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hisui-dreamer · 1 year

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an exchange for a spark

Pairing: Azul Ashengrotto x gn!reader

Synopsis: Knowing Azul, everything would come at a cost, but sometimes you get more than what you asked for in an exchange.

Tags: childhood friends, fluff, reader is a mer, mentions Azul's past, little mermaid references, bot proofread

Word count: 1.6k+

Notes: congrats to Azul fans who won the poll for our resident businessman!

Azul tsum came home in the JP server so here's some fluff for our dearest tako! this takes place before NRC and the boys are in pre-teens

Masterlist

Azul's heart skipped a beat as you neared him, your scales reflecting a stunning array of colours that reminded him of opalescent shells. Your beauty was ethereal, a sight to behold, and Azul couldn't help but feel like a mere speck in comparison. He recognised you instantly; the mermaid who never failed to light up the area, the one with the infectious smile and bright eyes that sparkled like diamonds in the demure rays of sunlight refracted into the depths of the sea.

You were the popular one in school, your every move and word fawned over by your classmates, while he was the outcast hiding in his octopus pot, fearing the bullies who would make fun of him.

An odd pair; but the two of you were close friends. He supposed it was inevitable, given how often your family frequented his mother’s restaurant, bringing the two of you together in an unexpected way.

"Hey there, Azul!" you sang out, your tail propelling yourself towards him. As you approached, you saw Azul perched on a counter, a look of surprise on his face as he looked up. His tentacles were completing multiple tasks at hand, keeping track of the inventory of his mother's restaurant, flipping through pages of an old book, and writing on multiple sheets of parchment. "Oooh, what are you reading?" you asked.

Azul smiled, pausing his tasks to focus on you. "It's a grimoire on terrestrial magic," he replied, the interest evident in his voice.

"Wow! That’s way ahead of what they’re teaching in class! Can you show me?" You asked eagerly.

His smile turned sly, and you knew instantly that there was a catch. "Of course, but it'll cost you," he said, pushing his glasses up with a flick of his hand.

You giggled, knowing that he always had something up his sleeve. "What do you want, Azul?"

Azul's eyes glinted mischievously, and you could tell he was up to something. One of his tentacles reached out and gently tilted your chin upward. "Your most prided quality, of course. How about... your voice?"

You blinked, before bursting into a fit of giggles. "Hahaha Azuzu! You and I both know you'd miss my voice too much!"

Azul's lips curved into a tender smile, exuding affection as his silver tongue wove compliments like a skilled weaver crafting an intricate tapestry. "You are right, your voice is a treasure beyond compare, and I could not bear to take it away from you," he murmured, but you could only shake your head fondly at his words. "But tell me, Angelfish, what else can you offer me?"

You paused, your mind spinning like a school of fish caught in a whirlpool. Then, a sudden flash of recollection struck you, and you reached into your satchel, fumbling around to pull out a small sack, handing it to him as your fins fluttered with exhilaration. "I almost forgot, here!" you exclaimed. "I got this for you."

As you handed it to Azul, he shifted towards you, taking the sack curiously. "What is it?" he asked, his excitement building as he examined the sack like an archaeologist uncovering a long-lost artefact.

"It's a surprise," you giggled. "Open it up and see for yourself!"

Azul's fingers trembled with anticipation as he gingerly unfurled the sack's opening, revealing a bounty of treasures within. A cascade of glimmering coins spilt forth, gleaming like the dying sun cresting over the ocean's horizon. As if holding a precious gem, he carefully plucked one of the golden coins from the pile, entranced by its lustre. Its surface glinted and shone, reflecting its metallic sheen into his aquamarine eyes. A radiant grin bloomed across his face, illuminating his features with pure delight.

"I've never seen this one before! You collected these for me?" he exclaimed, his voice full of wonder. "How thoughtful of you, Angelfish. I will add them to my collection." He looked up at you and coughed at his open display of joy, quickly returning to his businesslike demeanour. "Ahem, since you have been so kind to me, it is only fair I give you a show in return."

You couldn't help but feel a thrill of glee and curiosity. "Ooh! What is it?" you asked eagerly.

Azul's smile returned, and he leaned in closer to you. "I can show you a little trick I learned," he divulged in a hushed tone, "I can conjure fire."

"Fire?" you repeated incredulously. "But that’s… isn’t that only possible on land? They can’t… uhm... burn...? here, right?"

Azul chuckled softly, amusement gleaming in his expression. "Normally, no, fire cannot exist underwater," he explained. "But I found a way to conjure air simultaneously to feed the fire. I can make fire burn even here."

Azul raised his hand, murmuring an incantation under his breath. Suddenly, a small flame appeared in the palm of his hand, flickering and dancing like a playful fish, its warm light casting beautiful patterns on the sand below. Noticing the wonder in your eyes, a soft murmur escaped his lips. "It's beautiful, isn't it?" he whispered. "Up on land, humans use fire for illumination, cooking, and all sorts of things."

You nodded in understanding, your mind already racing with the possibilities. "It's amazing," you murmured in awe.

Azul turned to you, a look of satisfaction on his face. "I'm glad you think so, Angelfish," he smiled.

As you drew nearer to the crackling flames, you felt a jolt of awareness coursing through you, as if an invisible force were pulling you towards Azul. His warm breath, like a pleasant gust of wind, caressed your cheek, sending shivers down your spine. You gazed up to meet his eyes, so alike shimmering pools of liquid sapphire, radiating with a mesmerising allure. The reflection of the blazing fire danced in his eyes, as if mimicking the fiery passion that was stirring inside you.

For a moment, you both stood there, caught in a trance-like state, as if time itself had come to a halt. The heat emanating from the fire and Azul's body enveloped you in a cocoon of warmth, making you feel safe and protected. You could hear the rhythmic thump of his heartbeat, akin to the steady beat of the ocean waves, in perfect synchronicity with your own.

As if propelled by some unknown force, the words that had been burning inside you tumbled out of your mouth, unfiltered and raw.

"I really like you, Azul," you confessed, your voice barely above a whisper, your cheeks flushing with embarrassment. The words hung in the air, heavy with anticipation and vulnerability.

Azul's eyes widened in shock, but you caught a glimpse of hope flash across his face before he diverted his gaze to the ground. His hands ceased to hold the fire, now folded across his torso in a vulnerable stance.

"Angelfish... I... But your friends," he started, attempting to pull away from you.

Determined to make your feelings known, you interrupted him, grabbing his shoulders to gain his attention. "I don't care about my friends," you reassured. "I care about you, Azul. You're smart, and kind and sweet. I like you, no matter what anyone else thinks."

Azul's gaze softened, the worry etched into his features fading away as he drank in your words. He reached out, his fingers intertwining with yours, imbuing you with a sense of security and comfort. "My dear Angelfish," he marvelled, his voice filled with affection, "you have no idea how much that means to me."

Overcome with emotions, you leaned in, your lips colliding with Azul's in a tender, all-consuming kiss. It was a kiss of unbridled emotion, the sweetness of it threatening to intoxicate you both. It was as though the world had stilled, and all that remained was the two of you, lost in each other.

Azul wrapped his strong arms around you, enveloping you in his embrace. His tentacles curled around you like vines, pulling you deeper into his embrace. The heat of his skin and the softness of his lips were like a symphony to your senses, causing your heart to race with a mix of passion and delight-

"Azul~"

Suddenly, a voice interrupted your reverie, causing both of you to jump apart. You looked around and saw the twins, their faces beaming with grins as they called out to you. "Oh? What's happening over here?" Jade teased, his gaze alternating between you and Azul.

You felt a flush creeping up your neck as you tried to compose yourself. "Just catching up, that's all," you replied, hoping to avoid any further scrutiny.

Azul, on the other hand, was incredibly flustered. His heart raced in his chest, and his pulse quickened as if he had just been caught in the act of doing something wrong. His tentacles twitched nervously as he struggled to regain his composure, but his embarrassment was plain to see. With a forced smile, Azul tried to hide his discomfort as he greeted the eels. "Ahem, hello, Jade, Floyd," he coughed, his voice betraying a hint of strain. "We were just...uh...talking. Nothing...nothing important."

The eels snickered at his failed attempt, unconvinced by his dismissive response. "Well then, don't let us interrupt your... talking," Jade remarked with a sly wink. "Come on, Floyd, let's give them some space... for now." He added the last part with a sly twinkle in his eye, sharing a knowing look with his brother before they swam away.

As the two of you were left alone, you couldn't help but adore the deep flush of his cheeks. Unable to resist the allure of his charming blush, you cupped his jaw and pecked his cheek. Your lips brushed against his skin, leaving behind a trail of warmth and affection. When you pulled away, you were greeted with the sight that only warmed your heart further, his blush deepening like a sunset spreading across the horizon, painting the sky with a spectrum of colours.

Truly, how could anyone ever find someone as endearing as him dislikeable?

Masterlist

if you liked this post, don't forget to reblog!

#twstnexus #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #disney twisted wonderland #twst imagines #twst wonderland #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #azul x reader

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lightandfellowship · 3 months

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Fellow KHUX fans talk about this all the time I imagine, but it really can not be overstated how impressive and cool the meta narrative elements of KHX/KHUX are.

Not going to list them all here, but the most mind-blowing one for me personally: the fact that the devs looked at how browser KHX was being remade/ported to phones and said "What if the porting process was actually canon to the story? What if KHX is the real, original world and KHUX is the data copy of it?" And much like any porting process, the copy isn't completely identical to the original, which is represented in the game by gameplay things like medals replacing cards, or plot things like the Keyblade War being erased from the Dandelions' memories. (You could even argue that each game ending its services coincided with the world ending in the story.)

What's even more wild is that unless you played/watched KHX yourself or read up on KHX, the meta aspect of this particular plot point would likely fly right over your head (as it did mine, at first, as someone who back in the day avoided KHX in favor of waiting for an English release). And that probably applies to a large portion of the global playerbase since KHX was a JP exclusive game. Such an unbelievably cool and novel concept for a plot point...and yet its very existence is so obscure!

Anyway, this is partially why I have faith in KHML being cool/interesting, if nothing else. I'm fairly confident that the GPS-based gameplay wasn't chosen on a whim or to jump on a bandwagon (I don't think Pokemon GO has been new/trendy for a while now), but rather because it's going to be relevant to the plot in a meta way. Likely having to do with the connection between fiction and reality, between our world and the world of KH.

