#in the flesh meta

[meta-squash]

This is my first In The Flesh meta since like 2015 or whatever but I rewatched series one and and I’ve been having some thoughts. And the first one is about Kieren and Jem and their relationship.

Because that scene where Jem comes into Kieren’s room and demands that he tell her something nobody else knows about her in order to prove it’s really him is so important on so many levels.

At the least important/most vague level it establishes foreshadowing for Bill Macy’s conviction that Rick was an imposter, and establishes the difference between Kieren’s family (Jem believes him when he finishes telling the one story) and Rick’s (Bill makes him jump through all these hoops and still murders him).

But Kieren’s perspective on Jem walking on her toes establishes how much different Jem’s chasm of grief is compared to that of their parents.

It establishes a unique connection between them as siblings, and especially as siblings who are already identified as Other. Jem walked on her toes for nine months and no one knew why except for Kieren, who understood the compulsion entirely and also knew what would fix it. His understanding of Jem when they were young implies just how close they were. And it’s validated at the end of the series when Steve says that Jem knew Kieren might be in the cave and told them about it after a few days, which means at some point they were close enough that Kieren told her about the cave in a way that communicated its emotional significance.

It’s a story that also establishes them both as Other. Kieren’s othering is obvious; the village’s general hostility (or the indifference to the hostility) is blatant. But Kieren says Jem was on her toes because “you thought you were strange for some reason” and wanted to be “quiet as a mouse,” which means whether or not the people around her actually thought she was strange or different, it’s how she thought they saw her.

And it’s immediately followed by Kieren telling Jem he killed himself and left no note because he “just wanted to disappear.” Where there should have been understanding via a connection between Jem walking on her toes and wanting to be quiet so no one noticed her, and Kieren leaving no note because he wanted to disappear, there’s Jem’s chasm of grief and anger.

We can infer from Sue and Steve’s general interaction with/reaction to Kieren’s behaviour that he rarely told them much about his thoughts or feelings. But it’s obvious that Jem understands Kieren far better than their parents and not just because they’re closer in age; he clearly talked to her far more than he ever did Sue and Steve.

So her anger at him and grief for him is different and the fact that it remains even once he’s come back makes so much sense. Because now there’s a communication gap between them, they don’t understand each other anymore. It’s been 5 years, during which Jem has grown up from adolescent to adult. And of course the Rising, which put them literally at opposition with each other when previously it seems they had been more of a team. And Jem has had 5 years to try and grapple with her grief and the trauma of the rising and all that, whereas Kieren has few memories from the past 5 years, so he’s essentially nearly the same as he was when he died, whereas she has changed so drastically.

Steve and Sue are upset and worried and frightened but more than anything they’re relieved to have Kieren back, because while their grief obviously affected them hugely, the rest of their relationship with Kieren before his death and after his return hasn’t changed. It seems like his behaviour is similar to how it was before, and what his parents are worried about more than how he’s acting is where and who he’s with. Kieren not communicating or wandering off or being upset isn’t new to them, but kind of danger he faces as a PDS sufferer is more obvious to them (as it’s an external threat) than the danger he was in before his death (as an uncommunicated internal threat).

But Kieren and Jem now have this gap between them, a space where they used to have a connection and understanding and where they used to tell each other things. And for Jem, the gap is filled up with her anger and grief and the PTSD surrounding Kieren and Lisa and the doctrine of the HVF. They can’t communicate the same way because they don’t have that connection and understanding that they used to. Plus Kieren is now Othered in triplicate (gay, committed suicide, and PDS) whereas Jem has been accepted into a somewhat elite group and has fairly stable social standing in the village.

So Kieren’s anecdote about Jem as a kid shows how similar they were and this connection they had, and that he was able to understand and fix her problem that time. Except now they’ve drifted so far apart and they can’t fix each other because the gap between them is filled up with five years of being on opposing sides of this fight. And if Kieren had more memories of when he was rabid maybe it would be easier for them to figure things out and communicate their respective experiences to get to a middle ground, except that Jem remembers everything and Kieren remembers almost nothing.

The fact that he at least remembers Lisa is, I think, a bridge between them in that he has something concrete to apologize for. In series 2, Simon doesn’t remember killing his mother, so his apology to his father, while sincere, is empty of concrete knowledge of his own actions. But Kieren remembers not only killing Lisa but Jem not killing him, which means they have this connection between them, this memory between them, and he’s able to both apologize to and thank her over this one moment. Which is a way to close that gap, just a little bit.

#in the flesh #itf #in the flesh meta #kieren walker #jem walker

[knuckleblaster]

On some level I understand the rejection or outright denial of V2's death: it was jarring and brutal, especially for a character who, at least in laws of traditional video game rivals and the rule of thirds, seemed like it'd stick around for longer. This said, inferring from in-game lore as well as dev statements, I believe V2's death, tragic that it is, is not unwarranted; and that it is commonly pigeonholed into a characterization it does not fit into due to its assumed role within the game.

