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creepercraftguy · 1 year

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Pokemon Scarlet/Violet - Voice Actor Headcanons.

So here’s the latest update of this little series on my blog where I assign official voice actors to characters that don’t have them. I also did this with the previous title, Legends: Arceus.

I have to reiterate the same points every time, but it’s just so we’re all aware -

This is NOT CANON. These are HEADCANONS and are unofficial. It’s just a hypothetical situation. If the characters were voiced, this is who I imagine would voice them.

Every major character in both games is included here, so there are HEAVY SPOILERS for the game’s main storylines. DO NOT READ THIS POST IF YOU HAVE NOT PLAYED THE GAME OR DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED.

The only character I did not include in this is Jacq. He already has an official VA thanks to the Pokemon Go Gimmighoul Trailer. I don’t know who it is though because they go uncredited.

So without further ado, I hope you enjoy my ideas. Or don’t. Your choice.

Nemona - KAYLI MILLS

Also Voiced:

Emilia (Re:Zero)

Alice Synthesis Thirty (Sword Art Online: Alicazation)

Keqing (Genshin Impact

Katy - DOROTHY FAHN

Also Voiced:

Konan (Naruto)

Tsumugi Shirogane (Danganronpa V3)

Mercedes (Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Three Hopes)

Brassius - ROBBIE DAYMOND

Also Voiced:

Goro Akechi (Persona 5)

Hubert (Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Three Hopes)

Prompto Argentum (Final Fantasy XV)

Iono - IRONMOUSE

Also Voiced:

Herself (On her twitch videos and Speak of the Devil)

Tanith (An Incorrect Summary of Elden Ring | The King & The Serpent)

Kofu - CHRIS RAGER

Also Voiced:

Hercule Satan (Dragon Ball)

Marshal D. Teach/Blackbeard (One Piece)

Gahuko Asano (Assassination Classroom)

Larry - XANDER MOBUS

Also Voiced:

Joker (Persona 5)

Master Hand (Super Smash Bros)

Rokuzo Taguchi (Bungo Stray Dogs)

Ryme - REGINA KING

Also Voiced:

Huey and Riley Freeman (The Boondocks)

Kreela (The Ant Bully)

Dynamite (Planes: Fire and Rescue)

Grusha - ALEJANDRO SAAB

Also Voiced:

Cyno (Genshin Impact)

Yuri (Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Three Hopes)

Izumi Miyamura (Horimiya)

Tulip - MELANIE MINICHINO

Also Voiced:

Alice Hiiragi (Persona 5 Strikers)

Anya Corazon/Spider-Girl (Spider-Man (2017))

Yan (Indivisible)

Director Clavell - KIRK THORNTON

Also Voiced:

Kisame Hoshigaki (Naruto)

Shadow the Hedgehog (Sonic the Hedgehog)

Jade Curtiss (Tales of Zesteria)

Penny - AMANDA CELINE MILLER

Also Voiced:

Toko Fukawa (Danganronpa/Danganronpa Another Episode)

Boruto Uzumaki (Naruto)

Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter (Sailor Moon)

Mela - ERIN FITZGERALD

Also Voiced:

Chie Satonaka (Persona 4)

Noire/Black Heart (Hyperdimension Neptunia series)

Junko Enoshima (Danganronpa series)

Giacomo - SEAN CHIPLOCK

Also Voiced:

Diluc (Genshin Impact)

Rean Schwarzer (Trails of Cold Steel)

Guido Mista (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind)

Atticus - TODD HABERKORN

Also Voiced:

Korekiyo Shinguji (Danganronpa V3)

Death The Kid (Soul Eater)

Shiro Iori (Kill La Kill)

Ortega - CASEY MONGILLO

Also Voiced:

Emporio Alnino (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean)

Protagonist (Shin Megami Tensei V)

Shinji Ikari (Neon Genesis Evengelion)

Eri - CHERAMI LEIGH

Also Voiced:

Makoto Niijima (Persona 5)