#rambling about kh

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rassicas · 1 year

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Return of the Mammalians Log.exe, retranslated

There’s a handful of differences between the ENG and JP version of the secret final Alterna Log, Log.exe. Much of it is fine, but there’s a few things in the localization that I think are...not great. I’ll talk about it at the end I reused some of the wording in the localization that I thought was close enough to the JP, and some of it I rewrote. ok translation under the cut

Return of the Mammalians There were those of humankind who gave up on the desolate Earth. They placed many surviving animals in a cold sleep, put them on a spaceship- the Ark Polaris- and set it off into space. The mission: to search for a new planet to replace the Earth.

The Polaris had a smooth voyage...until it reached the edge of the solar system. It was at that point that debris struck the vessel, damaging its navigation system. The crew was able to turn the ship around and and head back toward Earth, but the effort was in vain-there was not enough fuel to attempt a landing. The Ark Polaris drifted in Earth’s orbit for over 10,000 years.

Eons passed. The once-stable orbit of the Polaris decayed over time until the ship found itself in the inescapable pull of the Earth's gravity. All the humans and animals aboard perished, save one. Bear #03, an experimental subject who had retained consciousness within his cold hibernation, miraculously survived. For 12,000 years he had been thinking, dreaming of the planet he would emigrate to. From this, he gained a very high level of intelligence.

Upon waking, Bear #03 discovers that he had not landed on a new planet at all. He was back on Earth. An Earth dominated by marine life, with not a single mammal in sight.

In the course of his search for a single fellow mammal, Bear #03 used navigational equipment from the wreckage of the Ark Polaris to discover Alterna, located deep within the Crater. Its inhabitants had gone extinct, but upon examining the facilities, he discovered that the thoughts of humanity were burned into the liquid crystals covering the inner walls of Alterna. Thus, Bear #03 repaired Alterna's facilities and began researching the crystals...

This research bore fruit when Bear #03 compounded some of the liquid crystals with his own fur. The experiment created an entirely new substance capable of transforming any living creature into a mammal. As the only surviving mammal, He decided it was his job to restore mammals to the Earth. He aimed to mammalianize all life by using Alterna’s rocket to spread Fuzzy Ooze from the sky.

Bear #03 set out to gather Golden Eggs, indispensable in both the creation of the Fuzzy Ooze and for launching the rocket. For this, he took on the name of Mr. Grizz and founded Grizzco Industries.

Thanks to the assistance of unsuspecting Inklings and Octolings, Bear #03 secured a massive quantity of Golden Eggs. He was ready to take the final steps to set his plan in motion...

My comments:

-The “plotting and dreaming” line bugged the hell out of me, because “plotting” has some connotation of an “evil long term plan”, and Grizz had no motivation to carry out his mammal restoration plan until AFTER he woke up. The JP version is more clear about what he was dreaming about, and it doesn’t sound as evil. -the paragraphs about Grizz discovering Alterna and Fuzzy Ooze are interesting in how they’re a bit different from the ENG version. Not a fan of the “mammalian paradise!” line I thought it sounded kind of like a idiotic cartoon supervillain there. I mean he kind of is and his plan fucking sucks, but the original line makes his motivations sound a bit more reasonable-taken-to-an-insane-extreme rather than just cartoonishly insane. JP Grizz sounds more level-headed and deep in thought. -I invite you to compare the second to last paragraph, as the changes in this part are what inspired me to retranslate this. The localization left out the crucial information that the eggs are rocket fuel, and instead added in some fluff about ORCA being not-so-omniscient that wasn’t present in the original.

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #mr grizz #return of the mammalians #mr. grizz #splatoon translations #rotm

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sacchiri · 3 months

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I recently bought the jp volumes of Hellsing along with the guidebook, and since I'm reading the series in its native language for the first time I might as well share some random things that stood out to me in no particular order.

This isn't meant to be an analysis of translation differences, I'm too lazy for that. Also it's been 12 years since I've watched the anime and read the low quality fan scans of the manga so some of these comments are just "Lol, forgot this was a thing"

Volume 1

... I really want to know who this guy is at the beginning, yelling at Alucard in overly familiar language to "Get your shit together!" and "You're the only one we can count on!!". We know from the style of speech that it's a dude, probably just some Hellsing rando, and maybe it's not all that strange since he has probably been working with the same soldiers for years--but it's still funny.

"I know, it's just so nice out :("

..The way "HELLSING Organization" is spelled out like this reminds me that apparently the name is supposed to be an acronym. No really.

...

God they're so silly.

Now that I think about it, the only thing Seras has done this chapter since being turned into a vampire is say "I'm sorry" over and over.... girl you got shot in the lung, why are you apologizing

Not a huge difference, but what Integra actually says here is "Leaving a corpse here for 20 years... You're a terrible person too, Father" and not "What were you thinking, Father?" as the Dark Horse translation suggests (note the lack of question mark in the raw version). I thought that might be of interest to some.

Something else I thought was interesting is the first line Alucard ever says to Integra, and how uncharacteristically polite he sounds.

O-kega wa gozaimasenka- That's two honorific 御's back to back! (He even said them in kanji, even Walter isn’t that straightlaced and he’s literally the butler.) This is also the only time Alucard uses this overly flowery gentlemanly language with her, and good thing too because it would be so annoying if he spent the whole manga ending his sentences with ~gozaimasu.

What I'm trying to get at is, after seeing this sentence in the Japanese version, I'm like 100% sure he actually heard her when she was mumbling to herself about hoping to find a knight in shining armor, and he was totally going the extra mile in playing into that role for their first encounter. Which is kind of sweet.

Lol they misspelled Alucard on the top left... or rather, they incorrectly spelled it right?

One would normally expect Alucard to be written アルカード, and indeed pixiv dict lists アーカード as a misspelling (the u sound is weak in Japanese, so it's easy to mishear arukādo as ākādo). Hirano was definitely aware of the correct spelling though, since he used it in the pilot chapter and in his old character sheets. It was only when the manga officially began that he switched to the アーカード spelling. I doubt it was because of copyright issues because there is already a long precedent of vampire characters named アルカード in various old manga, OVA, and games in Japan that have coexisted without issue (like this guy Hirano mentions in volume 1's afterword).

Most likely Hirano simply thought it looked better, or was a means of differentiating his character from the others somehow. It certainly makes life easier for Japanese fans searching for fanart since アーカード is only going to bring up Hellsing and not the Castlevania character.

Jan Valentine even pokes fun at the spelling discrepancy later in volume 2, but since there wasn't a good way of expressing this in English it was left untranslated.

(Speaking of spelling inconsistencies, there's a lot of minor details I'm noticing now, like half the time the furigana for 吸血鬼 is written バンパイア and the other half it's ヴァンパイア... anyway)

Um, just noticed literally everyone's wearing glasses What should I do

Hirano's habit of jotting random comments underneath his panels is one of the underrated perks of reading the manga

The Dark Horse translation almost makes it sound like she's looking forward to seeing this battle play out, while in the Japanese she simply sounds apprehensive. Almost as if she's worried about them? And she's going out on the field personally to make sure nothing bad happens? Aww

Ok this is a weird tangent, but I just noticed the scans of the Dark Horse version I've been looking at use a slightly larger image range than the Japanese version does. It was only noticeable when I got to this part:

The second image is what the Japanese version of the scan looks like and I can confirm that this is what it looks like in my physical volume as well. You shouldn't be seeing the messy borders of the inking on the bottom like that.

Manga manuscripts are set up so that there are a few millimeters of bleed border around each page. You're supposed to color and line all the way up to (4) while keeping in mind that printing and paper cutting may result in the image being trimmed up to (3).

Either Hirano didn't color his lines all the way to (4) (this man has been drawing manga for years but this is Hirano we're talking about so it's very possible), or Dark Horse didn't honor the original bleed borders of the manuscript. I'm kind of leaning towards the former since there was a Hellsing exhibit in Japan a few years back where you could look at Hirano's original manuscripts and there's one where you can clearly see that he spilled a mug of tea or coffee across the entire page

Anyway, it's weird, and I'm curious to see if someone that owns a physical copy in English can confirm whether theirs actually looks like that. It's volume 1, page 141.

#hellsing #integra hellsing #alucard #seras victoria #i'm too lazy to do this for all the volumes #unless someone REALLY wants to see them for some reason but i doubt it

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onesunofagun · 1 year

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The implications on Ganondorf and his background in TotK suggest some very interesting things to me.

First of all, like. I love him. He specifically did not disappoint me. His JP audio fucks so hard. I love his design. He's glorious.

And Hyrule as an imperialistic divine hegemony is not a new concept in the slightest, obviously, the Ganondorf corner of the fandom have known and discoursed about the potential story ramifications of those themes since OoT, but Fujibayashi really went ham on it in his run. (And look. Zelda is made in Japan. Framing a divine imperial authority as a good thing narratively is pretty par for the course JP nationalism, to be really blunt. It is what it is. Grain of salt.)

But I do appreciate that it revisited some OoT plot beats even if it... really drove that point home again in retrospect

I guess new fans are in for a treat unpacking that;;;

Anyway in the BG of that, I'm interested in the particular minutia of what was happening with this Ganondorf specifically to flavour his particular brand of 'fuck you'

And a few important points that give broader context to things are these and I'll put under a cut bc spoilers obviously--

Rauru's repeated 'invitations' to join Hyrule and benefit from their protection (presumably some advanced technological access or strong magical allies as part of that promise, which I believe is probably anti-monster focused within world context) which Ganondorf as a King has very much ignored (and good for him tbh).

Clearly, he has an interest in keeping Gerudo independent.

Ganondorf is acknowledged as a Hero to his people. Not only does this heavily resonate with the very particular themes of his actual character design and both its Buddhist reference and Samurai trope homages, but like-- we're actively shown an explanation for WHY he may be considered such.

Being who he is, he's already magically inclined with a kinship to monsters. We are unapologetically shown him in command of a Molduga Army. Trained Moldugas, under his command-- and not under specifically his mystical command, either, but musically conditioned. Trained to follow sound based command cues, which makes plentiful sense given Moldugas are sound sensitive and Ganondorf usually has musical inclinations. Plus it's Zelda franchise, magic command music is also very much a thing but--

Moldugas are, at least medicinally, very important resources. On a larger scale, they're also a very present threat to desert dwellers and travellers, and from the looks of it in much larger numbers, back then.

