that they left buried down there and hoped no one would ever find it. Oh, and I’ve heard a theory that Calamity Ganon was just a puppet of the real Ganondorf, who was hiding underneath the castle all this time, which is absolutely terrifying if you consider what the puppet managed to achieve on its own. Not just plot stuff like this, but the music (keep that ambient style they went for before that knows when to amp it up and make it epic, but with a creepier vibe to match the tone of the world), the visuals, the sounds you hear while exploring. Nintendo need to make it clear that we aren’t in Kansas anymore; no more soft piano melodies while riding through beautiful valleys on my horse, make it spooky!! Unsettling, distorted notes playing through dark, twisted woods with trees gnarling into each other and shiny eyes peeking out at you from the canopy. Or something. Who knows, I just wanna be spooked.

6. A much fuller story

One of the main criticisms I always hear for this game is its lack of story content, which I suppose is true to an extent. But I don’t think this let the game down at all really. The game was far less linear than previous titles, so it makes sense that the story they were telling was much more general, but I don’t think this kind of approach would fit as well in its sequel. Nintendo told us just enough in Breath of the Wild to keep us guessing; we were introduced to this particular version of Hyrule, its inhabitants and what Ganon’s up to etc. But they’ve deliberately been extremely vague on what could possibly be explored in a sequel, as well as where/if these two games even fit into the overall Zelda timeline. They deliberately lifted focus off the narrative to make the world and how you traverse it the central point of your adventure. But now that they seem to be plunging us into a much darker world and have given us so many unanswered questions, I reckon its time to dial the narrative back up and give us a bit more of a beefy story to go with our hell exploring.

7. Change in characters

Slightly vague subtitle, but here’s what I mean. As I mentioned beforehand, Breath of the Wild is full of colourful characters that populate the towns as well as the general landscapes, from merchants to adventurers and shield-surfers to Beedle (I love Beedle). And for the most part, these characters all want to help you along on your journey by giving you helpful advice or sending you off on quests to find more shrines. And while I’m not saying this sequel should do away with all helpful NPCs, I do think there should be fewer of them. When designing new towns and settlements, they could give us the odd helpful citizen here and there, but for the most part, how would the inhabitants of this forgotten underground place treat Link? I think it would add to the atmosphere really well by having some of the characters that populate the world deliberately unnerve Link when giving him advice or telling him something helpful and then mocking him at how ineffectual he is at completing his quest. Or if they really want to go a bit overboard, they could even have occasional encounters where talking to the wrong NPCs can end in a random fight, in the same vein as the disguised Yiga in Breath of the Wild. But of course, you don’t want to only populate a world with characters that hate you (that’s what MediEvil is for), so some form of guide would maybe be a welcome addition. If not Zelda (I would definitely welcome the idea of her being along for the ride, though I fear it would take away some of the nerves if you have Zelda as an anchor of familiarity), then perhaps the ghost of a Sheikah from thousands of years past that never agreed with what his tribe were doing or was responsible for something in his life that he now deeply regrets and he can’t pass on until Link helps to finally defeat the real Ganon. Who knows what they’ll do with the characters, but as long as they leave Navi and Tatl back on the N64, pretty much anything will do me.

8. Keep the stamina wheel

As much as I’ve bleated on about everything I want them to change or add in, this is something I most definitely want them to keep. The core gameplay, while I can’t imagine them really changing it, is integral to the sandbox world they created. Having Link be able to sprint, jump, climb up literally anything is what gave players such a sense of freedom; being given this whole massive world to explore and being able to access absolutely all of it. And while I’ve talked a lot about how much I’d like this sequel’s tone and approach to narrative and a bunch of other things to change, this game absolutely needs to keep the same sense of unabashed freedom we had in the first game. And the most integral part of that freedom was the stamina wheel. Short segment I know, but that’s all I really had to say on that one. Let me climb things, Nintendo.

9. Switch up the monsters

In Breath of the Wild, there was an excellent balance of amazing new designs for old favourite monsters, as well as a whole host of new ones (the guardians and the moldugas getting a special mention here). But I reckon what this sequel needs is some brand new monsters to add to the pile; a larger variety of monsters to encounter out in the wilderness would enrich this new darker world we could be exploring to no end. Also, while I really loved all the main story bosses in BotW, I feel as if a larger design variety of story bosses would benefit this sequel. Imagine the potential for whatever ancient monsters are down under the castle to give Link a hard time and what kind of an epic fight is Ganondorf going to put up when we finally get there?? Just as a little idea to throw out there, maybe undead Sheikah will make an appearance as an enemy, woken from the dead and forced into Ganon’s service after being infected by malice. And hey, the Yiga Clan never really got full closure! Yeah Link gets rid of their leader, but the Clan is very much still alive and kicking by the time of Calamity Ganon’s death, so perhaps they’ll play a central role once again now that Ganondorf seems to have come back into the picture. What would make the Yiga even more menacing is if this were their plan all along; knowing that Link very well could defeat Calamity Ganon and then, after retaking the castle, be drawn underground to free the real culprit. Nobody knows what direction Nintendo are going to take with any of this, other than ‘it’ll probably be kinda spooky’, but I am way too excited to find out.

Got any cool ideas or theories of your own? Anything you want them to add or take away in this sequel? Drop it down below in the comments! I’d be v interested to hear if you have anything to add. Thanks for reading and let’s hope the wait isn’t too painful!

#zelda #link #the legend of zelda #loz #botw #breath of the wild #botw 2 #nintendo #botw zelda

[nadziejastar]

Isa-- A quiet and cool-headed youth. Though he does come out of his shell when talking to his best friend Lea, toward others he is distant and untalkative.

Oh, I absolutely think he was. A quiet boy who is always alone, has no friends, and doesn’t smile much? Of course Lea would be drawn to him. Given their personalities, I can definitely picture Lea viewing Isa as a stray puppy at first and being the one to approach him. And after that, Isa started following him around like a lost puppy. Then they became best friends.

“You have your own mission, Roxas,” Saïx told him before Xion could answer.

“I can’t trade with Xigbar or something?”

“What an extraordinarily childish notion. Do you need Axel to walk you everywhere now?”

And I think Saïx had quite the inferiority complex over his past. It’s definitely hinted that the icing on the cake started with Lea and Isa long before it involved Roxas and Xion. Roxas was acting like a zombie following Axel mindlessly, then he surprised Axel by acting more alert. And Xion was mindlessly following Roxas around, then she spoke normally and saved him by using the Keyblade. This surprised him so he took her out as a reward.

Xigbar, standing and watching their exchange with his arms folded, opened his mouth. “You’ve been working really well lately haven’t you, Poppet.”

“…Thank you,” Xion replied in a small voice.

“Thank you? Why do you have to say thanks?

“Well, you were praising me, weren’t you? Was I wrong?”

“Haha… Yeah, I guess you could see it like that.” He pressed his hand to his mouth and snickered.

“Did I say something funny?”

“No, no. You’re fine.”

