#Like is he a good person? No???? No fleshed out character in the Yakuza world is its organised crime ffs

[atanx]

I see people bringing up Nishiki slapping Reina so fucking often and I'm so fucking tired of it.

Let's get this out of the way first: was it good of Nishiki to hit Reina? Should he have done it? OF FUCKING COURSE NOT. While violence is the answer to a not negligible amount of problems, here, it WASN'T.

HOWEVER.

People tend to act as though Reina was a poor uwu victim who didn't do anything wrong. So lemme explain the situation here:

1) Nishiki just saw someone he cares about A LOT get sexually assaulted or even raped.

2) Nishiki just brutally killed his boss because of an emotional / trauma reaction to witnessing said assault and was very shaken up by it, having collapsed to his knees when Kiryu arrives.

3) His brother just took the fall for it and will have to go to prison for a very long time.

4) Sawamura disappears from the hospital, leaving Nishiki with most of his support network gone in the blink of a fucking eye.

5) He goes to update Reina on the situation and she starts screaming at him, accusing him of being weak and useless, of failing her by not being able to protect Sawamura and Kiryu.

Great fucking reaction on her part, isn't it? He's just lost two of his siblings at once and she is telling him that it's his fault. Yes, Reina probably didn't mean it like that, but she still says it. And when Nishiki interrogates her on it, she doesn't retract it.

It's not helping that Nishiki's mental stability is already shot to shit because of various pressures, such as an important surgery for Yuko coming up, Kazama's clear favouritism, Kashiwagi's distance.

I reiterate: NISHIKI GETTING VIOLENT WAS BAD. HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT.

And he apparently does slap her quite hard. But he also immediately regrets it, looking at his hand with shock. As someone who not only has a lot more physical strength than Reina and is in organised crime and is thus the stronger party in the power imbalance, it was his responsibility to try and counteract the power imbalance by restraining himself. And he failed at that.

My point is that Reina said what I consider to be unforgivable things, even if she didn't mean them. And she knows this because when Nishiki confronts her, she is scared. She knows she fucked up. Yet she doesn't try to retract her accusations or to reformulate what she feels.

They're both horrible in this interaction and this is why I don't like them as a pairing. Reina clearly is way over her head in the Yakuza world. Which is perfectly fine, not everyone can deal with it, in fact I'd wager that most people can't, yet she both involves herself in it and is involved in it by others. And then she deals with being exposed to the dark sides of the yakuza world by toxically unleashing it, here on Nishiki.

Another thing I don't like is the "he hit a woman because she hurt his feelings he isn't an uwu baby". Oh, so it would have been fine if Reina had been a man? No it wouldn't have. Why bring gender into this? Either say that no one deserves to be hurt or say that everyone deserves to get slapped every once in a while.

Let all genders be slapped and let all genders slap. All or nothing, cmon.

#I actually dont like reina as a person #I tried to keep it out of the post if it shines through though i apologise #Lemme know if you have a totally different view im open to discussion :) #Just reina saying all of that was uncalled for and incredibly cruel #You cant tell me that shes in love with him but doesnt know about his inferiority complex and fragile mental state #I get aiming to hurt people in an argument #It happens yknow but that was not an argument up until nishiki hitting her she was just beating down on him verbally #Like if it had been me in nishikis place i would have ended the friendship immediately #Like i wouldnt have hit her because ive been taught by society that if I have an emotional breakdown im being hysterical #But i would have given her a piece of my mind and then just straight up ended the relationship because its not okay to say things like that #nishikiyama akira #yakuza #rgg #akira nishikiyama #my rants #I still maintain that nishiki should not have hit her under any circumstances #I just dont like how people use that he hit her to argue that nishiki is evil and shit #Like is he a good person? No???? No fleshed out character in the Yakuza world is its organised crime ffs #But it doesnt fucking make him evil now does it #Why am i writing long posts about fictional characters when i should be studying for uni #Im so gonna fail at least one course this semester

[mencnfire]

🍒 mine ? roast me >:o

send  me  🍒  +  a  url  and  i  will  write  some  positivity  for  them.

(( roast u?? where do i BEGIN? well, demon is a majima simp lolololol.

mate, i aint gonna roast u there's nothing to roast, you're a good jelly bean! lemme explain why -

*slides open powerpoint presentation, clears throat* WELL-

first and foremost, i feel like i've known you forever ( i mean, we've been on/off mutuals for what feels like a very long time but is literally like 5/6 years? i've always found you someone who stands out a great deal. not in a bad way, you have a certain way about you. aesthetics, pride. idk, there's something very powerful about your aura and i've always thought it. even when we both wrote ardyn, you were like THE ardyn, yknow? i remember some of my mutual ardyn's but not a great deal, but you always stood out. you had / have such a grasp of his character, the time and the passion you placed into him was always something i found incredibly inspirational. like, i always felt myself pointing to you like that one will smith meme where he's all 'LOOKIE' i just always found that passion admirable & you, very cool.

when i saw you come back to the ff fandom a couple years back, i was really excited to see you around again and simply to know you were doing well & it's been really awesome you making a full return with your boy clive and then majima! i know i don't know a bunch about yakuza and i know you might dropkick me for having STILL not played the games ( i will one day i promise u bby ) but you give me a very good idea of majima and his character simply from what you say to me in private and on the dash. your headcanons are ( as expected cause its u ) fully fleshed; they're detailed, they're interesting and give a well-documented / well-thought out insight into his character. he's playful, he's got a little bit of fuckery going on with his past and maybe even who he is and i'm excited to explore the dynamic he could have with my legion of lads. ( i promise volgin wont poke his eye hole, kakihara might tho >.> )

and you, demon - well, you're awesome. that goes without saying. you've a very down-to-earth, fun person to speak to. sometimes i find myself entirely confused by the yakuza lore you drop on me but i appreciate it none-the-less, it's fun seeing your passion and it's cool being welcomed into fandom lore and information with such enthusiasm. i feel like the rpc world would be an amazing place if everybody had the passion that you have for your characters. you're a fun, chill & very cool person and i'm glad to know you. also, i've been thinking of picking up ffxiv again and might need u to hold my hand ( im bby no bully )

my final note to you is a meme i saw that combined our collective worlds and i hope u appreciate it like i did cause i thought of you when i saw it lol ))

#(ooc) | its like one of my japanese animes #(answered) #(positivitymeme) #henlO FREN

[lausterdomyamong]

HAIKYUU BOY MAFIA AU

note: this is from all of the results from my haikyuu mafia quiz, this is about who they are and how he met you. I’m so embarrassed by my writing but yeah, I’m already here so here we go <3

Characters included: Kita, Atsumu, Osamu, Suna, Oikawa, Iwaizumi, Mattsun, Makki, Bokuto, Akaashi, Kuroo, and Sakusa <3

The quiz

Kita Shinsuke: Gather the scattered group of yakuza to be one since his young age, and reign as the leader since then. his underlings accidentally mistaken you for another 'girl' and bring you back to the headquarters. You're ordered to strip and let them appraise your worth- luckily, Kita notices the mistake. despite being a yakuza and is doing something horrendous, he has a moral code. he promises to make it up to you. maybe it's a part of his plan from the very start- but hey, every mistake can be made.

Miya Atsumu: 'dealer' they say. yeah, atsumu is a dealer on everything. drugs, gambling, and many more. to be frank, he's very creative and heretical. kita almost wants to disown him, only if he's the one that keeps inarizaki flourishing with his wit. your soon-to-be-ex just lost a great amount of money to his hand, so they try to steal your money- fortunately, atsumu sure is accidentally to be there and help you out, 'dealing' with your ex and swoop his hand around your figure, comforting you and offer you a better life! but yeah, maybe he's planning this all along :/

Miya Osamu: unlike his twins, he uses his ability in the killing field. osamu is expressionless, he's killing someone without moving a single muscle on his face. oh, maybe he's heartless, he can't feel a thing even someone is slaughtered before his eyes! but wrong. osamu has himself wrapped around someone's fingers without himself knowing. your smile, your manner, your whole being. he almost feels shame that he kill people for money and you're completely standing on the other side of the world, pure and typical. this man sure will protect you from afar, he will make sure no one will ever fuck with you. he's the hitman of inarizaki after all.

Suna Rintarou: he's the center of all news and stories. this man's probably a walking yellow book, he knows everything and will use every last bit of that to inarizaki's benefit. Suna is always by Kita's side, he's also the leader's trusted interpreter. even he plays such an important role, no one really sees him in flesh except for inarizaki's members. he's always inside the headquarters, living with you. of course, he has to protect you by bringing you in, makes you become a part of his clan. the farther you are away from him, the higher risk you'll take to survive.

Oikawa Tooru: don't let the pretty face tricks you, or you may have bitten off more than you can chew. he's the leader of 'seijoh' after all. they're well-known for their ruthless and immoral deeds, there's no way the leader would be just a simple smiley, sweet guy. many gangs have been fallen and destroyed by him because they underestimate Oikawa, and overestimate themselves. there are two ways to survive ① make his gang money and/or ② become someone special in his heart. but worry not, you may conquer the second option already.

Iwaizumi Hajime: he's not the morally sane one, sorry. Imaizumi isn't a good guy in lion's den, he's part of the lion pride, and being the strongest one himself. even so, he's still less rough and more merciful when it comes to working- but still, he's in the dark grey area. you may accidentally pique his interest. fortunately, he would treat you like a princess and spoiled you rotten. but unfortunately, if you're no longer interesting, he may leave you on your own. better keep him lit up or being a partner in crime, kay?

Matsukawa Issei: the former forensic technician at a local hospital, now the pathologist of seijoh. he's working with the dead more than the living ones. his smile is always painted with a dangerous impression. mattsun may seem so laid back and friendly at times, but he's not someone you could easily screw up. he's clever, skilled, and experienced. the last person that tries to meddle with seijoh has found dead without an actual cause. you just happen to be a one-night-stand that he's really hooked. and he does not hesitate to tell you every secret seijoh has to trapped you in his crew forever. because no outsider would make it out alive knowing their secrets :D

Hanamaki Takahiro: oikawa's trusted fund, trusted friend, and trusted confidence man. he's tricking people into fake lies, gaining their trust, then their money, and run away, leaving them bankrupt. he somehow only tricks the authorities (which is a great threat for seijoh) but never the commoners. don't get me wrong, he's still as nasty and dangerous as any other seijoh member, but he just thinks that it's more worthwhile. makki may just think you're practicable so he lures you in and makes you be a part of his big scheming plan. once you do, you can't run away anymore. you're sticking with him forever, good luck.

Bokuto Koutarou: he's somehow bright and kind- you've mistaken him for a normal authority. but oh, he's one of the most dangerous fellows out there. he may come off as someone kind and enthusiastic, but trust me, he's no different from other mafia bosses. even more primal. he still kills someone by himself, with the widest, scariest grin. bokuto may seem like someone with a simple mind, but when he's falling in love, he falls deep. he might need to learn how to establish a relationship first, but this man takes you in right after he realizes you're the one anyway <3

Akaashi Keiji: calm, serene, and stoical just like a rain forest. with bokuto, he can make fukurodani bigger than any other generations before him. he's smart, composed, and knows everything. without him, this clan would be infirm and even more barbaric. he works his ass off every time this clan is in a problem as if his life depends on fukurodani's prosperity. his mind is so tired, but he pledged to the god already, he would make fukurodani go far, stopping mid-work wouldn't be appreciated. until he met you, your smile, your greeting, it makes his tired-out soul light up once more.

Kuroo Tetsurou: working under fukurodani's command, still, stand above all. he's as powerful as the boss himself. With a smile, he would talk his way until the negotiator blew it. his mouth is truly a weapon. with a word or two, he can get what fukurodani wants. he's on seijoh's 'beware on sight' list. really a schemed man. he would meet you at one of the auction that only authorities can join, he sees you beside a gross old man. look at your face, your expression; you do not want to be here. so he swoops in and talks his way until he can separate you from the said man, and abuse his power as underboss of fukurodani to keep you with him instead :)

Sakusa Kiyoomi: with his presence alone, you can tell how much power this man held. he's so young, has a bright future ahead, and yet- choose to become the darkest part of this society. he's inherited his father's legacy and name, and he runs everything like his father always did. despite being so young, he can control every part of the gang so perfectly. frankly, he wouldn't even bat an eye on you, only if his underlings did something he forbid with you, in front of everyone in the party. the punishment is one thing, but your tears that already shed make him feels something stirring inside.