Given the context of everything, Ganondorf was a badass even before 'he took a magic relic and fucked up the Hyrulean Royal Family' as he tends to do. Sporting as ever, he fights Link one on one as just a Gerudo, also showing once again that he does in fact have some personal code of honour when it comes to fighting worthy opponents. But it gives us a yardstick of how capable he probably was even before he nabbed the tear.

Capable enough of tangling with most big uglies in the desert, such as Moldugas, which he has at least trained and at most maybe even raised.

Exemplified Power as he ever is, I'd like to point out that in this case, he's demonstrating a flipside of what Power looks like-- benevolence, protection, guardianship. Once again, we have the pieces that indeed he is capable of that and showing that to his own people. He also flexes the Molduga Army as a show of Gerudo and its own power.

To anyone other than Rauru, who is an incredibly powerful Sage already, a Molduga Army would have absolutely won the day, I think. The reaction of the other Gerudo is pretty telling.

Ganondorf's faction were deeply shaken by the display of Rauru's power. And as a guy that's been knocking on your King's door and saying 'you should come and bend knee to me' when Gan already has the worst problem in the sands sorted out?

Very understandable.

From their perspective -- what do they need protection from, exactly, if not Hyrule itself? Their monster problem is a non-issue. From the viewpoint of Gerudo loyal to Ganondorf, everything about this looks like a pressured threat.

Which comes back around, of course, to what Ganondorf plainly lays out to Rauru when he gains the tear-- this is because Rauru tried to control him. And yes, that's Ganondorf and his pride and his nature in full tilt too. He will not be pulled beneath anyone or anything.

But that's the point about that hubris on Rauru's part, he felt superior and he underestimated both Gerudo and Ganondorf-- as a warrior and a leader, and as somebody who was likely managing things very well on his own.

But I mentioned factions. This is something that should be made clear.

Pointed ears are, canonically, associated with faithfulness to Hylia and/or the worship of Hyrulean spirits. This gets debated all the time, but that's the fact of it. We have been shown again and again that humans from outside of Hyrule have round ears (as long ears are associated with hearing the voices of the gods; ie being open to them). Exposure to Hyrulean aligned divine elements can lend pointedness to previously totally round ears. We see this happen.

It has been doubled down upon that the ancient Gerudo (such as in oot and FSA, with FSA having the introduction of the floral association in Gerudo design and OoT heavily centering mirrors in their spiritual practices) worship different deities, whether derivatives of Din or Hylia or completely different myth. The Goddess of the Sands has been confirmed as a deity that Hyrule itself views as evil and false.

I generally interpret this to mean that part of the reason boils down to this-- Hyrule's main concern is that pointed ears are living lives closer to the gods, and therefore more insulated against corruption and demonic influences. Rather fittingly, their patron's foremost spiritual antagonist tends to find his reincarnation in unprotected, non-Hyrulean tribes who are 'open' to demons.

Now that may be another layer to what Rauru means when he says protection, also. Worshipping the 'right gods' affords certain protections (and certainly supports the security of Hyrule itself).

In SkSW, by the way, there's a really cool point of questioning early human society too-- the fire temple depicts demons and monsters and snakes quite a bit, and these were built in a time when I suspect the humans were mostly a large proto-people.

Sidenote: I think Hylia's faithful went to Skyloft and generally shook out to be the Hylians we know later, where some stayed on Earth to serve Hylia's plan and became Sheikah, many more people were transformed into demons in a reverse-Batreaux situation, and some humans just scattered far and wide to avoid conflict.

Anyway that temple depicts Bokoblins making hand signs and long story short, the overall motif and meaning of that temple shows demons offering to teach things, approaching humans with a different kind of enlightenment. Whoever built that temple was very much in a state of open spiritual and mystical curiosity.

Now the takeaway there is, ultimately, the ancient Gerudo very much seem to be descended from such a sect of people. They have their own gods, and they're not part of Hyrule proper, and they have round ears because of it.

Botw departed from that very clearly, but in doing so, also erased and replaced almost all traces of the ancient Gerudo deities with new Hylian analogues.

The Seven/Eight Heroines count as Hylianised deities, and I believe the reason for this-- first suspected in botw but I feel it's weightier after totk-- is that they represent tear holders / Hylia aligned Sages in the seven group (edit: and apparently a Hero in the Eighth) such as those in the decline timeline. They are functionally the reason that the Gerudo of modern day possess long ears-- even where they are selective in what they worship, they are still worshipping Hylia aligned aspects of Divine Hyrule.

And in case this wasn't absolutely irrefutable to me beforehand, the ancient Gerudo Sage from Rauru's time is both loyal to him, and possesses pointed ears under her camel mask.

I would also point out the Hylians of Rauru's time seem to have longer ears in general, probably owing to having a Zonai King, ostensibly a Hylia aligned Deity himself.

Ganondorf's ears are rounded, of course. He clearly doesn't believe in Hyrulean worship even in lip service, and it's little wonder why.

But following another beat of OoT, that ancient sage is a very obvious Nabooru type character. And, in much the same way, that suggests that even when Ganondorf was King of the Gerudo only, there may have already been factions splitting up amongst their people based on spiritual practices.

I don't think it's beyond the pale to speculate there may have been a mixture of Gerudo at the time who had both pointed ears and round, signalling the confusion from and conflict between their spiritual leaders.

It seems likely that a schism probably existed, regardless of ears, but that schism-- and the sage who may well have been leading it-- may have been caused by people who decided respond to those calls from Rauru and join Hyrule without their King.

Which gives a lot more context to why Ganondorf would be in the mood to send a giant Molduga shaped "back off" Rauru's way, also.

I take particular note that Ganondorf's destruction intentions are faced towards Hyrule and her allies, and specifically those who oppose him in that goal. And while I concur that his whole Red Inheritance party ran hard and may well have had a decent hand in frightening the bejeezus out of the Gerudo who were previously faithful to him-- maybe even inadvertently sent some running for camp Hyrule-- it seems he considers modern day Gerudo, fully converted to pro-Hyrulean status, to be traitors.

We have no idea what happened to the Gerudo who followed him, so that's really up in the air as to how messy that may have gotten.

Even the woman who plays to summon the Molduga has pointed ears though, so I tend to lean that his camp got converted to Heroine worship (or at least those with pointed ears mostly did if the mixed ear situation was happening).

But heck, it would not be the first time some Gerudo got ran outta dodge after a King went belly up.

Food for thought.

#ganondorf #legend of zelda #ocarina of time #long post #totk #totk spoilers #botw #gerudo #zelda #zelda meta

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rikeijo · 1 month

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Today's translation #617

Newtype 01/2017, Otsuka Manabu interview

Part 1.

-- Please tell us about the circumstances, in which this project started moving?

Otsuka: I first got to know about this project, when I was told about it by the Director, Yamamoto Sayo, when we were working together on a different project. At first, I was very uncertain, if I and the studio have enough power to keep up with Yamamoto Director's TV series, because she always has been known as being very particular about quality. But inspired by the charming characters created by Kubo (Mitsurou)-san that I saw later, and Yamamoto Director insatiable love for figure skating, I decided 'let's try to do it!" and accepted the offer to work on this project.

-- When was it that you started to be sure that this project would be fine?

Otsuka: Maybe it wasn't that I was 'sure', but after we showed the second PV at 'TV Asahi Natsu Matsuri' event, I was able to think that I would trust Yamamoto Director's intuition and just run with what she feels is right. The last cut in that PV was the scene, where Victor puts his finger on Yuuri's lip and the two look at each other. When I saw it for the first time, I thought "[if we are going to show this scene in the PV] won't men not want to watch the show?" and I was considering removing that one scene from the PV. But I've talked about it with female staff members, who thought it would be a shame to not include it and I decided 'Let's [with force] put it in then!". People at the 'TV Asahi Natsu Matsuri' event venue cheered when that scene was shown. In this show, there is a lot of things that my senses did not cover, but at that time, I was able to think that [working on the project] I would realize all those ideas that Yamamoto Director and Kubo-san come up with without fear.

[Notes: It's really interesting how in almost all his interviews, Otsuka mentions this idea that including in an anime what your average otaku perceives as 'fujoshi fan-service scenes' (regardless of the creator's intentions - like, in even in YoI, a huge number of people in Jp fandom still sees those scenes as nothing more but fan-service, because that's the default) will give the anime reputation of pandering to fujoshis, and men (anybody other than fujoshis really) simply won't even consider it worth checking out. Otsuka doesn't even try to hide it here or in his other interviews, and like I've mentioned in the past, the way they were promoting Yurio so much, when Otsuka himself was claiming that thanks to Yurio, men could watch the show and enjoy it, shows, imo, what was the committee's real problem with YoI and why it may seem like they fumbled the bag and failed to capitalize on its potential so much (very little official side content, very few Y&V official arts etc...) - they wanted YoI to not be a 'fujoshi-pandering anime', but 'a serious sport anime for everyone'.]

#yuri on ice #yoi translations #yuri on ice translation

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l-crimson-l · 2 months

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I'd love to get into girlpla, I'm just a bit too broke to afford any kits; however, if you'd like to talk about it as a whole, I'd be more than happy to hear.

So…let me try this again. I had a whole nice post written up and I swapped off for a moment to check something and I completely lost the post.

Mecha Musume has a pretty long history that I’m not going to go into but here’s a little video if you’re interested.

Now when most people think of Mecha Musume there’s basically one standout line above them all: Frame Arms Girl.

This line is a bit old now but its popularity has set the aesthetic style for the market as it stands now. The build of these are…ok. Kotobukiya was definitely learning with these kits but they’re still solid at the end of it.

Now if you’re like me you’re not too much a fan of the pantsu out look, and other kits in the line don’t exactly do anything to mitigate that feeling (looking at you Durga I).

The next line Koto would release would be better at this tho. The Megami Device line features all original designs as well as collabs from new and old mecha musume brands alike.

First thing off the bat this is that they’re pricey. At an average cost of $70 you’re basically buying a Bandai MG gunpla. That said, they all typically come with a bunch of option parts. These are usually in the form of unarmored limbs, different chest pieces, face plates (with water slides to make your own) and extra connectors to help with kitbashing. Koto also has released option body segments to let you swap any part of the body you might want to if the right option isn’t available in the box (~$12). It should be noted the newest kits in this line have brought the price down to $50 as well as reengineered the build to add a lot more articulation and pose-ability.

