#& yeah as you said most characters fill their own niche and keep having a use even when new ones get released

[menstits]

cookie run is also worse than genshin imo bc ive seen literal toddlers play it. of course we will have preteens playing genshin but it was the first time i saw babies play a gacha game 😭

Yeah tbh like 😭 again I'm not saying it's not still a bit evil because gachas inherently are predatory obviously but at least the game itself CAN be played in full without spending a cent on it unlike many others where the gacha is either the main element or the powercreep is so bad that the whole game becomes unusable... Also yeah tbh at the very least most whales tend to be adults making irresponsible decisions with their money rather than 8 yos making irresponsible decisions with their mom's credit card

[poppyseed799]

Being a Goob main after this update is just fighting the outclassed allegations even harder than before

I THINK EVERY DISTRACTOR HAS THEIR NICHE AND GOOB IS TOTALLY BETTER THAN THESE GUYS IN CERTAIN WAYS

Pebble: People argue he’s the best, and I’m not here to say that any one of these is THE best, but like, people act like he totally outclasses Goob and that once you get Pebble you might as well not play Goob, but Goob literally has higher extraction so he can contribute more outside of distracting AND lower stealth AND his grab ability to actually support teammates while the best support Pebble has is telling people where items are, which anyone can do.

Tisha: Everyone’s saying she’s the New Goob and is just a Better Cheaper Goob but NOO I disagree. Lower stamina, higher stealth. The stats are in Goob’s favor. She has a great supporting ability that is definitely better than Goob’s in SOME situations, but Goob’s ability is better in others. Like I said, they all have their niche! Tisha’s stats don’t make her bad!

Flutter: Another new one that nobody’s talking about cuz Tisha’s the easiest to get so everyone and their mother is playing her and realizing how good she is and nobody except their mother has Flutter yet so nobody’s saying anything. But Flutter’s difference is a lot easier to spot: much like Pebble, no support. Except even LESS support than Pebble. She is great for keeping herself alive and will be a nice distractor, but she has less support so she isn’t better than Goob in that way.

Razzle and Dazzle: pretty self explanatory nobody really uses this character as anything specific. Bro is only a distractor every other floor. I don’t think that makes them bad at all! Just not consistent. I think it’s cool to swap between distractor and extractor.

Goob: SOMETHING EVERYONE SEEMS TO FORGET. HE HAS THE LOWEST STEALTH OUT OF EVERYONE HERE!!! Being the lowest stealth distractor AUTOMATICALLY makes him the best I MEAN. He’s not the best everyone has their own special use. Anyways the ability to easily pull and hold aggro OVER MOST OTHER CHARACTERS TOO (rip brightney and teagan and all those others) is a GREAT trait for distractors and Goob is the ONLY ONE WHO HAS IT. Alll those other guys on this list are 3 star stealth which is average. Goob is 2 which means if you have all the distractors together in a game you know who all the twisteds will be running to? Him. Yeah Tisha you’re REALLY “distracting”. That’s why all the enemies are on ME. lol. Just saying if you need to walk past a distractor’s parade you have a better chance of doing so successfully if that distractor is Goob. Do not attempt at all if you’re Brightney or Shrimpo.

I feel like this came off a bit aggressive. I like the new distractors and I love how they’re all good enough to be worth using. I like to see variety, and I’m happy more characters are arriving to fill the niche of Distractor and we have options to suit people’s preferences. I’m just sick of people acting like it’s the end of Goob 😭 brother Goob is still worth the grind. Enjoy Tisha tho she’s great and a very useful support/distractor just like Goob.

[cielhunternorwood]

CounterPAYDAY

So, I think I've played enough of CounterSide by this point to both be hooked and be able to give an honest opinion about the game. I'll go reviewer mode and do some major nitpicking. Be warned, there will be SPOILERS in here, so read at your own discretion.

Bear in mind, I've spent a bit less than a month with the game, but I've noticed some rather big issues with it that should probably be addressed someday. Also, this review is based on the Steam version: no clue how much gameplay is affected by playing on mobile, but here we go.

UI/Graphics: Pretty Neat/10

So, ignoring a Steam review that complained about a recent major change, I feel like the current UI is pretty solid. Things are fairly simple to navigate once you know what's what (though the terms for "main story", "side story", etc are the usual "we wanna be unique" words, so that may throw you off) and the design is simple but unique. The PC version also runs pretty well, though it should since it's running a 2D sidescroller-style game with what I assume are Spine-rigged full-body sprites.

Gameplay: Balance? What's that?/10

So, revisiting the sidescrooler-style comment, CounterSide is an auto-fight 2D sidescroller game where all characters have a basic attack and a passive effect. Most of them also possess a cooldown-based special attack, and a lot of those "most" possess Ultimate attacks. During battle, you get a stock of points that slowly fills up, allowing you to spend those points to deploy folks (with each unit having its own deployment cost).

Once the folks are deployed, they just go at it and your only real input is to either click the purple diamond over their head when their Ultimate is ready or use the skills of the Ship you're using to deploy said folks. If that sounds a bit demanding, there's an Auto setting for deploying/ship skills and a separate Auto for using Ultimates. While the Auto AI is easy to work with, it's not always reliable in more difficult stages, and it's never a good idea in PvP.

Yeah, there's PvP. You know what that means? GROSS IMBALANCE! Yes, units in this game vary in use because of both needing to keep PvP balanced but then also leading to a lot of overpowered units that have to be "banned" in PvP to temporarily nerf them. And in most cases, the best PvP units are those that hit with massive debuffs, enact huge buffs like Immortality or Perfect Evade, or vice-versa say "no" to all buffs/debuffs. Also Joo counterattack. It can be very frustrating.

The division of units is as follows:

There are three types of units -

Counter - Basically Superheroes, they have superpowers and pull off anime shit. They always have Ultimates and Special Attacks.

Soldier - Normal humans who are still pretty tough and do some normal things to help. Some have Ultimates and Specials, but the Passives replacing them can be quite good.

Mecha* - Vehicles, planes, drones, and stompbots. They can have Specials, Ultimates, or just be normal attack with two or three passives.

*The game actually calls them "Mechs", but this is erroneous as "Mech" is short for "mechanized infantry" which are infantry that travel using tracked vehicles i.e. an APC. "Mecha" is the term for stuff like stompbots and so on.

Among these units, there are SEVEN classes -

Strikers - Melee bros, frontline smack-a-dude, good against Rangers

Rangers - Distance bros, might smack face from afar, but mostly mid-range, good against Defenders.

Defenders - Tanks, enough said, good against Snipers.

Snipers - Self-explanatory, super squishy but super powerful, good against Strikers

Towers - They stand there and defend your ship from getting shivved, that's it, really, not particularly good against anyone and pretty niche

Siege - They charge in and aaaargh, that's it, not particularly useful except maybe in PvP

Supporter - They Heal, They Buff, They Debuff, They Shoot Fire/Ice/Flower Petals, They can be pretty busted but also a bit squishy

So, you see that balancing teams is a bit... Weird with the excess classes as well as how unit types don't quite seem to amount to much other than using different upgrade items/equipment. You'll always have a bit of everything (besides Tower/Siege) on a team in order to beat normal content because using only one class is just stupid.

Of course, the rarity of units goes the letter rating route, where the max is SSR... Well, there's one ABOVE that: AWAKENED SSR. These units are OP for one thing in particular and that one thing can either be super useful or super niche, so the mileage may vary in how much they speed up finishing stages.

Oh, by the way, stages are timed, with 3 minutes being the usual time limit. But, to get 3-star ratings, you have to beat most levels within 1 minute (sometimes 1m30s), so you're more than likely going to focus on farting out as much DPS as possible to win rather than anything else.

Music: A Bit Here, A Bit There/10

So, this is a bit weird to say, but this music seems to be pretty good if only because it's building off other kinds of music. In general, the tone is pretty dark or grim, and the style is a mix of Yuki Kajiura, Go Shiina, and Kenji Kawai. It gets to the point where it feels like a bit of whiplash when you hear something rather normal for a gacha and then suddenly Kajiura-esque choral chanting because the main character is going schwing-schwing in a cutscene.

By the way, it's questionable whether the music is entirely original, as one particular track called "WATCH-00001" turned out to have taken its main melody from a random synth instrumental track and then added a few whooshes and stuff. I would take the music with a grain of salt, seeing as there isn't much here that says "original music" so much as "we're trying to be like that popular music". Not necessarily bad, but after finding out about that one track, it makes anything else a bit suspect in terms of potential plagiarism.

Character Designs: The Whole Spectrum/10

Since the game has super-anime characters, normal people, AND stompbots, it's pretty simple to say that the designs go across the whole spectrum. Some are really good, some are really potato, some are just alright, some are REALLY slutty, some are tastefully-dressed, some are unique, some are generic, there's a Metal Gear, a knock-off Titanfall Titan, the gun nut daughter of M200 from GFL, and Chris Redfield's lost twin brother.

So you'll more than likely find designs you like and designs you won't. It's all over the place, but at least it largely looks to be the same artist, so you know they tried to come up with a lot of variability (even if there are a lot of repeat characters with the Awakened thing and characters from past timelines- we'll get there shortly). It's also got plenty of guys as well as girls, so it's not ENTIRELY biased toward girlservice.

Economy: TOO MANY DIFFERENT CURRENCIES/10

Let's get the biggest part out of the way: you, the player, are a manager. Yes. Which means you're not leveling up characters: you're increasing their pay rate. Now, game-wise this doesn't mean you pay them regularly but the point still stands. You pay lots of money to level them up and make them fight harder using "appraisals" for EXP. This does mean they don't level up by fighting, so they only gain EXP from this.

Their skills can be upgraded with a separate currency of blue books alongside using skill manual-like items of varying amounts based on the skill being upgraded. The ceiling of upgrades is capped based on the star-level of the character, with the absolute max being 5. Their star-level is upgraded through a different Cube-like resource which differs based on the character type- Counter, Soldier, or Mecha.

All of these are obtained via grind. The stamina resource you use to grind, Eternium, initially looks like a huge number (in the thousands) and replenishes 75 every five minutes, but the stages cost so much Eternium that the numbers are largely inflated. That and the best grind stages are locked behind a specific pass-like item that you only get two of every day, with a unique pass for each item type to grind: appraisals, skill manuals, and cubes.

All of this on top of needing to grind for money for everything, as well as parts for upgrading the ships used to deploy your units, equipment for units to use as well as items to craft more/upgrade them, blue books so you don't run out upgrading skills, currency in other modes for their respective shops-- THERE'S A LOT OF GODDAMN ITEMS AND NOT ENOUGH STREAMLINING!

This is one of the parts that bugs me the most, because you're always hemorrhaging on something or other due to the sheer number of things, and it makes progress come to a grinding halt after the initial beginner period where it gives you so much crap to work with. If you don't just blaze through all the available story, then you'll end up with a lot of times just logging in for ten minutes to auto-run stages for whatever you're missing out on the most (which may most often be Cubes or money). It's a headache trying to track all of it, and it would be nice if it was all streamlined into much fewer resources.

That's not even getting into the PvP currency, the challenge content currency, the myriad side story currencies, the Raid/Dive currencies, the shards you gather of certain characters to turn into copies of said character- At least that last one makes sense, but goddamn it feels like they just kept tossing on new things and not putting thought into making it have better flow in acquiring it.

Story: Surprisingly Okay/10

So, here's the basic background: the world exists alongside a place known as the CounterSide which is full of Corruption Rays that turn people into monsters known as Corrupted Objects or C.O.s. It occasionally opens holes from the CounterSide to the real world and spreads the Corruption Rays in the real world.

So, to combat this, the "Administration" employs paid mercenary companies filled with Counters capable of harnessing superpowers fueled by CRF (I forget what it stands for) to fight back. You know someone's a Counter because they wear a watch as a symbol of both their status as a Counter and as ticking death: if it reaches zero without an Eternium recharge, they turn into a special C.O. called a Shadow.

The main story itself begins with the arrival of Hilde, a petite woman who is a member of Coffin Company, a well-known but shit-outta-luck PMC that is on its last legs financially. She is greeted by her old apprentice, Joo Shiyoon, who you can immediately tell, due to his constantly-closed eyes and his voice actor being Lelouch, is not really as happy-go-lucky as he lets on (and equally tell by the CG that Hilde feels guilty about something related to him).

These two chuckleheads come together to go on a mission alongside the new hire, Yoo Mina, the love child of Squall Leonhart and Satomi Rentarou who, of course, uses a long revolver rifle with a little surprise and is obsessed with making money (in order to pay for her sister's hospital bills). The story isn't very subtle about just how these three are not so average folks, and that lack of subtlety is a bit refreshing, but it also does subvert expectations here and there. I digress...

So rookie's first day is rescuing the new owner of Coffin, a monolithic robot that is the avatar of... Well, you, the player, the omnipotent manager. What follows is a chain of events that reveal ye old rookie has her own secret power she's awakening to. Oh, and her revolver rifle has a rune-covered sword inside that she can use to slice through big-ass enemies so long as there's a huge choir chanting in the background. No "power of friendship" stuff going on, just "nah, I'm splitting this thing in two".

A few chapters in, there's a reveal of a group of enemies trying to use the CounterSide for some supposedly nefarious purpose, and it devolves into a rather whirlwind series of events which I will not detail further because this review is getting WAY too wordy. Needless to say, the story does a fair bit of hop and jump, and it doesn't spend too much time hammering in sad moments or make you empathize with enemies like a certain other dev's games hoyo. It does what it sets out to do, and at least the characters aren't so two-dimensional that you actually can guess them from the get-go. Besides maybe Hilde, but I think that's because (as far as I've seen, at least) her story's barely been told since it might be too spoilery.

With that said, the main story does proceed with certain characters becoming involved without explaining why in itself. That's where the side stories come in, where they do detail these other side groups either before or after they get involved in the main story. That, in particular, I appreciate A LOT, especially when the Guide Mission progression has you hopping between Main and Side so you don't miss much along the way. It doesn't ruin the pacing of the Main story if you're just plowing through that, having to cover that stuff, so it works out well.

Overall: Bretty good/10

I mean, it must be doing something right if I feel invested in playing (and spending), right? Eh, I can't honestly say that. Arknights didn't do much right, and I played it for months before dropping it. Well, SilverAsh exists, so that was most of why I stayed... But we're not talking about that crap. We're talking about a rather up-and-down game that's imperfect but kind of enjoyably imperfect.

It's very obvious it has balance issues out the wazoo with characters, it has far too many currencies/upgrade items, hard game modes, and the special "gem" currency for rolling gacha is better spent on upgrades to your dorms or buying the OTHER currency for rolling the Awakened gacha. And yet the gameplay can be hands-off enough that you can just sit and watch your employees do all the work for you, the story bits come together pretty well, and there's plenty of little twists that, while some are pretty obvious, can catch you by surprise just for being different from the norm.

I'd recommend it just for you to judge it accordingly and because the beginning is pretty easy with how much stuff it throws at you. By the time you go through all the beginner prizes and stuff, you should be able to tell whether you'll like the game or not. Once that's all used up, though, you'll be in the grind section of the game, depending on how many not-good units you end up raising without realizing they're not good. But such is life in the gachas...

[bubblyhoney]

win for me

warnings: lAnGuAgE, alcohol consumption (both reader and all other characters are of age to drink), marijuana use, Making Out™️, a miniscule Flowers from 1970 reference. PSA: WHEN UR INTOXICATED AND/OR AT A PARTY, TELL UR FRIENDS WHO YOU WILL BE WITH AND WHERE YOU WILL BE AT ALL TIMES. DRINK AND PARTY SAFELY!

tags: sapnap x fem!reader

summary: a collection of moments throughout the beginning of your relationship

words: 5000

A/N: even though this isn’t my most organized or perfect fic this was so incredibly fun to write. and it’s a college!au!! one of my favs. hope you guys like!! let's pretend the pandemic doesn't exist for this one too (please wear ur masks btw)

-

Sophomore Year:

Smells like shit in here is your first thought upon entering the laundromat.

It does, in all honesty. What would you expect a place where college students wash three months of dirty clothes and comforters with vomit to smell like? Urine and just a hint of marijuana, incidentally. The door closes noisily behind you and a guy in a black baseball hat turns his head at the noise. Half of his face is hidden underneath the shadow of his scruff and he says nothing, but you still offer an obligatory polite-stranger smile. The place is pretty deserted, what for it being nearly 4 in the morning. And you’re a rare kind of customer; only a few things to wash and you brought your own detergent.

There’s an empty washer next to an old woman in an acid-trip of a parka, and you sweep past the few other patrons with your mesh bag close. The man in the hat nods at you as you pass, looking up from his phone.

Okay. Dark load in one and delicates in the other, you remind yourself. The quarters get pushed through the slot (not without dropping three and having to scramble to pick them up before they disappear between the machines) and you fill the dispensers with a flowery laundry detergent your roommates hates. Oh, and the clothes go in. Done. You relax into a cracked plastic booth around the corner of the machine, pulling a book of crosswords from your bag.

Somebody yelps halfway through filling out a five letter word (“a series of thoughts, images, and sensations occurring in a person's mind during sleep”) and you jump. Baseball Cap rips open the dryer, fumbling around and supplying a pair of gray sweatpants. You can’t help but watch. He digs through both front pockets, pulling out a wad of dollar bills. He sighs, shoves the pants back into the dryer, and starts it with a hard push.

“Gut feeling?” You ask. He looks around for a second and settles his gaze upon you. Nice eyebrows, you think.

“Yeah,” he laughs, slightly nervous. “Yeah. I wore them yesterday and just remembered I put some tip money in my pocket.” Leaning back onto the shelf behind him, he shoves his phone into his pocket and folds his arms tight to his chest.

“I feel you,” you empathize, and set down your pencil. “I washed a parking ticket with my underwear last week.”

He stutters out a laugh, nodding.

“That must’ve sucked,” he adds.

“Yeah.” You shrug. “I wasn’t going to pay it anyways, but would’ve been nice to keep it for memory’s sake.” Rubbing at your knee offhandedly, you just watch him. He’s cute. And easy to make conversation with.

“Hey, um,” he mutters and clears his throat. “Do you by chance know some guy named Karl? Tall, messy brown hair and a horrible laugh?”

You open your mouth, then close it.

“Actually—,” you start but huff out a laugh. “Yeah, he’s uh, he’s dating my roommate. Why’d you ask?”

Reaching a hand to rub at his neck, his face twists into something sheepish.

“I’ve seen you at some parties this semester. I didn’t mean to sound creepy like that— I just—yeah.” His cheeks flush pink and he looks down to the ground.

“No worries,” you say, barely even thinking. “I think I’ve seen you too. You’re in Delta Tau Delta, right?”

“Nah, nah,” he laughs. “Just got some friends in there.”

“Ah.” You nod.

The conversation falls into silence, but not uncomfortable silence. He pulls out his phone again, and you look back to the crossword in front of you. The old woman between you leaves with a humongous load of blankets and a small family leaves with a cart full of bags; now it’s just you two.

When the washer with your delicates ding you nearly jump two feet in the air. Exhaling, you set your work down and open the door.

“Shit,” you curse as two bras fall onto the tile. You reach down to get a hand on a black lace bra and hide it quickly under your elbow. A sneaker squeaks loud in the almost-empty room and you see Baseball Cap’s shoulders.

“Here.” He’s kneeling as he hands you your pink bra and you accept it, biting your lower lip.

“Thanks,” you mumbles, slightly embarrassed, and step back to shove those bras and a couple pairs of your underwear into your bag. He offers you a small smile and backs off to his own machines, humming an off-key version of Unchained Melody to himself. Your other load of laundry gets shoved right on top of your delicates.

It’s when you’re nearly out the door, bell jingling, that you think to look back.

“Hey,” you start, almost stuttering for no reason. “What’s your name?”

He turns, dark eyebrows raised.

“My—uh… My friends call me Sapnap. You can call me that too.” Rosy cheeks once again; you seem to be making him awfully nervous.

“Sapnap.” You try it in your mouth, pursing your lips. “Okay. I’ll see you around Sapnap.”

He nods, affirming your statement.

“See you around Y/N.”

It doesn’t hit you until you’re buckling your seatbelt and starting your car that you realize you didn’t tell him your name.

Perhaps he knew more about you than you thought.

Yeah, you laugh to yourself. Karl’s got a big mouth.

Junior Year:

It takes you a collective twelve minutes to go talk to him.

It’s quiet in the library, students that happen to come here to study or procrastinate few and far between the scattered tables. Your poison today is a 4 page history paper on Normandy that you’d been staring at the instructions for for days. You’d already written a bunch of, frankly, horseshit for the body, but the introduction and conclusion were throwing you for a loop.

The vibes in Ridgeback Hall were also certainly off, today more than any other day; the main help-desk was empty and everybody had to do the tedious task of locating niche textbooks themselves.

Lifting your head from the wood of the table, you squint and focus your vision on the guy in the white tee and denim jacket that had been the focus of your thoughts for minutes. He chews at the end of his pencil, mouth screwed up into a ball, and shoots daggers at the empty notebook in front of him. You’re surprised it hasn’t caught on fire yet just from his gaze.

