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bookofmirth · 2 years

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see on one hand i totally agree that you shouldn’t waste your time on being negative about characters or ships you don’t like but majority of the time i see these type of comments it’s from feysand stans that are upset that nesta stans are able to use the strange moral code sjm uses in her writing to point out nesta ain’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things and compared to majority of the characters

a lot of the time it’s feysand stans that reblog cute feysand art but 70% of their blog is shitting on nesta and calling her an abuser and saying that anyone who likes her is a horrible human but when a nesta stan posts anything criticising the inner circle or feysand then it’s immediately ‘don’t read these books if you don’t like rhys and the ic’ or ‘get out of the fandom’ or just in general shitting over any opinion that criticises the inner circle and rhysand and says it’s pointless writing anti posts and to get out of the fandom but at the same time writing anti nesta posts for the majority of their blog

i think it’s honestly quite clear that nesta is held to a higher moral standard than most of the other characters. for rhys, for example, his actions utm are majority of the time justified by his stans because acotar is ‘enemies to lovers’ and he’s ‘morally grey’ but saying that nesta’s behaviour at the beginning of acotar is excused because nesta was an evil sister cardboard cut out villain and that she’s morally grey is not allowed because then you’re invalidating feyre’s abuse. i love rhys AND nesta (i know, not common) but it’s clear he gets a lot of leeway where nesta absolutely doesn’t which is why i think her stans are as aggressive as they sometimes are. because for the longest time nesta was hated on so badly and anyone that liked her was immediately an abuse apologist and a red flag so it’s not surprising to me that some stans have become super defensive when they defend her and have an answer for everything

I respect where you are coming from anon, and I know that people have been saying things that are rude and inflammatory, but I think you are illustrating what the anon and I were talking about in that ask. I can speak for myself for sure when I say this is what I meant when I said that in addition to the ship war, we have the Nesta versus the IC war.

(I am using your ask to address something that I have seen in the fandom at large A LOT this past month or so. My comments aren't just about this ask, it just gave me an excuse to talk about it.)

People get called an abuse apologist for liking tamlain, for liking Tamlin in general, for liking Nesta, Lucien, let's see... oh if you dislike Elain you're misogynist. My point in that post was that it's hard just existing in the fandom without encountering people complaining or just being outright rude. And I think that was anon's point too, that it's nearly impossible to say anything without people jumping in with an accusation of some kind, and refusing to accept any other opinions. Which it sounds like you have experienced! I wasn't pointing any fingers, though I know that doing so is practically the newest fandom trend that everyone *must* try at least once. It annoys the shit out of me, personally.

It's the way that the fandom is taking the ship war behaviors and applying it to something that shouldn't be a war in the first place. Instead of elriels vs gwynriels, it's Nesta stans versus IC stans and I HATE it 😴 The rhetoric ends up sounding eerily similar, to the point where we can't escape the ship war vibes no matter how hard we try.

So back to the whole finger pointing thing - oh, this random asshole you've never met said something you don't like? And did they hold a weapon to your head and make you respond in kind, with equal if not worse insults, slurs, and bullying? No. They didn't. (This is not "you" as in you, anon, this is a general "you".)

All these excuses that I've seen - primarily in the ship war - saying "well we did that as a reaction" 🤣🤣🤣 are you kidding me???? Is that not what toddlers say when they get caught punching their siblings? "Don't hit your sister" "but she stole my Barbie!" I- I just cannot with the things this fandom says with a straight face.

So yeah anyway. Our feelings are valid. The actions we take based on those feelings are 100000% our responsibility. I recognize that it's hard to turn the other cheek and let things go. Trust me. I do it regularly when I delete a rude anon, or when I see a ss of someone being a complete dingus on Twitter. I don't even have a perfect track record with how I respond (see: me defending Mor on occasion with more vehemence than is probably necessary). But saying "well I did it because they did it first". And if gwynriels/elriels/nesta stans/your mom jumped off a bridge, would you do that too?

says it’s pointless writing anti posts and to get out of the fandom but at the same time writing anti nesta posts for the majority of their blog

Gah, do people really not understand the difference between just disliking something and being an actual, full on anti?

(This is again a general "you" in this paragraph, not you directly, anon.) Perhaps, what would be more useful, is addressing everyone as individuals with their own opinions and reasons behind them. I absolutely agree that there are trends within fandom that can be misogynist or homophobic or what have you. (Case in point, everyone lusts over Az and Eris, the professional torturer and the man who left Mor to die, but they talk shit about Elain and Mor, two of the least problematic people in the whole series. What's that trend driven by? I'll give you one guess.) But that's a cultural problem, not necessarily an individual one. Are there people who are more guilty of this than others? Yes. So you block those people. You feel whatever it is that their words made you feel, and then you decide how you want to react. Because your reaction? You own that. No one else does.

Okay anyway, back to you anon 😂 I also like both Rhys and Nesta. Rhys pissed me OFF a few times in acosf with how he treated her, but she pissed me off in that fight with Elain. I totally get what you mean when you say that Nesta doesn't get forgiveness as easily as Rhys. Especially considering their age differences and the fact that he's a High Lord who now has everything he ever wanted, and she's a traumatized woman spiraling into self harm.

I guess the thing I wish could happen, is that people either 1) read the things that are actually being written and take that person as an individual without assuming right away that they are pro this character and anti that character, and 2) just move along if they really are just an asshole we don't want to deal with. The way people see everything in black and white terms means that there are two options. We either end up in a circle jerk with people who think the exact same way we do, or we scream at people we think we have absolutely nothing in common with.

#acotar fandom #ask #anon

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mrstsung · 3 months

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Ask game time!

Original post:

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who’s your main(s)? (character you play as most often): in most mk games i play shang tsung,kung lao,scorpion,or raiden. The rest i can wing it with but those i can get down quicker than the others on the roster.

who’s your favorite character(s)?: shang tsung(big fat duuuuh!) Kung lao(my first videogame crush,so him baby),scorpion(hanzo hasashi is the only scorpion i will die on that hill). Those 3 are my top 3 faves.

what character do you think is underrated?: honestly,shinnok. I don't understand why he isn't utilized more and better. It's honestly sad and a waste of potential. Although i can say this for a majority of characters especially the "villains" or bosses. It's honestly a crime. A close 2nd is maybe onaga. Like god damn man he could have been so fucking cool.

what character do you think is overrated?: dont hate me but. Liu kang. Specifically fire god liu kang. Like don't get me wrong i love liu just tye very specific one i have in my head. Like i feel the story revolved too much around him. It was worse than johnny cage and the bladedashians and special forces trying to take center stage. And that was awful. But sadly,how they did liu kang was worse because they could have wrote it better. In fact it felt like it was leaning into liu becoming what he hated and we could have had shang tsung,lao and raiden teaming up to stop liu. Liu realized what he has done and then stop the bigger bad and exile and atone for what he's done? I mean holy shit man talk about waste of potential.

character you hate having to fight against?: ok you mean in game or as if i was actually in mortal kombat? Well. Gamewise,i still get scared fighting shao kahn,even if he isn't at his best. It's still scary. Look childhood gamer trauma rage is a bitch. (Looking at you mk:sm/mortal kombat shaolin monks for the ps2!) But one I'd be scared to fight irl would be a bit of everyone but shang tsung. Oh not because he could kick my ass,that's a given. But the fact that soul snatching sexy sob would know i like him...a lot. And that magic is scary af man come on. He can shapeshift,shoot flaming skulls,suck my...soul. with 500+yrs of martial arts experience. Wtaf,how could you not piss your pants in terror?! But anyways. Shao kahn overall tho. (Fucking bastard owes me still)

how did you get into the series?: mortal kombat shaolin monks for the ps2. But shortly after that i started to play the og arcades more. Mk2 to be specific. Then i saw the mk 95 movie. Good shit,even to this day. Mk could learn a thing or two about its roots but that would require nrs to give a fuck.

what was the first entry you played?: see above.

favorite entry in the series?: mk shaolin monks. Mk2. Somewhat of deadly alliance. Maybe 3 or 4 but im very picky with it. As much shit as i gave mk11,I'd rather take it than mk12/mk1(2023) fr. The only good thing about it is shang tsungs voice actor,and even then i just am sad how they've done things. Not even for blorbo is it worth the money or investment.

favorite entry-specific (re)design, if you have one?: honestly i prefer mk11 aesthetic wise minus a few personal nitpicks. But overall visually it's beautiful. So yeah. Mk12/mk1(2023) all it has is aesthetics and none of the spirit of mk. Honestly it feels like one big joke or excuse to do a movie cheaply as possible. I dont know man,i just am sad about mortal kombats current state. If you were an old fan like myself,you'd understand. Im not saying some things aren't interesting ideas,i just feel the execution of said ideas have been piss poor and some things honestly should have stayed in drafts. I feel they are trying too hard rn to be "relevant" and not give out a good story. Or just reinventing their own lore....AGAIN. and it's annoying at this point. So much many people are making their own lore and shit because canon lore sucks. The world Building in mk has never been solid and thats it all weakest point imho.

favorite canon ship?: i only do self shipping. I dont care for canon ships. Or canon x canon ships.

favorite non canon ship?: same thing as above.

if you could pick a guest character, who would you pick? (can be as detailed as you want here): duke nukum. It's about fucking time. But they'd butcher him now. So im not sure.

if you could pick a character from any of the earlier entries to bring back, who would you choose?: honestly they need to get their story right before adding any characters to the roster otherwise to me its lip service. But I'd love bo rai cho to return. Plz. For the love of elder gods,can i have funny drunken master back?!

which do you prefer doing first/more: completing the story mode or completing towers?: honestly if local play/ vs mode is shit. Towers and storymode mean nothing. If you can't 1v1 your friends in the same room. I dont want it. But I'd play towers above storymode. I'd love storymode more. If the story was actually good or consistent or konsistent in this case ;) . But fr in all seriousness,nrs NEEDS to get their head in the game anf out or corporate ass,if they wanna see this not blow up in their face once hype dies down and people move on to something else. Which it will happen. And is happening.

favorite fatality?: honestly i fucking love shang tsung soul swapping inside the opponent and exploding/killing them from the inside. Fucking simple but badass af. Like fr imagine seeing that shit irl,terrifying. Which is what we need. It's so extra. But it fits. Other than that. There isn't many fatalities i dont like. Cept mk11 johnny cage but thats because it goes on too damn long. We get it johnny!

favorite stage?: honestly shang's throne room,warrior shrine,the deadpool,and visually? Shirai-Ryu fire gardens. Absolutely stunning.

favorite stage theme / ost?: all of mk(original),mk2,and mk shaolin monks tracks are the best. Mk shaolin monks for atmospheric ambiance. The og arcades the first mk and mk2 for absolute bops. Tho deadly alliance has good dance and tencho edm vibes. Tho everyone can kollectively agree that the og theme is the best. Come on man!

opinion on any of the non-game media? (the live action films, mk legacy, the animated mk legends films, etc): ok mk95. Still is the goat for a reason. Mk legends films are good visual and animation wise but story is too fast paced for my taste. And can be better but still ironically,better than the current games storywise. I hate to say it but yeah. Honestly they haven't made and non game media for me that really speaks to me yet. But if they do. I'll let ya know.

skin / kosmetic you want to be in mk1?: dont care for mk12/mk1. But if they could bring back mk9 shang red robe jammies for shang that would be appreciated. Give me that much plz.

do you prefer hanzo hasashi or kuai liang as scorpion?: if you say anything else but hanzo hasashi you need to log off and not talk to me ever again. Hanzo hasashi IS SCORPION. anyone says otherwise is not a mk fan. Period. I will fight you!

which character reveal for mk1 shocked you the most?: like i said. I do not care for the new game. It's more pissing me off that shang tsung who has been a staple for mk is reduced to dlc. Twice. And you can't even get him rn in the new game less you got money or pre order codes or some shit. And that's why i feel that the new game is shit. Because you shouldn't have to pay money for a half baked game. For a character you should have already had. Especially if they are a main focus in the storymode. So yeah. Nothing shocks me.

have you ever cosplayed an mk character? if you haven’t, would you want to, and who would you choose?: i have. I have done 95 shang tsung. And am going to do a genderbent fem hanzo hasashi scorpion (THE ONLY SCORPION IS HANZO I WILL STILL STATE THIS. ONCE AGAIN!) soon. So stay tuned. Future cosplays I'd love to do is fujin,kung lao,kitana,and a genderbent Johnny cage (jenny cage?)

do you have any cool merch? (figures, posters, shirts, etc): got some cool shirts and a few cosplays and little stuff like that. Pendents. But i wanna get some figures but holy shit dudes it's expensive. Oof. But some day. Some day. I will obtain that scorpion figure. Some day. Wish they had shang tsung merch more. Ugh.

