#[ like some of these things literally exist in Makai

[immolatiism]

repost, do not reblog.

bold what your muse can do. italicize for something they can do to some extent

bake a cake from scratch / ride a horse / drive a submarine / speak a second language / dance / catch a fish / play an instrument / throw a punch / build a deck / ice skate / unclog a drain / program a computer / change a flat tire / fire a gun / sew / juggle / play poker / paint / fly a kite / sculpt / write poetry / change a diaper / sing / shoot a bow and arrow / ride a bike / swim / sail a boat / do a backflip / play chess / give cpr / pitch a tent / flirt / stitch a wound / read palms / use chopsticks / write in cursive / calligraphy / use an electric drill / braid hair / make a campfire / make a mixed drink / do sudoku puzzles / wrap a gift / give a good massage / jump start a car / roll their tongue / do magic tricks / do yoga / tie a tie / skip a rock / shuffle a deck of cards / read morse code / pick a lock / fly a plane / train animals / fix a car / apologize / write a business letter / write in a second language / say the alphabet backwards / read music / cook complex meals / change oil / paint nails / draw / socialize / march / take apart a gun / drive a rig / operate a tank / climb a tree / rock climb / tie a cherry stem with tongue / basic first aid / draw blood / put out a fire

tagged: stolen from @thuganomxcs tagging: @goresugars (Lye), @thawingiceprincess, @divineslcyer, @theunknownmasks (Kurama), and anyone else who feels like it!

[mysaldate]

2, 5, and 18 for the violence ask game

It can be for any fandom you like

Let's go! *cracks knuckles*

2 – a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

Let's do a few fandoms then! However, I will preface this by saying I don't usually have a strong top/bottom preference. Arguments, though, I can make!

TWST: Vil wouldn't bottom due to his deep-rooted trust issues (which are pretty justified tbh). I also feel like he has issues with control so him bottoming isn't very likely for me to see. Jade wouldn't usually bottom because he's a control freak and a massive sadist. I could maybe see him bottoming for Floyd or rarely Azul but other than that, eh, not really. Azul wouldn't top because first and foremost, I don't believe he would have sex with most people in the first place. And by the time he's comfortable enough about that, I believe he'd have enough trust (and ego) to let himself be pampered.

AFK Arena: Respen is absolutely a bottom, a bratty bottom but a bottom still. I don't have any deep or profound reason, I just don't see him topping. He's kinda too irresponsible and a bit lazy to top lol. Gavus is a bottom too. Anyone who doesn't see what a massive bottom he is never bothered to actually read about his character and just goes by first impressions. The gap moe is very strong with Gavus. He's a malewife, he's rash, he's emotional, he's irresponsible, he's way too hot-headed, and doesn't think about things enough. He's like the definition of a bottom.

Makai ouji: I don't ship Michael much, definitely not in a sexual way. That said, I'm going to say he wouldn't bottom because of his massive trust and control issues and his angry cat energy probably makes him a very selfish lover too. Not to mention my biggest ship for him is with Sitri, which leads me to... Sitri is not a bottom, he's the bottom. Boy is so submissive and timid and just... aaaaa

5 – worst discord server and why

Honestly, I don't know. There used to be one TWST server, not sure if that one is still up, but it had a very annoying rk/vl fan who took it upon themselves to "convert" me to a ship that was a literal trigger at the time, and would hijack every conversation I had with anyone in there to talk about that ship instead, and when I asked them not to, they ran to the mods and accused me of shit and because they were friends with the mods, I got kicked. There's also the server I first started playing DnD in where the DM, his wife, and their mutual friend would repeatedly try to SA my character and gaslight me into thinking I was the problem for not wanting that to happen to my poor poor girl.

18 – it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on…

TWST: Sebek. Everything about Sebby is amazing and people are sleeping on him because he's not conventionally attractive and has gap moe which apparently people are afraid of these days. Some also see him as a "rival" when it comes to Malleus, ugh. AFK Arena: Lorsan. No, Journey doesn't count, Journey sucks and did him so dirty. He's a precious little baby people-pleaser bunny and not a slacking idiot hated by everyone in his life. Fuck Journey. Makai ouji: Like... this series existing. People sleep on this amazing manga, it's so good, it's so perfect, it's literally so awesome. I need more fans please I beg of you go read the manga or even just watch the anime please.

[aikoiya]

DP AU - Monsters & Ghostly Marriages

Dude, I just had an idea for a story.

Like, does anyone know about Ghost Marriages. It's commonly a Chinese tradition, but not entirely.

Anyway, imagine if Danny Phantom's world had always had supernatural creatures freely roaming the earth. I'm not just talking ghosts, vampires, werewolves, & all that, but also cultural supernatural beings such as yōkai in Japan?

Each continent has at least one permanent portal. For instance, Asia's Kamui, Japan has a lake at the foot of Ezofuji where the Ark of Yamato once was. (Okami reference.) The lake acts as a portal to the Makai, or the yōkai realm (it also hosts the Chinese yaoguai & Hindu yaksha; all 3 are basically different words for the same overall species). Now, despite what Inuyasha & Yu Yu Hakusho would have you believe, yōkai aren't demons as demons are a Judeo-Christian concept.

That's a mistranslation. Rather, they are more in-line with something called daemon which are nature spirits. Though, not in the literal sense. I know, similar words, different meanings. The closest thing the Japanese have to actual demons would be akuma, which means devil.

Europe & America also have several portals to the fae realm, one being Stonehenge as well as any ring of mushrooms, as well as an entrance to the different worlds of Yggdrasil in Norway. There's also the mist which hides the Greek monsters from view by mortals. Not to mention the doorway to Lalotai in Hawaii.

All except North America, until the Fentons began their research into the Ghost Zone on scientific terms.

Anyway, in this au, Tutelary spirits are a well-known concept, both as Earthbound spirits & Hereafter ghosts (a.k.a. GZ ghosts).

These Tutelaries are one way by which towns can be shielded from certain threats.

In a world like this, smaller towns have their own version of Ghost Marriages where in order to forge a stronger bond between community & Tutelary, a young member of the town will be selected to marry their guardian. According to tradition, that young individual is supposed to take a vow of celibacy, because, ya know, humans & ghosts aren't supposed to mix like that & you're only supposed to do those things with your spouse, but when your spouse is a ghost... So, this role is similar in prestige to becoming the miko of Shinto religion or a monk/nun of Catholic tradition in that you are expected to serve your patron as you would a spouse. If the human is sexually unfaithful, then the Tutelary looses the power given to him or her by the bond.

Rape of said spouse does not count as being unfaithful as ghosts & spirits work on a spiritual, mental, & emotional level & rape takes the choice from the victim. It only counts if the spouse chooses to lay with someone else.

The actual ceremony to marry them is sort of a ritual that acts as both a marriage & a funeral to honor the Tutelary, to bind the 2 together & give the town spirit the power to fight off various supernatural creatures & other threats both foreign & domestic based on the bond between husband & wife.

In some ways, you could say that the Tutelary becomes their new spouse's familiar.

In Amity's case, Danny is their town Tutelary & no one but Team Phantom, Dani, Vlad, (potentially Dan in the case of AGIT) the ghosts, & the Fentons (provided the reveal has taken place) know about Danny being Halfa & a Psychopomp for the Fenton's Ghost Portal. Psychopomps being spirits that ferry souls from the world of the living to the world of the dead & a subcategory of Gatekeeper Ghost which are ghosts that died in the creation of a portal from one plane of existence to another. They guard the portal between worlds. Psychopomps are specifically Gatekeeper Ghosts that guard portals to the Infinite Realms.

So, someone, probably Paulina, brings up the idea of performing a Ghost Marriage for Phantom to make him more powerful. That it should be the prettiest & bestest girl in town.

However, instead of Paulina instantly being chosen to be Phantom's bride like she had thought would happen, her father & the council elect to do something else. Something similar to when Aragon was scouting out wives happens. A pageant where every unwed female from 13 up is forced to attend with Phantom (not Fenton) as the judge, but no one but Paulina & the higher ups in town know the actual stakes. So, when Phantom selects either Sam or Valerie as the winner this time, they are all surprised when the mayor shouts, "Phantom has chosen! Time to begin planning!" (In the case of it being after AGIT, it'd likely be Sam.)

Phantom & whichever girl he chose is swept away & ceremony plans are made.

For that matter, Valerie still hates Phantom because the accident that cost her dad his job happens. But it gets even worse when she learns from one of her mom's old notebooks that she's from a hunter clan.

Her clan actually used to have an alliance with the Fentons & Amity was their home base.

Once uncivil & rogue supernaturals start showing up to make trouble, she begins to study her mom's work to try & help protect the town.

Anyway, I'm thinking that the monsters & supernaturals are like a mix of the ones in a Monster High, Supernatural, & Wizarding World xover, but one that focuses on Amity's Monster Underground of Calamity Park.

In this version, something happened to reveal the supernatural world to mortals. Not to mention, Chuck from Supernatural is actually Yaldabaoth, a very powerful pagan deity of gnosticism, & every angel & demon that appeared in the show was an attempt by him to gain worshipers piggybacking off the growing momentum of Christianity. Like, these people didn't know this. He was playing them as much as he played everyone else. Not to mention the fact that he created the system of human souls being tortured until they became demons.