Xion looked up at Xigbar, anxiously. Beside them, Saïx didn’t show any notable reaction. He just watched.

Xion insisted on tagging along on the day she collapsed again. She was more interested in spending time with her friends and getting ice cream later. She passed out and Axel blamed himself because he was supposed to look out for her.

Long ago—I remember, I didn’t hate fighting. Saïx flung his claymore at Roxas.

And so, Saïx remembered things from a long long time ago.

It might have been the same for Isa. He might have liked fighting, but only with Lea. 

“So, Saïx, what am I doing to—? Oh, boy. Awfully early for such a bad mood, don’t you think?” Saïx had whirled to face him with a rather pronounced scowl.

“…Nobodies do not have ‘moods’ to be ruined,” he said at length.

“Well, sure, technically…”

“It’s just that the failure was functioning better than expected until recently.”

I think Isa was probably careless one day and Lea got hurt while protecting him. Axel was angry remembering that. And Saïx has a complex about being a useless failure.

If I’m trying to get away from Saïx—from the organization itself—what am I doing here? The truth struck home—Nobodies had no place where they belonged.

“Now what do I do…?” he muttered, his face still upturned to the distant moon. A heart. Maybe the answer was closer than he thought. Suddenly he felt something brush his leg.

“Wh—whoa!” Axel jumped. It was a big yellow dog.

This scene from the manga takes place on Day 117 ~Secrets~. This is the day Axel was asked to work with Xion and observe her, then she talked about her memories. In the novel, it was hinted that Axel remembered praising Isa while he was praising Xion. Presumably that’s where the icing on the cake tradition started. In the manga, they referenced Axel’s memories of the past in a different way. Pluto showed up. 

“Hey, what’re you doing here?”

The dog looked up at him, tail wagging wildly.

“Are you all alone?” As if in reply, the dog made a single tiny bark.

“Look, I don’t have time to play.” Axel gave it a pat on the head and began walking away between the buildings.

Xion really liked him and wanted to bring him home. Axel was annoyed that she was getting too attached to him, because Saïx would never allow her to keep him. Although Isa might have seemed like the “cold” one and Lea the “nice” one during the scene with Ventus, I doubt that was the whole truth.

“Hey, don’t follow me, okay?” He turned and shook a warning finger in front of the dog’s nose. It barked again. The animal almost seemed to understand him.

“Get off me already!” Axel shouted as he tried to stand, but this left him open to a slobbery attack from the front. 

“Ugh! Quit it…!” Eventually Axel noticed Kairi watching this exchange with mild astonishment and finally shoved Pluto away. Sand covered his black cloak, red hair, and face.

It was probably framed that way on purpose so that when we saw Isa’s real personality, it would have been more of a twist. The manga characterization is often more humorous and not meant to be canon per se. But that doesn’t mean it’s arbitrary or that it isn’t meant to be true to the characters in some way. 

“Look, I gotta go.” Axel opened up a dark rift in space and plunged into the blackness. The dog tilted its head again and plopped down in front of the closing portal as if to wait for him. 

And Saïx actually DOES let Xion keep Pluto because Isa was fond of dogs. Sure, Saïx letting Xion have a pet is out of character. But the purpose of the scene with Pluto was to tell you something important about Isa and what type of person he was compared to Saïx.

All of it disgusted him. Saïx looked up at the skyscrapers, tracking Axel’s presence. 

He remembered what the witch Naminé had said. Axel seemed lonely. The man himself had denied it, but she was absolutely right. Axel was lonely. He’d lost Roxas. Lonely. Didn’t that mean he had a heart? How had he gained one? Why only him?

Axel was amazed and happy that Saïx still had some memories from the good old days. The manga probably didn’t mention that Isa liked dogs for no reason. Anyways, Axel’s happiness didn’t last. Saïx brushed him off and told him that he had to go back to Castle Oblivion soon, then went back to being his usual cold self.

Saïx’s searching gaze fell on a yellow dog, and he paused. The dog turned to him with a full-throated bark. He scowled, crinkling the scarred skin between his eyebrows, and lifted his hand to open a Corridor of Darkness behind the dog. If something was in his way, he would just get rid of it. 

The next day is the vacation and Saïx told Axel that he was getting too attached to Roxas and Xion. It’s very similar to the way Axel told Xion that she was getting too attached to the stray doggy. When Axel reacted sarcastically, Saïx told Axel that he changed. Axel looked sad, and almost like he was smirking at the irony.

“She doesn’t need you anymore.” Saïx smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. That was the world’s most obvious lie, Sora thought.

Axel said Saïx had changed and looked up at the heart-shaped moon. The scene is also made to look just like the scene where Sora confronted Saïx after Kairi escaped with Pluto. Saïx said she didn’t need him anymore. This made me think: they created the situation with Pluto to emphasize that when Saïx and Axel said the other had changed, it was specifically referring to getting attached. What Saïx said about Axel was probably very true, especially after he became a Nobody. But it was probably not limited to him as Nobody, either.

The two of them seemed to be enjoying themselves. Ven was just a tad jealous. “Already?” Ven asked, a little lonely.

He turned around. “I’ll see ya when I see ya. After all, we’re friends now. Get it memorized.”

“Okay, Lea.” Ven nodded with a smile. He hadn’t thought he would make friends here of all places.

If you think about it, who is more likely to become easily attached to others? A sociable extrovert who interacts with every person they meet? Or a quiet introvert who only opens up with one person? Definitely the introvert. Lea was very warm and quick to help other people, but he probably didn’t get attached to the stray puppies he picked up very often. He was probably just happy creating memories with new people (or animals). He seemed satisfied to play with Ventus for a few minutes, then move on. He’d see him whenever. Ven was the one who didn’t want him to leave, because he was lonely without Terra and Aqua. Then their situations became reversed.

“Sora and Riku are best friends.” Axel’s eyes crinkled as he remembered his own best friend—the only friend he’d ever had, in fact.

“If your best friend goes away, you’re sad, and if you get to be with them, you’re happy,” Naminé added. “Isn’t that how it is, Axel?”

“…That’s about the size of it.” Axel nodded and sat down on the remaining empty sofa, staring at the sea-salt ice cream he held.

Axel was very friendly, but he was also cool and detached. Roxas laughed at him when he they’d never be apart as long as they remembered each other. And in the manga, he was embarrassed when Roxas called him his “best friend” out loud. But over time, he became desperately lonely and needy. It was a core aspect of his character. No one was called “lonely” more times than Axel. And he became VERY attached and clingy with Roxas and Xion, which was unusual behavior for him. 

“What?” The irritated furrow between his brows deepened.

“You seemed lonely,” Naminé repeated, raising her eyes.

“Lonely? Me, a Nobody, lonely? That doesn’t even make sense!”