This is long, so it's going under the cut.

Considering its name, it's easy to assume V2 is a new and improved version of its predecessor; but it is more heavily implied that it's simply a version of V1 with thicker plating, and nothing more. [1] V2 was an attempt at salvaging V1's design after war became irrelevant, to capitalize on the resources wasted on a highly advanced war machine by rebranding it as an adaptable worker, for security and (theoretically) other peacetime activities (...not an innuendo). This was a failure; there's no reason to invest in something so refined when a handful of lesser machines could do the same job [2].

If V2 is contextualized within its backstory, it makes a lot more sense why it ate shit so quickly. It is, out of any in-game machine so far, one of the least suited for survival in Hell. Sentries and Streetcleaners were created for war. Swordsmachine(s) and Mindflayers are scrapheads, constantly adapting to create (and protect) their perfect, lethal body. [3] If anything, it's on the same level as a Drone, able to defend itself in a limited capacity, but not intentionally programmed or built for combat. Faced with V1, something built for perfect, swift destruction, a machine made for peace would stand even less of a chance than normal, even with an equal level of mobility and build.

V2 is also doomed, in a very literal sense, by the narrative. In a meta sense, it does not matter to the game story whatsoever [4]. V1 is the butterfly whose wing flaps set Gabriel's story in motion, but V2 has no such connection to his story, and is thus irrelevant. Even its lore entry is overshadowed by information about V1/its connection to V1. A third fight, as well, was never in the running, not necessarily due to anything in the game lore, but because its first and second encounters are all it needs: a third rematch would be repetitive and messy [5]. The reason for its extremely violent death sequence is to ensure there was no question as to its fate [6].

In regards to its personality; it is oft-headcanoned as loud, irritable, and competitive, but this characterization is more likely due to its color as well as its assumed role as a "rival" to V1; rather than based upon its in-game actions. Although its initial intentions are up to interpretation [7], comparing its actions and mechanics to other enemies fully rationalizes its anger. Although it's fairly easy to enrage in-fight, the criteria for its enrage state is much more specific than other enemies, and it's quite easy to not trigger it at all. Cerberi will enrage after one of its kind dies, Malicious Faces and Mindflayers after a certain amount of damage has been dealt (on Violent). Most notably, as the only other character with a rematch, Gabriel begins his second fight enraged after his first defeat [3], which can imply by extension that even though V2 is taking its second fight more seriously [8], it is still not outwardly angry. Its enrage state is only triggered when its patience is depleted (the player avoids it for too long), or in its second fight when it has been punched with the Knuckleblaster. These can be interpreted as indicators that V2 likes it when the fight is "fair": when it's not being avoided and picked at from a distance, or being hit with its own arm; which is frankly pretty fucking mean. A side note: Returning to its creation, it can also potentially be inferred that V2 was intentionally programmed with a rational, controlled, and even marketable personality, easily suppressed or overwritten for ease of use.

In another game, or if V1 was the protagonist, perhaps V2 would not be dead. Instead, V2 is doomed by its creators, both in-game and in reality. It mirrors V1 in action and Gabriel in mind, but unlike them, it has no place in this story beyond a truly fantastic duo of fights. Although its story has any number of potential rewritings or epilogues [9], its doom was always intended. It's easy to mourn lost potential, and its end is intensely tragic; but I believe it is a tragedy that meshes nicely with the rest of the game's story. V2 is dead, and not a second too soon.

Footnotes:

1.

Along with the lore entry for V2:

V1’s planned production was cancelled and an updated model, V2, was developed instead, using the standardized plating, since durability was far more important during times of peace when no bloodshed was necessary.

2.

twitter.com/HakitaDev/status/1538313328715513857

3. in-game lore entries, can be read on ultrakill.miraheze.org or here in one document: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2245904838

4.

5.

twitter.com/HakitaDev/status/1538336055681863680

6. "And then V2 dies as hard as anyone could possibly die to make sure people understand he's fucking dead and is not coming back" - dev commentary, 05:08:09 (youtu.be/kaImho5JioI?si=v4_m90nfLOY-DyEZ&t=18489)

7.

8.

9. Notably, Dream's End Come True / v2isdead.com.

#ULTRAKILL #V2 #meta #id in alt #finally fleshed this out. V2 death manifesto with bonus personality critique!

[nona-gay-simus]

No, I don't think people understand.

Harrow spent the entirety of GtN being like "I need to protect the tomb, I need to revive my house, the ninth house is all that matters." She even threatened to kill Gideon if she embarrassed her.

And then the second, the very second, she found out what being a lyctor meant, when she found out that the cost of everything she wanted was Gideon's life, she said "no." Gideon was more important.

In the end, all her threats were empty. It was always going to be Gideon.

