#this doesn't really mean anything yet bc we don't have enough context

[angelltheninth]

Aaaaaaahhh your recent post with the vampire!s/o was so good omg!!! Bc I’m a whore for vampires, could I perchance request it but opposite, with us as the human and them as the vampire? No worries if not, thank you for the content you provide us with and I hope your day is going well!!!

I'm a whore for vampires too! They are so damn sexy, why can't they be real?

Pairing: Jinx, Vi, Caitlyn, Ekko, Silco, Sevika, Viktor, Jayce, x Reader

Tags: fluff, blood drinking, vampire au, biting kink, hickyes, possessive behavior

A/N: I'm normally a little squeamish around blood but in this context I think it's sexy.

Jinx has gad bad cravings before but since she got injected with Shimmer they increased exponentially. She's also become less in control of herself when she's feeling thirsty.

She used to feel on people randomly to satisfy herself but none of their blood could fill and soothe her like yours could. You became her favorite snack very quickly. Tries to be less feral on you when she feeds but at the same time she craves your blood so much she can't help but drink from multiple spots on your body.

"This is gonna be a lot for ya sugar. Are ya sure you wanna do this? Have you eaten yet? I don't want ya passing out on me like last time. Ya scared the hell out of me, I thought I actually killed ya. Ya promised to say with me so ya better not go dying before I've had the chance to love ya like ya deserve."

Vi was very starved of blood when she was in prison. Even when she did get fed it was never sweet human blood. It always tasted very bitter on her tongue.

When she got her first taste of you she was afraid she could never get enough. She was scared of hurting you with how hard she was biting, or worse killing you if she was to lose control. However if you press your wrist up to her lips she won't resist it, and will always kiss the spot she bit. If she does go overboard you have permission to punch her.

"I call you sweet stuff all the time cause that's what you are. Really you're the sweetest thing I've ever tasted in my life. I could eat you all the time, and I don't just mean drinking your blood. Your blood tastes even sweeter when you're flustered. Can I have a sip?"

Caitlyn may have had the highest quality blood available to her as a member of the Kiramman Clan but she never actually feed on someone before.

She had no idea anything could feel so damn good. The adrenaline of it nearly sent her into a feeding frenzy. Lucky for you she has excellent self control over her urges. Pampers you when she's done drinking your blood, she has to make sure you're happy with her, that you have everything you need.

"Are you comfortable darling? Does it hurt anywhere? No? Ah good, good. Why don't you relax and I'll go prepare a bath for you, order us some food. Maybe my dad will make your favorite. Or we could go out to eat if you're feeling up to it."

Ekko rarely feeds on you if he can help it. There's more then enough blood to go around from the supplies they steal. Of course it doesn't taste as good as your blood but he'd rather not risk it.

The only time when he will drink from you is when you're hurt and already bleeding. Not only will get a little sip of you but he will also help close up the injury. It's a win-win situation as far as he's concirned.

"That looks pretty bad Firefly, what's you do to get nasty cut? Alright, no need to panic. Come here, take a seat next to me, let me have a lick- er... look... uhm... sorry. You know what your blood does to me. I'll only drink a little and have you fixed up in no time."

Silco has many people available to suck blood from and even so you're by far his favorite. He gets territorial over you in a way he never gets with anyone else.

There are times he's happy to share with Sevika but not share you, never you. Your neck is for him only. He will leave you marked with bites as you leave his office. If you're too tired to leave you can sleep on his couch, he'll make sure you're not disturbed at all.

"You smell more divine than usual my darling. Is that for me? You know I'm always happy to bite that pretty little neck no matter what. Although it would be a lot easier if you stopped your squirming. I know how my bites have an effect on you but please do try to stay still, I would hate to hurt you."

Sevika loves more then she lives any other of her vices. You're better than of her other vices, more tasty, more fun, and so damn cute when you bare her neck to her.

Where she really likes drinking from you though is your thighs. She can switch from eating your blood to eating you in a whole other manor in seconds. She can blur the line of pleasure and pain for you so much that you crave her as much as she craves you.

"Haven't you learned by now sugar lips, I want your legs spread for me when I ask you to. I know you get pretty tired when I drink from you so that's all I'm gonna do for today. Wouldn't want you to get sick or too weak. Tell you what, you let me have a bite, and then we'll go out and have a bite together."

Viktor gets a lot of energy when he feeds on you. He's well aware of that fact and has actually kept that hidden from you because he knew you would just offer yourself whenever he's looking very pale.

Your relationship is so much more than him feeding on you. You taste great don't get him wrong, he just hates the idea of you thinking that all he loves you for is your blood. When he's at work he never eats so he can be pretty hungry so that's the only time he really indulges.

"Darling I'm sorry to ask you this again but could I have another drink of you? I know you tell me I don't need to ask but nonetheless I will. When you're feeling fatigued let me know and I'll stop. Your neck looks so pretty with my teeth marks on it, I love staring at it when we're walking around the city."

Jayce really loves to suck your blood yet is often to shy to ask for it. He'd just stare sheepishly at you until you chuckled and bared your neck for his hungry mouth.

He loves to press you close to him, sharing body heat, what little he has with you while you sigh and relax into his fangs, scratching at his scalp and pulling him closer. Sometimes it's hard to tell who's enjoy thing this more, you or Jayce?

"Sorry about that babe, didn't mean to keep staring at you like that. I am a little hungry but I can wait until- oh, woah, alright then, right into my lap hm? What am I gonna do with you? You're as excited as I am aren't you? Well then don't mind if I do."

#arcane #arcane x reader #jinx x reader #vi x reader #caitlyn x reader #ekko x reader #silco x reader #sevika x reader #viktor x reader #jayce x reader #arcane headcanons #arcane imagines #league of legends #league of legends x reader #league of legends imagine #league of legends headcanons

[gnomeniche]

[banging pots and pans] torment night! it's dhmis theory torment night!

TONIGHT i am TORMENTED over: the implication from 6 that duck and red were somehow created just for this world to watch over yellow, who is probably more of a real person than them

(whatever that means in this context. we don't have enough information about the nature of everything yet. bear with me please)

the evidence presented to the court (under the cut bc this got way longer than i expected):

WHY are there no versions of YELLOW on the higher floors? WHY do the big and bigger versions of his friends say they've been waiting for him to learn alongside them?

the line about them no longer being in charge of him... implying that at some point there was an assumption that those two were caretakers or watchers-over, even though they didn't act like it? they mostly acted like friends. like really condescending jerk friends who still cared about him, but mostly like friends. i know we joke about them being parents to him, but they don't really act it.

this is more an argument from symbolism but: only yellow has batteries and is thus is able to move autonomously from an electrical outlet, which obv ties in thematically to his revelations about the weirdness of the world while his friends are left behind. what does that then say about the guys without batteries? does that imply the other two are less autonomous and more linked to this world?

we do not see any replacements in lesley's drawer for anyone but duck, so DUCK at least is most likely to be artificial, given how rigid he tends to be in behavior and how he questions things least alongside this little visual tidbit.