“Sapnap!” You whisper-shout, stretching your arms across the table as if it would make him any closer. A person with purple hair jumps at your voice but turns back to their laptop. “Sapnap!” you try again, tapping two fingers on the table. His head jerks up, eyebrows furrowed and an angry expression on his face, but softens at the sight of you.

“Y/N,” he counters, equally as loud but with a smile on his face.

“What’re you doing?”

“Calculus.” He sticks his tongue out, making an awfully tortured face. You laugh and wave your fingers at him, gesturing for him to come closer. He just huffs out a sigh, stacks all his papers in one pile, and gets up. The trek over to your table is short but he takes it so slowly you wonder if he always walks like that. Like a varsity basketball player who just got off a horse.

“You’re so slow.”

“Shut up,” he grumbles and settles into a chair across from you. “It’s 2 pm, give me a break. I need a Redbull.”

“Those are bad for you, you know,” you say matter-of-factly and drop your chin onto your hand. He’s even cuter from this angle, you think briefly. He just rolls his eyes.

“Whatever, Miss I’d-like-some-coffee-with-my-sugar-and-cream,” he teases, pointing to your venti iced coffee. It’s about as pale as the color of a band-aid. You just sigh and close your eyes. “You tired?” He flips his pencil in his hand and leans back into the seat, sighing.

“Yeah,” you mumble. “I haven’t slept yet today.”

“Wow, you’re dumb.” He looks scandalized. You just shrug.

“Perhaps. I don’t really know why I did it actually— just for funzies!” You raise an arm but let it drop back down. “I stayed up playing Sims.”

“Feel that. I play Minecraft with my buddies until like 2 am every night too. It’s nice,” he decides and folds his arms across his chest. Your eyes flit over to his strong arms, admiring the way his denim shirt looks around them. Thick.

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

“What?” He says too loudly and it warrants a ‘shush’ from another student. He reddens, but looks back down to you. “I—why do you ask?” You shrug, eyebrows raised.

“Just wondering. You’re too cute to not have one.”

“Right,” he huffs, but his cheeks stay pink. You two fall into easy silence, his eyes trained on the notebook in front of him and yours closed peacefully. “Are you dating anyone?”

They snap open not-so-peacefully.

“Nope. You wanna submit a boyfriend application?” A smile cracks your lips and he grins back.

“Maybe,” he replies and stares at your mouth. “I have to say—,” He stretches into a yawn. “I think I’m qualified.”

“Oh, yeah?” Your eyebrow quirks. “And why are you so qualified?”

“Well, first of all, I work at Ace Hardware. That’s where cool people work.” He presses one finger into his palm. Then two. “And I have a bunch of free time because said job at Ace Hardware only likes scheduling me in the mornings. Plus, I’m hot.” He shrugs.

You nod faux-seriously, considering his list.

“Those are very good qualities, sir. I’ll have to get back to you on that.” You pause. “Okay, I’ll schedule an interview. How’s 7 pm at the Chili’s on Main? Chili’s is the designated interview place.” You wiggle your eyebrows. He just smiles at you, shaking his head in disbelief.

“That was smooth.”

“Yeah, I know.” You carefully study your nails. “I’m pretty impressive.”

“Clearly,” he mutters and chuckles. “But I do like their salsa. And margaritas. We got a deal?” He holds out a large hand. You take it, squeezing tightly.

“Hell yes.”

When you see the man called Sapnap a week later, you are very obviously in a different state of mind.

Same state, same college town, but very different blood alcohol contents.

“Sappy!” You shout, raising your arms above your head with a stupid grin on your face. He turns, that familiar look of surprise evident in his expression.

“Y/N,” he laughs and approaches your group of friends in the kitchen. It’s Greek Wedding night at Delta Tau Delta, and you assume Sapnap came to support Delta’s “groom” Alex. You’d gotten uncharacteristically drunk, trading air for sangria, and you were now in the incredible stage where everyone was both your friend and your favorite person.

Throwing an arm around his shoulders, you mash your face into his bicep and giggle.

“Missed you so much,” you try to manage out of your mouth, but it comes out slurred and stuttered. “So much.” You’d gone to Chili’s two days before and promised another ‘interview’ in the next few days, but it felt like two months away from your beloved. Beloved friend, that is. Only one date.

“Yeah?” He places a hesitant hand on your back and nudges you into a standing position. “How much have you had to drink?”

“Oh, shhhh,” you mumble and close your eyes. “Only— a lot.” Blinking them back open, you zero your gaze in on a bottle of Ciroc half-empty and looking very tempting on the kitchen island across from where you’re leaned up against the kitchen sink. He catches your gaze and steps in front of you, pleasant face filling your vision. You gasp.

“You are so cute.” Sliding your palms up onto his face, you hold his scruffy cheeks in your hands and smile all dopey at him.

“Is that your brain or the alcohol telling you that?”

“Uh,” you swallow. “Both. And my heart.”

He just shakes his head and his chest moves with a heavy laugh.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Are you having fun?” You ask, all concerned and furrowed eyebrows. You look like you’re genuinely interested and worried about if he’s having a good time or not, and it makes his expression melt.

“I’m having lots of fun,” he passes over his shoulder as he flips on the tap and fills a red solo cup with water. “In fact, I’m gonna have a nice, cold glass of water right now.” He shakes it like an owner offering their dog a treat.

You eye the cup in his hand, having half a thought that this might be some sort of backwards psychology move. The other half wins.

“That sounds so good right now— can I drink some?” Your eyebrows pull together and your bottom lip drops into a pout. It makes him blink for a second. He remembers the little game you’re playing and just hands it over, smug. You gulp it down quickly and crush the empty plastic into your palm with an exaggerated exhale. “Hit the spot,” you sigh, and pat your stomach fondly.

“You hungry?” Sapnap asks you as he steadies you with two hands on your shoulders. Something pops into your head at his words: a set of two McChickens and an Oreo milkshake.

“Oh my God,” you gasp, and mirror him by placing your hands on his shoulders. “Can we go to McDonald’s?”

He just shakes his head, grin wide on his lips, and shrugs. Perfect teeth, you think.

“I haven’t drank anything, so I’m good to drive.” He pulls his keys from his pocket. “I know you’re smashed right now so—do you feel safe with me?” The question falls from his mouth and you truly consider it, pulling your lip between your teeth.

“Yeah. I’ll take this just in case,” you say, and take a large dinner fork from the counter next to you. It has some red liquid on it that you brush off onto the fabric of your jeans.

“That’s actually gross.”

“Yeah.” You grip it tighter in your head. “But it’ll do the job if you try any shit. I’ll put this in your eyeball.” Brandishing it, a smile stretches onto your mouth. He just shakes his head and heads for the back door, jerking a hand in your direction to get you to follow him.

The cool night air explodes on your face when you step onto the porch and it makes you blink rapidly. Sapnap is right at your side, offering a forearm as you slowly make your way down the two back porch steps. A tall blonde smoking half of a blunt makes a grunt noise as you two pass and your knight-in-shining armor looks up.

“Gonna go get some food. Want anything?” Sapnap stops on the rocky path to the sidewalk, tilted up to hear the blonde’s response. The other guy shakes his head but nods to you in passing.

“I’ll tell her friends where she went,” says the blonde, and disappears through the sliding glass doors.

Your hand falls from his forearm to his hand and grasps it tightly, swinging back and forth as you stumble to his car. You flash him a grin that he just chuckles at.

“Watch your step,” he warns as you yank on the handle of the passenger door and nearly fall off of the curb.

“I’m fine,” you huff, and scramble to get yourself upright into the seat and buckled. He closes your door and jogs to the driver’s seat, climbing in and starting the engine quicker than your head comprehends.

The small space fills with the sound of Letters to Cleo as he’s maneuvering out of his parking spot and he slaps a hand at the stereo button almost immediately. His cheeks redden as he glances at you once.

“I love Letters to Cleo,” you admit, and switch it back on. Ah, Co-Pilot. A classic. “Be my co-pilot!” You sing, loud and sharp. He shakes his head but huffs out a reluctant laugh.

“My older sister loved them. Bit old for my taste, but—you know. Can’t deny that I love a little bit of 90’s angst.”

“Absolutely,” you nod vigorously and pick at your nail. “Oh!” The fork magically reappears at your side and you grab at it. “For my McChickens.”

“And for me,” he adds.

“Yup. You too.” But you drop it onto the seat and lean forward, fumbling with the volume dial until you feel the lead singer’s voice thumping into your heart. “I love this lady!” You shout and rock your head to the beat.

Shaking his head, his shoulders move in an easy laugh. The drive-thru line is kind of busy for 2 am, he notes, pulling in right behind a navy BMW sedan. But it moves quickly, especially when you’re moving in your seat, scream-singing the lyrics to I Want You To Want Me.

“Yeah,” he says, loud into the mic. “Two.”

“Alright.” The voice reports from the speaker, a background clicking joining their bored tone. “Two McChickens, a double cheeseburger—ketchup and pickle only— , a medium fry, and an Oreo McFlurry. Anything else, sir?”

Sapnap chews on his lip, and glances at you. You just give an encouraging thumbs up.

“That’ll be all,” he reports.

“Second window, and your total is $9.67.”

He barely has time to call a “thank you so much!” before the line ends with a click. Rude.

“Jesus Christ,” you moan the second you sink your teeth into your first sandwich.

“Agreed,” he mumbles and pushes as much cheeseburger he can fit into his mouth.

“This,” you start, swallowing. “is the sexiest thing I’ve encountered in all of my years. I thank all higher powers when I consume McChickens…” Trailing off for dramatic effect, you stare down the sandwich before mimicking a dinosaur war cry and practically shoving it down your throat. He just nods in agreement.

“It’s so nice out tonight,” Sapnap comments, swinging a look out his rolled-down window. He parked right in front of the Campus Quad, large bubbling fountain the show to your dinner. And some geese fighting each other for half a rotting hot dog.

“Mhm.” You crumple up your wrapper trash and toss it into the empty paper bag. “Could totally go for a swim.”

He turns and gives you a look. You look right back.

“Should we?” It’s barely a question.

“Um, hell yes,” is all it takes for you to say before you’re clambering out of the car and starting for the fountain. He follows closely after, jogging to catch up with your borderline track-star sprints.

“Wait up!” He calls as you reach the border of the fountain.

“Ugh,” you sigh, impatient. “Hurry up.”

“Mouthy,” he grumbles before kicking off his shoes and bending to fold his pants up over his knees. You just climb straight in and brave the cold.

Squealing, you hop from one foot to the other, shoulders tight as you get used to the freezing water. He laughs and climbs in right beside you.

“Shit,” he curses, and shivers. “This sucks.”

“You suck,” you quip right back and splash around. He stares, disgusted, at the water soaking up your jeans all the way up to your knees.

“You’re gross for wearing jeans in a fountain. That’s worse than wet socks.” He starts to move around as feeling comes back into his toes.

“What, would you prefer me taking my pants off?” A sassy look paints your face and he rolls his eyes.

“No, but you could’ve folded them up like a normal person.”

“I think you forget,” you start, and splash a palmful of water his way. “I’m quirky.”

He gasps, face twisting as the water hits his thighs.

“You’re dead.”

If campus police were patrolling the Quad right now, they’d see two college juniors wading around in a fountain, water up to their knees, having a competition to see who can inflict the most damage. He won, it seems, because your shirt is drenched all the way up to your ribs.

“Okay!” You shout, hands spread to brace yourself. The water in his palm falls. “I’m cold and I want my other McChicken.”

“Fine,” he sighs, and with some difficulty manages to get out of the fountain and back into his shoes. You just make your way back over to his car barefoot, braving the mulch and poorly-sanded concrete.

You both finish your food quickly, discussing menial things like how fast food restaurants always skimp on the pickles and how it’s truly a disservice to the world that so many people don’t know it’s Biggie singing the song Kat dances on the table to in the 1999 classic 10 Things I Hate About You.

When Sapnap pulls up to your house, he shifts the car into park and lets loose a heavy sigh. You whip around, hand on your buckle, and sport a very confused look on your face.

“I’m tired,” is all he says. Head falling onto the seat, he rolls over to give you a half-lidded look. You nod empathetically and climb very carefully out of his passenger seat. Your drunk muscles haven't caught up to your mainly sober brain, which is impairing your ability to look like a functioning human being.

“Thank you for tonight,” you chirp, smiling in at him with your arms folded on the open window sill. The half-drank Oreo McFlurry is lukewarm in your hand. He stares at your flushed lips.

“Anytime you want a drunk McChicken let me know.” He winks. “I have a gift card.”

“You spoil me,” you coo, and step up onto the sidewalk. “I’ll see you sometime soon, yeah?”

He nods, pursed lips fighting a grin.

Cute, you both think at the same time.

Sometime soon, somehow, means the very next day.

It’s breezy yet uncharacteristically hot out, and certainly way too bright for a hungover Y/N.

You’re sat on the porch swing, nursing a hot decaf coffee with lots of sugar and cream. Sunglasses sit comfortably on your nose, but you still have to squint. The pills you took have yet to kick in, so all you have to do is wait and try not to vomit into your mug. Suddenly, your phone lights up and buzzes to life. You press the green button and lift to your ear.

“What do you want?” Your voice is awfully froggy, you realize, and clear your throat.

“Good morning to you too.” Sapnap’s voice rings clear yet husky into your ear. The corners of your lips twitch up into a smile. God, you’re whipped just for the sound of his voice.

“It is definitely not a good morning,” you grumble and switch him into speaker phone. You drop the phone into your lap and stretch out further on the swing.

“Good morning for me,” he chirps cheerfully. “Take anything for the headache?”

“Yes,” you report, sounding like a pouting child and rubbing two fingers into your temple. “Some idiot fed me ice cream last night so this morning I woke up having to both shit and throw up.”

“Aww,” he sympathizes, sounding way too entertained. “That sounds like a you problem.” You stuck out your tongue, but upon realizing he can’t see it, make a ‘hmph’ noise into the mic. “Anyways. I called to see if you wanted to go get breakfast with me. Waffle House, specifically.” You make a face but lift yourself up off the swing, wincing.

“I saw a rat eat an entire piece of french toast there once. But—sure. I’ll pay.” He starts to whine, but you scoff. “Let me love you, bitch. You pay for my McDonald’s and I pay for your pancakes. Easy trade.”

“Whatever. See you in five.” He hangs up right as you twist the front door open and drop your phone onto the couch.

“Who’re you talking to?” comes from the kitchen and you jump, pressing a hand to your chest. A shirtless Karl enters the living room with a bowl of fruit loops in his hand.

“Jesus Christ,” you breathe, and duck into the hall closet for your pair of dirty tennis shoes. “I was talking to Sapnap.”

“Oh,” he says around his mouthful of cereal with a grin. “You guys dating yet?”

You pass him a weird look, bending to tie your shoes.

“Gimme like two weeks. I’ll have him at my beck and call,” you laugh and collapse back into the couch.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” He quirks an eyebrow and exits stage left into your roommate’s room.

The few minutes it takes for Sapnap to come to your house are short but filled with contemplation. Do you really want to date him? He’s certainly cute enough. Nice enough. And smart enough. He seems to like you too—

A honk interrupts your thoughts. Always having to be obnoxious, huh?

“You’re annoying,” you mumble as you buckle your seatbelt. He just shrugs, tiny smile tugging his lips, and shifts into drive. The short trip to Waffle House proves more quiet than lively. He seems awake, actually, so you attribute the silence to your tumultuous thoughts. The music is nice, though. Bikini Kill is perfect for 10 am.

After you two order (three chocolate chip pancakes for him and two regular waffles with a side of hashbrowns for you), he finally breaks the silence.

“Hey, are we dating?”

You pause with your lip on the rim of your orange juice. Your gaze falls from his lips to his fingers wrapped around the coffee mug. Two silver rings adorn both his middle fingers and they glint underneath the fluorescent lights.

“Do you wanna?” You squint back up at him. The tips of his ears flush pink.

“I-uh… Yeah. Yes,” he says simply. You try to hide a smile, but realize there’s no point.

“Okay.” You take a long drink of your orange juice. “I really like you. A lot. A surprising amount, actually; I haven’t really dated seriously since highschool.”

He nods, shuffling his feet on the tile. What else does he have to be nervous about? you wonder.

“I’ve… kindasortamaybelikedyousincesophmoreyear,” he mumbles and you swallow.

“Huh?” Leaning forward, you set your glass down.

“Um,” he starts but doesn’t finish.

“Did you say you’ve liked me since sophomore year?”

“...Maybe.” His coffee becomes the most interesting thing in the world, apparently. “Do you remember that one time during the Summer Carnival where Karl lost his phone?”

“Uh—yes! Yeah, actually. I do remember that. He found it in the porta-potty. What about it?” The waitress sets down both your plates in front of you and you offer her a smile in thanks before she trundles off to the drink station. You pick up your fork and wait for him to continue.

“I left two hours early because you invited Michael from your computer science class.” You pause around your mouthful of potato and he just stares back, trying not to grin. “Yeah. I thought you were hot and left early because you brought another guy.”

“Michael is gay,” you say slowly.

“Yup.” He nods and shoves a forkful of pancake into his mouth. “Isn’t that so stupid?”

“So stupid,” you tease but your cheeks blush pink.

“Anyways. Now I’m dating you, so. Win for me.”

“Ditto,” you murmur, and manage to fit half of your first waffle into your mouth. “This is the easiest it’s ever been to start dating someone.”

“It’s ‘cause we’re cool, I’m pretty sure,” comes from a mouthful of pancake.

“That’s facts.”

The rest of Pancake House is bustling, a few families with young kids and some other hungover college students scarfing down similar breakfast foods and confections. You two barely give any other customers the time of day, too wrapped up in conversation and each other. The waitress gets a heavy tip after an hour and a half of struggling to swallow dough soaked in syrup and chocolate.

Sapnap walks you to your door after breakfast, hand on your waist and pressed to your side. It feels good. Right.

“I’ll see you Wednesday right?” You ask, turning to him with hopeful eyes. How could he resist?

“Definitely. Wouldn’t miss Game Night for the world— I can’t wait to beat your ass at Uno.”

“You’re insufferable, you know that?” You murmur but you’re already slinging an arm around his shoulder and bringing his mouth down to yours.

You taste like sugar, he thinks. His hands find the small of your back easily, pressing you further forward into him. You hum at that, tracking a hand up the back of his neck and into his hair to grip it between your fingers.

He smells both musky and sweet and cool at the same time: heaven. One of his hands slides up to grip at your neck, thumb rubbing at your jaw, and you make a pleased noise into his mouth. There it is.

“Y/N!” Shrieks from inside your house and you jump, pulling away from Sapnap with a smack.

“What?” You yell back, irritated, and he just laughs as he dips to press a kiss to your cheek.

“Stop tonguing your boyfriend and come help me with my photography project.”

“God damn it,” you sigh and drop your hands. His slide down to just rest on your hips, comfortable. “I have to go.” You're annoyed, that’s for sure, and he prays you aren’t too mean to your roommate.

“Alright.” He dips for a quick kiss one last time. Okay, two more times. Maybe three. But he pulls away, grinning. “I’ll see you Wednesday.”

And then he’s stepping off your porch, walking to his car with his hands in his pockets. You watch his back fondly.

God, boyfriend. He’s your boyfriend. Boynap. Sapfriend. You can’t decide on a name, but all sounds perfect.

Perfectly him.

-

A/N: ask or send me some stuff!! requests, rants, anything. :D comments = welcome!

[secretshinigami]

All Noble Things

Author: @kiranatrix For: @resilicns Pairings/Characters: Near and Gevanni Rating/Warnings: Gen, no warnings Prompt: Near reflecting on his relationship with Wammy’s and L’s reputation Author’s notes: In How to Read, it says that Gevanni’s hobby is building ships in a bottle. So I imagined a scene where Near is observing Gevanni, now in the role of Watari, building a special ship. The time period is flexible but I imagined it after the C-Kira case and before the case with Minoru. This is a loose interpretation of your prompt but I hope you enjoy it!

—

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Gevanni.” Near didn’t look up as he carefully laid out another domino on the floor, perfectly spaced from its neighbor and approximately two centimeters from chaos. Pinched fingers pulled back carefully and twisted around a strand of white hair. “Two things, really.”

Gevanni looked up from his workbench as the long but comfortable silence between them was broken. Since Roger had died and he’d taken on the role of Watari, he was usually the question-asker. Would you like lunch now? Have you heard back about this or that piece of evidence? Did you have another nightmare last night? 

He’d gotten used to it, to Near. To being the bedrock that an island could rest upon. “Two questions?”

No, he was more of a species imported to Near’s world and being gradually altered by the isolation, evolving to fill his niche. But he had no complaints–it was a quiet, stable life and Near paid him well. He didn’t mind the solitude. “You’re exceeding your daily allotment. I’ll have to demand a raise if this keeps up.”

“I believe I gave you a raise just three months ago. If these demands keep up, I’ll have to find another Watari.” Near deadpanned it but his eyes flicked up briefly, and Rester knew he was joking. Another domino clinked against the terrazzo floors, this one with hand-carved scrimshaw detailing a breaching whale.