And I just loved how in the KH2 novel, Axel was simultaneously trying to avoid both Pluto AND Saïx, who always showed up at exact the same time. It was like escaping the two of them was...the same thing, in a way. Not only Saïx’s stalking, either. Axel’s stalking of Kairi was parallel to Pluto’s stalking of Kairi, too. When Axel was trying to see Roxas again, he was acting like an abandoned stray puppy. Ironically, Axel was so clingy with Roxas because he felt abandoned by Isa. He missed how emotionally attached Isa was to him and was very desperate for his affections once more. Then he transferred that neediness onto Roxas. But as a human, it probably wasn’t Lea who got overly attached.

As he watched Ven go on his way, Isa commented to Lea in a frosty tone, “What is it with you and picking up stray puppies?”

Lea just shrugged. “I want everybody I meet to remember me. Inside people’s memories, I can live forever.”

“I know I won’t forget you. Believe me, I try all the time,” Isa replied with a bit of humor in his tone.

It was probably Isa. That’s probably why he kept his distance from most people. I bet this was a pretty important aspect of their characters. Saïx was always utterly cold and detached towards everyone. But deep down, Isa was nothing but an abandoned puppy. He was being sarcastic in BBS. But in KH2, that was exactly what was going on. He wanted nothing more than to forget Axel and tried ALL the time. But he couldn’t. And that was probably the main reason they included so many more Pluto scenes. The real stray puppies were Isa AND Lea.

Axel had seen Pluto jump fearlessly into a portal to the Corridors of Darkness. And Kairi had done the same. This was no time to hesitate, then.

He gave Pluto a good hug and pressed his cheek against his fur. “Okay, let’s go.” Pluto woofed in reply. Axel got to his feet and headed deeper into the bowels of the castle.

After reading the novels and the manga, I think Isa might have been talking literally about an incident with stray puppies. It would have been funny if the dogs were actually Disney characters like Lady and the Tramp. Isa was the one who wanted to keep them, but then they got adopted. Ironically Lea was the one who was chiding him for becoming too attached. And that’s why he sounded annoyed with Lea picking up another stray puppy.

#kingdom hearts #kh meta #kh isa #kh isalea #kh lea #kh axel #kh pluto #kh kairi

[firebirdsdaughter]

Heh heh, whoops…

… Realised I forgot to do a Ryusoulger Raw post.

So… Y’all get to hear my initial reactions to the subbed version! Yay! XD

Let’s a-go!

In no particular order and w/ many typos:

Naohisa peeling the banana for Ui bc she’s so busy staring. XD Ui, I know Asuna is beautiful, and the boys, too, but please remember to eat?

Well, that’s either really convenient, or Naohisa knows more than he’s letting on. This is Sentai. It could be either.

Aw, poor Melto. Come here, I’ll give you a hug. ^^ Sometimes I’m a good mother.

I think I already waxed about why I love the way Banba immediately, like, flies to this guy’s side in the tags of Ryuu’s gifset, but it still holds. Believes he can’t trust people and that kindness is weakness, but still can’t stop himself. I am really hoping for an episode/something way down the line where he has a ‘I would have turned into a monster w/out Touwa and the rest of you’ moment. Might just write one myself, eventually. ^^

And the coincidence, one of the true heroes of Toku, saving the day is also still hilarious. Like, if Banba had been one block over.

Why was he even on this street to begin w/?

Why is Touwa here? I find it hard to believe Banba would at all be interested.

No, actually, I know why. Bc plot.

Aw, he came bc he loves you two and is constantly anxious. Melto is absolutely the type of person who is afraid to let the people he loves out of his sight bc what if they didn’t look both ways before crossing the street and got hit by a truck???? And I doubt Biker Dad’s death helped that at all. Kou and Asuna are all he’s got left of his ‘family’ and he’s secretly terrified of losing them, too. Hey, Melto, I think I just got an idea for an angst tidbit for you, and I’m really sorry.

Aaaaand the youngest brothers are at it again. XD Dorks.

My ‘age’ order for this family is Naohisa, Banba, Melto, Asuna, Kou, Touwa and Ui. Age in quotes bc obviously the canon ages are completely wild. But I think I’ve done the fam break down before, so I won’t go into it again. ^^

I mean, gotta hand it to Wyzul. It’s a situation where acting blatantly weird and out of place works. Like, it’s a legit acting job. People in special events/games. Ren fairs. Yes, he’s acting really evil and suspicious, but that’s easily explainable as that being the character. Another pretty good plan. Very Sentai, but actually a good plan.

OH GOD NO! IT’S A MIMIC! DX

I don’t actually play Dark Souls, but…

Okay, but I wouldn’t be getting too comfy, yet. You’re missing one, and he happens to be the most stab-happy out of all of them. Like, I’m sorry, but as a villain, I would be celebrating while Banba was unaccounted for. I’d be checking the back stairwell.

This confirms that the chibis are merely going in colour order and have no bearing on the focus character.

Mother¡Melto makes another appearance, in a small way. ^^

I don’t know, Asuna. Given that none of you remember how you got here, I think it’s very valid of Melto to fear this was a Druidon trap.

Kou takes a moment to look majestic. XD HAve you been taking lessons from Banba? ^^

This is so obviously suspicious. Like. It’s obviously magic. Touwa and Asuna win the doofus award this ep. At least Kou figured it out eventually.

Touwa is the super winner of the award, though. Asuna had the sense to snap to it when told there were Druidon. XD

Honestly, she probably needs the protein and calories. Her super strength might mean she burns through energy faster than other people.

Actually, I dunno if that makes sense.

Mother¡Melto again. XD ‘Don’t eat mystery meat!’ is kind of like he’s telling her not to take food from strangers…

Yup, Touwa’s a dumb. ^^ I love how in the character blog, Yuito was like ‘he would have gotten scolded if his brother was there.’ XD Probably one of the reasons they didn’t want Banba in Wonderland w/ them. A) he would have snapped Touwa out of it too soon, and B) given how the chests open in their own, they didn’t want to reveal too much about his past, I guess? Though I wish they would tell us at least a little more. Keep it slow, absolutely, but I’m hoping for some more concrete hints soon.

A for effort, Melto. You tried.

Also, oh, Kou. ^^ Cutie. So it is limited—bc they had to stay trapped in the ‘box,’ it couldn’t actually grant Kou’s wish. But it sure tried. Kinda like w/ that Yummy that was destroying people’s dreams when it tried to attack Eiji, and the world came out of his mind.

Aw, he’s fine. The boy is durable. ^^

Kou, now is the time when you assume this is not the real world, you dork. XD

Aw, did Banba help clean up? Actually, there’s no indication if he did or not, but it’s sweet to think he did. ^^

I mean, he’s got a point. It could have a backlash. My recommendation would be to poke it first. Though since Kou crashed into it before, it’d probably just be impervious…

Oh, don’t remind him of that, that was (obviously unintentionally) kinda insensitive of her… Well, it did say that she sometimes has a habit of saying the wrong thing/speaking so bluntly she has trouble communicating… We haven’t really seen that yet, but I think it’s kind of coming into play here, since Melto’s bio, and this ep, establish that Melto is self conscious and doubts himself in comparison to the others… So that probably hurt him a lot  more than she intended it too.

But bc he’s Melto, he didn’t communicate that, so she had no way of knowing and no chance to reassure him she didn’t mean it that way.

