#//But there's also the fact that she is unique in which she shares components of both Bedo AND Kae; so there could be some measure of probs

[dutybcrne]

Brainrotting more on the idea of Kae and Bedo making a little homunculus bc honestly, the potential for disaster is just freakin' GREAT

[theramblingsofadork]

The last one ia about the rest of the squad!

Red asks:

🌹, 🎒, 🐞 for Hex

🧣,🐞  for Cello

❗ for Lug

Art-themed asks:

Graphite for Hex, Cello, Lug

(So, I know you technically have one more unanswered one in my Ask Box that was sent before this one, but I need to get something for that before I can share it. So for now, I’ll answer this one instead. Hope that’s cool with you! ✨)

Hex

🌹 (rose) - What does your oc find attractive in other people? Are these traits found in their friends and/or romantic partners? Are they found in themselves?

Hex appreciates those who know what they’re doing and are willing to share their knowledge with him. It’s a speedrun hack to learn from those who have been through the rigamarole already. And he’s always eager to learn, so if someone’s willing to be patient and teach him, he’s willing to listen intently to everything they say.

He also appreciates those who stick up for him, like Lug and Starline. He’s small, an easy target for bullies, and can’t yet defend himself with more than just words. But having people who actively care about his wellbeing and appreciate his talents means a lot to him, especially since his parents don’t show interest in his work, and tend to forget about him thanks to his giant family.

🎒 (backpack) - What items does your oc usually carry? Do they have a bag or just keep everything in their pockets? Do they carry a lot or a little?

Hex always has his VR headset on him, as well as his gaming/coding tablet. He also carries a few tools in a pouch on his belt like neon tape, a screwdriver, a tape measure, and a wrench. Just in case he finds some scrap and wants to mark where it is for later, or wants to take a small component back with him.

…Snacks too. He always has a snack on him.

🐞 (ladybug) - What does a perfect day look like for your oc? What do they do? Who do they see?

Pancakes with the family where everyone is present and his big brothers don’t bother or tease him, followed by going out with Lug and finding some rare scrap is a great day for Hex. Even better would be completing an invention that doesn’t break on him first try, AND looks like how he hoped it would, before celebrating with popsicles and some Hero Mania shorts.

Cello

🧣(scarf) - What comforts your oc? Is it an item? An action? A person? Whatever it is, how any why does it comfort them?

Cello is comforted by her books, and likes to disappear into a partially thick one when she’s in a bad mood. Words and equations are easy. People are not sometimes.

🐞 (ladybug) - What does a perfect day look like for your oc? What do they do? Who do they see?

Cello’s perfect day is pretty simple. It involves her dad not hassling her over her career choice, and her getting to hang out with her mom for a day on the town. (Her mom has an illness that makes it hard for her to go anywhere; which is part of the reason why Cello went into chemistry in the first place. Looking for a cure for her.)

Lug

❗️(exclamation point) - What was the scariest moment of your character’s life? Does it still affect them?

🚨 TW// Abuse:

The scariest moment of Lug’s life was coming back home one day and finding his long absent father drunk out of his mind, yelling and beating his mom. It’s one of the few times Lug saw red and immediately jumped in to protect her, even despite the fact his dad was twice his size.

While he was very hurt from the fight and got a scar on his ear, he did save her life that night, told he was ‘a hero’ as his father was carted away to jail.

All these years later, he’s become a lot more protective of his friends and loved ones, especially if he thinks someone’s threatening violence towards them. He often has to be talked down from his protectiveness, and reminded that this isn’t the same scenario, and to not fall into his fathers habits of uncontrollable anger too.

All

Graphite: what's something decently common that your character does in a unique or different way? (like how graphite is present in all pencils, but not everyone uses pure graphite)

Instead of popping toast like a normal person, when Hex is alone, he’ll shoot the toast from the toaster across the table to his plate. He says it’s because he’s ‘testing the launching capabilities of the toaster springs.’ In reality, it’s just because it’s fun.

Cello stacks her books all on top of each other like a tall tower before putting them away alphabetically. It’s not the most efficient, but she hates going back for a second trip.

Lug will eat things like drumsticks whole, then spit the bones out. No one knows how he does it, and he can never quite explain. One of the worlds greatest mysteries. 🤷‍♀️

[fitnessthought]

Julia Berolzheimer Weight Loss: Balancing Diet, Exercise Routine, and Holistic Health

Julia Berolzheimer, a renowned lifestyle influencer and founder of Gal Meets Glam, has been the subject of much discussion regarding her weight loss journey. This report compiles various sources to provide a comprehensive view of her transformation, diet plan, and workout routine, along with the public’s reaction.

You can improve your overall quality of life

Julia Berolzheimer Transformation Journey

Julia’s weight loss journey is not just about physical transformation. As she puts it, “achieving her desired physique required determination and consistent effort.” Her approach was holistic, focusing on improving both physical and mental health. This perspective is crucial in understanding her journey, as it moves beyond mere appearance to encompass overall well-being.

Julia’s Diet Plan

Central to Julia’s transformation has been her diet plan. Emphasizing balanced nutrition and portion control, she incorporates whole foods like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats. Avoiding processed foods and excessive sugar intake, her diet is a testament to eating clean and nutrient-dense meals. This approach aligns with her goal of feeling good with “lots of energy and a clear mind.”

Workout Routine

Julia’s workout routine is diverse, including cardio exercises, strength training, yoga, and Pilates. This variety not only aids in weight loss but also promotes mental clarity and overall well-being. Her commitment to regular physical activity is a key component of her health-focused lifestyle.

Gut-Friendly Smoothies for Faster Fat Loss

Julia Berolzheimer’s “Julia Cookies” Recipe

Julia shares this recipe as a healthy and delicious treat, perfect for satisfying a sweet tooth. But, she gives a heads-up: these aren’t your typical ooey-gooey cookies. They’re more about being a wholesome snack.

The Cookies: They’re gluten-free, vegan, and soy-free, sweetened with figs, bananas, and molasses. Julia describes them as a cross between banana bread and a fig newton. She enjoys them for breakfast or as snacks.

Ingredients:

1 cup dried mission figs, packed (soaked for 10 minutes in hot water and then drained)

1 ripe banana

1 tablespoon molasses

2 tablespoons almond butter

3/4 cup almond meal

¼ cup brown rice flour

½ cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup rice krispies

It sounds like a great recipe if you’re looking for something sweet yet healthy. Perfect for a quick breakfast or a snack during the day!

Public Perception and Concerns

However, Julia’s weight loss has not been without public concern. An article from House and Whips notes, “She has gotten significantly skinnier than before… many are worried for her because they think she might be ill.” This concern stems from her drastic physical change, leading to speculations about potential health issues.

Mindset and Consistency: A big part of her success is her positive attitude and sticking to her routine. She knows that real change takes time and there’s no quick fix.

Say Goodbye to Stubborn Fat with LivPure

Did you know? – Facts about Julia Berolzheimer

Innovative Entrepreneur: Julia Berolzheimer isn’t just a lifestyle influencer; she’s a successful entrepreneur. She transformed her blog, Gal Meets Glam, into a thriving business, launching a womenswear line in 2018. This move showcases her ability to seamlessly transition from digital content creation to the fashion industry.

Personalized Health Approach: Julia’s journey to wellness is highly personalized. She underwent testing at LifeSpan in Santa Monica to identify foods causing her inflammation. This individualized approach to health highlights the importance of tailored dietary plans for specific health needs.

Creative Cooking: Faced with dietary restrictions, Julia and her partner Thomas became inventive in the kitchen. They created unique recipes like the “Julia Cookies,” which are gluten-free, vegan, and soy-free, demonstrating their creativity and commitment to maintaining a healthy lifestyle within constraints.

Collaboration with Pottery Barn: Julia’s sense of style extends beyond fashion and blogging. She collaborated with Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids, creating collections that reflect her aesthetic. This venture into home decor illustrates her versatile design talent.

Community Engagement: Despite the controversies and speculations about her weight loss, Julia has maintained a strong and engaged community of followers. Her ability to attract and retain a large audience speaks to her influence and the resonance of her content with a broad audience.

Response to Speculations

Interestingly, Julia has not publicly addressed these concerns. Our research found saying, “Whoever has brought up anorexia and eating disorders has been blocked by her.” This reaction has fueled further speculation among her followers.

No Surgery: There’s been talk about whether she had surgery for weight loss, but there’s no solid proof of that. Her transformation seems to be all about her commitment to a healthy lifestyle.

Your TEA, your Metabolism, MADE BETTER

FAQs about Julia Berolzheimer’s Weight Loss Journey

What motivated Julia Berolzheimer’s weight loss journey?

Julia’s weight loss journey was motivated by a desire to improve her overall well-being and health, rather than just focusing on physical appearance. She emphasized the importance of a holistic approach to health.

What does Julia Berolzheimer’s diet consist of?

Julia’s diet focuses on balanced nutrition and portion control, prioritizing whole foods like fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats. She avoids processed foods and limits sugar intake, aiming for clean, nutrient-dense meals.

What type of workout routine does Julia Berolzheimer follow?

Julia’s workout routine is varied and includes cardio exercises, strength training, yoga, and Pilates. This mix helps her maintain physical fitness and contributes to her mental well-being.

Has Julia Berolzheimer used any specific medication or surgery for weight loss?

There have been rumors about Julia using Ozempic for weight loss, but these are unsubstantiated. There is no verified information linking her to this medication, and her weight loss is attributed to lifestyle changes.

How has Julia Berolzheimer addressed public concerns about her weight loss?

Julia has not publicly addressed the concerns and speculations about her weight loss. Reports suggest she tends to avoid discussing this topic, especially on social media platforms.

What challenges has Julia Berolzheimer faced during her health journey?

Julia faced challenges in identifying foods that were causing her health issues. She underwent personalized testing to determine her dietary needs and made significant changes to her eating habits based on these results.

Are there any unique recipes or foods that Julia Berolzheimer recommends?

Julia and her partner Thomas have created unique recipes like the “Julia Cookies,” which are tailored to her dietary restrictions. These cookies are gluten-free, vegan, and soy-free, showcasing her approach to healthy and creative cooking.

What impact has Julia Berolzheimer’s health journey had on her followers?

Julia’s health journey has sparked both admiration and concern among her followers. While many are inspired by her dedication to a healthy lifestyle, others have expressed concern over her significant weight loss.

Has Julia Berolzheimer collaborated with any brands or companies?

While Julia has collaborated with brands like Pottery Barn, these collaborations have been more focused on her fashion and home decor influence.

Julia Berolzheimer’s weight loss journey is a complex narrative intertwining health-focused lifestyle changes with public speculation and concern. While her diet and workout routines reflect a commitment to well-being, the public’s reaction and her response to it add layers to the story. It’s a reminder of the delicate balance between public persona and personal health journeys.

[generalgiverballoon]

15 Up-and-coming Sims 5 For Android Bloggers You Need To Watch

The Sims 5 Teaser Could Include Online and Single Player Elements

You've likely seen the previews and teasers of Sims 5, whether you're an old Sims player or new to the game. With this new game, the developers have returned to the basic gameplay of the series, and this one is sure to take a new approach to gameplay. It's in the beginning stages of development, but there is a chance the game will include multiplayer and single player components.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Vet-aDJ7zDU/hqdefault_592733.jpg

Game is still in early mobile sims 5 development

Maxis has just recently announced the next The Sims game despite all the speculation and hype around it. Maxis is still actively seeking input from the community to help in the development of the game. They also hope to open up the game to a select group of community members.

Maxis hasn't officially announced when the next game will be released, but they have stated that it will be a free-to-play game. The Sims 4 is already free-to-play on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4. The studio has also revealed plans to make new packs kits, updates and packs for the game.

Maxis added that the next Sims game will provide more choices for players, as well as cooperative play. They will be focusing on the details that made the Sims successful as well as expanding the possibility of personalization. The Sims 5 could feature a larger world, asymmetrical layouts of rooms, and full neighbourhood customisation.

Maxis also revealed that the next Sims game codenamed Project Rene, will feature the "new system" that will allow players to build in a "collaborative" style. This will allow players to collaborate in rooms and collaborate on items. The game will also include "online features", which allow users to play with their peers in their creations.

Lyndsay Pearson, Maxis' creative director said that she feels "privileged" to take on the Sims franchise into the next 10 years. She said that the goal of the company was to provide "more flexibility" in its creative tools and also to take advantage of the feedback from the community to improve the game.

Maxis added that they will release further updates to the game in the coming years. It will also be releasing kits for the game, which will assist fans to get started on building.

It could be a single-player, or multiplayer elements.

Although Sims 3 will be a single-player experience it is highly likely that it will incorporate multiplayer elements. Andrew Wilson, the CEO of Electronic Arts, suggested recently that the next game in this series could feature elements from The Sims Online.

