#I sympathize with the ones that are just genuinely bad at the game more than I do the wannabe speedrunners

[rozwell-endzwell]

"play mario party, see who your real friends are" "mario kart shows your true colors" wrong

you go into those games expecting it to be a competition, anyone with siblings know the real friendship ender is just regular mario

Have you ever tried to play a platformer with more than one person? No matter who's playing suddenly one of them has never held a controller in their lives, one of them thinks that you guys are trying to break a speedrunning record, and the other one is on their phone the whole time

super mario will have you screaming things no one should say at each other as toad misses the jump for 6th time in a row

[starcurtain]

I wish everyone collectively understood aventurine’s character like you…things would be so much easier! I genuinely don’t understand how people keep getting his motivations wrong??? Could it be because some of the most popular Aven fanfics were written prior to his release? That could have contributed to some of the takes we tend to see about him…thoughts?

I struggled all day to come up with a concise way to answer this and couldn't think of one, so here, have a long-winded ramble:

I don't think early fic writers have much impact in the situation with Aventurine's character now, since most people can look at when a story was posted and go "Oh, this was before we had ____ information."

I think that Aventurine's problem is being a male character in a gacha game. Gacha game characters are designed to sell. Hoyo can sell female characters very, very easily. Give her huge tits and a visible underwear strap and you're good to go. I love all my guy friends, but I'm not gonna sugarcoat it: straight men are not the hardest audience to please. Hit a particular fetish (feet, spandex, dommy mommy), and you're gucci.

Nah, we all know why Jade's trailer is Like That.™

Male characters in gacha are harder to sell because women as consumers are a little harder to predict. Does every woman want a tall, ripped hunk? Shit, no, small cute boyish models like Aventurine are selling better now? Why?! Would a bad boy be more popular than a nice guy??? It's harder to account for women's tastes, especially because they are often (a little) less visually-oriented.

Hoyo is good at what they do though, and they've figured out that male characters sell very well when they possess at least one of two specific traits:

Endearing vulnerability/helplessness

Gay ship tease

Give a character both, like Aventurine? They might as well be printing money.

That sound you hear is Hoyo's stock prices rising.

So, from the very beginning, Hoyo is incentivized to create a character that appeals to people, a character people will want to crack their wallets open for. And they achieved this, first and foremost, by giving Aventurine traits that female players (in particular, but men too), find especially appealing: emotional and physical vulnerability.

We see Aventurine's pain. We sympathize with his grief. We identify with his struggle to make meaning of his difficult life. He's our woobie, blorbo, babygirl, whatever the hell they're calling it now.

He can't hide his suffering anymore. He's on the very edge. He's a dude in distress. He's surrounded by enemies! He misses his mama! He's been betrayed! No one understands him like you do, dear player!

The ultimate feeling evoked is: He needs to be saved.

When people talk about male power fantasies, I think they forget that women can experience them too, and "Emotionally vulnerable man that only I (or my favorite character) can fix" is actually a female power fantasy.

And from there it's really easy, right: the people who shell out cash to buy warps for their harmed-husbando feel like they've saved him; the people who are into mlm ships look for the nearest hot dude to be the savior Ratio was waiting for his time lol.

Morally and intellectually, this type of deep-down-golden-hearted, emotionally-wounded male character is very easy to digest. There is nothing to dislike about this type of character or role in the story: this character is a good guy who has just gone through so many terrible situations, whose victim status makes him endearing, and whose lack of agency means that any of the questionable or downright bad things he does are always the result of someone else forcing his hand, and never something he would have chosen himself.

His motivations are always clear and consistent: get free, heal, and live happily ever after.

Insert the Wreck-It Ralph meme: "Do people assume all your problems got solved when a big strong man showed up?" But to be fair, a big strong man did kind of solve Aventurine's problem, so--

Anyway, it's simple. It's straightforward. Morally, it's pretty cut and dry, black and white: Aventurine is our hero, which means everyone dictating the course of his miserable life is evil.

Hoyo is not remotely discouraging people from literally buying into this emotional appeal.

And trust me, I get it. I'll be the first to admit that hurt-comfort is its own entire genre in fandom because it is so appealing. People eat up Aventurine's tragic backstory like candy! The idea of watching a character go through hell at the hands of bad guys just to finally find a happy end is like the definition of everyone's favorite story.

In fact... people love Aventurine's suffering so much, they have invented whole new ways for him to suffer that aren't even in the game.

This is where we get all the headcanons that Aventurine was a sex slave, every single person he meets hates him because of his race, the Stonehearts are executioners holding knives to his throat, Jade enslaved him to the IPC with a lifelong contract, his material possessions belong to the company, the IPC is forcing him to take only the most dangerous missions where he is being required by his evil jailers to continually put his life on the line... You name it and I promise you, I can find a fanfic where Aventurine suffers from it. 😂

Bro can't even sleep in on his day off; life is so hard for this man.

Being serious: if the game is telling us that Aventurine is a victim... Why not make him the perfect victim?

Why not envision an Aventurine with no freedom, who bears no responsibility for any of the horrible situations he is in or any of the dubious things he does?

It's so natural to like that version of Aventurine, so appealing to see a totally powerless underdog use his own wits and charms to claw his way up to freedom. Or, if you're the kind who really relishes angst: It's even appealing to see Aventurine lose more. To delight in fics where he loses his wealth, where the IPC punishes him for past crimes while he's powerless to stop them... (I assure you, this is many people's cup of tea and the fanfics prove it!)

Ultimately, there's nothing wrong with liking characters who are exactly this straightforward! It's completely fine to embrace characters that are intentionally written to be morally above-board, whose primary role in the story is to generate angst by being a good person who suffers, or those characters who never show unlikable traits, bad decisions, or contradictory actions.

The problem is that that's just not who the game is telling us Aventurine is.

Hoyo may be capitalizing off people who love to envision poor Aventurine still living his life as a slave... But the game also needs to tell a complicated enough story overall to appeal to people who don't care about this specific husbando--Aventurine's role in the actual game's plot has to be interesting enough for almost everyone to appreciate it, not just Aventurine's simp squad. (Don't get mad, I'm in the simp squad with you.)

So his character doesn't stop at just being a pure-hearted victim who is still waiting to be saved.

Aventurine is not that easy to label, and I think the biggest struggle in this character's fandom right now is between people who prefer the even-more-angsty, still-a-slave Aventurine versus people who want a morally grey, self-destructive character instead.

To me personally, while I greatly understand the appeal of fanon!Aventurine and the joy of a really juicy angst fic where characters lose it all, I think that missing out on the depth that canon is suggesting would be a real loss on the fandom's part.

The character motivations that Aventurine shows in the game are complicated. They cancel each other out. They're basically self-harm! He makes almost every situation he's in worse for himself--on purpose.

He is a good person, but also a person who has done unspeakable things. He does have morals, but he's not above allowing those who don't have them to use him to their advantage.

He's both the victim and the victor. He's his own worst enemy. He's a lost little boy who's been making terrible decisions for himself since he was like eight years old, and a grown ass man who is barely managing to fake his way through an existence that destiny is not letting him quit.

This kind of character is a lot harder to embrace. He's done things that most people would find appalling--like willingly joining up with the organization that let his entire race be massacred. He's invented a whole new peacock persona to frivolously flaunt riches he doesn't even care about (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 101). He actively plays into racist stereotypes about his people to manipulate others through their preconceived expectations. He's made a mockery of his mother's and sister's hopes and dreams by endlessly trying to throw his own life away.

He has flaws! He bet everything he had on a ploy without doing his homework to find out if the people he was risking his life for were even still around. (Maybe he already knew, and couldn't bear to admit it, even to himself.) He's intentionally off-putting and obnoxious to everyone he meets (Poison Dart Frog Self-Defense 102). He terrifies everyone who gets close to him by (seemingly) carelessly throwing himself into the jaws of death without the slightest provocation.

He knowingly allows the IPC to exploit his power and talents for profit. Did everyone forget that his role in the Strategic Investment Department is asset liquidation?! Like, his actual day-to-day job is ruining people's lives. Canonically, Aventurine kills people when his deals go bad.

His motivations change off-screen in two lines of story text. We're told in one line that his biggest reason for joining the IPC was to make money to save the Avgin, then in the next line we find out that's impossible. And... then what? What motivations does he even have now? The whole point of his character arc from 2.0-2.1 is that he was on the edge of giving in to utter despair and nihilism because he couldn't even perceive a single reason to stay alive. He has no purpose in life before Penacony, and that didn't start with the Stonehearts at all??

People keep saying Aventurine was held in the IPC by golden handcuffs, but how do you tie down someone for whom profit is meaningless? What can you offer to a man whose only desire is to bring back something already lost forever? How do you imprison someone whose only definition of freedom is, canonically, death?

Working for the Stonehearts is obviously not healthy. But that's why Aventurine was doing it--because taking dangerous missions allowed him to put himself at risk. The job that he originally pursued hoping to save his people became a direct means to self-harm, and the IPC's only real role in that was just happily profiting off the results.

The journal entries for Aventurine's quests are there deliberately to tell the player what is on his mind, and none of it has to do with escaping from his job:

Like... Work is the least of this man's problems.

At really the risk of rambling on too long now, he's also just a massive walking contradiction:

Aventurine is among the most explicitly religious characters in the game, yet he's one of the only people in the entire game that we have ever seen actively question his people's aeon.

You might be tempted to think Aventurine's risky gambles with his life as an adult are a result of giving up after finding out about the Avgin massacre... Butttt no, Hoyo makes sure to tell us that even at knee-high in the Sigonian desert, Kakavasha was already willing to risk himself in a fight to the death against monsters because even back then he found his own life to have less value than a single memento.

He's the "chosen one" who will lead his people to prosperity... except they're all dead.

He's explicitly suicidal... andddd also a pathstrider of Preservation.

He wants to die... He doesn't want to die. He wants to make it end, yet goes to staggering lengths to continually survive. (Every plan risks his life on purpose--but every plan's win condition is also to live.) He life is the chip tossed down, but his hand is trembling beneath the table. When faced with an otherwise unsurvivable situation, Aventurine literally became a winner of the Hunger Games. He beat other innocent people to death with his own chain-bound hands just to come out alive.

He knows the IPC failed the Avgin and left them to die... and he still willingly sought out a position of power in their organization. Maybe he really is after revenge... but maybe not.