God, Banba’s got a compulsive apologising streak, Melto has an inferiority complex, neither likes admitting hurt/weakness, esp to people they care about… And then there’s Asuna being too blunt and saying thing w/out thinking, Kou and Touwa are probably in the ‘bottle things up’ boat, too, just of the Stepford Smiler/Snarker variety… Any more of my quirks you’d like to spread out amongst the team, Toei? Like, maybe Gold is constantly terrified he’s bothering everyone?

Sorry (exhibit A XD) that got a little nonsensical. Right now it’s mainly Banba, Melto, and Asuna who are exhibiting some of my habits (apologising [for ex. rather than thanking someone], a slight inferiority complex compared to more “successful” friends, an in ability to read social cues and saying things w/out thinking).

And I love them for it. DX Really gotta write more Melto now!

Aaaaaaaaand… Now I’m crying all over again. DX I mean, hi Biker Dad and all, but poor Melto… TT^TT

This poor baby… DX Like, you can tell that for a fraction of a second, he’s almost like ‘oh my god, you’re alive?!?!?’ And… Then the memory hits him. DX

And then he promptly logics himself out to ‘I’m hallucinating.’ Oh, baby… DX

I know it would’ve broken the illusion, but… I wish Melto could’ve hugged him. Let the boy hug his Biker Dad. DX

Or, if not, can someone please hug someone??? Please?!?!?

Aw, he’s scared, though. I mean, I totally think he was the anxious, ‘oh my god what if I turn around for a moment and they fall of a cliff?!?’ sort of person before, but losing their Masters magnified that. He loves them so much he was afraid of something happening to them before, but now that something terrible has happened to someone else he loves, it’s even worse.

Basically, he was already terrified of something bad happening to the people he loved, and then something did, validating that terror.

Inferiority complex probably didn’t help. It’s not exactly resentment toward people perceived as ‘better’ (though there is some in it), but feels like a failure on the part of the one w/ the complex for not being ‘good enough’ or able to ‘catch up.’ He knew they were good at fighting, but was terrified by their recklessness and feared he might not be strong enough to help them one day, or something. Not sure any of that made sense.

I do like the idea of Biker Dad inside the Blue RyuSoul just being like, ‘oh no, Melto is worrying himself into a corner, maybe it will help if I astral project and give him a pep talk.’ Might be cute if the Masters’ souls are still semi ‘present’ or ‘aware’ in the RyuSouls.

…

… Ooooooo. I just got an idea. Kinda like in that Magiranger episode. Like, the trio get trapped in some ‘magical dimension’ or something again, and, like, the Masters are somehow there, or their souls come out of the RyuSouls somehow… Anyway, could have something like when… Houka, I think it was, didn’t want to leave that place bc it seemed like their mother was there. Could also include friendship bc maybe the final straw for them finding the will to go isn’t just ‘we need to protect the world’ but also, on a more personal level, the Tatsuis and the brothers? Like, if they realise that the boys are getting overwhelmed in the real world, esp if the brothers are partially fighting to try and rescue them, and are about to get defeated, and meanwhile Ui’s in the line of fire bc she’s trying to help civilians and doing everything she can, too… Could be cute. And heartbreaking.

That was a bad explanation, I’ll try to be more concise later.

Why… Is he explaining this?

Again. I wouldn’t be celebrating while mister handsome murder boy the Majestic Knight is still at large.

I like how it’s still saying ‘here, here.’

Wow, Melto can jump!

Oooo. They came out of the fire! Cool effect.

I’d question how Biker Dad knows this, but he’s dead, so maybe he’s omniscient now. I dunno. I’m inclined to give more leeway to people knowing weird things if they’re dead. Bc they’re no longer tied to this plane, ya know?

Anyway.

…

……

……… Butt. DX

AAAAH! DX Poor baby. He’s all like ‘I did it, dad!’ and briefly forgets that it was an vision, and then of course Biker Dad is gone, and it… TT^TT

Ah, yes. The perfect way to get me to stop crying. Cut directly from sad, introspective Melto to Banba tenderly caressing the lid of some random box. XD

Now, I will not grow out of that joke. XP Ryusoulger here, making me jealous of inanimate objects like pros.

Must everything he does be so very attractive? And by that I mean sexy? But for some reason I am very self-conscious about that word???

Touwa still wins the super doof award.

And now, Melto does math. I think.

XD Kou’s crash into the dome was useful! Though I’m impressed Melto could have any estimation of what the height of that was. ^^

I really like the little collars of the suits. I really do.

AH. I FIGURED IT OUT. THE LITTLE ‘LIFE BLOBS’ ARE SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE MINUSAUR!

(pictures at the bottom)

CUTE.

XD Using the Minusaur’s power against it. ^^ Nice going Melto.

I guess it’s not technically him piloting alone—though he does seem to be the one in control…

XD Wyzul and Crayon’s reactions are so funny. ^^

Touwa just lying on the grou w/ his arms folded is still funny.

Banba just… Freaking teleports behind Kou. How did he even find them? Did he walk down the street carrying the box while fully transformed? XD

Banba interrogating the mooks is hilarious bc, esp in most recent years, they can’t actually talk. The most recent exception I can think of is Kyuranger’s mooks.

XD The absolutely unnecessarily fancy sword twirling he does just to point it in the other direction. <3

I mean, I guess it might seem a little silly, but… Isn’t there a belief in Shinto that all things have souls, even inanimate objects? So… Not so far afield, really. Though that does kinda make it sadder that Banba just smashed it. DX Requiescat in pace, antique miniature garden box. Thank you for your sacrifice.

Most easily defeated Mimic. Ever.

Asuna and Kou are either staring into my soul, or thinking about how cool Banba is, and I find both to be valid.

Touwa, don’t be mean. DX Ah, dorks.

This scene is really cute. Y’all here turning into a family w/out noticing, between the younger sibs teasing Melto and then goofing off among themselves, Banba just walking behind them like a tired babysitter and even shooting a look at Melto like he’s trying to make sure Blue’s still w/ them… Cuties.

Also, Touwa bouncing. ^^ <3

The soft piano version of the theme song definitely helps, too. ^^

That hug is still available if you want it, Melto.

And yes, I’d like to think it was. ^^

Still wondering what was up w/ that hooded person. They’re in the opening. They can’t just forget they exist! What happened in the rest of that secene w/ the brothers? Not even Touwa has mentioned it. Did they get their memories of the encounter wiped? Or is there something more?

Preview:

I like the opening shot of Asuna playing a carnival game while the boys watch. Like, it’s so cute and family-y. Melto’s so excited for her like a proud mom and Kou seems to trying to perfect his strategy. XD

Asuna once again finds herself talking people out of… That.