#griddlehark #tlt #gtn spoilers #gideon the ninth #tlt meta #gtn meta #gideon the ninth spoilers #gideon the ninth meta #harrowhark nonagesimus #harrowhark meta #gideon nav #griddlehark meta #tlt spoilers #the locked tomb #ship: one flesh one end bitch #idk how people can read this ad not tgink harrow loves gideon #anyways i am gay #and crying

[purble-gaymer]

the heat goes on, where the hand has been

and the heat goes on, and the heat goes on (x)

#kirby #kirby right back at ya #meta knight #kirby au #flesh & bone au #rhyn's art #cw blood #wehh…yup

[1000sunnygo]

One piece 1098

Oda.. What do you mean you've created a girl who escaped slavery then thrown her back to the hell and worse, for TWO years, being kidnapped right before the day that she eagerly looked forward to. This chapter is going to haunt me for days

Regardless of her small screentime, Ginny is not a nobody. She's essentially the mastermind of God Valley incident. She saved lives including Kuma's and never left his side - wishing to be his 'big sis' after Iva left. The feeling transformed to love as they grew older, but she had always been there to protect him. But thinking about it, Kuma couldn't reciprocate it the same way did he.

Ginny was Kuma's opposite - he'd hesitate, she'd jump into action. She knew she loved kuma and proposed him. She saw him being imprisoned and went to bite back the King. She was bringing a balance to Kuma's life that fell apart after she left. Ginny came to save Kuma time and time again, but in the two years of her kidnap, Kuma gave up on her.

"we raised hell to free you, Kumachi", opposing "I thought I'd never see you again." There's a clear difference between their mindsets.

Kuma became violent yes. But so far we haven't seen any hint that he teleported to Mariejeoise. There's already a record set by Fisher Tiger so it wasn't beyond the realm of possibilities, but Kuma was probably trapped by his trauma and abusive upbringing. He didn't think Ginny would be alive because his mother died.

But Ginny never gave up, she had remained firm with her convictions till the end. She loved a person and the child had genes of her abuser, but she carried the baby and gave birth to her, named her. Ginny was not a person who'd abandons someone.

She realized that sunlight would kill her, but she set sail alone and correctly navigated back to the church. Back to the home they once used to live in before they joined the revolutionaries. The place and its happy memories that probably never left her mind in the two years. The church is the place where she found her solace after her childhood slavery. She wanted her daughter to grow there, she wanted it to be her own grave.

What Ginny gave up on was Kuma's love. She knew he'd worry, she looked hideous and felt that she has no right to face him. "Don't you dare come here" - How prude of her to bloat about wanting to marry him, make him happy, to protect him - and then leave for two years and return with a baby? She knew he'd still love her, but she had no right to expect anything from him, for herself or her child.

"Tell the kind Kumachi, that I've always always loved him."

Kuma had always saved civilians from their miseries. She appreciated Kuma's benevolence.

But it doesn't make Ginny any less kind. For she had something Kuma lacked in his younger days. To fight tooth and nail for the ones that are important, and to never give up.

#man... #not slandering kuma though he's well fleshed out and he's developing bit by bit #we know by the end of the flashback he'd do everything to protect bonney so he's getting there #one piece #one piece 1098 #one piece manga #one piece manga spoiler #one piece meta #op 1098 #bartholomeo kuma #one piece ginny #1 am feels #mine

[thermodynamic-comedian]

my interpretation is that the three main things the fear entities appeal to in order to gain avatars are love, meaning, and freedom.

avatars of the corruption and the desolation seem to talk about love the most. love of the hive, love of destruction. love that corrupts and love that burns. their avatars are often people who have been deprived of love, or whose idea of love has been destroyed in some way.

for meaning, i think the most relevant one is the eye. something you can devote yourself to, something you can worship. the desire for knowledge can define your very existence. this can also apply to the hunt; your purpose becomes catching your prey. hunt avatars are often looking for a reason to feed their violent urgents. eye avatars are just looking for something to believe in.

freedom defines a lot of entities. the vast, obviously, being able to throw yourself into something with no regard for the consequences because nothing matters. if nothing matters, you're free. same goes for the dark; if you cannot be seen, you can do whatever you want without fear of judgement. these avatars usually seem extremely hedonistic and uncontrolled; their faith in order or the universe has been shaken in some way.

#love also includes the flesh i think #meaning also includes the end #freedom also includes the slaughter and the spiral #and probably the lonely #what am i yapping about #even i don't know #tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #tma analysis #the fear entities

[nose-coffee]

the prevalence of "yes or no" in The Locked Tomb Series

bonus!:

#forgive me. i love pash. i couldn't not include her. #tlt #the locked tomb #fuck off lou #my post #parallels #tlt meta #htn #ntn #gtn #harrow the ninth #gideon the ninth #nona the ninth #im just intrigued by the fact that there's no instances with a right choice #if gideon says no she's stuck on the ninth. if she says yes she dies at canaan house #if harrow says yes she eats gideon's soul. if she says no she damns her own #john's taking away U and T's past identities and fleshing them over later w a nicer exterior #or he's desecrating someone's children #nona doesn't know what she'd be disagreeing or agreeing with #camilla dies apart from pal and they depart unknowing into the river. or their souls are destroyed and remade together. forever #the horrors of love making the more grotesque of two evils look more inviting #anyway

[sparring-spirals]

Imogen's insistence on making things "GROVEL" when she could. make them "surrender" or "stop" or even "obey" is uh. Its. a choice. its a Very Powerful Choice.

