#it’s so funny after all the theorizing but tbh it makes sense

[pollyanna-nana]

Something something the fact that Kieran was the only one (other than the player) not to get possessed mirrors how he’s the only one of the town to sympathize w/ Ogerpon without actually knowing the truth. He’s an intuitive little guy but it also makes him lonely (or in this case have to hold off the entire village population while you fight Nemona)

#polly speaks #Kieran posting #pokemon #mochi mayhem spoilers #mochi mayhem #pokemon dlc spoilers #pokemon Kieran #it’s so funny after all the theorizing but tbh it makes sense #his whole arc was abt overcoming his inner toxicity so resisting pecharunt’s control brings it full circle! #sorry btw I’m going to be Really Annoying abt this for a while.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 145 thoughts!

what even was this chapter, y'all. i'm getting a migraine.

While it certainly wasn't actively bad, it basically hits on enough of the issues I've been having with the Movie Arc that if you've been reading my chapter reviews lately, you could probably write this one yourself. Weird pacing, skipping over interesting parts of the movie, continued framing of AQRB as a shallow gag and failing to follow on any of the implied development from or literally any referenced fallout of the kiss in 143? It's all here, babes. It would ultimately just be boring and redundant for me to go over all that at length again, so I won't.

I will however say that I'm pretty disappointed we're blasting through what had the potential to be some really interesting bits of postmortem characterization for Ai, even filtered through 15YL. I don't mind the manga breezing past scenes we saw firsthand but like… how did Ai react when she realized she was pregnant? How did she feel, especially given that Spica once again emphasized her longing for a family of her own? IDK. The way the story is suddenly jolting forwards in these last few chapters and skipping such huge chunks of Ai's life ultimately feels very strange and I don't know what to make of it yet.

Everyone reacting to Crow Girl's acting was pretty funny though I'm kind of exhausted with Ruby's Gaga-For-Oniichansensei Gag Character flanderization. IDK if my tolerance for it is just decreasing or if it really is amping up, but at least in the 125-137 stretch I at least got the sense that they could be in the same room and have a normal conversation but ever since 139, it feels that bit more relentless. I imagine this would be less irritating if we knew how the aftermath of 143 had played out but it really seems like the manga is going to drag this out until we're all old and grey.

THAT SAID, this chapter does confirm that Aqua's hoshigan stayed white after that chapter and… eh. Who even knows what that means lol. It does at least imply that his talk with Ruby has brought him back to Baseline Aqua but Baseline Aqua is still a guy with every single mental illness on planet earth so I don't know if that's the world's biggest W quite yet. It certainly implies an improvement over double black hoshigan but… again, with Aqua being so totally cut off from the readers this whole arc and no idea of what happened in the aftermath of 143, it's impossible to make a meaningful guess as to wtf is going on with Aqua right now.

Oh yeah, uh. This chapter also I guess constitutes the reveal of how the AQRB reincarnation happened. I guess LMAO. Honestly, I don't have much to say about it other than it feels like a bit of an anticlimax for me? The idea works fine, the execution just left me… idk. Whelmed at best, underwhelmed at most. I feel like this backstory and the implied deep fondness for GRSR -> AQRB it implies doesn't really like up with the personality she displays in the Private arc but like, I kind of feel like she was tossed into the story without Akasaka having a clear idea as to what her role was even going to turn into so maybe that's not a surprise LOL

I will say I'm glad this seems to quash the theory that Aqua and Ruby were secretly capital-G Gods, instead framing it as a Tsuru no Ongaeshi type return of kindness to two otherwise mundane people. There was some fun fan theorizing around the idea, but for me personally, Oshi no Ko is most interesting when it focuses on that aspect of the story Akasaka highlighted in an interview recently, of human relationships being warped by the entertainment industry and I think an explosion of the emotional stakes to the cosmic scale of AQRB (or tbh any of the characters) being Secretly Gods All Along would be a bit of a shark jump for me and would really shift away from what I like about the series most.

That's kind of it for this one…! Not really a lot to say about this chapter, which is why most of this review was me explaining why I didn't have a lot to say about it.

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #chapter reviews #onk spoilers

[justsomeoneintoomanyfandoms]

Being Ace's Best Friend Headcanons

* Ace gives off camp counselor vibes, tbh. He'd be so much fun to travel with, especially hiking and camping or exploring a new town! First of all, when camping, he has all the stories you could want! Funny stories, action packed ones, scary ones. He can do shadow puppets! He'll take a bite right out of your snacks though so watch out for that.

* constantly dares you to do stuff like tarzan swing across a river or touch a wild animal. He's all like, "cmon it'll be fun!" He is Luffy's brother after all.

* Shows you how to find different constellations and navigate using the north star ✨🥺

* Asks your opinion during missions and takes is seriously, even if your younger or newer to the crew, he hears you out. "Which path do you think we should take?" "Do you think we can take them?" He wants you to have a voice.

* You two balance each other out. I imagine you probably have a sarcastic and dry sense of humor that contrasts Ace's sincerity and he thinks your hilarious.

* If you get injured he. will. carry. you. on. his. back. if. need. be.

* Best way to describe Ace as a friend-- he's the sort of friend who will split an oreo and give you the cream side 🥺

* Late at night if your awake and find him you sneak into the kitchen (or the fire pit if your camped out) and make late night ramen and theorize about aliens and stuff.

Being Sanji's Best Friend Headcanons

* Seeing as all the straw hats have jobs on the ship I imagine your the "chores/cleaning person" of the ship so you often help Sanji wash dishes and go on grocery trips with him. What does this mean? It means you've played would you rather so much that you've asked every possible question. Grocery trips are a lot of fun though and Sanji tells you a lot about different fish and fruits, etc.

* Sanji gives great advice and he does not get enough credit for it. Personal advice? Great. Dietary advice? Great. Fashion advice? Also great.

* But in all seriousness, Sanji is a great listener. He's not really judgmental either, he's super open minded.

* His secret talent is that he can wrangle trapped soda cans from vending machines. He makes you promise not to tell Luffy.

* He's secretly your biggest cheerleader?? When you become stronger or accomplish a goal or defeat someone he's so proud of you?? But he normally just plays it cool and says smth like "nice one" or pats your head if your younger than him.

* Sanji uses you as his guinea pig for testing new recipes. You love eating tasty food though, so win win.

* You guys definitely play chopsticks when your bored. Sanji just gives off that vibe.

* I can't stop imagining the reader gifting Sanji a Polaroid camera at some point and Sanji then becoming that mom friend who photographs all the straw hats moments? I bet he even keeps them in a notebook? Or am I just projecting?

Hi! Oh my goodness, these are amazing! I'll be working on the headcanons for the characters your requested later today. Awesome thoughts, they all feel so in character!

#writing #fanfic #headcanons #headcanon request #request #one piece #one piece x reader #platonic #portgas d ace #portgas ace x reader #sanji #sanji x reader

[catofoldstones]

hi i'm still here :) those things about fandom denying theorizing about jonsa just bothered me heavily since fans accepted almost every theory under the sun but hypothetical j0nsa is where they draw the line they accepted curtain of light theory and 3 heads of the dragons saving the world for years before a hypothetical cousin marriage/bethrodal that ties a lot of plot threads and themes together and resolves so much of the missing plot pieces from the show, i might not personally like it cause of the incest implications but im also consistent with hating all jon's incest ships and still keeping an open mind about j0nerys and j0nsa on a storytelling basis but j0nsa is a theory that intrigued me so much because it did make sense from the drafts,the fact that sansa will end up at winterfell with the vale army by the time jon wakes up and changes into who knows what (again fans straight up ignoring which stark is actually the closest to winterfell will never not make me laugh) to the many gothic literature and historical references george takes to especially the ashford theory thats so unavoidable i call fans extremely blind for being this in denial that it might happen as a plot point and since aegon is most likely going to be busy with dorne/cersei/dany or euron and most likely die in the south (rip son) i highly doubt sansa will tie into his plot unless thats the last targ suitor she's supposed to be betrothed with and again its kinda a big nothing theory to me cause sansa going south would be repetitive and its already been debunked with the AFFC draft leaks unless aegon wants a claim to the north which again im pretty sure he'll be engaged to arianne for martell points and allyship (also her being engaged to a secret fake bastard heir was already done with joffrey and it being completely reversed with j0n feels more complete as an end point to that theory/arc there's no way george would pass that up).

i also don't think this is all jon and sansa have to offer as characters,its what bothers me with other ship fans as well i like them as separate characters and i also feel like looking at the story, if it were to happen i don't believe it would be a fairytale romance or ending or be anytype of normal relationship, i might even be completely wrong and j0nsa might never come up (also feel like george would be wary of doing this now when media literacy is at an all time low but fandom toxicity is high as the heavens), both sansa and jon fandom theories have been through a rollercoster over the years im just happy that fans finally have theories that actually makes sense storytelling wise and not something for wish fulfillment but bias still runs amok in the fandom unfortunately and it still clouds a lot of convo about the characters and plot theories

sorry for rambling in your inbox again

Hello :3 nice to see you again

anon can I call you soulmate anon because every sentiment you’ve portrayed here is exactly what I believe too! I like jonsa too because it’s v compelling and it has good evidence to back it up, but I’m really iffed up because of the incest too. Well not because I’m a pearl-clutching puritan but because it’s not fair to Sansa tbh, as a teenaged girl in a deeply patriarchal society. If she’s the girl in grey who runs away to Jon for protection, it’ll not be as a friend who’s seeing another friend after a long time, it’ll be because she wants protection from her brother. Then comes in the question of her claim to Winterfell. If she marries Jon to smooth out the inheritance crisis, the North would still belong to Jon & not Sansa. They will not be equal in that marriage or as the lord and lady of Winterfell. However, there are far, far too many indications of a jonsa match, textually and subtextually, which I am right there with you anon, are so compelling! It would only be a blind man to not see them. And the fandom collectively vehemently denying jonsa is v funny to me because it sounds so much like

“Do you believe women are humans?”

“Yes”

“Do you believe women should have the same rights as men?”

“Yes, absolutely!”

“So you are a feminist.”

“Eww, no.”

Like, the text is glaringly pointing at something with air raid sirens and neon red lights, but what could it mean, hmm 🤔 Like c’mon guys my cat could figure out what’s going on at this point.

Though, I do believe that the Ashford Targaryen suitor could be Aegon VI for Sansa. While a lot of people believe that Aegon will marry/betrothe Arianne for that Dorne support but that doesn’t make sense to me because

1. It’s like Sansa would marry into the Tully family for support to take back the North

2. The Dornish are already burning to avenge Elia

3. Arianne is the heir to Dorne in her own right (and has had major plot around that), marrying the next King of the 7 kingdoms hardly makes sense for her.

BUT Aegon & Arianne’s plots are barreling towards each other and they very well might just get married to secure another plot point that I cannot think of right now. And I know that Aegon is doomed and Arianne survives (George, pls or else 🔪🔪) so that’s another reason why Aegon & Sansa can’t happen. And Jon being the Targeryen suitor holds so much more literary weight than a rando who has never had an impact on her or her emotions or her plot (apart from your brilliant points). Also, no I am not debating the “Dunk disturbed the Ashford Tourney so Sxn/dxr is the one for Sansa” because we’ve debated to death that even being granted the title of Maid does not mean anything like a betrothal in Westerosi society or has negative consequences (r + l & that whole war it started). Also, just because Dunk got in the middle of the Tourney does not mean that he got the girl in the end. Hope that helps. Moreover, Dunk’s asoiaf corollary is Brienne not sxn/dxr, so by their logic, briensa ftw!!!!!!!!!!