Fans of the series were amazed by Wilson's remarks. In actual fact, a lot of speculation has risen about what the forthcoming Sims game might include. This includes an online multiplayer mode, the ability to create and share virtual objects with other players, and an actual battle royale game model.

Wilson also discussed the development and growth of the Sims franchise. He explained that the Sims franchise first came into existence in the year 1991 following a blaze in Oakland, California. Will Wright the creator of the game, used the firestorm to inspire him to build his home.

The Sims series has become a staple in the simulation game industry, and it's been one of the most popular titles in a number of genres. The Sims are renowned for their originality and self-driven relaxation. Many of the games in the series offer open-world exploration as well as the ability to curate unique lives. The most recent Sims game will include new features like romantic dates and hanging out with friends and even swimming pools.

The Sims 5 will also likely feature new social features, such as getting to know new people, socializing with friends, and finding partners. Based on recent changes by EA there has been speculation from fans about the possible features for Sims 5.

Sims 5 could include a marketplace for creators, where users could sell virtual items and cosmetics. This could mean a new period of Sims content.

It embraces different cultures in its base version

Despite the numerous spinoffs Spinoffs, and spinoffs (so much fyi), The Sims franchise remains a viable business for large corporations. A dedicated studio can offer your virtual entertainment for tens or millions of dollars. There's also discounts on the newest Xbox One and PS4 consoles from Microsoft and Sony. As such, you can bet your bottom dollar that this new version will be around for a while. What are you putting off? Let's all hope that you don't wait for the brand new Sims etiquette to be rattling around the showroom floor. And who knows what new Sims spinoffs may bring to the table.

There are a lot of tidbits to be learned, but virtual reality isn't a warm place. You'll need to abandon the sims-only game and adopt a more collaborative approach to the next generation of gamers.

It is full of secrets

If you're brand new to the franchise or are a veteran, you'll be amazed by the amount of content and activities available. It's also full of secrets. There are many secrets to be discovered, no matter the small or big one, or one that's worth keeping in mind.

The Sims franchise has always featured supernatural creatures, but the latest edition features the most bizarre ones that you can imagine. It also introduces mind control and alien plants. These can be used with the most recent tech to help you defeat The Mother. You may even be able to test new vaccines on the possessed Sims.

Although there are many activities in the Sims franchise, it is not clear how to officially recognize them. One good example is The Sims 3: World Adventures, which was a fantastic holiday expansion. To master these new abilities you'll need patience.

There are also a number of new venues available in the game. For instance, there's a new "scrap-built" venue known as Grimtooth Bar. The brand new Sylvan Glade is also available. It's a beautiful green oasis that is located in the middle of town. If you have planned a Spa Day, you can travel there via teleportation.

A "secret" bunker is located in the back of the town. It's a long-standing local haven. It has a large metal door that can only be opened by a keycard. It also has a wall section made of barbed wire.

It's easy to see why the Sims franchise is famous for its wackiness. There are a lot of hidden gems worth exploring, so make sure to go through them all.

It's a true game

Electronic Arts announced earlier this year that they will be launching a new competition show called Spark'd for The Sims. It's called Spark'd and will be hosted by Rayvon Owen who is an American Idol finalist. In order to compete contestants will design their own character from The Sims and compete against a panel of judges for a chance to win a prize of $100,000.

Simmers, or people who play the Sims game, have become an enormous online community since the game launched in 2014. They often share Let's Play videos of their Sims and they also post viral challenges. Some of these challenges have become popular like the 100 baby challenge, in which contestants must have births to 100 babies in the shortest amount of generations.

The Sims isn't your typical first-person game, but it does offer an entirely new experience by allowing you to walk through the city and control it. The team also revealed that The Sims will be available on both mobile devices and the cloud.

Sims 4 will also have an augmented reality component. This means you'll have the ability to take pictures and share them with friends. There's also an option for VR, which is designed to make you feel like you're playing the game.

The Sims Spark'd will be a reality TV contest that will take place within The Sims 4. The four-episode program will air on TBS. It will feature 12 "The Sims" players who will compete for a prize of a lifetime. Every contestant will be given the opportunity to tell the story to a panel made up of famous people.

Sims was not broadcasting games to viewers in the past, but it is possible that the show will alter that. The Sims is an game with a variety of elements that are ideal for a reality show format.

[aronarchy]

https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1537622277952618496

> recognizing and helping male victims of abuse by women requires us to understand that abusive behavior in women is more likely to resemble abusive behavior in men than to resemble shallow misogynistic tropes like “she’s scheming to ruin his reputation!!!”

https://twitter.com/thesaurustext/status/1537526360197021708

Interestingly enough Not Really. She’ll slap the shit out of you AND tell your surrounding communities/families that you’re the one doing the slapping.

Men abusers will abuse and then lie to avoid consequences. Women abusers will abuse and then lie as a component of the abuse.

1) Every single abusive relationship that includes physical abuse includes astronomically more emotional manipulation and abuse. Every. Single. One. The emotional abuse is what conditions the physical abuse and makes it possible.

There is no physical batterer who is not an emotional batterer also, even if the emotional abuse takes on a more subtle form that makes it less apparent (and it rarely does with physical abuser).

2) Lies and DARVO are ABSOLUTELY key tactics in every abusive man’s repertoire, and they ARE part of their abuse, because abuse is about control. And to imply that that isn’t so, that men are somehow more clear cut/direct/simple about their abuse is apologism, pure and simple.

3) Abusers, as a group, all share the same logic and with it the same basic tactics regardless of gender. Some will use different tactics than others and different means by which they grab at control but there is no type of abuse that is completely unique to one gender.

4) To imply that women are inherently more sneaky/conniving/manipulative than men are in any capacity is not only wildly false, it’s f*cking MISOGYNY.

People will smugly and uncritically spout the most ridiculous abuse apologia like it’s established fact and it will never cease to absolutely enrage me. Saying this shit has fucking consequences, and every one of those consequences land on survivors.

[unlockedcuriositydoor]

I'd like to see Mike initiate the breakup. I think it could demonstrate character growth (or character...resurgence?) Way back in the first season (as well as the events prior to the start of the show), El had no say in anything. Nothing at all. Mike, and to a lesser extent the other original party members, served as her entry point to the world. It was Mike who initiated a romantic component to their friendship. It seemed as if it was something she accepted, rather than something she wanted. To her it was, more than likely, a new concept; something that would take more time to incorporate into her understanding of society outside of the lab, a place where she was treated with unrelenting cruelty.

This viewpoint gets a bit dicey, I suppose, because surely El and Mike's dynamic could have naturally bloomed into something romantic, or even just been romantic from the start, regardless of whether or not it was believable or compelling to me personally; but if I start contemplating all of this I'll quickly veer off the point.

Season 2 started El's arc of self-discovery, which she necessarily needed to do largely on her own. Almost everyone believed she was dead, and those who did not were after her. That self-discovery arc largely came about via attempts to discover her own family, her origins in this strange world. She began to shed more and more of her fears. She began to understand the world just a little bit more as she sneaked out and determinedly navigated her way through it. She was a badass this season. It was unique, and fascinating, but we never lost sight of the fact that she was also still a kid. We felt her pain and rage and frustration and could identify with it. I wanted her to find her family. To discover herself, yes, but in the company of a family who could be there for her. This was not yet possible. The depth of her trauma was never far from my mind.

Season 3 really neglected to take its characters seriously in a lot of ways, but I've tried to make something of it. Season 3 El, with the aid of her new friendship with Max, pushed further along her journey of self-discovery. The dynamic she shared with Mike was unrecognizable from their season 1 bond. I'm almost forgetting why I typed all of this, which was to explain why I want Mike to initiate the breakup. While El has grown, Mike, by contrast, has drifted further and further away. Away from the narrative and away from our perception. I see Mike as exactly the sort of character to continually look after others, while neglecting to ever put himself first. When he explains how something makes him feel, he's ignored or dismissed. He seems to have withdrawn as a result. He's growing, changing, and that's unstoppable. He has no say in any of it; such are the woes of puberty. Scary. By this point, El has just begun learning that she has a say in anything in her life, and she's having her say. El chose to dump Mike's ass, El chose to befriend Max, and El chose to initiate a reunion with Mike at the end of the season. That last choice perhaps due to great fear: El had lost control again. Her father figure, gone. Her powers, which for better or worse had always been a part of her, gone. How Mike felt about that reunion looked quite ambiguous. But it came across as taking it in stride, going through the motions. I think the crumbling state of their relationship in season 4 supports this idea. Mike's withdrawal has affected El negatively too. But she lies; this is also harmful to Mike (as well as to herself). Mike cannot afford to neglect to examine whatever it is that eats away at him anymore. This guy is in a bad way. But if he is able to be honest, that's a start. If he's able to initiate the breakup and explain himself, like he told Will he should have done, it'll be a gateway to some much-needed character growth. There's nothing remotely easy about it, but I'd like to see it. I think if El were to initiate the breakup, it would be more like a reiteration of traits we already know El possesses: the ability to take charge. A great quality, but one I want to see again from Mike. Especially as it pertains to his personal life. Mike addressing what ails him, rather than denying and deflecting and misdirecting all that anger and pain.

Ultimately, I think the conclusion I've reached is that, really, the twists and turns of El and Mike's relationship have indicated where they are in their personal growth at a given time. Kind of a convoluted statement, and maybe something worth a more in-depth analysis. In short, though, it's been a process of self-discovery for them both. So them becoming romantic in season 1, fine. Great, even. Season 3, they were isolated from the others. Nothing good came of that. This show puts such emphasis on the power of friendship above all else. It's why I love it. Once the group came together, once Mike stopped neglecting his friends and El made a new friend, they were happier. The others didn't find them to be such pains in the neck (except for Will; sorry, a post this long and meandering needs a little pun just to mix things up a bit). It was all part of their journey, really. And the narrative arc of season 4 strongly suggests that the romantic (romance-adjacent?) era of their journey has drawn to a close. What's left is acceptance, and moving on, and learning to care for each other in a new way that fits the people they've become.

In other words, their relationship was always meaningful, and certainly worth taking seriously, but part of growing up is changing. And their relationship has changed in ways that require more explicit addressing, I think.

It's all so screwed in the worst way at the moment, which is why this show has been sitting so heavily on my mind for ages now.

A few days ago I wrote a little post about how, to come full circle from season 1, I would like to see season 5 Mike being able to learn from El and be cared for (platonically) by El, just like season 1 El learned from Mike and was cared for by him (platonically, at least until that kiss, whoopsie for that). I guess this is sort of a continuation of that idea.

This ramble comes courtesy of my frustration with the idea that whatever there's been between Mike and El hasn't been meaningful, both to themselves and to the overall plot. That seems a bit like a betrayal of the audience/characters. It's just changed, or perhaps hasn't served the purpose both parties involved wanted it to serve. By the end of the season, they've both reached a place where they're ready to admit that. And yet, then there's the monologue scene, tossing a wrench into that growth.

I can't seem to find a good stopping point so I will just stop here for now.

I’m obsessed with doing polls now so here we go.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Heat Trap

https://www.patreon.com/empyreaniris?fan_landing=true

https://starr-fall-knight-rise.tumblr.com/post/182501791735/master-post

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzEIdDAB4omdO2JcQVMObfrhLJ5kX4ONmSsLypM1ks0/edit?usp=sharing.\

When the door to the shuttle opened, it did so with a blast of heat, not dissimilar to the kind of heat one would get from opening an oven. The air was dry, and tainted with the smell of sulfur and smoke. The sky above them was dark, but the world before them was a wash in red as a massive river of rolling lava flowed past them and down into a small canyon. The sound was incredible: an immense roaring, like the call of a thousand beasts fighting continually to the death.

Adam didn’t even try NOT to compare the planet to Mustafar.

It was a creepy volcanic planet with serious villain vibes.

Even Sunny noticed the similarity, and he could feel her giving him a sidelong glance from the corner of her eye. He had to fight himself not to turn on the Darth Vader voice again, but resisted as best he could.

He was here on official business, Unfortunately, it would be unbecoming to emulated the dark lord of Evil, no matter how objectively awesome he was. Adam had even been adult enough to avoid wearing a cape, even though capes were a perfectly acceptable item of clothing on arcadia, as far as he knew they were even in fashion.

All his mother’s doing.

She had single handedly brought them back through her Arcadia fall collection, which took a lot of its inspiration from Drev and spartan costumes. Decorative armor was all the fashion on Arcadia right now.

Adam himself was still partially armored, and where he wasn’t he wore a heat resistant black bodysuit.

With all his resources, it hadn’t taken too long to track Noctus here. The underground rumor mill was rife with information, and he was more than willing to follow. This had brought them to Morzen, a classically volcanic planet that put places like Earth and Anin to shame. The entire world was covered in rolling lava flows that never seemed to cease. On first glance that might have made the planet completely uninhabitable, but the existence of cool lakes at the poles and seasonal rainstorms created an environment that was surprisingly rife with life.