#its a powerful choice targeting me and my weak constitution specifically imogen ma'am plese #critical role #cr spoilers #c3e50 #cr liveblogging #imogen temult #theres actual character meta here but im too busy being Weak Of Flesh and etc

[fuckalicent]

theon in relation to judith butler’s theory of gender performativity is so special to me. he strives to perform in a way that is overly masculine as a way to compensate for all the time spent away from his father under the care of another man — we see this when he arrives in the iron islands and meets balon for the first time in years. however the way he’s been conditioned to view gender performance as a male in the north is much different to the way gender performance tends to be in the iron islands. we have central themes such as chivalry and honour in contrast to raping and pillaging, aka ‘the ironborn way’, and theon is actually shamed and ridiculed for not conforming to the ironborn perception of gender/masculinity. performance as a man for him has come to mean wealth and excess, when in his homeland it means the opposite. this actually forms a very compelling conflict when asha/yara is brought into the picture. her gender performance is very much that of a male in the north (at least in theon’s eyes), yet her behaviour is not seen as so foreign to the other iron islanders. theon is thrust suddenly into an environment where gender performance is flipped on its head and everything he has come to believe and observe is being disproved before his very eyes — which we see follows him through his entire storyline, particularly once he returns to winterfell with newfound ‘authority’.

#theon greyjoy #asoiaf #gender theory #judith butler #asoiaf meta #i would love to write a longer fleshed out piece about this but at the moment this is all i got

[meta-squash]

(This meta went from being one structured thought to a lot of rambling about Kieren and Rick, so I’m sorry.)

I wonder if Kieren would have ended up staying with Rick if Bill Macy hadn’t killed him.

Kieren’s resurrection after his suicide means he has a chance to start up again where he left off. When he first comes back that doesn’t really mean anything to him; he didn’t want to be alive in the first place, he’s scared and alone and uncertain and as far as he knows, everything is still as shitty as it was when he left, plus now everyone also hates him because he’s PDS. He meets Amy and that puts some light back into his life, of course.

But the revelation that Rick is also back is massive at first, because it means that the Rising not only undid what Kieren did to himself, but what happened to make him do that in the first place. He’s not starting where he left off, he’s backing up even further.

To Kieren, this is a chance at a do-over. He can rekindle his relationship with Rick and maybe it’ll be better this time and maybe they can be more than they were before and do more than they did before.

Only, Rick sees it in essentially the opposite way. He’s more beholden to his father, and the only times he does stand up to Bill is when Kieren is in (potentially) mortal danger. Kieren tells Rick more than once that he doesn’t have to listen to Bill or do what he says and Rick responds with “He’s my dad” or gives him a look or whatever.

Rick is 100% right when he says Kieren shouldn’t blame him for his own death. But Kieren is also 100% right when he accuses Rick of not saying goodbye (and implies that it’s not the first time something like that has happened) and without saying it outright essentially accuses him of leading him on.

Which is why I feel like if Rick had lived, Kieren would have ended up leaving anyway. Every single scene has Rick unable to meet Kieren emotionally. Rick is not wholly to blame; he was under Bill’s abusive, controlling thumb before and he is again now. But even the brief scene when they’re alone, Rick can’t meet Kieren where Kieren needs him to. Kieren loves Rick, but he has an independent, rebellious, self-aware streak that Rick doesn’t have. He wants to fit in, sure, but he also can’t help but stand up and call bullshit if he thinks that needs to happen. And I think if Rick had lived, Kieren would have been less and less interested in hiding, in trying not to rock the boat, in having their relationship confined to the den or the dead of night or “day trips” or whatever.

This was supposed to be a do-over, starting again from before they left off. In fact, starting again from when Rick left off, not Kieren. But Rick is unable to to change the cycle while he’s still alive, and I wonder if he’d ever be able to even if he stayed alive. Because that conversation in the car, and the confrontation in front of the cave, all of that reveals to Kieren that maybe the do-over isn’t all that worth it, because he’s not being treated like it’s worth it. Rick is treating him just as distantly as he was before -- maybe even more distantly, since his relationship with Kieren and Kieren’s feelings for him are 100% confirmed by Kieren’s death, so maybe he’s trying even more to hide their relationship now that it’s known. And he now has this outsider perspective of Amy to show him what she sees and thinks about it, and I think even in the brief time Kieren and Rick have together in series 1 he’s already kind of frustrated that nothing seems to have changed for the better. The good thing is that Rick is back, and it certainly hasn’t been long enough that his love for Rick has waned in any way, but I think his expectations went from “What’s the point of coming back when I wanted to go anyway?” to “If Rick is back we can start over again and things will be better.” And when things aren’t better, when they’re the same as they were before and in fact are maybe even worse because now their relationship is out there which means Bill is watching for it even more, that massive upswing Kieren experienced is now deflating with each pinprick of frustration or disappointment or physical threat or whatever.