At this point, I don’t care how short that Banba sulking scene is or how little it relates to the plot. I just want to see it. ^^

That’s all, folks! Virtual mochi for anyone who read all that! I really liked this episode, and I’m glad for Melto getting a chance to be very heartbreaking, too. Next episode is an Asuna ep, and while I’m a little cagey about it bc of the short summary we saw at first, I’m willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt and not jump to conclusions about how they’re going to handle it. Hoping we’ll see Anky Mom, too, though there haven’t been any shots of her in the previews… Well, it wouldn’t make much sense if they didn’t eventually bring her back in some way. Still hoping for more concrete info about the brothers’, and specifically Banba’s past. Not all at once, but you could slowly start giving us more. Though it’s not that pressing, and is mainly bc I’m an impatient baby—they’ve got time to do it. And then there’s mysterious hooded person who is in the opening. Gaisoulg? Master Gold? Probably too old to be Gold, but who knows. It does seems strange that not even Touwa, the more friendly of the two, has brought it up to the trio. You’d assume he’d mention ‘oh, yeah, mysterious cloaked man came and sought us out and [something something]’ Makes me very suspicious of cloaked man. Did he wipe their memories? Threaten them? Just plan ask them to keep him a secret? Is he friend of foe? Is he Naohisa? Who knows. But I’d like some clues. At some point.

Lastly, the screenshots I promised, of the life blobs, and the thing everyone else probably already noticed:

#Kishiryu Sentai Ryusoulger #Ryusoulger Spoilers #my precious Dino Children #I love five (5) beautiful colourful Dino Knights #not much else to say #XD #loved the ep #want to write more w/ Melto now #also I'm an impatient baby who wants more #Birthday Sentai #Dino Dragon Knights And Their Cat

[joemerl]

“A Swiftly Tilting Planet” is Awful and I Hate It

I don’t know if anybody cares about my opinions, but I built up a lot of bile reading this book and I have to get rid of it somehow.

Background

For those who don’t know, this is the third book in Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quintet, aka “A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels that you’ve never heard of before.” The series involves a family that goes on Science Fantasy-type adventures with beings sent from a vaguely-defined, vaguely Christian bureaucracy of magical aliens. I’ll discuss the previous books a bit, but the series is pretty episodic so we don’t really need to recap them. 

In this story, the world is about to end because a South American dictator has a nuke. Our protagonist, the psychic teenager Charles Wallace, must work with a time-traveling winged unicorn from space to prevent this catastrophe by entering the minds of people from the past. It is much less interesting than it sounds.

Spoilers to follow.

These One-Dimensional Characters Keep Giving Birth to Themselves Like a Flock of Infuriatingly Dull Phoenixes 

The main plot has Charles Wallace travel to ca. 1170, ca. 1693 (Salem Witch Trials), ca. 1865 and ca. 1930s (or whenever Mrs. O’Keefe would have been a kid), plus the then-present day of 1978. Along the way, he chronicles the histories of several families, which include, by my count, about 30 characters who have only half a dozen different names and two personalities between them. 

The Maddox-Llawcaes: Technically two families, but they keep intermarrying each other to the point where I’m seriously questioning how inbred their modern descendants must be. This family was founded by a bunch of cliché Native Americans (stoic, wise, and otherwise devoid of personality) who married some woke Welshmen, repeatedly over multiple generations. They’re good. 

Gwydyr and his descendants: Distant relatives of the above, but descended from their patriarch’s ~evil~ brother. They’re evil and lust after virtuous Maddox-Llawcae women.

The Mortmains: They’re evil and lust after virtuous Maddox-Llawcae women.

The O’Keefes: They’re evil and lust after virtuous Maddox-Llawcae women. Also, they seem to hate disabled people. 

This is arguably a sex-linked trait; the one female character from an “evil” family seems relatively alright, but when she marries a Maddox-Llawcae she still passes evil on to their descendants. This turns out to be the driving crux of this story: Charles Wallace learns that the dictator is descended from that couple and was corrupted by his ancestress’ ~evil~ genes. To avert the apocalypse, Charles Wallace has to change history so that the Maddox-Llawcae man marries a Maddox-Llawcae woman instead. 

It’s pretty much impossible to interpret this as being about upbringing; it’s about blood. "Gwydyr’s line is tainted,” Charles Wallace says near the end. “There is nothing left but pride and greed for power and revenge.” At another point, a Maddox-Llawcae immediately writes off his unborn half-brother as evil because he has a Mortmain father. And he’s right---Unnamed Mortmain Sibling grows up to be a criminal and dies in jail. Hopefully without managing to pass on his dirty, inferior genes first, amirite? 

It doesn’t help that, even separated by centuries, relatives are often described as looking alike and/or having variations of the same names. Of those 30ish characters in these families we have three Mad(d)o(c)(k)/Madogs, two Gwydyrs, five Rich/Ritchie/Richards, three Bran(don)s, two Matt(hew)s, two Duthbert Mortmains (yeah, because that’s a name you want to keep in circulation for 300 years), and most egregiously of all, four of the main female characters are Zyll, Zylle, Zillah and Zillie. (Technically there are three Zillahs, if you count middle names.)

Obviously, genetic determinism is a questionable moral. It’s also really annoying, because each time period has the same basic characters just going through a variant of the same plot. There is hardly any character development across 800 years of history, and no permanent change from good to bad or vice versa.

In a way, this even ruins the previous books---Calvin O’Keefe became a good guy despite his dysfunctional family, but now I get the feeling that this isn’t supposed to be a testament to his strength as a person, it was just his mom’s Good Maddox Genes breaking through the Evil O’Keefe Heritage. But hey, the focus on Mom O’Keefe was nice in this book, since she’s practically the only one who has an actual character arc. 

Though, as you’ll see below, she was not actually needed for this story at all.

This Universe Has No God, Just a Tyrannical Plot Outline

Charles Wallace is the protagonist of this story, but probably gets mentioned on fewer than half of its pages. Mostly, he’s just psychically possessing people, during which time he does not control them so much as see their lives and...vaguely influence them, sometimes. What I’m saying is, he doesn’t really do much in this story. His grand moment, in the penultimate chapter, is to vaguely influence Matthew Maddox #1 to vaguely influence Rich Llawcae #3 to not to get stabbed by Gwydyr #2. This saves the world, but seems somewhat anticlimactic after 287 pages of build-up.

What’s worse: he actually tried to make this story shorter, and save me so much suffering. Unfortunately, “God” wouldn’t let him. At least, for a certain sense of the word. 

The Time Quintet is sort of like Chronicles of Narnia in that it’s a Christian story, but you have to dig a little beneath the surface to realize that. L’Engle’s beliefs were also more liberal than Lewis’, and in this book they seem almost pantheistic: Charles Wallace’s help seems to come less from a personal deity and more from a sort of implied sentience of the universe itself. This usually comes in the form of “the wind,” which blows him and the unicorn to different time periods at its own whim. 

Charles Wallace’s arc is that he is apparently a control freak, and needs to trust God/the universe to lead him, or something. He figures out early on that the key to everything is in 1865, but the unicorn says that no, we have to let the wind blow us where it wants. Twice he tries to fast-track things, and each time he and the unicorn almost die as a result; thus he learns that no, he should not be relying on his own intelligence or logic, he should just ~go with the flow~ and assume that things will work out. 