Many of the planet’s animals had adapted to the extreme heat of molten rock, which to Adam wasn’t as impossible as it might once have seemed, after all, one of his best friends could survive in the vacuum of space. 

From where he stood on the deck of the metal refinery’s landing pad, he could see a distant herd of firewalkers, their long spindly legs churning through a knee deep lava flow as they made their way towards the horizon.

Morzen was a planet surprisingly ripe with natural resources, including sulfur and metal mining. This metal refinery boasted a massive heat resistant churn that loaded molten rock into a centrifuge, which then spun the molten metal to separate it into its components, pulling the natural metals from the rock. Or at least that was how he understood it. From there the metal was then cooled and refined while the rock was released back into the lava flow.

Morzen diamonds were also particularly expensive, when considering some of their unique properties. Despite asteroid mining companies having their own synthetic diamond labs, in order to line their drills, they would still pay out the nose for Morzen diamonds, a fact Adam was going to have to look into more closely.

As of now they stood on the upper tier of the Morzen refinery, over a main lava flow, and the heat was so intense, he could feel his entire body tingle with sweat. It was only the cool air being blasted into his face by his helmet climate system that let him stand here for any length of time.

As far as the others went, Sunny seemed unperturbed, while Red, Ramirez and Maverick were well on their way to melting,

Luckily for them the attendant arrived just then.

The Rundi was wearing a specialized metallic heat suit, and its bureaucratic nature didn’t take long to sniff Adam out where he stood at the front of the group. It bowed as was their custom, “Admiral….. Or is there another title you might prefer.”

He caught a brief thought from Sunny that wondered if he was about to ask to be called Lord Vir, and smiled to himself behind the faceplate of his helmet, “Admiral will do.” he reached a hand back motioning to his wilting friends, “Perhaps there is somewhere more comfortable we can speak.”

The Rundi nodded quickly, morning them forward over the hot metal catwalk, and down a set of stairs along the side of the building.

Lava bubbled and rolled below them.

It’s over Anakin, I have the high ground. Adam thought to himself as the door at the base of the catwalk opened and they were ushered into a small decompression chamber. The room was stiflingly hot, and Adam wondered briefly if the Rundi had simply lured them into an oven, but that was not the case. A red light blinked on over the door and then flashed green, filling the compartment with cool clean air.

The sigh of relief was audible.

The Rundi glanced over at Adam nervously as they stepped into the facility.

It was only with his limited use of telepathy was he surprised to find that the Rundi found him imposing, even frightening.

It was an unusual experience.

But not an unwelcome one.

Adam had secretly been practicing his “menacing walk” there wasn’t really anything menacing about it, but it was fast, strong and goal directed, and he thought it made him look purposeful.

He opened up his mind to the rest of the facility following the thought process of the other workers, and creating a map of where he wanted to go. Before the Rundi could even speak, Adam took his first step, sweeping down the hall with long strides, forcing the Rundi into an awkward half walk half jog to keep up.

“Admiral I-”

He held up a hand, “Your assistance is no longer required.”

The rundi faltered, unsure, “But I-”

“That was an invitation for you to leave.” he finished, and the Rundi, stunned paused and let him and his entourage pass. Ramirez jogged to catch up with him, “Dude, really/”

“Don’t ruin this for me, Ramirez, I never get to be menacing.”

The eye rolling was palpable on the air, but he ignored them, and kept up the pace. The SE suit may have been keeping him upright, but it was also loud, and his footfalls were heavy on the metal floor beneath him. The facility around them was mide, and lined in pipes. A wall ran to their left, lined in doors, while a catwalk opened up onto the refinery floor below them, where chemical vats simmered and bubbled. Facility workers in heat resistant uniforms stood at their stations, though from here the cool air was rather pleasant.

Adam could hear the people watching him, and even felt a few of them scamper away towards their master, intending to let Noctus know they were coming no doubt. The rundi that had been sent to meet them had been instructed to stall for time.

But Noctus wasn’t going to get any time.

They exited the refinery part of the facility, walked down a wide set of stairs passing into what must have been the rock bed of the planet, the walls on either side morphed from steel into stone, which although carved by sentient lifeforms, was clearly part of a system of natural tunnels which branched off at odd and unusual angles from the center floor.

The walls had been ground smooth, and chisels had been used to carve decorative patterns into the stone, which was then highlighted in golden paint. The effect was impressive, even more impressive when the corridor itself was partially lit by heat resistant lava tubes, running along the upper side walls, carrying with it the molten metal down to the refinery.

It was an impressive atmosphere.

And Adam found himself immediately jealous.

Though he wouldn’t have mentioned that to anyone.

Along with the carved walls came plush little couches and tall elegant statues.

The floor here was made entirely from dark volcanic glass.

His footsteps were loud, echoing down the hallway as he walked, and at the end he approached a wide set of double doors. 

He didn’t break stride as he marched towards the doors, only praying that they weren’t locked as he reached out both hands and shoved the doors inward. Luckily for him the door s were not locked, and they both slid open rather easily. He kept walking leaving the doors open behind him as he swept into the room. 

Noctus it seemed had fashioned himself a little kingdom in the time after his prison break.

Once upon a time the Tesraki smuggler had been one of the biggest in the business, a household name, but it seemed that laying low suited him well, and the room they stepped into was nothing but black marble and volcanic glass. The room itself was square around the central floor and on three sides a set of two or three stairs rose up onto the outer edges of the room. The ceiling was supported by blac marble pillars three for each side of the room, and there upon the raised platform, Noctus sat on one of his many couches, eating a bowl of, clearly, imported anin coiltree berries.

The dark-furred tesraki turned his head slowly to look up at them, eyes falling on Adam as he came to a halt on the open palace floor.

His ears flicked in amusement, like a dog or a cat.

“Admiral, it’s been a while, the last time I saw you….. You had significantly more organs.” The tesraki gave him what amounted to a rather sinister grin, which was unnervingly human for what amounted to a talking Kangaroo.

Clearly someone had been keeping him apprised of the situation.

“You haven't changed in the least, Noctus. Still a sniveling coward.”

Noctus sneered, “Coward is just a fancy term idiots use to make themselves feel better for not having a working sense of self preservation.” He took another berry from his bowl.

“Banter aside, to what do I owe the pleasure of your visit. You see I am incredibly busy right now.” he licked the berry and its juice from his fingers and adjusted dhis cushion, “I have very little time you see, and it seems you did not book an appointment.” 

“I don’t need an appointment.” Adam stepped forward, “What I need is answers, answers that you are going to vie me one way or the other.. And if our sense of self preservation is as good as you say it is, you might as well make things easy on yourself.”

The look Noctus gave him was one of nonconcern as he took another berry passed between his lips.

“Go on then.”

Adam held out a hand to red, who, in turn, slipped one of the glowing orange vials into his gauntleted palm. He held it delicately between finger the thumb, holding it up to the light, “Want to go ahead and tell me what this is.’

He sensed the change in atmosphere as soon as the Tesraki saw the vial, and he was given only a split second to react, as the floor dropped out from underneath them, and a wave of heat rolled up into the room. 

A blast of anima Energy was enough to knock Ramirez, Maverick, and Red some ten feet back and onto the steps. Sunny, he grabbed by the arm and hurled bodily to the other side, here she skidded over the stone coming to land in a pile of plush cushions. Adam was the only one who didn’t make it, dropping downward towards the rolling lava flow below

[thehollowprince]

Slightly random TFATWS question here, but I'd be interested in your take on it. If the point of the supersoldier serum is that it essentially amplifies your existing qualities and makes you More of what you already were - as Erskine says, good becomes better, bad becomes worse - then how would you say it's affected Bucky? His actions as the WS were the result of Hydra's brainwashing, not the serum, and he doesn't seem to be affected by it in the way Walker or even the Flagsmashers are.

It's difficult to say for a variety of contributing factors.

Factor #1: Steve Rogers (and Johann Schmidt)

It's important to remember that both Steve and Red Skull were the only two that got Erskine's serum directly. And, if Schidmt got the same style of treatment as Steve did, then they were both the only two that we saw who got multiple doses of the serum, as seen below...

Steve was also the only one we saw who got the combination serum + Howard Stark's Hottie Machine, so we don't know what effect that tech might have had on administering the serum.

Every other person that we saw (or didnt see) had a single dosage of a modified serum - an attempt at recreating Erskine's original success. Such as, the Flag Smashers...

... or John Walker...

... or even the five other Winter Soldiers.

The only exception to this that I can remember was Emil Blonsky from the Incredible Hulk (I know we all try to forget that movie), because he had multiple doses over multiple treatments of whatever version of the serum Ross had cooked up trying to recreat Steve Rogers and Bruce Banner.

And much like Steve (and presumably Johann) it required extra steps to administer than just a shot or an IV drip, relying on Gamma Radiation to help "complete" the process.

The bottom line here is that, there have been no two versions of the serum that were the same that were administered in the same way. Steve Rogers was a unique occurrence in more than one way.

I also have a theory that the original serum was derived from the heart-shaped herb from Wakanda, given the similarities between the two when it comes to the enhanced physicality.

Maybe Erskine and Schmidt got their hands on an herb and refined it until it was just the physical (blue), excluding the more mystical attributes (red), such as the aspect that allowed Wakandan kings to communicate with their ancestors. (I have a theory about the heart-shaped herb, too, but I'll save that for another time)

It's also very important to remember that the only super soldier to experience any kind of major side effects was Schmidt.

No other super soldier looked like this

Factor #2: Hydra

Aside from the fact that Bucky didn't receive the same super soldier serum as the others, but whatever concoction that Zola managed to cook up in his attempt to recreate the serum (interesting to note that Schmidt seemed to take a more hands off approach to this, choosing instead to focus on the Tesseract and it's capabilities). As such, Bucky, as we saw him in The First Avenger, didn't exhibit any of the enhanced physical capabilities (or even an enhanced physicality) that Steve did after his experiment. In fact, the only evidence we have to confirm that Bucky had received some version of the serum was the fact that he survived the fall from the train, which we didn't get confirmed until The Winter Soldier.

The combination of Hydra having Bucky for over seventy years and him not presenting any attributes of the super soldier serum until after all says to me that he went through more experiments once he was back in their care, possibly some of the precursors to what they did during the Red Room and Black Widow programs.

Factor #3: Psychological

Now this last one is just my hypothesis, which is what you asked for, but I wanted to get the other variables out of the way first.

My personal opinion here is that, despite what Erskine said, I don't believe there is a psychological aspect to the serum. It is purely physical. The psychological component to these experiments - how the recipients handled their newfound power - was down to the individual. Steve Rogers didn't go through any radical ideology or personality shift. He was the same scrappy kid from Brooklyn who stood up to bullies and refused to back down from a fight, except now he had the muscle to back it up.

Same with John Walker, as controversial as that may sound. We had three whole episodes with Walker before he took the serum, and in that time, we already saw he was quick to anger and had aggressive tendencies. All the serum did was give him the power to back it up.

Earlier, he and Lemar were talking about what they could have done with the serum, saving their fellow soldiers, and we saw in the immediate follow up that Walker was trying to rationalize what happened, telling Sam and Bucky that he had to do it, that he killed a terrorist. That kind of mindset isn't something that can come about over night. That was something conditioned into him by the military, something he later shouted at them during his disciplinary hearing, telling them he was what they made him to be.

The Flag Smashers were fighting for what they believed in, for those the world forgot after the Snap (I refuse to call it The Blip, I'm sorry), and suddebly they had the muscle to stand up against those who would push them down.

Karli in particular was a scared kid backed into a corner, lashing out. Was a lot of what she did was wrong? Absolutely, but she wanted to send a message and used the only means that the governments hellbent on suppressing them seemed to understand. And, as we saw after that first bombing, this extremism wasn't shared by all the Flag Smashers.

It's like all those shows or movies or books where a mousy wallflower is given superpowers or turned into a vampire or werewolf and suddenly they have the power to push back against their oppressors. A great example of this would be the three werewolves introduced in season two of Teen Wolf, those being Isaac, Erica and Boyd, who all went from being shy loners to being cocky and arrogant because they had the power to stand up for themselves physically now.

You give someone power and you'll see who they really are.

To circle back around to the point I've been trying to make (sorry for the scenic route), it's that Bucky never showed any sign of extremism, whether for good or evil. And that had to do with a combination of who he was as a person - he was more or a follower, latching on to Steve and Sam as his guiding star - and Hydra's machinations and manipulations during his time as the Winter Soldier. By the time he was finally free of them, he just wanted to be by himself and deal (or not deal) with his various traumas.

The Bucky that we met at the beginning of The First Avenger was very quickly buried under war and tragedy. Who he was, because of what he went through, changed. And I think that was the point Erskine was trying to make, though he definitely could have worded it better. The serum makes you more of who you really are, shows your true colors, not because of any chemical response, but because of how power has been prioritized in society. The notion that you don't have to fear physical repercussions anymore, because who's strong enough to stop you?