"but op!" you're not asking, "we know that duck doesn't usually question the world and mostly just gets annoyed with it, but what about RED? doesn't he always feel out of place? what about him escaping in the original series?"

my answer: he never actually escaped in the original series. going back and watching original 6 after the new series, the "real world" that he is in... does not seem quite real. it falls away so readily. everyone in it is just another version of him. he doesn't even free the three of them; pulling the plug just resets the world. it might just be a higher layer of the world they're in.

as for feeling out of place: i think an artificial being that gains sentience can and will feel that

and now we get to what torments me so much: if yellow's tragedy is that his existence IS somehow more than the simulation but he's had that taken from him, and if the other two guys are both artificial and their existences are dependent on this world, it make both of them tragic in opposite ways. duck's tragedy is being an artificial being who simply cannot be anything more. RED'S tragedy is being an artificial being who so strongly WANTS to be something more.

and the thing! is! i think that they're gaining more autonomy as they spend more time existing and interacting with each other and yellow. if you watch the three guys' character progression from 1-5, just like in the original series, you can see the three of them start doing more and more and more stuff on their own besides just Sitting There and Receiving The Lesson. and just for red and duck's part, ofc there's That Scene between them in 6; when the lights are off and the world seems shut down, they still move, and they express more vulnerable feelings than normal. (is there meaning to how they are cut off before they can talk about how they feel about yellow? is there meaning to the fact that their demeanor completely shifts the moment a bit of light re-enters the room? probably. hard to say exactly what at this point though).

i fully accept that this theory may be wrong. compels me though. and by compels me i mean it has me on the ground writhing

#dhmis #dhmis theory #dhmis red guy #dhmis duck #dhmis yellow guy #am.txt #dhmis analysis

[lexicals]

So I'm gonna write this down partially for my own reference and partially bc I'm curious to know what other dms following me think of the concept - curse of strahd module spoilers below the cut here

So long story short the CoS campaign I was running had to be put on hiatus because of inter-group issues, and at this point my plan is that once I've finished running our current pathfinder module, I want to reboot it minus the players that will not be returning for various reasons, and plus the new players that want to join from the pathfinder group.

Now obviously the rub here is that 2 of the 5 or so players have already played this module up to lv5, but the other 3 are coming in with varying levels of knowledge (one person has DMed it, but long enough ago that he doesn't remember most of it, plus a lot of the later sections I've got for this module are homebrew, and the other two know nothing about it other that what I and the other players have mentioned to them). I don't really like the idea of subbing in 2 or 3 new characters to the campaign halfway through, as this will be a completely new dynamic that they'll have to adjust to on the fly, as well as the new players having no context or attachment to anything that's happening, but nor would it be fair to the OG players to just slap them back to level 1 and have them try their best not to metagame.

So, I am thinking. What if I just groundhog day the whole party. They get reset back to the entrance of barovia, but retain all their levels and gear that they've picked up, and the NPCs that were travelling with them (Ireena and Arabelle, in this case). My in-universe justification for this is that one or both of the party members who will definitely not be returning fell prey to the temptations of the dark powers, and tried to kill either Ireena or each other, in order to earn themselves their own demiplane domain (they've just come out of a homebrew mini-domain, so this would be thematically appropriate I think). The third player who is currently a "maybe-depends-on-scheduling-but-probably-not" happens to be a paladin of lathander, so he (in his aspect as the morning lord) and the elven god of dusk whose name I cannot remember right now work together through her to perform an act of divine intervention that results in the reset, and can remove her from play if needed due to the impact of channelling that much divine power. This would be linked to postgame homebrew plans I had linked to a couple of players' backstories (unfortunately mostly the ones that are not returning, but what can you do) wherein shar aka mother night is amassing a cult in her name whose endgame goal is to summon a beast capable of destroying the moon and thus assassinating selune, who lathander & co are allied with. They know that if the cycle begins again with ireena's death/the party falling apart and strahd remains undefeated the party will not be able to leave barovia in order to combat what's happening on the material plane, and they can't afford the loss of time that would occur (I'm thinking it has to be this particular group for prophecy reasons or something idk about that yet lmao). The party get their reset with the warning that they cannot fail again.

This also means that I can justify a hike in difficulty by removing the influence of the morning lord and the sun itself from barovia, leaving shar and strahd more powerful as it becomes a very literal land of eternal night. Aside from that, my plan is to run everything mostly the same as before, with the hope that the old players will be able to have fun being allowed to selectively metagame with their knowledge of events, which they can share with the rest of the group, who also get to experience events they would otherwise have missed. It should mean we get through the content we've already covered fairly efficiently but with room for things to play out a little differently this time, whether that's fixing mistakes from last time or making new ones lol.

I think it's hopefully a fair solution but I would be really interested to hear what other people think about it; my main worry is that it won't have the intended effect and the old players will be bored while the new players feel swept along. Genuinely would love to know what other GMs or even just other players think of the concept!

#wastepaper basket #curse of strabo #I'm too shy to put this in the main tag so like 🥺 DMs following me pls tell me your thoughts.......

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

I have one (1) question about the fic though...

Whats the deal with the travelers? Are they real? Did one of them really end up leading the abyss order after the fall of khaenri'ah and did the other wake up 500 years later and search the entirety of teyvat for them? Is paimon real? This is technically more than one question but you get the idea,,, i have one (1) line of questioning,,,

If you don't want to or can't answer thats fine :))

no worries! i assume you're asking abt ajax' timeline of teyvat, bc the one he was sent back to (guizhong and morax') doesn't have the twins in it yet (twins are post-archon war stuff as far as we know? on paimon i've no clue), if it'll even have them at all. because-

the general answer is: i'm pretending the twins and paimon don't exist. not because i have anything in particular against them, but because i feel like we know so little about their lore that trying to fit them in to an au of this kind would only overcomplicate everything. as things in the fic stand, the twins were basically ocs by the game's creators that served as drivers for the story.

i have more thoughts about this? but it ended up being kinda long so i'll put them under the cut hahah;;

the tl;dr is you can believe whatever sounds more interesting. the arc and everything in the og timeline was always just context for everything that came after, so it's not all that important.

if i had to fit them somewhere, though, i'd probably say that the abyss twin dies in the chaos of the split, which makes the traveler decide to take drastic action and fully put their all into helping the archons gtfo of teyvat. basically the abyss twin dies and the remaining one sacrifices themselves to get the arc out of teyvat.

an alternaitve idea is that, upon finding out that the abyss order has been pupeteered by asmoday the entire time, the abyss twin decides that fuck it, they ball, and they join forces with the traveler to help the arc gtfo.