#mortal kombat #look all i do is self shipping i do not care for any other shipping srry not srry #self ship #self shipping #mk ask game #mortal kombat ask game #i need more ask games so here ya go #ask game

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adorascake · 3 years

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if you ever tell someone to harm themselves because of their interests, i hope you find kindness in your heart one day. do you really want to be the cause of someone’s death simply because of one anon? think about the repercussions before sending in an ask. you don’t know what a person is going through.

#suicide tw #self harm tw #just came across an ask from a mutual’s blog telling catra kinnies to harm themselves!!#had to put my phone down and cry a little bit #because i relate to catra and see myself in her you know? just...the past selfishness and self hatred and self destructiveness #and it gave me hope to see the beginning of her redemption. that there’s a light at the end of the road for her #if you don’t like catra or a character or a ship or show or book or whatever that’s great!#the amazing thing about the internet is that the block button exists!#why waste your time becoming a worse villain than the character you hate?#spread love. and kindness. and happiness #this world needs it now more than ever #people who are hurting and healing don’t need to see that #we’ve worked/are working so hard to be better people #just for you to throw us under the bus again #you don’t know what someone is going through EVER #don’t be their breaking point #im lucky to be at a point in my life where i can push away suicidal thoughts easier than say. a year ago #but i still cried and had to just let my brain be empty for a few minutes and stare at my wall #and there are people out there who aren’t as lucky as me #who aren’t at that point yet #please. just be nice to one another

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serpenteve · 3 years

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why we ship darklina

an essay literally no one asked for

Nobody needs a "reason" to ship Darklina. But considering this is a villain x hero pairing, it got me thinking about why we shipped it in the first place when the narrative and author so badly wanted us to root for the more sensible alternative pairing and why it became the most popular ship of the entire trilogy.

Personally, I find it really interesting (and low-key hilarious) that a lot of the reasons shippers gravitated towards Darklina can be directly traced back to how badly Bardugo bungled Alina's character arc, Mal's entire characterization and narrative role, Nikolai's wasted potential as an alternative love interest, and the noble intentions she gives the the Darkling.

Alina's Character Arc

Alina's character arc doesn't match who she is as a character. I've written more about that in this post, but a lot of readers were introduced to a passive and insecure protagonist who we were expecting to undergo a typical YA coming-of-age character arc where Alina acquires self-acceptance, confidence, and embraces the full breadth of her powers over the course of the trilogy. Instead, Bardugo gave Alina the kind of character arc that's usually deserved for power-hungry anti-heroines or tragic heroes with a fatal flaw to punish.

The plot offers a strange binary: either Alina suppresses and hides her powers and therefore stays away from descending into villainy OR Alina attempts to find Morozova's amplifiers in order to defeat the Darkling but then becomes corrupted by power in the process. Alina's journey to self-acceptance and exploring her own powers are unfortunately entangled with her relationship with the Darkling. The only way she is allowed to move forward through the plot is to succumb to the corrupting influence of the amplifiers.

For better or for worse, the first character to really embrace her powers instead of thinking she's a fraud or that she's weak or that she's an unholy abomination is the Darkling. He's the first person to recognize her power for what it is and accurately judge its potential and implications for the rest of the world. He advocates for her in front of the royal court, in front other Grisha who think she's weak, and even against Baghra who is initially a very ill-tempered mentor with little to no faith in Alina's abilities. He even rather ironically advocates for her even when the heroic person who's supposed to be supporting her (Mal) does not.

At the start of her journey, Alina is insecure and in constant need of assurance and validation. The Darkling's role as her mentor and guide into this unfamiliar world of Grisha makes him the perfect advocate not only for her powers but also to help Alina see her place in the world. However, once he is revealed to be the villain, Alina also fails to realize that it's time for her to advocate for herself and throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Mal's Characterization & Narrative Role

When Alina loses the Darkling as an advocate in S&B, Mal steps up to take this role. Alina is still rather passive for the majority of the first book and it's Mal who originally wants her to have Morozova's stag as an amplifier if it will mean being able to stand against the Darkling. Bardugo intended for him to be a heroic love interest as a foil to the villainous love interest and I believe she mostly succeeds for the first book.

However, because this is a story about punishing Alina's "evil ambition" (despite there being very little evidence of that) Mal is supposed to serve as a voice of reason in the narrative. Once Alina considers the necessity of acquiring more amplifiers to defeat the Darkling, it is Mal's role to warn her of the potential consequences, to remind her of her inner humanity, and to ward against the corrupting influence of Morozova's amplifiers. Mal's declarations that he wants back the old girl he knew without any power is meant to drive an ideological wedge between them, yes, but he's also meant to be Correct™ because, again, Bardugo is writing a story about a corrupted power-hungry heroine who goes too far and needs to be punished rather than the arc we were all expecting and the one that Alina's character needs: a coming-of-age story of self-acceptance and personal growth.

Some point after the backlash of Siege & Storm, Bardugo seems to have become aware of her mistake and attempts to scrub Mal's character to be more sympathetic. There is a bizarre exchange half-way through the third book when Mal finally declares:

"I wasn't afraid of you, Alina. I was afraid of losing you. The girl you were becoming didn't need me anymore, but she's who you were always meant to be."

This is an interesting line because it's a complete reversal of Mal's narrative role so far. He's supposed to be her voice of reason that opposes her at every turn but readers interpreted him as being resentful of Alina's powers and angry that she was no longer dependent on him. Bardugo is forced to retcon Mal's entire role in the narrative from being a voice of reason that opposes Alina's quest for power to a supportive friend who will fight by her side. But this was never her initial intention and I believe this change was brought on 100% by audience reaction because she failed to understand the arc her heroine needed and the kind of story her audience was anticipating for such a character.

Needless to say, having your heroine's main love interest actively resent her quest for power until half-way through the third damn book did not endear many readers to Mal. Because Bardugo failed to understand the kind of character development her heroine needed and failed to understand audience expectations, we hated Mal. He became the embodiment of every toxic chauvinist we'd ever met who can't stand the idea of his partner's success and feels entitled to be the center of her universe. He was not the voice of reason. He was an annoying gnat hellbent on dragging the heroine down and away from her destiny. We did not want to root for him. Even the villain was more sympathetic than him because he could bring her closer to achieving the self-acceptance the narrative was obsessed with denying her.

Nikolai's Wasted Potential as a Solid Love Interest

Nikolai plays several roles in Alina's journey but most importantly in our discussions for why we ended up shipping Darklina, his entire potential as a serious love interest is wasted.

When we meet Nikolai, we have hitched our wagons to the Darklina train because despite being the villain, the Darkling is the only one who will allow the heroine to accept her powers and come into her own. Her heroic love interest, Mal, is actively sabotaging her efforts and holding her back from her true potential. But then, in swoops Nikolai and we pause, wondering if there may be a better heroic alternative after all?

In a lot of ways, Nikolai and the Darkling alike: they are eager for Alina's power and see her as a solution to all their problems. They may want to use Alina to prop up their own agendas, but unlike Mal, Alina's summoning powers are a massive plus, not a burden. Nikolai is the heroic alternative to our villainous Aleksander. So we wait, wondering if Nikolai will be the one to fix this mess of a romantic subplot. His royal connections offer an easy path to upwards mobility for our heroine and we sense that an alliance between them (even if it's initially political in nature) may bring our heroine closer to obtaining more power, influence, and self-acceptance not only for herself, but also for the oppressed minority she is a part of.

But, again, Bardugo is still obsessed with that "punish the heroine for wanting power" agenda so while Nikolai exists as another mentor figure who offers Alina advice on how to rule, how to appeal to other people, how to charm, how to win people over, and Alina learns and applies much of what she learns from him, he is not treated as a real love interest.

Despite Nikolai being written as a fairy tale prince (handsome, charming, smart as a whip, brave in battle, etc) Alina never actually considers him romantically. They are friends and allies at best and the only time she considers kissing him is only when she's pissed about Mal.

Nikolai's proposal at the end of Ruin & Rising feels like one last saving grace, one last opportunity for our heroine to take control of her life and make a dramatic change to break from the past. But this too is rejected because Alina's arc will never let her access any power. She does not reject Nikolai because she wants to marry for love. She rejects him because she has been "punished" for wanting power and has internalized that she must not seek any more power for fear of angering the plot gods (and Bardugo). She must return to being nobody in order to remain a good and moral person.

(And, of course, we resent Mal even more because who in their right mind would choose him over Nikolai? Once again, he becomes a roadblock on our heroine's journey to power. We grow irritated that the heroine is failing to grasp an opportunity to elevate herself. We throw the book against the wall. Why are we even following this heroine?)

The Darkling's Motivations

Still, all of the above might still not have been enough to pull the reader to the villain's side. But the Darkling is the living embodiment of Villain Has A Point™. He is not pure unadulterated evil. He is not Lord Sauron or Voldemort or the Terminator.

He's more Magneto, Roy Batty, or Ozymandias---a man who is part of an oppressed minority who longs for justice and power but is absolutely unhinged in his methods.

Alina runs away because she does not want to be a non-consenting weapon in hands. But we always end up wondering what would have happened had Baghra not warned her. What would have happened if Alina gladly joined the Darkling's side? There's hundreds of fanfics written precisely about this situation because despite the villainy of his methods, we wonder if Ravka might not have been safer after all?

If the Darkling had used the Fold as a weapon against Fjerda and Shu Han, would any of the problems Ravka faces in the later books even exist? Would any Grisha fall victim to the khergud programs or be killed as witches? The Darkling wipes out Novokribirsk and kills hundreds of lives, but how many would he have saved with the Fold as Ravka's greatest shield and sword? 🤷🏽‍♀️

And therein lies the problem with the trilogy inconsistent moral landscape. The Darkling is an anti-villain that exists in a narrative that is very black and white, unlike the rest of the books in the Grishaverse where our protagonists are anti-heroes who kill, steal, and torture their way through the plot with nary a judgmental glance from the narrative. We long to see our heroine give in to her dark side and get her hands dirty because watching a naive, passive, scared little girl grow into a ruthless powerful Grisha would have made for a hell of a compelling story.

But that's not the story Bardugo wanted to tell.

The Greg Trilogy

Despite taking place in a fantasy Tsartist setting, the Grisha trilogy is oddly anti-Grisha. The narrative doesn't spend much time trying to examine the context or implications of an oppressed minority group fighting for power other than to say "magic powers = evil". Nikolai skates by on a throne of inherited wealth, privilege, and imperialism but it's okay because he's charming and witty and the only monstrous part of him is the Darkling's curse. Literally everything is worse for Ravka and their Grisha after the destruction of the Fold but Ravka must move forward into a new age without relying on Grisha power but putting their efforts into new muggle technologies. Alina must be stripped of her powers and returned to her "old self" in order to be purged of evil.

Basically, it's all one gigantic ✨ dumpster fire ✨ of mismatched character arcs, incompatible moral aesops, inconsistent characterizations, wasted potential, unexamined plot points but it's a a dumpster fire we lovingly and spitefully embrace in fanfic.

We don't ship Alina with the Darkling because we're stupid abuse apologists who somehow missed the giant flashing moral aesop of the books---and honestly, who could have possibly missed them when it's shoved in the reader's face every other chapter? We ship Alina with the Darkling because the entire ship is the embodiment of wasted potential (and wasted ✨aesthetics✨ tbqh 👀). We ship Alina with the Darkling because we're sick and tired of stories where female power is demonized. We ship Alina with the Darkling because the plot gave us literally no other alternative to see our heroine succeed except to give in to her alleged villainy.

But most of all, people ship Darklina because Leigh Bardugo utterly failed in writing the story she intended to write because had she succeeded, Darklina would not be the most popular ship of the trilogy.

#darklina #sab meta #grisha meta #grisha discourse #wow im embarrassed by how fucking long this is #but you know i had to write it #anti leigh bardugo #its not really anti so much as it is just pointing out why her story flopped for a lot of readers #alarkling #viv metas

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zedecksiew · 3 years

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Kriegsmesser

When I received Kriegsmesser in the mail I finally googled "kriegsmesser", and found out it meant "war knife". Which makes sense; Gregor Vuga's ZineQuest 2021 project is a tribute to "roleplaying games named after medieval weapons".

I love Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's piss-renaissance Old World setting. I tend to pick up WFRP-a-likes sight unseen:

Warlock (quality);

Small But Vicious Dog (yesss);

Zweihander (which I have come to hate); etc.

Anyway: I backed Kriegsmesser without really knowing anything about it. So Kriegsmesser surprised me.

