#I think I have even more in my google docs…

[kirameitetegomen-mp3]

--reuploading this here because I panicked when I remade my tumblr accounts and was worried this was lost under an inaccessible read more (I had it saved in a google doc thank god)

Natori Shuuichi Character Analysis

Natori Shuuichi is one of the main supporting characters in Natsume Yuujinchou and probably the character who’s been the most polarizing in the fandom . As tends to happen with more polarizing characters, there’s been a lot of misconceptions and simplifications of his character. He’s the supporting character we have the most background info on and, like all the characters, is very complicated and fleshed out. His character arc and his dynamic with Natsume have gone through a lot of developments, from his cautionary tale type introduction to becoming one of Natsume’s most trusted friends. This essay will discuss his background and go into detail on many aspects of his character, as well as his dynamic with the protagonist.

General Background 

“Since I was little, I’ve been able to see things other people can’t. My grandfather and father became furious when I told them, and my mother looked sad. Our family apparently used to be exorcists, but the ability to ‘see’ died out. The family business folded. Ever since then, they’ve been afraid that one day the youkai will come for revenge. Then I was born, a new link to the youkai world. They started to think that I was the cause of the misfortunes that beset the family. Like my mother getting ill and dying and my grandfather becoming an invalid…”

Unlike Natsume, whose relatives didn’t know about the existence of youkai, Natori was born to a family of former exorcists. But instead of being grateful there was finally a new person in the family who could see, his family pinned the blame on him any time something bad happened to them, including the death of his own mother. He was seen as the source of tragedy in his family, and even told Hiiragi as a young child that if that were true, someone should have gotten rid of him before anything bad had happened. Because of what his relatives said, he believed as a young child that he was better off dead than alive.

In addition to this, a mysterious lizard-shaped youkai appeared on his skin one day when he was a child. This is what led him to begin studying all the exorcism resources in his family’s storehouse, but even into his early twenties has never found out what it is, other than realizing it never travels to his left leg. It’s revealed in special chapter 15/s5e8 that he feared it was some kind of curse and that it could hurt other people if they touched it.

Even aside from being hated for his youkai-seeing abilities, he was deemed worthless by his father who said he couldn’t do anything except scare the family to get attention. When he started prioritizing studying over eating, his father said if he had to skip dinner in order to get results, he was never good enough for anything in the first place.

It’s revealed late in the manga that his relatives stopped having children after him because they were scared of having another child who was like him. He desperately wanted a partner in his family to walk side by side with, but he saw through the disguise of his “younger cousin” and lost this as well. His aunt and uncle, his only relatives who didn’t resent him, left their estate, never to be seen.

Overall, his upbringing mainly involved being seen as a misfortune to others and too insufficient to amount to anything. By his teens, he had become avoidant of others, irritable and sensitive, very hard on himself, and developed an unstable sense of personal identity, with nothing in his life to tether himself to the world.

Joining the Exorcist Community

“I heard the rumors among youkai and exorcists. People still judged us harshly as a family, and this creepy, roving mark wasn’t helping. But at least when I was among people who could see them, I didn’t have to lie”.

Joining the exorcist community brought a mix of both positive and negative things into Natori’s life. 

On the positive end, it provided him with a source of stability he hadn’t had before, something he could anchor himself to. He found a purpose for himself, and a way to use his abilities to help others when before they had only been seen as something that brought harm. He could finally be around people who saw the same things he did.

On the negative end, he entered a community full of power hungry people who just wanted to use their abilities to gain power and status. The community held mindsets that youkai, and even humans, were tools to be acquired and used. Additionally, he quickly discovered that he was from a clan that was looked down upon and ridiculed by the rest of the community, and because of this, he isn’t treated well in the community.

At the beginning of his backstory chapter, we see he was very disconnected from others and the world around him. He was even disconnected from himself. His family avoided him at home and he avoided his peers at school. The thing he busied himself with most was spending time alone in the family storehouse, studying the exorcist resources left behind by his clan before they left the business. The exorcist community was the first source of stability and community he had in his life. It was a place where he could be away from his relatives who loathed him and where he could be surrounded by people with his sight. However, he immediately discovered upon going to his first exorcist meeting that even among people who could see, he was hated and scoffed at simply because of his family name. At home he was hated by his family because of his abilities, and at exorcist meetings he was hated by people who shared his abilities because of his family. They gossiped about him the same way his classmates gossiped about him at school. Despite this, he still felt content that he finally had found a purpose in his life, something to reach for and goals to achieve.

