#*not that mad mostly being faceitious*

[worldismyne]

Kay Soul Eater fans, finally finished Fire Force

Between the shift in tone and the way they developed the characters, I'm still of the opinion Soul Eater > Fire Force.

But below the cut are my pros and cons for it as a lore prequel

Pros...

The concept of The Evangelist being driven mad by humanity's negative desires and that being the precurser to Asura. I liked the idea of Asura being a Fury driven made by conflicting ideals of justice, driven to fear his own father due to how humanity persieved him for my own fics. The Evangelist was just that, with elements of Asura's design in it, so I'm going to go ahead and say headcanon confirmed.

Arthur's hope and dellusions making Excalibur. Having a creature born from humanity's desire to do good and watch over the new world beginning to end was sweet. And also he was a crazy lil shit the whole time? Perfect.

The cyclical nature of the world. (I.E. the birth and deaths of new worlds being more symbolic of great change, rather than the actual end of the world). This lines up with a lot of anchient myths referenced in both series. Ragnarok's literally named after that concept (specifically the war of the gods). So to have that concept canonized and for SE to start at the beginning of another apocalyptic war where the very nature of the moon and stars changed with new gods awakening is good. Neat, love to see it.

Black Star seemingly being named after the Great Cataclysm. In SE he mentions his name meaning "returning to darkness" and kinda hating it. I found that odd since, clearly that's not what that phrase means in English. (Also, according to SEN, he chose to keep it). But seeing the black sun at the end of FF made it all click.

Witches and Shinigami-sama being two side of the same power. (Liking the concept here, not the execution).

Maka's parents reading to her abt this. You know that lil perfectionist enternalized the shit out of this story. (I'm also a sucker for lil kid designs)

Mid/Neutral

The heavy influence of the Bible on the world building and seeing how that's translated through a Japanese cultural/folklore lens. Interesting to see all that interact with Greek mythology. I was getting in my head abt doing that in my own fics on accident (s2g I'm not trying to make Black Star anime Moses, but now I'm wondering >_>) Always fun seeing how people on the outside interpret something you grew up with.

Kinda like the idea of 8 pillars. I would have rather there been more balance with what the pillars represented instead of an edgy version of Inside Out. It seemed more like a way to countdown toward the apocalypse as opposed to something sustainable in the world building, but I get the idea they were going for. Minus points for them not aligning with any of the Old Ones from SE.

Whimsy being the core part of SE. Like, yeah cartoon logic is abundant. Kind of a clever twist, but also a bummer it insinuates heroes would only exist in a cartoon world.

Animals having magic being different from witches with their own patron diety. Makes sense in the grand scheme of things, doesn't line up with LD thinking Blair was a witch then. LD, did you want Maka to fail the first time on purpose >_> I'd buy that tbh.

Cons

I've said this before, I'll say it again, no god of death??? The more research I do on shinigami, the more this seems like an oversight (they just kinda watch, they don't decide who lives or dies). So you have a god of creation, you have an other world/ afterlife, but no god charged with taking good souls to the other side. Humanity clearly wanted that, they had nuns to pray for it to happen, but that somehow hasn't manifested in the two iterations of the world we've seen? Also would have preferred seeing more than two Old Ones ngl.

Shinigami-sama being able to take godhood from someone. I get that you gotta reset the status quo, but... If he could do that, Asura shouldn't have been an issue. Especially since he's the one who gave him the power in the first place. Why didn't he pull and Aang?

The first witch being Kim with less agency and less control over her power, didn't love it. There's so many different ways they could have set up the catalyst of witches v shinigami. Like nature vs nuture or any other number of things would be more interesting than "catch me if you can". They have a whole realm and religion by the time of SE, there's no seed for that introduced at all.

Where are the werewolves? They supposedly had a whole clan of immortals. Everythings better with werewolves.

Honestly don't buy Rekka being granddaddy Star Clan. There's very little that ties him to the way of the assassin, or the aesthetic other than the eyes. Another missed opportunity.

Are dopplegangers still a thing? Kinda unclear on that one, considering how many were left walking around. This could just be me forgetting something that was said though.

More of a nitpick than a con, the translation I read Shinra said he "changed the value of a life" in order to bring his friends back. Implying death isn't as serious now? That just doesn't feel true given the wieght of character deaths in SE, Sid being the one exception. Just left me feeling a lil icky, didn't like it.

Claiming Kid was in anyway modeled after Shinra. I would have taken LD commenting on Soul looking like Shinra or Black Star acting like him, but Kid is the farthest from that character in every way. Once again, if he was going to do that, Asura was right there. (Also is it just me or did LD seem surprised Kid appeared??? Like humanity manifested him?)