So if Rick had lived for this to be a proper do-over, Kieren would have expected change, would have expected something that would make their past actions and their present state worth it, or that would change the path they had been on before to some other, more positive direction. Would Rick have been able to do that?

I don’t think Rick ever expected to have a sustainable future with Kieren. He sort of says so in the car when he talks about Kieren getting into art school and leaving for “new places, new people.” But it’s not even the expectation that Kieren would have a future and he wouldn’t or something like that. Aside from Rick’s fear of his father, I don’t think he was ever comfortable enough in himself and his own feelings to be as in love with Kieren as Kieren was with him, and I think he either expected for Kieren to go away to uni and find someone else, or for Kieren to go away to uni and Rick would gradually be able to comfortably distance himself.

Because Rick had friends in Roarton, had a social life and some sort of positive status in school and in the town, in a way that Kieren obviously did not. Kieren talks like Rick was quite literally the only thing he had in all of Roarton that was keeping him grounded and who accepted him and even bothered to speak to him. He talks like without Rick he was completely alone. But it also means that Rick’s friendship with Kieren, in the eyes of the rest of Roarton, was a weird little black spot on his otherwise acceptable self. So if Kieren went away to art school, found someone new who loved him as much or more and could actually express and match it, Rick would have been able to just continue to exist in Roarton. The hiccup of course is always Bill, and would Rick be able to even have a happy existence in Roarton always under his father’s eye and thumb, I don’t know.

But it certainly seems as though he was very aware of the intensity of Kieren’s feelings for him and the way his own for Kieren didn’t match in strength. (Side note: I’ve always wanted to know if Kieren was at all self-aware of being in Rick’s shoes re: Simon’s feelings for him at the start.) And they were both young and I’m sure it was something Rick both didn’t understand how to and just plain couldn’t handle. Especially when something like that was so obvious to someone like Bill. So his own escape to Preston (whether forced by Bill or by his own will) is not only an escape from Bill but also an escape from having to confront Kieren’s feelings for him and his for Kieren.

And since Rick didn’t know about Kieren’s death until he was already back in Roarton, his reaction to the lack of letters as well as the comments about what he expected Kieren to be finding at uni means that he fully expected to return to find a (living) Kieren who had moved on from him or at least whose all-consuming inferno of love had cooled to easier to maintain coals. Perhaps he even expected to return to no Kieren at all, since it’s 5 years later and Kieren could easily have stayed in whatever city he would have gone to art school in.

Instead he finds a Kieren who has not only not moved on, but who died because of his feelings for him (among other things). Is Rick able to give Kieren the kind of do-over he wants at this time? I doubt it. Would he have ever been able to give Kieren the kind of love that he wanted? I sort of doubt that as well. Even without the stifling, toxic influence of Bill, I think Rick’s love for Kieren was much tamer, more casual.

But Kieren’s intense love and need for that love to be returned also means that I think he would have been much more aware of the things that he wasn’t getting in this do-over situation. The first time, he was just taking whatever he could get. This time, it’s obvious that he wants to be able to be with Rick (literally and metaphorically) in certain ways and he’s going to push until that happens, more than he did before, and I think if his pushing affected no change he would have eventually said “fuck this.” Not because he doesn’t love Rick just as much the second time around, but because I think he gives slightly less of a fuck about how people see him, since he’s already been through that pain once and he’s still gay and still an outcast the way he was before and he’s PDS on top of it all. Rick still very much cares about how people see him. Especially his dad. And if none of that is able to change and somehow meet Kieren in the middle, he’s going to realize that it’s just never going to happen and he’s going to have to deal with that disappointment and then he’s going to say “fuck this.” Because the benefit of this second life is the chance to change things and I think he kind of already has that thought in his head to some extent, and if he’s the only one trying to take advantage of this second chance and it’s not being reciprocated with the same energy, he’s not going to be able to emotionally stand the stagnation, even if he desperately wants to. And I think if his trajectory still wound up in a similar place that he is at the start of series 2, he’d be self-aware enough not to want to stay because there’s a difference between wanting to escape and wanting to grow, and Kieren before his death was the former but Kieren after, especially in series 2, is definitely the latter.

#in the flesh #in the flesh meta #bbc in the flesh #itf #sorry sorry i'm just falling back into the rabbit hole of this show #i'm sure all of this has been said already but it's been 7 years and i can't remember anymore #is this even a coherent meta? i don't know it might just be word vomit

[tetras-stuff]

been talking a lot on here about jill valentine and her potential as a character but another character i think is often underutilised and disappointingly written is actually wesker. I would love it if they explored the real relationship dynamics between him and STARS, especially Jill and Chris. like it would be so much more interesting if he actually really liked them and maybe even misses his STARS days in his own way, but regrettably has to betray them and move forward with his plans because he genuinely 100% believes he is in the right. it would be gutwrenching if he, Jill and Chris all felt the weight of responsibility over friendship and commradarie, if they had to choose between personal feelings of "but I don't want to hurt you" and taking down who they see as the bad guy.