The truth of the matter is that his fabricated 'heaven' & 'hell' were keeping these souls from making their way to natural portals to begin their Journey of the Soul(TM) to the center of the GZ where the Doorway to The End lay.

If you wanna know more about that, see this:

Also, that scene where Chuck died & the sun went out was a fabrication to trick those around him into believing his hoax. For one, if the sun did go out, it'd take a long time for us to notice because light would still be traveling to the Earth. Plus, if he did die & he was the actual God, everyone & everything would've ceased to exist with him. However, that would've been counterproductive as he needed the Winchesters to believe he was something he wasn't. This is all aside from the fact that God can't die, nor can he lose.

Now, anyway, there are civilized monsters which makes up the majority of the Monster High cast. However, there are also uncivilized monsters which are like what monkeys are to humans in the evolutionary sense, as well as rogue supernaturals which are basically criminals of the supernatural persuasion & no one is okay with either of those. These make up most of the Supernatural rogue's gallery.

Uncivil & rogue supernaturals are generally what causes trouble with humans. However, because most civil supernaturals hide, this results in fear & xenophobia. The illustrious, now infamous, Nightingales are known to be a clan to believe as such.

The Fentons were once Fenton-Nightingales, when in the 1600s, a witch hunter broke off from them & reinstated the Fenton line, asserting that maybe not all supernaturals were purely evil. Except for ghosts, of course! Meanwhile, the other half of the Fenton-Nightingales retook the Nightingale name & remained general supernatural hunters.

Here's a couple links to my concepts of the character's legacies:

Anyway, I kinda wanna see this be a situation where the humans & civilized supernaturals are still trying to get used to each other in Amity & Calamity. Like, Danny ended up being the first publically known supernatural being all over the world after some accident or other, whether it be the Disasteroid or something else that happened after AGIT. Before all that, monsters were a myth, but now, more & more of the supernatural underground is slowly coming out to show themselves. Suddenly the Mansons are coming out as legacy vampires like in my version of the Supernatural Trio AU & it's sorta insane.

Like in my version of Supernatural Trio, I'd make Tucker a cyborg, but then it turns out that he has a dormant werewolf gene & when he transforms, he ends up looking more jackel-like & someday takes on an Egyptian cyberpunk look.

At the same time, Vlad turns out to be half-lugat with some strigoi tendencies. As in, when he died, he was then revived as half-lugat, half-ghost, but he's descended from a strigoi. So, he has a mix of their powers, but all this monsters & magic stuff is just as much news to him as anyone else, so he doesn't know anything about his vampiric abilities or nature having figured that his need to feed on both blood & core-plasm was an aspect of being half-ghost.

Anyway, the marriage/funeral ritual is complete with whichever girl was chosen & now Danny is married & it's hella awkward.

Like, if the Disasteroid/AGIT happened, either it's Sam & they're still dating which makes the situation easier but too fast & awkward for them. Or it turned out that, in a heel-face turn to how the show portrayed it, Sam still had a lot of growing to do before she could be a good girlfriend. So, they decided to break it off.

Also, something interesting, if the Disasteroid did happen, but not AGIT, maybe only certain members of Amity that went to build the towers know that Fenton is Phantom (not including Valerie to add drama), while the rest of the world only knows that Phantom saved the world? That could be something.

Like, only a handful of adults know, like Lancer & the Fentons & so on.

Also, in the case of the Disasteroid, but not AGIT, Vlad was smart enough to use a duplicate to make it look like he overshadowed 'Vlad Masters,' but during the ride with Jack to the Disasteroid, he revealed himself to the other man, surprising him & laying into the orange-clad oaf.

So, only Jack knows about Vlad being Plasmius until he tells his wife. This would create tension between the 3 later where Vlad throws Maddie under the bus by coyly speaking about Colorado. Asking if she'd even told the man about his schemes there, which ends up causing a bit of a rift between the Fenton parents. Not because Jack thinks she cheated, because he doesn't. He knows her, sometimes better than he knows himself, & he knows she wouldn't do that.

No, what makes him angry was that she never told him that Vlad came onto her. If she had, he would've broken his supposed 'friendship' with Vlad long ago.

Not to mention, the Fentons are against their still teenaged son getting married no matter who it's to, because they feel like it's too soon.

It's a lot of chaos & I'll probably polish this up later, but yeah.

All I know is that, it's eventually discovered that because Danny is a Halfa, this means that his wife is free to have sexual relations with him as a result (after they've turned at least 18) & that the spell binding them even grants boons for it.

Not only that, but because of both Sam & Valerie slowly becoming Ecto-Liminal, they are both compatible with Danny. Sam more so due to Vlad giving her ecto-herpies & her being given powers by Undergrowth & this eventually leading to her dying & being revived as a Halfa herself.

This means that in either case, they can eventually have kids. Though that's years down the line after they'd grown up.

The only reason the Mansons allowed this to happen was because they knew that it'd keep their daughter celibate, at least until they'd moved out of Amity.

For more, go to my full Ghost Zone Masterlist.

[mothfishing]

would love some mantis thoughts if u feel like sharing... love opinions from someone with taste

I HAVE SEVERAL this has gotten so long...

i originally typed a long explanation but first draft of this post was thousands of words long. trying 2 compress. so i'll just link this about why i think they are. ants.

but yeah okay ant interest aside...i really am not and have never been a fan of the concept that they keep other bugs out of their village purely because of isolationism and a poorly defined honor code that hinges entirely on combat prowess...so instead i think of that policy as, rather than being a fixed trait, a combination of the infection and also their enmity with hallownest. they DO NOT like hallownest despite the truce, and the fact that there's so many entrances from the city of tears/waterways into right above and right below mantis territory...can you blame them...the impression it gives me is certainly a threatening one.

so yeah they don't like letting random people into the village. considering how many sealed doors there are on the way down to the mantis lords, it's my own thought that maybe a lot of that was set up specifically to seal the place off in case. Well. anything happened. then infection zombie apocalypse ended up happening and, well, they don't know much of anything about what's causing it! so their best guess is that it's contact-related. and in my interpretation of the infection, that's partly true...naturally, it comes in through the mind. but contact lowers the barrier of entry, as it were, so it's still a good idea to stay away from large infection pustules. it also results in a runaway effect once infection does enter a population...

thus mantises end up insulating themselves from a good chunk of Dream Plague. though naturally, not all of it, blah blah traitor lord situation

relatedly, to me i feel like the mantises were certainly made Quite uncomfortable when they realized that hallownest was seeking an alliance of some sort with deepnest. they don't know the details of the dreamer plan, but considering the silk spools in the hidden station, the existence of the distant village station, and the fact we know that at some point people in the city of tears began writing on spider silk paper rather than the older stone tablets, it's clear that some sort of truce between hallownest and the weavers lasted beyond herrah becoming a dreamer

the reason the mantises would be fairly unhappy about this is...well they REALLY don't want to end up in a situation where they're pinned on both sides. one of many reasons the eldest mantis lord has such a headache.

some more miscellaneous mantis hcs:

i think the mantis claws are something for people with claws that are for whatever reason unsuitable to climb with, and also for children whose wings are less and less functional but whose adult claws haven't quite grown in yet. (or children without wings/otherwise without the ability to fly)

to me the "horns" the mantis lords + some of the traitor mantises have are like, not horns so much as a headdress? and it's usually worn by older adults. so makai doesn't wear one because she's in her 20s and it's more a middle aged person thing. it's tied in the back and you can wear jewelry on them, but ultimately it's just cloth

i tend to draw them with facial tattooing! inspired by shin khaal although it's not literal shin khaal. it's mostly decorative and it's something adults get (although teenagers might experiment with drawing them on using makeup)

my names for the mantises are makai (traitors' daughter), tsanga (eldest lord), mina (2nd eldest), lalai (3rd eldest), anara (youngest/traitor lord). im going to use these names 4 them from now on

[ID: Two drawings of Tsanga. In the first, she is wearing a cloth headdress over her antennae, with one of her claws tapping her chin in thought. She has three teardrop shapes tattood onto her forehead. In the second drawing, she isn't wearing her headdress, and her antennae can be seen. She is hornless. End ID]

[ID: Two drawings of Makai. The first drawing is a bust drawing of her with her head tilted and eyes wide. She had 3 dots around her eyes. In the second drawing, she is standing and looking off to the side with both of her claws held up by her waist. She is wearing a long scarf with the ends hanging low. End ID]

i originally had a long thing about makai and ze'mer here but it was like 2000 words long and i am trying so hard to end this post. tl;dr i think ze'mer defected from hallownest and lived in the mantis village with makai for several years. she didn't have a bad relationship with her in-laws until makai's death and anara's essentially-death, and that particular thing was. a bunch of grief and lashing out and part of her eventually moving on from that grief involves reconciling with them because ultimately they both love and miss the same people and they were, and still could be, family

going to stop now because i cannot be concise unfortunately. anyway i think abt the mantises so much. i think they deserve better <3 ok goodbye

[dizzyhslightlyvoided]

Some collected thoughts after rambling about this in a couple of different Discord servers:

Imagine if Embodiment of Scarlet Devil had been the final PC-98 game, and Mystic Square had been the first Windows game. Alternatively never depict EoSD and replace it with MS. Either way, you just ... straight up replace the characters and relevance of EoSD with that of Mystic Square, and now Yumeko can stop time.