Asuna Yuuki (Sword Art Online)

A2 (Nier:Automata)

Arven - KAIJI TANG

Also Voiced:

Owain (Fire Emblem Awakening)

Gonta Gokuhara (Danganronpa V3)

Archer (Fate)

Rika - SUZIE YEUNG

Also Voiced:

Eula (Genshin Impact)

Makima (Chainsaw Man)

Pumpkin Pie Cookie (Cookie Run Kingdom)

Poppy - KIMBERLY ANNE CAMPBELL

Also Voiced:

Nahida (Genshin Impact)

Hayase Nagatoro (Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro)

Typhon (Re:Zero)

Hassel - JAMIESON PRICE

Also Voiced:

Sojiro Sakura (Persona 5)

Leo Whitefang (Guilty Gear Strive)

Rider (Fate)

Geeta - SHARA KIRBY

Also Voiced:

Candace (Genshin Impact)

Franceska Mila Rose (Bleach: Thousand-Year Blood War)

Tomomi Takei (Kageki Shojo!!)

Dendra - ALEX CAZARES

Also Voiced:

Rebecca (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)

Oblina (Nickelodean: All-Star Brawl)

Dagr (Fire Emblem Heroes)

Saguaro - PATRICK SEITZ

Also Voiced:

Dio Brando (JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders)

Ira Gamagoori (Kill La Kill)

Ladiva (GranBlue Fantasy: Versus)

Salvatore - BRYCE PAPENBROOK

Also Voiced:

Kirito (Sword Art Online)

Eren Jaeger (Attack on Titan)

Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa 2)

Tyme - REGINA KING

Also Voiced:

Huey and Riley Freeman (The Boondocks)

Kreela (The Ant Bully)

Dynamite (Planes: Fire and Rescue)

Miriam - XANTHE HUYNH

Also Voiced:

Haru Okumura (Persona 5)

Marianne (Fire Emblem Three Houses/Three Hopes)

Ui Hirasawa (K-On)

Raifort - ALLEGRA CLARK

Also Voiced:

Shamir (Fire Emblem: Three Houses/Three Hopes)

Maki Zenin (Jujutsu Kaisen)

Beidou (Genshin Impact)

Professor Sada - JENNIFER LOSI

Also Voiced:

Ganyu (Genshin Impact)

Shinobu Kawajiri (Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable)

Mizuki Nakahara (Lycoris Recoil)

Professor Turo - KEITH SILVERSTEIN

Also Voiced:

Zhongli (Genshin Impact)

Johan Liebert (Monster)

Hisoka (HunterXHunter)

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inkedmyths · 4 months

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What if Awakening a Divine Knight makes you a little fucked up. What if piloting a portion of the divine changes you just a little bit. What if every moment spent inside a vessel of legend pushes you another millimeter off of Human.

#ink thinks #trails of cold steel #the legend of heroes #tbh this is a thought i've had for quite a while bc its just soooo fun to play around with #like mannn the awakeners having noticeably better senses. being just a bit faster and stronger etc etc #and then this Offness being compounded by things like being an Immortal or what have you #i love excuses to make characters a bit Freaky and I think if u earned ur way into getting a giant magic mech #u have earned the right to be a bit Weird and a bit Not Quite Mortal

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morgenstern16 · 4 months

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Just beat Trails of Cold Steel 1 and I have something I'd like to say to the writers at Falcom:

#trails of cold steel #sen no kiseki #trails series #kiseki series #the legend of heroes #those fuckers got me good this time - even AFTER I'd played through Crossbell #so much of the game feels like wasted potential and then the post-school festival stuff is incredible

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ifonlyitwasmidnight · 1 year

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Pretty Bird

This is a repost/rewrite from my Ao3 account. I'm slowly migrating my one-shots over.

Hawks x F.Stalker!Reader

WC: 2k

CW/TWS: Heavy dub-con, Knife play, blood play, bondage, breath play, edging, BDSM dynamics (the honorific Mistress is used), overstimulation, kidnapping, drugging, reader is massively obsessed with Hawks, reader has a quirk that basically sends Hawks into a rut.