Kriegsmesser grew out of a Troika! cutting. Its 36 backgrounds are compatible with that system: each come with a couple of lines of description; a list of skills and possessions; an a visual cameo cropped from actual 16th-Century woodcut art.

Cohesive and competently flavourful. My favourite is the Labourer, who always starts with "an empty pine box":

"You've spent your life breaking your back, working hard for other people's profit. You have nothing to show for it but a spectre of the future."

(The obligatory ratcatcher-analogue , called the Vermin Snatcher, is here -- check that box!)

Kriegsmesser also comes with its own ruleset. Hits all the notes it needs to, with lots of orientation and advice for how to run a game -- but ultimately super-simple, mechanically:

Roll d6s equal to the value in a relevant skill, look at the highest result. 6 means you get what you want; 5 or 4 means you get what you want, at a cost.

It's not quite a dice pool, since only the highest result matters. No opposed tests.

Kriegsmesser intends to have this base mechanic handle fights, too. The combat rules - with armour, toughness and weapon values -- are nested in an optional section.

For a WFRP-a-like, this feels like a purposeful departure.

Many of WFRP's most celebrated adventures are celebrated for bits that their underlying ruleset does little to support: the investigative structure of "Shadows Over Bogenhafen"; the complicated timetable of "Rough Night At Three Feathers".

Ludwig von Wittgenstein never needed a statblock to be memorable.

Not to say that lethal, hyper-detailed fights isn't super Warhammer-y. (Kriegsmesser includes an injury table, broken down by body-part -- check that box!)

But here it feels like Gregor is saying: "I'm not Games Workshop and Roleplay isn't an ancillary of Warhammer Fantasy Battle; we can evoke grim-and-perilous-ness even if we fork away from heavy combat rules."

It has become ritual for me to read my partner Sharon to sleep.

Sometimes I read her RPG things. The other night, after I read her Kriegsmesser's introduction --

" The Empire wages an eternal war against Chaos. Its priests preach of Chaos as an intrusion, something unnatural ... These men see Chaos in anything that does not buttress their rule. They call it disorder, anarchy, corruption. They say that to rebel against their order is to rebel against god and nature. That the current arrangement is natural, rather than artificial.

" Meanwhile, the common people look to the Empire to deliver the justice that they were promised and they find none. They look to the Empire and do not see themselves reflected in it. They look around at what they were taught was right and good and see only misery.

" Their world begins to unravel. Chaos comes to reside in every heart and mind sound enough to look at the world and conclude it is broken. "

-- Sharon remarked: "Nice one."

The RPG things I read her generally leave Sharon lukewarm. She has enjoyed a couple -- but, yeah: for many of these books, text isn't their strong point.

Kriegsmesser is the only time I can recall Sharon praising the writing of an RPG book without my prompting.

Nice one.

That introduction surprised me. It underlines Kriegsmesser's biggest departure from its WFRP-a-like pedigree: how it characterises Chaos.

Corruption, a mainstay of most grim-dark-y games, is made an optional rule, like combat. Explaining this, Gregor writes:

" Kriegsmesser partially subverts or deconstructs the traditional conceit of Warhammer where the characters are threatened by the forces of Chaos. In this game it is the player characters who are the agents of 'Chaos': they are likely to become the 'rats' under the streets, and the wild 'beast-men' in the woods bringing civilisation down. It's the Empire and its nobles and priests that are corrupt ... "

Describing the Empire, Gregor writes:

" The Empire encompasses the world yet is terrified of the without. It enforces itself with steel and fire yet considers itself benevolent. It consumes the labour of others with bottomless hunger yet calls its subalterns lazy, or wasteful, or greedy. "

Holy shit this is the first time I've seen the word "subaltern" in an RPG thing, I think?

I love this.

Rant incoming:

With every passing decade Warhammer abridges its Moorcockian roots more and more; nowadays it is "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", pretty much.

Gone are the days when chaos berserkers are implied to grant safe passage to the helpless (because Khorne is as much a god of martial honour as he is a god of bloodletting); Or that the succor of Papa Nurgle is a genuine comfort to the downtrodden; Or that Tzeentch could unironically embody the principle of hope, of change for the better.

As Chaos is distilled into unequivocal villainy, Order goons get painted as Good Guys by default --

Giving rise to Warhammer's contemporary problem, wherein fans are no longer able to recognise satire.

When I was introduced to 40K, it seemed pretty clear that the Imperium was a Brazil-esque absurdist-fascist bureaucratic state: planets are exterminatus-ed due to clerical error; the way it stamps out rebellions is the reason why rebellions begin in the first place.

Tragi-comic grimdarkness. That was the point.

Nowadays that tone has shifted -- and you're more likely than not going to encounter a 40K fan who argues that the Imperium's evils are a justified necessity, to prevent worse wrongs.

We went from:

"Space Nazis because insane dumbass fuckery, also chainswords vroom vroom rule of badass!"

To:

"Space Nazis because it makes sense actually, and also chainswords make sense because [insert convoluted rationalisation here]."

Even Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade line, which ostensibly offers a look at 40K from the perspective of Chaos, never truly commits to its conceit.

With prep you could play a heroic band of mutant freedom fighters, resisting the tyranny of the Evil Imperium --

But I don't remember Black Crusade giving that kind of campaign any actual support. Its supplements service the relatively more conventional "You can play villains!" angle; the Screaming Vortex is a squarely Daemons-vs-Daemons setting.

This tonal drift culminates, in my mind, with Age of Sigmar, Games Workshop's heroic-fantasy replacement of the old WFRP / WHFB setting.

Here's the framing narrative for AoS's recently-launched Third Edition. Let's see whether I've got things right:

A highly professionalised, technologically-superior tip-of-the-spear fighting force (the Stormcast Eternals);

Backed by an imperialist military-industrial complex (Azyrheim);

"Liberating" rich new territories (Ghur) for exploitation by a civilised settler culture (Settlers of Sig-- I mean, Free Cities);

Justified because the locals are irredeemable heathens (Chaos and Kruleboyz).

I mean, that's a sweet-ass Warhammer setting. It's contemporary, laser-guided lampoon. Except it is played totally straight.

In AoS, a literal crusade is justified as the moral good.

I think Kriegsmesser surprised me because its framing of Chaos -- as a promise, as the light of hope shining through cracks of a broken world --

It feels so fucking right.

Yes: its a subaltern deconstruction of the conventional moral universe of Warhammer -- but it is a take that is also already implied / all but supported in the various depictions of the setting: from WFRP to the modified title-crawl of Black Crusade.

I'm annoyed I didn't think of it, myself. Damn you, Gregor!

And I'm annoyed that more Warhammer fans aren't thinking it, also.

lmagine if Kriegsmesser's perspective stood on equal standing as the GW orthodoxy. Imagine if, instead of simplifying stuff into "Order = Good" and "Chaos = Evulz", GW did a Gregor Vuga.

You'd have a Rashomon-ed Warhammer, where villainy depends on perspective:

You are fearful villagers, huddled around your priest, muttering prayers against the wild braying coming from the trees beyond your gates.

You are Aqshyian tribeswomen, defying the thunder warrior towering over you, the foreigner demanding you bow to his foreign god.

You are a Tzeentchian revolutionary cell, desperately trying to disrupt a Inquisitor's transmissions so your home planet isn't destroyed by fascist orbital fire.

Get Kriegsmesser HERE.

+++

( Image sources: https://theenemywithinremixed.wordpress.com/2021/05/21/thoughts-on-the-4e-death-on-the-reik/ https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/59-brazil https://www.deviantart.com/faroldjo/art/Warhammer-40k-Black-Crusade-273596035 https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/09/fancy-a-new-life-bringing-order-to-the-mortal-realms-join-a-dawnbringer-crusade-today/ https://www.nme.com/blogs/the-movies-blog/team-america-15-anniversary-south-park-2558750 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_children_and_Israeli_wall.jpg )

#reviews #kriegsmesser #gregor vuga #warhammer #writing #rants #overthinking #rpgs #wfrp

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curiouslylazy · 3 years

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On Law and the Immortality Surgery

[there are mild spoilers in this post for anime only viewers so read at your discretion]

Am I the only person who thinks that Law won’t be using the immortality surgery? On twitter and youtube any time I see Law dying brought up, almost everyone is quick to jump on the idea that he’ll be using the immortality surgery and lose his life in a sacrifice. They keep hammering in that Oda wouldn’t introduce this power if he didn’t intend to use it. While that is a route Oda can choose to go, I’m not ready to put all my money on it yet. For this theory to deserve the level of support it seems to have I think we need to gain more information and clear up some misconceptions first.

First we need to establish exactly what the immortality surgery does:

Does it give the recipient the remaining life force of the user and thus only elongate their life for X amount of years?

Does it give them an infinite lifespan so long as they are not killed by an outside force?

Does it give true immortality where the recipient will never age or die from any circumstances?

Is it a oneshot deal where the user can heal a mortal wound/cure an incurable illness/revive a recently deceased person at the expense of their life?

We honestly don’t have enough information to conclusively answer any of those questions yet.

Law says the ability grants eternal life at the expense of the surgeon’s own life. But as this is a translation we can’t determine the full accuracy of that statement. Furthermore Oda can change or add abilities at his pleasure. The implication at this moment however is that this isn’t just a oneshot deal. Dofflamingo probably wouldn’t waste time and resources on one day maybe needing a quick fix for an injury/illness. And nothing in Law’s explanation makes it seem like it’s a one time only get out of death card. Yet a lot of theories on Law using the immortality surgery seem to imply that it’ll work as a one time fix for some big injury. And if the people aren’t working off that assumption, they seem to think that immortality is the appropriate response to a deadly injury. That the recipient will have to contend with eternity just to turn the tides in one battle. Unless the recipient can later end their life at their will, I don’t see that happening.

Now let’s get into the potential beneficiaries for the immortality surgery. The most popular option is of course Luffy. The basic setup is Luffy will become mortally injured and Law will give up his life to save Luffy because Law owes Luffy for taking down Dofflamingo. I honestly don’t see this happening for many reasons.

Luffy states quite clearly that he is the only one who will decide where he dies. Law doesn’t get to make that choice. Furthermore Law doesn’t owe Luffy any debts. Law saved Luffy at Marineford first. Luffy is the one who cleared his balance at Dressrosa.

Luffy becoming immortal would be horrible for the story. From a plot standpoint it would decrease the tension severely for Luffy fights—and being a shounen protagonist already does that quite a bit, no need to double down. From a character standpoint, that would be the worst thing you could ever do to Luffy. Do you really want the person who said it’s worse to be alone than to get hurt to live forever as he watches all of his friends die?

As for other possible recipients of the immortality surgery, I don’t see any other “good guy” receiving it for the same reasons as Luffy. Law has even less of a connection or supposed debt to them than he would have to Luffy. I certainly don’t see him using it on a villain. Even under threat of lives close to him. He would not only be giving up his own life but also creating too much of a threat for his friends to deal with later—negating the whole purpose of a sacrificial move.

Next let’s discuss Law. A common sentiment I see thrown around is that he doesn’t have a purpose or drive anymore after Doflamingo’s defeat so his character is in a prime spot for dying. This is completely false.

Law wants to learn about the Will of D. He is actively searching for Poneglyphs for that purpose. Of course this doesn’t mean he’s safe from dying. A character dying before they meet their goal is excellent setup for a tragedy. And Law certainly has many death flags. He may in fact die saving Luffy, but even that doesn’t have to involve the immortality surgery necessarily.

Finally let’s talk about the narrative purpose of this ability existing. People keep saying that Oda wouldn’t bring up this ability if he didn’t intend for Law to use it. That Oda always callbacks to things he’s established before. While Oda is indeed the king of callbacks and payoff, I don’t think that has to be the case here. The immortality surgery existing has an established purpose in the story. It serves as the catalyst for Rosinante’s death and Law hating Dofflamingo. Yes the role of it is contained, but it set off the entire Dressrosa arc. I don’t think it needs to do more than that. It’s not wasted potential or a plot hole if Oda doesn’t bring it up again.

The one route of the immortality surgery being used that I find actually plausible is if it can do the reverse and take away immortality. I’ve seen it suggested for both Kaido and Imu that Law might need to take away their “immortality”/“invulnerability” so Luffy can finally defeat them. If that is something that can be done at all, I think that way of using the ability is the one that makes the most sense. I don’t think it’ll be needed for Kaido considering current events, but Imu is set up to be much more of a threat I think. But even then I don’t personally find the idea appealing. It would take away from the impact of Luffy’s victory if he only achieved it because Law needed to take away the character’s immortality. Luffy is meant to win against impossible odds. He doesn’t need his enemies brought down to his level. Luffy doesn’t need to kill his enemies anyway so there’s no need to take away their ability to not die.