I mean, in Lost in Nightmares, they find the stuff about Project W. It would be cool if they reacted to this, if they tried to make those connections. It would be so interesting to see Jill and Wesker's dynamic change once she throws them out of the estate - having to work together, begrudgingly trying again to trust each other despite the constant betrayal. If Wesker truly believed he was in the right, it would be easy to try and convince Jill that his plan is the right one after all she's seen (e.g. seeing the effects of chaotic infection, seeing how quick humanity turns on itself, and knowing Wesker may have a way to finally control that chaos and maybe even take the pressure of heroism away from her). It would be a really fascinating portrayal of villainy coming from (twisted) good intention, and it would be kind of cool to see Jill becoming more morally grey.

It would also be interesting to explore Wesker's self-realisation as he slowly loses himself to megalomania in the exact same way Spencer did. Does he feel self-hatred because of this? Would a part of him feel relief at his death once he was mutated beyond recognition? Can he feel anything at all, is there humanity in him??? when he looks at chris, does he feel resentment for the person he could have become, or hatred that he could never have been what Chris is?

cartoonishly evil villains are fun, but I wonder if they'll explore any of this as they try and make the remakes a bit more serious (emphasis on a bit)

#i think he is very interesting i just wish they explored it #and oh boy i hope this isnt as controversial as my jill post i just love these characters and want capcom to give them a bit more nuance #especially now the remakes are trying to flesh out some of these characters #chris has had a lot pf fleshing out with the newer games and i love that theyre making him slowly more and more like wesker #i wonder how he feels about that #i wish we knew #resident evil #jill valentine #albert wesker #chris redfield #wesker meta #i guess #lol #re5

[nona-gay-simus]

Harrow The Ninth AUs brought to you by the mind of directly a traumatized, repressed demisexual lesbian teenager:

"What if Griddle was a prince(ess) and I was the underdog heir to the ninth house and had to present myself at a PARTY as a possible suitor? And there was FOOD. And Coronabeth was near by being hot and charming."*

*I don't believe it was ever confirmed it was Gideon,but she was a suitor for someone and considering the other AUs revolved around Gideon, I think it's a reasonable conclusion.

"What if Griddle was the ninth necromancer and I was the disinherited second cavalier and it was my fault we fell out as children because I stole a sacred heirloom but she saved me? Also, I had to fight Ortus for the honor of representing her?"

"What if I was in the army and I made friends and Griddle worked in a coffee shop and I got to see her biceps? And she knew my coffee order based off vibes?"

Harrow, buddy. Are you okay? Do you need a glass of water? Maybe one of those biscuits?

#i love her so much #this tiny wet gremlin #harrowhark nonagesimus #ntn #ntn spoilers #harrow the ninth #tlt meta #the locked tomb #gideon nav #griddlehark #ship: one flesh one end bitch

[purble-gaymer]

some very normal meta knight for today <3 i’ve been rotating him nonstop for a week or two now

#kirby #kirby right back at ya #meta knight #sir arthur kirby #sir falspar #kirby au #flesh & bone au #rhyn's art #yeah there’s nothing wrong with him. don’t worry about it #result of tampering with astral dna 🙄 what a weirdo #cw cannibalism #cw self harm

[neo--queen--serenity]

I think it’s hilarious that Dylan Anderson couldn’t understand why Monster Pig was so attached to him. His perspective is that of the victim of a series of terrifying encounters with this creature (which is true), but he fails spectacularly at realizing that Monster Pig sees a kindred spirit in him.

The man reiterates several times how he is fond of the pigs he cares for, how he loves them, they are his FRIENDS, how dare you hurt his friends!! But they are meat. He eats them. They taste good. Here lies Toby. He has bacon in the freezer if you want some.

#LIKE!!!!! DYLAN. DYLAN COME ON. #monster pig: ah yes another soul who understands the friend/food dynamic :) dylan: … #the magnus archives #tma #monster pig #dylan anderson #mag 103 #cruelty free #gertrude robinson #tma season three #tma season 3 #neo queen serenity’s posts #tma meta #the flesh

[phoenixcatch7]

Various headcanons about sephiroth that come from someone who does not know enough about ff7 to have any sort of credible opinion:

He got artificially aged a couple years as a kid. This lines up with hojos astoundingly selfish, cruel, results oriented modus operandi. It gets results faster and means he doesn't have to deal with an infant/toddler for the usual years. It's said in some ff7 encyclopedia that he was on the front lines before he was ten, but his mind and body in ever crisis do not reflect that. And I SINCERELY doubt even propaganda fed soldiers would accept a nine year old in a war zone. That and he's the youngest of the 1st trinity, with them being very young adults, but looks fully matured (if with the face of someone who's never had a single spot ever lol).