#haikyuu #my writing #quiz #haikyuu quiz #haikyuu x reader #kita x reader #suna x reader #atsumu x reader #osamu x reader #oikawa x reader #iwaizumi x reader #matsukawa x reader #hanamaki x reader #bokuto x reader #akaashi x reader #kuroo x reader #sakusa x reader #mafia au #yakuza au

[palmett-hoes]

I like your meta and I got to thinking about all the stuff in these books that requires the suspension of disbelief to roll with and tbh the biggest thing Nora ever asked us to overlook is Riko's entire schtick. Tell me who in real life looks at a short, West Virginia college freshman, even the ones who are good athletes, and says 'oh yeah they are definitely the authority on who should be thought of as the best players in the league, the tattoos are normal, he's normal' Like !??? Hello???

yea i personally have a lot of questions about the moriyamas as they’re presented to us in canon. i think they’re a very confusing detail, and also a not-exceptionally well-considered one on account of the unfortunate racial implications

personal take: the moriyamas should have been russian bratva instead of japanese yakuza. it would change absolutely nothing about the story, but would fix a dozen small details that i’ve been leaping through flaming hoops to justify watsonianly in how i flesh out the extended universe

nora is VERY much a character writer, not a world-builder. her characters are SO nuanced and life-like, but her world-building often feels random, disjointed, and unaddressed

that being said though, i don’t think riko’s schtick is really one of these details

calling riko just a “short, West Virginia college freshman” is very uncharitable to exactly what he is. riko is a celebrity, the ward of a celebrity, and he’s been in the media eye since he was born. it would be accurate to compare him (and kevin) to people like blue ivy carter and north west kardashian, children of a-list, instantly-recognizable celebrities who got added to their guardians’ brand as children. blue ivy is nine-years-old and has already won a grammy

(i don’t want to imply that either the knowles-carter or the kardashian-west family, or any other celebrity i might mention here are abusive like the moriyama family. while there are plenty of concerns about the psychology of child stars, i’m not talking about their personal lives or the way these children are being raised, because that’s none of my business. i’m talking about them from the perspective of their media visibility and the legitimacy that gives them with the public)

journalists LOVE celebrity kids. every argument and wardrobe choice is headline news in a-list houses, and why some celebrities (like famously michael jackson) have to go to such extreme measures to give their kids even a modicum of privacy, because they're hounded by reporters and photographers every time they step outside.

tetsuji, however, took much more of the joe jackson approach and turned his nephew and ward into a public brand and set them loose on the media circuit as soon as he was able

you have to think about exy as a global movement, one with two distinct figureheads at the helm. it came out of nowhere and completely reshaped the world of sports in an extremely short amount of time. think of kayleigh and tetsuji as being like mark zuckerberg or steve jobs: innovators and figureheads

and even if they’re “just” sports celebrities, they’re sports celebrities on a tier with people like babe ruth, michael phelps, tom brady, serena williams, usain bolt, lance armstrong, the rock, muhammed ali, john cena. people whose sports celebrity is SO great their names enter the mainsteam. that’s the MINIMUM level of fame and influence they have

it's no stretch of the imagination for me to think that the Princes of Exy brand was inextricable with the rapid growth and popularity of the sport. kevin and riko were mascots, ambassadors, and symbols, not just for the ravens but for exy itself. the sport viewed as coming of age alongside them

even if it seems ridiculous to us from outside their universe, inside it people have been hearing about the Perfect Court for over ten years. it’s something their sportscasters and news anchors talk about. you’ve heard it on every early-morning and late-night talk show. it’s a tagline on the covers of magazines and up on billboards. every little league kid who picks up an exy racket dreams that they’ll be the next pick and wear that three or four on their jersey

riko and kevin may have been two of the most famous children in the world

and with celebrity comes extensive forgiveness of... “eccentricity.” remember when jared leto started a cult and everyone just,,, let that happen? gwyneth paltrow’s new age wellness pseudoscience brand? tom cruise is literally a scientologist? even if it’s absolutely ridiculous, it’s okay if a celebrity does it

in-universe, riko isn’t just a “good athlete,” he’s a house-hold name with a consistent vision, every tool at his disposal to get it done, a massive platform of people listening to his every word, and the mainstream media spreading it for free

some tattoos at 16? that’s nothing. ESPECIALLY if they’d been drawing them on for years before

once you think about these things in the context of things that are familiar to us, rather than strange and random and contextless the way they (admittedly) come across in canon, riko starts to make a little more sense

also, while i think it could have been pushed more, i think that nora actually did a pretty decent job of conveying this idea of Celebrity as a theme in the books. there are a lot of very consistent references to kevin and riko’s fame and influence. however, because of how much of an unreliable narrator with such a narrow scope of interest neil is, it’s a detail that can slide past you especially if you haven’t read the books in a while and you mostly engage in the fandom. fandoms tend to be character driven, not theme driven, so a lot of the recurring themes and imagery of a work tend to get lost over time

however i try to keep in touch with the canon. the last time i fully read the books was less than a year ago (and i’ve been in the fandom for like,, 5 years?) and i fact check it often for posts, meta, and fic beta-ing. at some point i’d really like to do a series of scene breakdowns and literary analysis of the lesser-acknowledged themes bc ideas like Celebrities In The Public vs Private are interestingly approached and i think we’re missing out a bit by only talking about them from a character-first perspective

i think one thing i would LOVE about getting some kind of visual-media adaptation of aftg (animated series or visual novel preferred) would be all the passive worldbuilding we could get that neil declines to describe to us. things like billboards and magazine covers and t-shirts and commercials for exy and the Princes of Exy in particular. i really think it would push so much more dimension and context into the story for us to really SEE these things

#aftg #tfc #kevin day #riko moriyama #kayleigh day #tetsuji moriyama #meta #my posts #my meta #im talkin #long form post #ask

[mangamushi]

Thoughts on Panorama of Hell

 (HINO Hideshi, 1 volume, 1984)

(warning for spoilers and disturbing topics)

In Panorama from Hell, a painter obsessed with depicting hell takes the reader on a journey to discover his life. His work, his neighborhood, his family members and family history are presented to paint a bleak and violent picture of hell on earth.

Hideshi Hino is a very big name of horror manga. Panorama of Hell is one of Hino’s most famous and acclaimed manga, and represents in many ways the quintessence of his style. When he draw Panorama, he thought it would possibly be his last horror manga (he didnt actually stop after that, though).

It displays all his favorite themes and even blatantly recycles ideas from his previous works. It is therefore is a very good entry point for anyone interested in Hino’s stuff. One the other hand, it feels a bit redundant when you are already familiar with his work, especially if you have read Lullaby from Hell, as both manga are very similar. 

As the title suggests, Panorama takes place in a hellish setting, described in great details by the main character.  He is a painter who uses his own blood to paint, and the world he lives is horrible in many ways: from his window he sees an execution platform operating non-stop, a stream full off trash and corpses runs next to his house, he lives in the smell of burning bodies because of the next-door crematorium... 

These first few chapters are so insistent on being as abhorrent as possible that I found it hard to take seriously. In the beginning it felt so exaggerated and lacking any subtlety  that it almost felt a bit comical at times, like the author was just stacking awful things on more awful things for shock value.

“his daily routine”

And it keeps escalating from there. Next, his family is introduced: cruel children with a dark sense of curiosity, a beautiful wife who seems straight out of a classic japanese horror tale (pale skin and long black hair, wearing traditional clothes...), until we go back in time to witness the story of his grand-parents and parents. 

It gradually becomes more interesting, especially the part about his family which shows deeply ingrained violence and insanity getting passed down from a generation to the next. It culminates when historical events (WWII and its aftermath, the atomic bombings) are shown, intertwining with the painter’s personal story.

Different kinds of hells complete each other (ambient with initial setting and scenery of desolation, a more personal hell with the intra-familial violence, and the wider-scale historical hell of war).

Overall, I find Hino less imaginative than  fellow “horror masters” Junji ito and Kazuo Umezu. Those two can come up with the craziest ideas, whereas Hino’s scenarios and imagery are somewhat more expected/conventional for horror. 

But perhaps the most interesting part of Panorama is the way it blurs the borders between reality and fiction. First of all, the main character, an artist who specializes in depicting horror, acts as a stand-in for Hino himself. This is fairly common in his work, his other manga Lullaby from hell even has an extremely similar character overtly present himself as Hino: 

The artist from Panorama is making his last, best painting, just like Hino who was thinking of ending his mangaka career with his strongest work.  Both the painting and the manga share the same title, “Panorama of Hell”. 

 The similarities between Hino and his main character don’t end here, and many elements of the story are actually taken from Hino’s own life: his grandfather really was a yakuza, his brother went into a coma, his father was pig farmer with a tattoo on his back...

Just like the painter, Hino grew up in the context of the direct aftermath of WWII. Both the character and the author were born in Japanese-occupied China, and were nearly killed when their family fled back to Mainland-Japan after the country’s loss. He takes inspiration from his own life and in the traumatizing things he witnessed and lived through to draw his manga. It is hard to discern what is fiction or not in the painter’s story. Many elements are obviously fantastical and folklore-ish, like the beheaded ghosts visiting the wife’s bar (this chapter feel like a tone-shift, it is much more whimsical, with the corpses happily eating their own body parts), yet the references to real historic events like the war and Hiroshima bombing still links Panorama of Hell to reality, to our world. 

The painter’s insanity makes him an unreliable narrator. Indeed, at the end of the story, the current members of the painter’s family (his wife, his daughter and son, his brother...) are revealed to have been fake all along : the wife and children are a mannequin and puppets, the brother is a pig’s corpse...

Moreover, by having the painter address the reader directly (”let me show you...”) Hino breaks the fourth wall that should separate the world of fiction from reality.

 This culminates at the very end of the book, where the painter throws an axe at the reader to kill them.

Hino’s art style is really simple and easily recognizable. The way he draws body horror and wounds isn’t very realistic, which makes the gore parts less shocking. His character’s simple, soft, deformed appearance reminds me of modeling clay or perhaps melting plastic toys.

I am even tempted to describe his style as cute. The big eyes, round features, and the way his characters are often miserable and mistreated by others...it is cute in a pitiful way.

Hino draws lots of babies, children, and baby animals which adds to both the cuteness and the horror. It also helps that I share Hino’s fondness for insects, worms and other similar crawling creatures...

There are figures based on his works that are just too cute! 

Hino often puts animals in his stories and even merges animals and humans. He writes stories where people transform into animals (Bug Boy) or give birth to inhuman creatures ( Unusual Fetus -My Baby ). Human bodies are more often than not hosts to parasites and maggots (Mermaid in a manhole...).

In Panorama of Hell, humans are executed one after the other like livestock in a slaughterhouse, and their bodies get dumped in a stream where they mix with other dead animals. Beheaded bodies try to put animal heads on to feel complete again, and the painter’s daughter is obsessed with animal corpses that she collects and dissects.

He doesn’t use any screen tones, nor does he use a lot of crosshatching as a mean to create different shades of grey, so the jet black ink creates a stark contrast against  the white of the paper. Some pages are beautiful and esthetically pleasing in spite of the repulsive contents. Especially towards the end of the book, which depict strange surrealist imagery as the world is falling apart.

His frequent use of pitch black silhouettes reminds me of shadow play theater  (which originates from China where Hino was born), as well as of Kamishibai (street theater using paper, which was very popular in post-war Japan). 

Kamishibai originates from buddhist temples and was often used to spread buddhist teachings.

Hino makes uses of buddhist concepts and imagery in his depiction of hell. Panorama of Hell could be compared to the Hell Scroll, a famous scroll describing the Chinese Buddhist conception of hell with text and pictures. 

↑ The “Blood Lake” and “Needle Moutain” in this panel refers to two of the different kinds of hells depicted in the Hell Scroll. The blood lake is exclusively for women.

Young women are only thing that are drawn in a conventionaly beautiful way.  However, finding beauty and fascination in the most horrendous things is a central point of Hino’s body of work. His characters are either artists or collectors obsessed with what fits their strange idea of beauty (cf. Flower of Flesh and Blood, where a woman’s dismemberment is an act of creation and a research of ideal beauty in the perpetrator’s eyes).

The contrast between the solid black shadows and the untouched white of the paper can give the impression that a strong, blinding light is hitting the world. The violent light emitted from an explosion, for example. Which is fitting, giving the importance of the Hiroshima atomic bomb in the story and its repercussions that still dawn on the characters years later. It’s like the characters are constantly bathed in the harsh light of the bombings. 

The Hiroshima bomb is called a “gigantic emperor from hell”, it rules over the character’s lives, even years after it was dropped. As a child, the painters created a replica of the mushroom cloud that he worships like a god.