Of course I can be completely wrong and the immortality surgery can be very important later on. I trust Oda to tell a satisfying story so I’m sure whichever route he picks will make sense and be enjoyable. These are just my thoughts on why I feel it’s a bit premature to think the surgery will definitely play a role. I’d love to hear from others and get their takes! Let me know if I’m not alone in my opinions or let me know if you disagree completely!!

#one piece #trafalgar d. water law #trafalgar law #monkey d. luffy #long post

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anime-and-manga-rants · 3 years

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Why I Believe Deku Fails as a Character (Part 1 of 3)

Why does Bakugou consistently take first place in every My Hero Academia popularity poll (since the second poll) when Deku is the main character? Well, the answer’s pretty simple. Bakugou is a complex, interesting character, and Deku is not.

And, for Part 1, here’s why: Deku had so much potential as a main character, but Horikoshi decided it was best not to dive deep into the things he’d set up in the first episode.

In the first episode, it is made obvious that Bakugou is Deku’s abuser, and the rest of Deku’s class isn’t much better. Bakugou burns Deku with his Quirk when he grabs Deku’s shoulder, to which nobody reacts negatively, not even their homeroom teacher. This most likely is a common occurrence, so common that their teacher was familiar with Bakugou’s behavior and did not see it necessary to step in and stop it. (If he wasn’t against Deku from the very start — if he didn’t hate Deku solely because of his Quirklessness — Bakugou wouldn’t be able to act like this.) Either that or the teacher simply turned a blind eye to it for the first time, but is that truly much better? Coupled with the burning of Deku’s prized notebook, the verbal abuse, and the suicide baiting, the first episode sets up for a depiction of a very abused character.

And yet we don’t get it.

Instead, Deku’s reactions to Bakugou’s abuse are played for laughs, from his scrambling comically to get away from Bakugou when Bakugou approaches to his high-pitched voice when he responds to Bakugou’s or his classmates’ taunts. Other times, Bakugou’s awful behavior is simply downplayed to the point where it becomes meaningless. When Bakugou burns Deku’s shoulder, smoke spirals up from between his fingers, yet Deku’s uniform and skin remain unburned. When Bakugou tells him to take a swan dive, Deku’s response is something akin to “What would Bakugou do if I really did it? He knows he would get in trouble for it.”

Even with Horikoshi’s flippant spin to obvious abuse, Deku’s clearly afraid of the guy. That fact is unavoidable if you just rewatch the first episode or reread the first chapter of the manga. He scrambles away from Bakugou when he approaches, tries to convince Bakugou that he knows they’re not on equal ground, and freezes up when Bakugou grabs his shoulder.

I’d say it’s a pretty safe to assume Bakugou’s done some pretty terrible shit to Deku. Even if he doesn’t consistently use his Quirk on Deku — which I would be surprised if he didn’t — he seems to enjoy threatening Deku with it, if the explosions in his hand after telling Deku to take a swan dive are any indication. And what about the explosion on Deku’s desk a little earlier?

(The desk is actually broken in two, but this isn’t elaborated on at all. It really seems as though Bakugou can get away with anything, either because of his potential due to his Quirk or because Horikoshi was, again, just playing off the behavior.)

Basically, Deku has been threatened with physical harm if nothing else, and he still should’ve been burned after Bakugou’s shoulder grab.

We can safely assume the first episode isn’t the first time his classmates have laughed in his face or at least at him. From this, we can say he doesn’t have any real friends to speak of. I mean, the only “friends” of his we ever see are Bakugou and his lackeys, and they absolutely weren’t friends with him at the time of the first episode. If Deku had a real friend, I think we would’ve seen them in the first episode.

To tie up my point in a nice little bow, Deku should be showing some signs of trauma. Or, at the very least, he should have some pretty major self-esteem issues. And, yes, Deku does seem to show some signs of low self-esteem, but it doesn’t get in the way of his goals. Characters need flaws. Characters without flaws aren’t realistic or enjoyable to follow as they work toward their goals. But these flaws need to actually impact the character somehow, because it’s not truly a flaw if it doesn’t. Deku’s canon lack of self-esteem never really impacts him negatively, and because of this, it’s not enough to help make him a good character.

Deku’s behavior is just… so unrealistic. Should abuse truly be played for laughs just to avoid creating a character that experiences trauma?

(It is almost as if Horikoshi was afraid of making a main character experience symptoms of trauma or even PTSD. Maybe it was out of fear of making Deku not relatable? Authors tend to fall into a trap where they accidentally make characters boring in an effort to make them “relatable” to readers, and it’s possible this is what happened to Deku. Or maybe Horikoshi wanted to create a shounen anime and didn’t think that was suitable for the MC. Or maybe Horikoshi didn’t think he could pull it off, although I think he could’ve done it well.

(I mean, just look at Bakugou’s big reveal in season 3, episode 23. It was unexpected but so real, such a well-written scene to reveal the complexity of a character, that it irritates me to see Deku as he is. We know what Horikoshi is capable of through that scene and the subtle buildup to it that the audience can pick up on through Bakugou’s actions and dialogue. So why couldn’t Horikoshi do something just as impressive for Deku, the main character?

(Whatever the reason for Deku’s lack of character, I think I’m getting off topic. Let’s get back to my main point.)

If Horikoshi didn’t want to create an abused character, he shouldn’t have had Bakugou so blatantly abuse him. You can argue that the subject may not be suited for a shounen anime, but that doesn’t justify Horikoshi’s choices. Again, if he didn’t want Deku to show signs of past abuse, he shouldn’t have made Bakugou abuse him.

The fact that Horikoshi decided not to portray Deku as a believable victim of abuse is pretty disappointing. Because, due to this decision, Deku not only an inaccurate character but also an incredibly boring character.

Deku could’ve been such an interesting character if Horikoshi had built on his potential. To see the growth of a main character with such little self esteem, to see the growth of a person experiencing a mental illness (likely c-PTSD, a kind of PTSD usually associated with multiple traumatic events rather than one) portrayed accurately, could’ve made for such a successful and fascinating story. A story that showed mental illness as a burden but proved it doesn’t have to define you— that you can still pursue and achieve your dreams even when your mind is against you.

But we don’t get it. At all.

Instead, we get a Deku who still calls Bakugou “Kacchan” rather than understandably hating him. Or being terrified of him. While you can argue that Deku simply doesn’t fault Bakugou for his actions, that Deku is strong enough to just brush past Bakugou’s abuse, that’s got less to do with Deku and more to do with Horikoshi. If Deku were a real person, he absolutely would not act the same way around Bakugou as he does, and that’s Horikoshi’s problem. It’s not that Deku’s too mentally strong to care— it’s that Deku’s too weak of a character to. Nobody is that strong. It’s not about strength.

Look at Shinsou. His backstory is explained in maybe thirty seconds, and yet that’s still enough. We can see through his dialogue how resentful he is towards people with so-called heroic Quirks, especially those who take their heroic Quirks for granted. Just Shinsou’s declaration of war to Class 1-A and the Deku vs. Shinsou fight was enough to cement him as one of my favorite characters in MHA. And this is because his past affects him. It shapes who he is as a person in a visible way and makes him a compelling, relatable character.

And, whereas Shinsou’s backstory seemed to be mostly his classmates calling him a villain or asking him not to use his Quirk on them for fear of what he was capable of, Deku was abused. He had a far worse childhood, and yet it has no impact on his character or on his view of the world. It doesn’t make much sense.

There’s a reason so many people like the concept of Deku becoming a villain. It’s more realistic and it’s far more interesting than what we’re actually given. Deku resenting society’s take on Quirkless individuals and his own abuse at the hands of Bakugou and his classmates is a compelling narrative because it’s understandable, relatable. Who wouldn’t at least partially hate such awful treatment? Who wouldn’t consider taking revenge? Or, if not revenge, who wouldn’t consider changing the world (and villains tend to get the job done quicker)?

Instead, we get a character who not so much forgives as completely forgets, striving to become a hero because it’s his childhood dream. Even a Deku wanting to become a renowned hero to advocate for a change in the world’s opinion on Quirkless people would’ve been compelling to an extent. Sure, it would have far more impact if Deku remained Quirkless, so maybe Horikoshi should’ve gone with that route, but you get my point.

So, in the end, Deku manages to be both unrealistic and unrelatable (unrelatable isn’t technically a real word, I know, but you’re getting it anyway). He’s somewhat of a paragon of wasted potential in terms of a character, and that’s why I believe he fails.

#my hero academia #boku no hero academia #anime #manga #izuku midoriya #deku #katsuki bakugo #bnha #bnha bakugo katsuki #mha #shinsou #shinsou hitoshi

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gamesception · 3 years

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The Promised Neverland is kind of really good, actually? I mean, yeah, I’m late to the party as usual, but I just binged the first season of the anime, and then the manga from that point on (the site I was on didn’t have any of the second season, but apparently it diverges from the comic and gets bad anyway, so maybe just read the comic to begin with). And, I mean, spoilers, obviously, but I’m going to get into some extremely major spoilers here so if you haven’t read it or if you’ve only seen the first season of the anime maybe skip this post and read the manga, but...

...

I’ve tried and failed to write a big long post about all the ways it’s so good, how the main three characters are each so compelling, how its pitch dark but not cynical or misanthropic, with mortal stakes but not gore-porny, positive and optimistic without being trite or naïve, how choosing Emma out of the main three to be the primary protagonist and viewpoint character keeps the story from becoming a masculine militaristic power fantasy, how the antagonists are treated as characters and not just monsters - even the ones that are literal monsters, about how the story never supports or glorifies the idea of sacrificing the weak so that the strong can survive, about how empathy and understanding and a chance for peace are extended to every single villain without putting a burden to forgive on victims and without ignoring the need to fight those who refuse the offer of peace and uphold the status quo, how the story opposes oppressive hierarchies at every turn - not just those the monsters use to control the human children at the farms, but also how the monster elites use access to human meat to controller the lower social classes of monster society, and even to an extent within the human resistance.

But there’s just way too much to talk about to get it all into one big giant post, and I don’t have the stamina for a big extended ongoing project right now - or else I’d return to one of the like 12 I have on hold.

But, like, to pick just one thing....

ok, so eventually we learn what the monsters are and why they eat people. They’re a weird sort of organism that can temporarily take on the characteristics of things they eat. Eat a bird and grow wings, eat a bug and grow an exoskeleton, eat a human and gain a humanoid body and the intelligence to become self aware, learn language, form societies - for a while. But if they go too long without eating people, then they lose their minds and revert to a bestial form. In order to save the humans, the resistance leader Minerva plans to wipe out the monster society altogether. After all, they literally have to eat humans to continue being people, there is no possibility of peace.

Protagonist Emma, though, has seen not just the horrific human farms and their cruel and corrupt rulers, but also their towns and settlements, their families and children. She was even saved at one point shortly after her escape by friendly monsters who opposed the farm system, and even though it seems impossible, she wants to save both the humans and the monsters.

A more typical show, at least among those with premises as dark as The Promised Neverland, wouldn’t take Emma’s side in this. She would be forced to ‘grow up’ and face the fact that she can’t save everyone. Her naivety would get someone killed to break her heart and teach her to be hard and cruel as if those things are virtues. Or, more likely, she wouldn’t be the viewpoint character to begin with, she’d be a side character whose ideals would get herself killed in order to elevate the male characters’ angst and justify their violence. Either way, the message would be “Emma’s ideals were unrealistic and could never survive contact with the harsh reality of the world.”

TPN instead takes Emma’s Side. She finds monsters who maintain a humanoid body and intelligence without eating humans, and they’re able to spread that trait to the rest of monster society while the humans all escape to the human world. Now, as much as I don’t like the grimdark ‘there is no peaceful option’ hypothetical version of the story, this development could have been handled pretty badly. Like, just reading it like that, it sounds like the story raised a big moral dilemma and then chickened out of it. But that’s really not how it comes off while you’re reading it, for a couple reasons.

First of all, Emma meets the non-human-eating monsters early in the story, long before we get the explanation of how monsters in general work. So by the time we learn that the monsters must eat humans to maintain their self identity, the audience already knows that there are exceptions and that an alternative exists. The story never sets this up to be a moral dilemma in the first place, so when the issue is bypassed it doesn’t feel like it’s undercut itself.