Anon, the way everyone ignored the affc outline just because it showed something the Sansa fandom had been (rightly) theorising for years now has me rolling on the floor 😂 the denial, the denial is so strong with these people, even the “neutrals”. Don’t even get me started on the BNFs. If something like this were leaked about xrya or dxny, it would have been front page news that breaks the asoiaf fandom containment lol.

Stark closest to Winterfell and takes north! C’mon now anon, don’t give these people a heart attack.

Yes well, there have been one too many people in this fandom (as is common in any other fandom *cough* jxnxryas *cough*) to reduce the characters to the ship but the block button is my lord and saviour. Shipping is so that we can bring out the best (or the worst) character traits in the people we’re shipping, not to water down the said character traits.

There’s a chance that jonsa doesn’t happen in the books or happens just in the subtext or whatever, and I’ll be fine with that as long as the stories for both Jon and Sansa have satisfying and empathetic progression. Though I would terribly like for it to happen just to dunk on the haters and the BNFs and the “skeptics” lol. I am trying to be a better person these days, but pettiness is my second daughter 🤪 and to add to this point, if jonsa doesn’t happen, that still won’t erase the heavy foreshadowing we’ve been seeing in the text till now. If some other ship had the Ashford theory, the Byronic connection, JONnel Stark marrying a girl named xrya or an ancestor Sansa Stark marrying a -whoever- in their lineage, the plot satisfaction, the narrative parallels, the textual connection, it would be considered canon by now. But no, since it’s Jon x Sansa and that is still somehow a pretty strong contender for breaking all your ships, they will close their eyes and call it a crack ship. Baby a crack ship is me and Oscar Isaac or Sasuke and Taylor Swift. But if Sasuke and Taylor had all of this evidence, it would, once again, be considered canon. Sigh, just take your Sansa hatred elsewhere man, we’re not in 2006 anymore.

Dude, I found older forums/metas a while back and there is nowhere that Sansa was mentioned w/o sxn/dxr. Sxn/sxn was just a given. It was canon, it was always going to happen and that’s just so reductive tbh. I’m v v grateful that the meta and fandom spaces (maybe just a small corner but that is enough for me) have evolved so much through the years otherwise I would get beaten here every day. It’s still toxic as hell though, with the level of trash metas that will give early asoiaf fandom a run for its money and at one point you just want to scream- you all realise that these are books, right? and we’re the readers! you’re not dxny or jon or tyrion or even fleabottom ragpickers! none of this is real 😭 i should not be coming here, armoured and with a sword, to defend my fav characters, i should be having fun here and exchanging stupid ideas 😭 but asoiaf fandom remains asoiaf fandom however well the ways of hating may have changed.

But please, always ramble in my ask box anon. I love reading your thoughts and it gives me a chance to ramble as well :)

#soulmate anon #anon asks t #jonsa #anti sansan #the rambling option is open to everyone btw #long post #don’t look

[cosmic-apotheosis]

there's an interview on youtube that i watched with dan from like 2018 where he talks about the famous show moments that gained a lot of attention (wubba lubba dub etc. but his insistent silence on breaking down the Sichuan sauce bit is insane. that was a cultural reset and funny tbh. it truly shows how much media can influence the worst people like the mcdonald's dude and that alone made sooooo many people hate the show because of that reddit turd bro fanbase)

he mentioned a few times his absolute refusal to look at fan theories reddits anything that shows what people think the show could or should do. which is so wild given that the current writers were totally scouring the internet and especially the rnm tag here finding things people are saying theorizing. i wonder how much of his input as a main show runner goes now? idk how any that works but it's definitely giving like, dan after he returned to community post s4. i personally don't even think he had much say with the amount of incest bits and jokes for s5/6 and the current writers are railing vyvanse and making this shit up as they go unless it's the "canon" moments we get from literal fan theories idk if it's sloppy gotta get this out asap writing or not but i'm not really complaining idc, i like how s6 went off the rails entirely like what the fuck was all of that. i enjoy that the show went from being kinda new adventure everyday nothing really going on in terms of building up character dynamics. now it's balls deep canon lore and everyone has a story things are connected and building even further to a larger plot. i don't think they understood how popular the show would get. sorry lmfao im gonna end up tagging this for my own blog so if i'm not making sense my bad (weed)

anyways four more seasons and a movey babey lets lick tits i love this fucking show. i love reading everyone's theories here keep 'em comin. what did rick call morty in the last episode? buttfart? i cannot stop thinking about that

#rick and morty #rnm #analysis

[fumifooms]

HarukAsa

I’m disappointed in the Chainsaw Man fandom. I can’t believe I have to embarrass myself by being the first one to say it. How can the world do this to me.

So like. Wouldn’t it be kinda interesting, wouldn’t it be kinda neat, to ship Asa and Haruka and see where it goes…

Ok so I’ve been holding it back for a few weeks. The first thing that drew my eye to this ship concept is that he was* pretending to be Chainsaw Man, so that gives Asa incentives to interact with him and from there a lot of fun scenarios can happen. Hruka’s personality is just being flamboyant and lying about himself to seem cooler, being a cold bitch as an authority figure and also being pathetic and cringefail. He’s just a highschooler that’s a hardcore Chainsaw Man fanboy and wants to be liked and respected and cooler but is just… A dumb teen. C’monnn he’s flamboyant and she wants to be invisible. He thinks he’s hot shit and she just wants to dig herself a hole to hide in. He’s the powerless & pathetic one that seems well-adjusted and she’s the messy war machine!! All I’m saying is that I like Haruka and I think harukasa would be funny and cute and maybe even heartfelt. Give me an Haruka character arc, canon, please, I beg. If you want more of my thoughts on him, here’s a post of mine theorizing!

WHICH. He *is* some level of smart, don’t get me wrong. He’s good at assessing situations and forming plans, as seen as how he directed people in the Aquarium crisis. The fact he freaked out after a couple days is fair, so did everyone else and not even Yoshida or Chainsaw Man were able to find any way out. Let the guy cry for his life. Anyways- so he’s kinda smart, plus he’s student council president so he’s supposed to have his shit together, AND he’s obsessed with a devil who’s a devil hunter. He’s the devil hunter club’s leader. I would not be surprised at all if as the page below implies Haruka would sus out Asa having a devil contract or even straight up being a horsemen. Famine’s on his team, who knows at this point.

So that’s even more fun scenarios harukasa can sprout!!! Also imo after how he talked to her at the Aquarium I don’t think Asa would feel very guilty over transforming him into a weapon… At first anyways, then she learns how much of a sad lonely loser he is and her heart is taken from then on. Just think about it!! The “oh mighty” devil hunting club president who’s actually pretty loser and his -surprise!- badass devil girlfriend who will protect him and carry him bridal style through the guts of a devil he got too close to and that she killed for him. You can sprinkle in so many flavors!! Do they bond over feeling lonely and outcast and stupid? Is there a lot of tension and dislike??! Is it chainsaw man superfan vs hater?! Does she lowkey crave his validation as her club president?! 

Putting the rest under a cut for space reasons but give this a chance please maybe… I am incoherent and desperate and us Haruka fans are so rare

Wow, look at this compilation of Haruka being love interest material!! /hj

Also he called her attagirl… Idk that’s just a fun pet name I think Asa would love it in general. Makes her feel competent and appreciated

Hehe look at him trying to make a grand introduction and getting interrupted, he’s so pissed and petulant 💕he prob feels powerless in his life in general and tries to compensate with his meager social status tbh

They even have a lil’ heart to heart!! Oh to be curled up in foetal position against the wall as your love interest is laying on the floor waiting for death in misery and all your walls of secrets and illusions of grandeur come down. There isn’t any sense of propriety or pretense left here.

All that I’m saying is that Denji is great but also Asa deserves a boyfriend that will be scared shitless of her devil form. Or actively want to kill her. Also his hair looks stupid.

ALSO. 

I mean….. I MEAN…….

Ok if I’ve not sold you on the aesthetic just think: wouldn’t it be funny. Imagine in an AU where Haruka hasn’t revealed he isn’t Chainsaw Man, Yoru is like “Ok whatever, your thing with Denji isn’t progressing with the plan, what if you try getting close to Chainsaw Man instead? Seduce him!” And the irony is ofc that she’s leaving Denji for a fake Chainsaw Man AND OH HOW GLORIOUS THAT WOULD BE. When the charade is blown and Haruka isn’t Chainsaw Man, maybe like he confesses it to her in a vulnerable moment when they officially become a couple, and then Yoru immediately turns him into a weapon even if Asa had started to like him. Or! Love triangle with Denji that’d be so funny. Maybe Haruka takes an interest in her once he sees her powers, wants to investigate or smth! 

Haruka is just a funny little guy that’s even more loser than Asa and Denji because he’s actually powerless and I want him to get into dangerous shit and freak out and then try to save face & look cool anyways, start having white hairs from stress at the age of 20 bc he can’t handle any of this shit and yet. He’s a clown for liking Asa but also I think it’d be a cute clown where he’d let himself be sillier and less important and whatever. Anyways!!!!! Fumi out, enjoy the food for thought ��

Asaden is becoming canon so I want to drive the car in a wild other & new direction! I don’t care about the tragic incredible well-written narrative!! Give me the crackship that somehow works!!

#chainsaw man #csm manga #haruka iseumi #asa mitaka #harukasa #asa x haruka #asa is just so shippable #i’m sorry guys i have a disease that makes me root for rarepairs #Csm manga spoilers #ship analysis #character analysis #sorta #lite version #fumi rambles #why is haruka highkey fit tho

[aclosetfan]

RUO: professor and keane👀

sorry, it took so long to get you this. I wrote a majority of it all out, and then tumblr crashed, deleted everything I wrote, and I about threw my computer at the fking wall so I decided I needed a break

Professor:

Professor's characterization took a hit after the Powerpuff Girl Movie. His character in the earlier seasons is A+, and overall, he's a great dad. The writers of the show made it very obvious how much the Professor loved the girls, going out of his way to make sure they stayed safe and were taken care of. Sometimes, it was almost like he forgot he created them for the specific purpose of kicking ass and treated them solely as kids, which was/is always nice to watch.

I've got two favorite little details about the Professor i really like:

1) I enjoy how the time travel episode where the girls meet douchy Little Professor fermented the idea of the girls into his head. I love the idea that Little Professor was so inspired by these girls and wanted to meet them again that he began to take school seriously. I theorize that while the girls kickstarted his path into STEM, he forgets that they met in the sense that children's memories fade. All he knows is he was inspired to become a better person by these random and brightly colored little girls, who for some reason, he always pictures flying (??). Keeping the above in mind, fast-forward to the movie that establishes the girls' origin story. The Professor identifies a problem, realizes that the City needs new superheroes (because the og show establishes that the old ones are retired), and kind of has this moment where he's like, "huh, where did those little girls go?" and then he's like, "wait? little girls?" And the memories slot back into place and he realizes that this was his purpose, he has to create them.

While not explicitly doing so, I really enjoy how the movie weaved together with little plot points we see in the show that you wouldn't have noticed if you weren't looking, and this is my favorite one.

2) One of my fave professor gags is when the writers make him create these really complex machines or inventions, and when people ask how he does it, instead of explaining their work, the writers make him say, "Ya know what? I really can't remember???" It's so funny to me as a writer because it really do be like that sometimes, and the fact that they just establish it as an easy canon cop-out is perfection.