Panorama of Hell is a very dark and pessimistic work, displaying a world where there is no hope and nothing is spared (not even the reader, who receives the painter’s axe!). In fact, the main character was already doomed before he was even born. Indeed, he is the child of the Hiroshima bomb itself: his mother got pregnant as she was hit by a beam from the explosion. 

#hideshi hino #panorama of hell #horror #hino hideshi #horror manga

[synchronmurmurs]

Hii Sync, it’s the anon from the marry/fuck/kill with Nero/Vergil/Dante (from ages ago) here! Hope you’re doing well <3

I was also the one who sent the video where the camera zooms in and focuses on Vergil’s huge SDT ass but dumb me forgot to identify myself. (；ω；) I can say I was really distracted by Vergil’s uhm, assets.

Anyways, I read this in a comment today and I’m not sure why but it reminded me so much of you:

“A hero would sacrifice you to save the world. A villain would sacrifice the world to save you."

—

On a different note, I’d like to thank you for all the stories you craft and share with us. I know I said it before, but the way you develop established characters and create amazing OCs is just <chef’s kiss>.

Also, I don’t know if this is the proper place to ask since you have a dedicated blog for the theme, but which Yakuza should I play first? My bf bought Yakuza Zero on a sale and it’s been sitting on my game library for ages - partially because he forgot to tell me 😅 and I ended up buying/playing other stuff in the meantime.

I can’t wait to dive into the Yakuza series so I can fully appreciate your non-DMC works <3

Whoaaa that was a long time ago. 😮 But I'm happy that there's at least another sort of like... familiar nonnie floating around. It's somehow nice and cozy like this, despite not knowing who you are. Maybe one day, I'll have a name to put to the sunglasses icon. 😌

Also skdofh ahhh I love those kinda comments, because it's so legit though. Like... is this not why we love our villain characters? What's the point if our S/O doesn't set a planet or two aflame just for one last embrace? 👀 Imagine Actual Demon King Vergil razing the human world just to find you. 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

Ghhgghh thank you so much though nonnie. 😭💖 Fleshing out characters is just so much damn fun for me, so I'm thrilled to know it's a ride for others too. 🥺 It's all the more satisfying for characters like Credo who got so little in canon. I've said time and time again that he's probably unrecognisable from the canon version, but when it comes to expanding on a character's goals and personality and ambitions and all that, if you give me an inch, I will take a mile. I just have so much damn fun with it. 😭

BUT AH. YES. YAKUZIES. 👀👀👀👀👀👀 Your bf is a blessing, because 0 is probably the best place for you to start! 0 serves as a prequel to the whole series and delves into the past of two very established characters. The game shows us a little of what they were like before Yakuza 1, and the circumstances that shaped them into the men they are. 😌🙏 That being said, you do lose a tiny portion of the impact Y0 has, just because you don't have that basis of reference for what their personalities are usually like in the main series, but it's pretty insignificant in the grander scheme of things imo because Y0 is by far the most polished and well rounded experience the series has to offer, so it's a good starting point to get you acquainted with what the series brings to the table! Whether it was grabbed on sale or not, you're bound to get your money's worth out of it!

And then from there, you just play the games in numerical order! So from Y0 it'll go Kiwami 1 -> Kiwami 2 -> 3 HD Remaster -> 4 HD Remaster -> 5 HD Remaster -> 6 -> 7/Like A Dragon.

There's of course my baby Judgment too, which canonically slots in between Yakuza 6 and Like A Dragon, but it's a completely separate story and not at all related to any of the plot/characters presented in the main series BUT IS ABSOLUTELY STILL WORTH PLAYING IT HAS A VERY VERY VERY GOOD STORY AND THE MAIN CAST IS ADORABLE AND HAVE A FUN DYNAMIC AND ALSO HIGASHI JUDGMENT IS MY FAVOURITE IT IS GOOD AND COOL AND FUN AND FUNNY AND THE COMBAT WAS THE BEST IT HAS EVER BEEN I LOVE THIS GAME A NORMAL AMOUNT IT IS NOT AT ALL ABSURD PLAY JUDGEMTN

It's.. very daunting when I put it all out this way, and I'm not meaning to pressure you or anything; I'm just laying the road map on the table for you is all, in case you wanted to reference it later. 💖 All of the games after Y0 are available on PS4/xbox as well as steam too, so whichever your platform of choice, the games will be waiting for you if you decide you'd like to dive in!! They each have their flaws imo, some more products of their time than others, but they all offer great stories, characters, dynamics and soundtracks. 👀 The OSTs are almost always complete bangers. 🤣 AND THE DYNAMIC BOSS INTRODUCTIONS OMG...

BUT YES THERE YOU HAVE IT. I hope you find the time to sit down with Yakuza 0 soon nonnie!! And I'd love to know what you think about it too 👀👀

#answer: anon #ask sync #long post #because this did get long #thank you nonnie 🥺

[theonetheycallhannah]

The Treatment of Captain Syverson-Chapter Six: Sensory Integration 2

Pairing: Captain “Sy” Syverson x OFC (Shane Benton)

Summary: It’s a fine night for a walk by the water with a handsome vet holding your hand. I think that says it all.

Behind on your sessions? Want more from the author? Click Me

Word Count: Almost 1.9k (a bit shorter, hopefully y’all don’t mind by the end!)

Warnings: Basically still fluff, but also some saucy morsels near the end…not full on smut, though, so don’t get too excited. We aren’t there yet, my little lovelies. Soon, though…soon.

Author’s Note: As I said before, this date totally got away from me, nearing a whopping 6k in total. Thanks again for all the love. And in other news, I told a couple of my PT friends about this story, and one of them agreed to be my official technical consultant on the project for future chapters and even if I wanna flesh it out, modify it to include strictly “original” characters, and eventually take it to a publisher! I sent what I’ve done so far to her just before I started drafting this post, so hopefully she’ll have good insight for me! She said it was about time someone wrote a story like that! Lol! (She reads  a lot, so I guess people really don’t think of PTs as the heroines of love stories. Sad, really! Most of the ones I know are lovely and loving people!) The other was just instantly excited and can’t wait to read it.

Disclaimer: Unfortunately for me, Henry is not mine, le sigh, and all mention of him, his characters, any characters from his films, or his precious doggy, Kal, are strictly for transformative and recreational use. I neither ask for, nor accept payment for the work I post on Tumblr or AO3. Unbeta’d because this is for fun and escapism.

Tags: 

@onlyhenrys

@cavillryarchive

@summersong69

@titty-teetee

@bloodyinspiredfuck

@agniavateira

@oddsnendsfanfics

@omgkatinka

@thisismysecretthirstblog

@misslaland

@speakerforthedead0@tumblnewby

@suavechops

Hope I’m not forgetting anyone! If you want to be notified when I post a new chapter or work, I’ll be happy to add you to my tag list! Stricken blogs are getting personal messages from me when a new chapter is uploaded because Tumblr’s faulty tagging system will not stand in the way of me delivering what the people want!(?) lol! (Although...their lackadaisical notification system might...sorry for that. I have no control. lol!)

The lake was fairly near her clinic, not two blocks away. He wasn't wrong about her feeling up to a walk when the time came. She was looking forward to the fresh night air near the lake. It was a deep-seated part of who she was to love the water.

He'd pulled into the small, empty gravel lot at the head of the paved walking trail. It was well dark since it had just turned 10:00, and the moonlight danced off the water, calm, but with a faint shimmer from the light breeze. The stars danced, winking at them as if they knew the romance that surged between the couple was burgeoning right here below them.

"Now, last time I walked this trail, I'll warn you…I got approached by a gang. And they were…pretty vicious. I had to resort to some guerilla tactics that I'm not too proud of to fend 'em off."

"Oh no!" she wasn't aware of any gang crime in their fairly peaceful city! "What kind of gang?"

"A goose gang." He looked at her gravely. Before they both burst out laughing in hysterics.

"I thought you were serious!" she wiped tears carefully from her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I was! They are stupid territorial! I had several of them tryin'a bite at my legs at once. It was quite the ordeal, I assure you!" he said, serious, but still laughing.

"Well, you'll save me if the Ya-Gooz-ah descend on us tonight, wont you?" she teased, clutching at his arm in mock fright at the thought of a band of Yakuza Geese being an actual thing, but thinking it was a great way to keep him touching her.

"As long as you stay real close to me, sunshine. I'll protect you from the devil himself." He kissed her on the top of the head, sealing the promise and warming her from the point of contact all the way to her toes.

As they traipsed along the pavement path, they talked about everything and nothing, the gentle night wind a whisper against their skin, which had been made slightly dewy from the walk and the humidity. They had made two laps around the small body of water when they came back around to one of several benches placed at intervals on the trail running its perimeter. Without breaking their conversation, she pointed to the nearest one, indicating her desire to sit, which he understood and lead them there.

“See, the problem I have with sports at that level, especially football is the harm I’ve witnessed it do to a kid’s body. We’ve treated athletes in high school and as early as 7th and 8th grade that the coaches are completely obsessed with getting them out on the field or court again. These kids are taking more impact than their bodies are ready for. They can’t miss a game, or even practice for therapy even if they’re just riding pine. And the parents are so laser focused on that potential college scholarship for that sport that they can’t see that if their child doesn’t get better, no scout is gonna want to dole out a free ride. Not to a broken-down athlete. Did you feel that kind of pressure when you were playing football? Because I don’t remember it at my school.” She went off a on bit of a tangent because she’d just been told by Heather before she left that her torn meniscus, Jason couldn’t get in for several weeks because of his practice and game schedule limiting his availability.  

“I mean, I felt pressure, I guess, but not outside of practice or the games. I’d hurt my knee my junior year early, same one we been workin’ on, and they just had me sit out a few weeks and work with a PT, but I don’t remember it being a problem to miss out on anything related to football if it was because of my health.” He sat down next to her on the fiberglass bench, which was molded to have the look of fine blonde wood, and put his arm around her shoulder. No pretense of the reach, no awkwardly sitting for a while beforehand, just continuing to touch her as he had been their whole walk.

She leaned into his shoulder, comfortably, as if they’d done this a thousand times and this wasn’t their first date. And continued their discussion.

“What has gotten into people these days? It’s like they’re not satisfied with anything. Nothing is ever enough for a single person on this good earth!” She sighed, frustrated by the neediness of people that seemed to come with her own job and projecting that on to the world…not that there wasn’t at least a measure of truth in it.

“Personally speaking, I think you’re wrong.”

“You don’t think that the world is full of dissatisfied Karens?” She laughed.

“Oh I do. But it’s not every person. You’re sitting next to one very content man right here.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.” He confirmed.

“Was it the steak, or the lobster mac?” She’d be fantasizing about them both until the next time they went there. Yeah, she was already thinking about “next time” and “they.” She was in trouble.

“Not to knock either, but I’m a hun’ert percent sure it was the company.” He pressed a kiss to her temple.

She smiled, nuzzling into him, feeling the downy softness of his shirt again and smelling his intoxicating cologne. She suddenly remembered a promise from their session.

“Oh, hey. I was gonna have a response for you…to your 'question' from earlier.” She said, mischief burning in her eyes. She kneeled up on the bench and turned his face to hers, brushing a hand against his impossibly soft beard before descending slowly in for a kiss.

It started sweet, a few languid, full pecks, then she parted her lips barely enough for her tongue to venture out to explore his full mouth. They were met after several attempts with a reciprocal openness from him. She dared, then to search him with her tongue. It was simply browsing now. Feeling no rush to complete its quest. Only a sense of the need for due diligence. She was surprised at the flavor she'd encountered. She hadn't seen him pop a mint, and she hadn't left his side all evening. He was sly. It was a sweet and strong taste. Wintergreen on steroids, with the mildest hint of vanilla. She wanted more. Of the flavor. Of him.

She let her tongue find his, knowing what would happen, somehow, even though they had never kissed like this before. Never when it wasn't rushed and needing to be…PG. Here in the dark of night, with no one but the celestial bodies as witnesses, they didn't have to worry about her job, or the public. The judgement of the outsider's gaze.

She knew, by instinct alone, that this would spark him into more than latent participation. And that's exactly why she did it. As previously stated, she was definitely an intentional beast when the occasion called and mood struck.

He did as she'd expected, his own tongue waking, beginning a playful dance with hers, exploring her mouth with more urgency and desire, pulling a ragged gasp from her lungs. She broke away to give some attention to his neck. She held him by the base of his head, thumb playfully brushing into his thick facial hair. A breathy moan that sounded very much like her name escaped his lips. This was the reaction she had been dying to get from him for so long. A surrendering bliss that only came from this kind of personal, intimate, and one-one connection. She'd gotten hints of it when she'd helped him stretch, when she heard those stifled groans he felt at the good hurt she brought him with her expert touch.