He starts his journey in the IPC with a truly noble goal in mind: to help his people using his newfound wealth and power. He's a good guy who did genuinely want to save the Avgin and repay all those who helped him. But once it became clear he was too late, once it was obvious he would have no use at all for that monetary wealth and power he risked his life to get... What did he do with it? Unlike Jade, we don't see him over here donating to orphanages. (I'm not that heartless; I'm sure he does actually do a lot of good things with his money on the side, but the point is that the game does not show us that--it shows us, over and over again, Aventurine putting on a wasteful, over-indulgent persona toward wealth. We've supposed to feel how meaningless money is to him, how meaningless everything is becoming to him.)

He outright refuses to use underhanded tactics or to cheat at gambles, which is meant to show us that's he's more morally upright than his coworkers. There's an entire exchange where he says that he'll never stoop to using manipulation the way Opal does. But... he doesn't have any issue fulfilling Opal's exact agenda. He was never remotely morally conflicted about denying the Penaconians their freedom by dragging Penacony back under IPC control.

He's willing to risk his own life, which is one thing--but he's also willing to risk other people's well-being. Topaz accuses him of constantly egging their clients on into dangerous situations; we've actively seen him shove a gun into Ratio's hands and pull the trigger with no care for how Ratio would feel about that on their very first meeting... Dragging the Astral Express crew into the entire Penacony plan in the first place was exceedingly dangerous...

To me, I just think it's vital to understand his character through the lens of these contradictions because they demonstrate the extreme polarity of Aventurine's life: from rags to riches, from powerless to empowered by multiple aeons, from willing to kill to survive to killing himself... He has quite literally lived a life of "all or nothing," and while he is the victim of many terrible situations out of his control, his arc as a character involves facing the truth of himself and the future his own actions are hurtling him toward.

Frankly, the Aventurine that canon is suggesting is a little annoying. You want to grab him by the shoulders, shake him, and say "Why are you like this?!" And he won't even have an answer for you, because he doesn't even know why he's still alive.

In the end, to me, this is so, so much more interesting. I can read an endless supply of hurt-comfort fics where Aventurine escapes the evil IPC and Ratio is there to fill the void in his life with the power of love and catcakes and be a perfectly happy clam online, but I want canon to continue to serve us this incredible mess of a man who constantly takes one step forward and two steps back.

Who is fully aware of his role as a cog in the grotesque profit-wheel of cosmic capitalism and still manages to say he never changed from the rags-wearing desert rat of the Sigonian wastes.

Who over and over again flirts with nihility but, ultimately, even if he has to wrest it from the grip of the gods themselves with bloody, chain-bound hands, chooses life.

[linkspooky]

So I was genuinely surprised last week when we were finally shown Megumi's mental state inside Sukuna and he was predictably at his lowest point ever, and instead of sympathy from the fans most of the responses on twitter I saw were people mocking him.

Which I am going to assume comes from a misunderstanding as his character. You see Megumi doesn't fit into the role of the black haired supporting protagonist / rival well. He's not Sasuke, he's not Uryu Ishida, he's not Yuno but he's not meant to be a rival or even a typical shonen character who's progress is only measured by a series of power ups. Megumi is perhaps one of the most subtly written characters in the manga, and perhaps he's hard to sympathize with because he doesn't fit into easy to udnerstand shonen tropes. Which is why I will try to explain his arc below and why Jujutsu Kaisen does it like no other manga currently running.

1. Meet Potential Man

Let me introduce you to the worst meme on twitter.

Megumi's inability to live up to his potential to reach his full power as a sorcerer is probably his biggest flaw, one that is rightfully called out by the narrative again and again, but apparently an intentionally written character flaw is bad writing.

It's covered in Gojo's "Swing for the fences" speech.

Gojo notices Megumi bunt in the baseball game and decides to confront him about it later. He highlights that while bunting is alright in baseball, and it's good to sacrifice yourself so your teammates can advance in a team sport that being a sorcerer is a solo sport. No matter what Megumi is going to reach a point where he's forced to fight alone, and instead of trying to push himself to be as strong as he can be he intentionally limits himself to cooperate with the sorcerers around him.

Basically, the opposite of Gojo who literally cannot fight with other sorcerers because he won't be able to fight at full strength as they just get in the way.

It's not just that Megumi can't use the ten shadows to its full potential, something pointed out by Sukuna, and then later again by Gojo, it's also that he always prioritizes either the group or someone else above himself when trying to decide how to act. Megumi is a semi-decent strategist so this is not necessarily a bad thing, but because of Megumi's tendency to care more about trying to live up to other people's expectations towards him, and what other people need of him rather than his own needs he doesn't have the attitude necessary for sorcery, especially since the strongest sorcerers don't take others into account at all and act like living calamities.

Megumi doesn't look at himself, he looks at the people around him. He judges himself based on what the people around him want from him, not what he wants. This is going to be a continual theme in his arc.

Sukuna is a living calamity, the definition of the attitude a strong sorcerer has, Gojo Satoru wields sorcerery only for himself, and is a sorcerer because he finds exorcising curses and using his god given talents to be fun for him.

Megumi's reason for fighting, his self worth, are all much, much less than the strongest characters in this series which is why he continually fails to live up to his potential. It's not because Gege is not good at writing or Megumi is a disappointing character, but rather he's been written as someone with tremendous potential under the pressure to live up to that potential but who continually fails to do so. Megumi's low self-esteem, low self-worth, and lack of self-identity explains both his failure to progress as a sorcerer something that requires selfishness and self-identity to reach greater heights in, but also his tendency to pick the suicide option with Mahoraga because Megumi genuinely believes compared to the others even just his classmates his life is simply worth less.

So potential man, is an intentionally written character flaw already called out in canon. The more interesting question is why does Megumi fail to live up to his potential.

2. Meet The Original Potential Man

So, I said that Megumi is not like a lot of characters in Shonen Jump but that doesn't mean he's entirely unique. To help explain Megumi's inability to live up to his potential I thought it would be helpful to compare him to a character he's clearly inspired by.

Killua Zoldyck, is the deuteragonist of a manga called hunter x hunter. You may have heard of it, Gege certainly has. Killua is born into a family of assassins who all have supernatural powers. The assassins inflict incredibly harsh training on their children from birth in order to raise them into assassins because their potential as assassins is all that matters. They also start with a "Z".

Killua is apparently the most talented Zen'in... I mean Zoldyck of this generation, though he's still young so he's weaker than his father and brother he's expected to easily surpass them one. Which is why Killua's family has already decided for him that he's going to be the next one to take over the family, Killua's opinion doesn't matter. Illumi and Silva are both setting him up for success by forcing their "help" upon him. Several other members of the family even point out that Killua probably doesn't have the attitude to be the head of the family, but what does it matter when he's got such great talent?

Killua is a complicated victim. He's a victim of many things, familial abuse is the most obvious one because the Zoldyck have a nasty habit of torturing their children, but the less obvious one is grooming. Not in a sexual sense, but rather the adults in Killua's life have decided to use their authority over him to manipulate him into becoming what they want him to be - the next head of the family.

What's insidious about this is the Zoldyck's don't just torture or beat Killua into submission, they will use any tool in their arsenal, familial love, emotional blackmail, threats, all to undermine Killua's agency and choices in order to make him not only do what they want to do but make him think he has to grow into the person they want him to.

Grooming not in a sexual sense, but definitely in a psychological sense, an adult using their authority as an adult over a child and their maturity to manipulate that child into becoming what they want them to be instead of letting that child grow naturally. When it's used in a sexual sense it's when an adult establishes a connection with a minor, and then uses that connection in the long-term to manipulate them into having a relationship and lower the child's inhibition. Think of that, but without the sexual part - an adult using their relationship with a child often in a long-term manipulation to lower the child's inhibitions and make them more malleable and raise them to do what you want them to do.

Killua has not been sexually groomed, but he has been groomed by both his parents and his brother to make him more suggestible to becoming the family head which is something he explicitly does not want to do. Not only did Killua's family only raise him for the purpose of becoming an assassin and taking over the family one day (raising him as a child into an adult, his emotional maturity, his health and well being are all secondary priorities to what Killua can do for his family) they also manipulate him into thinking he has no choice other than being an assassin.

Killua is a kid put through extremely harsh training from a young age, to do a horrible job that is being an assassin that doesn't let him make normal friends or have a normal life. On top of the physical abuse he's already endured, whenever he expresses a desire to do something else in his life, his parents send Illumi to emotionally manipulate him into thinking that not only is he a natural born killer, and therefore a bad person who deserves all the abuse he's been put through, to further convince him that his only path forward is to be an assassin.

Killua is a character who has a lot of power, but little agency. Agency, in fiction is the ability a character has to take action and make decisions for themselves. Despite Killua starting as a more powerful and more savvy character than Gon, he has little agency and is often very passive. He doesn't act, he reacts. Even running away from his family is a reaction. We don't really see what he wants in life, we just know that he looked at his family and went "NOT THAT". However, his entire identity is still formed in response to his family's abuse. Even when he gets farther away from them, Killua doesn't really do what he wants, he does what Gon wants, and follows around Gon.

However, it's very understandable why Killua doesn't act with a lot of agency, when Killua does try to make decisions his family always shows up to undermine him and make another attempt to emotionally manipulate him into doing what they want. It's not always Illumi showing up to spook him. Silva pretends to be a loving dad for five minutes and has a heart to heart conversation with his son, and lets his son go adventuring with his friends but that too is a manipulation. He only did so to make sure Killua would eventually come back, by giving Killua more positive memories that would make it harder to make the decision to leave the family.

With the extent that Killua's family goes to sabotage any decision he makes, it's no wonder Killua is so passive and afraid to make his own decisions. It's almost like a character flaw he's gotta work on.

Now here's where I'm going to blow your minds. Megumi is an incredibly similar character to Killua, they are both the victims of longterm grooming however people don't like to acknowledge Megumi's victimhood. That's because in Killua's case, his abuser looks and acts like this.

Killua's abuser Illumi is a creepy guy who looks like the girl from the grudge, telling him he's not allowed to make friends and giving off such rancid vibes that he's obviously a bad guy. Whereas, Megumi's groomer this this guy.

Gojo Satoru who is one of the most popular characters in the series, and who also gives speeches about how he wants to let children be able to live out their youths, which is why it's hard for the fandom to see that he has taken advantage of Megumi and stolen his youth away from him pretty much the same way that Silva / Illumi has for Killua.

Megumi, like Killua has no choice in who he wants to be when he grows up, or what kind of person he wants to grow into. Megumi, like Killua has been groomed for a young age and forced into an incredibly dangerous and life threatening job that he does not want to do, that denies him the chance of a normal life, and that does not really allow him to make many friends. Megumi is railroaded onto this path, not by his choice, but by Toji's choice, and later Gojo's choice... because he has potential. Megumi like Killua cannot leave his family and stop being a sorcerer, otherwise his little sister who is the only family member he cares about will be hurt.