my main issue with all this is that, since we don't know squat about how powerful the twins are, i don't know if the split would've even been necesary given they could've gone and ended celestia if they teamed up. or alternaitvely, if they had helped in getting the arc out and stayed behind with the archons, if the world would be in a state as dire as rex lapis described it. so the only way this makes sense in my mind is if a) one of them dies in the chaos or b) they are somehow not strong enough combined to take down celestia and thus jump into the archons' plan. or the angsty route of c) celestia takes control of the abyss twin and either they make them kill the traveler or force the traveler to kill them? either way they both end up dying or functionally incapacitated (physically or emotionally).

so you can see how things get complicated hahah

that's why this au sort of chooses to interpret the twins as not having been real in the original timeline, but just ocs that the game added to tell the story more easily and without having to pick one of the historic figures to be the protagonist. that's kind of what childe has assumed all along, also.

so really, i'd say you can take your pick for whichever sounds the most interesting! since i was working under the assumption that the twins wouldn't affect the outcome of the story, really, you can believe what you want. i guess that means you could also choose to believe that the twins teamed up and helped the archons get the arc out, and it was just that rex lapis and ei never mentioned them? anything goes tbh

all that i said also applies to paimon btw. i know it's kinda mean but, again, since we know so little about her, i'm just working with the idea that she's just- an accessory, to the traveler. functionally speaking she's an extention of them. kinda mean but that's the only way that comes to mind to describe her. so like- if the twins were ocs, then so was paimon. if the twins joined forces with the archons, then so did paimon. if it ends in tragedy, then paimon was simply there for the traveler, and if the traveler dies, then- well idk. i'm not sure paimon can die. uh-

so yeah?

sorry if that's a bit of a disappointing answer! i'm pretty sure i mentioned it somewhere before but honestly i might be missremembering. anyway-

ahhh long word dump, my bad. thank you!

#ily <3

[godtier]

and now for something completely different—

so I'm playing through ffxvi and I wanted to Rant about my experience so far so spoilers

so firstly, and not actually spoilers lmao, idk why this game makes my ps5 so warm. it's honestly not... *that* impressive graphically? which isn't necessarily a dig at it; I'll play anything as long as I can tell wtf is going on and it's fun to play. so idk if it's just yet another AAA game that isn't optimized well or what, though typically console games are *more* optimized... idk! just a gripe.

other than that, I'm seeing some Issues developing narratively... I'm not what I'd call an Expert Writer but yknow it's been noticeable so far. here are few thoughts and gripes with the story:

the inconsistencies in the story. the biggest one so far, and this is what I'd consider p big spoilers, is clive's whole "I gotta come to terms with the fact I killed Joshua" which is like... okay *fair* I suppose, but once he figured out that he was ifrit, yknow after killing benedikta, he... I mean he kinda *did* immediately accept it?? so... the whole "I gotta accept this" part was odd. I have heard tell that it was meant to represent a jungian acceptance of the shadow, or at least that's what people are alluding to in their own theories (and this is all secondhand btw bc I have the tags blocked til I finish)

to elaborate on what jung's interpretation of the shadow is for those who don't know: the shadow is essentially the suppressed subconscious, the things you don't want to acknowledge, for better or worse. it's most typically applied to things like traumatic events, but jung specifically does not commit to the idea that the shadow is *only* bad things. when you confront the shadow, the next step is to integrate the shadow to the conscious mind or ego, which you could argue was why they may have written it the way they did; clive isn't just acknowledging that he did do that (which he pretty readily did when he figured out he was ifrit's dominant) but he's also accepting it as irrefutable fact and integrating it to the ego so it cannot be repressed again.

now... having said that, the *problem* narratively that I'm seeing is that... well. Joshua isn't dead. clearly if Joshua had died... well, that'd be one thing. now they're saying "well ACKCHUALLY 🤓 he didn't die at all!" so that, to me, renders the entire "journey" pointless. what exactly is he accepting? if he didn't actually do it, why or how could he feasibly accept ifrit in that context? wouldn't his subconscious mind, his shadow (ifrit in this case) remain unincorporated? it's just very clunky and I think it was meant to show Clive as an unreliable narrator.... but there's really no one there but Joshua to confront this false accusation. and Joshua is MIA currently at the point I'm in so! who knows!

moving on, Jill is currently nearly a non-character at this point. what I mean by that is she's always just sort of... there. the only times she's shown depth is her speaking about hating herself for what she did with her powers while in captivity. even then, it doesn't appear to be given the attention smth like that deserves; we see a handful of flashbacks from when we fight her at the very beginning... and that's really it. I would like to see more but I have a feeling they will not be showing us

benedikta died way too early. she seemed like she was going to be a character of mild intrigue, but she was killed so very quickly. her and cid's past relationship (whatever that might have been) was only just elaborated on (we know cid saved her from slavery but little else), but I feel it could have been fleshed out beyond that. they spoke in broad terms about how she was and then what she became... but nothing I would consider to be substantial enough, given her connection to a major character. we also don't see enough of her and hugo, just that scene where they practically dry hump in the hallway. we know he cared a lot about her, esp during the scene with her uh. severed head? which... who did that, exactly? they blame it on cid, but we know he would not have done that. but anyway, fleshing out their relationship would have been nice

cid's death. now, it's not that I'm saying something as basics as "he could have lived" which, maybe? and it's not even that they did the whole "oh [mystery person] (it's Joshua) shows up to save them but he's too late!" trope crap. what bothers me the most about his death from a character perspective is his lack of *any* mention of the daughter he supposedly loved so much as he lay dying. now yes, up til that point, we only know that cid has a daughter via a sidequest that people could miss. but that in and of itself is an issue. why introduce that aspect of his character... and then never do anything with it while he was alive? why did they feel it sidequest worthy? they could have just slipped it in as banter or something, maybe gav teasing him or something?? anything?? basically the fact that he dies without nary an utterance of his so beloved daughter, not even her name, was a huge sour point to me. sure, you could argue that he wanted to get pertinent information to Clive as quickly as possible since he knew he was dying, but I would have been satisfied with just a whisper of her name (which I don't remember them mentioning during the sidequest?) and they could elaborate on it later, maybe in a follow-up sidequest??? maybe you find the letter he meant to send her back?? anything??? it just seems so weird from a characterization standpoint to introduce this concept of him melting for his daughter, his daughter being such a soft spot, etc, and then... never addressing it in a meaningful way when he's on death's doorstep

OK this is a dumb thing and not necessarily a negative thing but how the fuck did tomes, a geriatric librarian, survive the raid on the hideout but a bunch of younger, much more spry characters just croaked and couldn't escape lmao. IDK I LOVE TOMES DONT GET ME WRONG but it was just so... idk. funny? I also get it's a game mechanics contrivance as well, given that they built an entire mechanic around him, but idk I wanted to mention it bc it makes me laugh

that's about it for now. if you message me about this tho, pls no spoilers beyond the iron kingdom crystal raid. thank. 🙏