Also in this lines favor is the articulation and build quality. You’re going to get a nice range of motion with or without armor and some of the smaller details also sometimes come pre painted.

That said Kotobukiya is a company that favors more complex character design over an Out Of Box experience so there’s some smaller details that are etched into the kit but unless your paints them won’t be color correct. I would say this is pretty common across most Koto lines.

Both the FAgirls and Megami Device are scaled at 1/12 so Little Armory guns and the whole market of 3rd party accessories will work with these kits.

Next up is Koto’s Sousai Shoujo Teien which is simple girls as plastic models

A little cheaper and at 1/10 scale instead of 1/12. I’ve not built any but I do know they can bash with Megami Device and Hexa Gear lines just fine. If you take a peek at the JP girpla community there’s actually a niche but healthy group dedicated to taking nice photos of their kits dressed up in everyday scenarios.

Finally the newest line of Koto girl kits is the Arcanadea line.

Purely in a fantasy take these are Incredible kits. I’ve only built one (Lumitea) but it was far and away a much better build experience than the FAgirl kits. These are actually designed by a vtuber artist iirc which is why the designs are so different than other Koto kit lines. If you have the cash and want to try something different I would highly recommend.

Now finally we get to Bandai. After learning from their failures with the Hg Build Fighters girls they went back and designed something solid and what got me into mecha musume: 30 Minute Sisters

Right off the bat with an average price of around $30 the barrier to entry is much easier. While not as refined as the Megami Device line, these simple kits cram in a lot for the price. You’ll get an armored and unarmored form, as well as face plates. However the biggest selling point is How Damn Easy they are to bash. Being apart of the 30M line means they’re completely compatible with the 30MM line of mechs. Which also means all of those extra weapon and armor sets transfer over for the most part. And that’s not even talking about the dedicated 30MS option sets like hair parts, body parts, etc.

This is a Very beginner friendly line of kits and the place I would suggest most people starting if they’re looking to get into mecha musume.

This example I think uses about 5 different kits to build and I don’t believe any serious modifications were needed.

Another Bandai line to mention is the Standard Figurise line which you’ll be familiar with if you’ve picked up the Sulletta, Miorine or ChuChu kits. Typically pretty solid kits (uma musume excluded, only get the 30ms version of that one) they usually include characters from a variety of different shows. These are still of course bash-able but not without modification.

With the explosion of popularity with these kits means we have even more companies now joining in the race. ATK and MS General have a bunch of kits to offer and we see new companies pop up some really sick looking kits (see tgat Galahad)

We even have Plamax giving us the really cool looking GODZ ORDER kits and soon character kits from Blue Archive, Konosuba and others.

For these smaller/third party companies I would suggest doing plenty of research before buying one. The ATK kit that I made was Especially frustrating and required a lot of extra work to make parts fit right or to clean them up so they fit at all. Not to mention the extra detail work required to really make them look like the box example. Just do your homework.

I hope this helps!! It’s a growing market so there’s always more kits being announced. This should have covered the majority of kits out there but IMPORTANT! Check sites like AmiAmi for sales or resales on kits. You can sometimes find an unbuilt kit that retails at $70 going for $30.

USAGS will regularly get Koto kits in and new releases but by no means believe them when they say a kit is USAGS exclusive. Remember to check HLJ as well. Let me know if you have any other questions and I’ll do my best to answer them!!

#whew #losing this the first time wasn’t fun #but I also really like my mecha musume #so #meh #thanks for the ask!#transfaust #mecha musume #girpla #megami device #frame arms girl #30 minutes sisters #30ms #sousai shoujo tried #arcanadea #atk girl #Ms general

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mirrormazeworld · 1 year

Text

TWST Theory : Deep Analysis Based on Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass - Crowley The Mad Hatter (part 1)

⚠️WARNING⚠️

⚠️CONTAINS SPOILER CHAPTER 6 AND 7⚠️

⚠️VERY COMPLICATED TWST THEORY, MIGHT GIVES YOU HEADACHE, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK ⚠️

Note:

You've read this far, congratulations! Beware that this is the longest and most difficult part to understand out of all parts it might give you headaches if you're not ready. (It's ok, I can't take it as well myself that I almost cried when I wrote this) Keep in mind that I have little to no evidence, therefore this theory is my original theory and purely just my assumptions so please take it with the grain of salt (as usual).

Before I explain, I want to say that I did this analysis and research purely because I want a base to make a hc for Crowley for my own fanfic/yumeship since we have little to no information about him. I just feel the need to get it all off my head and share it here because of how complicated it is and to better understand what kind of Crowley he is in my lore that I created, since how I see of Crowley is very different compared to how most people see Crowley. Most people see him as the mastermind, a very evil villain to the point most people in the fandom hate him unreasonably. I can guess it's because of almost all people in the fandom, both JP and EN side doesn't know what twisted he is and he is just mysterious and ambiguous that he is misunderstood.

Crowley has been believed for a long time as twisted from Diablo, Maleficent's raven because of his name. Some also suspected he's the crow in Snow White. Even so there's no telling of what he is twisted from. And don't you think it's a bit weird when both Diablo and the crow in Snow White role actually doesn't really have that much significance in their respective stories while we know Crowley would play a great part in twst as he is still the Headmaster of NRC. I'm sure twst fans have been dying to know what he is supposed to be for almost 3 years including myself, but I've always believed he is actually also twisted of something else other than Diablo and today I'm going to share my own analysis and hc of Crowley that hopefully would help you understand him and his character better, and that is :

Dire Crowley : Twisted of Mad Hatter

A long time ago I was just thinking, if Yuu supposed to be Alice that comes to a Wonderland, surely there should be Mad Hatter somewhere...? And then I remembered someone that seems to wear hat everywhere no matter the circumstances...

That's right, it's the Headmage of NRC, Dire Crowley.

And isn't it kind of weird that his hat is similar to that of Ramshackle ghost's? As if the clue is there in front of your eyes.

So I decided to look at it further and found something interesting....

Alice in Wonderland : The World of Math

Alice in Wonderland is a children's book because of its fantasy like story, but if you're a true book lover, you'll know that Alice in Wonderland is a book full of riddles. There are a lot of english wordplay but what not many people know is that most of the riddles in Alice in Wonderland are related to Math, as Carroll is also the Math Logician.

I won't explain much but this is an example of the math riddle in Alice in Wonderland (you can skip this part if it's too much. I just want to show you) :

In the chapter of "Advice from Caterpillar", Alice has fallen down the rabbit hole and eaten a cake that has shrunk her to a height of just 3 inches. The Caterpillar enters, smoking a hookah pipe, and shows Alice a mushroom that can restore her to her proper size. But one side of the mushroom stretches her neck, while another shrinks her torso, so she must eat exactly the right balance to regain her proper size and proportions. The word "hookah" is of Arabic origin, like "algebra", and the original Arabic term for algebra, widely known and used in the mathematical community in Carroll's time, was al jebr e al mokabala or "restoration and reduction" - which exactly describes Alice's experience. It's Carroll's view of the absurdity of symbolic algebra.

The reason why I strongly believe Crowley is/was the one who looped/rewind the time is because I suspect he is the Mad Hatter. I have always been drawing him based on this thoughts in my mind and of course it's not without reason. Every scenes in Alice in Wonderland contains riddles in it and most of them goes by math logic. And from all of those riddles, the "A Mad Tea Party" from Alice in Wonderland and "Wool and Water" from Through The Looking Glass are the only scenes that tells time in wonderland specifically that made Alice realizes time in Wonderland goes differently from her own world.

In one interview, Yana said it herself that she learned so much from Lewis Carroll's style of story telling. Carroll's background in Math and his interest in literatures allowed him to criticize ideas at that time through his Wonderland stories. This is what his story telling style is like when he made "Alice in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". Doing analysis on Dire Crowley means that I should solve the riddle first and then do an actual analysis on him.

Now you know that Alice in Wonderland is about Math, so from this onwards, I'm going to do explanation how to solve the riddle while also explaining about Crowley along the way

Note : I'm not a Mathematician nor a Physician so there might be other things that I have no idea about but I'll do my best to explain the math riddle to you...

Mad Hatter and His Relation to Time

-Time for a T-Party : "A Mad Tea Party"- (Alice in Wonderland)

“It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied.

“Of course twinkling begins with a T!” said the King sharply. “Do you take me for a dunce? Go on!”

When you read "Tea Party" it sounds the same as "T-Party". "T" is the math symbol of "Time" in mathematics. At the time when Alice in Wonderland was written and published, a mathematician, Sir William Rowan Hamilton (1805–1865) invented "quaternion", a four dimensional extension to complex number that also represent rotations and orientation happening to the four dimensional object in three dimensional space.

To put it simply, quaternion is a four number system in mathematics that shows what happened to 3D objects if they are in timespace (4th dimension)

Note :

To make it easier to understand :

...-2.5,-2,-1, 0, 1, 2, 2.5...-> is real number

3.14 + 1.59i -> is complex number

3.23 + 8.46i + 2.64j + 3.38k -> is quaternion

The 1st dimension that represented by real numbers system is line.

The 2nd dimension that represented by complex number system are two-dimensional shapes (ex : rectangle, trapezoid)

The 3rd dimension that represented by adding one more imaginary dimension are three-dimensional shapes (ex : sphere, cube)

The 4th dimension that represented by adding two more imaginary dimension to complex number is timespace.

Quaternion is a four number system in the form of

q = a + bi + cj + dk

Where a , b , c , d are real numbers and i , j , k are "imaginary" unit hence why quaternion is also called "imaginary mathematics".

In Crowley's voice clip, he said :

Not only "imagination" is the key to use magic in Twisted Wonderland, this "imagination" might have relevance to something else as well but I'll skip this part for now and will explain it later in the last part. Just remember that this "imagination" is the key word to this theory and will guide you when you read further.

In 3D, 3 dimensional consist of 3 axis : length, width, and depth. In 4D, there's a fourth axis : Time.

Hamilton spent much of his life seeking a three-dimensional number system analogous to the complex numbers. He added two imaginary dimensions, (2.64j)and (3.38k) to the complex number (3.23 + 8.46i). Three imaginary dimensions describing spaces, and the real numbers sitting perpendicular to that in some kind of fourth dimension.