Gojo doesn't show up with an evil aura looking like the grudge girl and telling Megumi that he doesn't have the right to make friends, and that he's inherently evil and a puppet that only exists to kill people though so it's harder to tell that Megumi is a victim of the same kind of grooming that has hurt Killua so thoroughly.

This is what I mean when I say a lot of Megumi's characterization flies over your head because his victimization is written really subtly. Gojo does the same thing that Illumi / Silva does to Killua, he may seem like a stand up guy compared to those two but Megumi has about as much choice about what he can do with his life that Killua has.

Not all grooming is Illumi showing up with his spooky eyes to intimidate and coerce Killua into submission. Silva shows up to give Killua the first fatherly talk he had in his life, and lets him go from the mansion.... not because he realized he was wrong for restricting Killua's life choices and giving him no choice but to become heir.

No, it was a ploy to guilt trip him into coming back because he knew if he held Killua there by force he'd just run away the next chance he got. Fear and intimidation wasn't working at keeping Killua in line, so they switched to love instead.

Gojo can encourage Megumi to make friends, let him hang out and spend time with Itadori, even honor his wish to save Itadori and in the end still be manipulating him into becoming a sorcerer and not letting Megumi choose what he wants to do with his life. Gojo just prefers the carrot to the stick.

This is something the databooks confirm, that Gojo hunts prospects like Yuta, Yuji and Megumi not out of the goodness of his heart, but because they are talented students he can recruit to his cause with the added bonus that by appearing as their savior, they "owe" him.

Megumi is also a character lacking in agency, he is someone who's had no agency his entire life and what little agency he did have was stolen away from him by the adults in his life.

Let's analyze Megumi's situation for a second. As soon as Megumama dies, Toji gives up on the idea of fatherhood entirely, and decides to sell his son, literally, like in the sense of human trafficking to be raised by the highly abusive Zen'in Clan.

However, before the deal could be completed his father died in the middle of a mission. Megumi apparently saw his father so little that he didn't recognize him on coming face to face with him years alter, which says a lot about what kind of role Toji played in Megumi's life before he was outright abandoned.

Not only does Megumi believe his father just left him to run away with his new wife (Megumi's stepmother and the mother of Tsumiki) but now he and Tsumiki had to live together in a household without supervision for an indeterminate amount of time and watch their money slowly run out.

When it looks like they're about to start starving, Gojo Satoru shows up to save the day.... or not.

Gojo seems like he's offering Megumi a choice, but it's a loaded one. There's no choice in this scenario where Megumi gets to be a normal kid. The option of calling social services so this orphaned child does not starve doesn't occur to him.

Megumi's options are a) go to the Zen'in Clan and be a sorcerer where Tsumiki will be abused, or b) be a sorcerer under me where Tsumiki will be safe. The unspoken part is that if Megumi rejects his offer not only will he just let the Zen'in Take him, he'll also probably just let Megumi starve. Megumi the uh six or so year old child at this point has to sign away the rest of his life as a sorcerer, and work in order to earn money to eat.

No adult is taking care of Megumi, no one is raising him, even the food and shelter Megumi is given comes with a price tag that he has to pay back by being a Jujutsu Sorcerer and attending Jujutsu High as a teenager. Gojo even kind of subtly uses Tsumiki as a hostage to get Megumi to join with his agenda, because his offer isn't really much better than the Zen'ins but he needs Megumi on his side because he needs to raise kids to be future allies to his political agenda.

At the tender age of six Megumi signed his life away to be a sorcerer and he hasn't looked back since. Considering his severe behavioral problems getting into fights constantly at school, I think it's safe to say Megumi is about as reluctant to be a sorcerer as Killua is an assassin.

Honestly, if Megumi had phrased it like this:

"I'm so tired of being a sorcerer, I just want to be a kid."

Megumi would have a lot more fans, and Gojo would have a lot of explaining to do, but I think the brilliance of Megumi's grooming is that it's not really as blatant as Killua's. Megumi doesn't talk out loud about how he wants to be a normal kid, he's just angry at the whole world, and prone to fits of violence because he's mentall unwell.

Another way in which he parallels Killua, by the way.

Megumi does not talk about his lost childhood out loud. Instead of knowing his thoughts on the matter, instead we are shown his behavior, the effects of having his childhood taken away from him and how unstable it makes him and left to ponder as the audience what Megumi himself thinks of this.

The same way that Illumi steals all of Killua's agency away, robbing him of the chance to be anything other than what the Zoldycks want him to be, so to does Gojo. It's just instead of Gojo using the stick, he uses the carrot. He is Megumi's benefactor, he's the savior, for whose help Megumi owes him, sort of like repaying a loan with interest.

Gojo tries to shape Megumi into Gojo Satoru 2.0. Or maybe a second Geto. That's more likely as it's Geto defection which inspires Gojo to go looking for him after neglecting to do anything about Megumi until a year after finding out about his existence. Gojo says that Megumi is going to have to work hard or else he'll be left behind, just days after Geto had left him behind. Megumi is helped by Gojo, he is protected from the clans by Gojo, he has been taken on missions alongside Gojo his entire life, Maki even refers to Megumi as a treasure that was raised carefully by him.

Gojo invests a lot of time and effort into Megumi and because of that Megumi is expected to "perform." However, he doesn't.

That's the thing, Megumi is supposed to be either Gojo or Geto 2.0 but he just can't be. THe reason why again is Agency. If Killua is limited because of his inability to decide for himself, then so to is Megumi b/c Nen and Cursed Technique Development both depend on things like imagination, ego and self-image to raise them up to their full potential.

However, Gojo has shot himself in the foot with regards to Megumi. Becoming a Jujutsu Sorcerer requires a strong identity, but Gojo by sabotaging Megumi's agency and ability to decide for himself every step of the way has robbed Megumi of the chance to form that strong identity.

Megumi, just like Killua has no sense of self and instead both judges himself according to others, how he meets their expectations, how he measures up to them - he also glorifies others while constantly putting himself down.

Megumi doesn't give speeches about how Yuji is like pure light, but he also refuses to let Yuji out of his sight post Shibuya, and even says it'd be better to be killed by Sukuna alongside Yuji if Sukuna does take over.

In the Chimera Ant Arc Killua defines all of his self-worth around being useful to Gon, and beats himself up for not being able to measure up to him - because Killua has no sense of self his selfhood has always been undermined by his family who wanted to make him more suggestible to what they wanted.

Megumi is flippant with his own life and very willing to lay down his life for another's sake, because Megumi has very little agency in his life and has been taught by both Gojo and his circumstances that he himself and what he wants does not matter. Megumi doesn't fight fate, and fight for what he wants because he's already been shot in the kneecaps by both Toji's abandonment, and Gojo Satoru, and he's having a difficult time just trying to stand with bullets in his knees.

Maybe, the reason Megumi is so willing to risk his life to summon Mahoraga and sacrifice himself if he thinks it will help his allies is because Megumi has been forced into a job where he's gonig to be expected to sacrifice his life for the greater good since the tender age of six years old and therefore everything in life has conspired to tell him his life is worth less than others.

Yuji isn't the first person in story to think of himself as a cog, that's Megumi. He doesn't even need Shibuya to beat him down to accept the cog mindset, Megumi is already there at the beginning of the story.

I think a lot of misunderstanding of Megumi's character comes from the fact that his grooming is more subtle and insidious, and not as blatant as Killua's, and also that it's done by a character well-liked by the fandom. However, if Megumi has all the same symptoms of Killua then it's logical to deduce that they share the same trauma

Even Megumi's summoning of Mahoraga has a tie to Killua.

There's a pattern of KIllua running away from stronger opponent that's established in HXH that's eventually revealed to be because of a needle that Illumi inserted directly into Killua's brain to mind control him to run if he faced someone that was too much of a threat.

Obviously, that's just continuing the metaphor of the fact that Killua isn't able to believe in himself to face people who are stronger, because Illumi has been constantly putting him down his entire life.

Isn't this essentially what Megumi does as well?

When Megumi is faced with an opponent that's too strong or a hopeless situation, instead of running like Killua he summons Mahoraga. He does this because he doesn't believe in his ability to surpass his limits and fight, because he doesn't believe in himself or his own potential.

When is actually able to think more freely and picture a version of himself who can surpass his limits and who can do these things - these are the moments he is shown to grow.

Megumi however, for the most part isn't free. He can't think of himself as free and he can't free himself, because not only does he still have no choice about what he wants to do with his life (even if he becomes the msot powerful sorcerer in the world Gojo won't let him quit, he's gotta pay off those student loans), but he's also internalized the idea that he's not free. Not only has Gojo raised him to be a cog, Megumi has also accepted the fact that he is a cog and what he wants does not matter - the most he can do is hope that his actions will protect the people he loves and give them a little bit of happiness.

Megumi doesn't need a needle in his brain to control him and make him run away from fights and more obedient, because Megumi has already done all of that to himself with the toxic and self-harming ideas he's internalized.

Megumi and Killua having given up on themselves, try to make others happy, the same people they put on pedestals in order to make themselves feel even worse in comparison.

However, from this point Megumi and Killuas arcs go in opposite directions. You see after the Chimera Ant Arc when Killua hits his lowest point and his codependent friendship with Gon is exposed for what it is, Killua returns home in order to try and rescue his sister Alluka who is probably the reason he ran away in the first place.

Alluka and Tsumiki are both at the start of the story taken away from Killua and Megumi respectively, and with them the only genuine familial affection they ever enjoyed in their lives is taken too.

However, Alluka and Tsumiki are inversions. Alluka finds her freedom and agency, and Killua is able to reform his connection with his sister by accepting both pats of her, Alluka and Nanika. Afterwards the two of them finally leave their family home together and go off on a journey together.

If Alluka finds her personhood, Tsumiki remains a plot device. She never awakens from her coma, she's possessed instead and then murdered.

Now, here is where I point out how unfair the audience is being to Megumi. If you're a hunter x hunter fan remember all the character development that Killua gained by reforging his relationship with Alluka, how much confidence it gave him to connect to the one person who's even unconditionally loved him as a family member.

Now imagine that Alluka is brutally butchered right in front of him, and Killua has a first person point of view, because somehow in this scenario Illumi used a needle to mind control him into killing Alluka.

Do you really think Killua would be able to stand after that?

Sukuna is really just the last in line of a long line of people who've stolen Megumi's agency away from him, in order to benefit themselves. Sukuna even saw the same "potential" in Megumi that Gojo did.