Gevanni snorted and turned back to the ship in a bottle he was working on. “Good luck finding someone else to source those pajamas with the specific blend of Pima cotton you prefer. I’ve kept that a secret. Iron-clad job security.” He grinned as he carefully reached a long wire into the bottle to pat down blue and white putty mimicking ocean waves. “So, what’s question number one?”

“Can you tie back my hair? It keeps getting in the way.” Near flicked a long strand over his shoulder but it fell again, dangling dangerously close to his creation. “Mind the–”

“Dominos? Yeah, I’m practically a ninja at this point.” Gevanni pushed his loupe glasses to the top of his head before carefully making his way over spiraling lines of set-up dominos to Near at the center. He knelt and pulled a hair-tie from his pocket, holding it between his teeth as he gathered up all the silvery strands. “Holf spill,” he murmured around the band. Near was stone-still as he made a quick and slightly messy ponytail, leaving some loose hair around the face for twirling. “Better?”

“Much. Thank you.” Near very briefly made eye contact as Gevanni went back to his workbench before looking back to his pile of dominos. He sorted through them for another scrimshaw piece. Gevanni had made a special set for him on his last birthday but he always saved them for the end. 

“Mmhm.” Gevanni slid back into his chair and picked up the little ship, a model of a 19th-century whaler. “So what was the second question?” 

“I was curious what you were working on.” Near let a domino tumble across his knuckles, back and forth, back and forth. “You’ve never spent that much time on just one ship before.” He caught the domino with his thumb and placed it next in line. 

“Oh, so you noticed?” Gevanni held up the little whaler on his palm, clearly proud of the highly detailed craftsmanship. All the masts were down and tied with an array of strings that could be pulled up once it was in the bottle to raise them. “I guess this one’s special since it doesn’t really exist. Thought I’d challenge myself. It’s…well, it’s how I imagine the Pequod to look, the whaling ship in–“

“Moby Dick?” Near stared at the miniature vessel, head slightly cocked as he smoothed a loose strand of hair. “The ship Captain Ahab used to chase his white whale.”

Gevanni smiled. “That’s right. It’s one of my favorite books. Have you read it?” 

“Years ago. I remember not liking it very much. The whale killed him in the end.” Near placed the last couple of dominos and let out a long sigh. The moments before flicking the first piece were the ones he both cherished and dreaded. The satisfaction of creation could be drawn out like a  monotone note, but when it was finished, the spectacular destruction was often over too soon. So, he hesitated and stood up instead, padding to Gevanni’s workbench to watch more creation. 

“I bet you’d like the book more these days. Single-minded obsession to defeat a power past human control? Throwing all caution and sense of self-preservation to the wind? The thrill of the chase?” Gevanni arched a brow. “Can’t tell me that doesn’t sound familiar.”

Near frowned slightly and hunched in on himself. “I suppose you mean L. Or do you characterize me as so foolish?”

“You’re L now.” Gevanni disliked that he had to remind Near of that even now, years after the first L had died. “But yes, it reminds me of what Matsuda told us about your predecessor’s obsession with Kira. I never met the first L, but maybe I can understand him, in a way.” He quoted Melville, "All my means are sane, my motive and my object mad.’ You’re L but you’re not him, and I’m glad for it.”

Near wasn’t sure if he was glad for it or not. So many times over the years he’d compared himself to that avatar and wondered if he could measure up. Drily, “I guess that makes me Ishmael." 

"You survived, didn’t you? Lived to tell the tale and learn what he couldn’t." 

Gevanni turned back to the little ship, carefully threading another string through the rear-most mast. He worked quietly for a while, cognizant of Near’s focused attention and feeling sorry for bringing up the Kira case. It wasn’t often that Near took such an interest in his own projects, or perhaps the man was merely thinking about what he’d said. “Sit down, if you want to. I’m about to get to the exciting part.”

Near pulled a chair closer and slinked into it, one leg pulled tight to his chest and the other dangling off the end. “Which is the exciting part? Stuffing it into the bottle?”

“That’s part of it. The thrilling part for me is raising the masts and sails inside the bottle.” Gevanni pointed to the flat masts and the multiple lines of string leading from them. “If anything goes wrong or a string gets tangled…or some bit of glue doesn’t hold, well–”

“You’re screwed.” Near smiled faintly and rested his chin on his knee. “Hours of planning for one moment of glory. Or disaster.” It also sounded familiar, so familiar.

“Exactly.” Gevanni chuckled and looked over at Near, pleased to see that small, rare smile. That in itself was the product of so much patience, of hours spent in understanding and the slow building of confidence and trust. “Once I get the ship in, would you like to raise the sails?”

Near’s eyes widened and he rocked slightly in the chair. That was Gevanni’s moment of glory and he deserved it after so much time and hard work. The inlaid wood, the meticulous paint, the delicately carved and articulated ship’s wheel capped in brass. The hand-sewn sails and gold script that read Pequod on the ship’s side. Each detail was evidence that someone else had built this and he would only be stealing the best part, swooping in for the end of the trick.

“You built it so you should do it.” It didn’t help that he was worried about making a mistake and ruining it at the last moment. How would it even fit? Despite the masts lying flat, it seemed impossible that the ship would make it inside the bottle. “I don’t know how.”

Gevanni sensed Near’s hesitation and uncertainty, recognizing the subtle tics of anxiety. “I can show you. You’re great at stuff like this.” He motioned to the vast lines and towers of dominos filling the room. “Plus, I trust you.” 

When Near didn’t answer, he turned back to the ship, placing a small line of glue at the bottom and oh-so-carefully maneuvering it into the narrow mouth of the glass bottle and onto the ‘waves’ of translucent blue putty. It was a very tight fit and when it stuck down in the right position, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Not bad, huh?” The strings dangled from the bottle’s mouth as he held it up to show Near. “Offer still stands.”

Near wanted to do it, to try. Honestly, he wanted to ask Gevanni to show him how to build one of his own, how to trump the rigid enclosure and build something impossible inside. To raise it up not by magic but by human ingenuity and patience. A creation not to destroy but to keep.

“Alright.” His fingers moved from his hair to tentatively touch the white strings hanging from the bottle’s mouth. “All of them?”

“Just these.” Gevanni pointed out several lines connected to the three masts. “Don’t yank, just pull slowly until you feel resistance and I’ll tape them up.”

“If it works.”

Gevanni laughed quietly. “It’ll work. Stop stalling.”

Near mumbled, “I’m not stalling,” but stalled a moment more before gently tugging the strings. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat when all three masts raised in unison, perfectly aligned and straight. He smiled as Gevanni secured the strings, then slid off the chair to gaze at the bottle from the side. This floating world, this impossible thing that’s bottled the sea. “I can see why you like these so much.” 

“It passes the time.” Gevanni felt warm inside since it was rare that they connected like this, despite all the time spent in each other’s company. He glued the strings to the ship with a long wire and then cut them, leaving no trace of how it had really been made. Setting it on the bench to dry, he said, “Would you like to have it? I have about a dozen. I mean, if you want it.”

“As a warning against white whales?” Near smirked and climbed back into the chair. He fingered the hem of his specially-ordered Pima cotton pajamas, the exact blend he preferred. “Or for the memory of Ahab?”

“Neither? Or…maybe both.” Gevanni knew that so much had changed for Near when Kira died. Monster or not, that moment of destruction had ultimately felt unsatisfying. He knew Near struggled with assuming the name and reputation of L, a legacy that had become so confused in the mind of a world that would never know two L’s had died and a third now had to make peace with that. It was easier to bottle ships than emotions.

Mildly, “Or maybe just because it’s something we built together.” It was odd, but somehow it would mean a lot to him for Near to have it. “How about it?” 

Near found a loose string at the hem of his pants and yanked it, snapping the thread. He got up and crouched beside the winding, spiraling rows of dominos and pressed a slender finger against the first one. That catalyst set off the reaction, the staccato clack clack clack! that echoed in the high-ceilinged room. It was over in seconds and silence crept in again. 

“I’d like that.”

-End-

[The title comes from a quote in Moby Dick: "A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy. All noble things are touched with that.” It reminded me of  Gevanni’s rather solitary hobby as well as the occupation of solving cases as L.]

[aclosetfan]

I’m still mad about Bunny from an earlier post so here’s some headcanons for an au affectionately titled “what could have happen if CN didn’t nuke the one ppg with an intellectual disability”

Long post! Look under the cut!

Bunny has Down Syndrome!

The Professor is a little...tifted when he finds out his children made another child, but Professor is a man full of love, so he takes it in stride. He’s never mad at Bunny, but the triplets have a very long and thorough talking to.

Bunny is an adjustment, but so were the triplets. Professor adjusts well to the change. He doesn’t like his lil honey bun (cause ofc he has embarrassing nicknames for her too) to go out and fight. He doesn’t want her getting too overstimulated and would rather leave the bigger villains to the girls. He can’t stop Bunny from running to help when her sisters call though!

Bunny is no damsel in distress!

But for the most part, Bunny does her part for the team by helping the professor in the lab! She’s a little uncoordinated when she gets excited, but so is the Professor, so it’s a match made in heaven. She has her own lab gear and happily hands over tools and chemicals (w/supervision!) at the Professor’s request. She also very good at reminding the professor when it’s time for a break. Bunny doesn’t let him miss snack or bedtime.

She also makes sure his experiment have a touch of cutesy because Bunny loves her a bit of sparkle and frills!

Having a sister with an obvious disability is difficult for the girls in their own ways. But Bunny really teaches the girls a lot!

For Blossom, she has a hard time puzzling how Bunny was going to live a fulfilling life in an unforgiving world. Since Blossom strives for control over things she doesn’t understand, it takes her a little bit (and a few lectures from the professor) to realize that Bunny will find her own place and that she doesn’t have to be so anxious. Bunny will be fine. She’ll be okay. She’s not so fragile. (But Blossom still has bouts of extreme worry that her little sister won’t ever be accepted) Like I said though, Blossom strives for control and tries to help the Professor keep Bun well structured and safely entertained, but Bunny’s has an independent mind of her own and teaches Blossom that while structure is good, everyone deserves a little fun!

For Buttercup it’s a giant lesson in calm and patience, which if you follow the show, is generally the lesson Buttercup needs to learn. But Bunny isn’t Bubbles or another kid on the playground, she’s special in a different way and even though she has super powers too and can get a little rough—because Bunny often forgets her own strength—Buttercup has to often be remind that she needs to be gentle. It takes a little bit for Buttercup to realize that Bunny doesn’t get things right away and what Buttercup thinks is funny can be hurtful to her. But Buttercup does learn and she’s extremely protective of her baby sister. She finds games and sports that they both enjoy, and every once in while Buttercup will buckle down and play the princess that Bunny has to save. Fr Bunny and Buttercup never give up on each other.

Bubbles is immediately the best with Bunny. It’s not so much her disability that Bubbles has an issue with, it’s more like the family displacement. Bunny gets a lot of the extra attention Bubbles has been use to. Bunny and her like a lot of the same things—dolls, coloring books, things that glitter and sparkle, bright colors, stuffed animals etc. They’re both very much into everything girly. And that means Bubbles really has to learn to share. Her stuff, her sisters, her professor—everything. Sometimes she gets a little jealous, but after an incident with Octi (where the beloved stuffed animal was ripped in two and crudely taped back together by her little sister in apology), Bubbles eventually realizes that Bunny looks up to her as a strong, tough older sister and that’s A-Ok w/ Bubs. And I know it’s cliche but I think Bubs would give Bunny Octi—not forever mind you—they share.

School’s interesting! Bunny goes to preschool with them and gets her own special teacher. But kids can be cruel and the bullies of the preschool (which is, yeah, Mitch and his group) do what they do. The sisters learn early on how to deal with insensitivity and it’s not easy (especially for BC/Blossom), but with the help of Ms. Keane, the Professor, and Bunny herself, the preschool learns that Bunny’s just a little girl who likes to play too!

I mentioned this one in a previous post, but I think Mr. Green should be her parateacher instead of the girls substitute. That way his character can stay in the show and they can have the “don’t judge a book by its cover” episode. But now it can wrap back into the episode of Bunny’s first day of school to really hit the point home! Mr Green can explain that Bunny was “different” but the girls loved her anyway, so “hey give me a chance to, I promise I won’t let you down!” (The intensity of the episode would be heightened because the girls would be extra protective of Bun) (Bunny absolutely adores Mr. Green and Ms. Keane appreciates the help!)

Bunny teaches them how to stim!! Whether it’s flappin around or playing with slime the sisters like doing it together (and tbh they’re fun stress relievers that the triplets carry into adult life)!

Also, now that I think about, I don’t feel like Bunny would get over stimulated often, but it takes her a bit to calm down when she does. Bubbles is the best at calming her down when she gets too excited, but when she’s angry, it’d be BC. I think that’s because Buttercup’s marked as an aggressive kid and, like I mentioned earlier, her and Bunny’s relationship would be filled with “learning to be calm” lessons.

Bunny has sensory issues! Nbd we all do, but Bunny doesn’t like her ears being touched so sometimes it’s hard to brush her hair. She loves Blossom’s hair though and Blossom can usually convince her that if she wants long pretty hair she needs to wash and brush her own. Blossom and the Professor are the only ones allowed to touch her hair!

Sensory wise, Bunny only likes soft cotton clothing. Everything else is too ichy. She also only wears dresses because they’re both pretty and light. good thing t-shirt dresses exist!

Purple! Bunnies! Purple! Bunnies! She has a niche and my baby fills it!

Hard ‘T’s are hard for Bunny. They round into ‘D’s instead. So Buttercup becomes Buddercup except Buddercup can sometimes be too much too, so Bunny more often then not calls her sister Buddy and that’s how Buttercup eventually earns the nickname Bud.

If you h/c the girls with fingers, the Utonium’s learn sign language, which helps when Bunny become too over stimulated or has bouts of being non verbal! Buttercup has the hardest time, Blossom catches on the quickest, Bubbles and Bunny keep making up their own signs, and Professor’s just trying to teach them all!

Can’t stay in preschool forever! Kids grow up! Sucks though :/ because the girls don’t stay in the same class. But don’t worry the triplets make sure they always eat lunch with their sister! And two weeks into middle school they realize that their baby sister doesn’t need them much anyways. She’s the queen of the SPED room. She’s so helpful, kind, and popular that she’s socially doing better then her sisters 😂😂

Bunny really gets into gymnastics! She wants to be in the special olympics, but she has super powers and the Professor has to explain that having super powers is a bit like cheating. She throws a tantrum and Bubbles, with all her crafty genius, saves the day by making fake medals and trophies. The Utoniums though are still very involved in the special olympics and other like activities . It makes them all happy and Bunny gets to hand out the medals! (Helps that she’s a superhero 😏😉 always getting that special treatment)

Guys, my gal? She’s a huge flirt! If you’re like ew no, that’s morally wrong, you need to re-evaluate what YOU know about Down Syndrome! Yes developmentally she’s a little slower, but Bunny’s still a teenager—a growing young women—and very much human, so romantic idealtions are very normal. And that applies to all our friends irl too. It just depends on a persons mental capacity! Admittedly, the Professor was a little uncomfortable at first too because there’s consent and power imbalances to think about, but the people of similar age that Bunny interacts with on the daily are people just like her—like minded individuals with puppy crushes. You can’t deny a person their humanity, so when one of the boys in her SPED class gets the courage to ask her on a date the Professor buckles down and calls the boy’s mom.

Their date is a at a park, properly chaperoned by their parents. They swing and have a good time. They end it with a hug! It’s very exciting and Bunny doesn’t stop bragging about it. Two days later she’s broken up with her new BF for the next brave soul. (Truly everything stays completely innocent don’t worry. I can understand anyone’s concern—Bunny isn’t a sexual being she’s just a romantic. Also there’s ALWAYS a chaperone)

Her family still worries though. Blossom because she always worries about Bunny and the things Bunny could be missing out on. The Professor for much the same reason + she’s his little girl. Bubbles because her LITTLE sister keeps getting more dates then her. And Buttercup doesn’t worry much, but she is annoyed because if the Professor isn’t available, she’s the one who ALWAYS has to chaperone.

Why buttercup? Don’t let her fool you. She actually volunteers. She’d chaperone any of her sisters’ dates if Blossom and Bubbles would let her. Ain’t no gross boy touching her sisters.

Tbh bunny flirts with boys most of the time to embarrass and get a rise out of her sisters. She’s a lil shit sometimes. (It’s the spice in her)

Bunny also makes sure to keep her sisters IN CHECK. If she thinks they’re being too judgmental or mean to the “bad guys,” she makes sure they remember how they were mean to HER.

Most of the main villains though don’t know her. Mojo tried something once and ended up being carted back to Townsville Correctional Facility in a gurney. Bunny has an aversion to violence after the “you’re being bad” incident, so she isn’t one to fight/protect herself (protecting her sisters is another story tho lol she’d kill for them), but her sisters are fiercely protective. Incredibly protective. So protective that when the other main villains saw Mojo carted into jail they went 😬😬😬 and stayed away.

She meets Princess though! She likes Princess for all her glittery dress-up shit. Idk how yet, but I think she’d be a good catalyst for Princess’s redemption arc (along with Robin, who yes is also Bunny’s best friend). She thinks Princess’s hair is pretty and really let’s be honest Princess goes soft because she likes the positive attention. In Princess’s defense, she was never insensitive to Bunny’s disability. She’s a ppg and a ppg is what Princess wants to be. Sure, she’s petty, but goodness gracious, Blossom, she’s well versed in etiquette and that’s just uncouth.

And she meets the boys because she’s a flirt remember? Boomer’s name is her favorite but she never gets the “-er” part out. Just likes the way BOOM sounds. Her sisters have to remind her to use her inside voice, but Boomer’s a good sport about his ear drums being blown out and usually yells right on back. She thinks they’re cute! Like Princess, Bunny makes the boys feel liked and needed and helps them along their redemption arc! But they’re hesitant to be around her because they saw MoJo and....😬😬😬 (hell would freeze over before the girls let them near her anyway) (their fear is also why they aren’t completely insensitive shits towards Bunny—Mitch is a human so he got away from a beating, but someone like Butch?? Nah, BC’s always actively looking for a reason to decimate him)

Bun’s fave villain though is Fuzzy. He’s like a giant fuzzy pink teddy bear!

Bunny’s essentially made out of the exact same stuff as Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice. So what if she’s a smidge bit different. Everyone loves her just the same!

[littleoddwriter]

buzzfeed unsolved but its zsaszmask

Unsolved | Roman Sionis x Victor Zsasz | ZsaszMask AU

Fellow wheezers, who happen to ship ZsaszMask, this is for you!

Thanks for the request!!!

Also, in case anyone might be confused, let me explain why I chose their roles the way I did.

So, in m BFU ZsaszMask AU, Roman is Shane (sceptic) and Victor is Ryan (believer). I did that because frankly, Roman has no respect for anything or anyone, especially not dead things, so I feel as though he'd take on more of a sceptical role in terms of paranormal things, whereas Victor would be more inclined to believe in these things, since he's already quite superstitious, etc. So, that was really all the thought behind the roles. Still, Victor doesn't react as heavily as Ryan truly does because that would just be hella out of character, I think.

I hope you enjoy it!

summary; Just a Buzzfeed Unsolved AU of ZsaszMask. It focuses more on the Supernatural Seasons (after establishing it all) because I thought that'd be more interesting.

notes; nothing notable, other than Domestic Fluff and Kisses, I guess.

Despite committing murders on their own, Roman and Victor were quite intrigued by true murder cases, as well; especially those that have never been solved. They fascinated them. Sometimes they drew inspiration from them for their next victims, always open to try out new things, most notably if it was supposed to send a message. Sometimes they’d just make fun of them, though. It was one of their favourite pastimes, really.

Eventually, on his research, Roman stumbled across this whole niche of true crime fanatics. People discussed these things online, either on blogs or even YouTube videos. It got them a hell of a lot of attention – and money, too.

With that in mind, Sionis proposed the idea of opening their own YouTube channel with videos like those he’s seen to Zsasz, who wasn’t exactly enthused, but he didn’t care.

Think about the publicity and the money, Victor, he’d said which made his partner shrug and agree that – sure, if that’s what Roman wanted, he wasn’t the one to deny him.

After a short while of making these unsolved true crime videos, they gained a lot of online popularity. It delighted Roman! Sometimes, he’d even sit down to read the comments, and gave into what caught his attention after reading the same suggestion one too many times.

Apparently, people wanted them to lean more into the supernatural side of things, explore cases that could only be explained by the seemingly unreal and paranormal; ghosts, demons, aliens – that kind of bullshit. Roman didn’t believe in any of this crap, but more publicity meant more money, and that promise made Roman happy enough to subject himself to these things.

Although, he had to admit that Victor’s reaction to it surprised him a little.

“No! We shouldn’t,” shot right out of him the moment Roman had said they’d cover such cases in the very near future.

“Why? Don’t tell me you actually believe this shit.”

“Well- not really, but I also don’t wanna test it,” Victor started stumbling over his own words then to try and come up with a weak excuse.

Huh. Roman had never taken him for someone like that, but he saw it in a positive light, since it only guaranteed to make this whole thing a lot more fun.