Hamilton said, if you take this time parameter out of these numbers, then the numbers would just keep rotating around － they won't go anywhere, like the characters rotating round and round the tea party, round and round the table.

“Ah! that accounts for it,” said the Hatter. “He won’t stand beating. Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he’d do almost anything you liked with the clock. For instance, suppose it were nine o’clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons: you’d only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the clock in a twinkling! Half-past one, time for dinner!”

(“I only wish it was,” the March Hare said to itself in a whisper.)

“That would be grand, certainly,” said Alice thoughtfully: “but then—I shouldn’t be hungry for it, you know.”

“Not at first, perhaps,” said the Hatter: “but you could keep it to half-past one as long as you liked.”

“Is that the way you manage?” Alice asked.

The Hatter shook his head mournfully. “Not I!” he replied. “We quarrelled last March—just before he went mad, you know—” (pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) “—it was at the great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!

How I wonder what you’re at!’

You know the song, perhaps?”

“I’ve heard something like it,” said Alice.

“It goes on, you know,” the Hatter continued, “in this way:—

‘Up above the world you fly,

Like a tea-tray in the sky.

Twinkle, twinkle—’”

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep “Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle—” and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

“How dreadfully savage!” exclaimed Alice.

“And ever since that,” the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, “he won’t do a thing I ask! It’s always six o’clock now.”

A bright idea came into Alice’s head. “Is that the reason so many tea-things are put out here?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s it,” said the Hatter with a sigh: “it’s always tea-time, and we’ve no time to wash the things between whiles.”

“Then you keep moving round, I suppose?” said Alice.

“Exactly so,” said the Hatter: “as the things get used up.”

“But what happens when you come to the beginning again?” Alice ventured to ask.

“Suppose we change the subject,” the March Hare interrupted, yawning. “I’m getting tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story.”

Related to this scene, Hatter, Hare and Dormouse represent three terms of a quaternion, and the fourth term, Time, is absent because Hatter was upsetting the Time. Time won't allow those three to move past tea time and they can only move round the table in a loop, just like Hamilton attempts to calculate motion before the 4th dimension of time was added.

- Wool and Water - (Through the Looking Glass)

‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first—’

‘Living backwards!’ Alice repeated in great astonishment. ‘I never heard of such a thing!’

‘—but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.’

‘I’m sure mine only works one way,’ Alice remarked. ‘I can’t remember things before they happen.’

‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ the Queen remarked.

‘What sort of things do you remember best?’ Alice ventured to ask.

‘Oh, things that happened the week after next,’ the Queen replied in a careless tone. ‘For instance, now,’ she went on, sticking a large piece of plaster on her finger as she spoke, ‘there’s the King’s Messenger. He’s in prison now, being punished: and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.’

‘Suppose he never commits the crime?’ said Alice.

‘That would be all the better, wouldn’t it?’ the Queen said, as she bound the plaster round her finger with a bit of ribbon.

Alice felt there was no denying that. ‘Of course it would be all the better,’ she said: ‘but it wouldn’t be all the better his being punished.’

‘You’re wrong there, at any rate,’ said the Queen: ‘were you ever punished?’

‘Only for faults,’ said Alice.

‘And you were all the better for it, I know!’ the Queen said triumphantly.

‘Yes, but then I had done the things I was punished for,’ said Alice: ‘that makes all the difference.’

‘But if you hadn’t done them,’ the Queen said, ‘that would have been better still; better, and better, and better!’ Her voice went higher with each ‘better,’ till it got quite to a squeak at last.

Alice was just beginning to say ‘There’s a mistake somewhere—,’ when the Queen began screaming so loud that she had to leave the sentence unfinished. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’ shouted the Queen, shaking her hand about as if she wanted to shake it off. ‘My finger’s bleeding! Oh, oh, oh, oh!’

Her screams were so exactly like the whistle of a steam-engine, that Alice had to hold both her hands over her ears.

‘What is the matter?’ she said, as soon as there was a chance of making herself heard. ‘Have you pricked your finger?’

‘I haven’t pricked it yet,’ the Queen said, ‘but I soon shall—oh, oh, oh!’

‘When do you expect to do it?’ Alice asked, feeling very much inclined to laugh.

‘When I fasten my shawl again,’ the poor Queen groaned out: ‘the brooch will come undone directly. Oh, oh!’ As she said the words the brooch flew open, and the Queen clutched wildly at it, and tried to clasp it again.

‘Take care!’ cried Alice. ‘You’re holding it all crooked!’ And she caught at the brooch; but it was too late: the pin had slipped, and the Queen had pricked her finger.

‘That accounts for the bleeding, you see,’ she said to Alice with a smile. ‘Now you understand the way things happen here.’

The Wool and Water chapter from "Through the Looking Glass" is another chapter that gives a hint to Alice about time, particularly how time in the mirror world goes (it's moving backwards). Similar to how "A Mad Tea-Party" chapter in "Alice in Wonderland" does.

This chapter also mentioned the "King's Messenger" who is in prison and is being punished, which later in chapter "The Lion and The Unicorn" turns out to be "Hatta", the "Hatter" in "Through The Looking Glass" (and he is still drinking tea just like the "Hatter" in "Alice in Wonderland"). This chapter is the first time where Hatter (now Hatta) being mentioned in "Through The Looking Glass".

Mad Hatter, Crow, and Raven : The Key to Time is the Corvid

The first thing Hatter said when he met Alice for the first time was :

“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

Carroll said, all the riddles in his books aren't actually meant to be solved therefore he never gave an answer to it for the readers of his works. But interestingly later, from all of his riddles this one riddle became the only riddle that has an answer from Carroll himself since his readers were so persistent. Here's what he said :

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz:

'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

He wasn't actually giving the answer, but he was giving a hint on how to solve the riddle by ourself.

The answer to the riddle is like his other poem riddles where each sentence has a single word meaning – a charade.

'Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat;'

This first sentence in a single word describes a ‘letter’.

'and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!'

The second sentence in a single word is simply ‘backwards’.

The word ‘Letter’ has a double meaning of one you send in the post or one in the alphabet.

When you read the letters in the word "nevar" in backwards, it will be "raven"

This answer related to Hatter's riddle on Carroll's first publication had never intentionally misspelt with a letter ‘a’ which is Raven spelt with the wrong end in front. He was describing the word ‘backwards’ in his second sentence just like his other charade poems.

Carroll is good at saying something with double meanings so the hint doesn't end there in the charade just like that. The second sentence, when you read the sentence just as it is 'and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!' with your focus on the word "nevar" means that "The wrong end in front isn't the same as the end in back"

This refers to the order of multiplication in quaternion which is non-commutative. Quaternion represents rotations and orientation happening to the four dimensional object in three dimensional space. Swapping the order on how you do the multiplication will changes the answer.

If you do the multiplication clockwise, it will gives you positive answer : i x j = k

If you do the multiplication counter-clockwise, it will gives you negative answer : j x i = -k

Hence in quaternion i x j is not the same as j x i

( i x j ≠ j x i )

This non-commutative order of multiplication in quaternion later implied by what Hatter said after he asked the riddle to Alice.

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”

“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much.

Additionally, in "Through The Looking Glass" (the scene in 'Wool and Water') where Alice finally realized how the time goes in the world behind the mirror was happened when a giant crow covered the sky so it feels like it's nighttime, and the crow goes away after White Queen explained how time goes in through the looking glass.

By this time it was getting light. ‘The crow must have flown away, I think,’ said Alice: ‘I’m so glad it’s gone. I thought it was the night coming on.’

The giant crow appeared at the last part of the previous chapter of Wool and Water, 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee'

It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a thunderstorm coming on. ‘What a thick black cloud that is!’ she said. ‘And how fast it comes! Why, I do believe it’s got wings!’

‘It’s the crow!’ Tweedledum cried out in a shrill voice of alarm: and the two brothers took to their heels and were out of sight in a moment.

Alice ran a little way into the wood, and stopped under a large tree. ‘It can never get at me here,’ she thought: ‘it’s far too large to squeeze itself in among the trees. But I wish it wouldn’t flap its wings so—it makes quite a hurricane in the wood—here’s somebody’s shawl being blown away!’

In 'Wool and Water' White Queen said to Alice:

‘I’m sure I’ll take you with pleasure!’ the Queen said. ‘Twopence a week, and jam every other day.’

Alice couldn’t help laughing, as she said, ‘I don’t want you to hire me—and I don’t care for jam.’

‘It’s very good jam,’ said the Queen.

‘Well, I don’t want any to-day, at any rate.’

‘You couldn’t have it if you did want it,’ the Queen said. ‘The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday—but never jam to-day.’

‘It must come sometimes to “jam to-day,”’ Alice objected.

‘No, it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ said Alice. ‘It’s dreadfully confusing!’

‘That��s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first—’

She said 'That's the effect of living backwards'

If we look back at "A Mad Tea Party" from Alice in Wonderland, these chapter are related to each other and those are :

‘Twopence a week, and jam every other day.’

The King’s Messenger (Hatta) who was in prison and being punished when this dialogue happened, White Queen said his trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday. Wednesday is the 3rd day of the week. If you multiply twopence by 3, you'll get 6 pence, which can be refered to the cost of the Hatter's hat, the price tag on the hat he wears. 10 shillings, 6 pence (10/6)

‘No, it can’t,’ said the Queen. ‘It’s jam every other day: to-day isn’t any other day, you know.’

The word 'jam' in english can also means 'stuck'. And in addition to the 6 in sixpence and how the White Queen talks about the King's messenger who is in prison afterwards, this is referring to the Hatter in 'Alice in Wonderland' who is stuck in time and becomes the prisoner of time, since he can't move past 6 o’clock (tea time)

And then the 'to-day isn’t any other day' part once again refers to the order of multiplication in quaternion which is non-commutative.

Interestingly In chapter 6 of twst, Crowley also get "arrested" to the Island of Woe along with overblot students and got stuck there. He is helpless and can't do anything about it. Just like Hatter in mad tea party and when Hatta is imprisoned.

Crowley's name, "Dire Crowley" was formed from the wordplay of Japanese katakana just like how Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are full of wordplay. When being translated to Japanese, his name becomes

" ディア・クロウリ"

read : "Dia Kurouri"

Crowley's first name, Dire, has been retconned to be pronounced as "Dia" for katakana wordplay that makes it extremely similar to "Diablo", the name of Maleficient's raven in Sleeping Beauty when being read.