#final fantasy xvi #ffxvi spoilers #ff16 spoilers #final fantasy 16 #as mentioned in the post #pls don't spoil beyond the mentioned point #thank #otherwise feel free to discuss any of the above #bc it's wild to me

[golbrocklovely]

The comments annoy me truly. For once i wish he’d deactivate them. They swear hes a Sim. He was JUST with Amber in a gondola, saying he wants to see her in a see through shirt and nothing else, claiming they were on a date, yet now he is suddenly and has been dating Katrinas friend. But on the topic of calling HIM out, he knows EXACTLY what he is doing. Could have done it with Katrina or Abbey but no he knows and that teasing is annoying as-well because it riles up the comments. Then the girls leave after getting attacked, or push things too far and he gets mopey.

i think colby knows what he's doing. while he doesn't like drama, i think he does like ppl talking about him. i think he likes lurking and seeing, honestly, convos like this. bc i think it puts into perspective that NO ONE KNOWS HIM. you can never guess what he's gonna do next.

i wanted him to be chaotic this year, and lord above, he's following thru lol

idk why so many fans think that just bc he does a video with amber, or stas, that that now means he's dating them. like, he's friends with them both.

if he had done this tiktok with sam, ppl wouldn't say that he's dating sam now. why is it an issue that he's doing it with a friend of his that's a girl?

bc EVEN IF you switch out stas with a different girl friend of his, the context would still be the same. ppl would be upset that he's with a girl in a video, and would flip out and think he's dating them.

this man can't do anything with a woman with ppl immediately thinking there is more between him. is he supposed to live his life pretending to not have girl friends?

and as for his actual dating life, again, we don't know it well enough to really assume that. and if you are true, the girls could be leaving bc of other reasons, not just the hate the fans might be giving them.

#ask #personal #cb ll

[eluminium]

I just like Skranchers bc its Silly and Funky and is an overall easy tag since Plateup Trio feels strange since other people play Plateup and its too nonspecific, Chaos Kitchen/Chaos Cooks is related to general other cooking content (at least from what I've seen while trying to search the tag), and unlike ZIT/ZITS or BEST, STJ/JST [?] doesn't have a sound to it so it's so easy to mix up the letters for someone like me that can't even remember basic number sequences

I understand wanting Skizz to have more credit and be treated with more respect instead of as an add-on, especially in content HE INITIATED, but I also don't think fighting about a tag is really something we should be doing? Like,, for example, saying someone dropped a 'dumb take' while making a completely valid point wasn't informative, just needlessly malicious? (Note: I apologize, if you meant that lightheartedly, I was just looking through the reblogs and saw that and it just kinda?? Feels icky??)

I understand not liking the tag or not using it, but is it worth stressing and being hostile towards other fans? If anything it just alienates anyone who might want to get into Skizz's content because of the hostility over using a silly tag

I say all of this nonmaliciously, I just want to better understand, not the intent/frustration since I mean I Get It, but why it's projected so harshly upon other people just trying to have fun with a silly goofy name

Well, the simple answer is while it would be great if we all could just use whatever names we wanted for duos/trios/quartets/what have you, at the end of the day we are a community that will have to decide on a name for ease of communication. That's why we have the names in the first place, yeah? And while the name "Skranchers" isn't objectively problematic (and neither are the people using it) it's a name I subjectively hate with my entire heart. (For the reasons stated in that OG reblog, which wasn't just about Skizz being pushed away. I'm assuming you've read it just so I won't have to repeat myself. If you haven't then I'd highly recommend reading it because y'know, I explain my reasons for why the name is Trash.) It was the name that was catching on with the fandom and was on its way to becoming the "official" tag for them. Which would mean that it wouldn't just be people having fun with a goofy name, it would be what everyone referred to them as, and if I and people like me wanted to interact or make art about them, we'd be forced to use that name. Now our fun is sacrificed, and for a really unneeded reason since I don't think anyone would be offended if we just came up with another name for them. We should all get to have fun together, instead of some of us having fun and the others having to suck it up And while you're entitled to your opinion, personally I don't think that's a strong enough argument considering we have names like Desert Duo despite the fact that Grian and Scar have not been in anything Desert-related for like, 2 years. Same with names like Seablings or Wither Duo or Flower Husbands. They're not bad names at all! But they are extremely removed from their context nowadays, and yet we still use them and recognize which characters are being referred to. Really, Ranchers haven't been Ranchers for a year if not more. The only reason we call them Ranchers is that the fandom knows that it's the name for Jimmy and Tango. Based on that, why would we reuse that name with its own unique dynamic/setting and glue Skizz to it when neither he nor the trio dynamic/setting has ANYTHING to do with Ranches, Ranching or the aesthetics of such? They play Plate-Up together! That's their thing! (for now.) Just like the Ranch was The Thing for Tango and Jimmy during DL! Therefore it would make more sense to make a trio name related to Plate-Up or cooking instead of using anything relating to Ranchers. I can however agree that the letter combos don't really work since there are no vowels. I'll give you that one. Personally, I use "Goodfellas" for them based on that entire bit where they were acting like mobsters, and someone in the mob is referred to as a Goodfella. But names like "Goo Crew", based on the Goo jokes, are excellent as well! Thing is also if you read that OG post and its reblog, outside of that one tag (which was intended to be overly dramatic and not fully serious but I now see that it was a mistake to not mark it as such. Sorry about that.) it's not attacking anyone. It's very focused on the name itself because I don't have a problem with the people using it. It's a dumb name, yeah, but that's no reason to hate someone. That post was not meant as an attack, but more as me showing my own resistance to the name and imploring my fellow fans to perhaps pick another name! Because I think the name is shit, and extremely frustrating as a Skizz fan. Especially with the recent "The S in ZITS stands for Solidarity" nonsense and the fact that Rancher fans have a bad habit of throwing Ranchers into places where people were trying to talk about something else for once while carelessly pushing aside other characters. At the end of the day, everyone's gotta have a weird hill to die on. And this is mine. Does the name of a trio made up of fully grown men playing video games together matter to my life that much? Of course not. But in a fandom space, which this is, it does matter to me.