The professor is a really funny character and when I find an author or an artist who nails his character, it's just amazing. Honestly, not a lot of us do anything with him, but when someone does add him to their work, even just as a background character when the girls go on missions, it makes the piece of work 100x better. I think people tend to forget how important the Professor is to the girls, and when he's not added, it does them all an injustice!

Tbh, I'd think I'd do this answer injustice if I don't throw a shoutout to @miutonium. They're the only person out there that I've seen actually put time and care into the Professor's character, and I really appreciate them for it.

And speaking of miutonium, their art is so convincing, I sometimes forget her sona, Chloe isn't the Professor's gf 😂😂😂

Speaking of ships, I don't like him paired with Keane, which I feel is popular. They broke up in the show and I'm just not interested in revisiting the topic. I also don't ship him with Bellum. She's out of his league. I do however ship him with Sedusa hardcore. I think he'd be the first guy to date Sedusa who genuinely cared about her, and after the events of Mommy Fearest, she'd actually be a lil heartbroken over him. They're like this bittersweet, in another life couple that I love!

I also one time saw ship art of him and Mr. Green. And at first, i was like 😨 but then i was like 👀👀👀, so there's that too lmaooooo

Keane:

Real talk, she's like just the preschool teacher to me. I think when I was little I liked the idea of her getting together with the Professor, but now I'm like eh, whatever. If I need a mom character in my au's I'll throw her in as an easy pick, but I don't do much with her character.

This is kind of sad, I can't think of anything to gush over. I like her cat. I'm also a cat person who would dump a guy if he hated them lmao. I also think just for fun, I'd make her an ace character b/c to me she gives off zero sexual energy, which makes her a funny contrast to Bellum.

#anon ask #RUO ask game #rip to ms. keane im sorry ur boring #miutonium i can untag just lemme kno

[ootahime]

what is utahime’s role in the future? — a prediction (manga spoilers)

part 1 (unedited)

I WAS ABOUT TO POST IT BUT I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED IT AND I WAS SO HURT FR!!!!! I HAD REWRITE THIS ENTIRE THING </33

part 2 is here!

in this post, i will be analyzing the information we’ve been given about utahime so far to form a prediction about her future role in the jujutsu kaisen series. if you’re as interested in utahime’s character as i am, please feel free to keep reading :3 (i’ll also be talking about her relationship with gojo a bit too)

soukatsu_ on twt!

kaikaikitan on twt!

utahime iori is a semi-grade 1 sorcerer working as a student supervisor/teacher at kyoto jujutsu high school. she loves drinking beer and going to karaoke. she’s also close friends with shoko and she’s not particularly fond of gojo most of the time. what else do we know about her?

hates sweets (funny she’s the complete opposite of gojo)

she’s great at singing and it’s a huge part of her technique

squabbling with gojo became a reflex :3

everyone absolutely adores utahime

loves watching soccer and baseball

a terrible drunk (worse than naobito zenin)

gojo is her main source of stress

let’s dive into her personality and abilities!

chapter 65

before i get into it, i think it’d be best if i were to explain the timeline because a lot of people seem to be confused about this one particular thing. utahime is born on february 18th, 1987. contrary to popular belief, she is not 3 years older than gojo. it is november 2018 in the story because gojo was sealed on halloween. if gojo was born on december 7th, 1989, that would mean that right now, he is only 28 years old. he has yet to turn 29.

the year is 2007. gojo satoru is a second year at tokyo jujutsu high school. the japanese school year begins in april which suggests that gojo is only 17 at the time (even if it’s not april, it doesn’t look like winter yet so it’s unlikely that he’s already 18). utahime is 20 because it is past february. she is a 2nd grade sorcerer at the age of 20. that’s not bad at all!

chapter 65 introduces young utahime and mei on a mission together within a cursed site. in real time, they’ve been gone for two days which is a cause of concern for gojo, shoko, and geto because the two haven’t contacted anyone since the beginning of their mission.  the two begin to suspect something is wrong because the hallway markers they’ve set in place disappeared, and no matter how far they travel within the halls, the end is nowhere in sight.  mei theorizes that the cursed spirit is overlapping the space as they travel forward.  utahime agrees with this speculation and proposes a plan to escape the cursed spirit’s grasp by moving erratically.  notice how she says that if one of them should escape, they can try to attack from the outside or call for help.  if utahime was not capable of inflicting damage on anything then she would have told mei to escape and attack if she can while she waited to be rescued.  however, she didn’t.  she included herself in the sentence which leads me to believe that she is capable of going on the offense if needed.  

keep in mind that at this point in time, mei is a grade 1 sorcerer.  she is knowledgeable about all things involving jujutsu because she is experienced and skillful.  we can see this aspect of her character illustrated when she theorizes that the cursed spirit is messing with the space they’re in.  she chooses to go with utahime’s plan because she agrees that it’s the best action moving forward.  this verifies that utahime is an intelligent girl that’s able to get along with pretty much anyone.  

her intellect is demonstrated once again in chapter 79.  she was able to deduce the possibility of there being more than one traitor and the fact that one is probably a higher up.  she also narrowed down the mechamaru as the mole of kyoto not because he was acting suspicious but by process of elimination.  she thought thoroughly of his technique and how easy it would be for him to manipulate devices small enough to be undetectable.  

sure you can argue that she should already know all her students’ abilities and whatnot but you have to admit that it’s hard trying to sniff out the traitor when no one is acting suspicious.  in addition to that, how did she know that there was a traitor in the top brass?  i would have never guessed that tbh LOL (maybe bc im an idiot).

okay, now that we have established that she’s intelligent, let’s answer a more important question.  is utahime weak?

chapter 33

if gojo calls utahime weak, does that mean there is some truth to it?  well it is true that she is weaker than him because he’s the strongest and all.  in my opinion, he’s just teasing her.  he probably found that calling her weak is what really riles her up.  maybe i’ll talk about why he loves teasing her so much in a later post.  but anyway, gojo calls everybody and their mom weak.  he even said jogo was weak and we know how powerful that guy is.  gojo’s words alone do not indicate much about utahime’s power.  in fact, i don’t even think he has seen her use her technique yet.  he’s probably only ever heard of how it works.  this is what i think their conversation about her technique was like:

gojo: hm?  ur cursed technique is singing?  can u show me?

utahime: what!  no way!  

gojo: why not?

*one of the classmates tells him that she can only use her CT once in a while because it consumes a lot of energy*

gojo: hahaha!  u have to conserve cursed energy to use ur CT?  why are u so weak, utahime?

utahime: i!  am!  your!  senpai!  respect!  me!

what i’m trying to say is that gojo loves poking fun of people.  we should not believe him when he calls someone weak because compared to him, everyone is weak.  

this is a little off topic but let’s examine him telling her, “and you don’t have the nerves, utahime.”  i think he’s trying to say that there’s no way she’ll ever do something like that because she’s not the type to put her students in danger.  remember the soft expression and relieved smile on her lips when she said that she was glad the students were safe after the kyoto incident?  gojo was directly in front of her so not only did he hear her say that, but he could have seen the look on her face too.  even if he told her that she didn’t have the guts to betray the school to get on her nerves, he knew that utahime simply cared too much about the students so he ruled her out as a suspect right away.  this is why he ultimately decided to confide in her and ask her to help him.  

i’m a person who loves over-analyzing things.  i really enjoy the dynamic between gojo and utahime.  they’ve known each other for more than 11 years and although they always bicker, there is an unspoken feeling of trust between the two.  gojo can do anything and everything by himself because he is truly the strongest person alive, but he still knows when to rely on others.  him deciding to entrust utahime with such a job implies that he believes in utahime’s abilities.

chapter 52

she’s not using any cursed energy here--not to our knowledge at least.  this is just pure skill.  she was able to swiftly evade the swing from haruta.  he was surprised himself considering the fact that he was right behind her.  how do we know her CT isn’t speed?  after haruta swung at her, we can see that some of her hair got cut off.  if she was using her CT then speed should be her specialty.  she should have been able to completely avoid the attack altogether but she didn’t.  of course this isn’t a wow moment because jujutsu sorcerers should know how to dodge attacks, however, i’m just trying to get the point across that she’s not a defenseless person without her technique or others.  let’s not forget that semi-grade 1 isn’t a weak rank either.  you can’t simply be recommended to be a grade 1 sorcerer if you only can support others.  

chapter 48

i want to bring up this panel. it suggests that utahime and takuma are sorcerers who have not experienced black flash and therefore, do not understand the essence of cursed energy as well as those who have like gojo and nanami.  i find it strange how takuma and utahime were used to represent sorcerers who haven’t experienced it yet.  is the purpose to demonstrate that there is a clear difference in skill between adult sorcerers like utahime and takuma compared to gojo and nanami?  i could be nitpicking but the order of todo’s statement doesn’t line up with the sorcerers being shown.  let me explain in depth.  todo starts off by saying, ��for those who have experienced black flash as compared to those who have not...” wouldn’t it make more sense to show gojo and nanami on the right side to represent sorcerers who have experienced black flash?  that was mentioned first, after all.  gojo and nanami should appear when todo says “for those who have experience black flash” while utahime and takuma should be shown right after to personify the second part, “as compared to those who have not.”  i’m just making it more complicated than it actually is LOLOL i’m sure it really just means they haven’t experienced black flash yet, which is completely fine.  i also find it fascinating how they used utahime to contrast gojo.  with nanami and takuma it makes sense.  nanami is someone takuma looks up to, he wants to gain nanami’s approval before he deems himself worthy of a promotion. what about utahime and gojo?  what’s the purpose of comparing those two together when it’s obvious that gojo knows more about the essence of cursed energy more than anyone else?  i might be delusional whoops

----

let me know what you guys think?  this is only a part 1 so i haven’t gotten around to answering the question.  i’m pretty much done with the second part, i just need to revise it a little.  i think after i post part 2, i’ll try to interpret all the gojo and utahime moments in the manga >.<

#gojohime #gouta #gojo x utahime

[iclaimedtobethebetterbard]

Can I ask about the orange side 4 the character thing. NSHWKEBSJDN

oooh yeah sure!! i don't know how much i will have to say bc most of my thoughts about orange at this point are a big blob of "??????????" i literally have NO IDEA what he's going to be like, but let's give it a go!!

First impression: i think it was something along the lines of "omg wait people think there's an orange side?? OH YEAH. BC OF THE RAINBOW. AND HE'S GAY. THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE. haha that's funny and kind of clever, i like it!"

Impression now: canon has basically confirmed his existence at this point, so real life thomas can no longer be like "haha idk what you're talking about" like he did for SEVERAL YEARS. so instead mr sanders has moved on to actively and blatantly messing with the fandom [stares at end of 5 year special]. it's kind of funny tbh but also SIR PLEASE.

Favorite moment: of anything related to orange? joan saying "i'm the orange side" on thomas's instagram story bc of their beanie being orange and thomas going "haha yeah, joan reads your tumblr posts!!" at the camera. absolutely terrifying concept, thanks i hate it (/hj), tumblr pls ban everyone even vaguely related to the creation of sanders sides (/j) i don't want them to find my fics or see me calling janus pretty or talking about how analogical or dukeceit are soulmates that would be so embarrassing my content is absolutely not for them pLEASE GHJSAFKGJKFDHGSK. if mr sanders ever reblogs one of my posts i will die and probably not in a good way. unless it is specifically a post i tagged him in (which is all of 1 post rn). i don't want him to see anything else i do here gkdflhskg.

or if we're going with favorite actually-in-canon moment, 07734 was pretty fun bc watching people go absolutely nuts over something so small (while the whole sanders sides team ignored us doing that and refused to talk about it) was hilarious.