I think that's everything? If I missed something, please let me know :)

He sat naked in a chair, expertly tied up with a soft, sturdy nylon that matched the vermillion red of his feathers. His chest heaved up and down heavily, trying to catch a breath against the silk gag that was inserted into his mouth, secured around the back of his neck. Hawks' wings flared out to their full size, causing you to gasp; it was a beautiful sight.

You couldn’t help but want to play with the bird. Watching him fly through the city and save innocents drove you mad. It wasn't jealousy. Of course not. It was more that they got something you didn't—to be close to him.

Your scent was driving him wild, thanks to your quirk. It drove people wild, especially men like Hawks that were prone to ruts. Which is exactly what you intended to happen as you sat on his lap, slowly grinding your hips against his.

Hawks' eyes stared into your own, pupils blown wide as you dragged the tip of a knife down his bare chest, leaving behind a gorgeous crimson trail that leaked painted his skin that matched his wings. The wings you kept eyeing, hoping to run your fingers through, to feel their softness. Were they as sensitive as they looked?

The feeling of his rock-hard cock pressed up against your core as you ground your hips against his made Hawks’ eyes roll into the back of his head, relishing in the feeling. You wanted to keep him here as your plaything, but you knew it would only last so long before someone started looking for him—the number one hero can only go missing for so long.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to capture you and make you my own?” You whispered softly against his ear, biting the lobe.

Hawks bucked his hips in response, mumbling softly against the gag you had shoved into his mouth before he had woken up. You had to use a sedative on him; he wouldn't have understood if you had just asked him to come with you. You needed him to listen. You kissed down his jaw to his neck, gently dragging the back of the knife up his chest, causing him to shiver against the cold steel.

“Want to say something, pretty bird?” he nodded but tilted his head to the side, allowing you full access to the sweat-coated skin there. The soft spot between his neck and shoulder begged to be bitten and marked. You ached for it, “You want me to make you cum, don’t you?”

Another nod.

Climbing off his lap, you discarded the knife and chuckled darkly at the loud, pathetic whimper that escaped his sinful lips. Hawks' eyes widened in embarrassment. The red that flooded his cheeks radiated to the tips of his ears, painting his skin deliciously.

He was so cute.

You kneeled down and discarded the knife next to an array of toys that were laid out on a silk sheet. Your eyes slowly trailed up to the hard cock that was twitching with need as you landed on a small vibrator.

You shuffled between his thighs, your tongue poking out to trail up his length, moaning at the flavor of the precum that had dripped from his slit.

“I want you to be a good boy for me. If you do, I might just let you fuck me the way I know you want to. Is the heat building up in you yet? The need.”

You let your quirk flow from you, filling the room with your scent, and Hawks growled. The primal need to take you until you knew nothing but his body quickly becoming too much for him to handle.

He pulled and pushed against the restraints around his ankle and arms, desperate to grab you and feel your skin against his while he rutted into you mercilessly.

The tiny egg vibrator in your hand clicked on, and you pressed it to the base of his cock, using a small velcro strap to secure it around his base. Hawks flung his head back at the sudden sensation and let loose a muffled moan around his gag, spit slowly seeping from the sides. You gripped the knife in your hand again, your eyes wide as you watched his hips buck and writhe under the vibrations. You tasted copper in your mouth as you bit your lip a little too hard.

You stood suddenly, and he flinched. A frown pulled between your eyebrows as the knife tip rested against his thigh.

"I'm not going to hurt you," you whispered incredulously.

The strong muscles of his back tensed tightly as you pressed a button on the small remote in your free hand, causing the vibrator to increase in strength while you cut the strap to the gag around his neck, a loud moan of pleasure ripping through the room.

“Ah, fu-fuck. Why are you doing this?” Hawks moaned in between each thrust against the glorious pleasure.