[vvanite]

Art Deco and TAZ Graduation

- Episode 30 "Take your Firbolg to Work Day

I know Travis probably made his choice to have the H.O.G. headquarters be designed with Art Deco for aesthetic purposes and didn't think of its function to the world of Nua BUT his choice is a really great accidental component that adds onto the world building in Nua and to one of the core problems that Graduation addresses involving the systemic nature of Nua. In this essay, I-

(And then I proceed to actually write the essay hidden below. FAIR WARNING: This is extremely long. If you want to learn about Modern Art History and how it ties into Graduation, this is your lucky day.)

This analysis/essay is going to be meta in terms of using evidence from real world events but it is needed to explain the history behind Art Deco and help us relate to the themes of Graduation. I think it’s clear to see how the systems and people in power in Graduation are influenced from the way our governments are now so I don’t think these connections are distant, rather closer together than we think.

Also, before we continue, I want to direct you to this lovely post made by a dear user and friend, Michelle/ fitzroythecreator, LINK HERE

She explains what she believes to be a core theme of graduation that I agree with and have integrated into this essay. Check it out <3

Before I can explain how Art Deco is tied into Graduation's core theme, I need to lay out definitions and context to art movements in the early 20th century. Along the way, I will make connections to the world of Nua and how real-life events in the early 20th century actually can relate to Graduation and its worldbuilding.

Let’s address what is Art Deco. Art Deco started as an art and architecture movement during the early 20th century (1900s). Most people are familiar with its aesthetics of geometric designs and influence of industrialization because of the roaring 20s era and many media influenced by it. Do you wonder why it was popularized in the US? It’s because during the great depression in the US, public buildings, more importantly federal government buildings, were commissioned to have this aesthetic thus it would have more publicity and access to the public. The H.O.G. headquarters could easily be compared to this event because it shares similar attributes of being a public government building.

With this information, it would be really interesting to imagine the timing of Graduation being set around the early 20th century. Art Deco gives us a time period to compare what kind of social events Nua could have faced similar to the real world. The modern period of the 1850s-1950s was a time when people were disinterested and scared of the changes that industrialism made in their daily lives. People were frustrated with the changes made in their lives and sought out ways to cope with the changes through escapism. In Graduation, I would argue that we see this skepticism and wariness in the characters about the changes Nua’s Socioeconomic systems made in their lives and society in general. A good example would be the student NPCs and their insistence that their hero and villain titles are just labels since they have been stripped from their original meanings. They still somewhat criticize the structure while upholding it. As the campaign progresses, we meet various characters who are very critical to Nua’s current orderly system such as Order and Gordie. In fact, despite their roles in society being vastly different, they both share the same opinions that the system is unjust as it hurts people thus there needs to be a push for change. I am not trying to label the time of Graduation to be around the 1900s, rather whatever year Graduation happens is in parallel to the events of the 1900s.

When I first heard Travis say, Art Deco, I was interested but disappointed it wasn’t Art Nouveau. My original thinking was because of Art Nouveau’s elitism of making the architecture more artistic and complex that only educated rich people can understand and less functional for the average citizen. A lot of the art displays during the art movement were held in house museums that were limited to rich eyes. I thought this reasoning made sense in terms of the H.O.G. headquarters being this elite building common people can’t comprehend. However, with continuous thought, it clicked. Art Deco fits so well.

Art Deco was meant to be a direct response to Art Nouveau and the Arts and Crafts movement. (And many more but for the sake of simplicity, sticking to these two major ones) Both movements share similarities of the desire to make total works of art.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For art Nouveau in architecture, that is more on its aesthetics of stylized curving forms, thus it creates uniqueness with the architecture. For the Arts and Crafts movement in Europe, they focused on the importance of the craftsmanship and quality. The thing about the movement is that it’s heavily influenced by socialist values and the distaste for industrialism. Both art movements were diverse in style and locations globally. Because both took place internationally, there was no determined manifesto or structures for artists to adhere to. Another thing is both movements had lots of ornamentation which takes great skill and time to put into the works. By doing this, it would make the works more unique aspects to its character, however more time consuming and difficult to replicate.

Art Deco takes response to this because critics felt like these movements were outdated for the growing industrialism happening during the early 20th century. Art Deco focuses on sleek geometric design meant to be reproduced easily thanks to industries and have more emphasis on its function rather than aesthetics. It’s meant to be functional to accommodate for the new technologies of the 20th century.

So, let’s recap, in the late 19th century, two movements, focused on the style which had no concrete structures to adhere to and had the goal to make total works of art that is reliant on itself, are then replaced by Art Deco, a movement focused on its aesthetic to be mass produced easily and have a stronger focus on the form of the architecture to serve its functions. Does Art Deco sound similar to a number of Socioeconomic systems placed in Nua?

One of the key ideals of Art Deco is Functionalism. Art Deco is one of the many architectural movements in the early 20th century that decided to focus on function rather than aesthetics. What is functionalism? It is the idea that everything works as an integrated whole and that all the different components of a larger system are designed to work together. It is orderly. Architecture in the early 20th century was designed to suit the needs of the space. For example, each element of an office buildings would be designed and organized to suit that place. This ideal is more emphasized after the Great Depression in America where architects shifted their focus on the Streamline Moderne, where they aimed to make structures practical to the demands of real life and remove the emotional aspects of expressionist art.

Travis’s little choice to pick Art Deco is tied to a core theme of Graduation of dismantling the standards and structures set in Nua. It’s so brilliant yet unintentional. I know Travis hasn’t read up on modern art history. I hope by reading through, you can spot Art Deco’s need for creating limitation to focus on the functions and how it benefits the whole system. It doesn’t allow for the emotional aspects that Art Nouveau and the Art and Crafts movements held. Nua’s system follow the same thing. Everyone has a function in the socioeconomic system that has limitations meant to exploit the work labor and functions of the individual. The system leaves no room for indivduals to have growth to create real change. That’s not a flaw of the system. The system is literally designed to be that way with its many rules and standards. It's impossible to break away from it without being punished by the system itself. You need to function within its rules and have practical skills to contribute to the system. Your independent nature is stripped away. By having Art Deco be a core aesthetic design for the H.O.G. Headquarters, Art Deco ITSELF is just another element in the architecture meant to serve its function of upholding the ideology of order that H.O.G. and the world of Nua has. This orderly system has replaced the wild world that Higglemas in episode 12 remembers.

“I remember... the world when it was wild. Not sophisticated and ordered and... bureaucratic, like it is now.”

[submalevolentgrace]

as i've said before, if someone reaches out to me asking my advice on their writing, i am going to assume that person is dedicated to improving the craft of their writing, and i'm absolutely going to engage with every word they've given me to analyse and interpret critically, looking for meaning and reflection on them as an author.

sometimes i can draw out something useful and constructive to say, and sometimes... sometimes i wish i had both the ability and authority to unilaterally ban someone from ever writing an amputee character ever - and put them on probation for disabled characters in general. at snap judgement...

everything you said sounds not only "trauma porn-y", but also "inspiration porn-y" and also "plucky rebel heroine has to suffer the tragic horror of - gasp! - a disability... but through the power of her suffering and great pain she rises up to defeat the single load bearing pillar of oppression and saves all the poor underdog cool people who matter, porn-y"

i honestly don't know if i could clearly breakdown all the components that inform my opinion: the choice of tropey words, tightly structured snappy sentences of detail blast, punchy bullet point plot breakdown, shorthand reference to assumed pre-existing knowledge of other media and genre staples, the choice of the term OC…. it's the sort of instinctive snap opinion that comes from decades of insufferable overanalysis of every piece of media i touch - including a stack of niche internet indie media - and falling asleep listening to people with film and literature degrees tear apart stories and expose the pumping mechanical guts of it all. it's the sort of snap opinion that makes a bunch of people go "wtf are you talking about??" and another bunch go "ugh, yeah, i see it", but we can't fully articulate why, or at least i can't.

see, i've read/watched/played your story a hundred times before, each time varied and unique enough that you couldn't necessarily hammer them down into a single list of tropes, but all sharing in the same kind of authorship that when you look upon all media as a whole, you're sure to mentally group them into a cloud of related "ugh".hell i've written that story multiple times myself! i might do it again! i am an incredibly fucked up person still processing the before and after expectations of my fucked up amputation and loudly shouting about it to deflect from the guilt i have for not really understanding disability until it affected me! who the fuck am i to advise on your fic heroine that i've seen a hundred clones of before?

but i wrote 5000 words on understanding upper limb amputation, why it shouldn't be used as a prop in fiction, and how to analyse your own thought process as an author to understand what you're trying to say; you read that and you still dropped a paragraph of misery porn in my ask box to ask if it's misery porn. you've had enough of a scratching at the back of your mind to realise something might be off here, might need tweaking, but you're so wrapped up in your own story that you can't see you're using limb difference as a prop, you can only think to shift it from traumatic to congenital. you have an "OC", and a priori, she's missing a hand, presented as a fact of her biography that you apparently have only minimal control over, and you want my advice on how best to frame the tragedy of disability, for which missing a hand is the only possible representation. and you asked for my opinion, a known angry hand amp bitch. the confidence!

i really just want to grab you by the shoulders and shake you and say: "it's bad", but i can't just do that, i've got to give you something to work with…

look, you write with the confidence of someone certain that they have something important to say, using the grammatical flourishes of someone clearly enamoured with the written word itself... but not the self reflection to realise quite what you've created. of course youhave something important to say, everyone does. and it resonates with you perfectly within your own imagination, because of course it does, you crafted it! but honestly...? outside of the pure form inside your head?

in 176 words the actual story you told me is about an inexperienced author trying to write a story to process their own emotions and damage, but striving for a level of weight that they don't yet have the deftness to achieve.

so what do you do? the way i'd lay it out, you have two real options for this story:

one, you take the hit to your ego, and listen to the person you asked for advice that's telling you you're in over your head. there's obviously still plenty there to salvage because it's clearly a bigger story than a girl losing her hand to a monster told in an askbox; and you're confident in your writing craft that you can still tell a story about a plucky heroine that sticks it to the man and fights the dystopia, for sure. random internet bitch has kinda lowkey said you can't even analyse your own process enough to understand where you've gone wrong about the reality of disability… so, you make it all fictional all the way down. no real disabilities, just fictional ones. it's allegory only. you can be as blunt and clumsy as you like and it doesn't matter because the themes and parallels are obvious without being real. the evil eugenics empire would kill a baby for being born without a hand? not touching that, too real. babies can be born with shimmery blood and they'll be taken away to some tower and locked up, or maybe they'll just be disappeared by sinister officials, better hide the shimmery blood babies from the empire. need your girl to have a bad encounter with a monster, survive, but walk away forever changed in a way that marks her as different, and maybe in the eyes of some, a failure? you know monster saliva is incredibly dangerous, it punctured flesh and now she's got a crystalising infection sprouting from the wound that can never be cured or concealed, how could she be so careless taking on a monster like that. the pathos and drama is there, with a big buffer of fictionalisation to ease the burden and risk of triggering people or directly saying fucked up things about them out of carelessness.

or, option two. who the fuck is submalevolentgrace anyway? what the fuck does she know? didn't she admit somewhere that she hasn't even written a finished piece of fiction in over a decade, let alone published??? she's probably just angry and bitter that being an upper limb amp is just mundane and painful, unlike all those cool stories about badass monster fighting girls that have their hands ripped off and then overthrow the oppressors. write whatever the hell you want, how you want, then when it's done, judge it for yourself. some people will love it, some will hate it, that smg tumblr bitch will write way too many words about it because she thinks she's important, and you'll have to decide deep down who you agree with more. and if it's bad…. well, you can interrogate why, you can look inside yourself, you can learn from it and grow,and hope not too many people are unwilling to give you that space to grow. the more you practice before publishing, the better the chances are there.

but i know somewhere some part of you is considering option three: trash it all and give up, on this story, on writing at all. and while yes technically that is always an option, i am knocking it off the table like a cat and saying no. you're not allowed to do that. if this particular story doesn't work out, isn't salvageable, fine, but you gotta move on to another. without an amputee character next time, please.

because if you want to get better at art, to do better as an artist, you have to keep making art. you have to practice, to keep trying. and part of practice is making bad things sometimes. you gave me less than 200 words and i made a snap judgement from it about your talent and ability as a writer to pull off this particular story, and unless you try, you won't know if i'm right or not. in all the nuance and detail that you couldn't have possibly compressed into an ask, there might be the structure and subtlety that can do the topic justice. i obviously don't think so, bit here's the thing:

when you pour yourself into a creative passion and the result is shit, you haven't actually failed. you know what shit is good for? fertiliser. every bad completed piece or abandoned wip is fertiliser for the next one, it's experience, it's the components and knowledge that will eventually make something good that you're proud of. and the same is true of that introspection and self analysis skill that i think is necessary to make a great writer. any skill, craft, or art… you can only get better at it by doing it and failing first.

and if i can break a promise to limit my analysis here.... i can tell you're young. young to me, young to most people i'm guessing. it's obvious, and maybe that itself should/would be enough to hand wave you away and say "try again when you're more mature".... but i'm assessing you as a fully fledged and mature adult creating art here, which is maybe a harsher standard than you need to be held to depending exactly how young you are... but it's a choice i make, because in doing so it shows you the expectations you'll be held to one day, and you can feel out how far you think you are and should be from that. a component of option two above is ignoring that expectation, and embracing just making whatever you want and worrying about growth and honing your craft later.

so yeah. i think the tiny window into your story that you've given me here is… not one i'd stamp with approval, and i've been harsh about it. but i also just spent about two hours writing in response to it, because i feel like there's a chance of getting through to you, and ihope others reading too. so, do what you will. decide to change it, decide to stick to it, fiddle around for a while trying and move on to a different project if you must.

but also i want this to be a warning in general: can everyone please stop asking me to asses your stories and OCs? i have clearly run out of fucks to give and am getting more aggressive, but so many of you are clearly lost in your own fantasies far too deeply to see the flaws with it yet still ask me… and upper limb amputees are so fucking rare, seriously!! why. why are you all so desprately intent on writing them? it's really weird.

please stop.