She bit his earlobe, and sealed her fate. He growled and pulled her up to his lap in an immodest straddle. Not that she cared in the empty dark. He seemed to need her lips back on his, desperate to find a purchase that would never present itself. The paradox of a kiss.

His hands roved over the back of her from neck to behind, very much favoring the latter. It was an odd sensation. Most of her experience with ass-grabbing had been less than pleasant. Either dirty old men had touched her without consent, or boyfriends had done essentially the same thing as a show of their dominance over her, also without her strictest consent. The way Sy held her was tender, exploratory, and…she couldn't help but think the word loving. "Love" wasn't a word they were ready to even bring up. But she thought he was showing it in his feather touch and hungry kiss.

The breeze was cool, and felt extra cold where she seemed to be warmest. Her position had her…very exposed to the elements, covered only by the fine layers of her underwear at some angles. She was suddenly very aware that they were on a precipice here. If they carried on much longer like this, she wasn't going to want to stop. She already didn't. And she was just out of practice enough to be unsure of where her point of no return was. Dammit. She broke away, in agony from it.

"Sy, I…I think …you should take me back." she stuttered.

"Okay." he pulled her back in for another kiss, pretending to misinterpret,which she indulged a moment but quickly escaped.

"No, sweetie." she chuckled. "You know what I mean."

"Or…I could bring you home with me." It was only a suggestion, but there was a plea in his eyes that pulled at her guts. He wanted her. And she wanted him. With every single cell in her body, she wanted every singe cell of his. But she truly felt that taking things slowly was the best option given the complexities of their situation.

"You don't know how badly I want to accept that invite, Sy." she rested her forehead on his. They were both breathless.

"It's just two little letters, sunshine. O. K. Easy as granny's peach pie."

"I'm terrible at pie crust." they laughed.

"Let's go." he said, helping her off his lap, and preparing to stand, but sitting back down immediately.

"What's wrong?" she asked, concerned. "Is it the knee? Did I hurt it?" she was already mad at herself, and at him a bit, if this indiscretion had caused him a setback…how ironic it would be!

"Nope, knee's great. Dandy."

"Did you get lightheaded?"

"No, but uhh…it's definitely SOME sort of blood flow issue. Gonna need a minute." he explained without explaining with a sheepish expression on his face…it hit her like a speeding bus.

"Ope." she looked to his lap without thinking, and immediately averted to the water again, as she sat beside him, hands clasped over the seat of the bench. His hand found hers, and covered it, asking to hold it, and getting its way.

"I had…the best time tonight, Shane." he told her, staring at the opposite bank where the maple, oak, and sycamore trees swayed to the tune of the gentle night's breeze.

"So did I, Sy."

"You free tomorrow?" he asked, hopefully.

"You tell me!" she replied…hopefully.

Up Next: Chapter Seven: Non-Productive Time

#netflix sand castle #sand castle #henry cavill #henry cavill fanfic #henry cavill x ofc #captain syverson #captain syverson fanfic #captain syverson x ofc #sigh for sy #is that a new tag i started? idk maybe...lets use it. teehee!

[arkus-rhapsode]

MHA Chapter 266 Discussion: The Character of Twice, His Arc, and What I think of Horikoshi’s Decision

So this is a post I wanted to wait on making. Not because I didn’t have anything to say. No, it was more that I wanted to let the recent events settle in. Because as of chapter 266, we have witnessed a big shake up in the world of MHA.

And I wanted to cover the character it concerns and discuss his history, as well as what I felt about it and if I agree with what Horikoshi decided to do.

Which is why I need to say that this is spoilers.

As it appears, Twice, one of the longest members of the League of Villains has died. Killed by Hawks in the raid on the Paranormal Liberation Front’s base. Twice was apparently a high profile target given his quirk’s power, with the hero association giving the order to Hawks to neutralize him.

Now this has... Upset some people. Twice is known to be one of the more beloved characters in the fandom. His Deadpool like antics coupled with his unabashed sincere personality had made him an easy to identify character. But he was more than that. And lets look back on that for a moment.

Twice was more than a villain, he was a character. He was more than just a obstacle that the protagonists would have to overcome. He wasn’t Muscular or Mustard, he had more layers to him.

In chapter 115, as the lead in to what would be the Yakuza arc, its Twice who narrates his own views on life and his own backstory. Why he is the way he is.

Its a gritty peak into Twice’s backstory. He’s someone who will never know if he’s real and the closest thing he has now to friends are the League of Villains.

This kinship he has and seeks plays a large role in the Yakuza arc, as Twice unintentionally causes the death of the League member, Magne. Unlike some villains who make a decision that backfires, Twice doesn’t do some “I swear revenge!” No, Twice blames himself. This was his friend and he got her killed.

He’s torn up. Hurt. Not made better by his previously mentioned fragil mental state. And in the end, gets to avenge Magne by ruining the Yakuza from the inside, leading to Overhaul’s defeat.

We next see the league in the fantastically done Meta Liberation Army arc, where Twice and the League are called out to fight the aptly named Meta Liberation Army. Twice is targeted by the Liberator, Skeptic, for his quirk. Twice’s double is powerful, but he limits himself due to his past.

Skeptic preys upon this and attacks Twice with clones of his own.

Twice breaks down as he’s practically helpless in this scenario and we see the beginning of Twice’s descent.

Twice’s fall into crime is much different from Toga and Shigaraki’s. Verbally acknowledged by ReDestro and Skeptic. Unlike Toga and Shigaraki whose destructive urges were exacerbated thanks to society, Twice was just a normal person who made wrong mistake and he just kept falling.

Skeptic’s puppets break Twice’s arms, yet doing so unintentionally answers Twice’s greatest question, he is in fact the real Twice. Twice, no longer afraid of his own powers develops the technique of Sad Man’s Parade, where he doubles himself ad infinitum. It overwhelms the Liberators and gives the League a fighting chance.

Now that Twice has finally achieved his answer for his identity, all that’s left for him is to now achieve his goal of being useful to his friends. Not only does he now have a place as one of the lieutenants of the Paranormal Liberation Front and a leader of the BLACK squad, but he has full control of his freakishly strong quirk.

He even reveals these feelings anxiously to Hawks, who he befriends in the Army.

Oh dear...

Yes, unfortunately, Twice has done it again and inadvertently put his friends in danger. He tries to fight back against Hawks but its ultimately not enough, not helped by the hideout of the PLF falling around them.

Hawks notes that Twice’s quirk makes him incredibly dangerous. Him being an enemy of society would surely be disastrous. He can either leave the PLF and reform or die. Well as I’ve pointed out, Twice is more than your typical villain. Twice genuinely cares for the people he’s with and will never betray them. Hawks is ultimately left with no choice but to end Twice.

This seems to be thrown into flux when Dabi enters the picture and gets Twice out, but Twice still has his goal. To be useful for his friends. Twice makes clones to assist Toga and Compress in the battle, yet that moment where he finally helps his friends, he is killed by Hawks.

I bring up that long recap not to remind you of the obvious, but rather to show you just why Twice would be a beloved character. Twice was more than just someone with an identifiable personality and design that the head canon community could latch onto. Twice was a character, a damn good one at that. Its easy to see how he would garner a fanbase.

Which is why I do not blame anyone for being upset at his death. He was a fully fleshed out character. And this is ultimately the reason why I was okay with his death.

Twice was a character, and like all good characters, he had an arc. Horikoshi is made quite a unique cast of villains when they seem to be evolving alongside the heroes. They were truly antagonists, an opposing force to the protagonists.

Yet with an arc comes closure. Every character who goes along the path of their arc is trying to reach a goal, their story will end when that goal is achieved. As previously seen in the first ever look into Twice’s past, he is haunted by the question of “Is he the real Jin or just a clone?”

Twice lives in a fragile state of fearing he is not real and will vanish if he’s hurt too much. This erratic thinking contributes to the his own incompetence. Making bad decisions that ultimately hurt those around him and send him downwards. Twice is clearly bothered by those kinds of mistakes, evident by his own past before his choice to become a criminal.

But when Twice finally got his answer of if he was real or not, then he was already half way down with his journey. All there was left was for him to become useful? What was Hori gonna do? Have Twice become hyper competent? Use that hideously overpowered quirk of his to constantly give the villains an edge. When they already have Gigantomachia, a Nomu creating doctor, quirk killer bullets, etc?

Or was Twice going to keep making mistakes? This gubber in the army of society toppling villains? Was he just gonna be a joke to be exploited?

Well we got our answer, Twice does finally get to be useful to his friends, but all too in character does it comes with bad luck. Twice achieved his final goal, but only through self destruction.

To me, this was the best way for the character to go out. His story was done, and instead having him hang around and take up space or force Horikoshi into a corner, he was removed. But if removal was what was called for, couldn’t Horikoshi simply put Twice in jail like Stain?

Well no. Unlike Stain who still has unfinished business, I don’t think simply Twice helping his friends but getting caught would work with the Twice wanting to be useful. He would now be a new burden. With his erratic behavior, he could unintentionally spill the beans about the PLF and put his friends in danger. And being locked in a cage would keep him from being to help them from that blunder.

I think fitting with Twice’s bad luck, the time he is finally useful, would be the time people finally were able to stop worrying about him. And the only way to do that was through his demise.

Now there are those also unhappy with the fact that this seems like Horikoshi was trying to remove him because Twice would be too much of a force to defeat in battles. This would be especially wasteful of given he had just gotten his power up. Now this is where I have to give speculation, so forgive me for theorizing against that legitimate criticism.

You’d be right, it is wasteful, yet I do believe Horikoshi has bigger plans to not let Twice’s power go to waste. In the Meta Liberation arc, it was more than Twice who got a power-up, but so did Toga. Toga had gained the power to mimic the power of those who’s blood she had taken. Not just their form.

During the Yakuza arc, Twice and Toga were paired together, with his final act being to protect Toga. It would not be a stretch that due to their connection, Toga would make it so that Twice could live through her. But thanks to her limitation of her quirk to take other forms, it would make an added limitation to Twice’s quirk.

As I said, I can only offer speculation on that, but if Horikoshi intends to go that route, then bravo. But even beyond that, I still agree with this decision. I would rather see a character I love have closure and finality than artificially lengthened to match the series run time.

But if you’re still upset or mad at Horikoshi at what he did, I don’t blame you. As I hope I made painstakingly clear, Twice was a character worth feeling something for and Hori was an author who gave that character life. People should be sombre or angry or satisfied, because Hori made a character worth feeling anything about.

Now maybe you understand everything that I’ve written already, but just because you understand what Hori is going for doesn’t mean you agree with it. That was my reaction to Deku having multiple quirks. I understood what Hori was doing and get what he was going for, but I don’t agree with it as I thought it hurt the story more than helped it. For some reading this chapter, they probably felt the same.

I can’t offer any words to change that view if you have it. It is yours. But as for me, I think Horikoshi made an incredible character, and like all good characters he had an arc, and like all good stories, Twice’s story ended with his arc. But the story of MHA is still hasn’t ended yet.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #my hero academia 266 #boku no hero academia 266 #mha 266 #bnha 266 #twice #bnha twice #jin bubaigawara #league of villains #paranormal liberation front #toga himiko #kohei horikoshi #hawks #keigo takami #shigaraki tomura #gigantomachia #daruma ujiko #dabi #magne bnha #kai chisaki #meta liberation army #redestro #Tomoyasu Chikazoku #discussion

[kyndaris]

Braving Tried and True JRPG Tropes

When Bravely Default II was released, one of the first reviews I stumbled upon spoke about the person’s disappointment. Some of it came down to personal taste: the art style. Others were a bit more valid: the weak narrative and carbon copies of protagonists from other games. While the fan in me wanted to contest many of their claims, the more I played of the latest Japanese role-playing game (JRPG) from Square-Enix, I could not deny that there was a lot of tropes being used to prop up the strong gameplay loop and to give players the chance to try out the different jobs on offer. Still, many of these grips failed to deter me too much from my playing of the game. After sinking a hefty amount of time into it, I was able to push my way through the multiple endings and give Seth, Gloria, Elvis and Adelle the happy ending that they deserved.

As the faithful readers of my blog, you should know that I bought Bravely Default II while on a road trip with family. Though I should have been luxuriating in the February sun, I was much too engrossed in my Nintendo Switch to pay much mind to my surroundings. And even if Zac Efron or Chris Hemsworth had walked past, I’d probably barely bat an eyelid.