The knife clattered to the floor as you pushed a hand into a wing, carding your fingers against the soft plumage, reveling in their softness. Watching his reaction to the sudden stimulation of his most sensitive appendage caused a feral grin to creep across your face.

“You’re close, aren’t you, Keigo" you cooed, ignoring his question. He'd learn soon enough. "We can’t have you cumming just yet.” You pressed another button shutting off the vibrator, keeping him at the edge of an explosive release.

Hawks ground his teeth. “Turn it back on, God, please turn it back on.”

He was pathetic, begging you like this from just a little stimulation. “I’ll do anything! Let me cum!”

“Beg more for me. It's a beautiful sound."

Your thighs were slick with your own arousal. Watching this powerful hero succumb to your every touch and caress made you feel powerful beyond measure. It was almost too easy to get him to this point. You teased your hand down to the base of his wing, where it met his scapula, raking your nails against the overly sensitive spot.

He was shaking, too desperate to paint his own thighs in his cum to care about his dignity.

“Let me cum! Please, Mistress— I’ll do anything for you. To you. Just please!” It came out in broken groans. You flicked the vibrator back on to full strength and grabbed the base of Hawks' wing, looking over his shoulder as another scream of pleasure bounced off the walls as he came.

The only sounds in the room were Hawks panting breaths as he tried to come down from his high and the still vibrating egg. It was the most exquisite sight you had ever seen, watching your number one hero cum because of you. Only you could bring him this kind of pleasure.

You dragged your nails down the space between Hawks' wings, relishing in the shiver it sent through his whole body.

“I’m not done with you,” you whispered softly. The chair he was strapped against creaked loudly as he pulled against the restraints again, trying to get at you.

You walked around to the front of the chair, trailing your fingers over Hawks' too-hot skin and straddling his lap, pressing yourself against the vibrations still assaulting his cock. You pulled him into a deep kiss and moaned into it loudly, finally feeling enough pleasure to start taking the edge off the growing need within yourself.

Hawks nipped at your bottom lip and pulled before letting it go, leaning forward to kiss down your neck, biting and sucking as he went. Deep purple marks bloomed against your skin, decorating it in his signature.

“Let me feel you, Mistress, please. I need your wet cunt wrapped around me. I know you're soaked.”

He rocked his hips forward, causing the vibrator to press more firmly into the swollen and aching clit.

You reached a hand down to the side of the chair and pulled on a length of the nylon, tying Hawks down, a quick release for the soft material. As soon as they were free, his hands wandered your body frantically, one hand sliding to the base of your skull and into your hair, pulling at the roots harshly, his other dipping between your thighs. The sweet pain made you moan.

This was what you wanted.

You had hoped to tease him to the point of insanity.

You ran your hand down the length of his still pulsing hard cock and unstrapped the vibrator, tossing it to the side.

You sat up so you could look down into his eyes and grabbed his jaw, forcing his mouth open. You curled your tongue, gathering some saliva before spitting it into his mouth. Your pussy clenched as his eyes rolled back.

“You have one chance to make me cum," you ordered. "If you cum before I do, I’ll go back to torturing you until you’re a crying mess under me.”

Hawks didn’t miss a beat as he gripped your hips tightly and lined the tip of his cock with your dripping wet hole, slamming you down while he thrust his hips up, filling you thoroughly in one swift movement.

The guttural moan that left his throat was nothing short of primal as he began to thrust harshly into your core as deeply as he could, bullying against your cervix.

Hawks leaned his head forward and captured one of your erect nipples between his teeth and sucked it into his mouth, rolling his tongue over it in a soothing motion.

The way he made you feel just from a few motions alone was nothing you had ever experienced. Sounds of skin against skin and loud moans of pleasure were overwhelming as he bounced you up and down on his lap, harder and harder with each thrust.

Hawks quickly released your nipple and threw his head back, gritting his teeth. His cock twitched within you, and his movements became erratic; you knew he was close—refusing to cum before he could make you fall apart on his cock. Hawks stood up and quickly laid you down against the floor, pulling your legs up and placing them on his shoulders, folding you until your knees butted up against your chest.