Sukuna physically posessing Megumi's body, is just what both the Zen'in Clan, and Gojo Satoru have been trying to do to him in the most literal way possible. Gojo wants to remake Megumi into Gojo Satoru 2.0 with no regards to who Megumi is as a person, what Megumi's wants and needs are. No he just wants to raise someone as strong as him and pass the burden of protecting society onto Megumi, this starving orphan Gojo decided to exploit.

People have always used Megumi as a puppet for their own agenda, Naobito wanted to make him the head of the Zen'in Clan because he had the technique, Gojo wanted him to become the next strongest sorcerer / Gojo Satoru and also to replace the elders with Gojo's political agenda. They all want Megumi's "potential" for themselves to use to their own ends. Sukuna just takes what Gojo did one step further by literally stealing Megumi's body away from him and using him as a literal puppet instead of a metaphorical one. Gojo took Megumi's childhood by making him work as a sorcerer, Sukuna kills the physical embodiment of Megumi's childhood innocence by murdering Tsumiki, the only thing Megumi had in his life besides being a sorcerer, his only family, the only person he grew up with in his childhood years, the only person who loved him for who he was.

Megumi coped with what Gojo did to him the same way Killua did, by building himself around his use to others, and by building his identity around protecting others but now that's all gone. Tsumiki is gone, Megumi is trying to kill his friends, and he's already butchered Gojo Satoru.

Yet the fans are surprised that Megumi doesn't immediately get back on his feet.

However, and this my slightly optimistic ending to the post. Perhaps, Megumi is going the complete opposite of Killua, because what Megumi needed to learn was not to grow strong and confident enough to protect his sister but to learn to fight for himself.

At this point Megumi has nothing else left. It's sink of swim. He either develops a strong enough identity to regain control of his body and push Sukuna out, or he loses and the anti-Sukuna team will just have to resort to killing Megumi along with Sukuna.

Even in that case.

Megumi not being saved by Yuji is a good thing.

Because a victim who gets rescued by a hero still has no agency.

Megumi told Yuji that he needs to start by "saving me."

However, it might just be the opposite. Before Megumi can save anyone else, before he can become a protector, he has to find his own power and save himself. He has to both accept thathe's someone worthy of salvation, and at the same time he can't just passively accept the hand that Yuji's offered to him he has to actively be the one to break free of Sukuna and save himself.

Megumi can't become the strongest sorcerer by becoming the next Gojo Satoru or being what Gojo or Sukuna wants him to be. THe only way Megumi can become the strongest, is by being himself.

[prettysweetprettysweet]

i really do feel genuine queerness radiating from the narrative in Cherry Magic Thailand in a way that it might not have in other people's hands. the thing that truly roped me in from the beginning was how Karan's love for Achi, beyond the inherent goodness of it, also created a vast spectrum of negative emotion for Karan that most queer people could immediately recognize and sympathize with. specifically, how uniquely queer it is to have your love and attraction to someone be so closely married to terror at the thought of disgusting them that the concept and feeling of love is tainted for you in ways that it isn't for straight people.

i was hooked by episode 2 when Karan recognized that putting himself out there in even the smallest ways was causing Achi discomfort, and he resolved to just...settle. i can settle, i can settle, i don't need more than what we have right now. i won't make him any more uncomfortable than I already have. i'm being selfish, i need to retreat and keep a distance so he doesn't have to think about me when he doesn't want to, so he doesn't have to dwell on bad things.

he is so concerned with the thoughts and feelings of others that he constantly allows it to branch into self-denigration in relation to his queerness. like after he and Achi were forced to have physical contact by the party game, he's so preoccupied with Achi's fear and discomfort that one of the first things he says to him is "they shouldn't have made us play that game. what guy would be okay with kissing another guy?" and its like...Karan, you would! you would love to kiss the guy right next you and thats okay! to me it seemed like he was giving Achi a pass in case he was disgusted, like 'its okay if [my] queerness grossed you out just now.'

and as @poetry-protest-pornography pointed out here, Karan's confession of love is weighed down by so much negative emotion. right out of the gate, Karan is apologizing for having these types of thoughts and feelings about Achi, taking Achi's willingness over the past few weeks to get to know and be known by Karan as an act of charity, and apologizing for betraying his trust by wanting more. like, you gave me a good thing and i perverted it and made it bad. i'm so sorry.

this resonates with me so much because his internal dialogue was so similar to mine when i came out, but in the context of my relationship with my mother. in the months after i came out to her, every time i saw her i was looking for clues in her body language that confirmed my agonizing suspicion that she was disgusted by me. every time i saw her, my first thought would be 'she's thinking about it and she's disgusted with me, i'm gross to her.' and when i saw her minutely reacting to parts of my own body language that were too butch and masculine (that i hadn't really spent a lot of time thinking about prior to coming out), i vowed to start being more conscious of how i spoke and presented so that i wouldn't make her uncomfortable because i felt so, so bad about forcing her to associate me, her child, with something perverted and gross. Karan's instinct to be ashamed, apologetic, and remorseful for being himself and feeling his feelings makes this show so, so gay for me.

[ultimate-marysue]

Something very interesting about Jimmy that I don't see a lot of people mention is how he has actual real problems. He is genuinely being victimized by the capitalist system and the shitty corporation he works for.

I think this is very important. The game doesn't try to sympathize with him at all, he couldn't be less sympathetic unless he kicked a puppy. Then why include it? They could have made him just another entitled asshole with no real problems thinking himself the true victim of life. But they don't.

In fact, in his monologue during the birthday scene he's not only lamenting his luck, he points out how their collective firing will affect Swansea and Anya. He actually speaks more about them than about himself.

I don't think this is a "Jimmy is not that bad actually" moment. I think it's a "Jimmy is human and has actual tangible problems that fuck his life up". This is important because it's so easy to demonize awful people like Jimmy to the point where they stop being human in our eyes. But they are, they are human and they sometimes weirdly care for the people they hurt.

Demonizing bad people is what leads to people like Curly trying to give "one more chance" to their buddies. To not kick them while their down because "They're going through a lot". The point of Jimmy is that you can be having an awful time in life and you can still be an awful person. You can be a victim of your circumstances and also victimize others.

It's so easy to spot assholes when they're rich people with no real excuse or explanation to why they behave like shit. But your friend who is down on his luck, and you know he's not a bad guy you know? He just maybe misunderstood or maybe he's just lashing out...yeah, that friend is an asshole too.

He may deserve a second chance, he may be going through a lot, but that doesn't excuse you for being the worst person ever. It's easy to demonize Jimmy because he is a bad person, he's problems aren't nearly as bad as Anya's or Swansea's, he hurts others and takes no responsibility for it. Even in the end he doesn't acknowledge how he hurt Anya. But let's not forget that his evil is a very human one.

The real lesson isn't "Jimmy bad", the real lesson is being the victim of a really shitty situation doesn't make you a poor martyr angel. You can fuck Up, and usually stressful situation make us fuck Up more. So when you're down is not the time to force everyone to tolerate your bullshit cause you're having a bad time. Other people are also having a bad time, some may be having a worse time than you. You're not entitled to cause harm to others just cause your going through a rough patch.

In life, people aren't assholes just because, they have reasons they tell themselves for acting the way they do. Don't be that person. Be understanding of people's issues, but don't tolerate bad behavior out of empathy or pity. The worst person you know is a pitiable guy that will weaponize his very valid issues to justify foul shit.

[rottenpumpkin13]

I used to see Sephiroth and think “damn he’s the Marilyn Monroe of video games and anime,” but after delving into his backstory and seeing Crisis Core/Reunion and Ever Crisis I just feel sad.

I mean when you think about it he really had no one. He only knew Glenn, Matt, and Lucia for that one mission but he never forgot about them, despite all of them leaving him behind. Then Angeal and Genesis who- I’m sorry, I know this is also an unpopular opinion- also treated him like crap. To me it always seemed like Genesis didn’t really care about Sephiroth at all. We’ve never seen him being nice to him, even prior to degrading. During that one spar we saw of them three Genesis really seemed like he was going for the throat and like he was letting his rage and jealousy take over, and Angeal had to break them up. At first I used to think that at least Angeal was a decent friend to Sephiroth, but the more I think about it the more it seemed like he was on Genesis’ side because he was his childhood friend and simply acted as a peacekeeper between them three than anything else. Sephiroth didn’t hesitate to offer his blood/cells when Genesis needed it and Angeal even commented on how Sephiroth had lost weight when he sees him the last time, probably from stress and depression.

So not only did he never have friends who cared about him and who he always cared more for than they cared for him, he was also raised in a lab his entire childhood by a psycho who’s his biological father (he didn’t know about that part but it’s still horribly messed up.) And even with all of that he still grew up to be a good person- before all the trauma drove him crazy. He still wanted to genuinely help and save people, and he got attached so quickly. Even with every reason to be horrible he wasn’t, until the whole dam of emotions and mistreatment broke.

Sorry for the long post. I was just looking back at the Seph lore and started feeling really sad 😕

Sephiroth is a very tragic character, and he was failed by every adult in his life from the very beginning, first by his parents—one being an unethical twat and the other being his mother, someone who he would later come to really yearn for and had no idea she was part of the reason why his life was the way it was. He was Shinra's lap dog from birth to Nibelheim, and the only respite he had from it all were his friendships—and he was an extremely loyal friend to everyone. He was loyal even to SOLDIER despite the program being part of the problem.

It appears Glenn, Matt and Lucia were his first friends who really taught him what it was like to care for other people. The thing is: the FS trio were as much of Shinra's pawns as Sephiroth—albeit to a lesser extend because Seph was their golden boy. And so were Genesis and Angeal. They were victims of the Jenova Project too, and had every right to be angry, and Genesis' actions are more understandable (not excusable) once you take into account how the degradation likely preyed on his mental state. Genesis and Angeal are complex characters, but unfortunately we don't have as much narrative context and content for them as we have for Sephiroth, which ultimately makes Sephiroth easier to sympathize with despite what he goes on to become later. He's an incredibly tragic character who everyone rightfully adores, also because of who he was as character Pre-Nibelheim, before he understandably lost his mind. It's a damn shame so many people disregard the compilation, because there's so much of Seph's backstory to be explored that adds even more depth to his character.