So basically, Charles Wallace has been tasked by Vague God to prevent the apocalypse, but he’s not allowed to do anything to actually try to prevent it---he’s basically just pushed into random corners and told to stay quiet, with the hope that his presence will change history through osmosis. I find myself comparing this to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. While I have some criticisms of this subplot, in that book Harry is presented with a choice: do what he thinks will save the world (looking into the Deathly Hallows), or what the Omniscient God Stand-In says will work (finding Voldemort’s Horcruxes). That works well enough, but here, Charles Wallace is given the choice between his own ideas and no actual instructions. He’s told to save the world, and then criticized for trying. 

There’s a part where the Echthroi (demons who want the nuclear apocalypse to happen) try to trick Charles Wallace by preying on his ego. This involves telling him he was selected to save the world because he’s intelligent and psychic and is a generally moral person, all of which is true. He rejects this, as he is supposed to, and at the end of the book notes that the mission did not succeed “because I was intelligent, or brave, or in control,” but because he let the wind guide him. Which just leads me to wonder why he was the one chosen to save humanity, when Vague God could have sent anyone else, or just cut out the middle-man and had a unicorn tell Bran Maddox #3 whom he was supposed to marry. 

But what really makes this intolerable? Charles Wallace was right. The key to everything is in 1865, he eventually gets blown there anyway, and it’s the only place where he concretely needed to do anything. So why the hell did we need 40 awful pages set during the Salem Witch Trials?! To teach us that the Salem Witch Trials were bad? Even the whole part in ca. 1930s was pointless---the only plot-relevant thing that we got there were hints about 1865′s importance, which Charles Wallace had already figured out but was scolded for suggesting. Other than that, these sections were just used to hammer in the idea that Maddox-Llawcaes are always good and the other families are always evil. 

So, my rewrite: Charles Wallace goes to 1170 and sees Madoc and Gwydyr. Then he either a.) figures out the importance of 1865 with his family’s help, as he does in the book, or b.) goes to the 1930s and figures things out from the clues there, while also learning the fairly-interesting-but-technically-irrelevant backstory about Mrs. O’Keefe. Either way, he decides to go to 1865, thus justifying his role as protagonist, and the fact that he is actively trying to save the world is not treated as a moral failing. 

Comparisons to the Previous Books, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love at Bombs

This is my third Madeline L’Engle book, and really, these problems were present in the first two, even if they were less pronounced. Both ended with the protagonist (Charles Wallace’s older sister Meg, who arguably is more important than him in this book, too) saving the day with the Power of Love---meaning that she didn’t so much do anything as feel a certain way. Here, Charles Wallace does even less, just watching other people fall in love while his own character arc is in opposition to the actual plot. 

L’Engle’s strength does not seem to be coherent stories or complex characterization so much as weird, cool ideas---for example, a time-traveling space unicorn. But compared to previous books, this one is pretty down-to-earth; after hitching a ride on said unicorn, Charles Wallace mostly just watches people live fairly typical lives. While A Wrinkle in Time’s villain, a demonic alien brain, could theoretically wither at the approach of a sibling’s love, it’s harder to imagine a nuclear war being averted by nothing more than some shoehorned character development. 

For the record, I bought the fourth Time Quintet book at the same time as this one. I really, really hope that it’s better, but it will probably be a while before I get to it. 

Other Nitpicks

The whole clue leading to 1865 involves a book written by Matthew Maddox #1, who’s from that time. It’s about time-traveling unicorns and family feuds and the like, the basic idea being that he witnesses Charles Wallace and all the supernatural happenings and writes it down as a novel. Fine, okay, but people who talk about this novel keep emphasizing how revolutionary and amazing it was, which kind of feels like L’Engle just patting herself on the back for this awful, awful story.

At the end of the book, the time-traveling unicorn erases the memories of Charles Wallace and his sister Meg, for...some reason? I honestly don’t know why he did this; the pair knew about supernatural creatures even before this book, and they can still half-remember what happened anyway, so this seems pretty pointless. 

This line, from the 1865 arc: “When the sons of men fight against each other in hardness of heart, why should God not withdraw? Slavery is evil, God knows, but war is evil, too, evil, evil.” Not a bad point, but juxtaposed to the characters’ passivity I can’t help but snark: “Yeah, why can’t people just love at each other and magically fix everything, right?”

I’m Tough But Fair: Some Good Points

There are time-traveling winged unicorns from space. They eat moonlight, drink starlight, and hatch from eggs, as we see on a brief trip to their home planet. So yeah, L’Engle is pretty good at Science Fantasy weirdness.

Honestly, the other filler chapters were pretty good too, if only because they distract from the annoying main story. Even the purple prose about “the harmonies of the universe” are alright sometimes. 

Like I said, Mrs. O’Keefe could have been cut, but her arc, going from innocent little girl to crotchety old lady to redeemed old lady, was a good one. And her brother being named “Chuck,” like Charles Wallace, actually felt like it meant something instead of being yet another case of Generation Xerox. 

Along those lines, I like that the Murrays didn’t turn out to be some distant cousins of the Maddox-Llawcaes. That would have been annoying.

The 1865 arc was easily the best in the book. Even with the blood-based moral alignments, the characters still had actual arcs about overcoming disabilities, PTSD...like, expand this and cut out the stupid Salem Witch Trial arc, which was so, so bad. Also, was I just imagining it, or was Matthew #1 in love with Zillah #1? ‘Cause him arranging for her to marry Bran #3 is even more touching if he did. 

Conclusion

Um...the book sucked. 

I wrote this over three days, and it wound up being more than 2,200 words. Wow.

#A Swiftly Tilting Planet #Time Quintet #Madeline L'Engle #Charles Wallace Murry #Book review #Religion #Religion in pop culture #Christianity #Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows #Review

[red-riot-kirishima-eijirou]

Ashido and Kirishima’s Relationship As of Chapter 144

I’ve been going through Tumblr posts and comments to chapter 144, and people keep saying that Ashido inspired Kirishima to get into U.A. or that she has a positive influence on him. 

Were we reading the same chapter? Because if anything, I think Ashido Mina brought out a lot of negative emotions in Kirishima, and people are misinterpreting the scenes in chapter 144.

First of all, let me clarify something, I’ve always been curious about the relationship between Kirishima and Ashido ever since the databook revealed they went to the same middle school. Their high school relationship seems so casual that I would have never guessed they had gone to the same middle school. They barely talk to each other in the manga, and when they do, it’s usually casual exchanges like these. 

They were on the same team for the cavalry battle, so I guess there’s that. 

However, even throughout the cavalry battle, there’s no hint of Kirishima and Ashido having a special friendship or relationship. She’s added to the team so that her Quirk can melt Todoroki’s ice. 

Their casual friendship has always made me curious about what their relationship was like in middle school. They seem to tolerate and respect each other, but there’s nothing that stands out besides this funny little moment in the Omake. 