I'm modifying my idea for one of my OCs (for a personal project) to involve her having an upper limb difference. The setting of this story is a dystopia where it's likely being born with limb difference could have gotten her killed, so what I'm considering right now is that she lost her hand in early childhood. Basically, she ran into a monster and almost got killed by it, which also involved losing her hand, but the focus of that incident plot-wise is the "almost dying" part and the "abusive mom yelled at her for not handling it better instead of comforting her" part. Being an amputee also isn't the center of her story--she refuses to get a prosthesis and the revolution she's part of is fighting against societal ableism, but her character arc is mostly about breaking free from her past and learning to be more honest with other people. Do you think that the backstory as I have it now is too "trauma porn-y" and I should make her born without the hand instead?

i don't have the temperament or politeness to be a sensitivity reader, so that's why i don't offer to do it.

your icon sticks in my head so i know you've read the way i've responded to various probing on this topic, how aggressively passionate i get on many topics, how critically i'll analyse people that choose to interact with me and how blunt i can be, and hopefully you've seen me recently point out how often i'm flooded with asks like this and that i usually ignore them. you're the unlucky first person to send an ask after that. the best i can offer is that i'll critique just what you've put here in good faith and do my best not to assume anything beyond that.

so.

would you rather be ignored, or be rudely and publicly told something you probably don't wanna hear?

reblog and let me know!

[ayuuria]

Yashahime Translation (Partial): Pash! Plus Interview 1/23/21

Please do not repost this translation without my consent! This includes screenshots of any type and amount. If you wish to share this translation, simply link to this post.

For more information regarding the use of my translations, click here.

This is another interview with the 3 voice actresses and many of the questions they asked have already been answered in previous articles which I’ve translated. Hence, I have only translated portions that are unique to this article.

“Hanyō no Yashahime” Interview with Matsumoto Sara, Komatsu Mikako, and Tadokoro Azusa! What “future development” are the three of them anticipating? “I want to see parent-child exchanges!”

— With every episode, various mysteries are gradually becoming clear, but is there anything that particularly surprised you?

All: This is difficult (to answer)! We’re surprised every time!

Tadokoro: For me, it was when Sesshōmaru-sama left without saying anything despite hearing Zero tell Homura “Burn that forest to the ground” in episode 15. I became uneasy thinking “It can’t be. Does he not love his children...?”.

Matsumoto: You would think that if you looked just at that part.

Tadokoro: I was also surprised by the story following that.

Matsumoto: The part where Inuyasha and Kagome were put inside the black pearl right? That part moved me like “Father…”. No, probably more like “understood” rather than moved. Like “Sesshōmaru-sama wouldn’t do something like that without thinking”

Komatsu: Sesshōmaru just doesn’t say important things after all.

Matsumoto: I’ve learned that he’s simply not good at talking.

Komatsu: What surprised me the most is something that actually happens later on. It’s a spoiler so I can’t say anything but… Riku’s identity is… *mumbles*

Matsumoto: We also just happened to overhear it (laughs)

Komatsu: It’s a topic we actually weren’t supposed to hear about (laughs) We truly aren’t told what’s going to happen until we get the script.

Matsumoto: Regarding the subject of Riku, we were surprised like “So that’s how it was!?” when we happened to overhear a keyword, so I think the viewers will be quite surprised as well. Look forward to it (laughs)!

Komatsu: It’s hinted at a little bit when Riku makes his initial debut…

Matsumoto: I think those who are perceptive would think “Huh?”

Komatsu: Then there’s the scene that I also said left an impression on me which is what Miroku-sama had been up to until now.

Matsumoto: Me too! I was also surprised that he properly aged.

Tadokoro: He aged well didn’t he (laughs). He was so awesome! I was curious as to what he was doing after the wind tunnel disappeared.

Matsumoto: I knew Miroku and Sango had kids from “Inuyasha” but the child rearing and conversations with them weren’t depicted, so I had wondered about that for a long time. However, seeing the communication with his son moved me like “You’ve become such a good father!” since he is my favorite character as well. That Miroku-sama hadn’t changed even after becoming a father gave me feels.

Tadokoro: Don’t you think the conversation between Kagome-san and Sango-san as fellow mothers was good too? Mom friends talk (laughs). I could keenly feel how Sango was looking out for Kagome-san when she said “Yours is going to be born soon right? Watch your step okay.”. As someone who plays Moroha, episode 16 is a must see!

Komatsu: We never had an episode that greatly featured Moroha’s past until then.

Tadokoro: It’s the episode where you learn why Moroha earns money. She had been asked once before “What are you going to do with all that money?” but she dodged the question.

— There are a lot of episodes that should be checked out (laughs)

Matsumoto: Episodes 14, 15, and 16 are pretty deep after all! (laughs)

Tadokoro: Indeed

Komatsu: They have a lot of information.

— Earlier, Matsumoto-san said, “I like Miroku-sama” so could all of you please tell us your favorite characters?

Tadokoro: My favorites are Kohaku-kun and Sesshōmaru-sama. Kohaku-kun went through something terrible and seeing him living a painful way of life by making himself a sacrifice made me think “I want to make him happy”. There’s also the major fact that I liked Yajima-san’s (Akiko) acting, so the feeling of tragic heroism oozing from his voice aroused a protective urge within me. Now he’s an adult and is firmly continuing the work of demon slaying… I feel proud for some reason (laughs). He’s become such a fine man…

Matsumoto: I love Miroku-sama and Naraku too much! Regarding Naraku, at the beginning, the shock of “There’s this kind of warped love!” was huge. While it started off as something suddenly lighting a fire in his heart for Kikyō, to think that from there things would end up going the way they did… The emotions that budded from a small happening became, more than anything, this big energy to Naraku and caused him to act the way he did. It’s probably strange for me to say, but I “learned” that that’s one form of “love” (laughs). In terms of Miroku-sama, I thought he was purely awesome. He’s the one person within the group whose position is really helpful. Figuratively speaking, the part of him that’s like the vice president and not the president of the student council is what I like. He’s the unsung hero who follows under the person who rampages the most. I also love the gap of how his tongue becomes sharp once you get acquainted with him.

Komatsu: While Kagome influenced me, my favorite was Kagura. She was part of Naraku’s group, but her heart wavered so much that you wondered “Was she really born from Naraku?”. There was something human about her. I think those born from Naraku were born from something Naraku had in the first place, so Kagura probably had the faint “human heart” that was in Naraku. I had a lot of empathy when she became the wind and was freed at the end. I could never forget the scene where she died attended by Sesshōmaru. It was precious in any event… Kagome is who I wanted to be but the one who stole my heart with her way of life was Kagura.

— If you were to apply Towa, Setsuna, and Moroha’s relationship to yourselves, what would happen?

All: It would still be the same (laughs)

Komatsu: It would relatively stay the same. How to put it, roles? For example, for Sara-chan, she’s a mood maker, friendly, and isn’t timid about anything. In a sense, she’s the commanding officer of the raid. I think she’s just like Towa in terms of position. Moroha’s character is very energetic with a lot of vitality and she’s completely inherited Inuyasha and Kagome’s blood. However, she’s the balancer among the Yashahimes. She reads the mood quite a bit and she has a territory where “she won’t proceed any further from here”. For example, when she didn’t talk about why she earns money. I think the part where she doesn’t fully open up at the beginning is similar to Koroazu-chan (Tadokoro’s nickname).

Matsumoto: I know! That’s exactly why you want to get to know her more. Like “Show us more!” (laughs)

— What do Komatsu-san and Setsuna have in common?

Komatsu: Setsuna is a child who can clearly state her opinion on serious matters. She calmly makes judgements and has a solid feeling for not talking when she doesn’t talk and talking when she does talk. I have a feeling I also make judgement calls of “I should stay quiet here.” Setsuna is probably listening to what other people are saying in scenes where it doesn’t look like she is. However, she purposely doesn’t say anything. She has the option of “Not answering”. She’s not silent because she doesn’t want to listen or respond. Rather, I think it’s a time when she’s thinking about various things to herself. I feel that I personally understand that very well.

Matsumoto: I think Setsuna is the “axle” of the three Yashahimes but even among the three of us, there’s a sense of “We need Mikako-san”. When there’s a problem, I look towards Mikako-san’s direction (laughs).

Tadokoro: Mikako-san calmly watches over everyone, so we end up relying on her when there’s a problem. There was a time when the three of us went shopping and I asked, “Am I buying too much?”.  Mikako-san responded, “You’re buying too much” and I returned the item to the shelf (laughs). I leave the judgement to her and end up depending on her.

Komatsu: I’m unexpectedly not thinking anything though (laughs)

— What do the three of you think is the appeal of “Hanyō no Yashahime”?

Tadokoro: For those who enjoyed “Inuyasha”, they’re probably wondering how their favorite characters are living their lives. You can find out in “Hanyō no Yashahime” which I think is a big appeal.

Komatsu: In “Inuyasha”, the grudge against Kikyō and the romance with Kagome were components of the story. However, this time, a big component of the story is discovering their births and that’s what I think is appealing.

(translator’s note: There is more to this section, but these are the only sentences that I considered unique to this article)

— Thank you. Well then, please tell us if you have any anticipations for the upcoming development in “Hanyō no Yashahime”?

Matsumoto: I would have to say I want to anticipate both fathers doing something. If they were to come running when the Yashahimes are in a bind, that would make me happy.

Komatsu: I want to see parent-child conversations.

Matsumoto: That makes me nervous….

Tadokoro and Komatsu: Indeed! It does make me nervous!

Komatsu: I’m getting all sorts of wild ideas like what sort of conversation they’ll have or what things will they address.

Matsumoto: How will they address them when they meet face to face? There was an episode where Kagome address’s Moroha as "Moroha” but… If Sesshōmaru addresses me as “Towa”, I might have a nosebleed (laughs).

Tadokoro and Komatsu: (laughs)

Komatsu: Setsuna basically said “I don’t know who Sesshōmaru is!” during their conversation with the Tree of Ages (laughs). Even when she meets her father, she’ll probably say “So you’re Sesshōmaru”. But I want (him) to address her as “Setsuna” (laughs).

All: Basically, we want to see parent-child exchanges (laughs).

— Thank you very much!

[guardianspirits13]

if you feel like answering, why is natsuo your favorite character? like what do you like most about him? what made you connect to him/what made him stand out to you?

Ohhh boy better buckle up because this is gonna be a long one.

First off, thank you so much for the ask, and sorry it took so long to strap down and answer you! Naturally, I have a lot to say and I'm always looking for opportunities to rant about my favorite character 👀

The chapter that first opened my eyes to Natsuo as a character was chapter 252. I was caught up with the manga at this point so I read it right when it was released and it really touched me. From then on I became invested in his character, particularly his relationship with Touya which I really dug into and channeled into my Brother animatic. He's been my favorit from then on, and there are many reasons for this.

I think the main reason his character resonated with me so deeply is because I've never encountered a character who hits nearly as close to home as he does. I didn't have the best relationship with my father growing up, and despite it being a different and much less serious situation than what Natsuo lived through, I can relate to and understand a lot of his resentment on a personal level. Many of his one-liners are things that I have said or thought before almost verbatim, so needless to say Horikoshi definitely knows what he's doing.

It is very important to me how Horikoshi goes out of his way to give this seemingly minor character so much development. Every scene he is in, every word he says has so much thought behind it and contributes to his character tremendously, and some of the best examples of this are in the latest chapters with him.

He has significantly more developent than most of the minor characters in 1a, despite them obviously appearing much more often. This is because whenever Natsuo does appear, he's very outspoken and the scene normally ends up revolving around him in some way.