"You feel so good, Mistress," Hawks said, tears prickling at his eyes as overstimulation began to run through his body.

You wrapped your hand around Hawks' throat and squeezed enough to cause the sucking of air between his teeth to turn ragged. You felt your walls clench and flutter around him, pulling him deeper.

"Fuck, right there, Keigo. Don't stop!" Your moans were the most precious thing he had ever heard.

Your hand slipped between your bodies, finding your clit and rubbing tight circles into it, the last push you needed to fall over the edge and into the most intense orgasm you had ever had.

Hearing his name from your lips sent him over the edge, slamming into you once more before exploding within your greedy cunt, hot ropes of cum filling you.

His thrusts turned sloppy, unable to stop himself from continuing to bottom out in you and a broken sob leaked from his lips as he felt his balls tighten, your still pulsing cunt gripping him tightly.

He pulled out and flipped you over, laying you flat on your stomach before pushing his cock back into you with his legs on either side of your closed ones, the new position allowing him to slide faster against your silken walls.

His hand slid under you both and found your clit, resuming your ministrations to the bud as he rutted into you.

"One more, Mistress. Let me make you come one more time," he moaned in your ear, pulling the lobe between his teeth.

It didn't take much for the coil in your lower belly to build and snap as he expertly thrust into you.

A singular broken moan was all he could muster as he came, milking the rest of the cum he had to offer from him.

He collapsed partly on top of you, his breath ragged and broken, before gently pulling out and rolling over onto the floor, facing you. His hand reached up, brushing a few strands of hair from your face.

A soft smile graced his beautiful lips. “Who are you, and where have you been all my life?”

He could ignore the kidnapping if this was what waited for him.

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A/N: Hey. How we doin'? I know different than usual stuff—surprise! I posted a poll earlier today asking if I should post something dark and figured you all have never seen me post something dark, which would make it difficult to see if you enjoy my style of dark, so I should probably do that. I'm honestly enjoying Tumblr more than I did Ao3; I don't feel as pressured to post here as I did there.

I'm thinking about starting a tag list.

#bnha hawks #pro hero hawks #mha hawks #hawks x reader #takami keigo x reader #takami keigo x y/n #mha smut #hawks smut #keigo x reader #keigo tamaki smut #bnha smut #mha x reader #hawks x y/n #hawks x you #takami keigo x you #my hero academia #bnha x reader #my hero academia hawks

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smash-64 · 4 months

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2023 Game of the Year Countdown #1 The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie Nintendo Switch, 2023

For a fourth time since 2018, a Trails game takes my #1 for the year.

Breaking from tradition, this Trails game has no sidequests. It has a very linear story, although technically there are three linear stories and you can jump from one to another for most of the game. In many respects, this is the “Trails in the Sky the 3rd” for the Cold Steel series. Not only is the story more linear, but we get redemption arcs from past villains, and we also get an absolutely disgusting amount of playable characters. Chrono Cross has 45 playable characters, and people often say that’s too many. Well…Reverie has 50. And each of them gets at least a little time in the spotlight. It’s fantastic for Trails fans, and I adored it. I put 150 hours into this game and I’m not sure I could have put less time into it.

Playing the game on Switch, there were definitely a few times the game chugged, so I can’t give the game a perfect 10. Many of the cutscenes in Crossbell City were bogged down by the sheer number of NPCs, and was noticeable to me, a person famously unconcerned with performance. I can see why people advocate for playing this on PC or PS4, but the portability of the Switch trumps all else in my mind. This is really the only downside I experienced with the game, although it did not affect my enjoyment at all.

Having three linear storylines to follow in any order you want is phenomenal. You can keep going with characters you love, and are never forced to stick with the ones you don’t for very long. And with having a linear story, the pace of the game is potentially sped up a little bit from the traditional Trails experience where sidequests can often lead to very long delays in the main story.