Idea for a story: idk lol. probably the first thing my brain will come up with after we meet him is some kind of canonverse character study about his relationship either with janus (answering questions like: what does orange think of being hidden away for so long? what does janus think of having to hide him away for so long? what effects has that had on their relationship?? what is their relationship like?? has it changed since virgil left? since janus and remus were revealed?) or with logan (about things like: what. what was up with the eyes thing. what was that. why did orange do that. how did he do that. what did logan think of it. and do they have a history that informs any of that???). but i won't really have any ideas until i know,,,, literally anything about him lol.

Unpopular opinion: i have already said i don't like wrath!orange or logan!orange on other posts for this series HELP what else is left for me to say here gjksdflghsldg. uhhhh my next unpopular opinion about him is that i have yet to see a theory for what orange's function will be that i find to be truly convincing or plausible. i have literally no idea what he's going to be. i bet as soon as it's revealed what he is in canon i'm going to be like "WAIT DUH HOW DID I NOT SEE THAT" though gfjkhgslk

Favorite relationship: i hope he is besties with janus and remus <3 dark sides loving each other very much my beloveds <3 i actually have a lot of,,, i guess anxiety?? about his,,,, existence??? in relation to shipping specifically. just. once he's here and we get a vibe for his personality, that's six whole new ship dynamics (or five if the people who are theorizing he's patton's brother are correct) (plus whatever the fandom decides to do with him and king creativity) NOT EVEN COUNTING THE POLYAM SHIPS. that's a LOT of new dynamics. which will be A Lot for me to process and get used to. and i'll have to reevaluate my vague ranking of ships in my head to add the new stuff in. it's just. it's going to be a lot of mental energy GFJDSGKLHSGKF and overall i know i will definitely be happy about it after the fact but just. the anticipation and waiting is. not fun lol

Favorite headcanon: i genuinely don't know what major personality traits that could relate to ethos are left that orange could be, so this is a stretch, but. mr sanders gave us logos and pathos and then was like "yeah that's enough <3" NO. NO YOUVE GOTTA COMPLETE THE SET. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS. like. like i was SO attached to the headcanon of janus as ethos before his name reveal. so i want orange to somehow be related to ethos and named ethan, not bc of anything about orange specifically, just bc. i need the set to be complete lol. i agree that the dark sides all having names ending in "-us" is cool and all BUT I NEED AN ETHOS NAME SIDE TO MATCH LOGAN AND PATTON. PLEASE. IT BUGS ME SO MUCH THAT ETHOS IS MISSING GHKHASKJG.

also since janus is snake (land) and remus is...... tentacles?? (???? octopus? squid? kraken?) (regardless, that's sea), it would be neat if orange had some kind of bird trait (air). but i'm not super attached to that, i just think it'd be neat.

ALSO since wtit basically confirmed his existence and the next ep will be the 2-part s2 finale, i BET that s2 will end on a cliffhanger orange reveal. i bet that is where we are headed.

ALSO ALSO i will say that i am pretty solidly behind the theory that whatever his function is, it will be something that can best logic in a vs episode. bc so far logan is 3 for 3 when going up directly against a dark side: my negative thinking (and also just. the fact that usually logan is the one who's able to calm virgil down when he goes into overdrive. they’re in love ur honor); dwit and i would say wtit too (logan may not have accomplished his own goals in wtit, but he did successfully redirect thomas from pretty much all the thoughts remus sent his way); and the fact that, while he has yet to have an actual "vs" episode with janus, he accidentally tore janus's arguments to shreds without realizing, multiple times, during svs, in spite of what great pains janus went to to NOT give him any opportunities to do that. (see: "thomas has more to lose if he misses the wedding" "wHAT HOW??" and the way that logan's explanation of who max schtirner (or however you spell his name) was destroyed any illusions of his credibility.) so it would make sense if the last dark side can actually win when directly pitted against logan, since none of the others can. i still have no idea what his function is, but this seems like a pretty reasonable thing to expect.

-

wow i had a lot more to say than i thought i would lol. thank u that was fun!!

[someone send me roman i dare u. or you could ask about c!thomas or nico flores our beloved if you want to i guess lol]

[see my thoughts on janus, patton, virgil, remus, logan]

#sanders sides #thomas sanders #thatsthat24 #orange side #ts orange side #peregrin said a thing #peregrin answers #peregrin plays a game #ghasper tag!!

[alwaysananxiousmess]

lighting tommyinnit au

okay so i made this a while ago, like, pretty recently after the final disc war.

So, after Doomsday, Tommy get’s struck by lightning in a world where spontaneously generating powers is normal. Techno has a stupid strong healing factor he got from fighting in the Hypixel arenas when he was a kid. Dream is a speedster and has enhanced reflexes, something he got from the manhunts.

There are other examples, but those two are the most relevant, so there you go. I bet you can see where this whole thing is going.

Tommy get’s struck by lightning, and understandably passes out, because that is thousands of volts going into your body in the span of a second or less. I bet it hurts a fuckton.

Ghostbur is the one that finds him, having been talking to him when it happens. He goes to get Tubbo, who brings him to Sam’s place because he was the only one walking around who actually had a place for Tommy to stay.

Tommy slowly heals and recovers, and has some major side effects from the strike. He’s blind and deaf on his left side, lost his sense of taste, and has frequent muscle spasms that make fine motor control extremely difficult. He has scarring on the left side of his face, neck, shoulder, chest, and back as well as down his left arm, ending about mid-forearm. (If you want to know what it looks like, google “lightning flowers”)

He also has... other side effects, ones that aren’t as explainable. There’s a constant energy building underneath his skin that he can’t explain, like a humming only he can hear. It itches sometimes, and eventually becomes painful with how much of it there was, but more on that in a bit. Time also seems to slow down at random moments, but only to him.

Anyway, the energy builds so much that it gets to the point that he’s curled in a ball in the middle of the night, sobbing in his bed at Sam’s base. It hurting him and he doesn’t know why it’s happening.

Sam is the one who finds him, immediately going to comfort him, but Tommy accidentally electrocutes him.

Now Sam is a creeper hybrid. He can’t be hurt by lightning, but he can’t become charged like a normal creeper does. He’s more shocked than anything else, but Tommy is freaking out because he thinks he’s hurt Sam and he doesn’t know what’s happening. This inevitably causes him to release more electricity, which still isn’t hurting Sam, but it only makes Tommy panic more. Sam’s trying to calm him down and reassure him that he’s fine but Tommy just doesn’t believe him.

Eventually, the electricity stops because Tommy just... ran out of it. He’s still crying and freaking out but there isn’t any more lightning flying everywhere. Sam manages to calm him down, promising him that he’s okay and that Tommy didn’t hurt him.

Tommy shakily asks what the hell just happened, and Sam theorizes that the lightning must have made him generate a power, and that’s what the energy and the time slowing down things were about.

So, they test it out once Tommy’s come to terms with it a bit more in an attempt to help him control it. Tommy is super paranoid about hurting someone accidentally, and he pushes himself into learning how to control it.

They figure out that time isn’t slowing down, Tommy is speeding up. The lightning strike allowed him to become a speedster, like Dream. Their final theory is that Tommy generates electricity, which is what the energy that he feels is. Using his superspeed generates it faster. Occasionally, he needs to release the energy, which is why he can produce lightning and electrocute things. If he doesn’t release it, it will release for him in one huge blast, which causes extreme pain for him and is very lethal to anything around him. It also makes him pass out for a few days.

The incident regarding him accidentally electrocuting Sam was because he releases electricity when he’s distressed or in pain. Tubbo makes a rubber chest plate and gloves he can wear to ensure he doesn’t get shocked when Tommy needs his help.

One of the more funny side effects of his power is that he’s a walking static cloud. Touching people gives them light shocks, not painful, just annoying. If he waves a hand over someone’s head their hair will stand up.

He’s also a walking redstone signal. He can act as a redstone torch, and will often help Tubbo and Sam out on their projects when they need him. If he steps in the wrong place though, he can mess the whole thing up. Tommy is not allowed near TNT, because touching it ignites it like a redstone torch would.

He can carry around a little mini redstone lamp in his pocket and it acts like a flashlight when he takes it out. It’s very useful.

Onto more plot.

So.... Final Disc War.

Tommy and Tubbo are in the weird Hall of Attachments thing, and Dream says he’s going to kill Tubbo, and “there’s nothing you can do to stop me, tommy”

Tommy just steps in front of Tubbo, cracks his knuckles, and replies “that’s what you think, bitch”

speedster fight speedster fight speedster fight speedster fight

Every time Dream tries to grab Tubbo, Tommy slams into him and forces him to change course. They’re chasing each other around the room and they’re fucking running on the walls and ceiling what the fuck.

Eventually Punz and everyone else shows up, and they’re kind of just staring into a mostly empty room with Tubbo standing in the corner and one green blur and one white blur moving sporadically around. Literally only Sam and Tubbo understand what’s happening.

Dream eventually gets the upper hand, injuring Tommy in some way that forces him to stop running. Dream’s crouching over Tommy, gloating about his win, while Tommy’s bleeding everywhere and spitting in his face angrily.

Everyone else is at a standstill. They can’t fire at Dream, because he could just finish Tommy off and run before their arrows even get there, and they can’t rush him, because he can just run off. Tubbo is begging for Dream to spare Tommy and to kill him like they agreed, but Dream refuses, saying that Tommy’s been to much of a pain in the ass to let him live.

Dream raises his sword and prepares to kill Tommy with it, when Tommy grabs onto the blade of the sword and just grins.

You remember how him using his superspeed generated more electricity?

:)

Tommy inhales, and sends literally every single volt of electricity into Dream with one giant light show. You can fucking smell Dream burning, and really only one bolt was needed to kill him, but Tommy keeps going. He sends bolt after bolt into Dream until he’s completely drained dry of electricity and Dream is crumbling away into respawn, the sword falling harmlessly onto the ground.

Tommy just lays there for a few moments as the smoke clears, and then turns his head to Tubbo with a grin and says: “that was pog” before passing the fuck out from the amount of pain that amount of electricity erupting from him caused.

Sam and Tubbo run over to go save Tommy right as Dream respawns. But Sam is too concerned about saving Tommy’s life than putting Dream in prison, because Tommy’s bleeding out and his body is working overdrive just to generate more lightning.

So Dream gets away while Sam and Tubbo bring Tommy back to Sam’s base to heal. Dream only has two lives left, and he goes to Techno, using the favor for shelter and protection until he can get his revenge.

Some cool tidbits me and Belle came up with when we talked about it a few weeks back:

Smoke starts coming off of Tommy’s skin and hair when he’s pissed, and his hair will stand up straight. He can char things too, so imagine a pissed Tommy stalking off and leaving black footprints on the sidewalk behind him.

His eyes glow white sometimes, typically when he’s using his power/when he’s mad or scared. I’m talking full white, glowing Eret eyes. It’s cool to look at.

His hair after the lightning strike turns very very pale blonde instead of the golden blonde it was before.

His lightning flower scars light up when he’s using his superspeed. It looks pretty cool tbh.

When he needs to release electricity, he’ll go out into the woods alone and let it off in slow bursts so it doesn’t hurt as much. The walks are incredibly lonely and he hates having to do it every time. He’s terrified that he’ll accidentally hurt or kill someone if he doesn’t, though, so he does it anyway.