@rlyehtaxidermist suggested that in order to complete the gag, you'd also need to map everybody else's powersets onto MS characters, i.e. being the arbiter of fate in Makai isn't outside of what Shinki is already known to be. So, Sara is the counterpart of Meiling, Yuki and Mai are Patchouli so Yuki's power over fire means Mai has power over every element except fire, etc (@redstarpika: "alice can now destroy anything").

Althoguh speaking of which, Alice and Cirno I guess can remain unchanged from the existing Windows canon. In the swap option, Alice is "the returning character from Mystic Square" and Cirno is "the returning character from Embodiment of Scarlet Devil", so nothing changes there; if we straight-up remove EoSD, I guess Cirno can originate as the stage 1 midboss from Perfect Cherry Blossom who then gets her personality expanded in PoFV like Tewi did.

However, more notably, replacing the Scarlet Devil Mansion crew with the Makai crew makes a lot of the canon situations Remilia has appeared in absolutely hilarious, because instead of "local vampire and her gimmicky maid", it is now "a universe-creating goddess and her Most Powerful Creation."

The Rinnosuke stories where Remilia shows up? The Goddess Of Makai drops by some half-youkai's curio shop.

The chupacabra thing in Forbidden Scrollery? One of Shinki's monstrous pets somehow got into Gensokyo.

Silent Sinner in Blue/Cage in Lunatic Runagate? ... The "get tot he moon" plot probably requires a complete rewrite.

Eirin stole the moon and replaced it with a fake? Suddenly, blam, Literally Shiki is kicking her door down.

Every game where Sakuya is playable in general? The Goddess Of Makai sent Her Most Powerful Creation to mess around with an Incident in, from their perspective, an entirely different universe.

Like it's not hard to come up with an explanation for each one, i.e. Shinki and/or Yumeko were visiting Alice and got caught up in the local shenanigans. @occasionaltouhou suggested that the Imperishable Night one could be, Shinki saw the stolen moon while on vacation, said "oh I gotta find out who did that", and then stopped the night herself -- which, I immediately realized, was 1. completely in-character for her, and 2. it would probably make this the only IN team where one of the partners did stopped the night singlehandedly.

[cynthiaandsamus]

Custom Toonami Block Week 68 Rundown

Code Geass: Lelouch gets Rolo to Za Warudo Suzaku so he can talk to Nunally for a bit before pretending he doesn’t know her. Then they decide to go hijack Nunally’s airship and “rescue” her before she can become the new viceroy. Kallen gets a flying upgrade to the Guren that matches Suzaku’s “Lancelot but with bigger gun” model and now she can fly too which is enough to take out all of Britannia’s airforce apparently. Still Nunally sees Zero!Lelouch and is like “you’re running around murdering people, that’s not cool” and Lelouch is like “I’m murdering people for you damnit” and turns out Nunally asked to go become viceroy so she can continue Euphy’s “Let’s just all get along” plan which was basically pacification by the higher ups anyway so it’s not like she’s NOT being used but she at least has the illusion of agency and Nunally rejecting Zero kind of breaks Lelouch. Also Suzaku flies in and adbucts Nunally and instead of moving the Lancelot’s arm like one foot and fucking punting Zero into a wall to end this whole thing once and for all, he uses the safety triangle go save Nunally.

Inuyasha: It’s filler time again! This time we do have an admittedly adorable version of Inuyasha being duped into household chores for Totosai while taking care of a young lynx demon that reminds him of Shippo, being nicer to Bunza than he ever was to Shippo for some reason. Still Inuyasha breaks the Mantis Demon (it’s always Mantis Demons wtf) barrier and saves the day before Totosai has to come clean and we get way to much information about his hygiene habits but Inuyasha finally gets the real lead on how to break barriers because the Tessaiga is a swiss army knife of stolen techniques.

Yu Yu Hakusho: We’re up to the third Saint Beast and Hiei is not about to stand for some Ice asshole killing someone for being weak which taps into his tragic backstory gland and leaves everyone else puzzled as to why the most stoic person of their group is so triggered by betrayal he definitely would have done himself. Seiryu and Hiei do the ice tango for a bit before Hiei does ninja shit and no-sells the ice to slash him up like it’s nothing. Meanwhile Suzaku gets his info and is like “Oh boy, Yusuke has a childhood friend to exploit” like all the other villains find out sooner or later. Despite the stupid name he gives the song and the corny one-liners from the zombie teachers chasing Keiko, hearing the haunting melody of the Makai Whistle/Flute (seriously that’s not a whistle it’s a fucking flute) while seeing Keiko go about her day before being hunted down by zombies is pretty striking.

Fate Zero: So Kirei’s like “Oh no, Gilgamesh killed my only servant, better hide out in the church till this is all over” only to have like 39 other servants to fuck around with that are gonna try and get some stealth kills based on the fact no one knows they exist. Also Iskander is walking around Waver’s place in booty shorts trying to reenact Citizen Kang on President Clin-ton and fetishizing bombers and jets. Kiritsugu’s got his guns and shit, ready to do his Homura thing but is worried about having feels now and being a dad may make him only able to kill 999 people without breaking a sweat instead of the full 1000. And lastly we catch up with Saber and Iris who definitely knows she’s being thrown into this to die as Saber’s fake master so Saber takes her out for a night on the town to enjoy herself and possibly question her sexuality. Doesn’t last too long though as their lesbian outing is interrupted by Lancer, seems like the Lancers are just the starter bosses in Fate for some reason since UBW started with a Lancer fight too.

Konosuba: So the last member of Kazuma’s party is revealed, Darkness the Masochist Saber has arrived. I mean I really don’t know what to say about these bits because everyone already knows the premise of Konosuba and going too much into it is probably just explaining the joke. Kazuma gets his steal ability and can only steal panties because his luck is so good and haha irony. Cabbage hunting also happens and Darkness has the Dead or Alive 2 jiggle physics on her tits turned up to Age 102 (god I’m dating myself with that reference). But it’s funny, Kazuma doesn’t seem happy about it but everyone’s just kinda having a good time fucking around and being insane. Like I get the joke is none of this is practically useful but I kinda wish Kazuma would stop being such a wet blanket and just enjoy being friends with everybody while he can, the girls seem to get along well enough together and they even give him praise when he does cool stuff, like really this just seems like a pretty positive (if insane) friend group and I wish he was more down for it.

Sailor Moon Crystal: So our third Sailor Guardian is a priestess fresh off of preparing for the Cotton Drifting festival (wait, wrong anime, thank goodness, Usagi just plain would not survive Higurashi). But I love how Ami convinces Usagi to go with her just by saying there’s a pretty girl there, like it’s so ridiculously gay and Usagi’s just all for it. Rei’s probably the most complicated character so far and gives the most thought to why she’s doing this out of the first three, like Rei literally asks Usagi what she’s fighting for and she badly mangles a Spider-man quote. That being said we’re starting to see that group dynamic come together which is fun and other than weird teleportation shenanigans and teleporting right into the boss’s lair and then just leaving making me scratch my head, this was a fun episode.

Durarara!!: This episode kind of reminds me of a pre-school cartoon show, but in a good way. Like they just pick a theme, in this case “lost things” and have all the characters have a small plot around that and kinda navelgaze on it for a while. Obviously the main plot is Celty’s continuing existential crisis over losing her head and Shinra’s insistence that she doesn’t need it despite him being tied to the pharmaceuticals company that almost certainly has it and he probably knows where it is at this point. It’s an interesting philosophical point that the show keeps bringing up, that Celty has made a life in Ikebukuro and the real disembodied head was the friends she made along the way. In other anime that would probably be the answer but it’s more complicated than that because Celty does feel incomplete without it, hundreds of years of her life and something deeply personal to her is just missing. Shinra’s terrified that the person she’ll become once she’s “complete” won’t be the same woman he loves and will leave him behind and Celty wants to balance enjoying the time she has spent in this town with being complete in a metaphysical sense. She should be able to take solace in the life she’s made but you also understand her yearning and that makes some really good moral quandaries right there.

[iwillgetridofyourangerforyou]

world building in the OPM web-comic

A while back an anon asked me about the world in the OPM webcomic and ever since then I’ve been frustrated I didn’t have a better response. So I’ve distilled this synopsis for you.

It’s Literal

It seems to me that ONE plays with perception by creating worlds were things can be safely taken extremely literally, in world. For example, there is a character in Makai no Ossan who is known as a ‘Man Eater’. This world is set in the ‘underworld’ where everyone is a monster of some kind, and so this character literally eats people. One of the things that makes Genos an excellent foil in the beginning of the webcomic is the fact that he is often incredibly direct and literal. From my observations with the way the fandom discusses the anime it seems that some people have a hard time actually accepting that the things that are shown are literal and direct. (Personally, it’s one of my favorite things about ONE’s style) If a character says they saw a slug the size of a house flying down the road at the speed of sound, you better bet you ass that’s not an exaggeration. And of course, yes, Saitama can LITERALLY defeat any monster with One punch.