#el answereth #el ranteth #CHOO CHOO DISCOURSE COMING THROUGH #well it's too small to really be discourse #so uh #CHOO CHOO RANT IS COMING THROUUGHHH

[i-dont-know-nor-care-go-away]

my tummy hurts and I refuse to be brave, if it hurts, I can complain

tw for my vent n shit also don't worry it sounds bad out of context it's not as severe as you think I'd add a read more but idk how to tumblr on mobile and don't respond or ask me about it I just need to get it out thanks

also unrelated note, I have realized the reason I don't like the words "I love you" is not bc of extreme romance repulsion bc I'm aro but years of trauma and manipulation to the point where compliments can make me nervous (especially about my looks or inspiring quotes people say like you are loved you are worth something) like don't tell me I'm so beautiful please stop it, I just hate it... it reminds me of THAT person.... (it wasn't in a se×ual abuse situation don't worry) I'm kinda ok ish with "you are beautiful" or ur pretty but the words "you are so beautiful" just make me want to rip off my skin

if someone compliments my dam skin one more fucken time..... I just can't b ew yahsgvsbs

and I hate whispering and people pulling me aside into a small space just tell me away from people in an open room ok? but I can't ask for people to not trigger/make me uncomfortable without saying I have trauma about weird shit. Like closets and bathrooms (again not as bad as it sounds, was not se×ual abuse)

AND DONT TOUCH ME ISTG ASK ME OR LET ME ASK YOU DONT TOUCH ME

also why do people act like there is always a trusted adult. 99 percent of adults in my life have to power to ruin it if they try or if I trusted them enough to let them in. I know people say reach out but they don't get it. I am not an adult, I have no power. all adults have way more power and that makes them too dangerous to let in. at this point it is probably like my life could be in danger if a stupid adult tries smth with my mom or dad. if I trust an adult with all of *gestures to trauma, gay and Trans ness, on going abuse, ME in general* .. that, and they try to do smth about it bc they think they know how abuse works, I might be kicked out or most likely a lot worse. Adults are like those captas where you prove you aren't a robot. every adult is a test to see if I can not set off any red flags that I'm not.. normal. it's so tiring that it's a relief if an adult doesn't care if I live or die.

also, thought I did a good socialization today, apparently it was shit :'( I tried so hard this time, I talked the least I could and didn't fidget in veiw of the new person or the other people. I talked a bit much at the end, I think that was it? I mean, I was talking about what she liked, and I let her finish her words and got through a convo with 2 other people. im the youngest there though so was I not suppose to talk? we were supposed to be meeting her tho and get to know her????? I'm so tired of being so broken l. I just really tried and my big sister is still disappointed in me. she should just leave for collage already, idk why she doesn't hate me yet...... I don't want her to, I just can't be the person she wants me to be. I'm just so tired I can't be anything but a complete shit hole and I hate it.

and I just gave up on my friend. I want to help her but I'm also fucked up but saying that triggers her so I just- and she's out of the hospital and I don't want to be rude but I just don't want to talk or be friends with her anymore, its too much but I can't tell her bc she already thinks that and I think that about my friends to and its too much god wtf are we doing we are kids we shouldnt want to kill ourselves are this age. But I want her to have friends and be happy but she only wants me as her friend and has no one else and she gave up and it's not healthy anymore but I can't just leave and I can't ask for help but I can't just be on call and talk her out of suicide every Thursday I live in an abusive house and I'm also always on call for my mom. I can't just pick her up and drag her along but idk what she's like now bc she might have blocked me so....

I should draft this but ik like no one looks through my posts so eff it

#tw venting #this is a vent idk #its not as bad as it sounds just really weird #for the 1st part ish

[polkadotpatterson]

losing Beans to get Greer back: eh, whatever

losing CV: unfortunate, but inevitable

“the Topeka Moist Talkers”: fuck off

#we're not american fuck you #like. I get it. haha funny joke #and yeah teams move. if we were ever there we've now moved here #but it kind of comes across as erasing our universally accepted lore #and yeah maybe the library info is wrong and lootcrates is lying about everything #but this genuinely just feels... bad #lots of people joined this team specifically because it was canadian #including me #and I know we can still do what we want with our lore and work with how the team got to Halifax #this doesn't really mean anything yet bc we don't have enough context #I just don't know why they thought this was a good idea #did they expect a bunch of canadians to be ok with being told their team is american #are they deliberately trying to piss us off #idk I just. I'm tired. blaseball is so much more So Much lately #I miss the old days #talking moistly

[dross-the-fish]

Totally Underwhelming Eclipse of the Half-Hearted

Because I am not done talking about Dance of the Vampires.

If you want to see what I had to say about act 1 here are the links to my other posts

Now, the good news is that this second act is probably the better half of the musical. It's less consistently bad and a little closer to the European version, there are even a scant hand full of things that work.

But the bad stuff is really bad.

After Crawford sings the midnight serenade to Sarah we cut right to Total Eclipse of the Heart.

The problems in this number aren't anything we haven't seen before, I mean Crawford has been an unwelcome presence for most of act one, the choreography is shit, and the set, if you can call it that, is pretty pathetic, (fucking bleachers!) but I want to talk about a few things I haven't really gone into detail about yet.

The music. For the most part the music is generally the same, although it does sound like someone took Tanz and shrunk it. The orchestra and choir really lack the epic quality of the European version, but whatever, it's close enough. I'll give credit to Mandy Gonzales, she sounds great. In fact she sounds so good here that it just serves to highlight how awful Michael Crawford is.

Then you get to the lyrics.

The lyrics are a huge problem with this adaptation because in a lot of key songs, they weren't actually adapted. What we got in the final product isn't a translation of Michael Kunze's lyrics, rather it's a copy/paste of the existing lyrics (with some minor tweaks) from Jim Steinman's songs.

It's easy to say this was done out of laziness but given what I know and recently have learned of Jim Steinman I'd say it's very likely he didn't want his lyrics compromised. He has a reputation for being a massive ego and I'd be lying if I said I couldn't see the telltale Jim fingerprints all over the final product. I may expand on that later, but before I deviate too much from my initial point.

The lyrics.

Because they are cut and pasted from existing songs they no longer sound like the voices of the characters. They sound like the voice of Jim Steinman. In Total Eclipse Von Krolock sounds lovesick rather than predatory and Sarah sounds like a world weary old soul who's been burned before and is afraid to love again.... instead of... you know... and 18 year old girl who's never left her father's inn. This is even more egregious in Starker Als Wir Sind/Braver Than We Are because so much of the English version's lyrics are vague biblical metaphors that don't actually make much sense coming from a character like Sarah.

Example in Braver Than We Are Sarah sings "How can we fly like an angel in the sacred air?" At first that kind of sounds pretty, but in the context of the moment it doesn't really fit. It has almost nothing to do with what Sarah is doing or feeling and it's just empty imagery.

This is a fairly consistent shortcoming of Jim Steinman's songwriting. Style over substance plagues a lot of his songs. Even his best songs sometimes have weird lyrics that sound cool but don't actually mean anything.

Amazingly that doesn't hurt his music nearly as much as it should. All three Bat out of Hell albums are pretty strong, so much so that I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite between them.

In the context of a musical, however, it's a different story.

Let's take a look at the Tanz version to do a comparison.