The first few hours of Bravely Default II had me busy reengaging with the mechanics that I knew from the first two games on the Nintendo DS and Octopath Traveler. Considering my familiarity with old-school JRPGs, it came as no surprise that I quickly managed to level up Freelancer as I cut a swathe through the grass surrounding the starting city of Halyconia. In fact, I realised quite quickly that the best way to get good items without paying a cent for them was to play the game like Link, eager to find rupees in the bushes. By the time I fought Dag and Selene and Horten, they went down like flies even though I hadn’t even bothered to change from my default jobs. 

Truth be told, when I read about the difficulties many people supposedly had with these earlier battles, I was scratching my head. Perhaps it was simply the method I play the games - grinding out each job to my satisfaction that had simplified what should have been difficult. On a side note, I thought that the job levelling was much better balanced than Yakuza: Like a Dragon and an infinitely more fun experience because of it. It allowed me to experiment with my team and find the best balance for taking on the various mobs in a given area.

The only time I actually prepared properly for a fight was when I took down Adam and the last few bosses. But even they were a considerable breeze when one had access to so many abilities. Paralysing everyone that stood in my way, inflicting poison and contagion, then having a maxed out Freelancer with Thief skills using Godspeed Strike? Child’s play.

Now, onto the weaker elements of Bravely Default II. The various plot-holes and unexplored characterisation of the heroes and villains. While Elvis and Lonsdale stood out to me, many of the others could have been interchanged with someone else and I would have barely been able to tell the difference were it not for their individual Asterisk attire.

Let’s start with Seth, shall we? Our main protagonist despite the ensemble set-up could have been ripped from any Japanese role-playing game. The ones he reminded me strongly of were Tidus and Vaan. Tidus, because he was a fish-out-of-water that had fallen in love with the woman that would have to sacrifice her life to bring peace back to the world. Vaan due to the fact that he never truly stood out and was simply part of the story just because of Wind Crystal shenanigans. Later on, he was made a bit more special due to his status as someone that had come from the Outer Seas.

In a way, it was a clever voice direction for Seth to be the only character with an American accent. This helped paint the fact that he was different from the others. Still, it would have been much better if we could have seen what his life had been like prior to the events that brought him to waking up on a beach in Halyconia. And while there are scenes in several sidequests that explore a little of Seth’s backstory, there’s little to sink one’s teeth into.

Gloria, on the other hand, is very much a stereotypical princess of a mystical kingdom. Though the voice actress is very good at expressing the pain she has gone through as one of the sole survivors of Musa’s destruction, I feel like it would have connected better with players to have seen the invasion and perhaps played a small part in controlling her escape. Though these things are just little nitpicks, it adds to the characters and allows people to emotionally invest in the happenings of the world. 

That, in and of itself, is probably Bravely Default II’s key problem. The fact that it tells rather than shows.

Elvis, of course, is the star of the show. His quirky traits, affable nature make him a clear favourite and much more human than his other counterparts. The narrative around Wiswald was also great example of fleshing out his past and the people he knows. It is much more personal, pulling on our heartstrings to learn about the death of a young child, and thus carries more weight than the water shortage in Savalon or the fairy hunting in Rimedhal, which was clearly meant to mirror witch trials. 

While Folie, the main antagonist behind the happenings in Wiswald, could have been better written and with a more tangible tie to the people of Wiswald, the fact that she manipulated Roddy, Lily and poor Galahad with visions of the dead Mona meant that a bit of pathos was achieved when she was finally brought down.

Adelle, a little cliche, was still an intriguing character that rounded out the team (I still can’t place her accent). The reveal that she was actually a fairy was a delight. It was also nice that her goals also aligned with the main narrative of stopping the Night’s Nexus, instead of being as superfluous as Elvis trying to solve the riddle of a book he had in his possession or Seth just tagging along for the ride. 

As for the foes that we faced? Most of them seemed like excuses to dress up how players obtained their Asterisks. Many of them seemed like caricatures. And honestly, Martha’s excuse to fight the Heroes of Light was abysmal. But, of course, the developers needed a way for players to experience what it might be like fighting a foe that had the Dragoon Asterisk before they could use it for their own.

I will admit, the story just felt like a vehicle to pick up each Asterisk along the way. Oft times, I had to wonder why so many of these people felt compelled to stand in the way of the Heroes of Light. And while it would have been much better to have a more personal reason for why we fought these enemies besides the fact that ‘Oh, they have an Asterisk and something, something Crystal!’ I still managed to push my way through.

Still, the fact that Dag and Selene managed to snag more character development in the sidequests was great. Gladys’s attempt at atonement and her brother’s grief was also good ways to delve into topics that might have been a little too dark for a title that had such gorgeous backdrops and adorable character models.

Now, to the meat of the matter. The plot holes and the things that were never truly explained. Edna’s descent into madness though Adelle often insisted her sister had always loved humans. How and where Lady Emma found the book that actually contained the memories of the Night’s Nexus? Where does Seth actually come from? How did he die? Why was he chosen by the Wind Crystal? Why was Adam so invested in trying to conquer the world? Did he experience something bad in his past that informed his current need to stop war by starting it? Where did Folie come from? Who is she and why did she feel the need to torment the people of Wiswald for her art?

So many mysteries. So little explanation.

Overall, Bravely Default II has quite a few flaws and missteps. Yet, despite that, it’s a sum greater than its parts. The narrative might not have been captivating, but it managed to keep pulling me through until I saw the true ending. Anticlimactic as the final boss battle might have been, I still felt a certain satisfaction in seeing Gloria tackle Seth to the ground. And honestly, who doesn’t want to Godspeed Strike their way to victory?

P.S. I will say that after witnessing Adelle save Martha, I had hoped for a blossoming romance, but the dialogue between her and Elvis during the second bad ending got to me. It may not be my one true pairing, but Elvis x Adelle was an arrow to my heart. My only question is: how old is Adelle? She looks like a child and yet, because she’s a fairy, she could be like a century older. Maybe better not to think too hard, eh? After all, why sweat the details?

#bravely default II #video games

[coffeeastronaut]

haruka/mafuyu/saori ^_^

OH MY LORD... okay i did saori already so i will do haruka and mafuyu :)

Haruka:

First impression - CHILD

Impression now - OHHH.. OHHHHHHHH..... shes my favorite character now :) i cherish her so much shes really just.. wow!!!!! im so proud of her and how much growing up shes done!!!!! i was so glad they really REALLY fleshed her out in 3/4 ESPECIALLY 5 beyond like. look! its a kid! tho to be honest she was never really that she has so much personality even just in 1 where shes mostly a damsel :)

Favorite moment - genuinely cant choose i dont think. i liked it when she was like. if you wont look for mom i WILL in 1.. any part where shes defending the other kids at the orphanage... like, all of 5 [excluding the scene where park is teaching her internalized misogyny -_-] like we will be here all day if i keep going

Idea for a story - hmm... im replacing 6 with a game where you play as Just Her and you get to Fight. i think theres a lot you could do with her as a 20yrold protag and like.. her journey after the stuff that happened in 5. i genuinely think it couldve been really interesting for her to have a like.. whats the word for collage students who take a year off the travel. that but like kiryu takes care of the orphanage alone and she goes on an adventure.. idk maybe somethings happened to the t-set girls and she has to help them and its somehow wrapped up in yakuza buisness and they didnt know who else to call but thier cool friend haruka... idk. i just think she shouldve been allowed to hit and punch people. i dont see a world where kiryu wouldnt teach her to fight and thats even if she didnt want to which she CLEARLY would like.. she watches boxing for godsake cmon... that combined w kiryu for a dad and all the danger in her life... CMON... CMOOONNNNN

Unpopular opinion - im sorry ichiban but it shouldve been haruka who ‘inherited’ the series. imagine.... WAIT ACTUALLY. UNREALTED BUT REMEBER THAT MEME SAYING MGS WAS GONNA BE A MOBILE SERIES LIKE RHYTHM GAME? IMAGINE. HARUKA RHYTHM GAME. IMAGINE!!!!!

Favorite relationship - kiryu do i even need to say more

Favorite headcanon  - OH SHE IS SO TRANSGENDER ITS NOT EVEN FUNNYYYYYYYYYYYY LIKE.... I.... SORRY IVE A LOT OF [RATTLING] CANT EVEN PUT INTO WORDS. SOMETHING SOMETHING TRANSGENDER DAUGHTER OF A TRANSGENDER DAD.. [BARKING] sidenote i miss that icon so fucking bad i was so excited to be that again but i got put into another fuckign school chat i [fuming] AND the ted bundy girl is here again

this got so long im so sorry. mafuyu under the cut

Send me a character ask!

mafuyu:

First impression - oh boy a woman w not much personality -_-

Impression now - oh boy! woman with personality! shes definitely suffering from rgg-woman-disease where a lot of her stuff is very damsel-y but like she is really fun if you pay attention. it shows especially in how she interacts with saori and yagami and i think its nice that shes on good terms with yagami even tho they dated-broke-up-whatevers-going-on-there. shes very.. paired down i guess is the word? but shes interesting once you pay attention.

Favorite moment - cake trialllllll i really like it :) i think its funny she was immediately like. yes he ate that cake and for this he will die <3 also when she got that info for yagami. genuinely that was so brave of her esp since she clearly looked up to [redacted] like.. bro. that really mustve hurt her to do :(

Idea for a story - maybe a case from her perspective like where the guy is guilty but the case is might fall through because it was based on like one thing that has suddenly stopped holding water (like a witness suddenly disappearing or evidence being stolen or something) so shes gotta do some Detecting very very quickly because the trial is SOON

Unpopular opinion - apparently its unpopular to even acknowledge she exists according to the empty ass tags so. she exists :) shes fun :)

Favorite relationship - saori :) i already elaborated on this on saoris but :) i think its sweet theyve been friends so long and also what if we were both girls ect ect

Favorite headcanon - i know ive said this for like half the answers ive given but um well she is transgender. :) i think when her and yagami dated it was a t4t thing from before they both went wait i like woman/men respectively

#hi lucy thank you for haruka insanity :) #shinadatatsuo

[florafaunaandeldritchhorrors]

@juravern replied to your post

I’ve like never spoken to you before and also I haven’t rewatched AoU since I first saw it in the theatre but I don’t necessarily disagree with anything you said LOL. How they killed Jarvis off and didn’t even give Tony screentime on his feelings about that, I disliked it even back then when I couldn’t articulate what else I didn’t like about the whole movie.

I’m a simple person who has trouble pinpointing what I didn’t like in a movie if I just finished watching its cool action scenes XD, but I say that Infinity War was still okay compared to Endgame. Endgame truly sucked and I’d read you ranting about it if you wrote it.

they put what’s left of Jarvis into the Vision! and then never deal with that!

as for Endgame: you’re in luck, because I watched it for the first time last week, but also out of luck, because I really liked it! It helps that, because I was expecting to never watch it before that week, I didn’t avoid spoilers when it came out and was forewarned for most of the stuff that might have bothered me more (Natasha’s death and how badly all the Thor stuff punched down stand out). 

I wish I had been spoiled about Hawkeye, though. I’m sure someone else has written about the racial implications of his plotline before he rejoins the main storyline, as an Asian woman I’m too tired to explain why you can’t just have your white guy kill a bunch of unnamed people of color as an easily brushed past turn to the dark side. Also I’m pretty sure the yakuza don’t use samurai swords.

But, zooming out a little, I should probably talk about Infinity War first.

Infinity War is also a movie that I watched for the first time last week. I skipped it when it first came out because I correctly guessed that there were too many characters to do them all justice, and because usually I would see this sort of movie with my dad, who had trouble keeping the characters straight in Age of Ultron, and would be totally lost. He’s the reason why I finally watched both movies last week--he kept talking about how he wanted to watch WandaVision but needed to catch up first, and refused to let me spoil him on stuff, so we watched the movies and he finally learned about the Snap.

(I’m glad we waited, because throughout both movies I had to pause and explain stuff to him. And both of us despise people who talk at the theater.)

So: Infinity War is juggling way too many characters, and is basically wall-to-wall overstuffed action scenes. (Overstuffed action scenes are also a problem with Age of Ultron.) And then, at the end of the movie, they kill off every character they don’t have room for in Endgame, and it makes Endgame a much better movie.

There isn’t time in a movie like that to deal with Wanda’s guilt and grief, so she gets snapped, and that arc is left for WandaVision. Peter Parker can’t have a five year gap yet, so he gets snapped. T’Challa would want his story to be about Wakanda losing half of everybody, so he gets snapped. The Guardians of the Galaxy won’t mesh well with the Avengers unless they’re forced to, so everyone except Rocket and Nebula are snapped. Et cetera, et cetera. You can and probably should interrogate some of their choices, but the act of wiping the table clean is the best remedy for the problem where they’re expected to write a crossover including every living character.