Not a Fixed World Design

A lot of people sit down and do a lot of effort to define the limits and logic of their worlds. If it’s fantasy, for example, they’ll sit down and think about the magical creatures that inhabit the world and how they work. If there is a magic system, they’ll define the magic system. Anything outside of their construct of definitions is rejected from the story until/unless it can be integrated into the fixed narrative construct.

The next layer of ONE’s world building style (from my perspective) is that anything is possible. He doesn’t seem to have a traditional fixed narrative construct (even though he does use a variety of motifs). He absolutely has his favorites when it comes to themes and settings but he doesn’t seem to like to harshly limit himself. If a character said they grew up in a ninja village, they grew up in a ninja village. It doesn’t matter if it ‘makes sense’ that a ninja village ‘would or wouldn’t exist’ in the OPM universe. If a character appears and says there is a magical prophesy about a dragon that it said to awake at a certain time, that’s gonna happen. It doesn’t matter that the world isn’t ‘magical’ or ‘fantasy’ as soon as it is, it is now. And it’s not exactly as if the dragon is just a ‘normal monster’ either, it’s like, most likely, actually a dragon. Do psychics exist? Sure! What about Espers? Absolutely. What about Magic? Why not. Wait a minute are Magic users and Espers different? Who knows! What about high tech organization? Absolutely. High fantasy? Sure we’ll sprinkle that in here and there. 

Concept First 

Just because things are what they seem to be, doesn’t necessarily mean the meaning is what you assume.

The third layer I would describe at this time for ONE’s narrative construct is that almost everything has metaphorical or figurative meaning behind the obvious presentation. He seems to be pretty direct with his metaphors as well but it’s not always easy to digest what he’s getting at specifically. Just because someone is a literal monster in his stories doesn’t mean they aren’t also a monster in the figurative sense as well. I think this is a big reason he doesn’t limit himself with his world building. At his core he’s not building believable worlds to wrangle with novel ideals. He’s wrangling difficult but familiar concepts in a novel setting and the realism of the concepts -I think- is what makes his worlds believable. Even if the world construction itself doesn’t *seem* very logical. 

That’s just how I see it at the moment. 

[shirokodomo]

real name: hakudoshi /  白童子 /  はくどうし 

single or taken: verse dependent | taken in post-rebirth and white assassin (yakuza) verses

abilities or powers: as a demon born from naraku’s flesh, hakudoshi has several abilities and some of them are quite similar to those of his creator’s. he is capable of creating a powerful barrier which cannot be destroyed by inuyasha’s red tessaiga, using said barrier he is also capable of absorbing his opponent’s yoki based attacks and then redirect it back to them. like naraku, hakudoshi is capable of creating his own shoki (miasma) and of quickly regenerating his body right after it was destroyed, this is due to hakudoshi’s heart not being inside of his body therefore he could not die no matter how many times it was destroyed.

another of hakudoshi’s abilities is the telepathy, meaning that he is capable of reading other people’s minds like an open book; this can be prevented if someone with high spiritual power places a mental barrier around their mind. aside from this, he is also capable of telekinesis, with which he is able to move objects with his mind but he is not capable of doing that with really heavy things (demon heads, boulders, etc); hakudoshi can teleport himself and others to several places through the use of portals.

hakudoshi possesses a naginata as a weapon but it does not have any special abilities; despite it being taller than himself, hakudoshi mastered the use of this weapon with ease and often uses it to behead his targets.

after being reborn into a new body, hakudoshi retained most of these abilities aside from the shoki and the instant regeneration, as a demon he is still able to heal himself but it takes hours or even days depending on the size of the wound like other demons. the color of his barrier also changes, instead of being purple in color it is now blue and is not as powerful as the ones he used to be able to create, meaning that this barrier can be destroyed by inuyasha’s red tessaiga.

eye colour: violet

hair colour: rose white

family members: verse dependent

canon verse | naraku (creator/progenitor); kanna (“eldest sister”); kagura (“older sister”); goshinki (“eldest brother”); juromaru (“older brother”); kageromaru (“older brother”); muso (“older brother”); the infant (counterpart/brother); byakuya (“younger brother”). ps.: this hakudoshi does not view the incarnations as his true siblings, aside from the infant, nor views naraku as his father.

modern verse | naraku (father); kikyo (mother)

son of the phoenix verse | hua mulan (adoptive mother); hua zhou (adoptive grandfather); hua li (adoptive grandmother); hua xiu (adoptive aunt)

post-rebirth verse | kohaku (lover); rin (lover); uri (“son”); nadeshiko (“daughter”); shinju (“son”); sumire (biological daughter); mizuki (adopted son)

white assassin verse | kaori makai (mother); shintaro makai (father); akago makai (younger brother); umeko fukuhara (maternal aunt)

pets: not really a pet but entei, a horse demon, is his companion for quite sometime

 something they don’t like: being compared to kagura (canon verse)

hobbies/activities: none

ever hurt anyone before: yes, both physically and mentally. physically he has hurt and even killed many, it was part of his job and never felt regret about it; mentally he has hurt people like kagome and kagura with his mind games and playing with the darkness in their hearts.  

animal that represents them: fox, because of his cunning and trickster nature. when he is brought back to life, fox demon flesh is used to construct his main body.

worst habits: mocking those he believes are inferior to him but in reality are not. hakudoshi has got a really big ego and believes himself to be invincible because he cannot die (through physical attacks), this ended up being his literal death making him careless about any other possibilities that could actually kill him. When he is brought back to life and after recovering his memories, he becomes more conscious of this habit and tries to change it, he doesn’t become humble but he no longer believes himself to be far superior to others.

role models: verse dependent

canon verse | hakudoshi has no role models, he believes himself to be his own master and therefore he is his “own” role model.

son of the phoenix verse | his role model is without a single doubt his adoptive mother, he respects, loves and wishes to be just like her.

demon mage verse | though he won’t admit it out loud, his role model is erza scarlet, the way she led the rebellion inside the tower of heaven and the way she now leads fairy tail are forever imprinted in his mind.

white assassin verse | koga is his role model in this verse, he taught him everything he knows. koga treats hakudoshi like his protegee and even as his son to some degree, hakudoshi sees koga as his mentor and despite everything they through, he doesn’t mind looking after him and kagura; they are the closest he has to a real family.

sexual orientation: demiromantic 

thoughts on marriage/kids: verse dependent.

canon verse | said things are trivial to him, he doesn’t care or spares his thoughts on it.

son of the phoenix verse | it’s not something he thinks very often but as he grows, he finds himself thinking if there is anyone out there that might come to love him the same way his adoptive grandparents and adoptive parents love each other.

post-rebirth verse | despite having been given a second chance in life, one that he promptly grabbed with all his strength to the point of changing most of the way he used to be, hakudoshi never thought he would actually find what humans like to call ‘love’, let alone thinking of children of his own (the only organ he has inside his body is a heart, therefore he cannot reproduce the ‘normal way’). that changed when his interactions with both kohaku and rin slowly intensified; initially he didn’t think a relationship between a demon and humans could actually work until they proved him wrong. through demon ways (mating) he is married to both but when referring them to others he will only refer the term ‘husband’, ‘wife’ or even ‘lover’ to those who know about their relationship; otherwise it is just ‘kohaku’ or ‘rin’, this is mostly to protect them. regarding children, he is extremely awkward with them especially when they are babies (he internally panics if a crying baby is placed in his arms, he is not capable of reading a baby’s thoughts). He cares about kohaku’s and rin’s children but doesn’t have them calling him ‘father’ or any other fatherly terms, though he also doesn’t correct them if they do so. when sumire was born (she was conceived via linking his demonic energy with rin’s human energy), he actually cried for the first time in his entire life though at first he wasn’t even aware of that.

modern days verse | hakudoshi has quite negative thoughts of both marriage and children born inside said marriage. because of what he saw happen with his parents, it made him view marriage as something unhappy and therefore any children born from it is automatically unhappy as well. he doesn’t think happiness can be achieved through marriage or any relationship in general.

white assassin verse | as a small child, hakudoshi witnessed the love and respect his parents held for one another and the way they acted with him and his little brother but even so it never really made him think of wanting something similar. after the death of his parents and the abuses he went through at the hands of his maternal aunt, hakudoshi very much stopped thinking of love in general, it stopped existing for him. That changed when his relationship with rin began growing into something different, at first he couldn’t explain why but he knew he viewed her differently from the other women he had been with (though he had only been with them in a physical way); he found comfort in her the same way she did in him. he wants to give her everything she desires. marrying her is a wish for the future that he is unsure they will have. children is a maybe but he doesn’t want them in this kind of life.  

style preferences:  in several verses, hakudoshi’s favorite color is without a doubt white and he very much prefers rich fabrics, he won’t wear just anything; he likes to wear practical clothing that doesn’t hold him back in his missions. funny enough, in his modern verses, hakudoshi wears dark clothing.

approach to friendships: he is never the one to approach nor is he easy to approach in that regard, he doesn’t really give the friendly vibe not even after being reborn. he slowly comes to care about those who are closer to him though chances are he won’t say it out loud; in his modern verse he doesn’t easily trust others so friendships with hakudoshi are even harder to happen.

thoughts on pie: he never tried pie before.  

favourite drink: mostly tea.

favourite place to spend time at:  mountains, forest or the training camps.

swim in the lake or in the ocean: lake.

their type: he doesn’t really put much thought in what his type is especially when his mind isn’t focused in that kind of stuff; he is more for the strong bond or connection first before those kind of feelings even start to develop, he doesn’t actively seeks for that bond.

camping or indoors: no preference.

tagged by: @senpujin (ty emma! <3)

tagging: @withagentleheart | @dokusedai | @windbxtch | @daikusedai​ | @adversitybloomed​ | @halfpintsavage​ | @greathunderhowl​ & you reading this!