As a result, I was really curious about what Ashido’s role would be in Kirishima’s backstory. I wouldn’t have been surprised if they barely knew each other in middle school considering how there aren’t any hints in the manga of them knowing each other from middle school. They act like two people who met each other in high school rather than middle school. There’s no close companionship or tension, mostly very casual comments occasionally. 

Sure enough, according to chapter 144, it doesn’t appear like they knew each other that much. Kirishima’s friends had to explain to Kirishima who Ashido was, implying Kirishima didn’t know her that well. Keep in mind, Kirishima and Ashido were both middle school seniors at this point and were about to graduate middle school, yet Kirishima and likely Ashido didn’t know each other. 

Since Ashido didn’t interact with Kirishima at all or seem to notice him in chapter 144, it’s likely their middle school relationship was almost non-existent at this point, which would explain the casual friendship they have in high school. 

When Kirishima learned about Ashido, he didn’t display positive emotions. Ashido didn’t motivate or encourage him. Kirishima looked overwhelmed and jealous and felt inferior when he compared his less flashy Quirk to hers. 

After hearing about Ashido’s amazing Quirk, Kirishima specifically thought “I’m honestly just kinda dull, and boring.” Those thoughts lowered his self-esteem and held Kirishima back. Ashido was a negative influence on Kirishima at this point.

To put it in simple terms, this was Kirishima before meeting Ashido.

This was Kirishima after meeting Ashido.

Furthermore, when Kirishima failed to jump in to help a couple of schoolmates, he saw Ashido jump in to help them instead. 

After seeing her act like the hero and jumping in to save her friends when Kirishima was too scared to do so, Kirishima continued to compare himself to Ashido and felt more inferior. He started thinking that he can’t be a hero like Ashido can. He’s too normal compared to Ashido. He doesn’t have the great Quirk or abilities like Ashido has to be a hero.

Kirishima had so many negative feelings because of his perceived inferiority to Ashido that it was the last straw, and he temporarily decided to not try to get into U.A.

Keep in mind, Ashido didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t mean to inflame Kirishima’s inferiority complex. In fact, Kirishima’s feelings of inferiority is towards people with flashier Quirks in general. Ashido just represented the people who Kirishima felt inferior to. If Ashido weren’t around, some other individual with a strong Quirk could have just as easily discouraged Kirishima from taking the U.A. entrance exam.

At no point in the chapter or manga does Ashido provide positive reinforcement for Kirishima. She hasn’t inspired Kirishima to be more like her and to be a hero. They didn’t even interact in chapter 144. Kirishima felt jealousy towards Ashido that discouraged him from becoming a hero. That’s nowhere close to Mirio motivating Tamaki to becoming a great hero or Bakugou inspiring Midoriya to become a great hero. It’s the reversal of those relationships. 

People may argue that Ashido later encouraged Kirishima to get stronger, to start jumping in to save people, and/or to dye his hair. However, we don’t know for sure if that was the case. It’s likely that wasn’t the case and that Ashido always kept Kirishima’s confidence down and brought up these negative feelings inside Kirishima. It would be opposite of the motivating relationship of Mirio and Tamaki have had.

First of all, Kirishima never needed Ashido to motivate himself to train. Before meeting Ashido and comparing himself to her, he was training hard so that could be more like Crimson Riot and other heroes. He would have kept training if he wasn’t suddenly unmotivated to becoming a hero. 

Before meeting Ashido, Kirishima also understood how important it is for heroes to rescue people. In fact, he specifically said a hero’s body moves before they can even think. He bases this off of what Crimson Riot would have said. It’s unlikely Ashido would have provided him with this same encouragement. If anything, she would discourage Kirishima because he’d compare himself to her and become afraid to save people because he’d think he’s not as strong as Ashido.

It’s possible Kirishima spiked his hair and dyed it red in order to stand out like Ashido. However, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Spiking his hair and dying it red isn’t necessary to becoming a great hero. Second of all, Kirishima most likely spiked it red to look more like Crimson Riot, so Crimson Riot would have inspired Kirishima to make the appearance change, not Ashido. 

I feel like people are acting like Ashido had a positive influence on Kirishima when it’s evidently the opposite at the moment, or people are acting like she and Kirishima have had such a great relationship when there’s no proof of that happening. 

I hope their relationship has a positive impact on Kirishima. I don’t want his thoughts of Ashido to always hurt him. I hope Kirishima and Ashido can talk to each other and Kirishima can stop feeling inferior to her. I hope they can become friends and have Ashido motivate Kirishima into becoming an amazing hero. As of now, she did nothing but lower Kirishima’s self-esteem and made him temporarily give up his dream of becoming a hero. Ashido hasn’t been a positive influence on Kirishima or inspired him into becoming a great hero as of yet, and they certainly haven’t had a great relationship when they lack meaningful interactions in the manga so far.  

Sorry, this is post probably going to be an unpopular post because I see a lot of people gushing over Kirishima and Ashido’s relationship. This is only my interpretation of the manga’s events. If you have a different take on their interactions, then good for you. Right now, I just see Kirishima and Ashido’s relationship as the opposite of Mirio and Tamaki’s relationship. 

#bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #theory #meta #prediction #predictions #mina ashido #kirishima eijirou #kirishima eijiro #manga #mangacaps #chapter 144 #spoilers #long post

[movies-are-magic]

Jupiter Ascending - pt.2

You can find the other parts here:

part 1 part 3

WARNING: Contains heavy spoilers. If you have not seen the movie, chances are that this text will be difficult to understand.

Cinderella stories have been around for as long as women have been blocked from having the same chances for social ascendance as men. Still, Jupiter Ascending is not one of them, although called like that even by its creators, and it is no fairytale. It names the story right in the beginning, immediately revealing it to be rubbish when a woman of ridiculous riches calls herself a Cinderella. We see Jupiter’s face in reaction to that statement, and it is spot-on.

Jupiter is not an unloved wrench who escapes being exploited by her family by binding herself to an aristocrat she has only met for some minutes. She never openly questions that she actually loves her family, no matter what time they make her get up in the morning, because she knows very well that it is the only way for them all to make a living. It is Jupiter who turns out to be that aristocrat, the sought-after hand in marriage, even the queen godmother. She is not the good girl from the fairytales who endures everything, is prettier than all no matter how much hard work and lack of food she has to put up with, and has the purest of hearts. Jupiter is the woman who complains, who says no, who hits hard when she’s angry, who does what she thinks is right, who is paralysed by shock, who admits her fears, and then tries to find ways around those. She is imperfect, and that is shown as normal. She is the heroine with the seemingly magical DNA, and she is allowed to be so, and stay the heroine of the movie. When people want to marry her… well. Not a good idea.

Jupiter’s story rather resembles the legends of centuries before as that being one of a journey, full of sidetracks with seemingly little point except that this is how stories used to work and journeys still do: with countless minor characters developed in great detail, let them be headhunters, administration androids, or professors of mathematics now dusting shelves. With many different worlds, so many little things added and changed and taken out, all that little rubble in myriads of offices, people who could be humans, animals, Cyborgs, robots, or all at once. And at the center of the narrative, three tasks the heroine has to solve if she wants to become the queen she is supposed to be.