Also, remember when I was talking about overstuffed action sequences? Endgame doesn’t have any of that until the very end of the movie. When it comes, it’s the most overstuffed action scene of all time, and there’s a lot of moments in that fight that just don’t work, but there’s like... two whole hours of not that. 

And then, on top of that, Endgame delivers on the nostalgia factor. The reason that I’m doing this rewatch is how much I enjoyed the time heist part of the movie. It made me want to watch the first Avengers, it made me want to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, it made me want to watch Thor: the Dark World, a movie which is not very good! I just watched it!

(Also ever since Guardians 2, I’ve loved Nebula as a character, and especially her relationship with Gamora. The fact that she was such a huge character in Endgame took me by surprise in the best way.)

Stuff I didn’t like: Traveling back to the forties is a really bad ending for Steve. By the time they were on that cliff, I wanted Clint to die so bad and the fact he didn’t still bugs me. You would think that all ten of the time heisters would be fleshed out, but for some reason Rhodey is noticeably missing a character arc. (Hint: it’s because he’s the only POC in that group.) It makes no sense for Pepper to wear a suit, it only happens because they were criticized for not having enough female heroes. 

#broken silence #iris rants about something no one cares about #or rather that only one person cares about but i still want in that tag #also we may never have spoken before but i know you from my notifications! #mcu #my meta #imagine being someone with a functional tagging system

[departedcrown]

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝𝐛𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 — 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐞𝐢𝐩𝐡𝐨𝐛𝐮𝐬.

DISCLAIMER: Pulling inspiration from some of the original concepts for XV, I’ve incorporated elements of the Yakuza into this post. For the ease of understanding, I’ll be using the Japanese terms to explain the roles and hierarchy of Aulea’s family alongside the Lucis Caelums. For writing partners, you are by no means obligated to follow what is laid out in this post, this is just for my own worldbuilding and trying to flesh out Aulea as a character. If you’d like to forego any of this information in our interactions, please don’t hesitate to let me know and we can ignore this.

        Noble households of Insomnia followed a strict hierarchy and code of conduct equivalent to the Japanese Yakuza. Families were expected to uphold the Code of Jingi, where loyalty and respect are a way of life. As the head of the Lucis Caelums and the sovereign of Lucis, King Mors would have filled the role of the boss ( oyabun ). Each head of these noble houses served on the royal Council in some way, fulfilling a role in the Yakuza hierarchy. For instance, the head of the Amicitia house, Leonius Amicitia, served as Mors’ personal Shield and was his shateigashira ( first lieutenant ) of which his son, Clarus, would then become the Shield during the reign of Regis, and so on. Much was the same for Aulea’s family, whose household had a strong relationship with the Lucis Caelums dating back generations.

        The Deiphobus house was headed by Magnus Deiphobus, and had a long-standing history of serving the royal family as military strategists. Magnus was no different, serving as King Mors’ strategist and wakagashira ( second lieutenant ) for much of his reign. Known for their military knowledge and prowess on the battlefield, heads of the Deiphobus household had been assigned the duty of making known criminals ‘disappear’. As such the Deiphobus family were a force to be reckoned with and commanded the respect of their fellow noble houses almost to the level of the Lucis Caelums.

        Magnus and his wife, Cressida, brought two children into the world. In M.E. 700, a son was born whom they named Adrianus. This was cause for much celebration, as the birth of a son meant not only that the line of Deiphobus would continue, but that Magnus would have someone to take his place as the King’s strategist upon his passing. Seven years later, Aulea was born on September 2nd, M.E. 707. As the second-born and only daughter of the family, Aulea was not given the same expectations as Adrianus. Because the Yakuza hierarchy dictated that, for a large part, only men could hold positions, Aulea’s pursuits were focused elsewhere. She learned several musical instruments ( including piano and violin ) and attended, with several other children from similar noble houses, a private academy in the northern part of Insomnia for the duration of her education. 

        As women, Aulea and Cressida remained mostly outside the realm of activities that Magnus and other men of noble houses got into, but they were not completely detached from it. Tragedy struck the family when Aulea was twelve years old—Adrianus was killed in a car accident. He was nineteen at the time of his death. News of the death spread quickly, and amidst the grief and turmoil the family experienced, it was clear that things were going to change for Aulea. Now the only child, and the only hope to secure a continued future for the Deiphobus household, it was imperative that Aulea make good connections with other families within the Yakuza. 

         As such, in the following years Aulea began attending parties and events that would hopefully cultivate meaningful and beneficial relationships for her future. One such relationship was with the Crown Prince, Regis Lucis Caelum. Though they had known each other their whole lives, having been childhood friends, Aulea had been reluctant to pursue his attentions for anything other than friendship, despite her mother’s urging. Still, Aulea remained close to Regis throughout their adolescence and he became a pillar of strength for her when, in M.E. 723, just four years after losing Adrianus, Magnus was killed on a routine check outside the Wall.

        Now with only Cressida to fall back on, it was imperative that Aulea marry well if they were going to survive financially or maintain any political power in Insomnia. Aulea’s saving grace came in the form of Regis when he asked her on a date a year after Magnus passed away. The two had a long courtship, interrupted by the passing of King Mors and Regis coronation. However, the two would eventually marry in M.E. 732, when Aulea is twenty-five.

#✦ —— awake ─ dear heart ─ awake! thou hast slept well ; awake. ( headcanon )

[sage-nebula]

For whatever reason, I started thinking about what I would want to see from a Yu-Gi-Oh! sequel on my drive home from work today. (Note: I’m specifically talking about a sequel to the original manga; the various anime adaptations, sequels, movies, et cetera will have no bearing on this whatsoever. No hate to anyone who likes them, they’re just not my jam. I’m just invested in the manga and the manga only.) Obviously I’d want a female protagonist, particularly since I think it’s pretty ridiculous that we still haven’t received one in the various anime sequels in all these years, but that train of thought led me to think about what that protagonist’s name would be, and from there what her character would be like and what her story would be, and well, these are the thoughts I have so far, though be warned they’re not the most fleshed out in the world.

— As a sequel series, I’d like this series to take place at a specific point of time in the future from when the original story ends—say, ten years. So by this point, the original cast of teenagers are all in their mid-twenties, Mai is in her thirties, so on and so forth. Should they make any on-page appearances, their designs would be updated accordingly, i.e., no one is going to be stuck in a time loop of looking exactly as they did in the previous story.

—— On that note, everyone who died in the original manga is still dead for this story. RIP, Pegasus J. Crawford. —— Also, since the original series ended ~1997 in-universe, I’d imagine that this series would take place in 2007 as a result.

— So, our protagonist. I imagine she should be a teenager, just like our previous protagonist, and we can make her the same age as he was, 15. Her name would be Kusakabe Yuuna, with the kanji for her given name containing the kanji for “play” as Yuugi’s did, as well as the kanji for “bird cage” for some spoiler related symbolism. (I looked this up in a kanji dictionary, it checks out even if I’m too lazy to copy-paste the kanji here, just trust me.)

—— Since Yuuna is 15, that means she would have been 5 when the original series started, aww. ——  Also, yes, I’m aware that the . . . Zexal? . . . protagonist’s name was Yuuma, which is close, but it’s still not the same name, so let me live. (Unless the kanji match, but I don’t think they should, but also I’m too lazy to check, so this is where we’re at now.)

— Along with having a name that contains “Yuu” in some form or another, YGO protagonists must also have ostentatious hair. For Yuuna, I’ve decided that her hair is something that actually plays into her backstory and therefore shapes her personality. When she was a child, Yuuna was in an accident with her parents (car accident or train accident, something along those lines). Her parents died (since having present parents is also a no-no for most shounen protagonists, not just YGO ones), but Yuuna was left heavily scarred. She has burn scarring all down the right side of her face, as well as along that side of her scalp which prevents her hair from growing in on that side, at least to any real degree. (Like she might have some stubble there but that’s it.) The stress her body underwent as a result of the accident also drained pretty much all pigment from her hair, so while her roots might still be black (or like a really dark grey), her hair looks white when grown out. So it looks like she’s rocking a half-shave with the hair on her left-side going down to her chin, but it’s not intentional. That’s just how her hair has been ever since the accident.

— When her parents died she was taken in by her aunt and uncle. Her aunt home-schooled her through the rest of elementary and all through middle school, because she felt that the scarring was unsightly and would lead to Yuuna being bullied by her classmates and perhaps even her teachers (which isn’t necessarily wrong; bullying is a real problem). Because her aunt impressed upon her that no one would want to see her scarring / would treat her badly if they did (and because Yuuna herself did receive a lot of staring and whispers whenever she went out without some sort of hood to pull up over her head), Yuuna never ventured out to try to make friends. Instead, she stayed inside almost all the time, entertaining herself with a myriad of games (though she had no one to play with), cartoons, comics, and the radio. (Here’s where a past-series cameo can come in: Yuuna loves games, so she likes to listen to Jounouchi’s radio show since he talks about games a lot, and given that his style of broadcasting is so relaxed and friendly she often likes to pretend he’s talking directly to her, even when she knows he’s not.)

— The problem is, Yuuna’s aunt and uncle had an unhappy marriage. There was never any outright abuse, but due to having to take on the burden of running the household, working part-time, and homeschooling Yuuna due to her husband’s apathy, Yuuna’s aunt was unhappy in the home and was essentially counting down the days until she could leave. You see, school is only compulsory in Japan through middle school. High school is optional. So once Yuuna graduated from middle (home) schooling, Yuuna’s aunt packed her bags and left, leaving Yuuna behind with her uncle. And again, there was never any outright abuse . . . but when he wasn’t at his own job, Yuuna’s uncle usually drank himself to sleep in front of the TV. He never abused Yuuna, but that’s because he was never really aware of her presence enough to abuse her. (Never mind that neglect can be its own form of abuse.) So Yuuna was left without a home school teacher, and thus had to enroll herself in a high school if she wanted to continue her education. Which, she did, but . . .

— Yuuna attended high school for a grand total of one (1) day. The staring, the whispers, the stage-whispered name calling — all of it was too much for someone who wasn’t used to it and whose years of insecurities built up by everything her aunt told her could and would happen whenever anyone saw her magnified everything and made it ten times worse. She ducked out before the day was even through and decided she was never going back.

— Of course, games have to be brought back into this at some point, and also there needs to be a plot, so . . . on her way home from school (hood up over her head, probably crying a little) Yuuna sees a little pouch in front of her on the sidewalk. She picks it up and looks inside to find dice — specifically the kind of dice that you use in tabletop games. Yuuna enjoys tabletop games just as much as she enjoys all other types of games, so she shakes the dice out into her palm to examine them . . . and they start glowing as soon as they touch her skin.

— If no one approached her then, Yuuna would figure they were cool trick dice and just take them home with her, no biggie. But at that moment another teenage girl around her age runs up to her, and while Yuuna’s first instinct is to clam up and back away, she doesn’t get much of a chance to do so before the girl is telling her those dice are hers and—oh. They’re glowing? They don’t normally do that . . .

— Long story short, the dice are magic, but they only light up like that when held by someone who has the capability to use the magic within them. So far, no one has been able to get that particular set to light up until now. Yuuna, of course, is skeptical, but the other girl — who tells Yuuna that her name is Kujou — urges Yuuna to follow her to people who can explain everything. Yuuna doesn’t really want to, she’s very much not used to interacting with people, but Kujou isn’t reacting negatively to what she can see under Yuuna’s hood, and Yuuna doesn’t have much else to do, and magic dice sound cool . . . so she agrees.

— Even longer story short, there’s an underground organization dedicated to making change via gaming. They’re made of people from all over the city (perhaps even all over Japan, perhaps even farther than that) who believe in the cause, or have a goal they feel that the organization can / will help them reach, or perhaps have no one else who will accept or have them and so they’ve found a sense of belonging with each other. This organization can and does use magic; Kujou hurriedly tells Yuuna that it’s not cheating or anything like that, but rather, there’s true magic in gaming and that when there’s a special connection between a player and the tools they use, they can draw it out to make a difference. It’s like, Kujou goes on, how certain Duel Monsters specialize in certain cards, like how Mutou Yuugi used magicians and Kaiba Seto relied on the Blue-Eyes White Dragon. 

—— “But this is . . . real magic. It glows.” —— “Well, yeah, but have you ever seen the recordings of the Duel Monsters matches from like, Battle City? That was real magic, too.”