More importantly, though, is the thematic & metaphorical content. Because the monster society is a pretty explicit metaphor for unjust human societies, and monsters represent the people who make up such societies. Not just the aristocrats who benefit from the unjust society, or those who directly enforce and uphold it, but also regular people. People insulated just enough from the suffering and death that their lives are built on that they can turn a blind eye to it, but aware enough of their complicity in that suffering that they construct excuses to justify their part in it, and by proxy excuse those at the top who actually benefit from and shaped the society as it is. People living lives simultaneously just comfortable enough to keep them docile, but precarious enough that they’re too caught up with struggling to maintain the tenuous grasp on the lives they have to feel like they can work towards anything better. Monster society in TPN is a cage built out of the corpses of humans cattle, but built to imprison and enslave the monster civilians who eat them.

Hanging the story on the fantastical element of monster biology would divorce it from that essential metaphor while also endorsing an outright genocidal worldview, and TPN explicitly calls out the plan to wipe out the monsters altogether as just that - genocidal. It never even pretends to entertain the notion that the audience should accept that plan as the right choice, even while it doesn’t condemn Minerva for pursuing it. When Emma is proposing her plan to Minerva, the deal she strikes with him is ‘I will try to make my peaceful solution happen, and if I succeed then you cancel your plan to wipe out the monsters’. Minerva is eventually shown to be lying when he makes that agreement, but Emma isn’t, and note the if there. If Emma’s plan fails, then she - and thus the narrative - accepts that Minerva’s plan to save the children is still better than leaving things as they are, even if it means wiping out all the monsters. After all, the society IS monstrously unjust, and even the lower classes within that society ARE complicit in that injustice.

Minerva’s problem isn’t even presented as a matter of him hating the monsters too much to see a route to peace with them. The story doesn’t frame the conflict between Minerva’s and Emma’s plans as hate vs. love or revenge vs. forgiveness. It’s instead more of ‘hierarchy and division bad, mutualism/openness/relying on each other good’. The point is to show how Minerva’s role as a figurehead who believes he has to project strength to uphold the hope that the other humans have placed in him has worn away his ability to rely on others or to be open to alternatives they offer, leaving him with rigid and inflexible thinking.

So when Minerva learns about the monsters who don’t need to eat humans, he doesn’t see an opportunity for a better outcome - potentially even an easier outcome since he doesn’t have to make enemies of the entirety of monster society - rather he sees a threat to his plan to starve the monsters back into an animalistic state.

And if that whole subplot isn’t explicit enough, Minerva’s internalized need to project strength also results in his physical body wasting away in secret from a condition he believes to be untreatable, but the moment he finally breaks down and admits he needs help Emma is able to point to a solution, one that again doesn’t come across as a cop out because again it takes the form of another character the audience was already introduced to a long time ago.

In a story arc that the second season of the anime adaptation apparently cut entirely, wow the more I hear about anime season 2 the worse it sounds. And after the first season was so good....

...

Anyway, I tried to pick just one thing and this post still turned into a colossal gushing word cascade, and there are so many other elements to talk about. Like how The ‘Mothers’ and ‘Sisters’ are menacing villains with seemingly no empathy for the children, but when Sister Krona realizes she’s lost the power struggle with Isabella she leaves the kids tools to help them, and then when Mother Isabella realizes the children have escaped, she covers up the route they used in order to buy them a little extra time to get away. It’s these little touches - just as much as the short backstories that follow them - that show us how, while they might uphold the system out of fear for their own lives, and might have rationalize their part in it in order to live with the horrible things they’re doing, the mothers and sisters don’t actually hate the children. Knowing that makes it believable when in the end Isabella does turn on the system, and every single one of the other mothers and sisters join her.

The bit when the fighting is mostly over and she tells the Mother at the house “it’s over, now we can just love them” and the other woman breaks down crying is so sad and human, it makes me tear up thinking about it..

Like I said, all the villains are characters, not just monsters. They all have motivations for the horrific things they do - sometimes irrational, often selfish, but not even the most unforgivable of the monsters are just evil for evil’s sake.

Again, I’m rambling. It’s just... I’m used to these sorts of pitch dark dystopias being, for lack of a better term, kinda fashy in their messaging? Or at the very least deeply cynical and misanthropic and just kind of mean spirited. And TPN is so completely the opposite of that, in so many ways.

#tpn spoilers #tpn #the promised neverland #anyway yeah it's pretty good #though again apparently the second season of the anime falls of the rails #like from reading reactions today #it seems season 2 drops or completely flubs literally everything I go into in this post #don't watch it #i haven't #and feel better off for it #edited because I misremembered a couple things #like the 'we can just love them' line comes after the fighting not before #the point remains though

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bloodyspade0000 · 3 years

Text

30-day knb challenge: Day 1- Favorite Male character

↳ Haizaki Shougo

I am not justifying Haizaki's behaviour. I think he needs a tall glass of respect woman juice and therapy. This is just meant to explain why he is my favourite character and help you better understand him as a character. Do not send hate or take my words out of context. You will be reported, deleted and cancelled. Thank you and enjoy. :)

My favourite character is Haizaki Shougo *dodges tomatoes* a lot of people in the fandom hate this guy for many reasons. It's kind of funny how many people hate him and the amount of hate he gets just for existing. Like bruh; he's sixteen, leave him alone. 😂

His whole existence is just sad. He was literally created to be hated.

Like straight up, Tadatoshi Fujimaki even admitted that he hated Haizaki. Haizaki's sole purpose of existing is to make the Generation of Miracles look better even though they’re just as problematic as he. No one is fucking perfect and is about time people woke the fuck up and realized it. Your faves are problematic move the fuck on.

Yes, the Miracles are redeemable but so is Haizaki. Yet, unlike the Miracles, he does not get redeemable. No, he disappears and is never seen again. Like bitch, what the fuck!? if you’re gonna introduce a character to only have them disappear for a long time and either have them show up again or just never mention them again. Wasting the potential they had to be a very good character or not having them redeem themselves while the other characters who were just as fucking problematic get a fucking redemption arc because they’re fucking main characters!? What’s the point of that character even existing in the first place? What kind of bullshit is that? Just to have them exist to make the main characters look good? How the fuck does that make sense? Like where is my Haizaki redemption arc? Do I have to write it on my own? I will write it. I am writing one.

Haizaki is the only character I could relate to. Being second best, struggling to find somewhere to fit in and overshadowed and replaced by someone everyone thinks is better than you. It's fucking depressing, okay? You spend your whole life thinking you’re not good enough, and it hurts. I don't feel like going too deep into it because I don't owe you a detailed explanation of my trauma, okay?. So I'll save that for my fics where I self-project half of it onto Haizaki. It’s a coping mechanism, okay? Therapy is fucking expensive.

The anime ruined his whole character, got rid of his whole arc and shorted it down, and made him worse than he really is.

A post explaining how the anime did him dirty and goes more in-depth about his character

I am not trying to justify his actions, i.e. him manhandling Alex and beating Himura up. He does terrible shit. We all do lousy shit sometimes, but that doesn't make us bad people. Making mistakes is a part of being human, and we're supposed to hold people accountable for their actions and help them realize what they’re doing is wrong, allowing them to grow and change. Not condemn them and ostracize them, which leads to isolation and a lot of psychological trauma and self-hatred, and as someone who has dealt with—is still dealing with all three. It is not fun. It makes living painful. Highly unrecommended.

Haizaki does not have a positive role model in his life nor anybody he can turn to, everyone has already given up on him. Even Nijimura and Kuroko didn’t even try to help him, being more focused on the Miracles. (Yes, I know kuroko tried to stop him from throwing his basketball shoes away, but that doesn’t fucking count because after that Kuroko just gave up on Haiazki too). Haizaki has probably grown grew up knowing only violence and not a single ounce of kindness, turning him into the bitter and angry little boy he is.

Haizaki had so much potential. But instead of making him a great villain that potential was WASTED on fucking Kise.

Also, the Kaijo vs Seirin match in the winter cup was completely useless because Kise already got redeemed and he literally got no character development from it.

And Seirin was gonna fucking win anyways because duh thier the main characters. 🙄

Now some headcanons I think about a lot:

1. He gets abused. Some psychological behavioural consequences of child abuse are unhealthy sexual practices and juvenile delinquency, and Haizaki exhibits all three which are some external behaviours of most (NOT ALL) male abuse victims. Haizaki's a womanizer, aggressive, hostile and violent. Yet, he backs down when someone stronger than him comes around and puts him in his place i.e. Aomine and Nijimura.

a factsheet explaining the long term consequences of child abuse and neglect

How to help a friend dealing with family abuse or neglect

How to Handle Abuse

2. He's a victim. And when you're a victim, you either become angry and cynical with everything and everyone around you, swearing never to be a victim again and struggle with gaining back control of your life. Not wanting anyone to see you being vulnerable because being vulnerable makes you weak. Being weak makes you shatter. You always shatter like glass, cutting yourself every time you pick up broken pieces, watching as blood trickles through your fingers.

Your body is constantly on high alert. The default is flight or fight—survival to the fittest.

Or you bite your lip and keep your head down, bottling everything inside and looking for escapes or seeking validation. You want to be wanted and loved because you struggle with loving and accepting yourself. There's always a voice in the back of your head telling you, you're not good enough or that it's your fault. That everything is your fault. Self-hatred and self-doubt are your tormentors.

Or it's a combination between both—a constant struggle.

And I believe Haizaki portrays both from the way he acts and presents himself. Especially since his motto is literally "Survival of the fittest,” and he had once told Kuroko, " there are bad guys and then the really scary people," or something along those lines, which I believe he is talking from experience. You learn from your experiences. They either make you or break you.

3. He's touch-starved.

What Does It Mean to Be Touch Starved?

4. He's bisexual and has a lot of internalized homophobia. I can just feel his internalized homophobia rolling off of him. Bruh, I just know cuz I am bisexual, and I have struggled with internalized homophobia and still sadly struggle with it cuz I grew up surrounded by homophobic people.

I still live with them. 😭

Also, we live in a society that thinks straight is the default.

What internalized homophobia is.

5. His sexual awakening was probably Aomine or Kise. Could be both 😂?

6. He cries himself to sleep every night.

7. He's observant and a great judge of character. It's a fact. This guy literally predicted the downfall of the Miracles. Straight up warned Kuroko too. Too bad Kuroko didn't listen to him.

8. He's hilarious. When he first appeared in the manga, he literally called Himura a loser, lol. XD

9. He's a closeted softie and a total tsundere.

10. doesn't know how to react to kindness and will think you're threatening him or will feel really awkward and uncomfortable but will cover it up with his scowl, or he'll have a breakdown.

11. needs a lot of reassurance and head pats

12. swears a lot. Has no filter.

13. His bother is in the yakuza or some high position of power, and he feels inferior to him. It also explains why Haizaki gets away with things because he would have been kicked out of school if his bother wasn't either-or. I'm talking about his bother being in the yakuza, lol. XD

14. He and Momoi dated for a while but broke up on a mutual understanding that thier relationship just didn't work out. They're best friends and hang out sometimes.

15. Haizaki's good with kids and just genuinely likes them. He would be a great father and try his best to raise his kids right.

16. He gets sick really easily

17. He's clingy

18. He has no friends, mainly because he doesn't want people to get close to him because he's afraid of getting hurt again. Also, everyone in knb hates him.

19. He watches cartoons cuz he was never allowed to watch them when he was a kid. His childhood is trash, okay?

20. He hides in the closet because that's where he feels safe the most—rhetorically and literally.

21. Sleep-deprived and only runs on caffeine and spite.

List of fics that portray Haizaki better than the anime:

Heavy is the head by extrastellar

Idle Hands by DarkWoods

Another Chance by regretting my username_ (777imou_offline367)

What Matters is that We're Together by StrawFairy

06:00:00 of Haizaki Shougo (4) by ReiClien

This Is Happening by SharkGirl

What is Love by voices_in_my_head

A completely uncalled catharsis by oddball

One-shots

intertwined, under a spell by kornevable

ԼƠƔƐ & ӇΛƬƐ by Arthuria_PenDragon

delirium by extrastellar

me with you by doublejoint

Turn My Camera On by wordsliketeeth

At Summer's End by doublejoint

Taste by Hibari1_san

I Can't Get Enough of You by HisDarkSecret

I don't care if it hurts by llowsywriter

Ashes by doublejoint

broken things by lowsywriter

Series:

Finally found each other by suzakukills

This Is Happening Universe by SharkGirl

DNA by flowerway

My WIPS:

Isn’t it lovely?

Broken Crown

Love me, Love me, Love me

Grey skies

Rabbit hole

A playlist of songs that I believe fit Haizaki

Kuroko’s basketball’s manga

In conclusion, You can hate Haizaki as much as you want. But just keep it to yourself. Haizaki is my baby and I will protect him with my life.