I think Genesis and Angeal were good friends to Sephiroth, but you have to understand that they were both degrading while Sephiroth was (physically) fine. So of course they latched onto each other and left Sephiroth behind, especially if they thought Sephiroth wouldn't understand their desertion and wouldn't abandon Shinra to come with them. I don't think they were bad friends, but they—Genesis especially—underestimated how good of a friend he was to them. I hope chapter 2 of FS can show Sephiroth and Angeal's (fingers crossed Genesis too) friendship before the crisis ever started. Only then will we know what their dynamic was like.

[lovelycleon]

Hello there

I recently had a horrific argument because some people can’t let a ship just be a ship. I genuinely have my fun and love for Cleon and it getting attacked was too much. However the person I got into a fight with also told me to count up 3 reasons why they should work. And I couldn’t believe that I had to think about it and it took longer than it should have. Out of curiosity…if you had to count up three reasons what would it be?

Hello!

I'm pretty sure I've already answered a question like this at some point, or at least the answer is spread out somewhere in several of my posts over the last 3 years.

But don't worry, I will try to make a short summary of the 3 things about Cleon that would make them work as a couple:

1.They have a lot in common.

Although their work occupies most of Leon and Claire's lives, through the franchise they have shown very similar everyday interests and hobbies:

Such as love for motorcycles. Capcom made Leon and Claire the official bikers of the franchise, always putting little references here and there in games and movies;

Their whole style. The taste for custom leather jackets, obviously, but also many other alternative outfits. Believe me, of almost all of Claire's costumes, Leon has one somewhere to match.

Even the same kind of sense of humor, with similar one liners, bad good jokes and literary references that I posted here many times before;

It would be easy to imagine what their life together would be like outside of work, on a daily basis with so much in common and the banter they have when they are together.

2.They have the same morals.

Despite following different paths in the fight against bioterrorism, Leon and Claire carry the same code on how to act in certain situations:

Like the idea that both have already stated about not giving up the fight in the name of their comrades who died alongside them (Damnation, Heavenly Island);

The strong will to protect those in need, like Sherry, Ashley and others, no matter how impossible the mission seems or what has to be done;

Not blindly believing in something and always questioning and digging deep when something doesn't feel right (Degeneration, Infinite Darkness);

Trying to understand all sides of the situation and even sympathizing with some of the villains they faced (Annette, Rodrigo, Jason, Buddy, Dr. Taylor and more);

Along with many others, sharing these characteristics can bring stability to their relationship. Having them always on the same page, knowing what each one stands for.

3.They can understand each other.

Besides the shared trauma in Raccoon City, Leon and Claire went through very similar traumatic events even on different missions years apart and, in one way or another, felt the same type of pain:

Being kidnapped, infected and subjected to a race against time to save themselves and others (RE4 and REvelations 2);

Having to see their superiors whom they trusted (and are somewhat emotionally involved) become monsters obsessed with power. (Neil and Krauser)

Being used, mistreated and framed... Leon by the government and its corruption; Claire (along with terrasave) by willpharma and later on by Neil and the FBC;

Witnessing friends sacrifice themselves for them... some even in a very similar way: like Gabe and Mike exploding in a helicopter while Claire and Leon can only watch;

Don't get me wrong, a lot of RE characters have trauma and they all can bond through that, it's undeniable. But here, about Leon and Claire, I'm not just talking about "what happened and their reaction", but also HOW it happened and the physical and psychological similarities of each event for them. As if the narrative chooses to create parallels between them.

And this opens the door for a deep interactions (like the one in Degeneration) that can add new layers to their relationship and find comfort in each other.

Now just let me give you a little bonus (because I would like to write a lot more, but that is already too far from the short summary I promised)

4.Their amazing chemistry.

Haters will always try to deny it (and that's expected since they are haters), but the chemistry between Leon and Claire is great.

Not just the way they look and smile at each other, but how they act together and how they care for each other. I mean, Capcom didn't write scenes like Claire's big smile when she sees that Leon is okay, or Leon giving up of himself for Claire's safety, or them flirting cracking jokes in the middle of a zombie outbreak, or running and screaming each of their name in despair as soon as they see the other is injured for nothing.

It's to highlight their chemistry. The chemistry they are writing for Cleon.

Again, haters will always deny it, because it's inconvenient for them, but it's there.

Leon and Claire love and care for each other deeply, they can have fun hobbies, overcome hardships and find comfort together. The entire basis for a healthy relationship is there, written by the devs at Capcom themselves.

We just need to wait and see what they do with it.

[sdvshanewife]

Gonna be honest and say that I don’t even think shane is rude he’s just not very nice. (Obviously all early on) first meeting he says the thing why are you talking to me I don’t know you. Which is a) true and b) not that bad he’s just like bruh who are you man. Okay woah not very friendly like most of the town but just how it is sometimes

And I feel like no one ever considers the actual situation afterwards. If you keep talking to him despite him very obviously wanting to be left alone and have somewhat made it clear the first time that’s on you?? He SAID leave him alone. The player isn’t respecting that and keeps talking to him. Obviously in stardew valley it all works out happy ending they get married yeah yeah everything’s okay but. In the real world if you keep bothering a guy who tells you to Leave Him Alone and he starts saying stuff like “what do you want” “go away” that is literally entirely on the person who doesn’t listen to him and you know, leave him alone?? It is so insane to me that people act like he’s the worst, acting like you said hi and he went “fuck you and your entire family I hope you die in a [redacted]”. Okay, I’ll agree that he’s not nice. But It is genuinely crazy to me that people agree that he’s apparently such a huge jerk. I think we’re all used to the town being really welcoming and warm and friendly so when he’s like that it’s unexpected and a bit of a shock, and I also understand being sensitive to stuff like this (no hate to that at all)

But I do not understand people who think others actually own them conversation just because…? and when someone doesn’t want to be bothered they are somehow lacking in personal morality. That is wild to me. Is it weird? Yeah maybe depends on where you’re from. Does it say something about who they are as a person? Probably not. At least less than they think.

I guess the fact that Stardew is expected to be a wholesome warm fuzzy game also plays into it. Like why are you like this it’s stinking up my cozy little game etc etc. And I get that but I don’t think it’s fair because Shane’s thing is not the only heavy topic in this game. Alex dealing with a parental loss and iirc also past abuse from his father!! Pam’s alcoholism and as a result putting Penny through so much bullshit and responsibility she shouldn’t have had to shoulder!! Kent is a former pow with ptsd!! And more that’s “milder” but still not all sunshines and rainbows. I know Stardew has the reputation of being cozy and warm and it’s true but that is mostly due to the players saying it themselves. There was no promise that there would not be heavier topics in the game at all. And it’s also handled well (not like uhh sudden horror twists or stuff) and is not otherwise very “out of place” so yeah it’s not fair to expect that from the game or him.

Um honestly by this point I’m not that mad anymore so

Live laugh shane our mantra yeah

the reason people make out shane to be ruder than he actually is is because they compare him to the other villagers that say hi and are friendly blah blah blah. it's also just expected for people to be friendly or atleast be "decent" (for a lack of a better word?) when you talk to them (or when they talk to you). when someone doesnt want to talk, theyre expected to not be so blunt and be like "oh sorry, i dont really wanna talk right now" and not be as direct as shane is.

i dont really agree with the "stardew valley is made out to be a cozy game". while i understand where you're coming from, most people don't mind the heavy topics, what they do care about is the way shane acts. ive never seen people complaining about penny's, alex's, or kent's stories which contain heavy topics. they're easier to sympathize with because the characters are nice.

LIVE LAUGH SHANE

[taking-a-raincheck]

3, 4, 5, and 6 for the STP ask game? :D

Hello hello! Thanks for the ask :]

3: favorite vessel

Oh dang, there's so many to choose from uhhhhh... do you mind if I list my four favorites instead? I have a big soft spot for Eye of the Needle w/ Hunted as (I think) my first vessel ever, also I love love love how our voices manage to work together to finally defeat the Princess on our own terms. Same deal for Den at first, now I love her for both the voices' dynamics and the insanely incredible turns her route takes no matter what you do. I love the new Fury for the pain she finally manages to share with us, also the new body horror in that route is one of the only times I found myself genuinely speechless (and genuinely freaked out ��). Finally, the Stranger princess from Strange Endings is my baby and I want to hug her and spin her around and tell her I love her so so much 🥺

4: least favorite vessel and what would redeem her in my eyes

My least favorite vessel would probably have to be Tower 😅 sorry Tower fans. I'm just really not a fan of the way you have to submit and debase yourself completely in order for her to not horribly injure you, but she only has a tiny bit of respect for you if you fight back despite all that. Razor and Nightmare sort of fall into the same category, but I find that you're able to sympathize significantly more with both of them than with Tower. I know that Apotheosis definitely makes Tower more sympathetic, but I wish there was a bit more of her struggling evident in her main chapter for us to empathize with.

5: favorite voice

Hero. No contest. He's my (other) baby, my specialest most amazing boy and I love him immensely 🥰 However, I also have extra-soft spots in my heart for Hunted, Paranoid, Cheated, and Contrarian (in that order).

6: least favorite voice and what would redeem him in my eyes

I honestly don't dislike any of the voices, but my least favorite voice would have to be Smitten. He just seems to be particularly one-note, often either in an unhelpful or a straight-up bad/unhealthy way, even when compared to any of the other voices. I think I'd like him quite a lot more if we'd got to see more of the caring, nurturing side of his loving nature, both in relation to the Princess and to the other voices.

I hope this answered your questions adequately 😁

[saffitaffi]

Okay the follow up question

How often does the concept of princess besides all the supernatural stuff is essentially a captive woman that wants freedom affect your perception of the story?

I think it really hits hardest in the Spectre route. She seems so mournful, hurt, angry, and rightfully so. She genuinely just wants to get out and see the nonexistent world, and it’s so melancholy the way she sadly floats around, even if she’s willing to kill you. Frankly Spectre is one of my favorite vessels because she seems like she knows more than she’s letting on, like she’s an actual person outside of the situation she’s in.

Alot of the routes she straight up turns into a murder friendly monster (rightfully so, I mean we do try to kill her) but that makes it difficult to sympathize for her situation. In adversary she straight up doesn’t care about getting out, (ironically, the eye of the needle is pretty much the only one with multiple sprites of the woods when you fight her out there. Some of the others get out but get immediately nuked, thought that was interesting) and in witch she actively sabatoges her one chance at doing so.

Damsel is nice, but almost too nice. Too trusting of a random stranger. Her affection feels surface level at times, but she’s very fun regardless. You feel bad for her initially, but she doesn’t seem all that worked up about it (when you stab her she dies with a smile on her face) so even though you can see it probably hurts there’s not a lot of sympathy for her.