— Kujou brings Yuuna to at least one of the leaders within the organization, who sees that she can activate the magic in the dice and, as a result, does a very good sales pitch to lure her into the organization; tells her about the people they help with the winnings they make from tournaments, how they’re all like one big family, how they’ll care for her and help her reach her goals, etc. And since it’s not like her uncle will even notice if she’s gone anyway, and since both Kujou and this leader person are being so kind to her (and Kujou even says her hair looks cool), and since she would like to, maybe, at some point have enough money to get surgery to change her face . . . Yuuna agrees and moves into the base this organization operates out of.

— Of course, unbeknownst to Yuuna, she has just joined the villains, dun dun dunnnnn. This “organization” is actually more of a crime syndicate or cult; think like the Ghouls from the original manga, with perhaps a dash of yakuza thrown in. (Could there mayhaps be a Hirutani cameo at some point? Knowing me, if I can get away with it, abso-fucking-lutely.) For about the first third of the series Yuuna is put into tournaments where she essentially crushes characters who would otherwise be the heroes or protagonists of a more straightforward shounen series. You know how people have commented that in recent Pokémon games it feels like you’re the asshole rival? That’s essentially Yuuna. She’s sent in to sabotage tabletop tournaments (despite how bad she feels doing so because she’s a big fan of Spirits & Sanctuaries, a TRPG created by one Bakura Ryou), collect the winnings from Duel Monsters tournaments, etc. (Dice games are her specialty, given her magic dice, but she can draw magic out of other game pieces as well.) Though she feels bad about doing things like this, she has a real sense of belonging in the organization, a nice room, people who are kind to her and want to be around her. While at the beginning of the series she was very withdrawn, she starts coming out of her shell more and being genuinely happy. We’d get to see this unfold over the chapters, the juxtaposition between her performances in game tournaments and the like and how she is with the other members of the organization.

— So Yuuna pushes away any doubts she has over what she’s doing in favor of how happy she is with her new family, and even resolves to stop listening to Jounouchi’s radio show when he warns people about their organization and their “crimes” on a broadcast, because they’re not criminals, that’s not true, and she knows about his history and how he came from poverty himself, so who is he to judge? But then at some point Kujou, whom she’s grown very close to during this time (spoiler: Kujou is both her best friend and love interest) comes to her and is like, hey, I’ve been suspicious for a while, so I’ve done some digging and I think this whole thing is evil. :/ 

—— “That’s ridiculous. How could you say that?” —— “I’ve got the receipts, on tape, right here on my phone. See?” —— “That’s a flip phone. How am I supposed to see anything on that?” —— “This story is set in 2007. Work with me and let me live.”

— Yuuna still doesn’t want to believe it, so she goes to talk to the leader person about it herself, and whoops, overhears him being evil with other higher-up members in the organization. So she goes back to find Kujou and is like, you were right, they are evil, and Kujou is like, I know, I already packed our bags, let’s bounce.

— So Yuuna and Kujou run away together (perhaps bringing a few other trustworthy teens from the organization with them), and then the remaining two-thirds of the story are spent with them fighting against the organization to bring them down, using their own magic (because Yuuna does still have magic and now she knows how to use it . . . kind of . . . mostly . . . she’s trying) to do so.

And that’s all I’ve got for now, but I think it’d be a cool successor to the original manga, with cameos here and there from the adult versions of the original cast. I’m especially quite married to the idea of featuring many games over the course of the story, since YGO was a manga about many games originally, before it became obsessed with Duel Monsters (though a TRPG did play a big role in the last arc and we will forever stan that).

(Oh, and in case you’re wondering: the symbolism in Yuuna’s name is because the two kanji together bring to mind a playful bird in a cage. It’s symbolism because at the start of the series Yuuna is in a metaphorical cage due to all her insecurities and issues and the circumstances of her life, and then even in the organization she’s still caged by them because they’re using her, but her personal journey is breaking free of both cages to release the spirited (playful) person that she is within, becoming more confident and, yes, never getting cosmetic surgery because her personal growth gets her to a place where she owns it and loves herself, scarring and all.

And if you’re wondering why there’s at least a handful of teenagers in this organization, if not more: It’s because they prey on young kids who come from bad homes or have nowhere else to go by offering them a sense of community and belonging, which is something gangs do in real life, and is yet another way the organization is shown to be evil aside from the Board Game Crimes they commit on the daily.

Anyway, stan a YGO manga sequel with wlw protagonists, good night.)

#yugioh #inb4 ''Yuuna sounds like a Mary-Sue'' pls look at every protagonist of every YGO iteration ever #and tell me they're not all equipped with some combo of tragic backstory + unbelievable games talent #being talented with a sad backstory is like a shounen protagonist recipe #not even just within YGO but in general #that doesn't change just bc the protagonist is a girl #so sit down please and thank you #also it didn't come up organically in the summary but yes Yuugi and Jounouchi are married at this point #Anzu's got a successful dance career #everyone's living their dreams and are happy #since we're eliminating DSoD from existence even Kaiba got therapy & his act together & is a good brother to Mokuba #in this universe the miracle did happen

[yizukikhons]

TMA x Persona 5 crossover

I’m combining my newest obsession with one of my favorite games ‘cause I love playing the game “what characters from X series would belong to Y category from Y series”

So...

Persona 5, but all the characters belong to different entities from the Magnus Archives (Note: this’ll be based off of the original game, as I have not been able to afford the new release of Royal, and so have not played it yet.) Main Cast: Akira/Ren: Beholding. I debated for a long time about what to pick. What fit the protagonist better? Did his attempts to appear harmless mean he was better suited for the Spiral and it’s deceptions? Or does the fact that he’s a Wild Card able to mold himself into anything his friends needs align him with the Stranger? Or does his anger at unjust treatment give him the greatest connection to the Slaughter, or the Desolation? In the end I went with Beholding not only because that’s what I made the Velvet attendants, but because the Beholding also witnesses all the other entities. It has ties to all of them, even the Stranger which is it’s antithesis along with the Dark. It would make sense that he would have access, have KNOWLEDGE, of all the other entities under this power. Ryuji: The Vast. I almost gave him the Lonely, as after Kamoshida broke his leg he was isolated from his peers, but Ryuji doesn’t WANT to be alone. None of the other entities felt right. The Flesh is too literal, the Web requires more smarts than this boy has, the Corruption makes no sense and so on. I eventually went with the Vast because Ryuji always talks about freedom, and how running made all of his worries fade away, how it helped him connect to his other teammates. Avatars of the Vast have a very laid back look on life and are by far some of the most friendly you can run into, though it doesn’t make them any less dangerous.

Morgana: Beholding. I was originally thinking about whether to make him a Spiral creature or maybe the Stranger, but I realized that whatever Morgana was, then the other velvet room attendants would have to be it as well. And Igor’s JOB is to know things and help guide the player without actually interfering. He can’t belong to anything BUT the Beholding.

Ann: The Stranger: I wasn’t super sure about this one, as the Stranger relies heavily on deception-which Ann is NOT good at-but looking back at all the statements that involve it, it’s evident that it doesn’t try to be GOOD at deception either. How would you know something’s not right if the act was perfect? And as a model, Ann needs to be able to put on different attitudes in order to have presence.

Yusuke: The Spiral. I wasn’t sure which one to give to Yusuke originally. Again, the Lonely was my original thought, as his eccentricities make it hard for him to connect to other people, but being isolated is something that happens TO him, not something he pursues. Yusuke says that he wants to inspire people the way the Sayuri did for him, wants to show the world in new ways. And what better Entity/Patron to follow then the one that does exactly that? The spiral is about fooling the senses, making you see things that aren’t there or perceiving things in impossible ways. What better way is there to describe how art is supposed to make people feel?

Makoto: This girl belongs to the Hunt. You might think the Slaughter because of the rage she feels at being treated like a doormat but nope! That’s her sister. Her sense of justice makes her pursue her prey. She stalks Akira, set traps for him and the Phantom thieves. Not to mention that she wants to be a cop-which tend to lean towards the Hunt due to pursuing criminals. Futaba: Beholding all the way. This girl wants to Know everything, wants to Understand above all. While her vision might have been clouded by grief after her mother’s death, she still Knew they were lying to her and pursued the truth relentlessly.

Haru: Slaughter. I don’t think I have to explain this one do I? Girl canonically has sadistic tendencies, and while one COULD argue that Sadism fits the Desolation better, she doesn’t destroy for destruction’s sake. 

Akechi: Desolation. I was originally going to give this boy the Slaughter like Haru due to his anger, until I realized that the anger wasn’t the point. It was directed at Shido. At building him up as high as possible just to take it all away from him. That’s quintessential Desolation mentality. The Desolation is about loss more than fire, and Akechi is determined to make Shido lose EVERYTHING, and believes anything destroyed in that process will be worth it, just to see the expression on his father’s face as he pulls the rug out from under him.

Confidants:

Sadayo Kawakami: Victim of the Buried. Not just because of her debt, but also because of her guilt. The Buried can be metaphorical as well as physical, and Kawakami is an excellent example of that. Sae Nijima: Slaughter. Her anger and tendency to lash out at Makoto are what made me decide on this Entity. She isn’t an Avatar. Like Melanie, she was infected with it and was slowly becoming more and more angry and violent.

Sojiro Sakura: Hunt. He’s been out of the game for a while, so the instincts have largely gone away, but as Wakaba’s friend he learned a lot and that knowledge has helped him keep Futaba safe.

Munehisa Iwai: Slaughter. Former Yakuza? Of course it’s Slaughter; but taking in Kaoru and leaving his clan cut him off from the entity and nowadays he’s just a normal human.

Toranosuke Yoshida: Victim of the Lonely. Being evicted from congress isolated him and left everyone unwilling to listen to him. 

Ichiko Ohya: the Dark. It doesn’t fit perfectly. The Dark is about hiding information, not publishing it;  but in game her abilities allow you to move around undetected, and her articles help your reputation. I almost went with the Spiral considering how she deceives people, but the characters don’t all need to be Avatars who symbolize their patron. I see it more likely that Ohya is a victim of the Dark, as Shido’s organization is trying to keep her from the truth. 

Chihaya Mifune: Web. As a genuine fortune teller it only makes sense that she would be aligned with the Weavers.

Tae Takemi: The End. Enough said.

Shinya Oda: The Hunt. He’s always searching for weaknesses, whether that’s in his competitors or the enemies in game.

Hifumi Togo: The Web. Not only do her abilities allow you greater control over battes, but she’s also caught in the Web of her mother’s making when she’s trying to turn Hifumi into a model.

Yuki Mishima: The Corruption. Mishima uses his ‘position’ as the Phantom Thieves manager to try and gain others respect and take advantage of people. Corruption isn’t always about literal filth and decay, so I think this kind of moral Corruption would definitely put him under this Entities gaze.

Igor: Beholding. I explained this earlier in Morgana’s part, but Igor just fits the Beholding. He has knowledge that he shares with the player to aid in their journey, but he never interferes, never takes action.

Caroline: The Slaughter. I know I said that all the Velvet attendants would be beholding, but I thought that since the twins were two halves of one person, it would be interesting if their Patrons were different to reflect her broken nature. Justine: The End. I wanted to originally go for something different, like the Lonely or the Web. But Justine is a lot calmer than her sister, almost emotionless, and most of all she’s PATIENT, which is a trademark of the End. 

Lavenza: Beholding. As a Velvet attendant, she shares the same Patron as Igor.

Palace Rulers: Kamoshida: The Flesh. At first I didn’t know which Entity to give him. Should it be the Hunt, considering his lustful pursuit of the girls? Or maybe the Buried as he tries to pressure Ann into sleeping with him, using Shiho to keep her at his side. I eventually settled on the Flesh because even though Kamoshida was willing to do anything to get Ann as soon as possible and hurt Shiho when she turned him down in retaliation, the Hunt will never stop their pursuit because THAT’S THE FUN PART. There is no end for them. Kamoshida did want to catch Ann.

Madarame: The Spiral. I was originally going to go with the Lonely since he isolates his students, but other than that surface comparison, Madarame has no connection to the Lonely. He relied far more heavily on deceiving his students and tricking them into thinking that they owe him their artwork due to his mentoring them. 

Kaneshiro: The Corruption. I mean, he turns into a fly. What more is there to say, except that he possesses the same moral corruption that infects Mishima?

Okumura: The Buried. I originally went with the Flesh, but it felt far too literal. I eventually settled on the Buried as Okumura oppresses his workers and smothers them under exhaustion and debt to the company to keep them in line.

Shido: The Web. I thought about going with the Beholding as a sort of parallel to both the protagonist and Jonah Magnus from TMA, but Shido doesn’t want knowledge. He wants control, to exert his will on the masses, and that’s Web, not Beholding. Yaldabaoth: The Web. The ultimate expression of manipulation. Father of Puppets. 