The lyrics here illustrate a Sarah that is giving into temptation but feels shades of regret. Even as much as she wants what's being offered she knows there's no going back. Superficially it doesn't seem that different in theme from the English version but the lyrics do a better job of revealing Sarah's thought process.

Speaking of temptation let's touch on that for a sec, temptation and resisting it vs giving in is a huge theme of this musical. Draußen ist Freiheit and especially Das Gebet are all about temptation. How it pulls us, how the thing that finally breaks our resolve must be stronger than we are. Sarah is tempted by a voice that calls to her and offers her something dark, sensual, and forbidden. A fall from grace that will damn her forever but grant her her wildest dreams. Really the overarching theme of temptation needs its own post because there are so many layers, so I'll save it for after I've finished my breakdown of the full play.

We spend all of Draußen, Starker, and Das Gebet watching Sarah teeter on the edge and Finsternis is where she finally falls. There is a LOT of emotion here. The lyrics beautifully illustrate what she's feeling and how Von Krolock continues to suck her in by offering her her dreams.

In other words less this

and more this...

hell even this would have been preferable...

... you know I'm starting to see a pattern with young girls name Sarah and mystical older men in uncomfortably tight pants.

So why doesn't Tanz suffer from the same problem's with lyrics?

Probably because Steinman doesn't speak German and so had little say over how his songs got adapted into the German language.

The lyricist for Tanz is Michael Kunze, known for his work on Elisabeth and Rebecca and Kunze is honestly a wonderful lyricist. He does an excellent job giving each character a consistent voice while giving the lyrics depth and nuance. Which might not have saved the Broadway version, but it would definitely have helped.

Speaking of lacking depth and nuance....the next scene is the one where Von Krolock greets Alfred and Abronsius at the gate of his...

.... completely empty stage.

Hang on to your butts folks. It's gonna get real ugly.

#Youtube #european musicals #tanz der vampire #michael crawford #dance of the vampires #phantom of the opera #tanzblr

[crabnby]

ok @the-defiant-pupil i'm just gonna go ahead and make a new post bc this is about to get too long for my adhd ass

(context: continuation of this post)

1. funny thing is, i've actually read most of your sources already. they get really, really boring after awhile though, bc all of them start to say the same thing: yes there are differences, but there are also similarities, and scientists have yet to figure out the significance of this.

i'm not gonna go through each and every one of your sources, and i shouldn't be expected to either. when it comes to biological research, find the most recent articles with the most solid evidence/conclusions and call it good. don't dredge up an entire archive. i could find you sources that only characterize lichens as 2 symbiotic organisms rather than 3, but that wouldn't be correct bc the most recent research says otherwise. so yeah, just bc you CAN find that much info out there doesn't mean all of it is viable and should be used.

also, you can't just list a bunch of sources and expect it to be enough. you should contextualize them, explain them, tell your audience why each one matters. if you're really going to have that many, then be prepared to give a short annotation for each one bc i can guarantee you no one has enough time on their hands (or in my case, attention span) to read that many sources

your "plain as day" source by the way?? says this as well:

this is what i was talking about earlier!! do you actually read, contextualize, and analyze what you read? or do you just find the first line you agree with and run with it?

bc what i got from reading that article is that even after years of research and the largest study to date, scientists STILL don't fully understand what they're looking at, and they might never. so we, as people Not Actively Researching This Subject should be incredibly hesitant to draw our own conclusions when even the researchers can't do so.

i also like that the author mentions how socialization can affect brain structure and development — did you know that domestication causes visible differences in gene structure between the ancestor and current-day species? bc of selective breeding, humans changed the genetics of dogs, cows, crops, etc.; genetics changed bc of domestication, domestication didn't come about bc of a change in genetics. and i KNOW that you're going to tell me this has nothing to do w what we're talking about, but it does hold a similar concept: it's not just genetics and bodily functions that affect behavior, the environment has an equally important role.

similarly, gene expression in almost every species is highly regulated by the environment just as equally as it is the body (and for clarification: environment means anything external, body means anything internal). as are hormonal responses, reflexes, emotions, etc. all of which can have subtle but lasting impacts on the body! i don't actually think that anti-transmeds are trying to deny science when we say that how your brain developed is not the only thing that affects gender identity! i think it's kinda actually the opposite!

2. i've haven't heard of this tumblr biologist, so please direct me to their publications, i'd actually really love to read them

3. science literacy is a whole other beast than literacy in general. like, yes, you have to be able to read, but suddenly specific word choice and HOW you read articles becomes important. it goes from reading chronologically (english literacy) to reading section by section and contextualizing what you've read in previous sections and articles so that by the end you understand the initial hypothesis, if the evidence ACTUALLY proved it, if their methods were sound, and why it matters in the particular field.

i'm not trying to say that people who aren't studying science can't read peer-reviewed articles and understand them, but you do have to realize that it's a completely new skillset you have to practice over and over again, not just something you can pick up on the fly

4. i think you completely missed my point about the anti-vaxxer movement. the reason it started was bc McBastard Wakefield published his article and before any other research could be done to refute it or back it up, the greater population picked it up and ran with it. 7 or so years since it's been debunked and he lost his medical license, but people still believe him bc he got published, and to some of the most accredited journals at that.

my point was that just bc the research exists doesn't mean we should accept it at face value until the medical/scientific community can undeniably say "this is what this is, and what it means." and they're STILL doing further research, which means that hasn't happened yet. bc the whole point of science, and by extension research, is to never be satisfied w your results, and instead continue to look for more than you can currently see. or at least that's what i've been taught.

bc to look at published articles and assume that they MUST be true bc it's PUBLISHED SCIENCE is...exactly what the anti-vaxxer movement began on. and i'd rather not repeat that.

(please show me, by the way, how """tucutes""" 1. actually exist and 2. harm anyone by simply living their own damn lives)

5. yeah """""tucutes""""" don't have any science bc uh.....there really is none. science is a process, and we're currently in the research phase which means NO ONE should be using it as proof. it's good to say "hey this exists" but to completely invalidate someone's existence based on studies that scientists are still trying to understand? that's called abusing and misconstruing results

6. i'm guessing you don't actually care, but sure. i'll explain mating types of fungi to you.

in short: genetic diversity is advantageous for survival, and fungi are nothing if not crafty little bastards, thus 1000s of mating pairs for better chances of sexual compatibility

in long: each mating type is determined by a set of genes. really, you can think of mating types as extended alleles, since each distinct allele has a distinct mating type.

so as for 5 different mating types and how they're different...there you go. that'd be like asking me to tell you 5 different alleles of the same gene and how they're different. the only difference is in sequence and then how they're expressed due to differences in sequence.

usually we don't categorize every single mating type since that'd be a bit...much.