(The way Dream attacks him after the Final Disc War for the first time is when Tommy is on one of these walks and he depletes all his lightning before Dream showed up)

If he completely depletes his electricity, such as like in the Final Disc War, he can’t use his superspeed. There needs to be existing energy for it to kick on. If there isn’t any starter energy, bad news, you aren’t gonna go fast like you want to.

Anyway, yeah, that’s the lightning Tommy au. This is more brainrot than anything else tbh I just like it.

Shoutout to @bellfort3 and @ecinue-unicorn for listening to me ramble about this au in dms <3 multiple times

#fanfic ideas #au idea #tommyinnit #dreamwastaken #awesamdude #tubbo #temporary character death #hearing loss #vision loss #lightning strikes #superpowers

[out-of-this-dimension]

Hypothetically Rewriting Assault’s Story + Some General Assault Opinions

There’s a game my husband and I like to play when we watch a movie, play a game, or read a book that has a story that we don’t really enjoy or we enjoy certain parts of but not others.  We look at things we’d keep and things we’d change and we build a story from there-- sort of like an AU but we don’t really go into the writing part, we just stick to theorizing and mapping a general story.

I decided to play that game with Star Fox.  Not because I think Star Fox has a bad story but because sometimes I think the stories could have been handled better.  Note: for the rewrite game, I only really look at story, even for video games, I don’t really look at gameplay mechanics, but I do understand those have a lot to do with story potential so I do take it in as a factor... I just don’t bother to “rewrite” the mechanics, if that makes any sense at all.  Some of my list today will include boss encounters but I wouldn’t necessarily say those are mechanic-related... more like “event-related”.

I’ve mused a bit in the past about rewriting Adventures and Command and I do have plans to do a mock up of an Adventures remake eventually.  However, today I was thinking about how I would go about handling an Assault re-write in particular.  Much like Command and Adventures, I don’t have any beef with the core story but I do think there’s a few things that could’ve been better about Assault’s storyline-- like they had good ideas rolling but they didn’t quite refine them.

Under the cut because SUPER long.

My basic feelings on Assault are pretty positive.  I think the game is generally just fun and I like that it feels like the natural progression from SF64.  I liked getting to see planets we haven’t seen since the N64 era in better graphics and I liked seeing Star Wolf return.  I also just thought the aparoids were neat enemies. 

Generally speaking, though, when it comes to Assault, I think it suffers from the thing it tries to push the most-- the story.  I think a lot of people get caught up in thinking the story is better than it is because it’s the first game since SF64 that really follows the same Star Fox vibe without retelling the Lylat Wars.  Don’t get me wrong, the overall plot is great but the execution and pacing are... wonky.  Certain characterizations also take a hit in some regards but no one really talks about that when Command exists. That’s something we’ll talk about later on with this post.

That being said, Assault really does have a lot good going for it.  An absolute banger of a soundtrack, some great dialogue, a neat story synopsis, the introduction of cool characters like Panther and Beltino (who existed but was always off-screen), and just good levels.  

So, here’s what I would add, I suppose, if I were to somehow have the ability to rewrite Assault.  Originally I had this in paragraph form, but I’ve made it into more of a list under topic segments with main points bolded for your viewing pleasure.  Some of these points might be considered nitpicky and while I do understand that yes, this is a game about space animals, I do hold the developers in high enough regard to make a game with a continuity that makes sense.

The Story Changes

- Reduce Pigma’s storyline in Assault.  This is the biggest one for me because a bulk of the plotline feels like a giant chase to just get at Pigma and it feels like it derails from the actual plot with the aparoids.  We only go to Sargasso because of Pigma.  We only go to Fichina and then back to Meteo again, because of Pigma.  That’s 3 levels in a 10 level game devoted to just tracking down Pigma and chasing him.  While it makes the build up to fighting Pigma kind of nice, I personally feel like the plot could be reduced to 2 levels.  If Assault overall was a longer game, I could see them making it 3 levels.  Overall, though, in its current state, I feel like the side plot overstays its welcome and the aparoids promptly get shoved to the side in favor of “Oh no, we gotta get to Pigma!” And I get the main motive here is to show how the aparoids affect people and because of the build up, it does a good job at showing how utterly terrifying the aparoids are.  But it’s still too long given the length of Assault’s story. The only alternative to this is make Assault longer, which... honestly, it should be.  

- Revise the scene with Tricky.  I’m obviously not well-versed in dinosaur biology but I’m pretty sure dinos didn’t grow that fast from what studying I HAVE done.  And why is he suddenly king now?  Did his parents die?  He seems not affected by this at all?  Like it’s a funny scene with him, Fox, and Krystal, but it’s odd if you really look at it.  Give us, as players, more context because I’m still not even sure what happened to make Tricky suddenly the leader and... big.  As a note, you’re gonna hear me gripe a lot about the Sauria level in this post.

- The Star Wolf + Peppy sacrifice is a low effort way to raise tension/stakes and then cop out.  Oldest trick in the book, imo, is to act like you’re going to kill off important characters only for them to be alive miraculously.  And let’s face it, as an audience we all know they aren’t going to kill those characters because it’s Nintendo and those characters are too beloved.  I would’ve forgiven them for only doing this with Peppy or Star Wolf, but when you tack them both together and throw in the fact they make it seem like you’re going to have to kill General Pepper too... yeah, it’s just a bit much of the same trope over and over again.  I wanted to put a note in here about how I’m fine with the Great Fox being “sacrificed” but overall, it needed to return to the series because of it’s icon status, but I think that’s more of a gripe at Command instead of Assault.

- Keep Pigma alive.  This will conflict with a point I have later on about the game consistently having characters cheat death for easy drama points but with Pigma, I would’ve kept him fully alive... but maybe with some physical damage from the aparoids.  I understand he’s semi-alive in Command and tbh I don’t know where I stand on that.  Why keep Pigma alive, you might ask?  I feel like his character has a lot more potential than being “just the greedy guy”.  Like he’s got good potential future villain material for future games and... if I’m honest?  I just don’t see Nintendo wanting to keep Pigma dead so why even bother killing him off?  They couldn’t even commit to him being dead in Command anyways so it seems very moot.

- Bring Bill and Katt back.  Assault is acts a bit like a big reunion of all of our SF64 favorites but our two favorite side characters are suspiciously missing.  Wouldn’t Bill be out on the front lines fighting against Andrew in the beginning?  Or maybe back in Katina?  And wouldn’t Katt inevitably show up in the midst of the invasion, maybe to pointedly check in on Falco?

- Bring Andrew back for the final fight. I think Andrew being defeated early into the game is fine overall but I think bringing him back in for a reunion final fight against the aparoids would serve to really solidify that it’s really everyone vs the invading aparoid force.  It would show that not only is Star Wolf willing to put aside their differences but so is basically everyone in the Lylat System in the name of survival.  Imagine the Venomians and Cornerians working together against an aparoid fleet, giving Star Fox and Star Wolf time to attack the queen?  I just think it’d be neat and it’d open up the potential for some fun banter mid-mission.  I do understand that quite a few people consider Andrew canonically dead after Assault but personally, I feel that his defeat left his fate questionable (I’m a staunch believer that unless there’s a body, they’re probably alive, especially for Nintendo games because, again, they never like to kill people off) so him returning in Command never really bothered me.  

- In general, reconsider some of the character portrayals.  Unfortunately, when a series has a different studio for each game, character portrayals will inevitably have inconsistencies.  While I give Namco a lot of credit for putting in oodles and oodles of detail into the game (particularly the levels), I think they failed in their portrayal of Fox, at the least, and Wolf is a considerable offender as well.  While it’s obvious that Fox in Adventures was effectively modeled off of Sabre even in terms of personality, Rareware was at least able to justify Fox’s newfound jaded attitude with the passing of many years and a distinct lack of steady income, resulting in the team being in disarray.  Assault’s Fox is a stark contrast to his cynical interpretation with seemingly no explanation other than maybe “Oh, I have more money and a gf, maybe I should behave myself”.  As if the sudden change in personality wasn’t random, Fox also just seems very blah, like a blank slate stereotypical shooter game protagonist dude with little to no emotion.  Wolf is less obvious but gets slated into a mentor-like role midway through the game and ends up in a respectful rivalry with Fox... which there’s nothing inherently wrong with that except for it happening abruptly (and, I mean, Peppy is right there).  But I take less issue with this and more of an issue with the fact that there’s an entire level establishing that Wolf now runs a crime den with effectively what seems to be an army and no one bats an eye at this.  He doesn’t even call on them to help with the aparoids.  Did they all die when the aparoids attacked Meteo?  Are they safe somewhere else?  Where do they go?  How was Sargasso able to operate without the CDF being on their doorstep with warrants for arrests?

- Don’t kill all the dinosaurs.  A bit of a dramatic statement but the ending screen that showed all the damage to Sauria really bothered me.  While I understand that the dinosaurs had less of a chance against the aparoids than a more technology-focused society like Corneria, I was a bit disappointed that the decision was made to just state that a lot of tribes had been wiped out.  I know this could easily be retconned in a future game and I feel like it should be.  “But why, Amalia?  Why are you disappointed by that?”  1) It’s a little too grimdark for my tastes.  2) The fact it all happened off-screen felt very hand-wavy.  And 3) It brings into question the entire point of Adventures.  Why did we bother to save this planet if it was going to be reduced to rubble and ash 1 year later?  Where were the Krazoa in all of this?  Why did they not make an appearance at all to try to stop the invasion with their alleged powers?  It just raises too many weird questions and I feel like Namco didn’t think it through too much.  Which I mean, sure.  Family, kiddo game.  I’m not asking for bigbrain plot and lore but I’m squinting at this bit because it does feel very contrary to the lore from the previous game.

- Make the aparoids more relevant.  As nice as it is to have a random bad guy from another galaxy, I feel like there was more that could be done with the aparoids in terms of their origins.  Tiny things, mind you, not huge revelations.  Off the top of my head, they could have been tied into Krystal’s backstory to help alleviate some of the complaints that she was too random to be added to the series’ main cast.  Alternatively, they could have been a product of Andross or even a weapon prototype from Corneria that fled the lab (I actually thought the game was leaning in that direction for a bit then just Nothing Happened).  I get that the vagueness of their origins leaves room for people to speculate and speculation is nice but... when you leave too many things unknown, it starts to feel less like giving fans room to interpret and more like just doing random things for the sake of it.  I think a lore tidbit here or there would work wonders for the aparoids instead of leaving them as just borg/zerg clones.

Level-Based Changes

- Add either Aparoid RedEye or Aparoid General Scales as a boss to Sauria.  Given that this level mysteriously lacks a boss, which is just weird compared to the other levels, I think that they had the opportunity to add something cool to go along with the cinematic feel they were going for with Assault.  Assault’s cutscenes do play in a movie-like fashion and it’s clear they’re trying to make the game as epic as possible.  It’s a shame they had so much fodder for a great boss here but they failed to go through with it.  Alternatively: Add a Krazoa-Aparoid fusion.  Why?  Because Star Fox is about cool epic sci-fi and that would be cool epic sci-fi incarnate.

- Add a boss to the Aparoid Homeworld Level, aka the penultimate level.  Another one I felt was personally weird that there was no “final defense system” to challenge the team.  Would be cool to do an aerial battle over the aparoid planet with some giant flying aparoid.