There were several main reasons driving him to pursue a career as an exorcist.

“If I keep going, I might find out how to get rid of this thing. Without it, I won’t have to feel so irritated. I might be able to be a nicer person. Even to my family…”

Finding a way to get rid of the lizard mark was a driving motivation that goes back all the way to his childhood. It’s what sparked his curiosity and determination to learn about youkai years before he even became an exorcist. 

The lizard is an unknown entity that lives and crawls around on his body -> this causes him to be constantly anxious because he doesn’t know what it is or if it’s hurting him and/or others and probably feels violated by it as well -> because he’s scared and anxious and uncomfortable all the time he’s always irritated -> because he’s always irritated he finds it difficult to be nice to people -> because he finds it difficult to be nice he avoids others and in general feels like he’s a bad person who hurts others. 

Therefore, when he goes back to the beginning of that sequence, he thinks the solution is to remove the lizard mark in order to become kind. His anxiety around the lizard mark is tied into his opinion of himself as someone who isn’t kind, and learning to become an exorcist becomes the apparent pathway to eventually be rid of his dilemma. 

“But maybe if I was able to exorcise this youkai, Mr. Takuma will accept me as one of them? Will I be able to prove myself to the other exorcists?”

Another is his longing for acceptance and belonging. He needs to be loved and needed by others, as this is something he never received in his childhood. He unfortunately doesn’t receive a lot of this upon entering the exorcist community. Even so, this doesn’t discourage him. He accepts that he needs to be patient and bide his time. If he can become strong enough, then he can become useful. He can “become somebody that somebody needs”. If he can defeat the youkai attacking exorcists, maybe Takuma will accept him as one. He thinks in order to be accepted by others, he needs to be of use to them, he needs to prove himself to others. He’s never been accepted just as he is, so he needs to make himself as strong and productive as possible so he can provide something for others, because he doesn’t think he’s worth anything by himself. 

“Dad… You’re worried about revenge because you used to be an exorcist. But what if… you helped people?”

The other big thing that drove him to become an exorcist is his general desire to help and protect others. Part of this is genuine altruism, but considering he grew up being told his presence was dangerous to others, it makes sense that he feels responsibility for keeping people safe. His abilities were always seen as a curse, but what if he could turn his abilities into a blessing? 

Sadly, the exorcism community doesn’t always contain the noble intentions and selfless desire to protect others and the accepting and understanding community that Natori had probably hoped for. It’s full of competition and sabotage between people who want to become famous and powerful and exorcise youkai at random just to test their powers and will even curse their colleagues just out of envy. This clashed with Natori’s ideals and goals, as he was more concerned with getting stronger in order to help people and become useful than he was with acquiring power and status for his own gain and reputation. He wanted to find a way to become kind, but entered a community full of unkind and petty people who try to undermine others. He wanted to be amongst people he wouldn’t have to lie to, but he ended up having to become an even better liar. Despite the positives it brought to his life it was also detrimental to enter a society like that at a time he was most vulnerable and unsure of himself and his identity.

Meeting Matoba and Takuma

“I’m not as good as the others, but I can see youkai better through glass. You know, It may be conceit, but I like to do what I can to protect people”. -Takuma

“You can’t protect anything if you’re not powerful, Shuuichi” -Matoba

Matoba and Takuma were the first two exorcists Natori met personally, and they appeared as two very different potential roles in his life, and represented different sets of ideals.