[intobarbarians]

part eighteen to this

Hatori holds up the pink koala. “This is a real earth animal?”

They’ve been playing this game for at least an hour. Kuwabara wheezes from laughing so hard. “Yes, it’s real. Although it’s not pink.” Unfortunately.

Hatori grabs the stuffed crocodile. “And this one?”

“Real!” Kuwabara confirms. “Depending on the species, they can grow more than twenty feet long.” The stuffed crocodile is only about eight inches snout to tail.

“What about this?”

Kuwabara covers the rainbow wings and spiraling, golden horn. “So, horses exist, but unicorns don’t--probably.” He may be a scientist, but he’s seen some weird shit that hasn’t exactly been peer reviewed. “You should visit the human realm. These stuffed animals don’t do the real thing justice.”

Hatori traces the soft ridges of the crocodile’s back. “It would not be difficult for you to transport us between this dimension and your own?”

“Nah,” Kuwabara says. “Now that I’ve actually been here, I think it’ll be pretty easy.” Most of the objects that are from Makai are readily attributed to Hatori’s travels there. The frequent influx of stuff from earth suggests that wherever this dimension lies, it’s closer to the human realm than the demon one.

“You possess a rather peculiar talent. I don’t believe it’s very common among either of our peoples.” Hatori smiles. “Not that I’m complaining. Your ability means we do not have to part ways like I thought we would.”

It’s one of the reasons he got interested in biology, to be honest. “There’s not a lot of good science about spirit energy or psychic powers. Nobody has ever been able to give me a firm answer about what I can do or why I can do it.” If Kuwabara ever wants to learn, he’s going to have to figure it out himself. “My body just decided it would be cool if I could hop between one plane of existence to the next.” And someday, without any input from Kuwabara at all, it could decide to stop. There are legitimate channels to travel to and from Makai, but if he loses his powers Kuwabara won’t be able to see Hatori again.

“That kind of research could benefit both of our realms.” Hatori lifts a round, yellow smiley face. “Please tell me this isn’t real.”

“It’s not a real animal, no, but some philosophy majors might argue that it is, in fact, very real.” Kuwabara looks around the mountain of stuffed animals. He doesn’t see Mr. Stuffingsworth anywhere. Maybe his teddy bear got lost the old fashioned way when his family moved houses in third grade and he isn’t here at all. “Thanks for helping me look for an old toy I haven’t seen since I was a kid.”

“My pleasure.” Hatori inspects a very plush owl. “The experience has been most instructive.”

Kuwabara plucks out a spider hiding underneath a zebra and a palm tree. “Why is your lady so mad at demons?”

Hatori gently lays the owl down. “You know who she is, correct?”

As much as he can know from Mukuro’s story.

“When we first chose to go underground, we meant it literally. We stumbled upon this dimension by pure chance. It was the closest thing to safety we had, and so we stayed.” He picks up a giant sheep and holds it close. “It was impossible to be happy, at first. My Lady fretted about Makai and the havoc B’valan might be wrecking on her people. That changed over time. She became...angry. B’valan betrayed his oath to her, but he alone wasn’t responsible for the wars from which he sought to profit.”

“He was a symptom of a bigger problem.” And on the grand scale of things, the Violet Queen forgot him entirely.

“Yes, and in her absence, worship of My Lady has all but stalled. She has very few temples left on Makai, and her feast day is rarely observed. She jeopardized herself to lure B’valan away--the mother goddess of demon kind!--and yet they show no regard for her.”

They show ample spite for B’valan, according to Mukuro, but that’s not the same thing. “For a moment, when she was fixing my arm, it was like she was two different people.”

“She no longer responds to her true name. I thought it was this place, that somehow it was forcing her to forget herself, but I have not forgotten anything. Her persona here has softened. She has allowed many of her memories to go dormant. My Lady is almost content, and the bitterness she feels remains tolerable.”

Kuwabara remembers Hatori’s words from the hotel room. “But she’s lonely.”

“Once, a portal opened mere inches away from her face. It was the first time she had seen Makai with her own eyes in so long.”

Kuwabara fidgets with the spider’s legs. “Didn’t end well, I take it.”

“She would not come down from the ceiling until the portal closed. She likes it up there, you see.”

That’s why Hatori hangs up all of those beautiful objects. Of course, they’re for her. “She healed Hiei without any issue.” And he probably deserves a spot on her naughty list.

“I don’t pretend to understand her completely. She is divine, and I am not. I live so long past my natural lifespan because it is her will I do so.”

Hatori is thousands of years old, but he still seems so young to Kuwabara. “Don’t you get lonely, too?”

“I would not have thought so, until I met you.”

Maybe this is why they bonded so immediately. Kuwabara is lonely as fuck, and Hatori understands that innately without him having to put it into words. “Do you mind if I stay here for awhile? Do you think she would mind?”

“Not at all.” Hatori looks surprised by his request. “What about your friend?”

“Oh. I think he’s probably itching to leave.” Hiei has made his disdain for him clear. “I’ll send him home soon--don’t be offended if he doesn’t say goodbye. That’s just par for the course with him.”

Hatori collects his assorted stuffed animals into his cloak. He’s taken a fancy to several of the ones Kuwabara assures him are based on real earth creatures. “No, I don’t think he will leave without you.”

Why would he stay for a coward? “He’s done it before.”

Hatori pauses. “That is why he will not do so again.”

Kuwabara looks at him blankly.

“We learn from our mistakes, do we not?”

Kuwabara squeezes the spider. It’s not as good as a hug from Mr. Stuffingsworth.

[chireikiden]

I personally like that Touhou isn't entirely straight references to mythology, to be honest. It makes it feel more unique than "this character is just a moe anthropomorphization of a mythological concept" sort of things. Makai in particular's been expanded upon decently enough as a heavily magical (in the magician sense) realm, which fits pretty well with the characters we know from it and differentiates it, imo. But that's just my personal opinion.

Touhou’s Hell, Heaven, Animal Realm, Lunar Capital etc. are all either based on or closely inspired by real-life Buddhist, Taoist and Shinto mythology and other stories, but that doesn’t stop them and the way they’re connected from being very unique due to ZUN adding heavy twists and social commentary. For instance, the Animal Realm (normally a stage of reincarnation) being reinterpreted as a literal plane of existence where humans are weakling apes exploited by other animals and which turns into a cyberpunk dystopia overrun by ceramic robots of all things. Hell being a boundless anarchy that the financially struggling Buddhist bureaucracy can’t even pretend to control, Heaven declaring itself full, the gods living in a xenophobic bubble on the Moon obsessed with purity, etc.

I have no problem with Makai in particular, but just generally speaking I like ZUN’s style of heavily reinterpreted mythological concepts, and also don’t see why the two couldn’t coexist to some extent. For what it’s worth, I don’t expect him to give us a proper return to Makai anyway.

[babyyodatarot]

Story time about the time I accidentally evoked a demon while making anime fan art even though no one asked for it because it’s also a PSA.

(And it’s kinda funny lmao)

So I was around 14 and I was obsessed with anime. There was this one anime I discovered in a sort of a “weird” way. I blindly used to dabble in witchcraft every now and then around that time so I knew some basic scrying.

I was scrying one time and I got an oddly specific “message” letter by letter. It spelt the name “Makai” and I stopped before I could finish because I was busy. So flash forward, I looked up the name and it turned out to be an anime— Makai Ouji (it’s a brilliant masterpiece work of art anime, go watch it). I didn’t bother watching it until a while later.

It was such a fantastic anime and it dealt with demons and hell and basically Solomonic magick. When I watched it, I had no clue that the characters used in the anime were also the names of real demons so I’d blindly use them everywhere. “Ughhh Astar*th is my absolute favorite character” kinda thing lol.

So I was really into drawing at the time and I started making fan art for the anime. My dumb ass looked up the names of one of the main characters and was confused when it found sigils and stuff. That’s when I just shrugged it off and started drawing those sigils as part of my fan art (I HAD NO CLUE LMAO).

I drew the sigil of D*nteli*n after drawing his apparent figure as was shown in the anime and I kid you not, HE CAME. THE DEMON ACTUALLY FUCKING CAME.