The story itself offers a ton. Obviously I can’t spoil a game that is the 10th in an interconnected, on-going series, but I’ll just say that once the main story is over…the postgame story is equally as interesting and gives fans a peek at some of the series-long questions and issues brought up in previous entries.

Combat is fairly standard as far as the Cold Steel games go. I love Trails combat and this game tweaks little, as nothing was broken. It’s perhaps a little bit more difficult than CS3 or CS4, since the Break mechanic was pretty OP in those two games and it has been toned down slightly, but you can still take full advantage of it if you’re smart and plan well. I also like how some of the accessories drastically increase specific stats, so min/maxing is actually fun in this game. I was able to get Tita Russell’s attack and HP to absolutely absurd heights in this game. She is no longer baby; she wants power!

As previously stated, almost every single character gets their time in the spotlight. Some more than others, of course, but the fact that we get 50 playable characters, yet every one of them gets a chance to shine is a wonderful piece of work by the developers and writers. I’d say that perhaps Musse gets very little, but she had more than enough focus in CS3 and 4. Even Machias gets his own episode, and he is so often forgotten that even I forget about him at times.

Music is good as always when it comes to Falcom. I appreciate some of the battle tunes, like Elegant Prowess, and the game has its own unique sound that sets it apart from CS3 and 4. Maybe not to the same extent that Sky the 3rd sets itself apart from FC and SC, but the tracks unique to this game sound different enough that they are easy to pick out. There are dozens of returning tracks as well, since we revisit quite a few places from previous entries.

My favorite character is Estelle Bright, and I was glad to see a focused effort to put her in the spotlight more often. She wasn’t in CS1-3, and played a more supporting role in 4 than anything else. Meanwhile, Lloyd and Rean ran the show. Estelle is not one of the main storylines in this game, but it’s nice to see her back with some of her famous one-liners.

Overall, I can’t really say enough about the game. It’s an amazing JRPG experience, but one that requires playing the 9 previous games in the series. Maybe that’s a daunting task to some, but the good thing about trying out a Trails game is that there is always another one to play afterward.

#game of the year #goty #countdown #trails innto reverie #hajimari no kiseki #falcom #nintendo #switch #nintendo switch

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yuurei20 · 8 months

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Seiyuu Birthday: Idia's Uchiyama Kouki

Happy birthday to Idia’s voice actor Uchiyama Kouki!

Uchiyama has a lot going on in 2023, voicing characters in “Play it Cool, Guys” (w/ Deuce’s Kobayashi, Leona’s Umehara, Ace’s Yamashita), TRIGUN STAMPEDE, The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel – Northern War, BLUELOCK (with Ruggie’s Ichikawa, Riddle’s Hanae, Silver’s Shimazaki and Jade’s Komada), Buddy Daddies, THE MARGINAL SERVICE, The Seven Deadly Sins: Four Knights of the Apocalypse, being cast in the upcoming 2024 anime, “My Instant Death Ability Is So Overpowered,” and more.

He also voices “Mayonaka Danshi Meshi." In this episode he is joined by Crewel’s Ito and Deuce’s Kobayashi

youtube

Uchiyama and Crewel’s Ito overlap again in this promotional video for “Associate Professor Akira Takatsuki's Conjecture”

youtube

Uchiyama also hosts an internet radio show, “Uchiyama Kouki’s 1 COOL!," here:

youtube

Deuce’s Kobayashi also has a radio show, and in March of this year he welcomed Uchiyama as a guest.

The episode is available here:

youtube

More here:

#twstseiyuu #twisted wonderland #Idia Shroud #Uchiyama Kouki #Youtube

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fission-mailure · 3 months

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Trying to figure out why I actually enjoy Trails of Cold steel (and don't hate Rean -- he'll never be my favourite character, but like. He's fine. I don't chafe at the idea of spending four entire JPRGs in his shoes) despite it being at times extremely Light Novel Nonsense-y.