I also want to talk about his relationship with his family as a whole- one thing about his character that I don't think anyone else has really mentioned before is how humble he is. He grew up in a household where he was neglected and essentially seen as worthless (regardless of his quirk or lack thereof but I have a whole nother essay for that alone), and even Touya wasn't exactly the kindest to him from what we've seen. Despite this, Natsuo was able to forge his own path and become the person he wanted to be. He got through highschool with good enough grades to get into a pre-med program which in Japan is a very hard thing to do considering national standards, not to mention how different the medical field must be with the variety of mutation quirks that exist.

As for humility, I think the fact that he can be proud of Shouto for forging his own path as a hero despite his personal distaste for hero society, and is immediately thankful when he’s saved from a villain by a group of high schoolers. He doesn’t act like he’s better than anyone else because he’s older, or because he won’t forgive Endeavor (quite the contrary, he seems to view his distaste of Endeavor as a shortcoming on his part).

Another thing that I really just adore about his character is how kind and gentle he is, regardless of (or perhaps in spite of) his upbringing. Considering that he's a male character in a shounen manga, this is particularly interesting to me. Out of his brothers he is physically the most similar to Endeavor, but personality-wise the most different. A huge component of this is that he was raised mostly by Fuyumi and continues to be incredibly close to her. Natsuo is a social person and an emotionally driven character, and he is certainly not afraid to speak his mind- if nothing else, he is honest. Compare this to Shouto, who is definitely an introvert and prefers to keep to himself, kind of blunt about things and definitely lacking in emotional awareness. It’s hard to separate Shouto’s personality from lack of socialization as a kid, but even Endeavor shares many of the same traits. Touya is also an emotionally-driven character but in a completely different way, he’s self-serving and angry and driven for revenge. Perhaps if he had a normal childhood Natsuo and Touya would have been much more similar, but Touya’s early signs of mental illness as a kid festered with lack of treatment. Back to Natsuo, he also is very caring and thoughtful, and we really see this most in the 5th light novel, (official translations aren’t out but here’s a link).

We consistently see just how much he cares about the rest of his family (other than Endeavor, obviously). I think this is seen really clearly through his attempts to connect with Shouto. He knows nothing about his little brother but still tries to connect with him in any way he can think of- playing soccer, eating soba, talking with him about his friends and just generally showing interest in his life.

Another interesting point here is that he almost seems to look up to his siblings as being better than him, especially Shouto. This is not in a jealous way, but more self-deprecating as he sees Fuyumi and Shouto letting Endeavor back into their lives and feels guilty and unkind because he is unable to do the same. He is proud of Shouto, but they are different in so many ways that it’s hard to find a middle ground. Shouto is mature in that he is already halfway to a lifelong career and has experienced many dangerous situations, while Natsuo is a college student and years away from helping people on the same level that Shouto does in high school. Inversely, Natsuo is more socially competent and outgoing, while Shouto is sheltered, and has a unique innocence to him. Natsuo is more familiar with their family situation and thus has a more complex understanding and much stronger stance than Shouto, especially because he knew Touya.

He also goes out of his way to try and help Fuyumi and re-iterate how much she means to him (even if it fails, it’s the thought that counts, amirite?). He consistently comes to dinner when Fuyumi invites him, knowingly exposing himself to his pervasive trauma upon seeing Endeavor to allow her to entertain the fantasy of having a happy, normal family.

I really want to re-iterate here how much of his own pain he puts to the side in just agreeing to show up for dinner. Both times he is visibly uncomfortable and almost upset by Endeavor’s presence as if it makes him anxious (which is understandable), and he is mentally incapable of staying in said situation without freaking out, which he does whenever he can’t escape; the first time when Endeavor puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him from leaving, and the second time mere minutes after an incredibly traumatic near-death experience. (Side note: Endeavor should not be getting up into his personal space like he does, knowing full well how uncomfortable Natsuo is with his mere presence).

He puts his own trauma to the side to help his siblings ,and if that isn’t selfless I don’t know what is.

With all of this deliberate development and the advent of the Dabi reveal, I am confident that Natsuo is going to play a larger role in the future and will contribute in some major way to bringing Dabi down. If there's one thing I trust Horikishi for it's that he doesn't develop his characters for nothing. There's always a payoff at the end that puts everything in place, even though he plays a slow burn. I'm always scared that whenever Natsuo shows up he's gonna do/say something that's inconsistent with his character so far and disprove one of my theories/assumptions/headcanons about him and every time I am proven wrong.

In conclusion: I love my salty son.

If you want to read even more of my thoughts on him, here's a link to a rediculously long meta about his trauma and emotions:

Thank you again for the ask. I very much enjoyed writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it as well!!!

[maddmuses]

Madonna “Donna” Redgrave

(Art Credit)

Age: -.6 DMC 5 (Born roughly 8 months after events of DMC 5) Occupation: Devil Hunter, Bartender/Bar Owner Aliases: The Legacy of Power, Demon-Slaying Bartender,  Date of Birth: August 13 Species: Cambion (Demon-Human, with Umbran Witch and Priestess descent) Ethnicity: Anglo-Italian-Romani Possible other Asian heritage (Umbran Witch Heritage)(Based on HCs of Lady and Dante ethnicities) Affiliations: Devil May Cry (Main Branch/Lover’s City Location) Theme Song: Takedown by Blue Stahli (XINA cut)

Personality Donna strongly takes after her mother, being both business-minded and serious about her demon hunting activities. Through this, she was compelled to converting the original Devil May Cry shop into a more sustainable bar to fund ongoing day-to-day, as demonic incursions dwindle in numbers. Ultimately, though, she still had a deep love for killing demons like her father. She often uses it as a means to seek an adrenaline high, which will result in her fighting stylishly, in the same way that Dante has.

As a result of her almost nonexistent relationship with her father, Donna prefers to distance herself from Dante’s brand as owner of Devil May Cry, even converting the signage to use a lit silhouette of her mother, and never being seen wearing red. When fighting, she remains calm and cool, preferring to take her foes out in as few moves as possible, only getting more loose and flippant as she loses herself in the rush of an exciting battle.

Though she was largely raised alone by Lady, Donna has a strong familial bond to Nero and Kyrie, and paradoxically looks up to her uncle Vergil as the ultimate peak of “cool”.

Like her father she often takes jobs pro bono, though she often feels vindicated in doing so, due to her otherwise solid profits in the business with high-paying jobs, taking on extra work from Nero’s branch, and the bar component doing fairly well. Though she often pretends to be intent to take payment, Donna will disappear altogether when payment is due, in the case of such jobs.

Biography Madonna Redgrave was born a little over half a year following the events of Devil May Cry 5, with Lady having been pregnant for about two weeks during the events of the game. About 7 months into term Donna was born premature to her mother, though she ultimately was born and grew successfully. Though her early childhood was largely uneventful, by the metric of a child to two devil hunters; being largely taken care of by her mother, who had taken to residing in the Devil May Cry shop, and staying with her cousin Nero when Lady took a job to create a financial windfall.

Never having met her father, Donna is only regaled with stories of his various heroics and endeavors growing up, largely with a more positive energy by Nero than Lady, who retains her somewhat annoyed energy when remembering her child’s father. Though Donna would take somewhat more to her mother’s perspective on many of Dante’s exploits, these stories still would ultimately motivate the cambion to become a demon hunter, though initial training she sought out was without Lady’s knowledge.

As a young adult, she would eventually take over Devil May Cry, after having built a small following in the underground as a capable, and affordable, hunter for hire. Though she preferred to keep the business as one that would maintain operation consistently, rather than simply taking on commissions for various demonic incursions, especially in the post-Dante era where it had grown even more infrequent, with numerous hell gate operations being taken down by her predecessors. Thus, Donna’s field of work is both more diverse, and more steady, in addition to maintaining a bar.

Donna’s ongoing fight against demons and the mysterious “angels” (demonic entities from a counterpart realm that claims itself to be paradise, but is in fact simply the highest positional level of hell) is defined as her unique struggle as the defender of humanity.

Abilities and Skills  -Combat Proficiency: Donna is highly skilled in both armed and unarmed combat. Without relying on her superhuman abilities, Donna is able to take on swarms of demons with little incident. --Swordswomanship: Though capable in a number of styles of sword, Donna prefers curved weapons, especially favoring her nodachi, though she has shown a capacity with more straight-edged swords, she prefers to solely manifest them for her ranged mirage blades, though she has used them as shortswords in a pinch. --Martial Arts: The majority of Donna’s combat is hand-to-hand, fighting in a sort of mixed style, often depending on the Devil Arm she uses, she has been known to manifest copies of them when without one, switching style accordingly. --Gunplay: Prior to the manifesting of her ability to create weapons out of her demonic energy, Donna was fairly capable with firearms of various make, and is even still a user of Kalina Ann Mk IV after this revelation. In the earlier days of her demon hunting she was known to use a broad variety of firearms, before tightening up her arsenal after learning to manifest weapons. --Mirage Blades: Developed after gaining access to Devil Soul, Donna became able to create Mirage Blades, like her uncle though red in color with a somewhat thinner design. Through this power she also works up various weapons on the fly, including recreations of various Devil Arms she has seen or used (though usually not at full power or including their inborn abilities), including a recreation of Rebellion that she called Revolutionary Memory.

-Acrobatics: Though possessed of natural agility, Donna is capable of various technical feats reminiscent of her mother’s. Often she was able to easily move with Kalina Ann, and often still utilizes the weapon’s recoil while in Gunslinger to move with a great speed, and charge towards enemies.

Superhuman Powers and Abilities -Cambion Physiology: In part due to her descendance from Sparda, but also due to her mother’s brief transformation into a demon (Artemis), Donna is a powerful demonic entity who possesses physical abilities that far exceed that which is possible for a mortal human; disregarding any degree of training they may have. Her potential and ability are in a similar realm to that of Nero, Vergil, and Dante, though due to inexperience and a lack of similar caliber opponents she currently trails. This additionally grants the following specific abilities: --Superhuman Strength --Superhuman Speed and Reflexes --Accelerated Healing --Superhuman Endurance --Demonic Power Manipulation: By imbuing her demonic power into objects, and otherwise focusing it in the air, Donna is able to enhance various items and create blades of pure energy from her willpower. --Teleportation: Much like her father, uncle, and cousin, Donna is able to teleport various distances. Biasing more towards Vergil’s side, she is able to teleport much more quickly, with more versatility, and a further range than her father and cousin. --Devil Soul: The counterpart to Nero’s Devil Bringer, Donna is able to channel demonic energy into a projection-like construct. At a lower degree of use she is able to create large arms to enhance attacks and defenses, as well as conjuring a torso around herself to defend from attacks that hit an area, or break through other forms of defense. By further focusing she can actually create a fully-formed doppelganger that appears to be a red semi-transparent recreation of her father’s devil trigger form. Donna’s Devil Soul wasn’t unlocked until she was defeated (and nearly slain) by Azazel through his power of scapegoating. She counteracted this through the use of Devil Soul’s doppelganger. --Devil Trigger (Not Unlocked)

-Style Powers: A natural progression from her father’s abilities, Donna is able to harness her mixed umbran-demonic heritage into a force of power commonly referred to as “Styles” which permit her to more effectively and efficiently focusing her demonic powers in a conduit to optimize her combat output. Styles were her original primary method of combat prior to gaining Devil Soul. --Royalguard: Functions identically to Dante’s --Swordmaster: Initially functions identically to Dante’s, though following the unlock of Devil Soul, and thus Mirage Blades, it takes to allowing Donna to manifest and conjure various weapons and devil arms, while swapping between them rapidly because of their energetic nature. --Dark Avenger: A focus and conduit of her power, allowing her to become motivated and fight in a style almost identical of her uncle. This style quickly consumes her Devil Trigger gauge, as well as her Style Meter. --Ranged Fortress: Essentially Gunslinger, though once she has unlocked, and begins to use Mirage Blades, this mode will greatly enhance them, making the blades longer, able to fire many at the same time, and utilize multiple techniques specifically with these, such as firing large, Rebellion-like, blades, as well as pinning targets to a specific position to be unable to escape her.

Weaknesses and Limitations -The forces of Inferno and Paradise: Demons and Angels, as well as pretty much any supernatural force, are more capable of injuring Donna in a more significant way than mundane means. This is shared with her fellow cambions.

-Styles: The use of a style requires not only her demonic power, but also a type of energy that she often refers to as “Style Energy”. By consuming her style energy to swap, or utilize any of her styles’ specific powers, she steadily becomes more fatigued than other abilities of hers.