Apparently it wasn’t just fun, but those videos gained even more views – quickly. Upon reading the comments, even more people now thought they were a couple (such comments have already started beforehand) – and they were, but the public needn’t find out about that. It’d only put them in danger among their rivals in Gotham’s underbelly, so they didn’t announce anything and have consciously tried to stay as neutral as possible on screen. They had to cut out some kisses they shared here and there in their videos’ post-production, though. Sometimes they just couldn’t help themselves.

Still, the supernatural type of videos seemed to make their chemistry pop, which didn’t necessarily surprise Roman, since they actually travelled to the places they’d talk about and investigate them, hands-on, looking for evidence of paranormal beings and activities. So it was only to be expected that they’d sometimes forget they were being filmed at all and therefore just acted like themselves in these situations.

Roman naturally took on the role of a sceptic, as he didn’t believe in any of it, nor did he have any respect for these supposed ghosts whatsoever. Victor on the other hand – well, he tried to act as though he didn’t truly believe; but once they visited the infamous Sallie House and upon the flash-lights mysteriously having turned on and off on their commands to the alleged demon, Zsasz couldn’t hide his… apprehension, any longer.

It amused Roman greatly as he just laughed at Victor’s reaction, which was subtle enough – he jumped and had wide eyes, but otherwise didn’t react – but to Roman it was as if he had jumped up and shrieked, considering that Zsasz usually didn’t show any fear at all.

People ate that shit up, though. They revelled in either reaction, thinking the contrast was perfect and made watching the video less scary, and far more enjoyable. Roman was loved for his taunting, his blatant disrespect and the way he coaxed Victor into unintentionally communicating with the demon as well. Zsasz was also praised for making others laugh by being rather afraid, despite his tough exterior, and some even sympathised with him.

Additionally – and unfortunately a part they had filmed, but couldn’t leave in the video – Victor had been still a little mad at Roman for daring to talk to the supposed demon and roping him into it, despite having been told not to, when they had been on their way home the next day – after having spent the night at the house.

He was sitting in the car, on the front passenger seat, his arms were crossed and he was pouting. Cute, really. He just adored his little lapdog.

“Aw, baby, don’t pout. Nothing happened, we’re both still alive. That demon was nothing but a fake fuck anyway,” Roman cooed, grinning at Victor from the backseat he sat in.

Zsasz turned his head and glared at him, “Don’t test it. I told you! It’s dangerous. Could’ve killed you for all we know.”

“But it didn’t. Now quit being scared, or whatever. It just stopped being cute.”

Victor rolled his eyes and turned his head back to look out of the window. “I’m only looking out for you,” he had muttered, which Roman only caught when they cut the video.

Upon finding that out, he made it up to his partner with a bird for him to free and a good time in bed afterwards.

After a couple of years of making these videos, they had gained quite the cult following. And despite having only been in for the publicity and money at first, Roman found himself genuinely enjoying making these videos. Victor, too, he knew. Frankly, they both just loved being able to spend time with each other in the way they had before anyway, only to be paid for it as well.

Some of the most amusing things to both of them, though, were all the fan theories and speculations about them that their audience came up with at times.

Supposedly, Roman himself was a demon, which would explain why all his disrespect hasn’t killed him yet (obviously that wasn’t the case, but he revelled in it nonetheless). Others speculated about their relationship, and some even talked about Victor’s scars, wondering where they came from and why there seemed to be more every other video. They never addressed any of these things, of course, only amusing themselves with it during a late night.

One time, they spent the night at an allegedly haunted place again –The Dauphine Orleans Hotel – even sharing a bed this time. Their viewers were sure to latch onto that, Roman smiled to himself. They left the camera on during the night, in case they would catch any ‘evidence’ of paranormal activities, while they slept. Sionis only thought about how much footage they’d have to cut out in the end.

At first, they just lied next to each other, cracking jokes and talking nonsense, until Roman has had enough of that at least.

“Are we doing more of this, or can I use the Jacuzzi hot tub that we’ve been blessed with?”

“Are you serious?” Victor asked, looking at him incredulously.

Roman just looked back at him, “Are we going to spend the night here and not use that?”

For the video’s sake, they put swimming trunks on that they’ve brought with them. They filled the tub with water and sat in it. Roman went to turn on the jets, but had to find that they unfortunately didn’t work.

“The jets don’t work,” Victor explained for the camera, after they had agreed to keep filming it anyway, thinking it might be funny to put it in the video to lighten up the mood some more.

They both laughed, the entire situation was just so ridiculous to them.

“We’re just two guys sitting in a tub,” Zsasz continued, chuckling, while Roman just kept laughing.

Later, they were lying in the bed; Roman had his arms around Victor, wanting to sleep. His partner seemed calm to the camera – even though they’d have to cut this out anyway – and anyone’s naked eye, but fuck, he could feel Zsasz’s rapid heartbeat.

“Calm down, baby. Nothing’s going to happen, I promise,” Roman murmured against Victor’s shoulder, pecking it.

“I don’t know, boss. I just feel like something’s off.”

“That’s only because you actually believe in this crap and think every noise is a ghost, or demon, or fuck knows what else. I can assure you, though. The only real threat is I if you don’t calm down and go the fuck to sleep soon. ‘Kay?”

“Yeah, alright.”

“Good boy,” Roman cooed and nudged Victor to turn around in his arms, so he could capture his lips in a gentle, yet searing kiss.

“Still,” Sionis then said, curiosity having finally killed the cat after all these years, “You’re usually not… like that. Are you just acting it up for the camera, or? Because you really don’t need to. I had thought you weren’t afraid of anything, no matter what.”

“Just of losing you,” Victor mumbled, barely audible at all, but with how quiet the room’s been Roman caught it anyway.

“Is that all of it has been about?”

“I guess, I don’t know. I just know that the way you keep daring these creatures makes me fucking paranoid that something’s gonna come after you and kill you and I wouldn’t be able to protect you.”

Roman clicked his tongue and cooed, “Aw, Victor. Fuck, I didn’t know you could be so sentimental! Disgusting.” He grinned. “I’m not going anywhere any time soon, ‘kay? Who else is going to be King of Gotham in a few years then?”

Stroking his fingers over Roman’s cheek, Victor chuckled, “Yeah, okay. You’re right. I guess it all just kinda crossed my wires or some shit.”

They kissed again, lazy, tired and gentle. It was so intimate that for a moment, both of them forgot everything around them, forgot why and where they had been in that moment, since none of it mattered.

Looking back on that footage, they were forced to cut it all out, but they kept it safe, never wanting to forget about it entirely. It may have been one of their most genuine and intimate moments of their shared lives that hadn’t involved a dead body and Roman loved it.

[bigskydreaming]

IGN’s recent Bat-focused article (Batman: What Does Red Hood Need to Do to Get A Good Story?) praises fanfic writers and also is an amazing critique of how stagnant Jason has become under recent DC management and I’m so surprised at how good it is and how well thought out the solutions were

Hmmm. I just looked it up and I mean, I’m not trying to start anything but I both agree and disagree? Like, it makes some points for sure, I mean, its not like its saying things that I haven’t said a thousand times about Dick, like.....these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions, both good and bad, in order to be fully fleshed out, so I mean yes on that premise alone I absolutely agree this is as true for Jason as it is for Dick or anyone else.

Tbh my only real criticism of the piece is it thinks Jason exists in a particular predicament the other characters aren’t in as well. And that I just don’t agree with, like they kinda lost me a bit with their first paragraph:

His complexities and moral ambiguity make him a compelling and distinct character among his more strait-laced Robin-brothers. Sadly, the character has seen little growth since his rage-filled reintroduction into comics. The ‘former Robin becomes a villain’ idea was enough for DC to coast on for a while but since rejoining the heroes, Red Hood has done little else.

First off, this may just be me being pedantic but I’m ALWAYS going to go fetch a grain of salt before continuing reading anything that pits Jason against his brothers in a war of his moral ambiguity against their strait-lacedness. Because to me, that’s just a fundamentally shallow view of the Batfam that caters to the idea that they each must have their own distinct niche in order to be fully viable individual characters, when a) no, and b) they don’t fit neatly into the niches people keep trying to slot them into and it never ends well for anybody. 

Like Jason is morally ambiguous in a lot of ways too, yes, but umm, even if we assume that the writer is only speaking of Dick, Tim and Damian, we’re talking a guy who beat the Joker to death with his bare hands and has ten assassins and mercenaries on his speed dial and who co-led the Outsiders, a guy who was deeply immersed in weighing the pros and cons of getting revenge for his father by getting Captain Boomerang killed and is forever being DMed by Ra’s because he’s convinced he can get Tim to say He Has Some Points Actually, and the kid who was an assassin with a body count by age ten and who has struggled constantly ever since his debut to define his OWN personal view of morality that is not wholly predicated on what he was taught by any single individual.

And this is a big part of where I part ways with the article, because I think it falls into the same trap that a lot of people do by believing fanfic is inherently better by doing the same thing from just a different angle. Fanfic CAN be better than the canon, I absolutely believe that, I believe it is at times, but to do so, it has to like, BE BETTER. It has to do things differently, and not just paint a slightly different veneer over the same things. Like, pedantic though it might be, I outlined the above issue because its a mode of thinking the canon absolutely falls into again and again, and just like the writer of that article themselves, like....I think fandom as a whole is no different? 

Like, yes there are great stories about Jason out there, some writers have done great and interesting things with him, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a huge trend in fandom of doing the exact same thing I see here.....which is honestly a huge part of the exact same problem the article is decrying canon for......LIMITING Jason (and all the Batfam) by reducing them and their stories to finite niches as a way of spotlighting them as different from their siblings.....except they’re not that different! And that’s okay! They don’t have to be! Families can have lots in common, families DO have lots in common due to like.....shared variables during their formative years. 

I mean Jason was heavily influenced by environmental factors in how and where he grew up before he ever met Batman, but like the article goes into itself, he was no less influenced by Bruce himself as his father figure.....which is something he absolutely has in common with his siblings, thus its not hard at all to see how his siblings could have similar complexities and moral struggles that stem from trying to reconcile Bruce’s influence with the many other things and people that have influenced their childhoods.

And similarly, while the article is dead-on about Jason’s stagnancy....this is something that applies in equal measure to the rest of his family, because they’re all facing the same issues in terms of how DC views and utilizes them, and fandom as much as it likes to condemn DC for doing just that....frequently does the same thing. Like, Jason’s stuck in canon, absolutely......but Dick keeps being popped out into his own microcosm to experience a couple years of stories that essentially turn him into completely different characters isolated from every communal part of his character’s history, and then ERASE everything that’s happened at the end of each of these stories and reset him to square one.....and that’s just a different kind of stagnancy that again, still never allows for actual character progression or development. Tim has LITERALLY been regressed back to Robin, like a hard reset that’s its own kind of stagnancy and Damian has had years of character development upended just to kick him back to where he started, effectively strip away all the connections he’s developed at least in any meaningful way, etc.....and the same holds true for Babs and Cass and Steph and even Bruce himself IMO, in a lot of ways.

Its absolutely a problem, but its a problem that extends far beyond just Jason even if he is a great example of it. And its also a problem that extends into fic itself, and that’s why I don’t agree with a lot of the conclusions that article draws beyond just the fundamental “these characters need to be allowed access to a full range of emotions.”

Yes. That. That right there, THAT I think is crucial, but I think that writer needed to widen the scope a little to take in the full impact of what that actually MEANS for the characters....so as to not accidentally repeat the same problem they’re being critical of by essentially arguing for a full range of emotions for Jason....while still defining or viewing Jason through a finite lens of “the more morally ambiguous Bat character, at least as compared to his brothers.”

Because its that last part that’s so detrimental, because it seems like such a little thing at first, until you realize that essentially its just putting a ceiling, a cap on how far those full ranges of emotions can be expressed. Like the problem with Dick Grayson in canon and fanon is NOT that he can’t be written with a full range of emotions.....its that his character absolutely can encompass a wide range of opinions and viewpoints and emotional stances from “I don’t believe in killing as a first option” to “I absolutely can, will, and have beaten a damn clown to death for joking about murdering my brother”.....and he can still walk away as Dick Grayson after expressing both those things, because his character is big enough to include them both. HE’S not limited as a character, its canon writers and fandom writers that both heap artificial limitations of their OWN on him, say that his character is so defined in such a specific way that there’s no way for the latter expression of his character to actually be IN character.....and the fatal flaw here is fully fleshed out characters are never just one thing. They don’t fit in niches anymore than people do, and notice the problems we all run into when we try and pigeon hole people as being just one thing, like humans can’t be contradictory or act against their own self-interest or be hypocritical or evolve or even regress past prior viewpoints....basically, any time you try and sum up a human being in one line, no matter how accurate that description is, there’s still SOME things that are going to be left out of that picture. 

Now, these things don’t always have to matter that much, like if I look at a serial killer and say that’s a serial killer, like, I might be leaving out of the picture that once he helped an old lady across the street and didn’t kill her and he doesn’t even know why, and I for one, simply do not care that I leave that out of the picture. Its irrelevant to the big picture for me. I can acknowledge that it adds a smidgen of nuance to that particular picture and then go yeah but also I don’t care, nuance denied.

But in terms of fictional characters, these things that get left in the discard pile when we try and sum up characters as just one thing, like, they can be hugely significant, because characters unlike real people, are simply WHAT WE MAKE OF THEM. That stuff that’s been left out of the big picture look at that character because its stuff most people to DEFINE what that character looks like have deemed irrelevant....its still there, and still perfectly relevant for anyone who wants to pick that stuff up and make something of it, use it to change the overall picture or even just point to ways and places that picture can absolutely encompass and include these other elements and STILL fundamentally be that same picture, that same character.

And this isn’t to say that characters can never be written out of character, its to say that usually IMO what ACTUALLY makes the difference between something being out of character and something just being an unexpected but still valid character choice is just.....how these things are executed. The latter is when writers make the effort to JUSTIFY their character choice, to sell audiences on why and how this is absolutely something this character would do, to take them on a journey of what led the character to making this choice and let them see how those steps actually line up, that’s an actual journey that character might take. The former is when writers just don’t bother and are just like, well here’s a thing that character did, and you know it was in character because well that’s the character and that’s what I wrote them doing lol, what more do you want. No. Yawn. Next.

But the trick is if you’re going to try and make a character a SPECTRUM of emotions and choices rather than just a same datapoint recurring over and over again endlessly, a literal sticking point that never advances, never progresses, never changes......you have to actually give that character free range to utilize that spectrum of emotions and choices.....not just confine them to accessing all those possibilities but ONLY within a narrowly defined niche that is its own kind of limitation.

A character can START from a logline, absolutely. Can BEGIN in a narrative niche as a way to INTRODUCE them as seemingly different from their surroundings or their peers when they do not yet have the backstory, the evidence of past stories and character choices readers can use to interpret their actions or guess their choices.....but narrative niches, IMO, are meant to have a shelf life, an expiration date. They’re a seed for characters to grow FROM, to grow PAST, not return to over and over again.....because that’s when a niche just becomes another house that stagnancy built.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughts and the article mention.....it was an interesting exploration of thoughts for me even if I didn’t ultimately agree with a lot of what was already said....still a worthwhile read though I think and I mean hey, its cool if you still agree with it more even if I don’t, lol. This is just my take.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms Side Story 1: Tohno Akiha

Recently a user on Reddit, Magical-Biche, said that they were inspired by what I’ve been doing for FGO on Fate and Phantasms, and they wanted to do something similar with Tsukihime characters, and they were nice enough to let me post their work here! As always, there’s a spreadsheet for the build here, and a level-by-level breakdown below the cut. Everything past this point comes from Magical-Biche, because I am useless when it comes to Tsukihime.

--------------------------

Today, on Fate & Phantasms’ special crossover episode, we’ll cover Tsukihime’s objectively best girl, Akiha. Obviously, there will be quite a lot of spoilers in this text, as you don’t know until pretty much her own route that Akiha can actually fight. For this build, I will use what we see from Tsukihime, Kagetsu Tohya and Melty Blood to create a character that plays like Akiha Tohno, Shiki’s little sister. 

Akiha is a Half-Demon, but that doesn’t make her a Tiefling. She has a human appearance at all times, but her ancestors did unholy things with filthy demons, so her family members all have some kind of power. While SHIKI can control his own blood and just… not die when he is killed, Akiha’s thing is stealing. Stealing heat. For that, she uses her own hair, which is her main way of using her powers. They can be used in various ways, as she can extend them, wrap them around people and channel her powers through it. 

We’re going to focus on three things for our build:

We want to deal lots of damage, preferably temperature related. We’re getting a lot of fire spells, but the least possible amount that creates actual fire, unless it has some niche effect, like delayed fireball or bonfire. Also, we want offensive spells that can be used as traps, like Delayed fireball or bonfire.

We want to steal and give life force. We will get a few necromancy spells to be able to share and steal life force to our allies and from our enemies.

We want to have some control of the battlefield. Our hair is a powerful weapon that can imprison foes, and we’re gonna need spells to do it.

Race and Background

Not-so-obviously, because of her demonic ancestry, we’re going to play as a variant human. We get to put one point in Charisma, our main stat, and one in Constitution, which will help keep our concentration, and get some more HP. We are going to take the Elemental Adept (Fire) feat, because as you probably already guessed, we will be using a lot of fire. We’re taking the Noble background, because well, we ARE a high-class lady. This gives us proficiency in History and Persuasion. 

Stats

Going with the standard array, we should get our Charisma as high as possible. It’s our main way of dealing damage, not really a choice here. Besides, it does fit our character very as well, as we’re used to ordering people around, to get what we want and more importantly, scold our beloved brother. Next, we’re taking our Constitution as high as possible, because we might not look like it, but we’re pretty damn tough. We lived for two person for 8 years, possibly more depending on the route, after all. It will also tremendously help with all our concentration spells, and our HP pool. Next up, we’ll of course go with Dexterity, for the AC, but also because we’re nimble and pretty agile, as a young lady in her prime. We don’t really want to dump Wisdom and Intelligence, as we’re pretty smart and wise, but we can’t just build a character as perfect as we should be, sadly. Finally, dump strength. We’re not here to flex our muscles. 

Class Levels

1. Akiha is a pure sorcerer. The Tohno blood as a dangerous one, prompt to going wild at any time. Your sorcerous origin is logically going to have to be the wild magic. 

At level one, sorcerers get their Spellcasting, their Wild Magic surge and the tide of chaos. The tide of chaos won’t be really useful, but it can help you with some pesky checks once in a while, so it’s always an alright perk. The wild magic surge is the wild magic surge, as always; we could very well cheese our way through the first levels, or die at our first spell. Such is the way of the wild. Or something like that. 

For your spells, we will go grab our first fire spells : Firebolt, a cantrip, and Burning hands, a level 1 spell. Keep in mind that our power is NOT to set fire to things - we are stealing their heat, which causes pain and burning sensations, but the least we use actual fire to burn things, the more lore-friendly we are. If possible, we’ll want to flavor our spells to not ignite things, with all the pros and the cons it brings, with the DM’s approbation. Next up, we’ll take Absorb Element OR Mage Armor. While Akiha doesn’t have much defensive capabilities in the visual novels or the games, it won’t hurt to get a bit of bulk right off the bat. Mage armor is strictly better on most situations, but absorb element might prove more useful if you have a solid party to tank for you. To complete our cantrip selection, we’re getting minor illusion, to make our hair red when we get angry, Frostbite, because cold is also part of stealing heat, I guess, and dancing lights, as our red hair can emit some light when we’re using our powers.

2.  Next, we get our font of magic, which lets us create new spell slots. It’ll be the only use for our sorcery points until next level.  We can grab False life as our third lvl 1 spell, as we have the ability to give ourselves a bit of bonus HP with it, which fits our build.

3.  We get our first 2 metamagic at level 3. We’re going to go with Careful spell, because of the huge amount of AOE effect we’re going to have, and empowered spell, because of the huge amount of damaging spells we will have. We already have usage for both of those, with Burning hands. For our first level 2 spell, we get another one that looks a bit like strands of hair doing heat-related damage, Scorching Ray!

4.  At level 4, we get our first Ability score improvement. We’re pumping all of that in Charisma, because we don’t need much more than our Elemental Adept until later. We can also grab Create bonfire, which allow us to create extremely simple traps, as our fifth cantrip, and Mage armor or Absorb element, depending on which you chose at level one.

5.  Nothing interesting but new spells at level 5. We take counterspell as our first level 3 spell, pretty much completing our defensive spells roster.

6.  At level 6, we get our new subclass ability, Bend luck. It’s a useful tool that can be both used for attack or support, and for 2 sorcery points, it acts like a powerful low level spell, which is nice. For our next spell, we’re taking Hold person, our first means of entangling things with our hair.

7.  No new ability for level 7, but we do get our first fourth level spell. We’re taking an unusual spell : Sickening radiance. It might deal radiant damage, but it’s pretty much our first real “trap” move, as we can fill a room with it and weaken our foes as they come. And radiant is a bit like fire right? We can cheat a bit on this one.

8.  Level 8, new ASI! We’re finally getting our Charisma to its peak, at 20. Our new spell will be Wall of Fire, which is, yes, fire, but we’re using it as a trap, and only a trap. It can effectively block escape paths and such, making it a great control tool.