Like, Rean's a dark haired, kind of generic looking, kind of generic personality'd average dude, who's super strong and skilled, and has a pretty huge proportion of the games' female cast falling over themselves for him, and that makes me roll my eyes a significant amount. He's very in the mold of weird wish-fulfilment light novel protagonists like Kirito and Naofumi, and I kind of can't stand those stories.

And thinking about it, I think it comes down to a few things:

-- Unlike those characters, Rean's actually allowed to fail, and to have other people pull his ass out of the fire. In fact, he does fail, a lot: The first game ends with him losing the final boss battle, badly, and having to run away and abandon his friends, having failed in basically every one of his goals. I'm two chapters in to Trails of Cold Steel III after having played 1 and 2 ages ago, and so far there's been three instances of Rean either getting in over his head or being either outsmarted or outgunned by the villains and needing someone else -- Laura, Kurt/Juna/Altina/Ash, and Alisa/Sharon -- to save him.

-- While he's always presented as being both academically gifted and a strong fighter, he's never the best in either. Emma and Machias are the top students in Class VII, and Laura, Crow, and Fie are stronger fighters in Class VII. Even when he catches up to Crow, Laura (and maybe Fie?) is still a better fighter than him. That's not even accounting for characters outside of Class VII, where it's always made pretty obvious that Sara, Laura's Dad, Rufus, and Aurelia are a ways above him. Which, again, you couldn't imagine from, say, a Kirito, where the only people allowed to be better are people who are somehow 'cheating.'

-- Women in Trails of Cold Steel are actually allowed to have their own goals and character arcs which aren't in any way related to him (in fact, every female character in Class VII has their own thing going on). Laura wants to hone her sword skills and be a worthy successor to her house, Emma has her conflict of ideals with Vita, Fie has her ongoing attempts to find a new role for herself after being a child soldier for most of her life, Alisa is struggling against a legacy that she sees as inextricably tied to a controlling mother she doesn't really understand. These are arcs which are wholly independent of Rean, and he doesn't do much in them apart from provide encouragement. When there are breakthroughs in these arcs, it's never because of him, he's usually just present and being supportive. The only female character whose arc really ties into Rean's at all is Juna's, and even then it's more about her complex feelings about going to study with the military that annexed and occupied her home.

-- I feel like most Light Novel Heroes come with ... pretty emaciated supporting male casts so that the audience doesn't have to cope with the earth-shattering idea that their surrogate might have to compete with other guys for the affections of Insert-X-Number-of-Women. Think about your Kirito, whose only real male supporting cast member is Klein, who's significantly older than the rest of the cast; or your Naofumi, whose male supporting cast is entirely composed of -- well, we're meant to think of them as the most awful people around, but considering that a lot of the time that manifests as them going "We think it's bad that you're a literally slaveowner who bought a child slave, Naofumi," I'm not sure how well that works. But the supporting male cast of Cold Steel is pretty good!

-- Unlike the Light Novel protags he's clearly cribbing from, Rean does have some stuff going on beneath the surface. Not ... much, but there's some inner conflict there about how he's meant to reconcile looking after the people he cares about with the fact that he and all the people he cares about are a part of Imperialist Nightmare State Erebonia, which can and will use him as a tool of imperialism whenever it can. It's a conflict that often puts him on the wrong side. When Cold Steel III starts, he's fresh off being coerced into assisting with Erebonia's annexations of Crossbell and North Ambria, both unambiguously awful things that he's now an accessory to, one of which has put him in direct conflict with another Trails series protagonist.

-- Other characters make fun of him. Like, whenever he makes some dramatic and sentimental speech, you can bet there's a solid 30% chance another character will go "Oh fuck, oh god, he's speechifying again, someone stop him, someone stop him."

All of which combines to make him and his role in the story as LN-style Audience Surrogate ... basically fine. Like, it's fine. He's not my favourite character, in fact I think he's probably my least favourite member of Class VII because in general the character writing for the other Class VII members is pretty strong, but I'm not grinding my teeth while playing him, even if I do roll my eyes at times.

#trails of cold steel #kiseki series #sen no kiseki

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