Arsenal -Akaja (Portmanteau of Red and Monarch/king): A nodachi-style sword that Donna almost always has on her person, worn across the back of her waist, and a devil arm that represents her own demonic power. Like Rebellion, it serves as a physical manifestation of her devil trigger power, though she has yet to unlock its true power. Once a mundane sword, Donna was able to imprint her demonic power into it (unknowingly) when Devil Soul was unlocked. Using her sword much like how Vergil uses Yamato, she often relies on an iai-style, converting into combos after the draw, before resheathing when her sequences are completed. -Mirage Blades (Various): Donna, at one point, used various devil arms in a similar fashion to her father, though upon unlocking Devil Soul she has largely abandoned this methodology, relying on her own power to recreate the various fighting styles of weapons she wishes to use. However, like Vergil, she most often uses them to conjure blades in the air to fly at opponents. When using her Swordmaster style she is able to emulate different weapons, costing Style Gauge when doing so, and in Gunslinger her ranged blades become longer and more wicked-looking, with the ability to perform various abilities by further consuming her Style Gauge. -Kalina Ann Mk IV: The 4th version of the Kalina Ann, and counterpart to the Mk III that her mother owns. A lightweight rocket launcher, the recoil has been intentionally exaggerated to allow combat recoil.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Reasons I believe in Polyamory

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not attractive enough to be able to have more than a single partner at once, but there is a reason for that, and really, the thesis of this wall of text below: heteronormative relationship standards in every culture have always been, and will continue to always be, more about possession than love in a post-imperialistic world.

Personally, I’m a huge proponent of engendered sexuality variance to the tone of males have a constant slow drip of libido and a female’s sex drive hits them like a freight train once a month (in mammalian bioepigenetics, this makes sense). I’m inclined to infer, because I’m not idyllically normatively attractive, only a fraction of a percentage of women will be attracted to me 24-27 days of any given month. As a cisgendered man who is regrettably straight, having the least attractive genoethnic identity intersection (South Asian Muslim) in Western culture, I’m never actually presented with the choices to act on a poly mindset (in fact, I would be ridiculed for it because people think it aligns with some other gross tribal stereotype when it couldn’t be further from the truth). In retrospect, I have everything to gain from interpreting the main benefit of an intimate relationship as ownership like heteronormative culture generally does yet I still think disavowing poly as a legitimate personal choice is immoral.

I know saying monogamous relationships are more about possession than love will offend lots of people, so before you throw hate at me for your emotionally defensive skepticism, hear me out. An unflinching, unyielding love is seen as the highest parameter in any type of romance. So why is it cheating is so much of a bigger problem than a dry spell specifically? Is it because it’s legitimately a breach of trust, or is it more about “if I can’t have you, no one can”? More importantly, does it go a step further and say “if I don’t want you, no one should”? To me, any sort of dry spell (whether physically, emotionally, mentally) signifies a much larger breach of trust than simply having been shared because it shows said commitment in the relationship was not unflinching, not unyielding. The monogamous lens looks at others like: I want to have the best partner, not just so that I’m happy, but no one else can receive the specific happiness I get. Doesn’t that whole mindset come off as brutish? Just me? Well, maybe your pitchforks will start coming down when you realize monogamy is a function of toxic patriarchy on both feminine and masculine ends.

There are bioevolutionary reasons for toxic femininity to value the possession aspect of a relationship over its substantive “quality of life” components, the birth-giving gender in any animalistic specie always had to be beheld to a provider they reproduce with. Does it not then represent a sense of feminine fragility when a single mother immediately demands a long-term relationship and nothing else? If I’m to believe said woman is capable of genuine lust in her system, having a child shouldn’t evaporate all carnal desires completely and, therefore, should leave room for compromise. Said stance also indicates she made some sort of error in judgment of her chosen reproductive mate and feels entitled another man ought remedy her strife even though, evolutionarily speaking, he has nothing to gain from helping to rear offspring not of his kin. Harsh, to be sure, but it does show in the obnoxiousness of the connotation of becoming a stepdad being a positive one and becoming a stepmom assumes the motivation of some gain in status (wealth, fame, power, etc.) which I would argue is negative. Where does toxic masculinity come into play? Desire for possession on the part of a male promotes the viability and exclusivity of his own children with his most desirable partner. While that’s damn near nowhere as compelling, it has to be stated because there are always two benefactors to patriarchy. Patriarchy is not a zero sum game, patriarchy seeks to concentrate all familial social benefits in the monogamously-driven, heteronormative genus, away from those who deviate from the ideal picture of stereotypical gender roles. The ill effects of patriarchal standards exist in every human civilization, but the ontological root to the specific brand of patriarchy that oppresses all genders today was spread by a culture that uniquely preached monogamy.

Polygamy, in a historical sense, was a testament to the more status a person of the provider gender could achieve, the more their genetics would proliferate. Many cultures globally practiced this, the issue is, the ones that didn’t were the ones who, often violently, “conquered” the ones that did. Christian fundamentalism is in every fiber of international morality, whether the nation in question believes in Christianity or not is often irrelevant. Monogamy is enforced, anything outside of that is deemed as necessarily being deviant (whether choosing to be alone or choosing more connections than a monocule). Fetishization of the step relation is eluding to this deviance in a not-so-subtle way because it’s something where its allure is derived from its forbiddenness moreso than its convenience, every one of these scenarios has a subtext of implicit gain, not loss, in engagement. Meaning, the idea is planted because a hot person is there not because a person in general is there and can satiate an urge. Tl;dr - we believe polyamory is a morally negative act because the Holy Roman Empire did and every nation that spawned from it spread, imparted, and coerced that ideal on every culture it came into contact with. Before the Holy Roman Empire, no historical documents made distinctions to behest multiple lovers as desanctifying of life itself, not even the coalescing of nations that made up the Holy Roman Empire before its inception.

We are now in an era when women have access to full reproductive control, yet we still see men lust more than women, e.g. archetypal lesbian tendencies versus archetypal gay male tendencies. Do we not question why this is the case? All lifeforms are hardwired with a desire to survive and reproduce, so why does that drive not reach equity when risk does? There are two answers, and it could even be both: women are only socially conditioned to have sex via patriarchal pressures and don’t have as much inherent desire to reproduce OR sex is a means-to-an-end to exclusively possess a desired provider, whatever said person provides. If said person has a trait valuable enough to want to possess, is it not self-contrived to keep that quality to oneself, not share it with the world where it can provide more utility? Heteronormative relationships, in a sense, are anti-altruistic at their very core. As facetious as this sounds, either of these trains of thought are validated by men being more willing to engage in polyamory than women, not because men are somehow any less loyal than women. On its own, I feel this line of reasoning is enough to justify a vehement disgust of polyamory as immoral, but I want to conclude on the most pivotal facet to this conversation and not just heavily imply monogamy encroachment on moral turpitude is problematic at best.

As I mentioned a few times, I am likely to be a spoke on a polycule, not a member with multiple connections. Exclusive possession is something I probably stand more to gain from than any woman, logically and realistically, given the current social climate and general global beauty standards. My advocacy of polyamory stems from me accepting I may not be enough to be the full extent of happiness my romantic interest desires. That doesn’t even come from a place of insecurity, it comes from a place knowing I could never be perfect even if its pursuit is a righteous cause. I see real insecurity as a fear of loss when the rules of engagement you put into place were exclusivity: you don’t want your partner looking at anyone else because it’s disadvantageous to you, meaning you’re not fixated on their best interest and looking at relationships in said manner is deliberately selfish. To me, the best frame of reference to morality in interpersonal social connections is altruism. Yeah, self-love is important and knowing your own boundaries is beneficial but everyone else’s boundaries don’t have to match yours. I’m not anti-monogamist, really. I’m more anti-polyamorist discontent.

Not having thought this deeply isn’t an excuse, either.

[hlupdate]

The relationship between A-list muse and lauded designer is nothing new. But few have been as serendipitous that of Harry Styles and Alessandro Michele: the pop star’s solo career coincided neatly with the designer hitting his stride as the game-changing creative director of Gucci. Theirs is a mutually beneficial partnership that has elevated the former to new echelons of style, while the latter has become something of an icon to an unexpected fandom.

Unlike the large-scale productions of recent show seasons, Michele first presented his vision for Gucci with a quietly confident collection on 19 January 2015 — reportedly pulled together in just five turbo-charged days. The collection had all the signifiers of the retro-inspired aesthetic that has since become Michele’s beat, introducing the fur-lined loafers, pussy-bow blouses and florals that still form the backbone of his work today. A 20-year-old Harry, meanwhile, was still a long-haired One Direction member set to embark on the band’s biggest ever — and as it turned out last— tour. Just as One Direction’s days were winding down, Michele was picking up speed. Gucci reported a five per cent rise in sales in the last three months of 2015, amounting to 1.1 billion Euro in the final quarter.

Stylist Harry Lambert, who had been working with Harry for a few years by then, decided it was time for the boy-bander to try something new. A floral suit – that floral suit – from Michele’s spring/summer 2016 collection would be just the ’fit for the American Music Awards in November 2015, they decided.

Looking back it was a “very bold move,” Lambert admits. Styles was the first to take one of Michele’s full menswear looks from the Gucci catwalk and wear it on the red carpet. “It was very exciting to see everyone’s responses, but also how great he looked in it,’’ Lambert told Miss Vogueof what he still views as a turning point in his client’s fashion journey. This winning suit encouraged Styles and Lambert to pull more Gucci, and Harry gave his final performance as a member of One Direction wearing a suit in the retro petal print that defined Michele’s early collections.

In fact, Gucci was just about the only thing that the 1D alum carried over to his solo career. Even his shoulder-length curls were shorn. The music videos that accompanied Styles’s eponymous number one album, released in April 2017, all incorporated Gucci, as did his appearances on the promo trail. A navy tailored coat floats through the sky in the video for “Sign Of The Times”, and he wears floral tailoring in the clip for “Kiwi”. When the time came for Harry to take his record on the road, he wore countless bespoke Gucci suits on stage. Most were floral brocade with flared trousers, and paired with pussy-bow shirting.

By June 2018, the relationship had been formalised. Styles was revealed – in a series of photos taken by Glen Luchford in the suitably English setting of a chip shop – as the face of Gucci’s tailoring campaign. Two more campaigns followed, in which Styles models the most exuberant of Michele’s creations without ever sacrificing his schoolboy cheekiness, not even with a lamb slung around his shoulders. The campaigns, two by Luchford, a third by Harmony Karine, helped to usher in a new dawn in menswear advertising.

A year later Harry was unveiled as part of a diverse line-up in the campaign for Gucci’s Mèmoire D’une Odeur — the near century-old house’s first gender-neutral scent. Yes, he was the main event, but Styles shared the spotlight with other creatives in what became an unavoidable campaign, covering buildings, beauty counters, column inches and iPhone wallpapers across the globe. Styles has since quipped that he wears it to bed,making a bottle a necessary purchase for even half-dedicated Harry fans.

That Harry’s work with Gucci has proved so popular with his dedicated fanbase is a key component in the success of their collaborations. Though — and again, this is likely owing to Harry’s own allegiances — his followers do tend to have a keen interest in fashion compared to other fandoms, it’s down to their idol that Harries know the artistic director by his first name alone. “It is really exciting for us fans to see another facet of Harry as a creative individual, and his Gucci partnership cultivates that and gives us an even more in-depth perspective of who he is,” Nadhila, a 26-year-old fan in Indonesia told Miss Vogue.

Nadhila, who has been a part of the team behind the Twitter account @HSNewsUpdate since 2011, believes that the fluid nature of Michele’s vision has contributed to the interest in Harry’s Gucci looks. “There are no boundaries on what he might come up with, so fans are always excited to see what look [Harry] might step out in next,” she says. Styles’s efforts to be a fan-focused, ethical pop star – his motto is “treat people with kindness” – are relevant, too. “He has inspired us to be bold, unique and unafraid to experiment when it comes to fashion,” she adds. “He has shown us that there is no such thing as too feminine or too masculine, we can be both and we can be ourselves.”

Another of Harry’s biggest fan accounts, @TheHarryNews, is run by four women in their mid-twenties: Annie, Océane, Lena and Rachel. “You can really see the confidence he’s gotten from working with Gucci,” they share collectively over email. “[He’s] taking more risks and letting more of himself show… In a lot of ways we’ve seen Harry really come into his own. I think that really resonates with people, especially his fans, who get tiny pieces of [who he really is] through fashion.”

Two fans who have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of this fashion partnership are the transatlantic duo behind @HSFashionArchive. Since April 2016, London-based Lu and Washington DC-based Alex have documented every look worn by Harry in meticulous detail, all to act as “a resource for fans”. Its posts lets his followers know how they might go about procuring these items, but also sheds light on key house codes – thus enabling fans to quickly identify which of Harry’s looks are Gucci, and which aren’t. “We have noticed that fans buy the Gucci pieces that Harry has worn,” 29-year-old Alex explained. “Though some pieces are pricey, we’ve seen people buy the loafers, boots, and bags that Harry has sported over the years. Lots of our followers bought the £34 Gucci lipsticks he wore in Beauty Papers.”