- Be kinder to Sauria.  The level had some good homages but overall was incredibly small and incredibly short.  It felt like a bone tossed to Adventures fans but was not entirely true to the setting built by Rareware.  I’m... not even sure where the Sauria level is supposed to take place?  I presume it’s Walled City but it doesn’t really have the same color scheme or aesthetic?  Also where is my revised Adventures music?  Why do all the other levels get it but Sauria doesn’t? 

- Put some of those funky items from the multiplayer into the main campaign.  I don’t know why some of these things, items especially, were omitted unless it was purely due to time constraints.  I remember having missile launchers and jetpacks in the multiplayer and was a bit sad that they were not in the main campaign.  Retuning the levels and adding those in would be a nice breath of fresh air for the more tedious on-foot missions.

- More levels.  Self-explanatory.  Still sad we didn’t get the Zoness or Titania levels in the single-player mode.  

I think all of the above changes would improve the game, though I recognize all of this is being said 16 years later after lots of time to contemplate Assault’s weaker points.  I’m not entirely certain how long Star Fox Assault took to develop but given that there’s obviously quite a bit scrapped from the game (an entire arcade mode was scrapped as well), I’m going to assume that the studio felt pressured to shove the game out the door and into the hands of customers.  It’s a shame, really, because I think a little bit longer in the oven would have done a lot of good.  Still, the product we got was good in its own right and a game that many people look back on fondly.  I haven’t gotten to replay it in years but I hope to quite soon.

You might wonder why I bothered typing this all out and I guess my point was this-- Assault was great but it wasn’t perfect, and while a lot of other games fall under a crushing amount of scrutiny, Assault seems to dodge it.  And don’t get me wrong-- I adore Assault.  But given that not many takes exist out there about rewriting it, I decided to give it a shot.  For variety’s sake.  

I do want to a mock up of a revised Assault story, which I think I will get to work on after completing this while all my ideas are still fresh in mind.  So stay tuned for that sometime in the near future.  I will also be doing my Adventures mock up at some point but probably not for a little bit as I do wanna focus some of my free time on actual fic-writing.

Anyways, if you stuck around this long, thank you for reading!  Have any changes you’d like to see to Assault if you could time machine your way back to the early 2000s?  Feel free to post in the comments, I’d love to read your ideas!

#star fox assault #starfox assault #super long #queue'd

[skypied]

I am distraught, thank you! I really like what you’re doing with all this. While I do love all of the fluffy fics that have them get together after a good amount of pining and then living happily ever after, that’s not really… how it works.

Okay, I got some follow up questions!! First, how does their breakup affect the people around them? Is either one blamed as the person who dumped or broke the other’s heart? Is there anyone who might try to pressure them back together after seeing how upset the breakup make them?

And is there any communication between them while they’re broken up? Or have they completely cut themselves off? And Luca would have to visit portorosso at some point, to visit his family or Giulia or something, right? Would they completely avoid talking to or acknowledging each other or would it be like. a really sad, tenuous truce between them?

Also, would this fic connect with or take place after any of your other fics? The bit about Luca taking things out on Alberto reminded me of “don’t worry, darling, this too shall pass” and then I got thinking in circles about your other fics and I realized that I’ve kinda always assumed that almost all of your fics exist in the same timeline (except fics like significantly insignificant or the aquarium au where they literally can’t be from the same universe), what with how many of them seem to fit together in a specific order or reference each other (I have been thinking of it as the “Skypie Literary Universe” in my head). My monkey brain is trying to jam all this in that same timeline, and is very grouchy about the fact that it literally can’t coexist with the entirety of untitled Genova shenanigans.

Last thing, I am so glad that you’re planning on a happy ending. I need it,,, And it does also make sense to me that after a chance to realize that it hadn’t been healthy and once they get more independent and learn how to be functional, emotionally intelligent people on their own, they would be able to manage being together again. They need to be happy together. for their emotional fulfillment but also more importantly for MY emotional fulfillment.

I think I might’ve had something else to say but I completely forgot what it was. I’ll come back if I remember or think of anything else! Goodnight!

"I am distraught, thank you!" might become my new favorite thing to quote. It's like "Thanks, I hate it!" except for things related to angst.

Yeah! That's kind of exactly what I wanna explore too, something more complicated and less fairytaley. Incoming rambling again.

You're tbh asking questions I don't know the answer to. One of the reasons I struggle to write bigger stories is I am really kind of, a mix between uninterested and not capable of writing larger settings and more characters beyond having pop-up appearances in which they're cardboard cutouts. (I feel, at least.) BUT If this is happening, this is stuff I need to figure out. Although a lot of this is stuff that would happen after where the fic ends in my mind - it's good to know where it's heading. (and wrt a potential follow-up fic, oh god, I don't want to 😂)

I think most people in Portorosso would put the blame on Luca, because he is the one who leaves, they have a firmer relationship with Alberto and they would see how wrecked he is afterwards. I really doubt Alberto would ever tell anyone any details, beyond something vague like "yeah we didn't want the same things / life just sent us down separate paths ig" stuff.

I think it'd be kind of funny and interesting if "what happened between Luca and Alberto" kind of becomes the town's favorite go-to theories to gossip about over. Like, it's a small town! Someone divorcing would be hot gossip for months on end, and still years later be theorizing the reason why and everything that happened afterwards, right? I think most of the people around town would have a tendency to defend Alberto, especially as time goes on and he continues to be a beloved staple of the town, and eventually grow almost hostile towards Luca. Both bc of Alberto, and the small town attitude of "look at mr. fancypants going to university in Rome, too big for his hometown".

Luca's family would obviously take his side, but I think they'd end up hearing some of this gossip and be a little put off by it, and get kind of insecure about if maybe the rumors are right, is their little Bubble an asshole?? And when they talk with Luca, I feel like it's this tense silence of "we all know what happened but can't acknowledge it" that drives a bit of a wedge between them. Like, Alberto's been the most important person in Luca's life for five(?) of his most formative years. He's gotta have some kind of positive relationship with the Paguros, and they likely end up seeing Alberto more than Luca bc of proximity. Maybe they first try to take Luca's side by being cold towards Alberto, but that resolve ends up melting bc of him helping them with farm work (Alberto wouldn't stop feeling the obligation to do that - bless his soul), and seeing he's still sweet and kind and tries his best to not let more awkwardness than neccessary between them.

I'm unsure about Giulia's place in all this. I think that depends a lot on what she does after school. I really love Giulia being closer to Luca than Alberto, they just have that BFF energy, but if she were to stay in Genova or Portorosso I think she'd have a hard time not ending up taking Alberto's side, too. She's a lot smarter than both of them though, I could see her being the person who's able to see both their sides and be equally as good a friend to both of them. And I think maybe both boys know that, and would refrain from telling her too many details, too.

Not sure how much Luca would visit Portorosso - I think he'd end up finding it a bit of a hassle. I think he'd try to get part time jobs both to have more spending money and kind of have an excuse to not come home for long periods.

Still very vague on post-breakup. I have been playing around with an ending scene that's Alberto turning around and showing up on Luca's doorstep the morning after leaving him in Rome ready to beg to figure things out. (And without the Luca having a one-night stand I mentioned in the A/N of hard feelings, haha). It ends up in a huge argument where Luca finally shows his anger and says what's bothering him. This is bound to be changed, I think, but rn I borrowed the "baseline" of his statement/argument from a song: “Because I’m terrible and I hate myself so fucking much for it, and I just keep tearing you down, ‘cause the day you realize how amazing you are you’re gonna leave me.” I mentioned this a little in the previous post, but I think the deepest fear Luca has in this fic verse is being really, truly alone, to the point that he turns that outwards in form of anger and passive aggressivity.

(song is a lot more positive than it sounds, but one of my fav Luberto songs too <3)

While the fic is Luca's POV and would mostly be focused on him and everything he's repressing, there's a lot of stuff Alberto also has been repressing, and getting the lid off that pressure would help a lot. I think this argument is the imploding their relationship needs. I think they'll both find a lot of relief after it, and in some way trust each other more because they're finally actually honest. I think they'd leave off with a "this hurts, but we both agree this is for the best" and go their respective ways. I'm not sure how their friendship would be going forwards - if they cut contact. If I were to write a follow up set, what, five years or something later, I'd love the "sad tenuous truce".

But I do think I want an optimistic end to the road trip. Not happy, bc I really believe they need to be separated and develop, but leaving feeling like they've resolved the worst of their issues leaving them with less resentment and more hope for some kind of distant future. Would be fun if it turned into a kind of angsty friends with benefits situation whenever Luca returns to Portorosso, but would also be v v cute and delicious if they both keep their feelings for each other, but end up pining far too long because they don't want to ruin their renewed friendship, and being even more reluctant to enter a relationship again because they already fucked it up so bad. But I really doubt I'd write anything beyond the "day after breakup resolution" scene, bc I really like that as a very neat and natural period to the fic.

Hm! I really don't think anything outside the untitled Genova shenanigans is connected in my head. I do see the connection from this idea to "don't worry, darling" - but I see it more as "this is an aspect of Luca's character I'm interested in exploring more" - just as for instance "Compromises" was about exploring more feral dumbass boys, and "Polaris" was about letting them be cheesily romantic, etc.

Which is exactly why I mostly write oneshots - I really struggle to write something that feels consistently characterized over longer things with more scenes. But you're very welcome to connect anything you want. Heck, you can scramble the Genova shenanigans timeline to fit with this roadtrip fic idea, if you want to. Though in his wedding speech to Luca, Alberto references how hard Luca has worked to keep him, bc Alberto pushed him away with every opportunity he got. So the dynamic is really different. And - with "don't worry, darling", the "taking out anger" aspect is very different, imo - there it is "I trust you enough to help me deal with this, I know you'll forgive me for occasionally being horrible and still love me", while in roadtrip verse, it's "I have no fucking clue how to deal with this besides taking it out on you but not caring if it hurts you because it’s easier than trying to figure it out myself" that slowly breaks the trust between them. BUT LIKE! This is all things that exist in my head and isn’t out in the world yet, so 🤷 You do anything you want to puzzle everything together in your monkey brain!

Man, you bringing up Genova shenanigans + me rereading some stuff from it yesterday reminded me how much I love the fun, carefree nature of writing it. I really should get back on that, too. Just trying to write the wedding feels too big and important for me to handle in a satisfying way - again coming back to the "I can't write bigger settings or more characters".

But I fucking love that there is a Skypie literary universe in your head. I've been calling it my "LCU" - the "Luberto Cinematic Universe" in my head 😂 Also, how do you even remember the aquarium AU, I never talk about it any more, because that, too, is permanently iced, because I can't handle the larger setting and my own insecurities about characterization. Trying my best to ignore the need I feel to make things Important and Meaningful and just have fun.

But yes! The happy ending is increasingly calling to me too. I love the conclusion of "we both fucked up but let's make it work". Especially prefer it over the ending C in my head, which is a continuation of ending B (with Luca having a one night stand and Alberto being unable to forgive him), ending in a tense, never resolved silence between them, and Luca never getting over how much he hurt Alberto and ends up an extremely worn down alcoholic teacher at the university.

And thanks for asking as always, I get so happy when you show interest and let me ramble, it helps sort out a lot of thoughts to have to explain them to someone who knows close to nothing about the idea! <3 do come back if you remember what you were thinking of!