#kuroko no basket #knb #haizaki shougo #long post #rant #favorite character #knb 30 day challenge #favourite male character #headcanons #one shots #fanfiction #rec list #manga #tw swearing #tw mentions of abuse

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takirasu · 4 years

Text

Why I cannot understand how a huge majority of the Persona 5 fandom ships Akira/Protagonist with Akechi if you’ve played the game and what is possibly wrong about it

First and foremost: I do not mean to offend or hurt anyone personally with this. This is purely analytical from the viewpoint of someone who is interested in analysing characters and character dynamics. The group of people mentioned that I dislike regarding this ship is targeted to certain types of people in the fandom that will be explained at the end, meaning if you ship this No, I don’t automatically dislike you and even if I would, who cares? It’s just me. I don’t know you and it shouldn’t matter to you. I also want to mention that obviously Persona 5 will get spoiled in this analysis as well as slight mentions and spoilers of Royal, especially the third semester. Read at your own risk! Without further ado, let’s jump into a very interesting dynamic between two characters that had potential, but – in my opinion – leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth due to what fans did and do with it most of the time and how Atlus ends it in both Orginal and Royal. I will try to be about this as neutral as possible, since an analysis shouldn’t take a side and then put my opinion about it at the end, because the aspects and whys about this matter more than one person’s opinion alone. Also, the analysis will help form an opinion and back it up. There is nothing worse to me than giving an opinion, but not having anything to back it up with.

To analyse the relationship between the two I will be taking important parts of the story in this dynamic and analyse it as well as analyse the characters briefly according to the situation and towards each other. I will be taking the Anime and Manga into this for certain parts as well. I would like to do a whole character analysis one day if I find the time and fans are interested, but since the main focus of this is a ship and what is up with it I will only analyse the moments that they either have together or that further underlines the topic.

Starting with Akira, it is clear from the very first hour on that he has a strong want of helping other people – in need or not - and cannot stand injustice. To underline how important it is to him you have to understand that in Japan’s society it is considered incredibly rude to interfere between two adults in whatever situation given. It is not your business, like Sojiro Sakura – his guardian in Tokyo during his probation – explains to him and much more the player at the beginning of the game. In short, Akira knew what he might possibly get himself into. Even if Shido wouldn’t have tripped and hurt himself. Even if Shido wouldn’t have threatened the women to tell the upcoming police Akira apparently assaulted him. The only thing important to those who found out about the incident and know that he did not push him was still this: You do not interfere between two adults, keep your business. People who do that are considered delinquents and you really do not want this stamp on your forehead in Japan. Further, I assume Akira might be suffering from a Saviour complex. In all three media – game, manga and anime – he puts other people’s needs over himself and gets incredibly upset if he is not able to help someone or better, in Akechi’s case, save them. As helpful and kind a someone can be by nature, you have to understand that not everyone will either want your help or will be able to accept it. Not everyone can be saved and you do not have to save everyone. People who have trouble with accepting this suffer from a Saviour complex. A moment to justify both this and my first point is during the beginning of Madarame’s Palace, with one of my favourite quotes of Akira being,

“I want to help. I just want to be sure what we're doing is right. Trust me I'm not saying we should turn a blind eye and do nothing...”

After this event, Ann and Ryuji call him out for being both too timid and yet in haste at the same time. They’re barely out of the Metaverse and obviously have a private life that they need to care about when he already wants everyone to gather information on if Yusuke is really being abused and used by his teacher as fast as possible; on the same day. Again, he puts others over himself. While of course Ryuji and Ann aren’t any less concerned, to him someone might be getting hurt and there is no time to waste on matters like this. When they do find out through Nakanohara, a former student of Madarame, that he steals his pupil’s art, threatens everyone that leaves him and makes students even hurt themselves, Akira as the Phantom Thieves leader decide on saving Yusuke. Said complex also feeds his need of wanting to protect others, shown and explored more in two major scenes in the anime. When Phantom Thieves meet Akechi for their finale encounter they captured it very well. Akechi reveals he has the power of the Wild card, being able to handle more than one Persona, like Akira does. When the Thieves try to either talk to Akechi or attempt to walk up to him and handle it, Akira as Joker takes his role seriously. He tells the others, “He’s mine. Hold. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.” knowing full well that nobody else would be able to take him on other than another Wild card. Another scene is when he protects Sojiro from a few police men. He knows he shouldn’t step in between two adults and he is still on probation, but the want of protecting the person that offers him shelter and that warms up to him is stronger than his own desires. He stands in front of Sojiro and shields him.

Akechi on the other hand is one of the most interesting and misunderstood characters I have seen in a long time. While not outright admitting it himself, Akechi has this immense and unfulfilled need of being loved since his past was pretty much empty of it. His resentment towards Akira is fuelled by this since he sees how said one has a lot of supportive friends when he’s nothing special in particular. This possibly means that in Akechi’s eyes you have to have a certain standard to achieve to be special and lovable, which would explain the way he made himself for the public. He further insults Akira as a criminal who lives in an attic during their last meeting and asks himself what he has that Akechi lacks, not knowing that it is something he never grew up learning. He hates Akira, but deep down he does not. It pains him to see the exact opposite of himself and how out of place it is for him. Akira is nothing yet loved, while Akechi build up this perfect self that is special, but not actually loved. It messes with him whenever Akira is in front of him and does better than him. He is the reason he gets reminded of the things he hates the most about himself. Similar to Akira he is an outcast to society – just carefully sealed and hidden behind his Ace detective mask. Shido, who is actually his father and he only works with to get revenge on, did not care that he got someone pregnant and left, which lead to Akechi’s mother giving him away and committing suicide. In Japan these kind of families are frowned upon on, being the kid of a possible one-night stand gives no meaning to your life and only tarnishes the mother, which is most probably the reason why the women took her life. It wasn’t bearable for her in this society and she couldn’t life with Akechi’s existence. He was given from foster home to foster home, never had any parents that would give him love and that he could look up to as well as forming actual bonds with people. You see him both struggling to form an actual friendship with Sae, an adult, as well as adapt to people his age, for example the Phantom Thieves. He feels odd and has this unpleasant aura of superiority around him, since he has never learned anything regarding love and how to work and be with other people. So Akechi decides he needs to build his mask to be lovable to the public since his actual self, in his eyes, is not. He’s smart and basically reforms himself completely new for the public. His public self is near to perfect for the role of a student detective. Justice driven, charming, funny and smart. During the game while he is on stage it slips his thoughts during the moment everyone cheers for him and adores him, that none of these people know he’s an unwanted bastard child, which means that he does not think as highly of himself as the player tends to think at the beginning of the game. He is sure nobody would like him and he would never be able to become a detective if it was him as his true self that is worthy of nothing. These two things lead to him being able to be cold-blooded and cause the mental shutdowns, as well as try to kill Akira. First, he has never gotten love and affection. These things are needed for a child to grow and learn empathy, which Akechi lacks. It might almost sound mean, but from a neutral viewpoint this is why it was so easy for him. He does not feel for other people as openly as others do. Also, you have to keep in mind that every shutdown being demanded by Shido would eventually bring him closer to his goal. His father to acknowledged his existence in the perfect moment, the apex of his power, and to take revenge on him for the life he has to live and most possibly for his mother to be driven to suicide. Lastly important for this analysis, Akechi knew what he did when he decided to let himself get killed by his cognitive self, Shido’s so-called security system. First, it would have either been him and the Phantom Thieves who were the only ones able to use the Metaverse next to him and change Shido’s heart, or only him which means that there was a possibility to at least ruin his life and not make him the new Prime minister of Japan. He knows that they won’t kill Shido, but taking everything from him that is important to him, his only desire, and the reason Akechi had to live life like this to begin with seems enough in the moment he faces death. Second, he does not believe in second chances and he does not believe in forgiveness. Akechi’s believes that are present during the whole game aren’t just towards others, but also himself. He hates his true self the same way he dislikes Akira. Both his true self and Akira are nothing in society therefore neither worthy of love or forgiveness. To him, there is no other way to atone for his sins. When the Phantom Thieves defeat Akechi he states,

“You (Akira) are so lucky to be surrounded by teammates who acknowledge you. Once Shido confesses his crimes, you’ll all be heroes. As for me, people will find out my past deductions were just charade. My fame and trust will vanish. In the end, I couldn’t be special…”

The only place he could eventually feel loved was when he faked those crimes and fake investigated them, since they were his own the public didn’t know about. He could feel important and respected, have a place in Japan’s society while working on his goal of his father’s downfall. The moment the Phantom Thieves won over him, he knew this would be taken away from him since to him the only possible outcome of this is the Phantom Thieves winning over Shido and either turning Akechi in or Shido spilling during his change of heart. People relying on him and trusting him, people acknowledging him. That is what the trust and fame was about to him. The moment they meet in Shido’s palace and Akechi is defeated, it would all be taken away from him. Putting this together is the reason he decides to trap himself with the summoned shadows and his cognitive self. His father would lose everything that was important to him if he saves the Phantom Thieves and he has no reason to live in a world where he has no fame and trust from the public, since in his distorted mind he will not be worth of love and worth of existence. He wouldn’t be special. When the Phantom Thieves do reach out and tell him all the things they admire about him and give him a chance to join them against Shido, he laughs about them. His true self is out and to him, it is not lovable or special no matter what they say.

From the reasons shippers bring up for these two, Akira being devastated about Akechi’s death and wanting it revoked is a big one and the first one I want to analyse and explain. As analysed earlier, it is important to Akira to save others and help them, especially when they cannot help themselves. In certain parts, the two aren’t far from each other yet polar opposites. Akira knows that and despite everything feels empathy for Akechi after said ones tells the whole story. Witnessing someone’s death whether it is hearing or seeing it is traumatizing and it’s normal to think about it later back at home in the real world how Akira does, but taking his character analysis into consideration it probably messed with him more than it would with other people, like the other Phantom Thieves. In the anime, Akechi throws a chess piece with Akira catching it. Akira, who is not someone to have emotional outbursts, gets so worked up and angry that he hits the wall that came down in front of them with his fist before he quickly catches himself back in the role as the leader who always had and has to stay calm and collected. If you look at it, Akechi is the only one Akira couldn’t save when he knew he needed it and, to Akira, deserved it. Because throughout the whole game with so many different cases of people not being able to save themselves or being in unjust situations not once does he care about how the people are or if there is any certain character trait etc. to them in particular. Akira probably shares the same belief like his friends. Everyone is special in their own way and so was Akechi deserving of a better life like everyone else is. It messes with him so much, that in Persona 5: Royal, a game that came out 3 years after the original game and it is still tightly being fought about if it is canon or an alternative reality to which the developers have yet to make an official statement to, he tells Maruki, the school’s therapist who is interested in cognitive science, that if he could change reality, his wish wouldn’t be that all of this had never happened, but that Akechi would still be alive. While this is the number one situation people who ship the two use ever since Royal has come out, it just further underlines Akira’s character and my suggestion of him having a Saviour complex. He cannot live with the fact that he couldn’t save Akechi, when this is what the Phantom Thieves stood for. It pains him so much that his wish is actually beneficial to someone else. We know nothing about Akira’s past, but it is impossible that there isn’t something he wishes wouldn’t have happened that is outside of the game. Instead, he chose something that helps someone else and puts himself back to ease. He knows, this is what pains him the most and will for quite some time. Having Akechi back would ease his complex and give a person he thinks that deserve a second chance another tries. This is once more better shown in the anime during the last confrontation when Akira tries to talk to Akechi multiple times during Akechi’s small monologue, but eventually realizes it will be of no use. Akechi is too far gone and Akira tells the group to finish it.

Second are the moments we got early in the anime. While the game doesn’t allow this, the anime explores Akechi’s detective side a bit earlier and more for the viewer. In game, we only see Akechi working on the cases he created while he is actually really good at “real” cases as well and able to solve them. During Yusuke’s arc, Akira and Akechi work together on a few of those and Akechi teaches him how not to be fooled by rotten adults. This all goes quite wholesome, but at that point the interrogation nor the black mask reveal had happened yet. The story is early and fresh, not even having picked up the pace. It almost feels like Akechi either tried learning how Akira’s mind works, or honestly just wanted to spend time with someone he felt like was similar to him. All of this gets revoked though when he massively insults him at the end of the game, making it hard to put this in canon. It might be that Akechi was trying to give himself a chance, because Akira was probably the first person who could handle Akechi just like how he is and also accepted him just like that - since that is what Akira does with everyone throughout the game and also gets complimented and aknowleged for - but instead Akechi couldn’t stop himself and pulled through with the rest of his plans. Looking at it from another side, taking this from the anime into consideration makes the next thing and points even worse.