#persona 5 #tma spoilers #the entities #tma #magnus archives #i spent way too long on this #and now I go to bed

[zaggitz]

Top Ten Games of 2020

This year being the shitshow that it was, I ended up playing quite a few games I missed out on last year! First though, my lists from the previous years:

2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 - 2019

I like having my actual top ten being games that came out the year of but here's a few games that would have been on my list last year if I had played them:

Control

Really fun gameplay and a great weird world to play around in that scratched that weird cryptid/scp itch in a really satisfying way. I still have the final DLC left but I'm excited to do a full replay of the game at some point down the line

Outer Wilds

This game was worthy of all the praise it got last year and more. Amazingly crafted clockwork world with great lore and characters and an absolute blast to explore and get lost in- and then explore and get lost in- and then explore and get lost in- and then explore and get lost in- and then explore and oh damn is that a singularity cool I wonder what happens if I- and then explore and get lost WOAH there's two of me now!

I wish I could forget this game and play it for the first time all over again.

Honorable Mention:

Ghost of Tsushima

This game is an absolute blast to play and has some of the best seamless open world navigation I’ve experienced in the genre. How much I love playing the game is however at odds with how much I LOATHE its absolute horseshit main story. Might check out the multiplayer mode some time since it’s all the stuff I liked and none of the bad stuff.

Now for the actual list:

10. Man Eater

This game scratched a deep PS2/PS3 B game itch that I've had since probably the last Saint's Row game came out. It's nothing special but I had a really fun time with this weird, bite-sized(heh) comedy game.

9. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

Ori 2 is in every way a massive improvement from the first game. The mechanics feel tighter, the level design is a lot more open and freeform, the writing feels sharper and the addition of tons of new characters with lots of dialogue helps flesh out this very beautiful world the designers at Moon Studio have crafted. I played this game on Switch and it played pretty smoothly though it was extremely jarring seeing XBOX GAME STUDIOS upon loading the game up on a Nintendo console.

8. The House in Fata Morgana: Reincarnation

This epilogue to the previous two visual novels did a fantastic job of closing out all the characters personal arcs and rounded out the story in a really good way that didn't choke me up at all, shut up.

7. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Now here's one I didn't expect to get sucked into as much as I did. There are a lot of plot expectations coming into this game from Breath of the Wild and it takes no time at all for HW2 to subvert the shit out of them. It toes the line really well between being both a prequel and a pseudo sequel really well and the combat is that good chunky big musou stuff I love. It also doesn't have any Imprisoned fights so it's immediately better than HW1.

6. Final Fantasy 7 Remake

Speaking of pseudo sequels... This game was just an absolute blast. The combat is hectic and strategic in a really satisfying way. The way it fleshes out all the characters from the early parts of FF7 while also having kicking rad world building and a few(not enough) new areas entirely ruled and much like HW2 it absolutely loves to set up expectations from the original game and flip them on their heads. I can't wait to see this shit go off the rails in the eventual sequel.

5. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

I have like 300 hours logged into this game at this point. I've never been much of an AC guy but boy did this game luck out by coming out just in time for me quarantining at home for 7 weeks. I don't really have a lot to say about the game itself, I'm just glad I had it to occupy my time during the start of this hellshow.

4. The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 4

This game has some of the highest highs in the Trails series along with some of the absolute lowest lows. It's an absolute mess especially on the romance side of things but CS4 also wraps up longstanding plot threads from like 7 games prior with surprising amounts of finesse so the pros ended up outweighing the cons for me overall. This series was a core example of scope getting out of hand over and over. In a world where these games are tighter paced and end up being the 2 games they planned instead of 4 I could see this being a top contender. Sadly that wasn't the case. 

Now that the arc of these games is over I'm excited to see if they can return to form with the next one.

3. Hades

Amazing combat, amazing writing, well integrated roguelite elements and plot, dope ass music, this game's got it all baby. The amount of variety and build potential on hand makes me constantly excited to hit up a new run.

2. The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero

Take all my complaints out of the CS4 blurb and this (finally) fan-translated version of the first game in the second Trails arc is what you get. This game had some of the best worldbuilding in the series due to it taking place entirely in one huge Hong Kong style city. It closed out a major and extremely emotionally satisfying plot thread from the first 3 games and ends on such a fantastic high note of a finale. Trails fans who haven't touched Crossbell yet, don't miss out!

1. Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Why is Yakuza 7 my favorite game of the year? It’s not the brand new, huge city to explore filled with stuff to do. It’s not the shift to JRPG combat that works extremely well in context and gets really fun by the end of the game. It’s not the fact that this is easily the funniest game I’ve played all year, and hell, maybe ever. It’s also not the way the game perfectly closes out the Era of the last seven games while ushering in a new, extremely exciting one.

It’s because the new protagonist, Kasuga Ichiban, is not Kazuma Kiryu.

Let me back-up for a sec. This game’s biggest change above all else is the shift to a new protagonist. Now, for a Yakuza game, having a different protagonist isn’t normally a huge deal; we had new guys in 4, 5 and Judgement. But they all functioned within the narrative framework established by Kiryu.

Kiryu is a character whose core philosophy I feel can be broken down into one sentence: Don’t let anyone stand in the way of you living your life the way you want to live it. Every main story in Yakuza 0-6 revolves around this philosophy, as do most of the substories. Kiryu only gets involved in a game’s main story when he has no choice, because something is threatening the life he wishes he could be living. Hell, if anything, you could argue his ending in 6 is him finally accepting he can’t have the life he wants if he wants the people in it to be safe.

So when RGG studios created a new protagonist, built around a whole new combat style, they also had to change the philosophy behind their storytelling.

Kasuga Ichiban is a character who, after this first game at least, to me has a core philosophy of: Everybody deserves to be alive, to be seen, to be helped and to be understood. The changes this brings to the story are incredible and lead to one of the most emotionally satisfying games I’ve ever played. 

Sure, this is a Yakuza game, with it’s typical conspiracies and crime melodrama, but it’s also a game about the dehumanization of homeless people and sex workers. A game about the rampat mistreatment of immigrants and elderly people. A game about the dangers of rampant puritanical nationalism.

That it manages to be all those things so loudly and proudly is something that could only happen with a loud, rambunctious, heart on his sleeve type of guy like Kasuga Ichiban driving it.

Also the reason it’s a JRPG now is because he’s a huge Dragon Quest nerd, and you get to summon a crawfish named Nancy to kill people. Game of the Year.

#game of the year

[fasterthanmydemons]

How would Alive!Pietro react to losing Wanda in the Snap? I mean, I don't think the two of them would die simply because they're twins. The Snap wouldn't care, it would just tear families apart. And Clint, who is like a father figure to Pietro, would be too busy angsting over his own family in Japan to be there for him. Feel free to go on a long rant if you need to! Your blog does justice to Pietro.

{out of breath} So this is an interesting question, and I’ll warn you right off the bat that the answer is going to be very depressing. Trigger warnings ahead for mention of suicidal tendencies and self-destructive behavior.

If you’re the same person who already asked me about what would happen if Pietro lost Wanda after Ultron instead of the other way around, you can ignore what I’m gonna say next because you’ve already probably read all this, haha, but I’ll draw your attention to these three posts. Two of them are starters and one is an answer to an anon who asked me to elaborate on one of them. Pietro would have one of two reactions to losing Wanda in pretty much every scenario you can imagine, regardless of when it is in his timeline: 1) anger, 2) despair. The two starters deal with each of those overwhelming emotions. So even though it’s not the exact scenario you are asking about, you might find them interesting to read:

“Nothing Left” Starter

Ask Answer About “Nothing Left” Pietro

“Carrying On” Starter

With regard to what you asked about specifically... I feel like his reaction would be the same, but by that point, he’d probably have a lot more support than he would after Ultron, for example. He will have been with the Avengers for... what 2 years? 3 years? I see him staying close to Clint as well as making friends with Natasha. That doesn’t mean his reaction to Wanda dying is going to be any less intense, but it might mean that either Clint or Natasha (more likely Nat given how Clint reacted to his own family being snapped) might try to actively keep Pietro from hurting himself, whether in the literal suicide sense or just by getting into fights and reckless behavior.

Anytime Pietro loses Wanda, no matter the circumstances, he’s going to blame himself. He’s the big brother, he’s supposed to protect her. If she’s dead, then he failed her. That failure would be compounded even more by losing her in the snap, because like all the other Avengers, he’d feel like he failed the world, didn’t try hard enough, didn’t do enough, could have done more, etc. So... huge let down ego-wise and morale-wise, and he’s losing the most important person in his life. It’s all downhill from here.

Anger is a natural thing for Pietro to express at this time, because in a lot of ways it’s easier for him to be angry, explosive, and self-destructive than it is for him to cry and be sad. For someone who grew up with a somewhat antiquated notion of men, Pietro feels like there’s more strength in anger than sadness. So covering up his grief with explosive temper is a natural path for him to go down. Combine that with guilt and him feeling like he deserves to be punished for failing her, and you have a Pietro who is starting fights with everyone hoping to be hurt, doing dangerous parkour to burn off energy and oh, maybe he’ll fall and die. Just very reckless behavior in which he doesn’t care and almost would prefer if he got seriously injured. Because what’s the point? Wanda’s gone, and she was his life.

It’s a very sad outlook, but as I've said many times in the past on this blog, I have always headcanoned that Wanda is stronger than Pietro emotionally. He’s stronger physically... and he appears to be stronger emotionally, but we all know Wanda can survive without Pietro. I headcanon that there is a good chance Pietro would not survive losing Wanda. Suicide is a real thing he would consider, unfortunately, and it would take very persistent and patient intervention from someone he trusts (Clint, Nat, maybe Sam or Steve if he got close with them) to help him through his grief in a more constructive manner.

Let’s say he is helped by Nat or Steve or a similar friend in the Avengers. Fights will probably happen, both shouting matches and physical ones. They might have to kick his ass a few times or at least tire him out to get him to calm down and listen to them. It sounds cruel, but this actually isn’t a bad way to get Pietro to listen, as long as he isn’t seriously injured in the fights. It tires him out, expends a lot of that rage he’s using as a coping mechanism, and gets past it. He’s more likely to break down and cry once he’s tired/spent enough, but that’s actually a good thing because he’s not suppressing his sadness anymore. At that point, he’d be more conducive to listening to them. What would they say? It’s not his fault. That they’re all in the same boat, they all lost someone they cared about. Maybe that they’ll work to find a way to reverse it. That Wanda wouldn’t want him to hurt himself or to just self-destruct because of her. Things like that. It would take several times of getting him down to a more open and vulnerable state enough to learn that they’re not going to judge him, take advantage of him, or mock him in that condition. That’s when the healing begins.

But before we get too optimistic, I will say that even if Pietro is able to be saved from himself after losing Wanda, he will never be the same. Ever. A light, a happiness, a spark he had inside him will be gone forever, and even if Wanda is brought back to him after the events of Endgame, something will still be broken in him. He might be able to get back to 95% of who he was before, but the scarring and traumatic experience of losing his sister is something that will permanently effect him, even if he gets her back.

Now... there is one more way he could be saved from his rage benders and other destructive behaviors. Well, sort of. He does trust and respect Clint as a father figure by this time (I headcanon anyway, that their relationship would only deepen the longer Pietro is with the Avengers), so he might follow suit when Clint decides to go rogue and become Ronin. I could easily see them bonding over their grief by basically adopting a “screw everything” kind of attitude. Like, they’ve lost their families and there’s a feeling of well... we don’t care what happens to us, we may as well make various assholes pay. I can see Pietro jumping on that bandwagon real fast and helping Clint take down various mafia, Yakuza, crime syndicates. They’d become a duo, taking matters into their own hands and staying off the grid.

That would be a satisfying outlet for his anger, however, not a healthy outlet for his grief overall. Like Clint, he would be suppressing things like grief, sadness, and guilt in favor of anger, self-righteousness, and a misguided sense of vigilante justice. It might serve to keep Pietro from becoming completely suicidal, but it also will do next to nothing to help him process his grief and begin to move on in a healthy fashion.

Okay, so I think I’ve dished out most of my headcanons on this topic, but if there’s anything else you want to ask or if I raised more questions in your mind, please feel free to send in more. I love asks like this because they really help me to flesh him out if I don’t have headcanons on the subject, or to get them all written out “on paper” so to speak so that I don’t forget them. Thanks for sending this in! =) Also thank you do much for saying I do justice to Pietro! That’s the best compliment the mun of a canon character can get. <3

#about the muse #pietro maximoff #tw: suicidal thoughts #tw: self-destructive behavior