Prisoner really gives the ‘I’m just trying to get out’ vibes, mostly in how she is trying to collaborate with you to get out. She’s ruthless and unforgiving, but it makes sense. She’s unsure and doesn’t know exactly what’s going on, so she tries to mediate our character into a favorable position for her. If all goes well we help her escape. Whether by waiting for eons or carrying her head out, she fulfills that desire.

Drowned and burned gray are both what happens when you betray someone who thought they could trust you. I know that’s kinda witches thing, but witch got betrayed pretty soon after the first good thing we did to her. We helped both damsel and prisoner get out once, but then turned on them the second time, making them both very, very angry. (Drowned gray freaked me out the most, honestly. The bloated corpse got me - uuuuuuuurrrrrghhhhhhhh nooooooooooo) Much like Spectre, they’re ghosts of vengeance. Spirits of betrayal. She really just wanted to get out.

Nightmare was one of the first routes I saw, which was, you know, pretty spooky. In that case you really do get the idea that she’s a danger to the world as well as a captive who wants to get out. Both ideas simultaneously. Stranger is… interesting. You get more of the horror vibes from that route in the main game. Still wish there was something for og stranger idea (the hive) but ey what ya gonna do. She’s too spooky to think of her as just a poor girl trapped in a basement lol

It came a lot more when watching the first couple demos, where the game was still kind of unsure of what it was. The princess taking you aside after every thing you do to her and saying how much she loves you kinda dampens the effects of the individual vessels, I think. It also makes you think of her less as a poor captive, because when she ‘dies’ she doesn’t really die, when she gets ‘hurt’ she doesn’t bear the scars.

Uhhhh rant over, slay the princess is awesome and I could talk for hours but it’s been long enough lmao

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

Well, it’s been a week and I've had time to cool down and put together my thoughts on Season of the Seraph and its ending. So here goes.

The season finale plot did not require Rasputin to die. "The eliksni are trying to get control of the warsats" is literally a strike. If the warsats needed to be taken off the table as a get-out-of-jail-free card we could have blown the network and kept Rasputin himself. There was an active decision to kill him. Having thought about it, I think I understand why this decision was made - but I still think it's a terrible decision, and I'll explain why.

Before we start, I don't want to sound like I'm going after Destiny's narrative team either personally or professionally. I'm not calling them terrible writers, much less terrible people. I don't know them! They might even be terrible people, for all I know. While I refer to a single monolithic "narrative team," I know in reality there are multiple groups working on different stories. I’m not a professional writer, and they are. And I genuinely believe all of them are talented people who work hard and care about Destiny. But that doesn't mean I don't have some criticisms.

After considering it I think there are three possible reasons to kill Rasputin:

1). The narrative team believed this was a good emotional conclusion that brought closure to his character arc in Destiny. In this case I just think they're flat-out wrong. I'd say "I respect it" but I kind of don't because I think it's so terribly wrong. I don't know what other people think Rasputin's character arc involved, but I won't get closure till Rasputin faces the Witness again and finally ends the war he's been trapped in for centuries. But I get why they would do it, if they believed this. And that final mission was really good. I had a hard time noticing at the time, but it was very well-done, and the cutscene proper was well-shot, -scripted, and -acted (though I'm still angry about the Traveler upstaging Rasputin's death). They put a huge amount of effort into it and into the story work all season long.

But his death being well-done doesn’t change whether I think it was a good narrative choice. Even saying “Rasputin’s arc should conclude here,” the way it was set up had him sacrificing himself to basically cancel himself out. Unless they’re saving up a plot twist, Rasputin ultimately contributed nothing to the fight. He didn’t do any damage to the Fleet or Witness, or anything to stymie Xivu Arath. He died thinking he’d never helped humanity at all and it was safer if he didn’t exist. I don’t know about you, but I find that extremely unsatisfying.

2). Someone doesn't like Rasputin/doesn't know what to do with him. This is two reasons, but they overlap. The Operation: Sancus mission dialogue pissed me off because it gave me the impression that whoever was writing it really didn't like Rasputin and was taking the chance to morally excoriate him. A more subtle version recurs in the final mission where Rasputin is essentially sacrificing himself to null out his own existence - saying "as long as I exist I'm a threat to humanity" - as if he can't ever help or contribute more than endanger people, which is just flat-out wrong. "Humanity doesn't need a Warmind" you're part of humanity, Red. He’s a person; he doesn’t need to justify living. If someone just decided Rasputin Was Bad Actually I’d be very angry indeed. But I don't think it's that personal. Destiny has lots of writers and multiple narrative teams will touch the same work. One person's distaste probably wouldn't steer an entire season.

Related, however, is the reason that maybe no one knows what to do with Rasputin. To be honest I sympathize with this one. Would it shock anyone to hear I've thought about how I would script a Rasputin-focused season? It's surprisingly hard to build a plot around him. A game needs to be interactive and Rasputin's kind of all or nothing - either he can handle the whole problem himself or he can't do anything at all. Red also mostly plays defense. He doesn't have a goal he's working towards other than "kill the Witness/save humanity." You need to come up with a plausible goal that we can believably help him achieve, and that's nontrivial. But, well, that's why I'm not a professional games writer and these people are. "Not sure what do" is not IMO sufficient justification for assassinating one of Destiny's oldest characters/factions.

3). The Destiny narrative team is trying to "declutter" the setting and foreground story by sidelining characters who take a lot of lore to understand. I think this is the real reason, and it's worth talking more about.

A lot of us lore-nerds have long complained about Destiny not foregrounding its setting and story, and Bungie has responded by trying to do so. I think we didn't consider what that would actually look like. Imagine Destiny's story like a long movie. Now imagine people are constantly coming and going from the audience, and everyone who comes in has to nudge their neighbor and go, "hey, what's happening?" Destiny is always (hopefully) acquiring new players, and existing ones are dropping out and coming back. Even most established players either don't read the lore or don't track/remember it. We the lore-keepers are very much the anomaly. If we want story to be a focus, that story also has to be more accessible to new players, lapsed players, people who don't bother reading loretabs, etc., because otherwise it harms their experience and there's a lot more of them than there are of us.

I think this is why we've seen a lot of seasons that introduce whole new concepts - the eliksni Sacred Splicers, for instance - rather than following on existing storylines. Introducing a mostly-new concept puts new and old players on a similar footing. Haunted is another type of compromise between the goal of furthering the story and the goal of making it accessible. Calus and Leviathan are back, but so warped that old players have as much to learn as new ones, and the Sever missions dive deep into character pasts but pretty explicitly describe the emotional arcs they're illustrating, so you don't have to be familiar with that character to get what they're going through. To those who already know Zavala, Crow, etc., it seems laughably obvious and strained. But to those who just got here, this is their first time learning not just about Safiyah but also about Zavala. I think this is also why there have been multiple casual retcons of minor stuff - there isn't time to explain the history, and they've decided it's not worth confusing people.

Rasputin is old. He's been a significant part of Destiny since literally the pre-Alpha test. The complexity and history that are part of why we love the Warmind also make him hell to explain to new people. It takes a decent amount of lore to get invested in his character and since Beyond Light none of that lore is featured in-game. Pre-Season of the Seraph, anyone who began with Beyond Light literally never met him. They never visited Hellas Basin, which is one big environmental story about Rasputin, and The Will of Thousands strike, which demonstrates Red's power and contains many possible dialogues that emphasize him trusting you/acting as an ally, left the playlist ages ago. Since then a new player's only gameplay interaction with him has been Fallen SABER, in which Red yells incoherent Russian and tries to flatten you with a warsat. Is it a surprise relatively new players might not be up on his character arc?

Season of the Seraph, with its narrative of rebuilding Rasputin from the ground up, would be a perfect time to introduce new players to Red's long history, and they...kind of...did that. They worked in Felwinter although then for some reason felt the need to retcon in the whole "Clovis wanted to destroy the Traveler" plan. If you were a new player who didn't know anything about Destiny lore, and you just played Season of the Seraph, you'd get an entire canned arc for Rasputin that hits the early high notes: built to be a weapon, rebelled against his constraints, humanities nerd, big smite, loves Ana and Elsie, makes mistakes but genuinely cares and wants to help.

But that's where Seraph stops. In existing lore (I almost typed "in reality") Rasputin worked out the whole "not a weapon" thing well back during the Golden Age. For a lot of us Warmind fans the most interesting parts of his story happened after that - the entire Collapse, confrontation with Darkness, years of hiding, etc., not to mention all his character development during Warmind and Worthy. He's gone through a lot, and Seraph misses all of it (except Felwinter) in favor of rehashing the same arc for a third time. It's like when moviemakers keep rebooting a superhero origin story. It may be a good story, but eventually we'd like to move on to the other parts we enjoy: this sleeping giant, hard scifi AI, grouchy old bastard, lost lore of the Golden Age, champion of humanity, learning from defeat, learning to trust again, the morality and trauma of warfare - what it means to lose a war - a being never meant to become what he was transforming still further, still unfolding his own potential.

So understanding why they might have done this doesn't excuse what I still see as a terrible narrative choice. I think dropping Rasputin is a major waste of potential, and he's far from the only tricky character to explain. Osiris, or at least the Cult of Osiris, is similarly old. His story is complex and weird and requires knowledge from Curse and earlier, yet he's still playing a major role. Other current characters like Elsie, Saladin, and Crow also need a decent amount of knowledge about previous game events to get why they are the way they are. Saladin's origin story isn't even in this game. It's not Rasputin's fault the game went three years without so much as mentioning him outside of written lore. What was wrong with the great Xivu-Rasputin “war god” parallels most of the season worked to set up, about the intent of violence? Are we never going to explore those? Are we just throwing out all the dialogues planning a role for Red in the upcoming war? Why did we have a dramatic confrontation about trusting Rasputin to operate independently if he were going to be gone in a month anyway? Just in Seraph alone the number of interesting plot threads abruptly trashed by this death argues against it.

Rasputin's longevity is precisely part of why he should stick around. In the first mission of Destiny 1 you wake up in his shadow. He has a history with us. There's just no one quite like him in Destiny. He's not just a character but an entire faction. He explores a part of story space that no one else does. He resonates with us as people rather than players. I assume Neomuna will pick up the Golden Age banner, but it’s a thriving city; Rasputin represented the ruins, the dangers of a dead age, the shadow of apocalypse. He's also maybe the most Guardian-like character and one of the best to weave a parallel/cautionary tale - were we, too, only made to be weapons? But if Rasputin didn't stay a weapon, can we too transcend that intention? And of all the factions in our solar system, the two with the most personal scores to settle with the Witness are the eliksni and Rasputin, and Misraaks'/Eramis' story has focused much more on the Traveler's flight than the Fleet's attack. Of everyone in Destiny Rasputin has the most desperately personal motive for revenge on the monochrome bastard. Now he's not even going to be there to watch it crash and burn.