ディアブロ = Diaboro (Diablo)

ディアクロ = Dia Kuro

The riddle "Raven like a writing desk", particularly the word "Raven" is the key that refers to the never-ending mad tea party. Is this why Crowley always says he is kind because the collective name for Ravens is an Unkindness which is also Hatter's personal remarks about Alice's hair?

The name "Dire Crowley" also contains the word "Crow" in it. In addition to the crow being a hint in Through The Looking Glass that refers back to the Mad Tea Party, in the chapter of "A Mad Tea Party" from Alice in Wonderland, Hatter said :

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

Here the Hatter was being accused of 'murdering' the Time rather than just killing time, and hence the tea party being stopped at tea time. You know what is the collective noun for Crows? That's right, a murder of Crows.

Seeing how his name can form both "Crow" and "Raven", the key answer to the Mad Hatter riddle that relates to time and 4th dimension means that the key to another dimension (which also means a way for Yuu to go back home) is actually Crowley himself.

All this time, it's not that he doesn't know how to send Yuu back home and doesn't want to find a way for Yuu to go back. He knows from the very beginning ever since Yuu came to Twisted Wonderland because it was Crowley himself who summoned them. There's really no need for him to search a way for Yuu to go back to their world because he already knows. But just like every unique magic which has their own condition to work and its limitations no matter how powerful it is, Crowley's unique magic also has its limitations and can only be done in certain condition, which I'm going to explain later.

Also, if you didn't skip anything when you read this part, you will notice that Hatter/Hatta seems to always has trouble with laws. Just like Crowley does.

Crowley and His Connection to Blot : Mad Hatter Disease

The idiom “mad as a hatter” was around long before Carroll started writing. Colloquially used to describe an eccentric person, “mad as a hatter” is based on a problem that arose in the 1800s when hat companies used mercury in the hat-making process. The mercury got into their systems and they went insane, hence the term “mad as a hatter”.

The real milliners (hatters) in the old days used mercury at cluing the felt in hats making. During that process some of that mercury vaporized and the felt maker/ milliner accidently breathed some of that. And when they were exposed to mercury for many years it really started affecting them: skin began to pale down, nails began to gain some "yellowish" color, hair started to become fuzzy. Even pupils could become dilated. This is what later is called "Mad Hatter Syndrome/Disease"

The effect of Mercury on human bodies seems to be similar with overblot in Twisted Wonderland, since those who are overbloting will have change in their appearance (skin began to pale down), changes in behaviour and goes insane.

When this theory is written, we still don't know whether Lilia's magic is depleted because of old age or something else, but if it's because of old age, why does Crowley can still use magic in game (refer to Ortho's R vignette) while it seems like he is at the same age as Lilia or maybe even older?

Paler skin is one of the change in appearance for those who are overbloting. The fact that Crowley's skin tone is paler than even for normal faes (his skin shade is more of grayish rather than brownish when being compared to Malleus and Lilia) means that he might have been exposed to blot for a very long time just like the hatter in 1800s.

There're two possibilities why Crowley covers upper half of his face:

1. He is immortal.

This refers to Mad Hatter when he sings at the great concert given by Queen of Hearts and later accused for murdering the time by her. He should have been beheaded at that time, but somehow managed to escape and still alive and later having tea party with March Hare and Dormouse and can't move from there.

In "A Mad Tea Party" (chapter 7 of Alice in Wonderland) :

“Well, I’d hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, ‘He’s murdering the time! Off with his head!’”

And in "Who Stole The Tarts" (chapter 11 of Alice in Wonderland) :

All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to one of the officers of the court, “Bring me the list of the singers in the last concert!” on which the wretched Hatter trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.

2. It really is just my guess but if Crowley's magic has been depleted a long time ago just like Lilia, what if, the reason why even until now he can still uses magic is because he reuses magic excess, blot to perform magic and constantly poisoning himself with it just like hatters in 1800s?

As Mad Hatter, he might have immunity to blot just like Idia with his burning hair (his body can burn and cleanse blot) that it won't affect his mental state because his logic is already beyond comprehension and thus, technically he can't overblot (that's why he doesn't have phantom with him) since he is already "mad" even before he poisoned himself. But even though the blot doesn't affect his mental state, it still affects his body and his body starts to resemble those who overblot. His skin becomes paler, his lips turns black, and blot mark appears around his eyes so that he will need to cover it to hide it. That would also explain why in the prologue when he brought Yuu to Twisted Wonderland he says he is running out of time because his body is already at its limit.

Below is the explanation of blot by Crowley :

And explanation by Idia indicating that blot is a toxic substance.

Yeah, I know this is not the only explanation from Idia about blot. I chose this one for this part because even though I want to explain further since there's still something more about Crowley I need to explain, Tumblr decided to say no as I can't upload more photos(already reaching its limit). I want to explain my personal opinion about Crowley's intention based on my endless research on him for years but I guess this is it.

End Note : Originally I intended to explain it in one go and finish it all here in this part because it still connected to each other but I guess I'll still need to split it into two parts. I promise I'll explain the rest on the last part of this theory/analysis. Besides I'm afraid I might really break your brain if I do explain it all in one go so this is all for now.

#twisted wonderland #dire crowley #twst crowley #twst thoughts #twst theory #It's no longer a twst theory it's an academic paper #The fact that Crowley made me write a thesis about him-#but this is why I love him

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desultory-novice · 3 months

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What are your thoughts on Dark Mind? The fact that it’s an alternate version of Zero is interesting enough, but I also love the detail of its eye being split in a different way.

...November of '23. Where has all the time gone...? Ahem!

Dark Mind is, of course, one of those characters who we know frustratingly little about, which means that any comprehensive take on him is mostly going to be based in HC and fan theory.

The thing -I- personally find most interesting about him is something I believe I mentioned in an earlier post, but it was more of a footnote so I'm going to point it out here again:

There is reason to believe Dark Mind DID NOT original from the Mirror World! That he is not the Mirror World's Zero, or Nightmare, or some combination of the two, but something unique altogether.

The difference comes in the ending of Kirby and the Amazing Mirror. In the English version, it is said that Dark Mind wished to take over the Mirror World. In the JP text, it is slightly different, stating that he wished to control everything starting from the Mirror World!

Japanese Dark Mind HAS clear knowledge of the realms beyond the Mirror World, he just decided to start his conquest there. Given Dark Mind has his tendrils in a decent amount of Parallels, he may be connected to a force that is (potentially!) causing these parallels to begin in the first place, rather than confined to the mirror.

...Although his "disguised" form has a lot of mirror imagery. ^^; But you're right. His eye is rather different than any of the eyes we've seen before. The thing that interests me the most about that is how it looks vaguely....computer-y...

:cue mystery music:

#Kirby #Kirby series #Kirby and the Amazing Mirror #Dark Mind #Dess Quick Asks

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myrfing · 5 months

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sorry to add to the #discourse about the werlyt stuff in ffxiv, and feel free to ignore this, but your posts just got me thinking about how the average western consumer of japanese media doesn't know how to spot signs of japanese nationalism in their fave game, movie, anime, etc. For example, I remember a couple of weeks ago on twitter someone said that Miyazaki's works feature prominent elements of japanese nationalism despite not necessarily being pro-war, and both the replies and QRTs were an absolute disaster. ffxiv is a liberal game, its politics are not exceptional; they just aren't (as) egregious

Considering the social locations of people who make a piece of media and how that location affects the way they write things, like politics, isn't an outlandish concept. But ffxiv fans always seem hyperdefensive about this and i cannot understand why

yeah for sure! imo people are getting better about it (don't think it even registered in most of the english-speaking side of the internet's heads that there was a pacific theater for a long time), with more eastern media being translated and gaining popularity that DOES legitimately have leftist authors, but you still have a ton of "how can this work have jp nationalist elements when they say War is Bad 🤨". feels like a lot of this is cause really anime/manga/games were so vaunted as the ultimate escape for americans (not exclusive) and now that people are gaining more of a political consciousness, there's this need for the things that are nostalgic and soothing for them to be "good" media without Problems. which is like. not the point man. though people have always studied and conversed about media trends and the influence of eras on the art created within them and there's always been a knee-jerk You're Being Crazy reaction to it (even though if it's a conversation they're not interested in right now, the people who have this reaction usually can always just...step out lol), I feel like it's just magnified by the way social media uhh does all that. and on top of it a lot of discourse is in bad faith, so sometimes not giving people the time of day DOES seem like the correct and safe option every time but it's like...some people apply it so broadly and blindly that it's basically anything that upsets me = wrong and bullshit.

And you're totally right about xiv LMFAOOO it feels like some people are compelled to do damage control for the game like it's personal. you'd assume that everyone is working off of the recognition that ffxiv is a mass market product and a feel-good fantasy and the writing may not even reflect the totality of a writer's beliefs, but rather what they believe is the median, liberal truth that they're willing to sell. sometimes in oddball places you can find hints of something more genuine but these are exceptions. & acting like it's proofed from this is suggesting that somehow final fantasy fourteen the mmo is interested in breaking any status quos and the whole of its creators have collectively managed to break apart from the time and history they exist in, when in truth it relies on it to guide its writing and business plan. i don't think this is a crazy controversial thing. it's a normal thing. & i cant really speak for how other people are talking about it, but i rarely suggest malevolence in my critiques of the shit I enjoy moreso than I'm saying Le Hegemony Has Arrived....something not even individual people can escape myself included much less a corporation....but the accusation is assumed anyway. What is the worst that can happen by acknowledging some stories and patterns in xiv's story have very liberal takes on topics in which liberalism understands and treats poorly? i dunno the answer to this one honestly I do not understand the fear

#also dont worry im the DISCOURSEKEEPER if you kill me it will cause a flood of light that will blockchain 9/10ths of the world #also enjoying werlyt or whatever doesn't make you a colonizerhead but leaping to defend it may.#like it's ok i'm not watching you play. nobody is watching.#UNTIL YOU COME ONLINE AND SAY SHIT ABOUT IT! THEN YOU'RE INI MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY YARD (joke)