And I know you’re all like “well a demon won’t come just if you draw their sigil or speak their name lmao” but I’m not shitting y’all. I’m not making this up for notes either, that demon WAS THERE.

I was a SUPER practical person at the time, and didn’t actually believe much in magic. I used to think all the scrying I was doing was just my imagination and whatnot but every little bit of that thought process went away when the spirit actually was in my room.

Okay so I didn’t “see” the spirit, but I knew he was there because I could feel it. I felt the whole room “looking” at me and even though it was summer, I felt chills running down my spine. I felt so much pressure and only one thought ran through my head, and the thought wasn’t even mine— the demon whose sigil I just drew was there.

So many crazy things had happened to me when I was younger because some people said that my house was haunted. I never believed any of them, I didn’t care for ghosts and spirits much. Like, literally, I saw some weird shit in that house but I would always rule it off as “oh it’s just gravity” but when I accidentally evoked that demon, I knew that spirits existed.

My mind was a CHAOS for some reason and I couldn’t even breathe so I just kept repeating “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.” in my head and slowly, the spirit/daemon went away. I immediately closed the notebook I was drawing in.

Know that I hadn’t researched a lot about goetic demons and I’d drawn some of their sigils as a part of fan art before too but idk why at that time, the specific demon came.

So uh I guess that’s my story and PSA. A) watch Makai Ouji, it’s a FANTASTIC anime and amongst my favourites and B) DON’T DRAW SIGILS RANDOMLY lmao.

Like, at least do a protection prayer or something. And I just wanna thank D*nteli*n for not getting angry at me and forgiving my basic 14 year old self 🙏 ur a real one, chief. Now I don’t even utter the spirits’ names these days.

This was years ago and I know most of you may find it dumb but lol just my experience :)

[lenievi]

the more I read the more I love Sanzo. 

reload volume 7, 8, 9, 10

reload 7

- You know, the thing about Sanzo and Goku’s relationship is that on the outside it appears that it’s Goku who is more attached to Sanzo, but in reality it’s actually Sanzo who is more attached to Goku. (I could talk about the first half volume a lot, but it would be too long and what I would say about Sanzo’s actions would just be a summary of what comes up later in the volumes anyway, i.e. why he did it, why he went with Hazel, how he felt... In any case, I love Sanzo freaking out and running a town marathon~ because it brought a change which is very very visible in Blast)

- I still find it funny that the youkai girl has similar personality to Sanzo 

“she’s quite pretty. if you look closely” lmao Goku choose your words better

reload 8

“what about your parents?” “I don’t have them... I think” “I see” “hmmmm, if I think about that... does it mean that Sanzo’s my foster parent?” 

(I wish TP’s translation was better and didn’t make Goku say it as a fact when he’s just questioning what Sanzo could be to him, which is still in line with past events - “you also have one, don’t you? an absolute existence.” “Absolute existence? What? Which? Who?”

I see, I don’t actually have parents, does it mean Sanzo is acting as one?) 

- I really like the Oasis arc 

- “Fate isn’t something you decide on or something you choose. It’s already there when you notice.” I know this is about Gat, but I feel like it can be said about the ikkou as well. 

- lol when Hazel uses his exorcist powers, Sanzo is like “heh, so you can use a technique like that too”, which is what he says later to Hassan as well. I wonder if Sanzo is a bit jealous that he wasn’t taught anything or if he’s really just complimenting them (the thing is the situation is the same, Sanzo’s words are the same, so he means it in the same way for both Hassan and Hazel)

- I really like Petit burial. Sanzo is really kind.

- it’s fun that Minekura also came up with background for the characters in the omake - like you know, modern university AU where Sanzo and Goku are childhood friends who are living together, where Goku was raised by Kouymou as well after his parents died in an accident when he was small (x)

reload 9

- *head desk* I knew that Koumyou named Ukoku after raven that cried out when Ken’yuu killed Goudai, but I didn’t realise that he literally named him “raven cries” (probably because it got lost in English translation, with there being no kanji). Or is it a crow? Hazel says “raven” but idk what’s more common among fans

- tbh I feel like Ukoku is just jealous of Sanzo, because he “got” Koumyou, because Ukoku never had a master who would love him

- but when Ukoku used his sutra against Sanzo’s Makai Tenjou, did they feel something since two sutras were used at the same time? 

- so according to Ukoku, Kouymou’s death was close to a suicide (duh), he died for Sanzo’s sake so Sanzo could inherit the sutras and become a full-time Priest Sanzo, because sutras can only be inherited when the previous Sanzo is dead. Now the question is why it was needed when Sanzo was 13? (does it mean that Ukoku doesn’t have chakra, because he wasn’t chosen as a successor before he killed Goudai?) ETA: because of the original Saiyuki where he started to be called Genjyo at the age of 13?

- how come that Gat is bleeding when Ukoku cuts off his arm, but when some youkai cut it off at the beginning of this arc, there was no blood?

- Sanzo feels fear the whole time Ukoku si slowly erasing the “memory”, but I’m so happy that he only realises what it is he feels when Ukoku is about to get to erasing his early times with Goku and when he gets to their first meeting, Sanzo loses it again. If Sanzo loses it because of himself (because he feels like it would be Goku who would disappear from his life [I’m not sure how much Sanzo understands what’s happening despite Ukoku saying that it was Sanzo disappearing and not Hazel and Gat]) or because Goku would never meet him and therefore stay in the cave is irrelevant to me, because both are good.

- I also like that whenever Sanzo might have some doubts or when he’s lost, it’s Goku who is allowed to have some “inspirational speech”, because “it’s actually Sanzo who is supported by Goku”

reload 10

- before I only read the Chuang Yi’s translation, so I wonder how the original will feel and if I’ll find new things/interpretations thanks to it

- you know, I know it’s a pretty stupid reason, but Ukoku wants to erase Sanzo just to get Koumyou back, right? :D

- so Sanzo only calls Hazel “Hazel Grouse”

- Gat’s end made me cry T_T And his last words were in Kansai-ben T_T

- Gat: “Please take care of Hazel” Sanzo: “Only you can use that gun” I find it really poetic that Sanzo used Gat’s gun to avenge Hazel and Gat.

- “Sanzo’s enemy is our enemy.”

- I know that we will probably never know if Hazel regained his memory or not and I can’t decide what’s better for me: 1. Hazel repressed all memories, because Gat’s death was that painful, so now he lives in the village, feeling like he’s missing someone, but he can live a pretty good life 2. he remembered everything and is suffering somewhere alone

- I wonder if “the promise from 500 years ago” in the “preview for Blast” refers to the promise between Konzen and the rest or if it’s “let’s play again” with Nataku, but considering that Goku saw “a vision Nataku sent where they were exploring”* I assume the latter, but... 

*I believe that was Nataku’s memory/an image that came from Nataku, because that never happened and it was something Nataku dreamt about

Anyway, in all 19 volumes, whenever Sanzo called Goku “you stupid monkey”, Goku never shot back “don’t call me a monkey”. He only does it with Gojyo. The only time Goku said “I’m not a monkey” to Sanzo was when they met, because Goku wanted to tell him his name.

[toku-explained]