9.  At level 9, we get our first fifth level spell, which is going to be Enervation, probably the single spell that fits the most in our build. It does deal necrotic damage, but it’s a spell that stays on your enemy for as long as you wish, just like if we had a connection with them with some sort of magic rope (wink wink), and steals it’s life force each time it deals damage (wink wink). Yeah, that’s exactly OUR spell.

10.  At level 10, we get a new metamagic, and we’re getting twinned spell. With this and our new spell Hold Monster, we can hold more humanoids and monsters, and a lot of other shenanigans, like with enervation. We also take Prestidigitation, for the giggles really, no other cantrip really fits our build.

11.  The new thing we get with level 11 is our first (and only) sixth level spell, Eyebite. As an anime character, the look in our eyes becomes frightening when we’re fighting our sworn enemy. We’ll mostly use this spell with it’s fear effect, as we don’t want our powerful and worthy opponents to just go to sleep when we look them in the eyes, duh.

12.  At this point, we stop getting a new spell each level. We do get to have a new feature every 2 levels though, and at level 12, we get our third ASI, which we’ll spend getting the resilient (Dexterity) feat, which should get our dex to 14.

13.  Next level, we get our biggest damaging spell, Delayed blast fireball. We’ll want to use it as, as for a lot of our previous spells, a trapping move, throwing it near doors or in narrow corridors to detonate it when enemies are coming. Too flashy for our character, but a girl’s gotta get the job done at one point, and this spell’s damage can be pretty absurd.

14.  Level 14 is our next subclass feature, Control Chaos. Finally, we get something to influence our Wild magic surges, and that means we have double the chances of getting a nice effect that is not a fireball on self! Which is great fun, I swear.

15.  Next up, we have our first level… wait, none of those spells fit our character at all. So we’ll grab fear, which gives us an option cheaper than Eyebite to cause fear among our enemies.

16.  We get our fourth ASI, and with it, the last stats we’ll gain though normal ways. We’re choosing to put all that into Constitution, getting ourselves to a nice 18, and our HP should go up quite a bit with it. Also, we’re even better at keeping our cool even when enemies hit us.

17.  At level 17, we get our last metamagic, and we’re grabbing Distant spell. We might need to cast spells from far away, but it’s more situational than other metamagics. Also, we get our final spell, the only level 9 spell we’ll ever be able to cast. None of those fit our build, so we might as well go for something funny : Time stop. I mean, hey, we’re almost a vampire, we might not be blonde and voiced by Takehito Koyasu, our precious Nii-san IS our world.

18.  Now is where things get serious, on the damage side. Our Wild magic gives us access to spell bombardment, which is a pretty strong feature that increases our damage output by possibly a lot, depending on the rolls.

19.  For our level 19, we’re having a new ASI, and we’re finally getting War Caster, making us an immovable spellcasting machine. We’ll actually have some use of our decent HP and alright-ish AC (with mage armor on, never forget it), as we’ll be able to hit anyone that moves near us. And no one will break our legendary focus, with our advantage and proficiency on con saves and our high con stat.

20.  Finally, there isn’t much to be said about the final level. We get Sorcerous Restoration, a very useful way to get back our sorcery points. It’s useful, but doesn’t necessarily push our build further. It’s still a powerful tool, though.

Pros: We’re a damage dealing machine, with several options to burn our opponents, as well as ways to steal their life force and paralyse them. We’re doing 3 things, and we’re doing them great. We have high damage output, decent HP and AC (With Mage armor on, always), and we can actually do things when we’re in the middle of a pack of enemies. 

Cons: Some things have fire immunity. Which means we can only hurt those with our one necromancy spell and our frostbite, which aren’t the best damage output we have. Also, we’re still a caster and being in melee for too long isn’t good for our health. We also don’t have much of the utility we could have had, because we have to stick to what Akiha really can do. We already stretched it a bit by taking mage Armor and Counterspell. 

[sustraiii]

TEAM ZRCN ARC 3 - CHAPTER 5

Depression hour has arrived.

Helia reveals what went down on Shizukana to a confused Team ZRCN, and a new recurring character finally makes her long awaited appearance.

Many thanks to @neopoliitan for offering to proof read once again.

XANTHOS

The group had headed out to Cordovan’s home in Mantle after a quick call to Professor Velour to confirm that the Sabyrs had been dealt with and give her a brief rundown over what was happening. It was hard to ignore Helia’s warning.

“You’re in danger.”

But danger from what exactly? Xanthos was desperate for someone to ask, but even he had deemed it inappropriate to press the issue - especially given the urgency in Helia’s voice when she had requested somewhere safe to talk.

Depending on who or what they were in danger of, going to Cordovan’s house might not have been the safest idea in hindsight, but it was their best option outside of the Academy - which wasn’t exactly private. 

Xanthos came to a halt as they approached, having spotted someone sitting on the steps leading up to the porch, and made a show of pointing them out. “Um, who is that?”

“Who are you talking about?” Cordovan questioned as he pushed forward to get a better look. His confused expression quickly furrowed to a more annoyed one as he let out an exasperated sigh, “Rosie…”

Stepping ahead of the group commandingly, Cordovan approached the young girl who was sitting on the steps. Her head was buried in a magazine, but when she heard someone approach she looked up immediately - a glare of suspicion swiftly softening with apparent recognition.

“Hi Corduroy, what are you doing here?” She asked cheerfully, jumping to her feet.

“What are you doing here, Rosie?” Cordovan fired back, folding his arms as he spoke. “Shouldn’t you be staying at Mrs Clearwater’s house?”

“I should,” Rosie confirmed with a sly smile. “But she smells funny and I don’t like the way her cat looks at me. It looked like it was going to eat me. Probably could too, the ugly thing was big enough.”

Cordovan sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “So what was the plan here, Rosie - were you just going to wait for me or my mom to come home and maybe freeze in the process, or was it something else?”

Rosie looked up at him blankly before shrugging her shoulders. “I dunno. I didn’t think that far ahead.”

As he and the others closed the distance between them and their teammate, Xanthos was struck at the similarities between Cordovan and the girl; both of them shared the same messy reddish-brown hair, brown eyes and fair complexion. The only notable difference was the girl had freckles, while Cordovan did not. She wore a slightly oversized flannel shirt, half tucked into a pair of cropped, faded jeans.

Sensing the two could have gone back and forth for a while, Xanthos stepped up and interrupted the pair with a light cough. “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” he asked.

Cordovan hesitated for a moment, and Xanthos saw him glance nervously towards Rosie, who in turn met his gaze. “This is Rosie. She’s my, uh, cousin -- from my dad’s side... hence the hair.”

The girl looked down at the concrete between her white canvas shoes. “Yeah, what he said - we’re... cousins.”

“Anyway,” Cordovan cut in, looking around at the gathered party and withdrawing a key from his pocket. “Shall we go inside?”

He unlocked the door and the six of them all shuffled inside. Cordovan made a brief, mumbled comment about making some drinks for everyone, then swiftly disappeared in the direction of the kitchen, closely watched by Rosie. As they waited for Cordovan, the four of them headed to the living room to make themselves comfortable, though no one seemed in much of a hurry to sit down. 

This wasn’t the first time Xanthos had been in Cordovan’s home, but it was the first time he had noted some subtle changes. It remained as cluttered as ever, but it appeared as though there had been a conscious effort to at least neaten things up. Books that had once taken up nearly all the spare space in the living room had now been neatly stacked on newly built shelves. Niche decorative items that had once filled the mantlepiece were now replaced with more tasteful decor  though Xanthos noted a small pink cat figure lingered behind, and he assumed that was at the behest of Rosie. He wondered if many of the changes were due to her presence around the home, as opposed to general desire of wanting the place to look tidier.

Silence filled the room for what felt like several minutes. It was not interrupted by Cordovan’s return, but instead by heavy breathing coming from the doorway. Instinctively turning to face the source of the noise, Xanthos saw the girl - Rosie - stood there, staring intently at Helia.

“You’re Helia Vines.” It was said as less of a question and more of a statement. Xanthos wondered if she hadn’t paid much attention as to who was present when talking to the Cordovan.

“Yes, I am.” Helia confirmed, with a small nod.

Rosie let out a little squeak of excitement before she started babbling incredibly fast, an action which Xanthos could only describe as fangirling of the most extreme kind. When she had finished rambling, she seemed to settle, and directed a question at the veteran huntress in a more restrained tone. “Would you sign my doll?”

“Sure.”

Clearly thrilled at the response, Rosie did a small fist pump before turning on the spot and darting upstairs - likely to retrieve the aforementioned doll.

Once the girl had left the room and was out of earshot, Helia turned to Xanthos, Neela and Zelde and gave them a nervous smile. “You know I’ve had a lot of merchandise made for me, but I don’t remember dolls being one of them.”

“She reminds me of my sister.” Xanthos said softly, a faint smile forming on his lips as he thought of Marisol. It had been a long time since he had spoken to her - with the CCT being down - but he hoped she and their mother were okay.

“Don’t tell me your sister owned potentially creepy homemade dolls too.” Neela teased.

“I was referring to the enthusiasm actually, Nee,” Xanthos responded with a wink. “But if you must know, Marisol prefers plushies.”

Cordovan reappeared carrying in a tray of drinks for them all. He seemed to time his reappearance poorly - Rosie also reappeared at the exact same time, nearly tripping him up as she tried to jump ahead of him.

“Rosie!” Cordovan exclaimed, only just managing to keep his balance. Xanthos lifted himself slightly out of his seat to aid his friend - a reflex informed by Cordovan’s recent handicap - but the other student righted himself. He stepped further into the living room and set down the tray on the coffee table, before turning to face his cousin.

“What were you doing running in front of me like that? Surely you could see me coming.”

“Helia said she’d sign my doll!” Rosie responded, quickly showing everyone the doll in question. In truth, it wasn’t as bad as Xanthos had been expecting; he could at least see what the doll was meant to be. If Helia had electric green hair and disproportionate limbs,  it might have been a perfect match.

“You can do that later,” Cordovan said, trying to usher her away. “We’ve got grown-up things to talk about.”

Rosie had been co-operating until he referred to her age, which prompted her to stop and put her hands on her hips. “I’m eight, not seven!” She chided. “You don’t have to speak to me like a child.”

“I’m not - “ Cordovan paused to groan. “I didn’t mean it like that. Listen, I’m not trying to be rude, but there really is something urgent we need to talk about. Something that you don’t need to hear right now. When we’re done you’re welcome to come and pester us again.”

“Do you promise?” She batted her eyelashes at him expectantly.

He seemed taken aback by this question before shrugging his shoulders. “I guess so. I made you a hot chocolate if you-”

“Does it have marshmallows in it?” Rosie asked, suddenly perking up with interest. She had already begun to move towards the table, eyeing up a pink cup as she approached.

“No, it doesn’t have marshmallows in it.”

By the time Rosie had turned to respond she had already grabbed the cup with her spare hand. “Well, next time you owe me marshmallows -- but I’ll let it slide as your friends are here.” She smirked. Running past him and hurrying out of the room, she called to the others. “Bye Corduroy! Bye Corduroy’s friends!”

“‘Corduroy’, huh?” Xanthos mused, scratching his chin as he spoke. “I may have to use that.”

“Please, don’t.” Cordovan said, shooting him a warning glance before he eventually took a seat in one of the armchairs like Helia, with the rest of ZRCN once again huddling onto the sofa. There were a few minutes of awkward silence before Zelde got the ball rolling on why Helia had been so urgent to find somewhere to talk.

“What did you mean when you said we were in danger?”

Helia shifted uncomfortably in her seat, leaning forward to grab her drink. She traced a finger around the rim of the cup before looking up. “Do you remember what happened when we confronted Farron on Shizukana?”

Save for Cordovan, everyone else in the room had been present during the final confrontation with Farron’s people. It had been over six months now, but the event was still easily recallable to Xanthos. After a moment, he, Zelde, and Neela all nodded their heads, allowing Helia to continue.

“Do you remember what Wisteria said to him?” She asked. “Her ‘reveal’.”

“She said she didn’t work for him…” Zelde’s voice trailed off softly, already beginning to understand what Helia was trying to say. Xanthos was a bit slower on the draw.

“The people she worked for are the ones who are after us?” He questioned, looking to Helia for confirmation. “But why? We didn’t do anything to them! If anything, I got the impression we’d helped them take out a competitor of sorts. Why would they want to hurt us?” There was a brief pause before he quickly added, “Did they send the robots? Why?”

“Because you know too much.” Helia said.

Neela snorted a little. “Do we? I thought this was all resolved.”

“So did I,” Helia agreed before Xanthos noted her crumpling into her chair. It was only then he noticed how defeated she seemed in that moment. “But I was wrong.”

It was Cordovan who dared to ask the final question. “What happened, Helia?”

The huntress sniffed loudly, tears forming in her eyes. “My team and I had been talking about reuniting for months - a few weeks ago we finally agreed to meet up on Shizukana. It was the first time we were all in a room together after we went our separate ways... I was so excited to see them all again. It was only our third night when it all went wrong.” 

She lowered her head and took a long steadying breath before looking back up at them. “The real people Wisteria was working for decided to make an appearance - Wisteria, too - and they literally blew apart Leyla’s house. Leyla herself was knocked out, and the rest of us were dazed but we could still fight. Anthea and I tried to hold off two unknown attackers, but they were stronger and got the upper hand on us. Alcyone was the only one left standing by the end. We told her to stop and give up, that fighting would get us nowhere, but she was always stubborn - always thought she knew best.” 

Helia looked away, and Xanthos noted she had a pained smile. “Then a white-haired bitch skewered her with a spear.” She revealed grimly.

“Fucking hell,” Xanthos cursed aloud.

Helia was beginning to cry, but she was too determined to finish her story to succumb to tears. “I should have stayed with her in those final moments. I’ll always regret that I didn't. But I was confused and angry - who were these people, why had they come here and done this to us? 

“Other than Wisteria I had no connection to them, and the only thing they had told us was that the whole thing was a warning. A warning for what though? Why? Over and Over again I asked them. Eventually Wisteria knocked me aside like I was nothing and I was too weak to stand back up. She warned me against rising to my feet and I listened to her.” 

She took a shaky sip from her cup. “I’d like to say the white-haired woman took some pity as she approached me, but there was no pity in those blood-red eyes. Only malice and pleasure. I think she actively enjoyed seeing me suffer. And then she told me that this was all a warning. A warning for me and Leyla, but mostly for you. Anthea and Alcyone were just a nice little ‘side dish’. They had ‘other things’ to do first but she warned me that eventually they’d come for you too. Then they just… left. By the time I got back, Alcyone was gone.”

Helia didn’t need to elaborate on what she meant - by now they all knew the fate Alcyone had succumbed to, what these foes were capable of. Xanthos had always thought Wisteria might have been one of the largest challenges they would face, but it was becoming apparent she was just a piece in a much larger puzzle.

Zelde was the first to move, rising to her feet and standing in front of the window in silence, clearly deep in thought. Cordovan had leaned forward and was running his hands through his bowed head. Xanthos and Neela were silent and unmoving, still trying to process what Helia had told them. 

The silence in the room was soon filled by the increasingly loud sobbing of Helia, a sound that would have melted even the coldest of hearts. Neela was the first to rise to her feet and approach the veteran huntress, quietly wrapping her arms around her comfortingly. One by one, the rest of ZRCN followed suit; Cordovan, then Xanthos, and lastly Zelde. And that was where they stayed for a while, just holding and comforting each other, only breaking apart when Rosie finally ventured back downstairs again.

[tominostuff]

Tomino x Hosoda on Wolf Children

Source - https://char-blog.hatenadiary.org/entry/20140720/1405889329 

Date: April 2013

--What was the reason behind Mr. Tomino giving this movie such high praise when it was released?

Tomino: Anyone who has experienced child-raising understands that children are an uncontrollable “wolf-like” existence to parents. I saw some opinions that marrying a “wolf” is disgusting but there are times when a boyfriend/girlfriend who seemed beautiful during the romantic stage suddenly changes into an existence even harder to understand than a wolf. In this way, [Hosoda] took a very normal story that everyone experiences and skillfully used an animation metaphor to keep the film within a very easy to watch time frame. It's frustrating to admit but Director Hosoda has become very capable. 

Hosoda: I was very encouraged by your earlier comments so I’m sincerely grateful to you. 

Tomino: In preparation for this interview, I read many reviews of the film and was reassured by what I saw. Mothers who are currently raising children would write, “this film is a very accurate portrayal of a mother.” I thought, finally animation has produced a “film” that could appeal to a wide audience. There’s something revolutionary in a different way from Miyazaki films. For example, among the reviews, there were some wondering whether the director was conscious of Waldorf Education while making the film. 

Hosoda: To get straight to the point, no, I was not aware. The main mother character, being placed in the special situation where she could not rely on general medical institutions to raise “the wolf children”, had no choice but to  prepare for children's illness with books, ranging from the classics like "Childcare Code", "Encyclopedia of Childcare" and "Pediatric Medicine", to books on natural remedies. It was simply a matter of Waldorf Education being among those books but what’s interesting is the audience noticing this book cover in the corner of the screen and debating the theories written in those books on their blogs. I think it represents how urgent of an issue child-rearing is for parents.

Tomino: I will not affirm or deny that particular theory of education, but I was surprised that mothers, who have a deep knowledge of children's literature and education, made statements that captured the work to this pedigree. As I thought, this work is seen by a fairly wide range of people. However, when I heard the opinions of the anime industry, I got the sense that they were discussing within the narrow confines of genres. In the first place, I don't really understand the tendency to organize media by identifying people into markets or generations and I think this tendency is making recent works lacking.

Hosoda: I too, think that this newest work has come to a place outside of the usual anime context. Up until Summer Wars I wanted to find out how far I could take world building and see what’s beyond that, while staying within the genre film. On the other hand, there are "movie fans" who have a wide field of view and on the other, there are also many people who like genres films like action, horror, romance, etc. From those people I received criticism which prioritized the laws of genre films, for example, "If you write a werewolf character, that character has to be persecuted and shot by the police and die.”

Tomino: That’s exactly what someone caught up in genres would say. Anime has a narratology centered around action, but I felt Wolf Children went outside of that. The very fact that unfamiliar terms such as “Waldorf Education” came up is proof that there are people who believe this movie goes beyond the confines of anime. In other words, it was conveyed that Hana, the mother character, is not as anime-like and pretty/delicate as the picture, but a woman who carried out strong child-rearing with considerable knowledge and insight. When I saw those reviews that touched upon the very core themes of the plot, I thought that anime was finally established as a medium.

Hosoda: Exactly. This time, I was very happy to see women, especially those in the middle of child raising, discuss this film from the viewpoint of a fellow mother. There was sound debate, including criticism. It's proof that the motif of this film is universal. After all, in both movies and anime, world building and expressions have wider potential than genres.

Tomino: That's exactly right. In my case, I’m very greedy, so if I am to express something to the world, I want it to become popular. I'm not interested in producing something that is only accessible to a narrow group of people who like certain genres. If you start making pandering work for niches, you will become a niche yourself and you will set up a flag to be discriminated against and beaten by society. If you are given the opportunity to express yourself in a public place and show your will, it’s better to be liked by everyone. Of course, being accepted is the premise that business is built upon as well. So, people tend to go in the direction of "it is easier to sell if you specialize by genre", but a work created upon that idea will last for at most two to three years. If I am spending a lot of money to make it, I want to do big business, show a concept that will last 10 years, 20 years, 50 years, and make it sell for a long time. There are quite a lot of works that are forgotten after the momentary box office profit. In that sense, Wolf Children definitely showed a new frontier of "things to express to the public" and I believe that the evaluation and recognition in the next 10 or 20 years will be much higher than it is now. 

 --What kind of expectations does Director Tomino have for Director Hosoda for the future?

Tomino: I don't have any particular expectations, but more what I would like people to pay attention to is the fact that not everything was made by Mr. Hosoda. The existence of scenario writer, Ms. (Satoko) Okudera is huge and it must’ve only been possible because they were in a realistic space where they could observe children. To the point where you might not have been able to make it if the timing was off by about a year or two. This is a realistic work. So while I think, wow you did really well, unfortunately I also think you’ll never have another chance like this. The moment you are told, "that was a hit, let's do it again!", you may fall with a boom so watch out for that. *tl note cough cough* mirai no mirai *cough* 

Hosoda: I may have obtained credibility from the box office hit but I believe every movie comes down to the original project proposal. In the future as well, it will depend on the spirit of challenge and fun imbued in each and every proposal. Instead of thinking, “This particular one was a hit so the next one has to go even higher,” I would like to seek a unique enjoyment of movies to share with audiences for each project. So even if I am asked to make another installment of this movie… 

Tomino: I mean you can’t, can you? 

Hosoda: Yeah, it is a complete work as it is. I will move on to the next new work. At that time, I have to forget all the previous works and start from scratch thinking about what is interesting in this world. 

 --How do you feel about Mr. Tomino’s previous statement about making work for the public?