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oathofkaslana · 1 month

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lee oathofkaslana, i was wondering if you have any advice for getting into hi3, especially in regards to digging into the lore. i’ve been following along with your hi3 posts for literal months and i get more intrigued each time you discuss it so i finally decided to just go for it. i know theres the game/webtoon/animated shorts/cooking with valks but i’m not totally sure about how to go about approaching all of it and the more obscure elements (like the other games with the hi3 characters) because i don’t want to miss out on anything. is there a certain order of approach that you suggest? also, are there any resources that may help with taking it all in, like explaining the basics and the timeline or something like that? there’s no pressure to answer right away, i’m sure you might want time to compile your thoughts, i just trust your judgement on how to get into hi3 over trying to figure it out myself based on how knowledgeable you appear to be about everything.

cracks knuckles. anon im being so serious this made my day both bc of your kind words and bc its the perfect opportunity for me to infodump about hi3 resources (<- especially unfortunate part of my current interest on hi3 is that im a lil too deep into things about the game that dont really matter?? thats beside the point)

lee oathofkaslana's hi3 starter guide :) ps: important. please please read my warning in the comics section of other content.

reading lists! ok this is the most important thing so its going first. hi3's comics are a lot more important to the plot than like. genshin's. and its kinda annoying bc in some cases you'll be guided from going between chapters of the game to a comic and vice versa. i highly recommend checking out both of these reading lists: hoyostans reading guide (start from part 1 phase 1) archives wiki hi3 reading list the seconds a lot easier to follow imo! especially with the earlier ones. i personally prefer primarily using the second one and then consulting the first to see if there's any extra content that's missing (since some ggz/retconned hi3 comics are linked there and provide some context! the first one also has some very helpful notes from the OP!) i DO think that reading the comics in the order listed on the archives wiki and then starting chapter one is best. it might feel like a dip in story telling though but i promise it will get a lot btter once theyre a lot more stable w their game development and writing :)

other content: comics: ok first i have to put a warning. escape from nagazora is from ggz iirc and like. early ggz and early hi3 humor kinda sucks ass. there's awful sexualization of underaged girls and its weird about women and this is where a lot of the fetishization comes in. they're also not normal about consent here. also another warning about azure waters. it heavily references CSA and has an almost rape scene and i completely hated the way it was all visually portrayed. if needed I will gladly summarize these comics for you without any of those details. this aside, the comics are included in the reading guides! there are also non-canonical ones though! (4komas featured on the manga site and 4komas from the jp twitter! theres a google drive linked in the other post w fan translations. they're comedic and not at all canonical but they may spoil things since its run coincides with the game's progress so i dont really recommend reading them until you're farther along. atm i am just starting part 1.5 and ive read most of it, but i am intentionally avoiding newer ones just by looking at what design is in the thumbnail. they're very quick to read though dw!) animated shorts -> they are included in the game :) if you would prefer watching them in chinese, i'm afraid you'll have to look at it on youtube though :' for some reason on the western servers all the CG's in the first part are in japanese even if you switch your language to chinese. chronicles -> they're included in both the reading guides! theres some that aren't very lore relevant (dreams of gemima and kallen chronicles) but they're a fine source of weapons and crystals (hi3 equiv of primos) part 2 -> i haven't started it yet but from what i've seen, it's recommended that you finish part 1 before this. open-world -> again, follow the reading order for these :) the only exception is APHO because that takes place in the future (after part 1.5). i haven't finished it and i personally don’t plan to until after i do 1.5 in case there's any important spoilers! there are major hints that kinda spoil the end of part 1 though. <- same with the alien space comic. it takes place. sometime after APHO i think. other universe events -> primarily captainverse. obv these take place in a different universe! these characters are not the same as the main characters. iirc the only one that's really lore-relevant is honkai salvation log (it comes later in the game and later in the hoyostans reading guide!!) donghua: cooking with valks: not canonical content. season 1 is pretty safe but it is best watched after chapter 12 to get full context for some references! honestly you could probably get by with watching the rest of the series after imo but if you'd prefer to play it safe, the hoyostans guide includes it :) golden courtyard: do not watch this one until you finish chapter 31. journey crisis: do not watch this until you finish part 1.5 ggz/hg2: honestly. you don't need to know ggz for hi3. you would benefit from knowing the retrospective timeline's history for the main trio but from there on, ggz and hi3 follow completely different stories with different characters. honestly you could go by without knowing the main trio's history in retro i think its already explained enough in the main story and other media.

links. youtube: homulabs -> has cohesive lore videos that help a lot (esp later on)! also has some hsr stuff if you're interested :) hide's honkai archives -> playthroughs of all of part 1 completely in chinese (including cut scenes). also fixes up some of the translations since i believe the eng translations are translated from the jp dub! i mostly use this to both rewatch chapters when i need background noise and look at cutscenes with OP's translations. i find it interesting.. official hi3 youtube visual novels: again, look at the reading guides. im pretty sure think some of those links on both guides are wonky though so ill provide them here. ae visual novel (eng) shattered swords/7 swords visual novel (eng) durandal visual novel (eng) i also have a larger post with various links here build/combat: ok this is my weakspot. marisa honkai -> kind of unfortunate backbone of the hi3 community. allegedly kicked someone from his discord server for saying kiana is a lesbian. but his infographics are useful! he also has a youtube but i can't vet how his videos are o7 <- lore player and very obvious about it elysian realm shallow sequence -> in case you're ever struggling w this part. dont worry about it early game though you'll get to it in time. honestly its optional though so.

quick tips/loose info:

the wikis will be your best friend.

do the character trials!! they teach you how to use any of the characters and you can open them whenever you want! if the battlesuit is new, you will also get rewards if you do the trial in time :)

honkai has an absurd amount of currencies for some fucking reason. this is more of a warning than a tip.

ok imo hi3 combat is super super fun but my god the powercreep sucks asssssssss. i hate the process of building characters because you have to pull for characters signature gear and that equipment banner's pity doesnt carry over it fucking sucks.

BUT don't worry too much honestly if you are just playing for the story like i am it doesn't matter too much since you don't need to use your own valkyries for much (story wise). do at least build some though even to a minor degree (you will need them for chronicles)

speaking of gacha though! there's no 50/50 to worry about in honkai!

don't go into the chat for room 1 its fucking scary and full of weirdos (derogatory) and assholes. first and last time i went there i saw homophobes.

remember this is all for fun :) sorry if this seems long or wayyyy too serious i meant it when i say im awfully fixated on this fuckass game! i hope you enjoy it if you continue to play it :DD <3

#hnk3 #asks #links #<- in case you wanna save this but are too shy to rb! lmk if you'd like me to tag this with anything else :D #this was really really fun to type up ty anon! sending you love n luck :)#feel free to send any thoughts or reactions :) im obv not normal abt this game and rereading each part of the story is vv fun for me #also feel free to send me any more questions you may have!!!#and i think that is. all i have for now :)

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decepti-thots · 8 months

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(I’ll preface by saying: huge JP fan who has no problem with people not liking it)

Anyways I’m actually super curious…

How are most JP fics “boring”? 🤔 I’ve always found their dynamic to be more entertaining than most, given the dichotomy of their characters.

So I’m curious as to how you’ve wound up at “boring” of all the possible reasons to dislike it. 🤣

I'm going to be a bit blunter here than I usually would be on the topic, as I was directly asked. So I'll cut the uh… negativity? I guess? For those who prefer not to see folks talk shit about a ship they like, lol.

First and foremost Jazz/Prowl is basically just… essentially made up and purely based on fanon inventions/additions, and made up fanon stuff is usually not of real interest to me without a very strong hook somewhere in the actual canon material. It is 99% fanon by volume that draws on little to no canon material of any kind but just... years of fanon, reproducing itself and mutating almost like a fanfic game of telephone, all developed in fandom echo chambers. Which renders the characters in the vast majority of fic a) largely unrelated to any canon material I like in a meaningful sense and b) tbqh, the kind of generic stuff found in a lot of typical, large dudeslash fandoms where the characters are… they're Dudeslash Fandom Archetypes with a gloss of paint on top, you know? People come in, look for which character in a fandom fits their favourite m/m trope the most, and then squish the character down to fit into that pre-existing archetype.

And the thing is, J/P has historically made a certain kind of sense for this, because the appeal was basically that… they didn't HAVE that much canon material? In the Marvel G1 comics, they have a little more specific characterisation and canon, but the G1 cartoon is not exactly a character exploration piece ANYWAY, and for Prowl especially he is a blank slate you can functionally project an OC onto. Which like, that's fine! That makes a lot of sense even if it's not what usually draws me into something.

My issue has become that if I read one more G1-fanon-soup fest mistagged "IDW" I'm gonna scream. I like IDW Prowl (and IDW Jazz too!) for the fact that these characters have specific, strongly delineated canon personalities, arcs and dynamics, and both of these characters- Prowl especially, but both of them!- have like. Things about them which are true, and which J/P fic not only tends to ignore but actively treats in a loooot of cases as somehow Inferior To Our Fanon and something to be "fixed" with idk, the power of Extremely Generic Dudeslash Tropes. I've been in many a fandom with Migratory Dudeslash Fandoms writing fic. J/P is extremely rote to me as a result, if nothing else.

It warrants mentioning that J/P fandom is where one does find a lot of examples of just undeniably racist treatment of Jazz in fic, both the truly inexcusable phonetic accent bullshit and also a lot of bad decisions around tropes. I don't think this is a function of the ship, per se, but that its specific persistence in J/P fandom (bc trust me: this has been a point of criticism for A Long Fucking Time) is in part due to it having this long entrenched fanon-to-fanon game of telephone going on? It would be better to talk about the fandom's issues there outside ship talk so I'll leave it at that, but I can't deny it has not… helped my feelings. TBH. And I know that's where a lot of the resentment you will find in the fandom obviously stems from.

IDK. It's just. It's usually fanfic of itself, you know? J/P largely feels to me, in most cases, like fanfic of fanfic of fanfic, and I come to TF fandom for fanfic of a canon. So. Yeah. Not a fan. At all.