#skypieposts #skypiefics #i think this fic needs it own tag by now ... if nothing else for my own convenience of finding it again #fucked up road trip fic #skypiechats

[hirokiyuu]

I BEAT NEOTWEWY “after four days?” yeah im insane thanks

anyways thoughts under the cut! MASSIVE spoilers incoming

i was not super into rindo/shoka for like 99% of the game until “we can finally be friends” like wow. going from enemies > online friends where only one of them realizes who u are > reluctant (?) teammates and like just....... the layers of shit in their rship ended up selling me in the end. they had cute moemnts b4 that but this was the first time i went “oh theyve got a Dynamic” instead of “wow! cute heterosexuals i guess!”

side note i really did not expect her to be swallow bc i was CONVINCED it was rhyme but also it does make a lot of sense in retrospect LMFAO ill reread to see stuff after this

i do hae to say i really like her being his first Decision in game that was v good. they did have vibes!

lmfao tho the noise i made when josh put her back in the rg. You Little Bastard Man You Are Always Like This.

i was v happy to see him was really not feeling his exp for why he did nothing beforehand. theorizing it was bc he couldnt make a move while kubo was there (angel) but we’ll see what the secret reports say

older nekus design, no joke, made me teary-eyed hte first time i saw it

side note did his voice always sound like that. he reminded me of squall leonheart kingdomhearts2 specifically adn it was V jarring bc that wasnt at all how i rmbr’d him sounding

oh i DID tear up when he told shiki “i see you” like wow. perfect encapsulation of their entire rship right there. he DOES see her hes ALWAYS seen her. i dont romo it but the two of them have SUCH a dynamic its soooooooo good

nagi best girl. i have her whole speech to fret about humanity screencapped on my switch and i reread it this morning and it made me like, tear up genuinely both times. shes SO good i LOVE her

i cant decide if i ship her and minami (bc its funny) or if i read her as aro. tbh i think what it is is i read her as aro except in situations where minami/nagi is funny. thats it thats my whole thought process

I LOV FRET A LOT ACTUALLY i actually found myself compelled by his rship w/kanon tho god. fridging women. please i

kanon in general was really good tho. wife wife wife wife w

fret/kanon is like........... there are vibes. its good. i like when ppl are inspired by each other to be better its GOOD.......

i liked rindo a lot im not sure if itwas intentional that he had a mask when his whole thing is (thinks a lot of v rude things but never says them aloud or makes decisions) but its good

the implication that rindo and fret were friends partially bc rindo kept everyone at arms length and fret didnt want a single deep rship after what happened is like. peak. i genuinely and deeply love that its so good its GOOD DYNAMIC

i’m kind of disappointed by the lack of content tho ngl. like i beat the game blind and i’m already at 57% completion when i think even on og twewy games where ive worked really hard ive only been like.... 30-40% max? 

plus the lack of tin pin/reaper creeper/reaper review kinda stuff is like. ok we have dives and reminding but idk? AM I INSANE i feel like og twewy had more content.

whatever im still gonna 100% it LOL 

overall basically what i’m saying is i enjoyed it! but it definitely felt like a Sequel lol. not a bad thing necessarily but felt a little bit like they were banking on ppl being Invested In TWEWY to care if that makes sense. which, again, not to say i didnt enjoy it but

#in summary i would d word for nagi #personal #ntwewy spoilers

[spikeface]

sceo fic idea ramble: theo as the velveteen rabbit

I love theorizing about all the ways Theo not being a real werewolf would be significant. In the show, they imply he’s weaker and can’t heal as well, but the idea of being a “knock off” is so intriguing to me, if it means things like:

Zero influence from the moon.

No instinctive love of hunting/killing/meat.

No inherent comfort with being in a full wolf shift. Love the idea of Theo shifting and then, after the thrill of success wears off, being like “ok so now I’m short and have no hands and can’t talk this is p dumb tbh”

No pack connection. This is mostly fanon, and most authors seem to agree that humans can feel some sort of pack connection, so I tend to think of Theo as having no automatic/finely tuned sense of pack, like a werewolf might. Theo generally doesn’t feel beholden to Alpha authority, for instance—at the very least, no more than a human would. He also takes no instinctive comfort in smelling like the pack, being with other pack members etc.

Not nocturnal at all.

First, it’s darkly funny to me to think of Theo trying to fit in with packs he’s deceiving over the years and just being like, “Ah. Yes. The moon. Which I, like all of you, am very obsessed with. Love how it... reflects the sun’s light in regular patterns. Very into that. You know what it really makes me want to do? Run around in the woods at night when I could be sleeping in my house. Get all covered in gross smelly dirt and blood. Fight people for no reason. Yeah, let’s all—wow, you’re just straight up eating that rabbit corpse. I mean. Um. I understand the appeal of that. I too hate it when my food is cooked and has spices on it. Almost as much as I hate mountain ash. So many strong werewolf feelings all the time.”

Second, I love the angst in thinking about how alienated Theo would constantly feel, and how it would fuel his general sense of not being real and needing to perform being real, which already weighs heavily on him given how thoroughly he lives outside the scope of what’s normal even for the supernatural world, in his work with the Dread Doctors, and how his sociopathic potential has already been thoroughly developed by them. And then I like thinking about how Theo’s redemption would involve, amongst many other things, slowly becoming comfortable enough to share just how little he’s actually a werewolf and being honest about what it means to be a chimera/not a real werewolf. He’s not going hunting during the full moon. He’s going to sleep until 11 and then have brunch.

And of course what I really, really love is thinking about how, when Theo’s around Scott, he starts to??? Feel all werewolfy??? Like he sees Scott on the full moon and his heart goes thump-thump-thump??? He’s filled with adrenaline at the thought of running around in the woods at night with Scott. Maybe? Even? Being chased by him? They could play fight? Wrestle? Intensely appealing thought. His sensitivity toward Scott in general is up 10000%. When Scott asks him to do something, Theo finds he really, really wants to do it. Have Scott praise him for doing it. That’s Alpha powers, right? He stays up all night thinking about him. He wants to show off his wolf form to him. So many strong werewolf feelings all the time!

He feels all these things and puzzles over why—because Scott’s a True Alpha? A side effect of hell? he’s trying to be scientific—and it builds and builds until, when he finally confesses to Scott, his way of explaining his feelings is to say that Scott makes him feel real, and I think Scott would be able to walk that line of understanding all the trauma that shapes a statement like that—he knows better than anyone how intensely Theo has historically been affected by not being a real werewolf—but also understanding what Theo is trying to say, and the vulnerability he’s showing here, and most importantly I think he’s the one person Theo would actually *hear* when Scott says, “Theo, you are real. You always have been.”

And then there’s lots of mushy feelings probably.

#teen wolf #sceo #theo raeken

[akechicrimes]

loki appreciation agenda continues because i am speculating on the reasons why goro can change outfits. this is a super speculation-heavy post on goro’s outfit-changing abilities based on theories that loki was created through experimentation to force goro to awaken a second persona, and i don’t think i can necessarily “prove” anything in this post, but the lore on how personas work surprisingly checks out so it’s plausible if nothing else.

anyway, i think goro has two different outfits because he awakened to his “first” persona, twice.

explanation under cut:

(FIRST of all, i know there’s doylist explanations for why certain characters get new outfits and others don’t. this is a watsonian explanation because i have goro akechi brainworms and i cannot stop thinking about my boy.)

the basic premise is that your outfit is something you get when you have the will to rebel. outfits manifest when you’re in a palace that sees you as an enemy, thus activating your rebellious spirit to tell them to suck a dick.

that rebellious spirit comes from a moment of resolve: knowing that you don’t want to die, knowing what it is that you fight for, and knowing whose ass you want to beat. usually, then the character manifests a mask, hears the voice of their persona inside them, and they rip it off.

the will of rebellion also typically triggers a character awakening to their first persona. i’m going to call it the starter persona.

insofar as i can tell, a starter persona is a very specific type of persona that comes from a very specific type of phenomenon:

the manifestation of your resolve/will of rebellion

the persona you get when you awaken to your persona-using abilities for the first time

the first form of your persona

a persona that is unique to you and your soul

theoretically a persona that comes from within you, rather than an external source (e.g. shadow negotiations or the velvet room)

a persona gained under extreme duress marking a drastic resolve in oneself

a starter persona is not:

an evolved edition of your starter persona due to a moderate change in yourself (second-tier/third-tier awakening)

a new persona gained through capturing a shadow (akira’s new personas)

a new persona gained through fusing pre-existing personas (velvet room)

when a second-tier persona occurs, or a new persona is gained through shadow capture or fusing, a new outfit is not gained, because outfits come with the starter persona only.

so my theory is that robin hood and loki are both “starter” personas, even though loki was gained ostensibly way, way after goro had awakened to his general ability to summon personas. loki is not a persona that was gained through shadow negotiations or the velvet room, and loki is not an evolved form of robin hood, since robin hood and loki coexist and first-tier personas disappear when they turn into second-tier personas. 

loki is basically as if goro underwent his first awakening, but a second time, and that’s why there’s a separate outfit for him, in the same way that all the phantom thieves get an outfit when they awaken for the first time.

and now i’m going to go into way too much detail about how starter personas are a very hyper-specific phenomenon that are different from the wild card ability to gain multiple personas and are also different from second-tier awakenings:

CASE ONE: wild cards

wild cards demonstrate very well that starter personas are unique in that they’re created from within a persona user, whereas other personas that wild cards can wield must come from outside sources. and even for wild cards who have six jillion personas, they really only have one starter persona (and in akira’s case, one accompanying outfit). 

i think it’s alright to assume there’s something unique about arsene in relation to akira, in the same way that izanagi is unique to souji or orpheus is unique to minato. every other persona that these wild cards get have to be gotten from either capturing shadows in the wild, or from fusing captured shadows in the velvet room. they’re personas that are found from outside of the wild card, and then taken in to become one of the wild card’s masks.

by contrast, arsene, izanagi, and orpheus seem to come from “within” the wild cards, in the same way that any non-wildcard undergoes an awakening to pull a persona from inside themselves. arsene, izanagi, and orpheus aren’t gained through capturing a pre-existing shadow or fusing pre-existing shadows. so even though akira and other wild cards can wield multiple personas, all of them only have one starter persona.

i’d theorize that, although wild cards have the ability to wield many different masks, the other personas are more like impermanent additions to the general ability to wield multiple personas, which comes with the starter persona. (arsene and izanagi in particular seems really stick around even when you fuse him away, especially since arsene comes back in a second-tier awakening as satanael and izanagi as izanagi-no-okami.)

(NOW THAT I’VE SAID THAT, according to persona lore, all personas come from the sea of the soul! i did not forget. when i’m making the distinction between a persona that comes from “within” a persona user and a persona that has to be found externally, i mean that all shadows/personas ultimately come from the vast sea of the soul/collective unconscious that connects all human beings, but these personas get obtained through different ways: starter personas seem to be summoned from the sea of the soul entirely internally, whereas other shadows have to be summoned from the sea of the soul from either finding them in palaces, mementos, or the velvet room.)

akira, obviously, does not get a new outfit every time he gets a new persona, although that would have been cool as fuck. the outfit happens only when the starter persona is awakened--the persona from within akira, rather than a persona he acquired from the outside.