Last is the interrogation, probably one of the most well-known scenes in the whole game, that I want to analyse further. To begin with, Akira finds himself getting arrested due to Akechi’s betrayal. While it is not exactly explained how, it is obvious that Akechi lead the police in since only Metaverse app users can enter the Metaverse. If you have a non-user nearby, you can pull them into it. Akechi probably did this beforehand, told them to hide and gave them either a time limit or symbol. After the fight against Sae Futaba picks up enemy readings, so many that they’re being surrounded. Akira and the Phantom Thieves part ways and the leader makes all the attention go to himself so that the others can escape. In the end he gets ambushed, cuffed up and knocked out by drugs. What the player does not know is that the group had known about Akechi’s plan all along and they had to play along. All throughout Sae’s palace, Akira knew he would most probably be cuffed up by the end, but it was necessary to let it happen. Otherwise they would never be able to defeat Akechi. I would like to add that this in particular sounds pretty traumatizing and stressful as well. Moving forward and the Phantom Thieves’ plan succeeding, Akechi is unknowingly being dragged into the Metaverse. He outright plans to kill Akira, which reveals his true motive on why he worked with them on Sae’s palace in the first place. The Phantom Thieves are blocking his path of the mental shutdowns and destroying his father. It is so soon that he cannot lose due to them. He is smart about it and wants to kill their leader. Once again and as stated earlier, Akechi doesn’t feel empathy and he has killed before. He gets things done so that they are beneficial to what he needs to do further, just like how it was beneficial for him to work with the Thieves together for at least a while. Be that figuring out how they work, or just messing with them. What he doesn’t know is the person in the interrogation room is the cognitive version of Akira. He is only in there, because he just entered Sae’s palace and in her cognition Akira is in the interrogation room, which she does not have much control of. Therefore, it keeps being the interrogation room instead of anything Casino related. Akechi proceeds to shoot an innocent guard and then Akira. While doing so, he seems like on a high, fully enjoying it getting rid of him and it is almost uncomfortable to watch that is how good it is made. It is Akechi’s first time he kills someone in the real world, but it doesn’t seem to be much different for him. He shoots Akira right in the head when he has nowhere to go, tied up and completely drugged to a point that both in the game and anime he can’t talk properly and even passes out. The state Akira is in is portrayed very well and just underlines the atmosphere further. A murderer just aiming at their helpless victim. Akechi puts the gun in his hand to report it as a suicide and leaves. He never shows any remorse when they meet again, only throwing in that the two might possibly would have become friends if having met earlier. He does not mention the faked death, because there is nothing to say. It might be, because both know Akechi wanted to do it. It was necessary for his path and nobody, especially not someone like Akira, would be standing in his way. Shippers defend this situation, saying Akechi had to kill Akira. To some extent, I would analysis this as true and say that it was a possibly way of getting rid of the Phantom Thieves and continuing his plan, but is your first idea really murder to this? In such a special way? Concealing it as a suicide and not have any respect to the person you just killed? It is unlikely as smart as Akechi is that this was the only possible option he had regarding on how he would get rid of the Phantom Thieves or their leader. Killing the person is just probably the most convenient one to Akechi and again, he does not feel for others properly, since he has never learned how to. This is why he is able to plan this, kill someone he acted like a friend with, saw multiple times for weeks and just walk away. In conclusion that means it is not because he had to and also not because he wanted to in particular, but because Akechi did not care and therefore made it possible to just shot him and continue with his life. It is one of the most important scenes in the whole game and does a lot to the development for all three characters involved (Sae, Akechi and Akira) yet shippers throw it under a bus with the sole statement that he had to.

Putting everything above together, the major moments these two had, shipping Akira and Akechi is complicated and probably not the best.

To finally conclude my opinion to this. In another world, Akechi could learn a lot from Akira. He has a lot of empathy for others and wants to help, which Akechi lacks. It would have been good for him and the part where Akechi mentioned that they might have become friends if met earlier made me emotional as someone who does not support it in a romantic way. In this moment, I thought of them as friends. I thought myself thinking of what would have been if they had met one or two years earlier. Two people who get better through each other and learn from each other. As much as I love this character trait from Akira, I have had my personal fair shares that having this can be negative at times. It would be good for him to have someone that shows him the opposite or at least a middle path. Both characters go All-Out on this. It is either full on empathy or complete lack of empathy. Either you want to save everyone or you’re okay with killing whoever as long as you obtain your ultimate goals.

Many people have stated already that the ship is quite abusive. Anything that comes out of Akechi’s mouth towards Akira in both game and anime (I’m only referencing the anime since the last two times because the manga is barely at Futaba’s arc yet) after revealing his true motives, is negative. Either he insults him directly or the way he lives, just because he found someone that reminds him of himself deep inside if he wants to or not. That gives him no right to act like this, even when psychology is complex. And if you want to defend this, it gives him no right to shoot him and actually visibly enjoy it – which you cannot deny and a lot of people in the fandom stated as well. He didn’t have to, but he did. He wasn’t forced to, but he did it. I wonder if Akechi tells Akira he hates him for the fact that he did make him feel something. Not in a romantic way, again, but more in a way of empathy and this feeling of friendship and he knew he had to stop this.

There are a lot of good people in the fandom fan of his complex character. I don’t necessary like Akechi as a character, but I find him interesting and good to talk about. As for liking or hating him…the interrogation scene happened the way it happened let’s just leave it at that. Sadly, there are also a lot of people in the fandom who will shove this ship down your throat. Somehow, it is superior to them and it should be canon. I have seen so many tweets and Tumblr posts, especially with Royal and its’ third semester that genuinely leave me concerned. What started as 3AM ramble to my friend ended up being this 5000 words essay on why the situations and character traits stated above get taken out of context or misunderstood by shippers. It goes further when you find out that some people ship it because it is abusive to begin with. They acknowledge it and love it and while there are more important things in life than this, I just found it too concerning and also very annoying at one point, I had to make an analysis about it and clear some things up. I have blocked a lot of tags regarding this ship and I still see it every day in the fandom and get attacked if I say something against it, so I just made this post, knowing that people will eventually get mad at it. But, I honestly really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed writing about Akechi’s character. He is interesting, complex and there is so much to talk about him, but do I ship him with my favourite video game character? Hell nah.

If you want to add something to this, feel free to. I also enjoy respectful and normal discussion about this! I researched a lot for this, re-watched a few anime and game scenes and wrote for a total of 7 hours. If you enjoyed it or it made you think a little, it would be kind to let me know. I haven’t written anything in a while and my last character analysis was years ago, so this was quite a challenge, but knowing how popular this ship is and how much worse it got with Royal’s existence, I had to put this out. I’m going to be honest here. If they would’ve met a few years earlier, who knows if this wouldn’t have become one of my ships (I don’t interact in a lot of shipping to begin with so), because the basis of it is nice. But then the actual plot happens. All this stuff from the interrogation until the end happens and shippers just dismiss it or try to make it sound less bad. Like it’s the actual plot. It’s there. This is how P5 goes down. Akira’s one of the most traumatized characters I’ve come across in fiction and Akechi does a fair share to that. Don’t just dismiss that so your ship can be cute. It won’t, I’m sorry. And if you want to come at me for shipping in general, I as well ship something with complex and interesting dynamics within this game. It’s appealing, but not like this.

Thank you for reading this if you got through all of it! I seriously appreciate it and my non-existent sleep does to! - May

#persona 5 #p5 #persona #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #goro akechi #video game #analysis #persona 5 analysis

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handlewithkara · 3 years

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More spoiler roundup

"We have to tell you that our favorite villain, Lex Luthor, will be returning and one of the most exciting things is that we will see Lex -- for the first time ever -- fall in love with a worthy evil partner, which might be named Nyxly," Queller shared.Despite being the Paragon of Hope, Supergirl wasn't able to complete a totem task for courage in Tuesday's episode of the Arrowverse series, and it's something that will haunt her as the show's sixth and final season continues.

"It's something that she will wrestle with for the rest of the season, wondering why she didn't pass it," Supergirl executive producer Robert Rovner told TV Guide. "But Nyxly says in the episode that it wasn't about showing strength, but it was about showing the vulnerability and that, I think, is the key to Supergirl finally understanding why she didn't pass it."

That fits with a quote from Mel about being more vulnerable around her friends. Note that writers like to be the ones to follow up to ideas they have introduced, so that might come back in 17, the next Lena/Horgan centric episode. (or it might be something from Faerber who might be writing one of the later episodes, that would fit with Faerber writing Welcome Back Kara where Kara hides her trauma and Nia is frustrated that she failed passing her Fear test)

That said: I still fail to see what kind of vulnerability Kara was supposed to show in the middle of saving a plane? Will Kara presumably be better at the other tests and it’s just courage that haunts her? Or are they only talking about this one because this is the episode they are discussing?

"I think that Lena's growth as a human being is tied in to this struggle," fellow executive producer Jessica Queller said, also speaking to TV Guide this week. "She's always relied on her brilliant intellect and she's also been very suspicious of others because of her earlier experience. We're finally seeing her open up and not keeping secrets and trusting her friends and trusting other people. And this season is a lot about Lena finally really trusting herself. … And as she comes to terms with her own magic, she also evolves as a person who's coming to terms with trusting herself."

I know you hate to hear it, but yes, indicator 128972934 that Lena will keep her powers by the end of the show if acceptnig those powers and trusting those powers is phrased as a positive thing. Now if the show actually dared to point out what a huge hypocrite Lena was to get upset about Kara’s secret when she had constantly been keeping secrets the entire time.

"Her friendship with the Super Friends -- all of them -- is kind of front and center in the second half of the season," Rovner said. "One of the things that is new this season -- as Jessica pointed out -- is that she has friends that she can trust and so she isn't burdened by secrets. I think it allows her to kind of face these challenges in a very supported way, which is very exciting for us to have written about, but also to see her kind of grow a community and build a community around her and not fall into old patterns, which you know she's very worried about doing."

Well that fits with what I said about earlier episodes that it could be about Lena learning to be part of a team and form relationships with a wider variety of people rather than putting all her eggs into one friendship basket and then it being the end of the world if that friendship has a conflict.

Well, it’s pretty obvious that he’s your favorite villain ... I think even a blind person would be able to tell that.

[about the Kara and Nyxly connection] "It does get worse before it gets better," Rovner said. "I think that it keeps them connected and it allows Supergirl to face things that she's never been forced to face before. This connection with Nyxly's psyche forces her to kind of really evaluate the power that she's up against, and what she needs to—"

"What lengths she's willing to go to fight it -- is really a lot of, thematically, what we're going to be dealing with now," Queller added.

I still think the psychic connection stuff feels really dumb. I think being connected would actually be interesting if it caused Kara to see true darkness, but that doesn’t work with how they seem to be undecided between whether Nyxly is hokey or actually likable.

Or if they actually went more in depth to Kara and Nyxly having some sort of friendship (not that I would want them to really waste time on that in the show’s last season)

[about William] "There will be obstacles and danger involved moving forward, but I think the press is so important to our storytelling and I think him being there really allows us to examine the role of truth and accountability as it relates to our Super Friends," Rovner said. "He'll have a big role to play as the season progresses."

Unsurprsingly William = truth.

According to the showrunners, the most challenging one will be the love totem. Queller notes that it will be the most brutal, “in terms of what it will put our characters through to achieve saving the love totem.”

“They all have a particular burden on the characters,” Rovner added. “One of the exciting things about this season is that in addition to trying to defeat our big bad, each episode is thematically tied to the totem that they’re going after. So that allows us to explore deeper character things as well so we’re excited that the storytelling gave us that ability.”

Sigh. I can see why going through the thematics every episode was a fun idea for the writers on paper, but so far I can’t shake the feeling that their interpretation of it is very hokey and cheesy. Does “our characters” also incorporate Nyxly? Like is love going to be rough on her as well?

If this involves multiple characters I presume that means they will do another pre-test thing where there is thematic mayhem.

[On Dansen] “We don’t want to spoil it but their love story deepens and and becomes central focus as the season goes on,” Queller noted.

[Rovner] "During the course of the rest of the season, there's a lot of Guardian, but also Kelly and Alex stories as well, as we see their relationship deepen and evolve over the second half of the season. We're very excited about that story."

Good for them.

Meanwhile, the dream totem is also going to be a big one for Nia (Nicole Maines). Rovner confirmed that fans won’t find out what exactly that super deep dream she was in during “The Gauntlet” was, but that the dream totem will certainly open things up for her.