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6ad6ro · 2 months

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ok. i finally finished final fantasy vii rebirth. and i wanna talk about it. i guess you could call this my "review". this post will be vague and spoiler-free unless you click on the "read more".

i do love this game, but it's an absolute mixed bag: story: 10/10 combat mechanics: 9/10 music: 9/10 art direction: 10/10 voice acting (jp): 10/10 open world (non-quest stuff): 4/10 sidequests: 6/10 minigames: 3/10 pacing: 1/10 does this game have flaws? yes. is it as good as the og ff7? no. but is it worth playing? absolutely. i almost feel like this game needs a "cheat sheet" in order to know what parts to play and what parts to avoid. but the good parts (mostly the linear main story stuff) is SO gd good that it's still a must-play game. ok but now i'm gonna go into details (and spoilers) under the rm cut.

so i'll go over some of my scores. firstly, the story is the main reason to play this. they def fuck around a lot, maybe they bait and switch a bit too often, but in the end it makes for a very compelling (or at least interesting) narrative. at first, i was REALLY worried that this game was gonna turn into just some "fan pandering nightmare". and it felt like it was "ff7 without it's claws". esp when everybody was dancing like pop stars and aerith and tifa kept high fiving. but... it def got into that good ff7 trauma we know and love later on. and respect to them for following through with killing aerith. yes, they did what i sorta expected. they teased tifa dying instead, teased aerith NOT dying, and then killed aerith anyway. they EASILY could have left her alive, but they didn't. they kept in the loss angle, which imo is what makes ff7 "ff7". i kinda LOVE that now you have a batshit cloud "seeing" aerith's ghost like it's star wars. and everyone else seems almost... afraid of him. and rightfully so. also i LOVED the zack stuff, even though it was absolutely confusing. i like that they're hinting at zack somehow breaking through his reality into the rm universe. i also like the tease that... idk... will there be another "party" involving zack, kyrie, biggs (if he's still alive or not)? regardless, a great story!

the combat feels mostly improved over rm. the gameplay is fantastic with very few flaws. difficulty is way more balanced than rm, with easy feeling a bit harder and normal feeling less unfair. the only times i felt frustrated by the gameplay was when they laid the "stone" status effect on too thick in parts bc it felt cheap. is it as good as the og combat? no. it still def has the unfun "you desperately need to heal but don't have a charge and the enemy is immune to everything so you just die" thing. but credit where its due, the "free item a few times per battle" materia fixes a lotta those issues.

the music is incredible. the remakes of old songs generally kick ass. some of the new music was pretty good, too. though it gets a point off because a lot of the open world stuff music felt... generic? this is just a situation where the og game's music is TOO GOOD, so the new music will always be fighting this sort of uphill battle.

the art was perfect. just the shading alone... like jesus this game is absolutely beautiful. i took so many goddamn screenshots in game, and they'd often end up looking like key renders, even tho it'd just be a random ss i could take at any angle. this game went above and beyond all expectations.

the voice acting... there was SO MUCH and it was all SO GOOD. tho i did switch to jp voices. bc... in this sorta storytelling, eng just sounds like "drama club"? idk there's a reason the language of origin cast is usually better and that's just how it is. it was perfect.

ok now we're gonna get into some of my issues, starting with the open world. it's not ENTIRELY awful? some was genuinely fun and exciting. but the majority was busywork. like it's so weird when the mainline stuff was so good that this would feel like a shitty ubisoft game. and chadley... fuck that dude. worst character in the series. but for SOME gd reason he ends up talking to you nonstop! i hit the point where i'd wince any time i heard his "radio" turn on. he took an already mediocre open world and made it way worse. fuckin chudly.

the sidequests that weren't just repeated busywork were usually neat. tho some were bad, and others withstood their welcome. the cutscenes/dialogue were usually fun or genuinely great, but they too often came at the cost of wasting your time. they often had shit rewards. and they often incorporated the shittiest "minigames" ever (i'll go into this more in a minute). example: you gotta find ingredients for a character who is learning to cook. but it isn't just going out to find them in the world. no no no. you gotta follow a dog (ftr i love the song) as they slowly meander through a jungle, running into every mob they see. and when you finally get to where the "salt" is, there's a dumb scavenger hunt minigame where you need to find only the 5(?) salt piles that look like the photo. THEN you gotta get on your chocobo and look for mushrooms in a confusing, puzzle-like terrain. which also involves a smelling/follow the direction minigame, which always leads you into mobs. and once you get to each mushroom? there's this STUPID picking minigame. after all that, what reward do you get? an accessory that functions like maybe the worst materia in the game, but also takes up the accessory slot, making it even more unusable. FUCK this game sometimes, lol.

speakin of "fuck this game", the minigames. the 200 minigames (exaggeration, but it really feels like that many). some are genuinely incredible, like the piano minigame? which might be one of my favorite minigames of all time, it's legit THAT good. or "red xiii rocket league". but for every good minigame, there was a mediocre one. and then a terrible one. or one that gets WAY too hard in higher difficulties, like the mog game which starts fun but ends up dogshit and unplayable a few levels in. even tho the good and passable minigames are the majority, the bad minigames? they're maybe some of the worst minigames i've ever played in my goddamn life. like, by design, they're almost anti-fun. i genuinely believe some of the people in charge of the bad minigames should be blackballed from the industry. it's bewildering.

and finally that brings us to the pacing. if you play the game the way they seemingly expect you to play, getting to each new area and sidequesting a bit before continuing on with the story? then you'll spend five hours of mediocre/bad sidequest for each hour of good story. that's even worst if you're a "completionist" at all, you can triple or quadruple that number. we all loved remake because it "expanded the midgar section". we were all hoping they'd do the same with the og open world. the very idea of "big open world, but so much bigger" seemed incredible. but they certainly gave it to us! like they gave us exactly what we said we wanted, lol. when i first started playing rb, i was mostly completing each area. by the second or third area, i was more than 50 hours in. "burnout" is a gross understatement. all the mediocre sidequests combined with the sometimes unplayable minigames ALSO COMBINED with fuckin chudly? and i actually started to hate this game. it made me miserable. i'd get to a new area and just roll my eyes. i'd see a new minigame tutorial pop up and i'd mash "cancel". but wouldn't you know it, once i started skipping most minigames/sidequests? i started havin a ton of fun. turns out this pacing issue can be mitigated a lot. straight up you can ignore most of the open world, and i would actually strongly recommend it. if you DO wanna sidequest a bit between story, i'd say put on a podcast, set the difficulty to easy, and turn the voices down (bc chudly). and don't do everything. oh no. just do enough to unlock the chocobo, to buy the best materia chudly has from that area, and maybe get the summoning. even THAT is probably too much. bc near the end of the game, you get the opportunity to go back and finish a bunch of the stuff you missed the first time. and i actually enjoyed a lotta that stuff then! it was almost like a period of rest and relaxation before the end story stuff.

there are ways, intentional or not, to make this game feel even BETTER than remake. when you skip most of the side stuff, it's paced incredibly well. so it's hard to say it's a bad game. it's actually a really GOOD game with "too much side content". if you treat the open world stuff as just like, a living, detailed world you glance at as you zoom by? it's actually really cool that it's there. i have a couple more pros/cons that i wanna mention, but i don't know where else to put em. like the end fights. thematically, i adored em. in execution, it went on for way way WAY too long. it was like a 15 (yes FIFTEEN) phase fight. on normal, i swear it felt like it took close to two hours, full of unskippable cutscenes and only like one checkpoint. it also takes away al of your team composition too, consistently forcing you to use characters you don't wanna use in the hardest fights in the game. first time, i got through to the very last sliver of final sephiroth's health, only for him to cast some dogshit unblockable "everyone is at 1hp" move at the end. it was ok bc "i'd prepared for this". so i instantly had one character use a gigapotion on the other, who i switched to so they could dodge just to be extra safe. the potion... missed? how? and then before i had a chance to use another, he killed the remaining character. bad game. shit game. but whatever, i hit retry. and i couldn't believe it. it sent me back 7 phases. i was livid. it had sucked the air outta the room. so i said fuck it and restarted the whole fight from the start on easy, because i can't tolerate that kind of scumbag game design that wastes a player's time. and wouldn't you know it, turns out i'd been at the very end of the fight when i died. if the potion had gone off like it shoulda, i would have won, no question. ironically even on easy, that trash situation happened again, but the potion actually went off this time, that was the only difference. but yeah. fuck that fight. it was cooler thematically than the final fight in rm, but it was three times as long, and three times more unfair. fuck whoever designed this fight, they too should be blackballed from the industry, lol.

the last thing i wanna talk about is queens blood. bc my feelings on it are sorta all over. so it starts out kinda boring, like as basic as ff8 triple triad, but wayyy less fun. and you're very limited in who you can play and what cards you can add to your deck. the ai seemingly "cheats", but it's so "linear" that you can win anyhow. and they musta known they'd lose most players, so they legit give you the ability to "flip the game board" at any point in the match and start over with zero punishment. they knew the game wasn't rly fair by design. but it's still good they had the easy retry feature, or they woulda lost me too. the qb experience sorta continues this way until you get to the latter junon area, where suddenly you run into... idk what to call it. intense difficulty spikes? like this dickwad who's playin a rockabilly guitar. FUCK that dude's deck and FUCK his ai. almost single-handedly got me to drop qb altogether. i was absolutely done, had decided qb was just a poorly designed game. thankfully, right after junon they have this big tournament on the boat to costa del sol and it's really fun. you suddenly are getting cards that have actual strategy. and suddenly qb opens up. there was a slight misstep after the boat where they make you play these stupid "puzzle" versions of qb, but you can look up guides and, even if they aren't fun, they help teach you about the game. anyways, i cautiously started playin more matches in later areas (skippin fights that seemed too lame), and before i knew it, i'd kinda fallen in love w the game. it also helped that they started incorporating this fun n bizarre story, too. so idk. i'd say play qb the same way you play the side content, skip a lot of it until you get to the end game? and then go back with cards you bought or won and finish the ones u missed. it's so weird that so much of this game works this way. and i could see someone arguing that "it's just a bad game". because when most games hand you content, even side content, most players expect they should at least give the content a fair shot. it really is kinda poorly executed. but! there are so any ways to mitigate the bad and focus on the good. knowing what i know now, i like this game even more than remake (which i really REALLY love). rebirth was fuckin great. and thank fuck i didn't get spoiled, tho i never wanna hafta try n rush through a 100+ hour open world ever again. i'm really excited for part three, just hopin i can remember to skip over a lotta the optional stuff. also hoping i won't have to buy a fuckin ps6 or whatever just to play it.

#final fantasy vii rebirth #spoiler #spoilers #final fantasy vii spoilers #final fantasy vii rebirth spoilers #long #i had a lot to say

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