The fairytale might have been turned into a lot of shapes through the ages, but certainly has Cinderella never been the genetic reincarnation of the prince’s mother, nor did she have to defend against suitors. From the very first moment Jupiter finds out who she is in Kalique’s castle, she is fascinated by the beauty and abundance of her new-found clan, but at the same time scared, even freaked-out. She never truly falls for it. This is the luxury she has dreamt of, but she immediately understands that it cannot be that dream she has been dreaming, and is cautious accordingly. As she is also introduced right away to the reasons for her introduction into that world – being the reincarnation of a murdered Abrasax matriarch – Jupiter knows that she is in murky water.

When the three Abrasax heirs try to lure in their mother’s genetic copy in their very own ways, Jupiter gets a clear picture of what family means to these aliens. It is a mix of aristocratism and blunt economics, the family clan being defined through a universe-crossing enterprise built on marketing a most inhumane product. Just as much as these humans from other planets can’t find empathy for those humans they compare to cattle, being related to each other means nothing to them. Being fully aware of what it means when a planet is ‘harvested’, they try to justify it to each other, or maybe that is just good taste in their society. As much as they keep insisting how much they loved their mother, that love seems to be nothing but a lie, both to Jupiter and to themselves. They are not even that interested in making profits, although they keep talking about little else. The thing that is most important to them is themselves: their ego, their status. Winning over each other.

Interesting enough, we are never introduced to the siblings’ father(s). While their mother is worshipped like a goddess, other members of the family are never mentioned. We are not even told that mother’s name, as if that was not necessary for there was only one. Given that this person is said to have lived for 91,000 years, maybe that is not so far from the truth. Still, when the reptile alien comes to Jupiter’s family, he identifies the clan with the words ‘This is the mother’, as if nothing else were required for proof.

What with all the obvious hints, it is not difficult to draw parallels between this worldbuilding and bee hives. In a hive, the queen bee matters to every individual in the whole clan, not the other way ‘round. While the other female bees have their raison d’être in keeping the hive functioning, the drones do little more than impregnating the queen bee (which happens once in her life, before she forms her state), and do a bit of defence. Funny enough, Jupiter Ascending does not just pick up that idea, it plays with it.

The bees recognising Jupiter are still the funniest, if most fairytale-like expression of that trope. It happens right in the beginning, when Jupiter learns of her role for the very first time, and when it’s still all sunshine and flowers and Stinger’s lovingly messy old house. She quickly realises that this is not her place, and that it’s a dangerous, uncanny position, one she never asked for and certainly does not want. Who then are the Abrasax heirs? Kalique, the only woman, plays her spiel, but stays much more passive than the men. It could be a symbol for how even in that apparently advanced society, women still hold back where it comes to economy. Or is there something else? Is Kalique a working bee in the end, who knows she can never be a queen? Who finds her purpose somewhere else, thus staying more sane than her two brothers, if still nobody you’d trust so far as to lend them a penny?

Let us swing over to Titus, who is rendered dotingly as the nightmare version of Prince Charming. He leaves nothing untried to come into Jupiter’s inheritance, which he has had an eye on for some time because of its sheer value, and even plans to kill her. Both he and Kalique are shown as incredibly vain, but where Kalique is content with her own presence in luxurious surroundings of dreamy aesthetics, Titus boasts with beauty, including a spaceship with golden statues embedded in its hull, and a zero-gravity place that speaks of a rather short… self-esteem.

These elaborate set designs have brought the movie a lot of criticism, although you just need to look at rich people’s houses and you’ll realise that this is exactly what that guy’s yacht would look like in our society. Besides, if you live for tens of thousands of years, you redecorate a tad more often, usually ending up with something even more ridiculous than you had before. People don’t change with age, they only become more of themselves, and in Titus’ case of narcissism, that means gigantic golden artwork on the outside of his spaceship, and a chapel that certainly wasn’t built for the worship of anyone but himself. Titus likes to consume by exploiting people, noticeably women. The dresses he chooses for Jupiter – a black leather robe at their dinner, and the Christmas tree ensemble for their wedding – speak of that. Dressing Jupiter is something both he and Kalique do, but where Caine gave Jupiter back her own look, the two style her like a doll.

It is not coincidence that Jupiter asks for a modest overall whenever she is on board of the Aegis spaceship, nor that she does point out her wish for having agency in the question of dressing. It is a common trope in almost every genre to show the heroine suddenly dressed like a princess with perfect hair and make-up, in some kind of key scene for her ‘development’ and that of the romance – as if a woman could only become her full self once she looks like a Photoshop advertisement, and only then be discovered as someone worth loving. In this movie, the dress-up game only ever happens when manipulative, murderous aliens start it, which is why the over-the-top dresses and styles are so apt, and so beautifully ugly. Still, the camera does not play the Abrasax game: Jupiter is always depicted covered and without exploiting zooms. Just as she has agency throughout the story, and gains more and more of it, the picture language focuses on this agency or hers. Notice also that whenever she is entirely herself, wearing the Aegis outfit she chose, so does Caine. Particularly during the showdown, they are dressed alike.

One might say that while being completely off any scale of morals, Balem is probably the most straight-forward Abrasax. He hardly lies as much as the other two, but that is more or less his only quality. His huge inferiority complexes, tied to an unhealthy attachment to his mother, combine to a largely dysfunctional personality drunk with ego-problems and the hunger for ever more power and wealth, just as his hate for himself grows. Balem’s whole existence is to make himself bigger, richer, and more powerful than anyone else, because deep down inside he feels so inferior to, I guess, his mother. He even states that he creates life, and that he takes it, immediately comparing life with economic consummation. As religion is never mentioned (although Balem’s place shows aspects of Gothic church architecture), it is safe to say that Balem would give a lot to have the physical powers of a woman, without ever admitting so, and therefore hates all those who are. He is the only one surrounded by all-male servants, except for the snail- or snake-like creature who pulls his chariot with an expression of suffering. He fully makes himself believe that his overabundance of privilege is his full right, and that makes Balem purely evil, unabashedly shown.

Still, while he does throw his tantrums, in all his actions he is always driven to his goals, always has reasons, and never loses that cold-blooded focus on economic profit the Abrasax siblings live off. You could also argue that this openly bad villain is just too much, but think of this: if this were any other movie, Jupiter would be introduced to both brothers, without the ‘you look like Mom’ grossing-out, find both of them hawt, but smiley Titus is so much better and brooding Balem is ugh. Then Titus would turn out to be a cheater and Balem the actual heartthrob with the sad background story whom she’d finally marry in the last scene.

Not in this movie, ladies and gents. What our good Jupiter does is post a tax inquiry against one of those morons, hit the other multiple times, and run away with the dog.

Also, for those who keep complaining that there is no chemistry between the two: if he follows you through hours and hours of bureaucratic nonsense, it is love.

Hope to see you around for the third and final part!

#Jupiter Ascending #movie analysis