@stevetbqh asks: Has it been explained in depth, in any Garo media exactly why females can't become Makai Knights? Warning: this post has serious spoilers for a while chunk of the Garo franchise. As far as any research into the topic has told me, no. While trying to research the topic I've seen people claiming that women are naturally more stained with Inga or that certain things that only happen to (cis) women would prevent them from being able to fight Horrors all the time. That of course, is terrible, and ignores the fact that any Makai Knight with a Madougu partner is already out of action for one day a month, and that if periods prevented women from fighting we wouldn't have a veritable army of badass Makai Priestesses who have never been shown as unable to fight. My assumption has always been that, in universe, the answer is simple sexism. Let's remember that the Makai Order have been in existence for millennia, and by necessity managed to be spread across the world and somewhat organised for centuries even when that should be impossible despite this. My assumption was always that the Senate, for whatever reason, declared women could not be Makai Knights, probably subscribing to typical views, and no further thought has gone into it in their minds. The problem with this is that given the Senate don't seem to actually keep good track of the members of the Makai and familial links, surely at some point a daughter of a Makai Knight would have trained herself to the same level as a Makai Knight and been able to summon her parents' armour, even if only recently. But no, apparently all daughters of Makai Knights have only ever trained to be Makai Priests. The whole issue of women not being able to be Makai Knights has only really been covered a few times. Before I get to the people for whom it's a plot point, I want to talk for a moment about how a Makai Armour is passed in. There seem to be two ways, either a Makai Knight releases their armour, be it on retiring or as they die, to a son or student to claim, either at that moment or when they are ready, or it is passed directly along the bloodline without the direct involvement of the knight, which has only been depicted in the anime seasons. The previous Garo in Honoo no Kokuin had died with no male successors, and his armour passed to the possession of his daughter Anna, and remained with her even after a male heir, her nephew, was born, (don't recall if she knew about that though), only passing on to a man when her son, Leon, was born as she died, even though she couldn't use it. Although I doubt she would have tried to use it anyway. Also to get it away, it would appear based on Alice in Dragon's Blood that women were able to become Ryu Knights, the predecessors to the Makai Knights, even if I'm not 100% on the details of Ryu Knight Alice. So let's move now to the only female characters who have actually expressed a desire to be Makai Knights. First of all, Rekka, in her debut in RED REQUIEM was most of ours first avenue into the knowledge that women couldn't be Makai Knights. We know that she desired to inherit her father Kengi's sword from a young age, and it seems that this would have been something he would have liked to happen. This carried over into her adulthood, as she always dressed in a manner similar to a Makai Knight despite being a Makai Priest. While certainly bitter about the fact that literally the only thing preventing her from being a Makai Knight was her gender (and Kengi's sword presumably being lost in a Horror's realm when he died), part of the film was about her still being able to fight just as well as a Makai Priest, she has proven to be one of the most capable in fighting Horrors, and since RED REQUIEM has had no issues with not being a Knight, possibly recognising that part of her issues with it were due to her father's death. I can't remember if this was ever an actual issue but I think Rekka had issues with womanhood, possibly being ashamed of her gender because of it preventing her from fighting as a Knight, and had to learn there was no shame in being a woman. It's been a while since I watched RED REQUIEM and I think I'm making some of this up. I used to hope they were building to some day doing a story where the law was changed and Rekka became a Makai Knight, but I've recently realised Rekka isn't the Knight this story should be told with. Yuna should be. Now Yuna at her introduction in BLACK BLOOD was pretty similar to Rekka, the daughter of a late Makai Knight desperate to avenge him, with one major difference. She can use a Makaiken. Now I know some took the explanation of how Yuna could wield Kuroudo's sword as a statement that women flat out couldn't wield Soul Metal, but I disagree, partly because why does Rekka use a knife in combat if it isn't Soul Metal? The reason Yuna required the method to wield a Makaiken that she did was because she would have spent her entire life up until Kuroudo's death training as a Makai Priest. It takes years of training to wield Soul Metal in combat and control it properly, which she simply hadn't had. Of course my explanation of this is kind of dampened by the fact that Alfonso in Honoo no Kokuin and Yasusuke in Guren no Tsuki both became Makai Knights with only months at the most of training. The best I can do to explain it is that they were both already morally upstanding individuals with standard combat training, and so their training would have focused almost entirely on the use of Soul Metal. Anyway, the reason Yuna can wield Kuroudo's Makaiken is because she had her father's arm bones magically placed into her arm, sort of tricking the Makaiken I suppose. Now this had serious issues and she would several times be rendered unable to fight by serious pain as her body seemed to try to reject the bones. Everyone saw this as a temporary measure, as soon as she could avenge Kuroudo with his own sword they were going to remove the bones. However, in Yuna's latest appearance in Makai Retsuden, while she had started using a Madou Brush again, she was making serious efforts to still fight with the Makaiken, seeming almost to be unsure of what direction she should go down. At the climax of that episode, fighting against an enemy she was able, using both her Makaiken and her Madou Brush, to create and open a Makai Circle in an attempt to summon her father's armour. While the armour didn't emerge, it was enough for Fudo Leo, secretly testing her, to appear and end the test. Now Leo is significant within Garo as the only character who is both a Makai Priest and a Makai Knight. He certainly wouldn't be the only one in universe, but he's the only one we've met. Except, as he points out, Yuna is also both a Knight and a Priest. She may not be able to summon an armour, at least not yet, but outside of Makai Senki, we have no proof that any of the title less Knights we have encountered could do that either. Some of them must have been able to, but all of them? Probably not. Furthermore, the fact the Senate had Leo test Yuna in this way in the first place suggests they are considering the possibility of female Makai Knights. While Yuna didn't make an appearance in Dragon's Blood, it is my sincere hope that, if we see her again, it will be with the ability to summon her own armour. And now let's talk about everyone's favourite semi-example assuming anyone even knows about it, Shakunetsi Kishi YAIBA. Most of us first found about it when information about Makai Kessen GAOH, the only Garo Pachinko machine to actually get noticed by fans. YAIBA was one of three original Makai Knights featured in the game, alongside Jushin Kishi GIGA and villain Takasumeragi Kishi OUGA. GIGA would a couple of years later make the leap to screen in GOLDSTORM Sho, but the others haven't. Well sort of. YAIBA is actually from the novel Youseki no Wana, one of the three prose products that came about between Byakuya no Maju and RED REQUIEM. And as you can see, appears to be female. Now here's where things get complicated, and I probably have some details wrong. Now English sources I can find now, which weren't around back when I did my research into the novel, seem to say that YAIBA has a female form by default. I'm not sure I believe that given the properties of Makai Armour, but all official depictions do use the female form. Now my understanding of YAIBA is that it's user, Godo Akira, was young when one night, a woman he knew named Misaki became a Horror. Misaki attacked him but he was saved by a Makai Knight, but was left cursed, and would with a fever involuntarily become Misaki. Eventually he would learn to control this, or at least induce changes on his own, but I'm unsure if uncontrolled changes still occurred. There's something about having at least some attraction to men as Misaki that isn't there as Akira that could be problematic since who he is shouldn't be changing. It so happens that the man who saved Akira, and apparently supported him somewhat, was Barago. Despite his own nature, he told him about the Makai and would seem to have trained him somewhat, but also told Akira, who had come to wish to be like him, to give up, as women cannot be Makai Knights. Despite this, Akira managed to become a Makai Knight, even acquiring the title of YAIBA, and operated in the Southern district. When someone who at the time only knew them as Misaki asked how they summoned armour, Misaki said 'half of me is male after all' Whether YAIBA truly counts as a female Makai Knight isn't something I can really answer. Hope this helps.

[petiteredlady]

Garo - Kami no Kiba

I saw Garo - Kami no Kiba today, and it was very enjoyable !

I'm a bit sad they're going further and further away from the "guy in armor kills abominations preying on humans". Like, what were these Horrors ? ôO They looked weird with no explanation, and there were so few of them ! Most of the fodder enemies were some sort of zombies, and I don't think they explain at all what they are ? They also kept the "attacking humans" to a minimum. And there were no armors for most of the film XD And few transformation scenes. I love the transformations in Garo, so I was a bit disapppointed. (But I'm also a big fan of the timer they had back in the first series so maybe my aesthetic is just outdated...)

I was glad, though, to notice  that Amemiya has finally discovered a new fetish ! Now, in addition to thighs, he knows that breasts exist ! That may be due to his discovering push-up bras. Because honestly, Rian and Amily were bustier than ever and the camera lingered a lot there XD Despite thighs (and legs in general) still being the preferred area. (I DID roll my eyes a lot, but I guess it's better to laugh than to rage...)

The story wasn't very original, but the characters were really cool. - If you thought Jinga was over the top before, now he's even more extra XD I don't know how he does it. And his Belligerent Sexual Tension with Ryuuga has skyrocketed. Unbelievable. He also made Rian and Amily fight just so he could enjoy the show. Honestly that's the only reason I can think of. - Aguri was given feelings, and he doesn't know what to do with them. Except take bad decisions. "Hi I'm your childhood friend I need your armour so I can ressurect my dead lover who's a fallen Makai Knight." "Here you go." PLEASE AGURI. But he did say he wasn't in love with her, which I think was a really nice touch in a series in which there's always romance between men and women +_+ Apparently now his glasses can detect enemy weaknesses, and he had an amazing scene in which his glasses were on the ground, so he threw them in the air with the tip of his bow and when they lined with his eyes he shot the Horror. 11/10 would watch again. - Takeru has not learned to be calm, patient and wise. He's still hot-blooded and charges into every fight XD Of note : his sword has a knife mode, which made him the most useful fighter during a staircase fight. And at the end he offered to teach Rian and Ryuuga how to make babies XD - Ryuuga had an awesome line about how he would keep on protecting humans and doing his duty as Garo, even if humans are doomed to die anyway. But I would really have liked a justification. Like "we may die anyway but we deserve to live the time we have" or something. - Rian has shorts even shorter than before, and more cleavage. That didn't prevent her from being the most competent person of the whole movie. She literally saved the knights TWICE. And broke a kekkai. Saved civilians. Killed a main antagonist on her own. Rian is great <3 - Ryume however wasn't really useful, and I didn't like how she was treated T-T But her magic still is the most beautiful <3 (And her fight scene with Jinga is one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, with multicolor balls of light showing the fight while they stay motionless in the middle *o*) - The new antagonists, Rinza and Boeru, were cool but didn't have more than cardboard personalities XD - Other characters like Haruna, Daigo, Yukihime and D.Ringo only had a short cameo. (Amily too, actually.)(Messiah too *__*) - Banbi was amazing... until she was treated like every female character in Garo T-T But I loved her style. 10/10 would watch a spin-off.

And with that, the BEST scene was definitely when a zombie had a dog-machine gun. Like it was a real dog, but when it barked it shot a volley of bullets. How did Ryuuga defeat it ? He found bone nunchakus lying on the ground, and threw them at the dog. Who ran to gnaw on them. WTF XD

[fluffghost]

Touhou Game Summaries (PC-98):

Highly Responsive to Prayers: Local Shrine gets destroyed. Local Shrine Maiden destroys everyone in her path while attempting to find the culprit.