Also unsurprising that the dream totem will have a connection to Nia (again probably episode 16 because of the Nightmare name). Also lame that they won’t reveal her episode 13 dream.

https://www.tvguide.com/news/supergirl-boss-says-nyxly-is-the-most-dangerous-villain-the-super-friends-have-ever-faced/

https://news.yahoo.com/supergirl-showrunners-promise-ll-learn-020000236.html

https://www.tvguide.com/news/supergirl-lenas-magical-powers-will-deepen-her-trust-with-kara-and-the-super-friends/

#supergirl spoilers

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chatonyant · 4 years

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im just so sad about this funky crow ninja

Listen

Itachi is just

Such a tragic character and it makes me so sad

Like he's a pacifist at heart but he was forced to be the literal opposite at such a young age and I'm just so sAD ABOUT IT

(Under cut cause it’s long and it’s about the uchiha massacre if yall would rather not read bout that But it also has some soft ideas down at the way bottom if yall wanna just speed scroll to the bottom)

How he came to the choice he made regarding the Uchiha massacre totally makes sense to me. It wasn't a good decision, it wasn't a decision best suited for the situation, but it made sense. And it gets worse once you realize that he was 13. Thirteen. No wonder he couldn't find/use a third option. He's still a child, even in this world of child soldiers. He bloodied his hands and wore a mask so that the home he loved and the brother he adored could be safe.

I wish his story could've been written... better, for a lack of proper words. Maybe that is the right word. But I want to see him do more for Konoha. He became a missing nin for Konoha to spy on Akatsuki/Madara but we don't see the results of that. What information does Konoha get from him? Because we know that he's still loyal to Konoha after all this time. Did he do anything to slow Akatsuki down? Did he do things to benefit Konoha or stop something from badly impacting it? What did he do?

And then he dIES AND HE JUST DOESNT GET A BREAK AND IM HHHHH :((((((

And he was sick and going blind too!!!! I swear he was the universe's punching bag (though one of many cause the naruto universe just Be Like That)

Fuck ok I came on here to ramble about Itachi in my au but then got sad sO AU TIME NOW

For one I want to make him.... more sympathetic? A redemption works best when its shown from the start that there is more than meets the eye. Like Zuko, for example. He was a jerk, but there are moments where it's clear that he's not as much of a jerk as he could have been. And I wanted to do something similar with Itachi (and a couple other villains tbh but it's also a matter of "Should you survive" coughObitocough I love you but idk if you survive in this au or not but I have ideas nonetheless but that is for a later time)

Anyways, morally grey but more clearly Itachi

Honestly I've got more ideas for his ending than the beginning. Which is... very annoying. This is unfortunately the case for many... many of my ideas....

An idea I've been juggling with is Itachi not killing everyone. He definitely kills everyone who's activated their sharingan and anyone who is/was a shinobi. So everyone who's not a civilian. So,,, the survivors are very very little and are civilian mothers and civilian children too young to even attend the academy and like the occasional shop owners. The massacre was to stop the coup and prevent it from ever happening, so those who have the power to set forward this coup are any shinobi. And unfortunately, the Uchiha clan is an old shinobi clan.

Itachi is not a blank mask and does cry when he kills his parents and they leave their parting words. He's 13, forced to commit a crime that goes against his every wish, moral, and beliefs. Plus I believe the Uchiha are naturally every emotional- or at least feels it more intensely than others. Their whole defining ability has to do with emotions. They feel Very Strongly.

And thus by "cry" I mean he cries a lot. He almost has a breakdown right then and there when little baby Sasuke crashes in and see his crying older brother holding a bloody blade over his two very dead parents.

For someone willing(ish) to murder a(lmost) a whole clan for the sake of his little brother, Itachi sure does directly hurt Sasuke a lot. Like genjutsu torture? Placing responsibility of avenging a whole clan on his tiny, angry shoulders? Oof, Itachi, bad ideas.

So Itachi wants Sasuke to be safe. To be happy to the best of his ability. So instead, he uses a milder form of Tsukuyomi to place a suggestion in his baby mind that Itachi was in fact a cold hearted murderer. But the human mind is a strange thing that is difficult to understand, so for years Sasuke has nightmares of that night with his perception of Itachi varying wildly between a stone cold face and a tear-stained one.

Itachi doesn’t do the whole “hate me and kill me for vengeance” because, again, he wants Sasuke to be safe and happy. Considering that he lives in a shinobi village and just had a highly traumatic experience, both are hard to come by, but the least Itachi can do is not have Sasuke’s whole life be overcome by hatred. Curse of Hatred is a very real thing, Itachi. I know you want Sasuke to have a goal to drive him forward and not waste away but bad idea Itachi. Maybe he says something else. Maybe he tells Sasuke to get stronger (but not in a “so you can get revenge” kind of way). I don’t know. But he doesn’t quite plant the idea of vengeance in his mind, so Sasuke’s motivation and drive ends up differently. Butterfly effects oho Also since Sasuke unlocked his sharingan during the massacre... is it possible to activate mangekyo as well? Cause he loves Itachi most, yes, but he also loved his parents, his mom especially. Would that be enough? Wiki says “death of someone close to the user”, so it’s possible, I think.

So many ideas about the massacre holy shit

Like Shisui. I’d totally love to make him live but frankly, I’ve got no idea how. :”D sorry Shisui, you’ll have to stay dead until I can find a solid reasoning as to how you survived and why

As for Madara/Tobi, well in anime he went after the Police headquarters while Itachi went after everyone else so there’s that, not much to change there

Then there’s a whole bunch of aftermath hijinks

Itachi is said to have aided Konoha within Akatsuki, but it’s not very clearly shown. Considering how we aren’t shown what exactly he passed on, that will be uh.... perhaps expanded on later.

Sasuke and Itachi interactions before Shippuden would be different due to Sasuke’s own differences, but those differences haven’t be set yet so that will be explained later.

Ok, now the whole Itachi dying and being reincarnated shebang. Fourth War sure is wild as fuck. “Let’s mass reincarnate people!” what.

I don’t want Itachi to die. I want to let him rest. But not in death.

So the general idea I have for the “end” of the story is:

He becomes legally blind. Not completely blind, but very close. His chakra coils are fucked and his sharingan are stuck in a way that he can kinda see chakra but very vaguely.

His illness isn’t completely healed, but it’s much better than before; Sakura and Tsunade are legendary at what they do

He returns home to Konoha. Not sure how he will be accepted into the village but I was thinking the village makes a half-lie half-truth story pinning the blame on Danzo (Cause when in doubt, blame Danzo. Or Zetsu. But Zetsu isn’t blamable here)

He may not be imprisoned, but he isn’t free to roam. He’s monitored and has a (temporary?) seal placed on him limiting his use of chakra.

Itachi is surprisingly ok with all of this. He gets to retire from a shinobi life and he’s unraveled the story to Sasuke and was gifted a form of forgiveness. Life’s chill.

He works at the Yamanaka flower shop. It’s calming, peaceful, and it’s run by Yamanaka, powerful shinobi and also knowledgeable on psychology.

His crows are now seeing eye crows. They sit on either his shoulders or head and squawk whenever Itachi is too close to bumping into something. Sasuke very much enjoys when the crows are on Itachi’s head because when he tosses little treats at the birds, sometimes they land in Itachi’s hair.

It’s very hard for the shinobi to fear this honestly tiny man (because Itachi is small, fight me) who’s humming while watering plants with a bird on top of his head while the various heroes of Konoha take turns tossing treats at the bird like it’s a dog.

“Nii-san. Nii-san stop squishing my cheeks.” “But Sasuke I want to see your face.” “Nii-san-”

oh my god so much brain power used on the massacre just so i could make itachi have a very domestic ending

#naruto #uchiha itachi #naruto shippuden #uchiha massacre #au #nart au

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papers4me · 3 years

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The Redeemable Antagonist vs The Fallen Protagonist

Don’t we love a good Redemption Arc for an interesting psychologically tortured villain? the “more corrupted” the villain is the more we cheer for them to atone & redeem themselves when we see signs for them trying or when we see glimpses of their tutored past. we cheer for them when we see the transformation signs in their behavior, hear their internal thoughts & see them struggle to mend their ways. Granted not all villains get the audience support once their Redemption Arc starts but in general this trope is widely accepted & is one of the most successful story-telling techniques & character arcs. In general, especially in fiction, reality is unfortunately not very common, audiences/readers like to believe in the inner goodness of human nature. They like to see good prevail, even if it is only within a character’s world. That’s why writers & directors include such arcs in different scales in their stories/ shows. It is guaranteed to win the hearts of the majority of audiences/readers because they feel rewarded for all the time the spent cursing the antagonist, to see them become better ppl & strive to atone for their sins creates a feeling of relief that prompts the audience/reader to watch/read more & to cheer stronger.

However, audience reaction differ entirely when it comes to fallen protagonist. The character that started the story good or naive or weak & we saw them get stronger, understand the world’s cruelty & win their small fights here & there. we dub them the “ hero” of the story/show. The hero is good. The hero must stay good. But if we see our hero, who we have been cheering for a while now, have a change of heart/ mindset & succumb to their inner demons, if we see them commit wrong acts or choose the wrong path, then it becomes a bit personal. we feel betrayed for the time we spent cheering for the hero. We become a disappointed parent as this hero is our virtual child whom we watch grow in front of our eyes. Such change in the hero is often accompanied by justifiable causes, not justifying their wrong action itself, but justifying the reason such change in character occurs in well- written stories. You understand why the hero became the villain but you don’t cheer for them as a hero who becomes evil often commits more horrible acts than a villain at the start of their story. The fallen hero’s actions must be more horrible because this is the morale of the story: don’t fall as hard as the fallen hero. It MUST hurt stronger because it is meant to be like that. It is one powerful story telling that can create a long lasting effect in the memories of the hurt audience. However, audiences uneasiness towards such tropes often discourages the writers/ publishers/ directors to create well-written fallen heroes. A large number of audiences often drops the show/ story or call it “ bad-writing” because their beloved hero became someone else their don’t know. In a well-written story the signs of the hero’s tragic transformation must be planted from the beginning of the show in a subliminal way, so that audiences with good eyes will catch that & those who don’t will easily be able to go back & see the signs going “ oh! why I couldn’t see it when I was at this part of the story?” There Must be many different signs scattered all over the story either in the form of thoughts. behavior or dialogue. Unfortunately such trope needs an amazing writer to sell it to the audience & a brave publisher/producer to continue support it even if the audience hate it.

a very bad example is Daenerys in game of thrones. If what I heard that her final change is the writer’s intention is correct, then I can’t help but imagine How amazing her story would be if her fall to darkness is well done? She would’ve been one of the most long lasting characters in the minds of audiences & readers & one of the best fallen heroes. sadly, her change/ transformation was so horribly done! You don’t want to aimlessly & mindlessly “ shock” the audience. You want them to understand why she became “ evil/mad” & not cheer for her but instead encourage the audience to discuss the reasons such great character fell from grace. You want your viewers engage in intellectual discussions abt the corruption of power/ absolute freedom & the injustice of the world that created monsters from good humans. But alas.. Daenerys became the most wasted character in game of thrones, let’s hope the actual novel does it better.

In anime, I can see a good example of these two tropes in attack on titans. Riener & Eren are exceptionally well-written & have all the signs that can create a a well-done Redeemable Antagonist & an exceptionally fantastic Fallen Protagonist. I didn’t read the manga at all. But there were so many signs scattered since season 1 that there is way more into Riener than an evil character & Eren has so many well-planted signs that could serve as a good foundation in his fall from grace moment. I could be wrong off course & it could turn into sth completely different & well-written as well. but the writer has established check points for multiple characters throughout the story that could serve as a turning point once visited again. For Riener the writing is easier, turning a bad gut into a sympathetic hero is often welcomed by viewers & I can see ppl’s reaction now in Se04. but Eren is where the hard work is at. This is where the writer must flex his writing muscles. If eren will become the show’s villain, the writer should be aware that many viewers are bind/un aware of the many signs, so how he’ll do it can affect the whole show for better or worse. I cheer for the writer to not screw up the transformation & continue establish eren as the complex character he is. The themes of the show is embodied through him. This show is not abt winning wars or friendship prevails or peace. This show is abt the darkness of human cruelty that humans are very capable of showing. It is abt the injustice of creating horrible monsters from naive children. it aims to encourage you to ponder on how can we be different from those tragic fallen heroes. I really wonder how such story will end? will the writer achieve his goal masterfully & artistically? or will we see another “ got’s Daenerys” ?

#Redeemable Antagonist #Fallen Protagonist #good writing #well-written stories #anime only #attck on titan #shingeki no kyojin #game of thrones #eren yaegar #riener braun #daenerys targaryen #sleepless paper #writers' prespective

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