His hair isn't normal. There's no way that's just normal keratin it simply isn't. I don't know what it is but it's as weird as the rest of him. Maybe it's like polar bear fur and suuuuper thick but hollow like bird feathers. Did you know their skin is pure black?? Do you think his hair reflects rainbows in the right light like glass tubes???

Speaking of his hair he probably started growing it out the second he stepped on the battlefield and away from hojo. Probably a buzz cut when he was a kid. I imagine it to be a combination of a symbol of independence and self care (as it is to me), taking control of his own appearance, and picking up a bit of the samurai/noble warrior culture alongside his katana during the war with wutai, which (in real life eastern cultures, notably traditional Japan and China, but do NOT quote me) associated long hair with nobility and high ranking samurai, and short/shorn hair with slavery and criminals. (Also, lions manes shorten or even fall out when they lose (gain injuries in) fights, and that's very funny to imagine sephiroth dealing with.) His bangs? They're the only part of his appearance that actually needs regular upkeep, so why does he have them? Simple. They're the same bangs as the picture of his mum lucrecia he got as a kid. Their hair spikes up there the same way ToT.

I lied there's another part of his appearance that needs upkeep. Man is wearing eyeliner and mascara. I get it's a character design choice to bring attention to his eyes but that is definitely eyeliner and the rest of his hair is white as snow, so mascara as well. The whole of gaia (ff7) is pretty 90s metal scifi dystopia and the general fashion (cohesive character designs) feature plenty of belts and earrings (but only for the men??) so it's unlikely to be any sort of big deal Mr macho war mascot is wearing subtle eye makeup.

But I do get the feeling he doesn't have earrings because he heals too fast. Like even cloud has a stud. I like to imagine the three of them went and got them all at the same time but only sephiroths didn't stick.

Those weird metal cuff looking bracelets all soldiers have are used to brace your sword with. Sephiroth is the only one I've seen use them through, so they're obviously very reinforced XD! But he can probably backhand all sorts with them. Wish they got more usage. Imagine charging sephiroth with a claymore or something (side eyes cloud) and he just slaps it away and his stupid leather glove doesn't even have a scratch.

He got taught reading and writing pretty late. You know the way he reads with his finger keeping track of where he is like a little kid? That's definitely an old habit. When you raise a super strong, super intelligent kid in the labs you're gonna want to restrict the information he can get, and I sincerely doubt hojo was going to be invested in getting his baby alien child soldier a well read education. Gast probably taught him some if he was old enough to understand. He might have originally been taught Ancient text before that fell through. Might even be mostly self taught.

You just know he's got a dog eared dictionary somewhere in his apartment.

Hojo has got a winter soldier style shutdown code in him as a failsafe. I sincerely doubt sephiroth would know, but he might suspect something. In canon sephiroth went off the rails exactly the way hojo wanted, so it was never used, but that man's psychopathy and tendency for mind manipulation combined with his thoroughness and self serving god complex (and general sadism) makes for a perfect breeding ground for that sort of brainwashing when dealing with a subject capable of ripping his blackened heart from his chest in a microsecond. The first word is jenova, because why would sephiroth suspect a surge of adrenaline at the sound of his 'mother's' name? Also I think it'd be super scary and ripe for fics.

Sephiroth doesn't experience gender the same way as humans. Not a chance. He'd totally use neo pronouns. Star gender. He achieved his safer form and had the biggest wave of gender euphoria ever (outside of that black wing arm which reads to me as a sign of corruption from.. *waves in shinras direction*). If a sane sephiroth saw it he'd be so jealous. (In contrast angel and genesis don't.)

He's got cptsd from hojo and labs/doctors in general. But he wouldn't know until he got therapy and exited survival mode lol.

I get the feeling he tried really hard to have morals and kindness even if it didn't come naturally until the library. It probably didn't come naturally but listen he was trying his best and succeeding!! But then his last thread snapped and he was like 'fine. If I'm a monster I'll be the worst monster they've ever seen' and went on to do exactly that.

He thinks he's rebelling and shedding his chains exacting vengeance etc etc but hojo handed him directly to jenova. Like he went from one slave master to the other he doesn't even know what his chains actually look like. Hojo was jenova yes man he was so happy to do anything for her out of scientific curiosity and sadistic glee. He was happy to watch the world burn if it meant he had a hand in it.

Sephiroth is actually a pretty good blend of his parents. Got all his looks from his mother though XD. And his temper. But his laser focused cruelty is all hojo.

Him and aerith probably knew each other in the labs at least peripherally. I like the idea they knew each other as kids.

He can't taste sour well at all, can taste water like cats and dogs, and craves fish. These have zero basis in canon and are mostly from a really good fic (ROADTRIP! by copper_nights on ao3, who does my absolute FAVOURITE characterisations of sephiroth and the gang) but I like the idea of him craving fish because of the whole 'part planet eating alien' thing and the fact life first developed in the oceans. So seafood is probably a pretty big part of jenova diet XD. But hojo probably has him on a more red meat based diet for ~protein~. Get this man some sushi!