Hosoda:  In the case of Wolf Children, the starting point of my idea was from a very familiar place. At the time, my wife and I were having a hard time making children. Therefore, the desire to raise a child and become a parent is directly reflected in the movie. At the same time, I thought that the motif of "raising children" is universal not only to us Japanese but to all over the world. Anyone in any country experiences it. Even if you have no children, you experience being raised by your parents. It's a story common to all humankind, so I thought this was a project that had the potential to be viewed by everyone. That's why I said something like the "child-rearing" film genre, but I realized that there is no such movie (laughs). In the first place, it is difficult to film a live-action movie of a situation like "growing up slowly", and I can't find a movie about a child where the parent is the main character. It’s always the conflict filled story of “overcoming parents in order for their children to grow up." I planned it as a "story from an observational perspective" about how parents watch the growth of their children, but I was really in trouble because there was nothing to refer to. Originally, movies originated from counterculture, so I think that is also related. 

Tomino: I was surprised to hear that, but it again reaffirmed the superstition that we could express freely, it’s actually not free at all. The fact that Wolf Children is taken for granted even though it’s doing such special things is amazing. Because at the end of the day it's a cliché story, isn't it? But due to the fact that it is universal …….

Hosoda: Yes, it's a very cliche story you can find anywhere. 

Tomino: But the moment it was illustrated through animation techniques, it looks revolutionary. This is actually an embarrassing story because something too obvious should not look innovative. It's a tremendous work because even that aspect can be learned from it. 

Hosoda: No no, as a creator, I just started from a very straightforward ideal and aspiration, thinking, "I want to do something like this, something like that, when I have a child," in line with the feelings of my wife and I. When I interviewed fathers and mothers who are raising children as references, they talked about hardships like "I can't sleep at night, I'll run out of personal time", but it all sounded enviable to me. “The fact that you are carrying all of that on your back is amazing!” is how I felt. 

Tomino: I see....I couldn't have imagined cutting in from that angle. Even though your own children aren’t that old yet, each one of the scenes are neatly arranged by age. While I was watching the film, I couldn’t understand how you could possibly depict the children’s growth so accurately but listening to your story just now, I think I understand half of it. Were you yearning to be a parent to that extent?

Hosoda: Yes, I was aspiring for it. If I didn’t hold ideals toward the idea, I don’t think this movie could’ve been made. If I had actually experienced a sleepless night with a newborn child, I don’t think I would’ve been able to make a film out of it. Because I had a longing for it, that became the power behind the realism. Even though there are some weaknesses to it not being a lived experience, I felt this was the only time I could make this film. Rather than my personal feelings when I first wrote the plot, I am amazed and grateful towards the secretary company and distribution company that took on such a challenging story. 

Tomino: It’s exactly as you say. After all, in the anime industry, we, the creators, are contaminated with the preconceived notion of anime. The staff who had the sensitivity to identify such potential in this film only with that title and proposal is certainly amazing.

 --Which scene was the most memorable for Director Tomino?

Tomino: It's rare for me, but I smiled at the last cut. Even though it was a cut with a loose composition without any ingenuity, I giggled, mimicking Hana. It’s because I thought, “Parents are just like that, aren’t they.” As the conclusion of a movie, this was really amazing because usually one would want to include something message-like here. If it were me, I’d be too scared to keep her just seated at the table and would make her look towards the mountains and say “Are you doing well?” There aren’t many movies that end so neatly like that. After all, it is a film that raises the story of the movie and the overall representation theory in a fairly dramatic way. However, looking at director Hosoda's career, you've improved your skills for the pursuit of the genre of anime, and you also love anime as an audience member, right? When trying to pursue such a versatile story with a natural theme, Mr. Hosoda's strength of "animation lover" may turn into a weakness and become a double-edged sword.

Hosoda: It's exactly as you pointed out. But I don't think it's possible to stop liking anime anymore.

Tomino: Of course you can't. Therefore, there is no choice but to plan movies in a straightforward, rule abiding way. In my case, I had the same kind of trouble with Gundam, so I know it's harsh. That’s the extent to which Mr. Hosoda hit the nail on the head and got out of the environment where just making work for the sake of doing the job would pass. 

Hosoda: However, while there are hundreds of thousands of movies in the history of movies, from many different people from many different cultures, I still think there is something out there that hasn’t been depicted yet. That is my "hope" that I have to keep making for my son who was born.

Tomino: That's the right line of sight. If you have that perspective, I think you can still make many works in the future. Those are probably words that can only be spoken by someone who felt “maybe what I’m creating is not anime?” since The Girl Who Lept Through Time. Because I personally have never come up with the logic that "there may be something that hasn’t become a movie yet."

Hosoda: What? That has to be a lie. Director Tomino was the one to provide that concept. We have been encouraged by that for over 30 years.

Tomino: No, I have the confidence to say that I don't have that kind of creativity or writing abilities. 

Hosoda: There’s no way that’s possible. If so, why did we enjoy the thrill of going “I would've never thought up of this!” every time Director Tomino’s new work came out? 

Tomino: That's because, in my case, I'm only thinking about the responsibility of "expressing to the public." Regardless of the fact that there were restrictions due to having sponsors involved with big robots, I have come so far only thinking about the narrow exit of, “if other people make it like this, I will do it this way.”

Hosoda: However, as far as I can see, it seems that Mr. Tomino's work pushes itself beyond and is located far above that, while being aware of the public consciousness. 

Tomino: Yes, to that, I can be very clear. Because I don't trust the modern public. How can we raise the public to highbrow and make them Newypes? I desire to continue thinking about these feelings towards the future through the theory of communication. Am I overreaching? That's why I'm taught that "a writer must have a perspective like Mr. Hosoda." I couldn't become a fiction writer because I didn't have that sense. Even looking at the relationship between Hana, Yuki and Ame, I realized that "Drama is something that must be assembled like this."

Hosoda: To me this is an unbelievable story. That relationship between Hana, Yuki and Ame could easily be replaced with the path taken by Commander Doba and Haruru and Karara of Space Runaway Ideon. However I couldn’t write the fierce drama of that parent and child as is… 

Tomino: If you say Wolf Children feels lacking because it’s simply about child-rearing without the fierce drama, then you are wrong. Things that everyone already knows. Things that everyone actually has hidden deep inside of them, to be able to just say those things straight out and lay it bare in public. Things like the sensual sense of distance in human relationships, you depict so naturally. I personally can't do that, so I forced it through with an easy-to-understand structure and logic. Passionate feelings required for a drama originally requires a sense of distance, and it should be drawn within that. Whether the distance when a hand stretches out and touches another person is true or good, false or true… that sense of distance is a wonderful way to show the goal of the story naturally. Director Hosoda is allowed to have confidence in his ability to direct those kinds of scenes. 

Hosoda: I believe that great directing is not in the skills but luck. There was an intangible something that fit the content and tone of the movie. It was good that I was able to stick it out until the moment when I thought "this is good!" for each cut. Those kinds of moments are luck, and the director is the type of person who has to wait for those moments to happen. I think the directors are blessed with their each individual type of luck.

Tomino: I think that as well and also think that, ideally, a play cannot be made unless you are prepared to make it after understanding the whole world.

Hosoda: That being said, while I think the motif I chose this time is good, I also realized that my ability as a director was not caught up with it, but I still had to go through the pain of making it anyway. I don't really understand the whole world, and I don't have enough expressiveness…

Tomino: if that is the case, then I think you’re okay. What’s important is the awareness that “my abilities may not be enough.” There are certain things that can only be built upon that awareness and even if it's making scenes, it’s not something that can be done by one person. Overcoming obstacles with brute force, saying, "There is no choice but to do it like this," sometimes becomes a form of expression that exceeds one’s own ability. The better the movie, the more I think that the camera is set up with the humility that “I can't do it all by myself,” and you can see the power of the group that one doesn’t see in individual work. 

Hosoda: For sure, and that’s important in animation as well. 

Tomino: Even with desk work like anime, not everything can be controlled by oneself. With such humility in mind, please continue to create soft Hosoda works that everyone can enjoy. 

Hosoda: I’m very honored to receive these words. I will continue to use them as encouragement. 

[sdpafanblogofsupremefunk]

Season 1, Episode 1: A Different Place

Where better to begin talking about a show than the beginning? Like most shows, Sítio do Picapau Amarelo has a pilot episode.

...Okay, in this case, “pilot episode” is just a fancy way of saying “first episode”. Much like Rick & Morty and DT17, SDPA doesn’t really have a pilot episode that isn’t just the first episode (unless you count Doc and Mharti as R&M’s pilot, which I’d rather not), so to begin the series, we kinda have to jump right into the mess of things.

It’s like A Quiet Place, but not stupid.

As the episode begins, we are introduced to a two men on a horse-drawn cart. The man in the red box is a book salesman who’s a little down on his luck in terms of profits.

A little.

This guy isn’t really given a name, and I don’t want to call him “The Salesman” the whole time because that’s stupid. So I’m going to give him a name. Mr. Simmons will do nicely.

Anyways, Mr. Simmons falls out of the cart when it hits a patch in the road, and when he picks himself up, he sees a quaint little house on a farm, with an old woman knitting on the porch.

Here, we are introduced to the first of our main cast, Dona Benta, a kind elderly lady who owns this little patch of heaven known as the Yellow Woodpecker Farm. Yeah, didn’t take us long to get there, huh?

So Mr. Simmons sees this old woman in the middle of (what he believes to be) nowhere, and decides it’s the perfect opportunity to make a quick buck believing that:

Which, I dunno, man, she seems pretty comfortable just sitting in her rocking chair, knitting. Like, even as an outsider who doesn’t know a lick of what goes on in this farm, I’d say she’s content as she is, but anything to make some cold hard cash, I guess.

Also, I would not ever call this place a desert, even for the sake of exaggeration. There’s grass everywhere, bushes, trees, flowers, the works. If this where anything like a desert, I do not think this woman would be here, to put it simply. But, I digress. And I hydraulic press, but we won’t be seeing that.

So, Mrs. Benta goes inside to call for the kids, and here we meet 3 of our other actors:

Here, we see Pedrinho (or Little Pete, the boy in the blue overalls) and Narizinho (or Lúcia “Little Nose”, the girl in the red dress), cousins and Mrs. Benta’s grandchildren. They’re playing tag, I think, but they’re stopped in their tracks with their Grandma in the way, and-

Hang on, I feel like we’re forgetting something.

Oh, right. I almost forgot Emilia. She’s basically the reason I watch this show, no biggie.

Anyway, she’s in a race with the kids, when they’re blocked by Grandma. Emilia makes the smart move and cuts right under Mrs. Benta. It looks like this:

Another reason I like this show so much, it’s rife with smears, which I feel like any good cartoon should have. Like here, where Emilia friggin’ nyooms right under Mrs. Benta like a comet.

Emilia reaches the finish line at the bookshelf, where we see the Viscount of Sabugosa, a puppet made out of an ear of corn who’s very smart and polite. (His name is a pun, “sabugo” means corncob in Portuguese, and it’s a parody of the Count of Sabugosa, of which there were 9, the first being Vasco Fernandes César de Meneses in 1729- but everybody calls him Viscount and so will I because blah)

In this show, the Viscount is the actual size of an ear of corn, which makes sense, he is, after all, a puppet made out of one. I think it’s really funny that the cartoon is slightly more realistic than the live-action show it’s based on in this regard, because in the 2001 series, for whatever reason, the Viscount towers over everyone:

And he has a sick mustache.

Like, I don’t get it, out of all the characters, you made the guy made out of corn the tallest one in the cast? I get that the technology to make him actually small probably wasn’t all there yet, Grandpa in My Pocket was still 8 years off, but you really couldn’t find a guy that wasn’t the same height as Shaq?

Yeesh, only 2 minutes in and I’m getting sidetracked this often. Well, I guess it’s better than having nothing to talk about.

Anyway, Emilia wins the race, but the other two kids run into her, smooshing her against the bookshelf-

-and pwning her so hard she briefly grows fingers on her hand (and turning it into a left hand apparently, because the thumb is on the wrong side)

Mrs. Benta explains that Emilia and the other mystical beings must hide from the impending salesman.

Oh brother, I was wondering when we’d get to this guy. This is Marquis of Rabicó (Portuguese for Short-tail). Literally the first thing you read about him on the show’s Wikipedia is that he’s fat (which you think would be a given cuz he’s a pig), and his part of the Characters section isn’t much better, stating that he’s a “gluttonous, selfish, cowardly and lazy pig” and most of his episodes involve him getting himself and/or others into trouble by being a gluttonous, selfish, cowardly and lazy pig. He’s only ever onscreen to cause problems, either directly or by proxy. If I were to sum him up in one meme, it would be this:

Now, I don’t hate Rabicó, I’m actually quite indifferent towards him, but he does bring down a lot of the episodes that he’s a major part of. Thankfully, there aren’t too many episodes featuring him in the first 2 seasons, but from what I hear, Season 3 goes ham with that shit (pun intended) and it brings down the quality of the season as a whole, so it’s a good thing that’s as far off from now as it is. I want to enjoy the lack-of-pig while it lasts.

But hey, at least he doesn’t look like this:

Don’t do drugs, kids.

Rant over, Mrs. Benta explains that she wants things to look normal because the Yellow Woodpecker Farm is a very peculiar place, where all kinds of weird and wacky stuff goes on, and if word gets out about it, the place will be filled with tourists wanting to get a peek of the action.

Something that Mrs. Benta probably didn’t consider is that there’s a bigger threat to being exposed than just filthy tourism. That’s right, I’m talking about the GOVERNMENT.

I mean, think about it. How many movies have you seen where the government tries to hunt down an unnatural being? E.T., the Sonic Movie, a third one I can’t think of right now, etc. (Lilo & Stitch does not count) Now, I can’t speak for Brazil’s government compared to the U.S., but I know there’s gotta be a division dedicated to dealing with unnatural things that would no doubt arrest Emilia, Rabicó, Viscount, etc. and run experiments on them. Then again, maybe this cartoon takes place in a world where the government doesn’t even exist. I mean, we never really see any urban settings in the show (aside from a brief mention of “the city” in the finale), so for all I know, the world of Sítio do Picapau Amarelo is run by Vermin Supreme.

Real talk, you should all be ashamed of yourselves for not voting for this guy back in 2016.

Initially, Emilia won’t go into her box, but then she gives in and is dragged there by Aunt Nastácia, the housemaid of the farm with a knack for making dolls (so she’s essentially Emilia’s mom). She doesn’t really do much in this episode, but the Fat Bastard does even less, and I still mentioned him.

So Mrs. Benta lets Mr. Simmons into the house and he does this whole spiel about how great the books are, how they can take you to worlds you never imagined, fantasy and action, yadda yadda.

Meanwhile, the kids are off to the side and they’re all like “Well, we met the actual Hercules, get on our level scrub”. And of course, Emilia is watching with them, instead of in her box.

As Simmons keeps on rambling, Emilia is being a little peeping tom, not realizing that one turned head could lead to her being dissected like a high school frog.

Apparently, Emilia thinks she’s a regular Bart Simpson, with shit like spitballs and pulling out the man’s leg hairs. She’s really pushing her luck here, and for little reason. Sure, Simmons called the place boring, but that’s how it’s supposed to be to him.

Of course, Pedrinho and Narizinho are nice enough kids that they bail her out on this one and pretend it was them.

And before Simmons can ask what the hell is going on, Mrs. Benta gives him the money for the books and sends him out the door. And once he’s out...

I’ll give you a hint: it rhymes with go.

Of course, they’re not out of the woods yet, cuz Simmons is getting a little suspicious.

Busted. The truth is revealed, all laid out for Simmons to see. A talking rag-doll? Inconceivable! And yet, there it is.

Come on, Viscount. I would expect you of all people to uphold what Mrs. Benta said and stay hidden. You’re smart enough, you should already know what’s at stake, or at least that something is at stake. I mean, I understand that the cat is already out of the bag, but you’re not helping.

Also, you’re thumb is clipping into your bowtie, you should get that checked out.

Rabicó, I hope you get turned into salami. Not out of spite or anything, but just because I like salami.

Naturally, Simmons believes he’s struck gold and found the ultimate tourist trap. But when Emilia points out that if he tells anyone, he’ll sound like a crazy person-

-he straight up Villager Neutral B’s her,

hails a horse, and books it.

Wow, Viscount. Dick move mangling Mrs. Benta’s glasses like that. And all for an impromptu magnifying glass, which is pointless-

-because we can see the horse tracks perfectly fine without them.

(The Viscount isn’t this much of a jerk in the rest of the series, I swear.)

So, the gang follow the tracks until there are no more, which leads them to a corn store.

Wait, a... corn store? As in, a store that mainly, if not exclusively, sells maize and maize accessories? Compared to vegetables in general, that’s quite a niche market, I can’t possibly imagine finding a success in building an entire business around one type of vegetable. Corn is simply not as versatile as something like chocolate or cheese.

Oh no, wait, it’s just a bar. I guess this cartoon takes place in the middle of Prohibition 2: Return of Jafar, and the whole “corn store” thing is just a set up for a speakeasy. (I mean, you could also argue that it’s a diner, but I’mma go with bar because it’s funnier.)

And I’m guessing Simmons expects the place to put all of the meals on his tab, considering he’s going to get the money later with all the tourism. But then, why doesn’t he just pay with the money he got from selling Mrs. Benta those books? So he pulls Emilia out of his bag to show everyone that he has a talking doll and...

Hm. Probably should have put some air holes in that bag.

Anyway, the gang comes in, and Mrs. Benta asks for the doll back, with Narizinho hamming up her Oscar-worthy performance:

So everybody’s giving Mr. Simmons a mean glare:

Including this gentleman who looks like someone just insulted his favorite MHA character (it’s probably Tsuyu):

So Mr. Simmons desperately tries to convince everyone that the doll indeed does talk, and that she comes from a wacky place, but Aunt Nastácia intervenes and says that it’s just a normal doll.

She just straight up roasts Emilia, who (big surprise) does not take it very well. To the point that she is very visibly angry, which you think the barflies would notice.

I mean, look at that and tell me that you wouldn’t notice anything weird.

But anyways, they get the doll back and we get this cute group hug.

D’awww.

So they leave with Emilia-

as Mr. Simmons is beaten to death offscreen for stealing from a little girl.

As the gang walks home, Viscount bends Ms. Benta’s glasses back to normal. Took you long enough, ya jerk.

Not even close, my dear. This is only the beginning.

Well, that was a very good first episode. It introduces the world and many of the main characters very well. And while there were a few issues I had with it, they’re really just nitpicks that don’t detract from the episode as a whole. Overall, a good effort, 8/10.

So, yeah, that’s the first episode down. Join me next time when we watch episode 2, and meet a very vile villain.

Very vile indeed.

[muffinrecord]

Hey I have a question sorry if its too much but for the pick your own 4 star ticket which girls would you recommend from each element (best water/earth/light/dark/fire girls.) You dont have to answer obviously but I was just wondering which ones are the best options in your opinion

9/3/21: THIS IS AN OLD POST. DO NOT TAKE THESE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CURRENT MAGIRECO PLS

Sure! These are my recommendations, so take them with a grain of salt– I wouldn’t call myself an expert here. Also, in my opinion the best character to get will always be your favorite one, and not necessarily the most optimal one. 

Additionally, the most optimal choice might not be a new character, but a character you already have. More memoria slots are king in this game.

With all of this said, I’m going to say this: when considering PVE, the best two girls to get will be either Madoka Kaname or Mami Tomoe. Both of them are the best picks due to their cheese strategies, but even outside of that they can both carry you hard into content. I’d say that Madoka wins over Mami slightly due to her element and mp connect/magia, but they’re both excellent choices if you’re looking for a character to improve your game play. They will also always be good to list in your support because of said cheese strats. However, neither of them are a good choice for pvp.

Lastly, feel free to check out these following ranking guides:

Gamepress: PVP Mirrors 5-star Rankings

Gamepress: PVE 5-star Rankings

Fandom Wiki: PVP Magical Girl Tier List Note: will contain JP Spoilers

Tier lists can be sort of iffy, but I think they’re very valuable to pay attention to, even just to read their reasonings– this goes for mirrors stuff too. The Fandom Wiki rates Madoka very low, but its explanation also sheds light on how she can be good for PVE. So if you’re looking for more nuance, take some time and look through them. 

ANYWAYS:

Light

Available Characters: Madoka Kaname, Kokoro Awane

For PVE, Madoka is much better than Kokoro. Using only two Madokas on a team is a cheese strat commonly called the Double Doka, and it’s amazing for chewing through hard challenge modes– essentially you connect to a Madoka on each turn so they’re always healing each other, gaining MP, and then later on, effectively using magias every turn. 

Even outside of that, Madoka is a great unit in any magia-focused team, due to her aforementioned connect. Her magia/doppel doesn’t just give the team more MP, but it also provides defense, which can help against boss fights. 

Kokoro is a tank, and fairly good, but in my opinion tanks need at the very least two slots to actually do their intended job (and also the two memoria). Compared to Madoka though, for pve Kokoro just isn’t as versatile or useful enough.

For PVP, Kokoro is better than Madoka, but this is mostly because Madoka is fucking terrible in PVP and you should never use her there.

Dark

Available Characters: Kirika Kure, Ren Isuzu, Tsukuyo Amane

Personally, for PVE I’d say that Ren is better than Kirika or Tsukuyo. However, this answer is a little more nuanced than the answer to the light question, and ultimately I’d split it between Ren and Kirika. Tsukuyo is basically a much worse version than Momoko.