Story of Eastern Wonderland: Local Shrine Maiden stars in the classic tale of “GET OUT OF MY SHRINE”. A lot of youkai were harmed in the making.

Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream: Disgraced scientist breaks into Gensokyo and attempts to prove magic’s existence to the outside world via attempted kidnapping. She gets hit with a chair.

Lotus Land Story: In “GET OUT OF MY SHRINE” the sequel, Yuuka Kazami Just Wants To Sleep. She’s not the culprit.

Mystic Square: Demons invade gensokyo, Local Shrine Maiden & Friends travel to Makai to have a word with the Queen of Hell. The culprits just wanted a nice vacation.

Touhou Game Summaries (Windows):

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil: Local Vampire just wants to walk outside during the day and not get burned. This is apparently unacceptable.

Perfect Cherry Blossom: Local Ghost Princess wants to see her giant cherry tree bloom. She steals the entirety of the season of spring to do so. This is apparently a really bad idea, for entirely different reasons.

Immaterial and Missing Power: Local Oni just wants to see her friends again. They never show up.

Imperishable Night: Moon princess creates a never-ending night. This turns out to be for everyone’s benefit, and it comes back to bite them games later.

Phantasmagoria of Flower View: Unexpected Flower Blooming leads to all-out brawls. No-one involved really knew what was going on.

Shoot the Bullet: Nosy Tengu Reporter takes photographs without permission.

Mountain of Faith: Local Mountain Gods from a nearby Outside mountain move in. They recieve the traditional Gensokyo welcome.

Scarlet Weather Rhapsody: Bored celestial wants to be entertained. In the process, the Hakurei Shrine gets destroyed. Again.

Subterranean Animism: Local Hell Raven eats a dead sun god. Decides the best thing to do with her newfound power is to nuke the surface and turn it into a New Hell.

Undefined Fantastic Object: Youkai followers of a Buddhist Monk want to rescue their leader sealed in Makai. Everyone wants to know what’s up with the floating boat.

Touhou Hisoutensoku: Something about dreams and a catfish?

Double Spoiler: Different Tengu Reporter has rivalry with aforementioned Nosy Tengu Reporter. More unauthorized photographs ensue.

Fairy Wars: Literally what it says on the tin.

Ten Desires: Local Taoist resurrects from the grave. Resurrected Taoist turns out to be Prince Shotoku. Prince Shotoku is actually a girl.

Hopeless Masquerade: Upset Noh Mask collection wants her missing mask back. Everyone is confused and just enjoys the flashy fighting.

Double Dealing Character: Inchling unwittingly gets tricked into causing a tsukumogami uprising. Poor girl.

Impossible Spell Card: Culprit from previous game takes Gensokyo on a Grand Theft spree to evade capture.

Urban Legend in Limbo: Lonely Psychic Outsider breaks into Gensokyo, causes absolute chaos.

Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom: Lunarian infighting accidentally spills out into Gensokyo. Gensokyo residents are not amused.

Manga Stories:

Silent Sinner in Blue: Local Vampire wants to go to the Moon, enlists Local Shrine Maiden & co’s help. Turns out they aren’t welcome there.

Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth: Daily adventures of Gensokyo’s rabbit population.

Eastern and Little Nature Deity / Strange and Bright Nature Deity / Oriental Sacred Place: Fairies doing Fairy Things.

Visionary Fairies in Shrine: Fairies doing Fairy Things 2.0, featuring AMERICA Clownpiece, the Local Hell Fairy.

Wild and Horned Hermit: Local Hermit makes suspiciously specific denial that she’s not a youkai. She’s a bad liar.

Forbidden Scrollery: Local Human Bookworm gets way in over her head. Repeatedly. On purpose.

Written Stories & Trivia Books:

Curiosity of Lotus Asia: Local Shopkeep recounts his experiences with some of the rather eccentric personalities in Gensokyo. 

Cage in Lunatic Runagate: A bunch of characters reflect on the events of Silent Sinner in Blue.

Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red: A collective work of articles from Local Nosy Tengu Reporter.

Perfect Memento in Strict Sense: Book from Local Archiver, recording information on various personalities in Gensokyo, part 1. How truthful the contents are is probably another story.

The Grimoire of Marisa: Local Thieving Witch really wants to steal everyone’s spell cards.

Symposium of Post-Mysticism: Book from Local Archiver, recording information on various personalities in Gensokyo, part 2. Her sources are dubious.

CD Stories:

Dolls in Pseudo Paradise: 10 outsiders become the unwitting participants of an Agatha Christie-like murder story.

Ghostly Field Club: Local Outsiders Renko and Merry explore a graveyard in the dead of night.

Changeability of Strange Dream: Local Outsider Merry recounts the dreams she’s had of Gensokyo. Questions reality. And her sanity. 

Retrospective of 53 minutes: Local Outsiders Renko and Merry ride a train! And talk about the current state of the world outside gensokyo while doing so.

Magical Astronomy: Local Outsiders Renko and Merry want to take the new space tour of the moon! Turns out they’re too expensive.

Trojan Green Asteroid: Local Outsider Merry dreams herself onto an abandoned space satellite thought to be lost. Partner in crime Renko gets jealous and wants to go with. Turns out it’s not a dream.

Neo-traditionalism of Japan: Merry gets hospitalized due to events in the space satellite. Has visions of what she thinks is hell. Turns out she dreamed herself back in time and witnessed the birth of japan.

Dr. Latency’s Freak Report: Renko and Merry write a book! And discuss the plausibility of youkai existing in reality along the terms of quantum physics.

Dateless Bar “Old Adam”: Renko and Merry investigate a bar full of people spreading conspiracy theories and supernatural rumors. They get very drunk in the process.

[kaialone]

Yokai Medallium Translations: Venoct

(Masterpost for my Yokai Medallium translations can be found here)

What I do with these is that first I translate the character’s bio from their debut game, and if there were any changes made to the bio in future titles I translate them too.

After that I explain what changes were made to the bio in the English version, if one exists.

And lastly, there is a Bonus Section where I’ll explain the character’s Japanese name’s meaning, if I happen to know it.

This one will be Venoct.

Yo-kai Watch 1 (+ 2):

自らのオーラで作り出した龍のマフラーを使って戦う妖魔界のエリート妖怪。 その実力は全てにおいてトップクラス。 An Elite Yōkai of the Yōmakai who fights using the Dragon Muffler he created with his own aura. All of his abilities are top class.

Notes:

First, “Yōmakai” is what the place that got called Yo-kai World in the English version of Yokai Watch 1 and 2, is called in the Japanese version of the games. It doesn’t seem to be a term exclusive to Yokai Watch and has appeared in some other stuff, but not that often from what I can tell.

It is made up of the Kanji:

妖/Yō (the same Yō as in Yōkai, depending on the context it can mean something like “mysterious” or “bewitching”, among other things),

魔/Ma (in general meaning something like “demonic” and/or “magical”),

and 界/Kai (meaning “World”; it’s not the same Kai as in Yōkai, by the way.)

Furthermore, 妖魔/ Yōma is a word that can mean “demon”, “ghost”, or “monster” and can be considered somewhat synomynous to Yōkai. And 魔界/Makai is a word that is often translated as “spirit world” or “hell”.

Second, "aura” in this case is actually literally the word “aura”.

Yo-kai Watch Busters (+ Sangokushi, and 3):

自分のオーラで作り出した龍のマフラーを使って戦う妖怪ワールドのエリート妖怪。 その実力は、すべてにおいてトップクラス。 An Elite Yōkai of the Yōkai World who fights using the Dragon Muffler he created with his aura. All of his abilities are top class.

Notes:

There aren’t many changes between the first and second version of this bio.

“Yōmakai” has been changed to “Yōkai World”. From what I can tell as of Busters, Yōkai World started being used as the term to refer to the world that the yōkai live in as a whole.

It seems that Yōmakai is instead used to speficially refer to the place that was called “Yo-kai World” in the English versions of the games, the one you visit in Yo-kai Watch 1 and 2, as in like those three Gates, Liar’s Mountain, and so forth.

At some point in Yo-kai Watch 3, it is stated that the Yōkai World as whole does in fact consist of multiple of such places referrred to as Yōmakai.

    English Version (Yo-kai Watch 1+2):

An elite Yo-kai who fights with his dragon scarf. All of his abilities are truly first class.

Notes:

This translation is fairly accurate.

Notable changes include:

It removes the part that specifies which place Venoct is an elite yōkai of, probably because it feels kinda obvious.

It doesn’t mention Venoct creating the scarf using his aura.

Name Origin:

Venoct’s Japanese name is オロチ or Orochi.

オロチ/Orochi is likely either derived from 八岐の大蛇/Yamata no Orochi a legendary eight-headed dragon from Japanese mythology,

or perhaps 大蛇丸/Orochimaru, a character from the Japanese folktale Jiraiya Gōketsu Monogatari.