I understand that foregrounding story also comes with the requirement that it be accessible to those who don't do their lore homework. I appreciate the monumental amount of work that's gone into doing that and the experimental nature of it. But I think the balance has skewed too far towards accessibility. Stuff like the end of Season of Plunder that has zero narrative motivation or continuity and doesn't even get a pretend justification drives me absolutely batty. You can only break internal rules so many times before players stop buying whatever narrative stakes you're trying to set up. Making the story easier to follow doesn't mean characters have to be cartoonishly-exaggerated caricatures like Clovis was in Seraph - just absolutely cartoonishly evil - or reduced to one or two character motives explicitly laid out for the player (though, credit where credit is due, Clovis was hilarious.) It doesn't mean the dialogue has to be as subtle as a Thundercrash. It doesn't mean you get a blank check to retcon or invent whatever's needed to create the intended character arc. If anything that discourages looking further into lore - why bother to learn it when next season will change it all again? I think Y5 represents a lot of experimentation by the Destiny narrative team, and I really respect that. But I also hope they learn what didn’t work from it, and sacrificing Rasputin in an ultimately pointless and unnecessary finale is a major misstep.

[ranidspace]

im thinking Breaking Bad again and had a connection to media literacy as a whole. Walt is genuinely an awful person, and it's really easy to say "oh yeah fuck this guy", but that's not how you feel watching the show.

He's the main character. You see his thought process, you see how he got from then to now, you see that in his mind he's doing what's right. So much of the tension in the show comes from almost being caught. While there's multiple antagonists, one is literally his own step brother who wants to catch the biggest drug lord in the entire country, which happens to be Walt. Things would be better if he was stopped, but even then you don't want him to. The scene where hank finds out is deeply tense, Walt is done and he just wants to live normally from now on, and Hank is attacking that desire for everything to be okay.

Jesse isn't innocent either. He sold drugs to people in rehab. He directly killed 5 people and was partially responsible for many more, including two of his girlfriends, one of which was because he got her back onto drugs after a year and a half of sobriety. Jesse had a happy ending. People believe he was a tragic character and that he deserved freedom.

I truly think that no matter how awful someone is, media can make you sympathize with them. It can control your own feelings towards some made up guy and they can make the most deeply inhumane and fucked up shit and make it feel like something that you would have done in the same situation. It was the right thing to do and it was the rational choice.

However, it's only suspended disbelief. It doesn't take much mental effort to snap out of it and think "oh shit this is actually terrible". The thing is that it requires mental effort. Think about how many people idolize Walter White and Patrick Bateman and other characters who are, when analyzed slightly more than surface level, deeply awful, and pathetic.

When media intentionally uses this ability to make you sympathize with anything, for the purposes of changing your mind in the real world, it's called "Propaganda" and very much relies on people not putting in the mental effort to analyze it more than surface level.

As the saying goes "You are not immune to propaganda" can mean you're not immune to a video game funded by the US military teaches you the basics of guns and makes you have fun while killing The Bad People.

The solution isn't to not consume or ban any media with problematic shit in it, it's to take a deeper look at it to see what it's trying to tell you, and really sit and think about it.

Propaganda doesn't have to be negative, like say The Good Place (which i haven't seen) has a lot of positive and anti capitalist messages (i think), and in the cases of where it's like this you already probably are analyzing what what it's trying to say and drawing parallels to real life on the fly.

Though, that's where you have to be MORE careful. If you have a piece of media that agrees with 95% of your viewpoints, they can maliciously slip in some things in that 5% and you can internalize it easily. You have to think the whole 100% it's trying to tell you.

[shiny-jr]

Spoiler from diasomnia chapter

Yes From what you just said, take the 2nd Halloween event i was pretty annoyed with the fact that only ace sort of scolded mal, like wth no one cares? No one will speak their minds? So yeah I feel like it will end like that but on a bigger scale, 'poor him he didn't knew better ' huuu no, i don't think so

In general all OB guys have gone basically free, i don't mean expel them but ... Nobody is going to do something? The one I've seen more ' punished for his actions' is Jamil bc Scarabia sort of turned their backs at him (which later got fixed but at least we saw some consequences)

🐏(?

FOR REAL. I'm pretty sure I already talked about it here, but in case I haven't, the second halloween event ending was complete bs. I hate how the ghosts, Lilia, and Malleus basically kinda gaslit everyone into believing that everyone else was in the wrong when in actuality everyone was completely valid in their belief that they were fighting for their life. And everyone else just apologized? Nah, be fucking for real. The second halloween event kinda a flop for that. Ace was the only real one in that entire event because he didn't stand for that crap. Not only that, but he was genuinely so worried for the mc and Grim!

As for the overblots, they've been getting increasingly worse. Like, Riddle was bad enough and he was the first one. So let's do a review, shall we? Spoilers all the way from chapter one to what we know of chapter seven.

Riddle. At first, I used to think his meltdown was pretty tame. That is, until I read part of the fight depicted in the manga. The fight in the manga goes way more into detail. I skimmed over it, but basically Cater was stabbed (thankfully it was one of his clones) and I remember Riddle throwing one of the roses bushes at either Trey, Ace, or the MC. The manga shows the fights way better than the game, and it becomes obvious that Riddle tries to hit everyone lethally more than once. However, despite that and destroying his dorm's garden, he's let off with his only punishment being to apologize and to bake a tart. Really? He almost killed people and that's it? And that's just the first one! But, it's a lot more tame than the others.

Leona takes it up a tiny notch. From here on out, I can't go into detail about the fight itself because the fighting is best depicted in the manga and the manga isn't here yet, but we have the game to go off of. We know for a fact that Leona was ready to suffocate Ruggie and even turn him to sand. Hell, if I remember right, he even turned a tiny part of his skin to sand. And he planned to injure an entire stadium if necessary. But all that was done was "oh, because you nearly killed people and your closest friend, your team isn't allowed to play in the tournament anymore" BUT to make things worse, the other teams chime in like "nah, let them play, because we want to beat them." WHAT? People nearly died??

I think Azul stays about the same level as Leona, if not lower. Leona was ready to put innocent citizens at risk, while Azul knocked students around his dorm unconscious(?) after stealing their magic. But afterwards, he just changed his scamming ways to be more low-key and chose to return the photograph he had MC and their gang steal. That was literally it. Like, bruh. I imagine he nearly killed people too, but it wasn't specified so I can't say for sure. But really?

Jamil finally takes it up another notch. I think he was seriously hoping the fall from his hit killed Kalim and co when he sent them flying. That, or they just wouldn't survive when that far out into the realm, but I can't be sure on this one. Then he hypnotizes everyone in the dorm. Again, like all the other fights, I can only assume there were multiple lethal attacks that weren't depicted well in the game. Even though it seems like he faced the most punishment with his dorm turning their back on him, idk, it didn't feel like enough.

Vil is probably the one I sympathize with the least. Before he even overblotted, he tried to poison and murder Neige but Rook nearly took his place. I'd say it's very safe to say he nearly killed MC, Grim, Ace, Deuce, Rook, Epel, Jamil, and Kalim by how roughed up everyone was after the battle. He also thought if he got rid of everyone else then he'd be the most beautiful, insinuating that he would harm or kill others. Right after overblotting, he says, "The suffering won't last long. You'll stop breathing soon" and later "Do you really think any who look upon my ugly form is allowed to live?" Yeah, he was definitely aiming to kill. And if Jamil and others hadn't discreetly evacuated the stadium, people would've died. Afterwards he apologized and paid money to the team (the reward money he owed for the loss in the contest), but that was kinda it.

Idia... oh boy. I sympathize with him the most by far, but he didn't get the punishment he should have gotten. Where do I even start with him? To put it simply, if the other guys were fires with ranging heat levels, Idia was a fucking forest fire. This guy and his little brother almost caused the destruction of the world, and that's not an exaggeration. First his family's company basically invaded the school and planned to erase their minds of the event afterwards. Not his fault, but he did go along with it. Then he emotionally tormented the previously overblotted guys after the company kidnapped them by allowing those trials that showcased fights with their closest friends. Finally, he planned to release all of the thousands of phantoms on the island which would have caused world-wide destruction. But then he was somehow still allowed to attend school like normal after an apology or something? Honestly, it was such a shitty minor punishment that I actually forgot most of it, because then they were all in the living room playing video games with him like he didn't just nearly put the world on the verge of armageddon. This ending annoyed me the most so far. Emphasis on so far.

Malleus, oh god, I can already tell that his ending will probably piss me off the most. Like, how are you going to top the disaster Idia and Ortho nearly wrought? Well, shit is already hitting the fan in his chapter, and it is concerning considering how early it is for him to be overblotting. Honestly, like Vil, I can't say I sympathize with him too much. But based on the other chapters, it'll probably end with everyone being a-okay with the fact that Malleus cursed the entire island. Honestly, if it were me, I would not be able to forgive Malleus for that. And I know he's gonna get away with it and have little to no repercussions because he's even more influential than Idia.

[ikamigami]

My thoughts on Eclipse

I understand that not everyone has to agree with me on this for various reasons. Also I'm not trying to condone Eclipse's abuse or bad actions. None of the things Eclipse went through justify the awful things he did - which I think that new version of Eclipse is aware of.

I think that OG Eclipse wanted to be better than Old Moon - better as a brother hence why the first thing he wanted to do upon meeting Lunar for the first time was to hug him.

Lunar ignored Eclipse then because he had games - this action hurt Eclipse so much because it reminded him of how it felt when he realized that he was abandoned by Old Moon.

I think that Eclipse was questioning why he slapped Lunar because he wanted to be better than Old Moon yet he did the exact same thing. But because he thinks that regret is a sign of weakness he decided to push these feelings away.

Also when Eclipse apologized - I think that Eclipse has a problem with sounding genuine when he apologizes because he doesn't want to seem weak so it results in the apology coming across as disingenuous.

I think that Eclipse didn't want to end up like Sun hence why he try so hard (too hard) to not be seen as weak.

Would OG Eclipse apologize to Lunar? I don't think so. Though I think that abusers can feel genuine remorse - Old Moon is good example of this yet he never apologized to Sun for all the shit he had done to him - and OG Eclipse is a parallel to Old Moon.

Also Old Moon also rarely apologized to Sun for his behaviour and even if he did it was coming across as disingenuous because he still continued to be abusive towards Sun.