however, we can and do categorize fungi by how they reproduce! i.e., what kind of syntamy do they display? can they go through diploid selfing? can they inbreed or only out cross? what's their primary stage of life: diploid or haploid? do they rely on sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction? if it's an ascomycete, do they form pericarps or ascocarps?

in fact, one of the main differentiators between fungi is their life cycle, most of which is geared towards reproduction. that's why although basidiomycetes and ascomycetes are the only fungi that can form macro fruiting bodies (as well as many, many other similarities), they'll always be categorized differently.

but i digress. the reason i compared fungal mating types to brain morphology and "sex" categorization is bc i was making an analogy. i'm not a neurologist, as you can probably tell at this point, but that doesn't mean i haven't taken any classes that covered the brain pretty extensively.

what i was really trying to say was this: everything that i've read so far says that although there's definitely some differences between brains, there's also a significant amount of overlap, so much so that when you try to categorize the brain into two distinct types, you're still going to have an incredible amount of variety.

likewise, you could, theoretically, do the same to fungi. you could sequence the genes from each mating type, determine the different SNPs, and categorize them into two distinct groups based on what SNPs they do/don't have. it wouldn't make sense to do so, though, bc there'd still be too much variety within each group.

this was just me trying to relate it to what i personally study but tbh i can see how that would've been confusing, so i apologize for that

#sigh #trans discourse #anti-transmed #transmeds gain scientific literacy challenge

[overdrivels]

The Hanzo-disliking anon here. I would have actually preferred discussing this w/ you privately but I prefer to be on anon for the whole "doesn't like a beloved popular character" thing. The reason I don't like Hanzo is how he seems to have the audacity to act like the offended party with Genji when he's the one who did wrong. It's not even that he doesn't realize he did wrong. He abandoned his clan due to guilt. I can't for the life of me understand what appears to be his victim complex. (1/2)

(2/2) He goes around calling Genji “trash” to his face in the Japanese version of OW for goodness’ sake. That Genji is dead to him and stuff. It could be that he feels Genji betrayed him by refusing to join the Shimada business or that he feels like his redemption quest has been for nothing, but those are terrible reasons and don’t excuse his shitty behavior. I’ve been trying to think of what the writers are trying to go for with him, but I just can’t imagine anything that justifies his attitude

(3/2 I miscalculated 2 asks aren’t enough) I hope I didn’t come off as a jerk. I have no issue with people who like Hanzo and I don’t want to disrespect or undermine them. I’m just irritated at how self-entitled the character seems to be. The reason I actually brought this up with you is bc I was hoping you’d have some insights on this that will help me understand why he’s the way he is.

You’ve been very respectful in the way you express your opinions and well articulated in your reasons, so I’m actually extremely happy that you’ve presented this to me and feel comfortable enough to share. (You have no fucking clue how pleased I am to have a discussion like this, really.)

This is rather long (very long), so I’m placing this under a cut. To everyone else, please be mindful of each other’s opinions, especially when it’s being conveyed so civilly. Understandably, if you are of the opposite opinion, you may feel angered, but I ask that you refrain from attacking anyone and if need be, present your opinion and thoughts in the same manner as this anon.

(I also ask that this doesn’t get reblogged because I don’t think I can handle my inbox getting wrecked by people who weren’t initially a part of the conversation or know the context of the entire discussion leading up to this.)

I’d be happy to discuss it with you on chat or something, but as it is, this’ll have to work. I’m going to preface this by saying that Hanzo doesn’t need to be (shouldn’t need to be?) justified as a character because sometimes, a character does shitty things and that shittiness (shittyness?) needs to be acknowledged and not justified for any reason because there’s no good enough explanation.

(I’m sure we’ve all experienced or done something like that in real life–did something so inexcusable without proper explanation, but there really isn’t one, and we have to accept it as is.)

I think it’s easy to look at the singular action of Hanzo killing Genji in a vacuum. Based on that singular event alone, and seeing how Hanzo acts afterward, it’s very easy to paint him as an asshole whose actions are inexcusable and he doesn’t deserve to claim that he’s the one who is hurt. In which case, absolutely. He should not act like he’s been wronged when he’s the one who started it.

But what if we start further?  

I want to look at the cause and what could’ve led up to it. Not to justify it, but to see where this could’ve come from. It’s my own opinion, but I think that people are very used to writers having their characters as is–no background unless it’s relevant to the plot, no thought of what sort of life they’ve lead up to this point, and is presented as a given. However, I see that the Overwatch team has put some effort into characters (the level of effort can be debatable, but I’m not interested in debating that), so I want to show some level of respect to the writers by trying to dig a little deeper into where, why, how–who is this character?

And I think a lot of it may have come from Hanzo’s circumstance, his relations with his brother, and his past. To understand it, we have to take a deeper look into Japanese culture (or Asian culture, in general). Now, I can’t claim that I have a complete understanding of anything, so a lot of this is just what I know (and perhaps experiences) and some speculation and logical deductions.

In life, Genji was given a freedom that Hanzo, as the eldest and the heir to a criminal syndicate, never truly enjoyed. That isn’t to say, however, that Genji didn’t have his own fair share of troubles. 「一族の恥」(ichizoku no haji)、the clan’s shame/the embarrassment of the clan is what they called him. We can leave the discussion about Genji for another day, but let’s look at how this affects Hanzo.

So from birth and even after his father’s death, he was held to a strict standard. Everyone was watching him. He was chosen by the dragons. He must not make a mistake lest he bring shame to his entire family.

In Japanese culture (and Asian culture), losing face is probably one of the worst things that could happen to you. In Western culture, it’s not that big of a deal if you embarrass yourself a little or you’re not as successful or you don’t have the respect of your subordinates. People will tease you about it, and move on.

In Asian culture, you’re pretty much fucked. No one will let you forget it, it becomes a part of you now. You will lose the respect of everyone around you, and depending on the level of face you lose, every piece of success you’ve built up can be lost in a second. It is an integral part of your identity and society. Losing face could make you a nobody, scorned, and an outcast. It can affect your job, your family, relations with neighbors, cost you that raise or promotion–it’s a big deal that cannot be contained to the words, ‘embarrassment’ or ‘shame’.

(For example: you’re at someone’s house and you’ve finished off your glass of juice, but you’re still thirsty, so you reach for more from the fridge. You’ve now made the host lose face because, by getting your own drink, you’ve shown your host that they suck at what they do and should be more attentive to you, their guest. You’ve made your host lose face. Now your host is embarrassed and that’s going to be a mark on them for a long, long time. If there were other people there, they would notice this, too, and give that person shit. This sounds absolutely silly because it’s a glass of juice, but it’s a big deal.)

Hanzo was losing face. He couldn’t control his brother. That’s a deep scar on his image, on everything he’s built up in his life. For Sojiro, his father, it was less of a deal–he let Genji do it and probably made it openly known that this was acceptable. And no one will go against Sojiro, the master of the clan and who could have them all killed in an instant.