The way he fights is very offensive unless he's sparring (obviously) but the way he takes damage is by being absolutely fine until he abruptly keels over. Like cats. This worries everyone around him and is entirely hojos fault. It's partly ff7 having limited gore like most media and partly the fight in advent children where he acts untouched, gets off a one liner to cloud and then IMMEDIATELY dies of his injuries. Kadaj survives about another twenty seconds. It's very classy big bad video game boss but it's also hilarious how much he refuses to ragdoll at any cost. He may be insane and clawing his way back to the earth's surface by kidnapping children but man has his dignity!! (Literally the only time he goes where he's sent is in rebirth when he grapples cloud for?? Absolutely zero reason?? And lets himself be pushed off and even then it's because he's playing mind games. Remake sephiroth is wild.)

He was also degrading before he died. As the youngest and most stable he lasted longest, but just like genesis (and Angel) he went downhill real fast even before he got thrown into the reactor. The degradation seems to start mentally before bigger symptoms appear, with paranoia, irritability, tunnel vision. I don't doubt chronic pain, which would exacerbate everything.

He LOVES space. It's almost hypnotic to him. He can navigate by stars amazingly well.

And I hit the character limit XD.

To round off briefly, I also feel he would be disappointed or betrayed upon finding out about/meeting lucrecia, for not being able to get him out of the labs (like elmyra did for aerith) because he probably struggled a lot with realistic power levels and his idolisation/fantasies of his mother, but I don't like that and also they both deserve a proper reunion so I usually ignore that lol.

And Vincent would have been his godfather, which is another reason hojo shot him - he could have lost legal guardianship over sephiroth, and thus, total control. A top ranking turk would have been the only person capable of successfully hiding such a child. Maybe they had the paperwork all ready.

They might be just headcanons, but I really like them XD! I don't usually make these, I prefer fleshing out canon with sturdier stuff or straight up making aus, but sephiroth sends me feral so lol.

#Yeah I don't know how many of these are shared with other people! #Or how many have been proven/disproven in canon #But there's a ton of stuff to think about and some are just fun to imagine #I love his whole deal he pulls it off so well but there's always this element of loneliness and tragedy. #I also love wondering how a baby planet eating space germ angel would deal with life as a flesh and blood person #Like you'd assume those things were mutually incompatible lol #sephiroth #sephiroth crescent #final fantasy 7 #ffvii #ff7 #sephiroth ff7 #ffvii remake #crisis core #ff7 meta #sephiroth ffvii #sephiroth final fantasy #ff7 sephiroth #ffvii sephiroth

[suckishima]

okay this is so small but makes me really happy. taketora just got done talking about how much he admires tanaka and how cool and "manly" he is, which like makes sense right, both tanaka and taketora are always being shown as these like loud "boy's boys" archetypes who do everything with power, talk about girls, and emphasize "guts" and "manliness," so obviously taketora would respect tanaka

but then he immediately turns to also think about how much he admires fukunaga in the same way—fukunaga who doesn't display any of those same qualities that taketora was just admiring about tanaka. fukunaga is quiet, fairly low-key and doesn't flaunt anything ever. dude just goes around making weird puns that 1 people often barely even hear and 2 apparently seem to baffle everyone. but taketora sees all of that and sees how fukunaga still shows up and gets the job done more than successfully—he's one of the top point getters on the team—and taketora respects him for all of that, still calls him a "man's man" and tbh more than respects him, he admires him and sees him as a rival

and idk that just makes me happy, like 1 it's a nice small way of furudate saying that yeah "manly" is a thing that's important to taketora but it doesn't just mean one stereotypical thing—like it's showing that taketora isn't as one dimensional as we would have thought and that he sees things from multiple perspectives (we also saw this from him back during the whole "guts" thing with kenma and how he respects him too)—and it's also an example of seeing fukunaga from another perspective too. it's because he's so low-key that even we as readers have probably barely noticed how much of a rock he is for the team, but if you got back through their matches you can see how often he does score—he's quiet but he's always there. and i just like that furudate takes a moment to not only acknowledge fukunaga but to do it from taketora's pov in order to really hit it home to us how true it must be

#idk it just fleshes them both out and makes them both feel more real ya know #like we all know people who are like this right? but irl they arent one dimensional either. and like we've seen it with tanaka since foreve #like yeah hes 'manly' n stuff be hes also caring and compassionate and respectful #and i just appreciate the furudate does show these like “manly” characters as being more than just the typical archetype and makes #everyone feel like well rounded characters who can be multi faceted #<- okay maybe its not quite that deep here with this example lmao but i do think its something furudate does a lot #2021 reread #karaneko manga spoilers #hq manga spoilers #taketora #fukunaga #bingo contender? #x #this one was meant to be just a quick thought and not really a meta post but it sorta turned into a rambly mess instead oops lol