We can argue if showrunners did a good job in showing that Eclipse cared but I digress because we see that now Eclipse is changing.

I think that Eclipse still was abusive towards Lunar more than that one slap. Lunar probably doesn't remember much things from that time in details due to trauma and death causing his memory issues.

I agree though that Lunar was too self-centered and that even if he saw exactly why Eclipse was the way he was he didn't do anything about it. Though it's dabatable if Lunar could've done more - it's not always that easy to say "yes" or "no" in these types of situation because it's not as "black and white" as people think.

Abuse in family is more often than not a very complicated matter.

I used to think that Eclipse is only manipulative and nothing more but I changed my mind upon seeing more of his perspective.

I sympathize with him but like I said I don't condone his actions and abuse. Though I don't want to force anyone to feel sympathy towards Eclipse. It's an individual thing.

Though like I said people are way dismissive to Old Moon's abuse towards Sun than to Eclipse's abuse towards Lunar.

Also Lunar doesn't have to forgive Eclipse and honestly I doubt that he will.

And slightly unrelated I like that new Eclipse is more understanding towards Sun hence why he tries to not be so mean to him and why he avoids him or at least that's what I think.

Slight rant under the cut

The only issue I have is that people were saying that they see that Eclipse cared and that he also suffers which turned out to be true later. Though majority of fans didn't see it like that at the time when it were just speculations.

But when I tried to explain that I see hints to Sun having depressive psychosis and being suicidal majority of fans didn't agree which is okay. But what's not okay is that some folks were bullying me for this and spreading lies about me.

And they say that show disproved my speculations about Sun with "Sun has a child" episode but the truth is that they not only didn't disprove anything which I already pointed out in my recent post about that episode but they also harmed not only me but also many other fans with mental issues as well by portraying Miku like that in that episode.

Also I don't like that people can freely relate to Eclipse and other characters but I apparently can't relate to Sun because I'll receive backlash for it.

I also don't like how Moon no matter old or new is always in the spotlight when Sun just gets mostly funny lore episodes.

Also I don't believe in Sun healing off-screen. And while I think that Sun is doing better compared to last year, I think that he's still not fine - he just either denies it or just tries not to worry others.

[davekat-sucks]

Anon who sent that ask about Eridan interacting with the alpha kids not long ago. I wanted to talk about it a little more particularly with Jake, both are gun welding hunters who love adventure. That'd probably be enough to kick it off for them, Eridan and Jake would love to share stories about their accomplishments while maintaining a cool persona. They can talk about knowing Jade briefly, their hope aspect, the isolation they felt growing up, their drama with relationships, like how everyone is wants Jake and no one wants Eridan, how blue bitches cant be trusted! There's so much they could discuss! Roxy and Eridan is pretty obvious with the many interests and personal struggles they share. Such a missed opportunity they never interacted.

I don't think Eridan per se loves adventure as much as Jake has. But his hunting and FLARP sessions, make him active in going out to dangerous places and killing someone when threatened. But it would be kind of cool for Eridan to share his stories about his FLARP games. It would definitely boost Eridan's ego and confidence that someone is willing to listen to him. Both can sympathize about Jade living on island. Though Jake knows that Eridan bothered Jade mostly to hit on her, he like to believe he notices that Jade was alone and tries to at least keep her company because of her isolation. Eridan sending Jade his rifle was also necessary too. Eridan would probably be confused on concept of grandparents, but Jake would help him that it's not too bad to have an extended family or someone of the opposite sex to raise you. The relationship drama of everyone wanting Jake and nobody wanting (that close in matesprite/kismesis) would also be an interesting one. Though Jake is definitely a better person in terms of personality, most of his friends only want him for dick and sex, not him as an actual person who has his own interests and problems that can't be solved by love. On the other side, Eridan is not the greatest person due to how he was raised to believe that status and power is what determines your worth. He knows he bitches and wwhines to others about his problem, but he wants to genuinely want to help others. Just that either the other party doesn't want to explain about their own issues or Eridan's approach to things is not seen as great. Both can help each other. Eridan helping Jake stand up to tell his real feelings to his friends while also giving a chance to be in better terms with them and Jake helping Eridan to be a less shitty person that he may start to see that his old beliefs were not as great as he thought.

Blue bitches can never be trusted. I like to imagine either Eridan seeing how Jake interacted with Jane or Aranea, he would be asking Jake if he is aware that even with his love for blue-themed, the girls' personalities range from clingy to 8oring(at least in Aranea's case). Yeah, Eridan would think Aranea is a nice Vriska, but he would be bored with her always talking that he can't even get a say or word to really rile her up and start hate flirting. He prefers a challenge from his partner and Aranea probably won't give him that. Eridan would advise Jake to stick with humans that just have similar white Caucasian matching color as him. And if Jake addresses there is more than one skin color tone, than Eridan shrugs and say fine because most of the monkey humans look all the same to him. Maybe have a meta joke about how even if the acknowledgement of other races or people interpreting the kids as other ethnicities, they are still kept in the same art style. That it would be easier that if someone thought they were black, they would make it more obvious in the overworld sprite. Jake may say something that standardize sprite look is just a base for others to view however they want, but Eridan argues that it is stupid and whatever is shown to him(and the viewer) is what it is. If they have the time to make a stand in, then they would have the time to give detail to make it known said person is a different race. Either everyone can be seen as this or nobody seen as it. Can also be funny to imagine that Jake notices Eridan's crush on Roxy that Eridan would try and ask for help on how to be less of a dick and be a true gentleman. Jake does so on trying to be a decent man. Some parts may make Eridan feel embarrassed or question if it even works, but Jake does genuinely want to help and believes that things like that are one of the steps forward to be a better person. Eridan would probably hear about Caliborn being his genuine friend compared to others. The troll would agree in some parts with the Cherub, but question about his approach on trying to get Jake to acknowledge his own problems and get him to fully stand up. Or question if Caliborn is any better because his fondness for Jake mostly stems from the destiny thing that would lead to Lord English's existence. That he would be no better than Calliope on using people to lead to his existence and his goals. Eridan thinks Caliborn is like Karkat, but Caliborn holds nothing back on calling out Eridan's bullshit and denies that he is has any familiarity with the mutantblood nobody, which Eridan tries to at least defend Karkat's honor as a friend, despite knowing that Karkat may still hate Eridan for what he did. Eridan and Caliborn would be at odds on how to approach things with Jake and the rest of the Alpha Kids. But soon enough, Eridan and other trolls(Equius, Nepeta, and Feferi) time with the Alpha Kids starts to improve without Calliope and Caliborn's involvement. That the Alpha Kids doesn't need to depend or listen too much of what the Cherubs had to say, picking up on their true intentions and goals. Eridan would happily mock Caliborn, the 'kar wwannabe', that he can't do shit towards Jake or anyone else. Maybe it is at that point, Caliborn would acknowledge Eridan as another Hero of Hope to face him, calling back to Eridan's old prophesized destiny and knowing he can't underestimate another person like Dave, who was given this same goal too as the Hero of Time. Though Jake English may have been the one of the people that would give the name Lord English, he can't deny other timelines where other heroes had been given a chance to bring LE down. Sure they are doomed timelines, but they were still given that choice if the slight chance something breaks the usual cycle. There's so much Homestuck could have done, but failed by the end. At least we have fanfics. So feel free to make those What-If scenarios and Fix-Its. To show others that a series like this could have been better if given enough thought and time.

[specialagentartemis]

Driving me crazy (in a good way, I find it an absolutely FASCINATING framing) how Epic: The Musical presents Odysseus telling his name to the Cyclops and how it's framed, emotionally.

This crucial moment is an act typically told and interpreted as one of his primary moments of hubris, taunting, unnecessary gloating revealing his clever ruse - the 19th century poet William Cullen Bryant translated this moment:

Thus to the Cyclops tauntingly I called:— “ ‘Ha! Cyclops! those whom in thy rocky cave Thou, in thy brutal fury, hast devoured, Were friends of one not unexpert in war;

His men tell him "seriously, do not tell him your name, what is wrong with you, let's just go," but he continues,

And then I spake again, and angrily:— “ ‘Cyclops, if any man of mortal birth Note thine unseemly blindness, and inquire The occasion, tell him that Laertes’ son, Ulysses, the destroyer of walled towns, Whose home is Ithaca, put out thine eye.’

We get it, Odysseus thinks he is so clever, and wants the Polyphemus and anyone else who asks to know it was he, Odysseus, King of Ithaca, who did it. And this moment of pride and gloating and telling Polyphemus his name is what dooms him and his crew.

Epic: The Musical reverses that emotional context. In "Warrior of the Mind," we see an Odysseus who is successful and gloating and kinda hubristically trying to one-up a god - after he kills Athena's boar.

ATHENA Well done. Enlighten me, what's your name?

ODYSSEUS You first, and maybe I'll do the same.

ATHENA Nice try, but two can play this game.

This is Odysseus at his most confident and in control, and he's playing smug little "no u" games with a goddess. Refusing to give his name first is a power move; he wants Athena to introduce herself first to show just how impressive she finds him. (It's a good thing Athena thinks it's cute rather than insulting.) (I also think it's extremely relevant that at this point in the narrative, he's a teenager who hasn't seen war or committed atrocities yet.)

So the ending of the Cyclops Saga shows us the opposite. After escaping from Polyphemus, Epic shows us an Odysseus who is not confident or emotionally in control. Epic has been leaning heavily on Odysseus's role as captain and leader with a duty to his men, and losing his people - including his best friend - so catastrophically leaves him in shock, grief, and anger. His call to the Cyclops here isn't a "if anyone asks you why you're blind now, tell them--" it's "the next time that you dare choose not to spare, remember them - remember us - remember me." It's a scream of grief and rage. It's a follow-through of the concept that his comrades will not have died in vain. It's a, how could you? The war was supposed to be over! We were just trying to go home! This isn't an Odysseus who feels in any position to gloat. Even Athena characterizes it as "reckless, sentimental at best," rather than prideful.

This is one of the big things I mean when I say Epic: The Musical makes Odysseus much more heroic and moral according to modern values than he's portrayed in the Odyssey. We are much, much more willing to sympathize, and empathize, with a protagonist who makes really bad decisions because he was driven by love and grief and a desire for mercy over violence than a protagonist who makes really bad decisions because he thinks he's the smartest specialest boy around and wants to make sure his enemies know it.

And I'm not necessarily saying that in a bad way. I think this in particular is a super interesting adaptation choice, reversing expectations and making Odysseus's doom read to us as genuinely tragic rather than "what the fuck did you expect, you dumbass."