CASE TWO: general persona users and second tier awakenings

normal persona users don’t have the ability to find external shadows and make them into their own persona. normal persona users have only their starter persona which they got from within themselves, in the same way arsene is unique to akira, and are born from a moment of internal resolve. their personas are all “internal affairs,” so to speak.

normal persona users also have the option of a second-tier awakening, though. second-tier awakenings involve only the starter persona, a new resolve in the character, and again seem to be a persona that comes from “within.” so it seems a bit like the persona user has “awakened” a second time. it’s certainly an entirely internal event, requiring no additional personas obtained from palaces, mementos, or the velvet room.

but the second-tier persona is not an entirely new starter persona. second-tier personas are just their pre-existing already-awakened starter personas changing into a slightly different persona with the same abilities. second-tier personas inherit all the stats and abilities from the first as well, a bit as if it’s just the starter persona in a different form. so although the phantom thieves “awaken” a second time, it’s not so much an awakening so much as it is just an evolution of a pre-existing persona.

this makes sense in terms of the “personas manifest as a will/resolve to rebel” logic, too. it’s not necessarily that they manifested an entirely new resolve to rebel; their pre-existing resolve to rebel just evolved, changed, or was reaffirmed.

there’s also a visual cue for this: awakening a starter persona is a whole fucking deal involving a stressful situation, thinking you’re going to die, usually having to face some asshole in your life who abused you, hearing voices, screaming, manifesting your mask and ripping your face off. second-tier awakenings don’t involve this lmao. god could you imagine if it did. it’d actually be so funny tbh

second-tier awakenings, also, seem to be a phenomenon specific to “starter” personas, or personas obtained from within. you wouldn’t see a persona that akira got from a shadow negotiation evolve in the same way that arsene evolves into satanael, or carmen evolves into hecate, or izanagi evolves into izanagi-no-okami. you could argue that “high pixie” is a second-tier of “pixie,” but there’s no way to make pixie have new resolve and evolve into high pixie like a pokemon; pixie would have to be fused with some other persona to create high pixie. personas obtained through external means have to be fused with other personas, or absorb the life force of other personas through executions. 

anyway, to get back to the point about goro’s two-outfit deal, second-tier awakenings also don’t get you new outfits. which makes sense if we assume that outfits come with obtaining a starter persona, since second-tier awakenings are just your starter persona evolving and is not actually an event in which you obtain an entirely new starter persona.

CASE THREE: haru and sumire

weird fact i forgot until i wrote this meta!! but both haru and sumire are cases of people who got their outfits and a “semi-awakening” to their personas, that then led to a period of not quite being able to actually summon their persona. so, from what we can understand, their will to rebel is there, just not solidified enough to manifest a persona.

morgana, our resident lore expert, tells us that when haru has her outfit but not her persona, milady is more or less there already, just confused due to conflicted feelings about haru’s father, and therefore can’t fully take shape. so she can sort of summon milady, but just not in an effective way that can deal battle damage.

personally i think this is just the atlus writers creating a reason to have haru in the palace in cute clothes without having her go through an awakening, so that she could awaken later for full dramatic effect. but since morgana went to such lengths to explain the mechanics of it and tell us that milady is technically already there, it’s a really interesting case study that demonstrates outfits are not something that are specific to having a starter persona, but doesn’t guarantee that that persona can be summoned.

the same thing happens to sumire: she gets her outfit sometime in october, and for some reason can use cendrillon up until she remembers that she’s sumire and not kasumi. then she winds up in a state like haru’s, where she has an outfit, has the will to rebel, and technically even has cendrillon, but she just can’t summon cendrillon. then she has to go through the whole song and dance of ripping her face off to awaken to cendrillon (which might be kasumi’s soul depending on the interpretation of the scene). and of course, from there her starter persona can have a second-tier and third-tier awakening to vanadis and ella.

but it looks like the same case as haru, ultimately: she technically had cendrillon, but wasn’t able to use it or manifest it because her resolve was jank as fuck with all her identity issues.

SO BASICALLY: 

what i’m getting at is that the outfits come from awakening to a starter persona only. 

a starter persona is, as shown above, a hyper-specific phenomenon in which you pull a persona out of your soul, as opposed to capturing an external shadow and adding it to your pre-existing persona abilities, or transforming your pre-existing persona into a new one. awakening your "first” persona is a thing that happens only when you dig up all the weird sediment from your soul when you think you’re going to die, generally. starter personas come from a moment of internal resolution, and the resulting persona seems to be unique to that person and the circumstances of the persona’s awakening.

really, it’s such a theatrical ordeal, too. like i mentioned before, starter personas get obtained through this WHOLE fucking ritual involving stress, hearing the voice of your persona inside you, manifesting your mask, ripping your face off, manifesting your outfit, etc, etc. (i think it’s fairly important to note that ripping the mask off is the first instance of the larger outfit showing up, too; the mask itself, the outfit, and the starter persona seem to come hand in hand.)

we already know that loki is not a second-tier awakening of robin hood, because robin hood co-exists with loki. we also know that loki is not a persona gained through shadow negotiation or fusion, because external personas that are gained through those methods don’t come with an outfit.

so it really looks like goro just manifested the internal will to rebel, and the accompanying new outfit and entirely new persona, twice.

this, actually, fits really well with the medical experimentation thing, since starter personas, the will to rebel, and the outfit seem to come from stressful situations, where the persona user, in an attempt to not die, pulls a new persona out of their soul from no external source. if the featherman game is implying what i think it is, shido’s scientists and maybe wakaba were trying to force a persona out of goro with stress and trauma, in the same way that you’d manifest a persona for the first time. these scientists were not handing him shadows to turn into personas, like how the wild card is intended to be used. these scientists were not trying to transform robin hood into a new form, like how a second-tier awakening is supposed to work. they were inducing the same conditions that you’d need to awaken a persona for the first time.

it also makes sense from an in-universe perspective, because i’m assuming that, since goro and these cognitive psientists didn’t know jack shit about the metaverse at the time, goro just told them what he knew about persona awakenings: he awoke to robin hood under duress, he reached into his soul, found robin hood there, did a bunch of yelling, pulled off his face, BAM. robin hood. so the scientists said, well, if you wanna see a phenomenon a second time, you might as well recreate the conditions from the first time, right? make him pull off his face again and see what happens.

that would explain how loki is unique to him, in the same way that arsene is unique to akira, or any of the other personas are unique to their phantom thieves. it would explain why there’s an accompanying outfit to go with loki as well--it’s literally an entirely different “first” awakening, as if he manifested the ability to summon a persona twice, rather than just adding on new personas to his pre-existing ability. and it also explains how he has two unique personas that are separate from each other.

it also explains why he never seems to, say, use robin hood while in the black mask outfit, and why he never uses loki while in the white crow outfit. it’s not a cosmetic choice; the outfit is tied to the persona he’s using at the time. the outfit is tied to the separate awakening, and the separate “first” persona that was generated from that awakening. (EDIT: goro does actually use loki very briefly while still in the white crow outfit during his boss battle, although presumably loki is not “fully” summoned because loki is blacked out/colored strangely/vaguely see-through.)

(meanwhile, hereward doesn’t get a new outfit to match him because he’s a tiered transformation awakening. a pre-existing power gets transformed. hereward even existing is also good evidence that robin hood and loki are “starter” personas rather than personas gained through external means, since shadows obtained through mementos/palaces/velvet room don’t get tiered evolutions.)

which is a really interesting bastardization of the wild card ability, if that’s actually what happened. because he’s a wild card with the ability to wield multiple personas, he was able to awaken for the “first” time twice and wield two different personas, but in an extremely corrupted way, not at all the way that wild card abilities are intended to be used.

and i know that this is all just speculation at this point, but it does make hereward look a little bit like goro managed to finally fuse together the two “corrupted” halves of his wild card ability into a singular, whole persona. something or other--growth can only occur when thesis and antithesis synthesize? ...something like that.

anyway i’ve never felt so much like matpat in my life.

#mine #meta

[boy-above]

If you could rewrite v3 what would you change?

ohhhhh boy okay so, something a lot of you may not know about me is that i honestly didn’t like very much if v3 at all, i love kokichi more than anything but the rest of v3 was just something i did not care for most of the time. so honestly for me rewriting v3 would be like, almost completely changing it, the final product would probably be drastically different than what we have now. obvs i can’t describe it in detail but i can do some bullet points of the first things that come to mind.

the ending, some of you guys can probably remember that I’m one of those people who can’t stand the ending. i do not like the fictional aspect, i think it’s too mean and most of the time it’s used to excuse bad writing or invalidating criticisms of the game.

for example, I think the murder motives and the methods of killing/covering up the murder in this game are really ridiculous and dumb. whenever you try to criticize that however, people come out of the woodwork to tell you that it’s the 53rd season so ~obviously~ they’d be running out of ideas by this point. i think that’s a bad argument, the motives and murder methods are really dumb and over complicated and using an ending that i already hated to try to excuse something that lowered my enjoyment of the game just makes me more butthurt lmao. ANYWAY though yeah, i would give them more realistic motives and methods. kirumi being the prime minister is ridiculous. korekiyo killing someone with a seesaw is ridiculous. korekiyo’s entire backstory and motive are also unnecessary and gross and i would change those completely as well.

give tsumugi more to do. im aware that the joke is supposed to be that she’s plain and boring, but it’s not a funny joke. it’s disappointing that we have an ultimate cosplayer but she never dresses up or anything, and we Immediately rule her dressing up as other people out as a possibility in chapter one, taking any fun there could have been to have with her character away. if we have an ultimate cosplayer i want to see fucking goku walking down the halls, dont @ me.

I would make various changes to other characters. for example, giving kirumi more personality, like an arc where she comes to terms with the fact that she’s a person with her own agency and doesn’t exist to just be ordered around. even her ftes dont allow her to just be her own person. like i said before she wouldn’t be the fucken prime minister because i thought that was too much. im aware that dr has always been wacky and off the walls but that was too outlandish even for dr in my opinion lol

i would change maki a lot, i don’t like her very much. she’s mostly an orbiter character for kaito and doesn’t really have any meaningful relationships with anyone else. even shuichi who she should in theory be close with, she treats shitty towards the end of the game. i would make her more of a big sister figure, she could still have her tough exterior but she could soften when she sees people acting childlike. i want her to form friendships with people other than kaito. i always wished that maki and kokichi had actually gotten along because i think they have some things in common. they both act rude and unpleasant to maintain their distance from others. i hc kokichi as an orphan so that’s also something they could have in common.

more survivors than just three, that shit hurted. obviously im biased and wish kokichi would have lived, and i thought ryoma was gonna live tbh.

in my perfect world kokichi and shuichi would have teamed up to end the killing game, im aware that im biased but i think with both their brains combined it would have been Awesome. i wish shuichi would have tried harder to understand kokichi and in general i wish people would have given more of a shit about his wellbeing.

obviously i would remove more problematic aspects, this goes for all the games but i would remove any “fanservice” that shit is cringe. i would do tenko justice and write her as a canon lesbian who isn’t weird about her feelings for himiko. i would remove that dumb hat off kokichi’s head in promotional art. i would remove the things kokichi says to miu during the trials, it’s going too far and feels out of character for kokichi to say in the first place.

removing the monokubs who even likes the monokubs

that’s all i can think of for now but i might make a post sometime detailing some alternate scenarios I’ve thought of if i can remember them, or theories i had during the game that i think are cooler than what actually happened ajdjd. like for example during trial five i theorized that after maki shot kaito and kokichi with the poisoned arrows, he gave kokichi the antidote to drink and then killed himself before the poison could kill him to keep maki from becoming the blackened and being executed. this seems possible since kaito knew he was going to die from his illness anyway, so it would make sense to make kokichi take the antidote instead. it would also fall in line with having a case towards the end of the game being a suicide, like with sakura and komaeda

#ask the marshmallow #anonymous