Ren is a really great unit with a weird connect (and magia) that makes her have a myriad of uses and allows for a little more depth in gameplay. Her weaknesses include really low health and defense (although this is also a strength, see her magia) so you’ll need to protect her. However she has great attack stats and is a very solid choice for dark element damage. Her connect makes a puella combo sort of difficult, but it can help you ignore evades (very useful in mirrors) and also attack a boss up to five separate times while providing an evade itself. Her magia does more damage with the less health she has, which can be great for difficult bosses. All in all, she’s an excellent unit worth having and using that you’ll probably want to have eventually anyways. 

So, Kirika. She’s the best tank in the game, period, but she’s also a tank. Unless you have multiple slots on her, you’re probably better off using someone else. Additionally, tanks aren’t always needed in PVE; they’re amazing in hard challenges but you can go by without them in more casual content, whereas a character like Ren (or even Tsukuyo) can be useful in almost every situation. For PVP she’s fucking amazing and can tank the hits and keep going while also providing blast discs.

And then… Tsukuyo. Tsukuyo is a charge gorilla, which is already not that great. She’s best used with her sister Tsukasa, but even then… eh. Yeah…

Water

Available Characters: Rena Minami, Konoha Shizumi, Sayaka Miki, Mayu Kozue

I answered this in an earlier ask, seen here. But TLDR: I think Konoha and Rena are your best options for PVE. Rena is more specialized and can help you with magia teams, and Konoha is more versatile and can fit in virtually any team.

Sayaka is a good tank, but she’s still a tank so she needs a few slots to be good. Mayu is sort of like Madoka but worse and also blue.

Forest

Available Characters: Mami Tomoe, Alina Gray, Mito Aino

Mami is, in my opinion, the best option of the three for PVE. However there is still nuance allowed for here. For PVP, I would recommend Alina, but Mito is also amazing if you can slot her a few times. 

Mami has the benefit of double Mami cheese strats, where you use only two Mamis and trade off their connects off of every turn, layering the enemy with binds so they can’t ever attack you. This is really useful for challenge fights (unless the team has a resistance to bind…) and can help carry you. Even without that, her damage is amazing and her connect is still useful as fuck. She’s fragile though and her magia makes her even more fragile than normal.

Alina Grey is a great dps and has a solid connect. She’s a great PVP choice, but you’ll have to be careful with her connect’s chance at stun. I don’t think she can carry you as hard in challenge modes like Mami can, but she’s still an excellent choice and you’ll probably want her at some point.

Mito functions as an interesting sort of tank– she’s balanced type, so she brings more damage to the table than most tanks, and her tanking revolves around evade and taunt. Y’all know how I feel about tanks at this point, so I think she needs a few slots to actually fulfill her purpose, but she’s a solid choice and also just flat-out adorable.

Flame

Available Characters: Momoko Togame, Kyoko Sakura, Karin Misono, Himika Mao

For PVP, the clear answer is Kyoko. For PVE… the clear answer is probably Kyoko, but there is a bit of nuance here.

Kyoko is a blast gorilla (3 blast discs) with great stats, so she’s great for both pvp and pve. You know those events where you have a limited number of turns to kill waves of enemies? Perfect choice right here. She’ll mop up fights quickly and effectively. PVP, which is all about blast, is where she really shines, although you have to be a little more careful with all the water girls around.

Karin Misono is an accele gorilla (3 accele discs) and a support type with an excellent connect. She’s not my first choice for fire– If you’re looking for damage, I think Kyoko is much better, and there are other fire accele girls out there (Rika for example), but Karin still fills a good niche. Do not play her in mirrors unless you want to help others with easy wins.

Momoko Togame is well known as a meme spook, but she’s not as bad as others say. Yes, she is a wretched charge gorilla (3 charge discs) but her connect is goddamn amazing and useful. Charge can be pretty bad but it can have it’s uses outside of pvp. She also can fufill a tank role depending on memoria used, but still do decent damage, making her versatile.

Himika… Well, she’s a tank with VERY low attack. We all know the drill with tanks now, right? She does have a really good connect that can increase blast damage while also keeping your character alive, so she’s decent! However. There is one thing you might want to consider with Himika… Her personal memoria has a passive ability TO INCREASE YOUR CC DROP PERCENTAGE. If you’re like me and you’re constantly CC broke then this is clearly the best character in the history of characters released, ever. Her outfit is ugly.

—-

Okay, I think that’s good :’) Hopefully this helps! Sorry that this was so long, but I wanted to explain my reasoning for each unit to help with making your own decision and not just my ranking– you also have to consider your list of girls and what you’re missing/what you need. For example, Madoka is great, but if you have a ton of accele girls and no blast ones, maybe Kyoko is better. ECT

[margridarnauds]

Feel free to ignore this message, but I've got a question regarding the Mythological Cycle; top 10 characters, rated best to worst. Let's go.

WHY WOULD I IGNORE THIS? THIS IS GREAT. 

So, as a warning, since this is a very, very subjective list, I am not going to be............as academic as I could potentially be. I’m willing to chat any of this, since....I’m always down for any asks, specifically re: THIS most niche of niche topics, but in this particular list, I’m not rolling out all the sources I probably could, I’m not doing any massive Old Irish parsing, though I am trying to reference at least where I’m getting this from for the most part. Also, just because a character ends up on one end or the other doesn’t mean that I don’t ACKNOWLEDGE their complexity, it’s just that one end of it kind of sticks out to me. As we’re going to see. 

[rape mention tw]

1. Bres- Best boi. Next question. (I mean, come on, my #1 location to visit here since the first day I got off the plane has been Mizenhead, because that’s where the Dindsenchas say he died.) 

2. Sreng- Look. Sreng gets ONE text where he has a prominent role (that would be the Early Modern text Cath Muige Tuired Cunga, for anyone following), but my GOD does he make it count. Brother and son to a slaughtered king of Ireland, the warrior who didn’t want to go to war, the man who made the gods bleed and held out an entire ass battle by himself, the boyfriend of Bres. He’s definitely a figure who tends to go beneath the radar, and when he is brought up, it’s generally to present him in an unfavorable light compared to the TDD, but like. He deserves the world and I love him. 

3. Lugh - This is going to be an absolute SHOCKER for people, because I think that people tend to think that, because I rip him routinely and my nickname for him is “The Bitch”, that means I HATE him. And I don’t. Not really. I don’t think he’s a straightforwardly HEROIC character, at least not all the time. I get slightly annoyed when people gloss over his flaws in order to paint him as a perfect figure even in texts where that is BLATANTLY not the case. But Lugh is FASCINATINGLY complex, and I love the texts that show that. The Early Modern edition of Cath Maige Tuired, Cath Muighe Tuireadh, shows a complex Lugh, as does Oidheadh Chloinne Tuireann and the Dinsenchas poem Carn húi Néit. Hell, even in the Táin, is Lugh really a GOOD guy, or is he just a “good guy” because he tends to Cú Chulainn? He doesn’t really give a damn if anyone else dies, so long as his own son is taken care of. He loves his father, and is willing to do anything to avenge his death even if it means that the innocent family members of his father’s killers get caught up in it as well. Lugh is a GREAT hero, he’s one of the pre-eminent figures of Irish Mythology, with some fairly strong evidence to indicate that an equivalent figure to him was the most widely revered deity in Gaul. But he is also, depending on the text, absolutely RUTHLESS in attaining what he feels is a greater good. He IS “dutiful/pious Lugh”, but what does that duty mean? How does he interpret that? He kills his own family members quite routinely (the Sons of Tuireann, Bres, Balor, Cermait, off the top of my head), and basically gets himself killed because of a marital dispute, and that’s an element of him that I think that people are afraid of, but I ADORE.  It makes him HUMAN. 

4. Ériu - The only person in the myths to love Bres as much as I do. Down to lose her virginity to a random stranger on the beach. The Sons of Míl come in and she’s like “Yeah, okay, just make sure to name the island after me, okay?” I love her. (Okay, but talk to me about how Bres is her ONLY CHILD across the various myths, about how it’s HER who gives him land, it’s HER who goes with him to Elatha and negotiates for his sake. She was willing to put aside her own people, travel to a foreign country filled with people who have been raiding her own people for years, and she did it for love of her son. You can argue over whether she indulged him too much, but you can’t argue that she’s possibly one of the single most devoted mothers in the Mythological Cycle.)

5. Carmun - Only gets one Dindsenchas poem to her name, but WHAT a showstopper it is. “One fierce, marauding woman” indeed. An Athenian witch who tries to invade Ireland with her three sons, only to be captured by the Tuatha dé and kept as a hostage. Longing (for her children? For freedom? For her old home of Athens?) eventually kills her, and she, like Tailtiu, another foreign woman who has a meeting space named after her, dies in an oak grove. An interesting example of a female villain in a myth, with the text obviously having quite a bit of respect for her, and her obviously genuinely caring for her sons and vice versa. There’s really not all that much more ON her, but I’m not sure that there really needs to be all that more because her story isn’t REALLY an epic. It’s very neatly contained as it is. 

6.  Bríg - It isn’t that I don’t LIKE Bríg, it’s that. Well. I get tired of talking about Bríg when there are a dozen characters more who actually DO things in the saga literature. You know. Like her husband. Who is almost never brought up in discussions on Bríg as if he’s not there. NOT THAT I’M BITTER.I just.....don’t really CARE for her. At all. And the way that people tend to discuss Bres in conjunction with Bríg has given me a certain level of resentment, so I just............ignore her whenever it’s at all possible. She gets points for the scene where she keens for Ruadan, since that’s a wonderfully human scene in a text that tends to be rather inhuman and detached in the amounts of blood, gore, and sex that saturate it, but like....I just don’t CARE. I don’t believe, at this point, that there is any way to really make me invested in Bríg, as a character. But I can’t really rate her lower because like. Below this, we start getting into the “Hall of Dicks” territory so I’m just putting her here. 

7. Tethra - Interesting figure. Not an awful lot about him, so I can’t really say all that much. But I do think that he tends to get under-discussed, in general, and put kind of in a generic “Evil Fomorian” category when he is, and...he DOES invade Ireland, along with Elatha and Indech (Indech is not on this list mainly because it is hard to properly quantify my “You are a total trashbag, but also you’re very interesting to me, but also I want to light you on fire and feed you to the dogs” feelings re: him.) But also he is the great uncle of Emer, he is described in a positive light in a few other texts, including IN CMT ITSELF. He seems to be married to Badb, which is....someone just GIVE ME THE ENEMIES TO LOVERS POST-CMT STORY, FT. A FOMORIAN WARLORD FALLING OVER HIMSELF FOR A TERRIFYING SCALD CROW WAR GODDESS. 

Anyway, only reason he isn’t ranked higher is because we don’t really know all that much about him and I thought it would be a little unfair to, say, Bríg to rank him higher when I used her lack of personality/overall narrative to place her lower out of spite. He doesn’t have any actual APPEARANCES, no lines, etc. So like. I love him, I’m endlessly interested in him, but he’s gotta be near the end. 

8. The Dagda - “Now, Rachel, the Dagda is a very important figure, with a variety of appearances-” and like. You would be RIGHT. He IS very important. And, actually, I’m INTERESTED in him, which is why he’s not at the bottom. He’s a very interesting figure, and I’d be lying if I said he doesn’t make anything he appears in more colorful. 

He is also a DICK. 

So, like, he fucks a married woman (I WILL say, Boann enthusiastically consented so....props? You were NOT as much of a dick as you could have been), he sends the husband out on a trip to his weird half-Fomorian brother (Bres deserved sainthood for that one ALONE), and then....oh wait.....when it comes time to provide for the partitioning of Ireland he just GIVES AENGUS ELCMAR’S HOUSE? Like. Come on dude. That’s a way to just add insult to injury. That’s a dick move. (Thomas Charles-Edwards DID write an article that discusses how the Dagda is not as much in the wrong as you would think, but like. Still a dick move, I’m sorry.) 

How the Dagda Got His Magic Staff? He gets these three brothers to lend him their magical staff so he can resurrect his fuckboy son, then KILLS THEM? Then his son is like “Dad, that’s a dick move” and he brings them back, on the condition that he KEEPS THEIR STAFF? AND THEN HE RAISES AN ENTIRE ZOMBIE ARMY IN ORDER TO ASSUME THE HIGH KINGSHIP OF IRELAND? 

I just. I just. 

In the Intoxication of the Ulstermen (Mesca Ulad), we learn about what the Dagda DID with his Necromancy Staff: He created a corpse xylophone where he keeps nine people in front of him, hits them with one end of the staff in order to bring them back to life, and then hits them with the other in order to kill them, on and on. 

AND SPEAKING OF MORALLY DUBIOUS SHIT: Tell me that there is another way to interpret this Dindsenchas tale than....the one that seems most obvious. 

“Let come of it what may.” 

And of course CMT, where he does totally kill Cridenbél with the whole “PSYCH you asked for the best three bits now EAT GOLD” Thing, even if it isn’t the way that Bres thought AND Bres did overreact. The Dagda should have paid the proper honor price for Cridenbel, Bres should NOT have tried putting him to death. It was a STUPID move, since it led to Bres’ ruling being called into question. And.....the porridge incident in that same text. Which. I can. Discuss. If asked to specifically. But will leave for now in case anyone should instead want to search for it on their lonesome. 

His relationship with the Morrigan is interesting to me, in that you have these really rather amoral forces being married to one another, having a relationship of long-standing, even though they have no issues getting sex elsewhere. And it is my pure scholarly opinion that she pegs him.

Basically, the Dagda is interesting to me, I think that there are two principal things that motivate him in any given tale: His own id and his loved ones, in exactly that order. He’s a rather disgusting figure, but you kind of keep wanting to peer in to see how far the muck goes. And, if it isn’t obvious, I definitely prefer, say, Lugh to him, because I feel like, of the two of them, at least Lugh DOES believe that he’s doing the right thing. It’s just not always in any way that anyone, not even in medieval Ireland, would really think about “doing the right thing.” There’s this complexity to Lugh, even at his absolute worst. The Dagda just doesn’t care. The Dagda is more a God in the way of Zeus or Poseidon where it’s like “I’ll do what I want and damn the consequences.” Interesting to see, but not my favorite as far as character. 

He kind of reminds me of Cú Chulainn, actually, where it’s like. He’s interesting. But also there’s this sort of rank misogyny and brutality that tends to be drenched in the texts that he’s featured in, even by Medieval Irish standards (and I’d argue that those standards are MUCH more flexible than we give them credit for), so I can never really enjoy him. And I’m saying this as someone who deeply loves some VERY VERY MISOGYNISTIC TEXTS. 

9. Balor - You would not THINK that Balor would be near the top of ANY lists on Mythological Cycle figures, but he’s actually very interesting to me, in terms of his evolution. In folklore, he is very much a straightforward villain, kind of adjusting to fit whoever the invaders of the time were. I am NOT saying there is no basis for a villainous Balor, or even that a villainous Balor is an INNOVATION like it is for Bres. I am DEFINITELY not saying that, especially since those folklore stories tend to include Proto-Indo European elements that indicate that they could be VERY old, possibly older than the saga material. But I am saying the man is interesting. Something that tends to be totally overlooked in discussions on him is that he was a BOY when, in Cath Maige Tuired, he peered in on his father’s druids performing magic and it seeped into his eye, giving him his Evil Eye. He was a KID. Of COURSE he would be curious and want to explore. And because of that, he was turned into a monster. How would you go about it, as a kid, learning that you had to keep one eye closed forever because you could kill everyone nearby? How would you cope, really, seeing everyone turning away from you in fear? And, in Cath Maige Tuired, he doesn’t even KNOW that Lugh is his grandson when Lugh kills him. He knew he gave his daughter away in marriage to a young man of the Tuatha dé, he would probably guess that he had a grandson there, or at least the possibility of one, but like. He didn’t realize it was Lugh SPECIFICALLY then. And then Lugh killed him. Lugh was, for once, RIGHT to kill him, but. Still. There’s something a little tragic about Balor’s death, even if it’s 100% not what the redactor intended. I have to have a little sympathy for him, despite it all. Also his wife, Cethlenn of the Crooked Teeth, is very interesting to me, as a figure. I’m really curious what kind of marriage they had. I kind of like to think, regardless of what evidence there really is for it, that they had that type of Bad Guy Relationship where they were absolutely ruthless and awful, but fairly devoted to one another. That’s outside the realm of scholarly observation, but I like to think it. She’s the one who kills the Dagda, btw. Absolute underrated BADASS. 

Also like he did try to kill Lugh in the Early Modern Cath Maige Tuired with the whole “Put my head on yours” thing so like, props for trying Balor. Props for trying. 

The main reason Balor is rated so lowly despite everything else is......folkloric Balor. Because fuck folkloric Balor. He still isn’t my LEAST FAVORITE of the Fomorian lords, because we have #10 and Indech, but like. I can’t REALLY put him so high up in my favorites list. 

10. Elatha - I hate him. I actually hate this man. I know he gets a few sentences, really, but God. I hate him. The only good thing that he, as a character, did is to give us Bres, the Dagda, Ogma, and Lir. (NOT including Delbaeth. For Reasons.) I could discuss how, like Bres, he was not always a villainous character, how his image was molded to suit the Scandinavian setting for the Fomoire in Cath Maige Tuired, but consider: I hate him. 

Actually, let’s go more in-depth here. “WHY do you hate Elatha more than Balor, Rachel, he only has small appearance in one text? And you already said you like Balor-” Which is a GOOD question. Very good. So, let’s go into the Elatha Call Out Mode. 

So, first of all. 

He has sex with Ériu, gets her with a kid, and then leaves. He KNEW she was pregnant. But no, he doesn’t give a damn, he just drops a ring into her hand, gives him his name + a name for the kid (GOOD THING ÉRIU DIDN’T HAVE ANY OTHER NAMES SHE WANTED TO GIVE THAT KID) and fucks off to his own people. Now, I will say, he didn’t deceive her, in the sense that she was never PROMISED marriage, but. God. She was a virgin, she was presumably quite young at the time. He was a king of the Fomoire, and she sure as Hell didn’t know THAT when she slept with him. And she obviously didn’t have his certainty that a kid would result from it. I don’t think there was straight-up DECEPTION involved, per se, I don’t believe that we’re looking at a case of rape, in either the modern or the medieval understanding of it (he isn’t Cú Chulainn, after all), but Elatha sure as Hell didn’t give Ériu ALL the information that he had until it was too late. 

Okay, okay, dickish, Bres was forced to rely on his maternal kin-group all of his life and Ériu was basically fucked (though aristocratic enough that she obviously had land to give him in the first place, so not MASSIVELY inconvenienced), but like. Not really UNUSUAL for an Irish “hero”. 

So, let’s go into this further. 

He raids Ireland, alongside the rest of the Fomorian lords. “Now, Rachel, that is unreasonable, as you’ve already said you like Balor and Tethra, who also-” But consider: Tethra didn’t KNOW he had a son on the other side. (Balor didn’t raid Ireland until the battle itself, so he gets a few Brownie points. A few.) Elatha DID. Elatha knew damn well where his son was, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had at least some idea that his son was king of the Tuatha dé, given how much he ALREADY knew about Bres’ birth. I can’t prove it with the information given in-text, so I can’t argue it in a scholarly setting, but like. He fucking knew. If Bres had been an average warrior, he could have DIED because of Elatha being a massive dickwad, because like. Even if we ASSUME that Elatha gave a damn about what happened to his son and wouldn’t attack him directly, he couldn’t exactly control ALL of his men during a raid. People are going everywhere, weapons are flying. 

BUT ELATHA IS THE ONLY GOOD FOMORIAN, AM I RIGHT? 

ANYWAY, next we see him, Bres is going to him for help. He’s at his most vulnerable, his most humble after being yeeted off the throne by the Tuatha dé. He SAYS exactly what he did, that it was wrong, with a level of humility that’s honestly rare in anti-heroes even today. What does Elatha say? 

‘That is bad,’ said his father. ‘Better their prosperity than their kingship. Better their requests than their curses. Why then have you come?’ asked his father.

‘I have come to ask you for warriors,’ he said. ‘I intend to take that land by force.’

‘You ought not to gain it by injustice if you do not gain it by justice,’ he said.

“But Rachel,” you might say, “This makes perfect sense, this is GOOD advice.” But consider: Bres had ALREADY admitted his wrongs. He doesn’t need a lecture. Elatha’s advice gives him absolutely NOTHING, while conveniently absolving him of ANY accountability for Bres’ actions. (And keep in mind, under Medieval Irish law, the kin-group WAS deemed as at least partially responsible for the actions of its members, so like. I’m NOT just putting modern ideas onto Elatha here.) Also: THIS IS LITERALLY BRES’ FIRST TIME MEETING HIS FATHER. He has traveled SO far to see this man, and what is Elatha’s reaction? THAT. Treating him as essentially a flea to be swatted away with platitudes while absolving himself, even though he was the one who set Bres up to be in that position from the get-go.