But Hanzo?

He doesn’t have that rapport yet, so he’s subject to the scorn and nasty comments of his elders and the like. (I’m assuming there are elders and those in the clan who are of a high power that Hanzo cannot take action without consulting. It’s kind of like a Japanese company. While a President delivers the decision, the decision isn’t made it without consulting those who are affected and knowledgeable.) He can’t defend himself against them. 

Why? 

Because of the hierarchy. There’s a very specific type of hierarchy in Japan that’s difficult to explain because to understand it, you have to understand the intricacies of the culture and the dynamic of the clan, which we don’t particularly have.

(There’s a very good post about it by someone about Hanzo losing face on tumblr, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment.)

Regardless, that must’ve built up a lot of tension and repressed anger that he wasn’t allowed to express. Expressing your anger is not taken the same way as in the Western world. It’s…well, not to say it’s not acceptable, but it’s not taken the same way as it would be outside of Japan.

So, Hanzo has quite a bit on his plate. Why can’t Genji just do what he’s told? Why does he have to stand out? (As a side note, standing out in Japanese culture or disrupting the status quo is not looked kindly upon.There’s even a saying in Japanese: a nail that stands out gets hammered ( 出る杭は打たれる ).) So Genji’s defiance is another point of contention. Why does he have to keep disobeying his elders? Hanzo is Genji’s older brother. It’s his absolute responsibility to make sure his brother is kept in line. That’s the burden of being the eldest. If Genji isn’t in line, Hanzo has failed in his basic duties in being an older brother. (The implications are much more serious, and I’m not quite sure how to express it.)

He may be acing his studies, and listening to his father, but he can’t seem to exert the right amount of authority over those who should be listening to him. And his father isn’t helping by letting Genji do what he wants. He also has this constant pressure to do better because his best isn’t enough from both his family and the clan. Logically, they wouldn’t follow someone who is weak or doesn’t have his shit in order. But he doesn’t. There’s always something tripping him up, and that’s his brother. Not to blame Genji, because again, he has his own share of troubles, but from Hanzo’s point of view, he was likely the source of a lot of his resentment.

In short, Hanzo is a failure. His accomplishments, his perfectionism, none of it means anything if he’s constantly getting shit thrown back at his face.

I seriously believe that all the lines he says in-game to himself such as, “Never second best,” or “Unworthy,” or “You will never amount to anything!” were all just Hanzo projecting.

In the Japanese version, he refers to Genji as 「くず」 (trash). I don’t know what to make of this. I could take the angle that it’s Hanzo projecting onto Genji still, or I could speculate that he truly believes he’s superior, or take it a little more neutrally, he’s repeating what everyone else calls Genji. But if I had to guess, it’s a mixture of everything. This is something that stumps me a little bit, but the above is the best explanation I have for it.

When Hanzo becomes the master of the clan, he was probably told to put Genji in line. And Genji didn’t want anything to do with the clan. He wanted to live his life, enjoy it. But that sort of enjoyment came with certain responsibilities that he has shirked since the time of their father. But with Hanzo as the new leader of the clan, he had to put Genji in line or…do something about it.

It’s very likely that the rest of the clan saw this as an opportunity to make their name good, to get rid of those who stood out, to right everything. Their new leader is young and inexperienced without his father to protect him. So, Hanzo was presented with those two choices: straighten Genji out or kill him lest you bring more shame to the clan.

Now, Hanzo is given an opportunity to redeem himself and his image and the clan’s image. This goes beyond the redemption quest he set out for after Genji’s death. I think he was on one even before then. He can save face and fix everything if he listens to his elders (his betters in the hierarchy). He can fix everything if he can get rid of the problem–Genji.

He did it. He did not take an insult to his power passively, he rectified it by putting an end to it. He restored confidence in his clan as an assassin, as master of the clan, as his brother.

…but it wasn’t so.

After killing his brother, we all know he left the Shimada clan. We’re not sure if it was immediately after or some time after. The timing may be very significant, but as we do not readily know, we’ll skip over it for now. We can easily call his leaving an act of cowardice, or the result of his guilt, or that he wanted to do something he always wanted to do but never found an opportunity to do so. He wanted to leave. He wanted the freedom that Genji had, but couldn’t have because his immediate family still existed.

By leaving, he thought for himself for once.

Ah, not to mean that he was blindly following anyone’s orders or anything, but for once, he thought of himself. He was selfish. In Japanese culture, the collective comes first. The clan, the whole of Hanamura, the whole of society comes first.

But for once, Hanzo became selfish, and so, left everything behind. Here’s the funny thing though, by killing Genji, he found a way out for his freedom, but by killing Genji, he also managed to never fully express the envy and hate he may have had for his brother.

In many or most cultures, you’re supposed to revere the dead. It’s pretty much the same in Japanese culture.

Now he’s been mourning for ten years, still unable to express that hate that he has supposed buried when he killed his brother. And guess who shows up? Genji. Back to sling shit into his face again. Not only is he a failure as a brother for being unable to keep his brother in line, as the master of the clan by leaving, but also as a killer by having one of his most life-altering kills come back from the grave.

So, under such circumstances, I would absolutely be pissed beyond hell and vent in almost any way I can because pride is a fragile thing. Or at least, it is for Hanzo.

But here’s an interesting thought: I also wonder if he knew, deep down, that it would come to this. He didn’t seem entirely too surprised beyond the first few seconds. As a matter of fact, he seemed to have gone back to something more childish, acting almost immediately like a big brother–scolding his younger brother for something and telling him to get his life together. He slips into the role almost too easily.

We can chalk it up to shock, but couldn’t it be that he also knew he never actually dealt the finishing blow and that’s been nagging at him this whole time? Not that he gave his brother a chance to live, but that he let his brother suffer. If you’re going to kill someone you love, you’d make it quick and painless, right? We can argue that he never loved his brother, but we can also argue that he was warring with himself and couldn’t bring himself to do it.

I must sound like a broken record, but to me, it’s very interesting to speculate and think about. There are so many angles we can take on this and the possibilities are endless. But it could also be that his character could also be very simple broken down as an man who mistakenly thinks he is being wronged all the time.

But yes, your thoughts are valid and meaningful to me in a way that I can’t explain. They also gave me some perspective on why some people might not like him, and I really want to thank you for helping me expand my horizons. In light of that, I hope I’ve been able to articulate why he may be the way he is, whether he is justified in his behavior or not is a completely different story. I’m just interested in why.

(There was a lot more I would’ve love to elaborate on, but I think this would’ve actually turned into a research paper. I hope this has been helpful and sufficient in answering your questions even though it’s a little disorganized in its presentation. Again, it’s perfectly fine to dislike a character–not all characters are made to be liked, and not all people are expected to like all characters.)

#anon #ask #character analysis