The pair believes that the relationship works because Gucci is able to offer Harry such a broad spectrum of looks to choose from. “Gucci’s looks range from wearable to outrageous, so Harry’s continued partnership with Gucci guarantees both attainable style and flashy moments. There’s nothing like seeing him in a wild new outfit that we couldn’t have anticipated.” And though one might assume the scene-stealing suits are most popular with fans, according to Nadhila, they like his low-key looks best, given that “they show a more casual and intimate look into who he is as a ‘normal’ person”.

Of course, there is a notable exception: the 2019 Met Gala. For the opening evening of the “Camp: Notes On Fashion” exhibition Michele and Harry acted as co-hosts, and arrived on the pink carpet together. “After such a colourful tour wardrobe it was nice to do something a little unexpected,” Lambert told Miss Vogue of the black blouse Styles wore. “[It was about] taking traditionally feminine elements like the frills, heeled boots, sheer fabric and the pearl earring, but then rephrasing them as masculine pieces set against the high-waisted tailored trousers and his tattoos. Camp, but still Harry.” Lambert explained at the time: “We met up earlier this year to share mood boards with the Gucci team. We had pages of printed references all on the table from Alessandro, myself and Harry, then we edited them down.” Today, the @HSFashionArchive duo agree the night “was a massive deal amongst fans”.

There was the now pearl earring-wearing fashion darling of the music world, standing alongside the closest thing to a rockstar the fashion industry has at present. “I love dressing up and he loves dressing up,” Michele told The Face in 2019. “The moment I met him, I immediately understood there was something strong around him. I realised he was much more than a young singer. He was a young man, dressed in a thoughtful way, with uncombed hair and a beautiful voice. I thought he gathered within himself the feminine and the masculine.”

Since the Met, the relationship has continued to go from strength to strength. Styles wore a custom look on the cover of his second record, Fine Line, shot by Tim Walker, and Michele and Styles collaborated on a T-shirt to coincide with it, with a percentage of the sales going to the Global Fund For Women. Gucci’s high-waisted trousers, cropped blazers and dazzling shirting now takes up even more space in Styles’s wardrobe, and bring as much attention to the star as his sophomore record’s commercial and critical success.

Sightings of Styles in Gucci have become a source of comfort for fans in a turbulent 2020. From his Mary-Janes at the Brits to his oversized turquoise blazer and crochet gloves in the “Golden” video, by way of outré sunglasses and floral sunglasses in the clip for “Watermelon Sugar”, Harry’s recent sartorial choices have managed to be pleasingly familiar, while simultaneously keeping his followers on their toes.

A bit like the chicken and the egg conundrum, the question remains: is Harry very Gucci, or is Gucci very Harry? The verdict is out. But without each other, both might be missing a little something.

[outbythehighwind]

Aerith & Tifa: Visual Design

An Analysis of the Final Fantasy VII Heroines [Part 1]

This is the first part of my in-depth analysis on FF7′s heroines, where they are depicted as perfect foils to one another. For those who don’t know, a foil is a character who contrasts with another and simultaneously highlights the qualities of that other character. Foils can range from protagonists & antagonists to, in the case of the FF7 girls, very close friends. In exploring this particular writing technique, I will examine their differences and similarities, friendship, relationships to Cloud and Sephiroth, and their differing but equally important roles as heroines in the overall story. Before starting though, I want to mention one thing: I adore both characters, and Tifa and Aerith are to me the exemplary role models of fictional heroines.

Now let us begin with the first thing we are introduced to: their visual designs. (Note that visual design, like narrative, is a tool that can be purposefully accurate and/or purposefully misleading. This should be kept in mind throughout the entire analysis, for FF7 - to no exaggeration - gets more than the average game's pleasure out of tricking, subverting and astonishing it's audience.) Now, onto our beloved flower girl...

AERITH

Aerith’s visual design, at first glance, is one of a meek and kindly girl. Her long, sleeveless dress, pearl pink in color, elicits an air of grace, of softness and serenity. She appears gentle and pure. These qualities are enhanced by the matching pink ribbon in her hair, which adds an additional purity to the character – one of youthful girliness, evoking a naive separation from the gigantic world around her.

Accompanying the dress and ribbon is a short sleeve crop jacket. And instead of enhancing this grace and naivety, its crimson shade shows quite the opposite. Red is a bold and brazen color. Coupled with the 90’s crop-style of the jacket, it enforces strength and vigilance. The loud (and somewhat rebellious) qualities of her jacket countervail the quiet elements of her dress and ribbon. They are a contrasting balance, as we will soon find out, of Aerith’s personality. She is gentle and pure, but she is no softie. She has complete confidence in herself.

These contrasting qualities are connected in the fact that red and pink are proximate colors. While the dress and jacket themselves are from two different worlds, the colors go together. Moreover, red and pink are the colors that represent love. Mixed together, they create ‘hot pink’ – a color used to communicate playfulness. A beautiful metaphor for both Aerith’s love for all life and her playful, sassy personality.

Moving on to her footwear, we find an even sharper contrast. One would expect that a person who so fashionably marries grace and strength would have stylish footwear to match. Yet here is Aerith with a pair of grimy, commonplace boots. While the dress, jacket and ribbon communicate her nature and personality, these grimy, commonplace boots inform the player of the life she is leading – the life of a girl who has grown up in the slums. These grimy, commonplace boots are the wise and fitting footwear to get by.

Aerith’s boots and hair are the same shade of brown, framing the vibrant personality her outfit presents. In addition to the bright, lively clothing, her hair is a standout feature of her character. And there is another character that shares this feature. Aerith’s trademark bangs share an almost-identical design to Sephiroth’s, an allusion to her in-every-sense enemy foil. Not only do the pair share similarities in their hair, but also in clothing: Sephiroth’s collar parallels Aerith’s jacket; his wrist-cuffs parallel Aerith’s bracelets; his cloak parallels the length of her dress; and his eyes – although mako-induced – are an even deeper green than Cloud’s, in direct match to Aerith’s.

Their bright green eyes further represent their foil-roles in relation to the external plot of FF7 – the plot concerned with the Planet. Aerith’s eyes are green with life, representing her connection with the Planet. Sephiroth, of course, holds a connection too, though his Mako-induced green is not his authentic color, portraying him as the false ‘savior’ he acclaims himself to be, in contrast to the true savior that is Aerith.

To see Aerith and Sephiroth’s designs as directly antithetical to one another, consider their concepts below, with Aerith’s weapon and hair trailing right while Sephiroth’s weapon and hair trails left – like a mirror image. Also, notice Aerith’s bright, vibrant design against Sephiroth’s dark, monochromatic design - a visual display of life and light against darkness. But more on Sephiroth later.

There is no FF7 character with a brighter visual design than Aerith – fittingly, for she is the party’s light. In the remake, her outfit is much the same, if not expanded upon. The jacket reaches her hips rather than waist, and the boots are black, yet about as commonplace as the original brown boots. The notable difference is her dress. The remake fits Aerith in a looser, frilly dress, which actually enhances her grace and creates a more deceptive air of naive youthfulness, much like the longer crop jacket further enhances her boldness.

TIFA

There are two roles incorporated into Tifa’s visual design: Tifa the barkeep; and Tifa the monk (that is, a martial artist of FF-verse). We will begin with the former, the first role introduced when the player meets her in Seventh Heaven.

Tifa’s barkeep design consists of black forearm sleeves matching a black skirt that is held up by suspenders. With her hair tucked behind her left ear, a teardrop earring is visible. Immediately, one gets the sense of warmness and invitation they would associate with a hostess. The skirt and suspenders appeal to the sensuous aspect of the design while the sleeve and earring give off an aura of classiness. Overall, an attraction is formed between Tifa and player – that sense of warmness and invitation drawing the player toward her. This attraction is enhanced by her long, dark hair and warm, wine-hued eyes. Not only is the color of Tifa’s eyes a clever nod to her literal bar-hosting, but it alludes to what her bar-hosting metaphorically symbolizes – a nurturing motherliness accentuated by their warmth. Not only is the player drawn in by the clothing she dons, but Tifa’s natural features are what inaugurates the invitation.

Next is the role of monk. Padded gloves and boots match the dark red shade of Tifa’s eyes, coupling her warmth and hospitality with strength. Strength and its associated qualities – firmness, power, intensity – are usually found in opposition to tenderness. But manifested in these items of clothing that are the same color as the defining embodiment of the latter (Tifa’s eyes), strength and tenderness are bridged together. Tifa is a fighter fueled by compassion. Tifa is a fighter who fights to protect. A matching dark red band ties the ends of her locks together to keep them collected, and on her left elbow and boot are armored guards, enhancing her aura of strength. Finally, she wears an ordinary white tank top for practicality in movement.

Put together with the elements of her bartender design, Tifa’s fighting gear gives her an unconventionally unique appearance: a smash-’em-if-required barkeep; a drink-serving monk. This overall appearance has an appropriate balance between allure and profession. It is attractive without being voluptuous. It is welcoming without hiding the fact that she could easily kick one’s ass if need be. And across her entire visual design, the two roles are in equilibrium. The player is drawn in to her design in the one sense, and then they are let in on what she is physically capable of. In other words, Tifa’s visual design uses its every component to give the player insight on her character. At the same time, however, it purposefully masks a great deal.

Accompanying this ‘smash-’em barkeep, drink-serving monk’ design so centered on conveying its dual-role aspects, are two items that educate the more observant player on Tifa’s circumstances. One of these has already been mentioned and is the classiest element of her design, while the other – which will likely go unnoticed – is the most ordinary. The former, Tifa’s aforementioned earring, is in the shape of a tear, subtly reflecting her past of sorrows and heartache. Yet it is her outfit’s grandest, most expensive item; this past of sorrows and heartache is what enabled her to become strong while remaining compassionate for others. Being a single teardrop on only one ear signifies how Tifa deals with emotions – the emotions she, as her name suggests, locks away in her heart. One drop for herself, the basic remembrance, the fuel, is all she outwardly allows.

Then we have the most ordinary item – a pair of woolly black socks. These socks are so subtle that even the exceptionally observant player might miss them, yet they are the single item that appeals to neither monk nor barkeep. They are distinctly… Tifa – Tifa the ordinary. Every other element is inch-perfect on what it communicates, yet here is a pair of ordinary socks that look as though they were thrown on in a morning’s rush. They give her this every-girl, neighborly quality which the player will be distracted from until the truth comes to light, with Tifa’s centrality and intimacy in the internal plot being revealed – the plot concerned with saving Cloud.

Speaking of literal neighborly vibes and intimacy, it is worth mentioning in brief that certain elements of Tifa’s outfit share similarity with Cloud’s. Both wear two metal guards only on their left side (Tifa on her elbow and boot and Cloud on his shoulder and wrist), a subtle allusion to their being ‘half’-selves on the surface (Cloud with his Zack-delusion and Tifa with her hidden feelings). Cloud too wears an earring in his left ear – a studded one, signifying, like Tifa’s teardrop, a certain brokenness of self. In Advent Children, both wear a black sleeveless vest with a high zip collar, a black cape, black boots (notice that Tifa has now replaced her trademark red) and a wolf symbol (on Cloud’s badge and Tifa’s ring) – a symbol associated specifically with Cloud. I mention these details because of Cloud’s centrality to Tifa’s story and vice versa, which will later be discussed in her role as heroine.

Tifa’s design for the remake is a nice though slight variation that fits in with the more realistic aesthetic. Her skirt has pleated segments, making for more realistic movements during combat, and her abs are toned, further enforcing her strength and perseverance in protecting her loved ones. Her black thigh-highs are an additional element, complimenting her forearm sleeves.

Despite the subtle, throw-‘em-on-in-a-hurry socks being foregone, Tifa’s remake outfit perfectly balances her barkeep and monk roles. The omission of such a neutralizing feature works even better with regard to Tifa’s character, in my opinion, for her true thoughts and feelings will be hidden for much of the game. Thus we are led astray, and the narrative will constantly push us further and further away from her inner emotions hidden beneath these two outward roles.

By visual design alone, and in the narrative that will follow, the player is led to believe Tifa has complete confidence in herself. But appearance of course, like narrative, can be deceiving.

SUMMARY

Straight away, by visual design, we have two heroines who are each a blend of multiple characteristics, yet not fitting a particular trope. They are completely unique in their own right, exemplifying both relatable and admirable traits.

Aerith, who we expect to be the meek and youthfully naive girl at first glance, embodies an undeniable self-confidence that compliments her kindness. Tifa, who looks extremely confident on appearance, has an emotional shyness masked by two bold outward roles. Aerith is the vibrant light who guides outer world adventure; Tifa is the inviting warmth who makes one feel at home. Aerith bridges the attributes of grace and toughness; Tifa balances the qualities of compassion and strength. While both exemplify these heroic traits by their very design, they are - however subtly shown - struggling slum girls.