I’m not saying that Bres is flawless here, given that he ADMITS HE ISN’T HIMSELF, but Elatha? Is a douche. And then, to compound his douchiness, he doesn’t keep Bres in line. He doesn’t bother to deal with him, he just sets him up with an army and goes back to invade Ireland again. I know that some scholars (chiefly Elizabeth Gray) have read it as paternal indulgence, but personally? I don’t think his moral qualm was EVER with invading it. I don’t think he had a single issue with invading Ireland, given that he’d already done it before. He just wanted to hammer it in hard to Bres how utterly he’d failed. If he had REALLY given a damn about him, he could have spent time getting to know him, trying to tone him down, be more of a proper FATHER to him, but he doesn’t. And, if Bres’ actions during Cath Maige Tuired cause thousands of people on both sides to die, then Elatha set everything in place so he could. The only difference is that Bres almost never gets a trace of sympathy for it, while Elatha is presented as a tragic figure whose son is an unfortunate accident. 

Also like. Bres is the only one of his kids he’s even involved with to begin with, for better or worse. Like, this is 100% a scribal error, but I’m using it to further my “Elatha is a dick” agenda: Ogma, in Cath Maige Tuired (so I’m not even using outside genealogies that the scribe of CMT might not have been aware of), is described as a son of Elatha. So, not only did Elatha fuck over ONE SON, but he did this type of shit repeatedly. He didn’t give a damn about any of his kids. 

Anyway: THE ONLY GOOD FOMORIAN. AM I RIGHT? 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

hmm here’s me talking about su sort of lmao like i said i’m not here to be particularly scentamentle?? just say funney stories....and some opinions.....it’s really been a hot minute and i haven’t been making Long text posts about things so i can throw one out there even if it’s got no thesis statement

also like i said i just so happened to like, actually watch the first ep on actual tv when it actually premiered....all i super remember knowing about it beforehand was like “oh rebecca sugar getting her own series right on” and i was gonna check it out on that alone and then also i remember before it debuted there was an article about it in the wapo in the sort of “local”-ish section b/c it was like. hey this is based in uh yknow the dmv....delmarva area.....this whole Region.....and i (from nova and in nova at that time, and flipping thru the print wapo every day) was like haha. neat. also god damn it was 2013, hell of a year. i can tell you little about it b/c it was so crappy i just like did not bother much with things like “distinct memories” lmfao. great to have like, a weekly thing towards the end of that hot mess (november??? or smthing??) back when....god........it aired weekly.........anyways yeah i was pleasantly surprised from the start i don’t Get when people are like “can’t watch this in order :/ the first few eps don’t sell it well” like okay speak for yourself god dman....more on that later i’m sure lmfao. hot takes

my brother started watching it too just cuz he’s game for shit that way and i was keeping up with it. like i remember i thought cheeseburger backpack was extra fun and i think i showed him a rerun and i remember he thought it was funny lol the Raft Gag......and when i was watching tiger millionaire i kept For Real Laughing and he came over like what is going on.....and i think he was signed on from there........again pretty fun for it to be this weekly thing. also maybe i’m not here to be Sentamental but i was also like “oh no that Spoke to my feelings unexpected :(” during tiger millionaire when amethyst was all “you can’t let anyone make you feel like garbage” and “i only feel how i wanna feel” like guess who was in the early stages of “my self esteem is so crappy it’s starting to circle around into [trying to increase self esteem]”.........like i said hell of a time. though then that’d be 2014 by then i think?? still a hell of a time

started to get “i think i will draw the same character one million times” about it at some point in 2014 too lmfao......every instance of [me drawing the same shit one million times], which is the only way i ever draw anything, then like, benefits whatever i draw later cuz like. sure get some practice out of it. and even though like, it wasn’t quite as huge an Internet Thing as it was gonna get once i started to draw shit, it was already like, classic-me Kinda Niche to be like “hey gang who is going ham about the bored dumbass teens”....not so niche that there weren’t other people going “yeah i am” at any given time tho. and then we put our hands in the middle and go Yeah!! and jump up hsm style. it was also a great time for something Fun and (easier than marble hornets lol) to draw b/c. it simply was a good time for it.....struggling to draw shit back then even more than is like, usual. oh and also i forget but i had sort of Withdrawn from the mh fanbase b/c it got this whole influx of randos after fjsfdking the Video Game we all know the one and i was like. i am gonna.....sidle over here. nobody Likes to be in a fandom actually lmfao. and i mean even while su was getting to be A Whole Thing i was like. bro i am over here in the Donuts section and it is a little quieter and i use the tag sometimes but i’m all set, thanks. still the least Niche niche i’ve been in probably lmfao....see: the fact that probably still way most of my followers are here from su times even tho idk who’s even active still

also had a high time making some great Long Text Posts. i kind of always fail 2 grasp that even as much as my drawings that stuff leads to me actually getting to interact with people, b/c like, those text posts have me actually saying Words in them, which helps lmfao..........i think it’s like, these posts are probably Not That Fun for most people, but then for the people who Are like “oh sweet this is something that i actually want,” that’s obviously a helpful way to find a kindred spirit lmao.....like hey cool you already know i can’t shut up and am opinionated and obviously a lil much? fantastic let’s do this. plus idk it’s fun to Not Shut Up Actually. like, not the biggest deal. ppl can just Scroll Past. or not

speaking of “getting practice Not Shutting Up and Drawing Shit”.......hilarious when in late 2018 i find myself like. oh so you’re telling me this excellent character who is a self-sabotaging struggling-to-know-how-to-cope-with-shit-and-connect-with-others insecure af Teen is not appreciated / ignored / deemed Awful (and then ignored) by the majority of the fanbase?????? hahaha you don’t say....but No Problem. let me just talk about how this person has Complexity actually and is a lot more sympathetic than not and i hate all of you omg like do we have to do all of this ourselves lmfao........guess so, Fine

what am i talking about funny stories who is this funny to lmfao. okay no but okayyy what an experience when the island adventure preview came out and for like the next 4 days i did not experience depression lmao........i Jumped on the opportunity b/c it was like, early fall i wanna say??? i think sept?? 2014 and i was kinda mulling over going to gmx (which was this convention the Marble Hornets gang kept getting invited to & i’d been 2 twice b4 but missed the previous yr coz it was 2013 and i was way not thriving) and yeah jumped on the “depression / (as much) anxiety who???” superpower to Ask if it was cool if i went to a friend’s wedding in georgia for a weekend. there was no friend’s wedding in georgia. and then i went to gmx AND. ironically (not really im sure. idk what irony means and idc) gmx weekend ended up being the same weekend island adventure actually aired and when i left that morning (gmx being in nashville) my lil bro (getting up for school) was like GO GO and i actually made it in time to catch it in the hotel room but. they didn’t have the channel despite it being listed on the channel guide. i about flipped lmfao but i did see it later that weekend and flipped again. gmx was an a-okay time as well lmao that was the last time i made it

they may have never sold a licensed Lars S1 Green/Purple Snake Tee but look when i have this green racerback with a neat snake print & this necklace of purple quartz crystals and also when i was at gmx i bought this necklace with one (non purple, non actual crystals but plastic shaped like it / glossed) pendant In The Spirit Of It All and it gets compliments. anyways the point is. indirectly representing

speaking of crystals = lars i’d just like to reiterate that i’m always right. like sure i was like “look i don’t know how lars could have Crystal Magic in him but something is up with the fact he’s = pink magic flowers with crystals inside them Means Something.” i think it’s reasonable to Not have predicted he dies and gets revived w/ crystal magic that’s in him now. but that’s still a Win for realizing somethings up....tfw as early as like s2 times i’d be like “well the donuts gotta get involved in the center of adventure at Some point and also i Know it is important that steven is just lars’s rly annoying little brother and y/n do you think lars would die to protect him i think he would...” like. i didn’t wanna be That right :/

tfw me and my brother were watching rose’s scabbard while my mom was napping it out in the armchair and like silently Sharing A Look at the whole “she was beautiful” thing like. lol harold

i still don’t know how much of a Thing(tm) magfest is but as far as i can figure it it’s No Comic Con (like, thank god :| ) but still kind of a thing. anyways i learned of it cuz i saw there was gonna be a couple su panel thingies & i looked it up & we were less than an hour away and so it was like midnight but i ask my brother like hey wanna swing by this thing on this one friday. and he was like Sure. so i made it happen and he was 17 so we had to drag our dad to the bank to Notarize a form that he was allowed to be there accompanied by me. it was a big place and it also took us a while to find Registration or whatever and when we tried getting sandwiches later it cost like $7 each go figure. anyways but we were just there for the one Event & there was a room like filled with arcade games and a bunch of other consoles (also Retro though. like old computers n stuff) and they had Galaga, thank fucking god. we 2 playered that shit and wandered around and also 2 playered a game called toobin, which was funny. real gamers know. 

when we were in the (pretty long) Line to get into the Panel, i actually like. spotted a then-mutual who i (was pretty sure i) recognized from her occasional selfie lol and who i guess had travelled all the way from the west coast for the weekend. when we were actually Seated she happened to be a couple rows back and both of us on the end of the aisle and i asked my brother if he could read her nametag (to verify lol) and i bopped over to have the cringe and fail exchange of “hey do you have a Tumblr” and then i was like “haha i’m milo i’m ummmwine” and she got up to hug me and then i had to scamper back to my seat cuz shit was starting lol

like my life was not changed by this event but we had fun and. the Hilarious story is that it was also partially a Q&A and i had a Q and my brother encouraged me by again whispering “go go” as soon as the first syllable was spoken implying Line up For Questions.....i was in like, the last idk, haaalf dozen or so ppl who made it to the mic? and look i knew i was gonna be asking a niche question that like 3 other people of the hundreds in the room would care about but So What. deal with it gang, let’s have some Variety. but i was still nervous. and when i’m nervous, i a) Have A Script and b) get even chattier. and right after the person Right In Front Of Me got their answer, i guess it was noticed that it was getting down to the wire so they were like “haha okay lightning round :)” and i was like NO.......GOD..........lmfao like too late im sorry i Can’t make it lightning round. i was muy anxious.....just that, again, hundreds of people there, i have the floor, nobody’s gonna Like my quastion......and they didn’t know the answer (which i figured was v possible lol) so i was like oh no sklfjd hope this entire room doesn’t hate me. i mean of course i didn’t care if they did too much but, Nerves....also im valid, but were the like half dozen people who asked prior to me about shit that would CLEARLY be too spoilery to answer valid????? no lmfao. cmon. that’s what’s Really cringe

well here we ffw a bit b/c Mid To Late 2015 is certainly a time for me and it doesn’t really make for an interesting story so just to tldr it lmao like, got some beautiful moral support from someone as i was makin a Lifestyle Change lol and continued to get beautiful moral support from that same person and i continue to benefit from it....You know who you are!!!! tyvvm....and it occurred to me that the reason i am where i physically am is via someone i met thru su-posting.......which is true of the You Know who you are person too, which is why i brought it up lmao

uhh god not as many Stories after that lol.....def got to engage in “i’m ___ i’m gonna [draw the same character i always draw] so i won’t be so ___” during interesting times lol. love that for me

tbh the uh. Wanted arc was truly one of the best Serial Arcs, just dramatic & solid af and also it’s lars time and for a second i go “god well at least maybe now ppl will acknowledge lars is a gr8 character” and then a second later i go “Oh No they’ll only say he’s a good character *Now*” and that’s exactly what happened lmfao but well we still got as much lars fanart as we ever got outside that couple weeks aftermath... l o l . . . i had to wait One Zillion Years for my little brother to catch up to this b/c. he was watching via hulu i think where like, a full season would come out a good while after the finale. seriously i think it took him almost 2 years. im like dammit lmfao this is What Matters dfslk....fond memories when hulu was free / no login req’d / shit would be available like the day after airing

uhhhHHH crazy how this show muscled through the weird scheduling change where it was like “no weekly eps Only Erratic Hiatuses”......ppl were so foolishly Into the first “5 eps in a row” release and i was like “no i don’t like this” and then a year later i was like “you see. You See.” rip

i think we can even ffw to sutm at that point lol....im like im in this for lars okay lmfao kinda Shrugggg @ things by this point lol like finale shminale. where’s he at. and i really wasn’t paying a world of attention to like, prior-to-release lore n announcements so i was just plunged into this chaos of like sorry???? excuse me?? of all the people in the world sarah stiles?????? lfsdj like noooo don’t show me these tweets lmfao......truly it’s fine i’m being Hilarious but it’s also very real that like, when i see things like “showtime(tm)” or “SHO” or “billions content” i’m just doused with Dread b/c i hate this series lmao i swear to christ. but it’s really Fine lmfao like. i was kinda “eh :/” to “yea this is alright” about the rest of it but spinel was The Highlight lmfao and having $50 to go ham on her animation was great but really the voice acting Made It.....like the entire takeaways was uh the other friends sequence and fuckin uhh this part. fuck it up ms. stiles........hit it out of the park..........cain was the first funny bitch and spinel was the second. that thought just came to me and i will not elaborate. call that a revelation. oh and also it was a relief cuz i was like “i s2g if this Antagonist is like, aquamarine-style annoying af....i will die” but No. spinel is annoying af in another way which is her rights and i don’t want to die about it lmfao. she’s good.......i don’t even resent the “how come whenever some rando shows up ready to literally kill everyone for no good reason, all of you are ready to be like ‘wow an icon’ and we can’t have 10% of that energy for the teen who’s kinda bitchy b/c he’s annoyed by life and crap???” thing b/c i mean, she had her whole Arc all at once and also is good enough for it i think. the nadir was when the one rando shows up for like One episode like “i Don’t want to kill everyone :3 syke >:)” and for some reason people were like “omg iconic. call them on their ‘don’t kill everyone’ bullshit” like lol i hate you guys

well i like lars’s [last outfit we see him in] and i feel like it only backs up the bi agenda. another epic gamer moment had been when it became a Popular Hc that lars is trans b/c he is lmao. and everyone was all “why is everyone sayign this why would you want him to be trans he sucks” like get good grandma!!!!!!!! it’s too late. well that’s the end of my post. me in 2014 being like “wow way to have something to keep up with b/c now i have to outlive it to get all the dnads content i guess” and here i am. but it’s almost April 2020 so. haha 

hmm what’s a less ominous ending. oh shit another thing that was funny is i was like So about these Skull Plugs featured in this semi-official drawing of lars once and then horror club came out (fun b/c i like horror) and had the skull plugs for Real & they were glow in the dark. that was a big day for me even seeing the promos lmfao. except then i guess it was foreshadowing, so again i end this with Death. don’t we all

wait no lsfdjs What tf was matthew moy talking about “i like your hair.” dude dropping an i-guess cut line on us lmfao. alright alright im done

[repentingrph]

Creating Atypical/Original Characters

In my personal experience, it shocks me how many times I go into an RPG and see a vat-full of sarcastic "too-cool-for-school" type characters. One or two is more than enough to fill that quota, but the last RPG I was in, I'd say about 80% of the group were just that. I get it, though! We all secretly want to embody that vibe. The cool vibe of IDGAF, where you can say anything you want and be praised for it. Let me tell you, though, if those are the only characters around, you're going to wind up with annoyed players because there's always going to be that one person that's going to compete for the top-dog spot of the MOST sarcastic and MOST IDGAF character of all time. It's not cool.

So! I introduce you to alternative ideas or at least the process to your own alternative ideas!

Me? In spite of what I just said, I love those sarcastic bastards with all my heart and I have a few of my own. However, if you really love that brand, give them depth! Do NOT make them be a one-note. With that said, the go-to is adding in a tragic past like someone died. When I say depth, I mean in terms of personality, not just backstory alone. This is where we are going to start with creating our atypical/original character.

PERSONALITY

1. Find your dominant personality trait, and then sprinkle in some undertones.

Let's say you're going for someone who's outgoing. Are they going to be bubbly sunshine or talks just way too much, making inadvertent awkward conversation? Just because you choose one path does not mean there is only one way to travel down it. You can have someone who is outgoing but also terrible with social cues. They could have a good heart but they also make people cringe when they see them coming their way, and I find that beautiful. Mix it up! Sometimes throw in contradictions that shouldn't work, but somehow do. Why do you think anti-heroes are a thing?

2. Set a moral compass.

This is something I always think about when I'm creating my characters. On a scale of Ted Bundy to Mother Theresa, where do they fit? Sometimes it's not even as clear cut as that either. I have one character who is an absolute monster, a total sadist and manipulator, but he has an odd sense of civil justice. Characters, like people, will probably have a gray area somewhere in their moral compass. Tap into that, explore it. It can definitely shape their personality. Why do they think that way? What are their boundaries? How do they justify what they do? Are they a hypocrite? If you're creating a murderer, are they really executing it personally or dictating that someone should be killed? Would they have the moral backbone to do it themselves?

3. The Scales.

Humanity boils down to a few scales, in my opinion. You have intelligence, sexual/romantic prowess, class/manners, and temperament/stablity. For example, I have one character who is very book smart. He is mediocre in common sense. He is asexual with repulsion towards it, but he's an awkward romantic. He is highly well-mannered in a Victorian-esque way. Temperament-wise, he can be irritated but usually cowardly.

Some of these may sound as though they overlap, so think of it like this:

Intelligence is self-explanatory (and if you break it down to three sub-sections of book-smarts, street smarts, and common sense, it helps even more)

Sexual/Romantic Prowess is more or less like the sex-drive or the kind of forwardness they would have. Think of it as a scale from a prude to a professional and experienced escort. Even if your character is asexual, are they still flirty or are they reserved?

Class/Manners is related to how they present themselves. Are they crude or are they refined? You can have someone with a filthy mind actually be incredibly cultured, charming you right into their pants. On the flip-side, you can have someone super reserved with the crudest sense, cursing under their breath with words that'd curl your hair or eating with their unwashed hands. Uhg.

Temperament/Stability is more of an anger test. A good litmus test would be having your character stub their toe. Do they wince but move on after a moment? Does it bother them at all? Or do they fucking flip the goddamn table and yell at it for just existing? Think about how volatile they are or how utterly zen-like they are. Just like I mentioned before, you can have someone that is super crude be really chill. You can also have someone with fantastic class be ready to blow your head off. It's just all in how you play them to show that.

Remember, if you think of more scale-types, go ahead and add them! The more you expand, the more unique they will become! The ones I've listed are just the main ones I immediately go to.

BACKSTORY

I think all of us (and I am particularly guilty of this) tend to favor a dark backstory for their characters, and it usually revolves around some kind of deep, personal loss. There is nothing wrong with that, but it can be repetitive if it's something that frequently pops up in your character portfolio.

1. Try not to kill anyone.

Killing NPCs off is so damn easy. Having a hard time thinking of their family? Kill them off when they're too young to really remember them. Boom. Problem solved, right? Yeah, but then what? Now, I love a good orphan, self-made character. Love them to *bits* (especially since I have one of my own), but let's try something different if you've already done that. Why I say this is not only to deviate from the typical but also to put something away for the future. When you lose your muse, hit up that little bank of family ties. Once you've killed them off, there is no taking that shit back unless you have an elaborate plot about them faking their death. Maybe keep them around instead. Give them a strained relationship. Keep only one in the picture. How about an overbearing relationship, where they just love them way too much and still cry whenever they call them up? Are they an only child? The favorite child? Did they find another mom/dad replacement as years went by?

2. Create a different bad experience.

I can't help it. I'm a sucker for dark backstories, but we're going to keep going with the first suggestion and not kill anyone. Instead, we're going to focus on other solutions. Could be criminal, or personal, or even stupid but with meaning to your character. I don't know if anyone remembers Courage the Cowardly Dog, but there was an episode of a whale that was so hell-bent on revenge, and do you know what he wanted revenge for? For some guy cheating him out of his favorite accordion in a poker game. That shit blew my goddamn mind as a child, and as you can tell, it still blows my goddamn mind today. That's the kind of backstory shit I can get behind and make me want to learn more.

3. Look on the bright side.

So, enough about those bad memories. Maybe your character had a charmed life! Oh, how I hate that nice characters somehow equal boring characters to people, and this would be the same to backstories. Nice backstories don't have to be boring. Your character could have won the fucking lottery. They could have been class president by releasing an unhinged scandal against their opponent without remorse. They could be just lucky, which means that luck can definitely change when you play them. Also, as a bonus, how would they even handle a downfall when they've never experienced it before? What kind of dramatic fucking character arc could they fall into? Sign me the fuck up.

GENERAL ADVICE/FINAL NOTES

1. Every character should be forged from a part of your soul. Forget about the term self-insert because if you don't feel a personal connection to your character, that character has no life. End of story. You're playing an asshole? Don't tell me you've never had a terrible thought in your mind before, just funnel all of that into them. Any aspect of yourself that catches even you off guard is something to tap into and run with.

2. Look back at those that you've already created and see what you're missing. I do this all the time. I usually oscillate my moral compass between the wretched and the innocent just to keep myself in balance. I try to find something I haven't tried before and then build on it. If you have a ton of bubbly characters, try someone emo. If you have a ton of moody shits, go for the flower child.

3. Everyone creates their character from a different building block. Some will start off with an FC. I start with personality usually. On occasion, I will also start with a profession. This is especially true when I see an RPG I love and try to find my little niche to settle into. Go through masterlists like [x] or [x] that can help mold your muse into something that has your own spin on it.