Takuma appears to Natori as a potential mentor or father figure. He is warm and kind to him and tells him he’s a nice kid, as opposed to how he’s been treated and seen by adults up until now. Takuma isn’t as strong as other exorcists, but he wants to do all he can to protect people and rid them of the fear and uncertainty they feel from youkai. This is what Natori also wants to achieve as an exorcist. He immediately latches onto Takuma’s kindness and desire to help people. However, even if Takuma is kind and cares for him, he keeps him at a distance and it doesn’t seem he ever became a true reliable mentor to him. This comes from a reasonable desire for Natori to stay out of trouble. He continuously tells him he needs to not come to exorcist meetings or take jobs, as it isn’t something for children to be involved in. While this may be true, Natori wasn’t going to back out of the exorcist community no matter how many times Takuma told him to. What he needed wasn’t for someone to tell him to stay away from danger when he wasn’t going to do that, he needed someone to look after him and guide him and teach him and to provide support in general. Additionally, Natori didn’t have anything else. His family was abusive and neglectful and he was uncomfortable and alone during school. He needed a community where he felt he could be himself and where he could have some kind of connection and be productive. Natori also doesn’t interpret Takuma’s pushing away as simply attempts to convince him to stay out of danger, but as a rejection because he isn’t strong enough. Throughout his first backstory, he thinks he needs to make himself stronger and more powerful. If he can do that, he’ll prove to Takuma that he belongs in the community, that he’s worthy of being an exorcist. 

Matoba is the first (and possibly only) peer close to his age Natori met who could see youkai. This would hopefully be a good thing, but the first thing he tells Natori is that he’s looking for allies he can “use”. This is the opposite of what Natori wants. He wants to be useful to others, but not used. Matoba is his first introduction to the kind of mindsets the exorcist community holds. The Matoba clan has maintained power since they started the community. When other weaker clans had fallen, they simply resigned to being absorbed into the head clan for protection. Natori’s clan is the one that refused to join and ended up leaving. Matoba wants to team up, but Natori immediately reads him as condescending and judgmental. From what we’ve learned about him and his clan, Matoba was raised to become the head of a powerful clan since he was young. It’s clearly seen in the way he talks and acts that he was taught his clan is at the top and the other clans are weak and foolish and stubborn. He’s been taught that you should use anyone and anything at your disposal who is useful. This worries Natori, who grew up being labeled as lazy and worthless. He has a very low view of himself and is desperate to prove that he is useful. But he doesn’t want to be useful as someone’s ally, he wants to be useful as an individual. This reflects the history of his clan’s history. The Natori clan wouldn’t work with the others and refused help to the very end, eventually giving up and leaving. We don’t know all of the details, but it’s likely this was out of pride as a very powerful clan. Like his ancestors, Natori also is resistant to Matoba’s help. However, this isn’t out of pride or thinking he’s too good for help, it’s because he thinks very poorly of himself and believes if he has to team up with someone stronger than him, then he isn’t good enough. He helps Matoba defeat the youkai they were hunting, but denies credit, giving it all to Matoba. Despite making a decent effort for his lack of experience, he thinks he failed completely. He wasn’t good enough to defeat it by himself, which means he failed. 

While it’s understandable that Natori felt uncomfortable around Matoba and avoided him, it isn’t fair to say Matoba was completely responsible for them not getting along, or that his only intentions were to make use of him and use him as an ally, or that he looked down on Natori. Matoba likes Natori, and he wants Natori to like him. He has a curious and enthusiastic nature, and takes genuine interest in others. Even if Natori is weaker than him, Matoba has respect for him and tries to provide helpful tips and compliments. He tells him things that could be helpful and compliments him when he succeeds at something (or at least makes an honest effort to). But unfortunately, despite his compliments being genuine, Matoba easily comes off as judgmental and superior and Natori is very sensitive to this. When someone your age or younger is obviously more experienced and stronger and talented than you are, when they try to be of help or compliment things that are much easier to them than they are to you, they are obviously reminding you of your weakness and inferiority and that you are too far behind to ever catch up. This is how Natori thinks, and it makes him very uncomfortable around Matoba. If he accepts his help, he accepts he isn’t strong enough to figure things out for himself. He can’t become his own person and follow his desired path if he gets stuck under someone with a clear and paved path.

More on Natori and Matoba’s Dilemma

Matoba and Natori’s situations are reversed in many ways. 

Matoba is from the head exorcist clan which has held power since the community started, and has been raised to be its leader. He would’ve grown up being praised and encouraged for his spiritual abilities. By his teens, he’s already grown into the role expected of him perfectly: he’s intelligent, cunning, ambitious, confidently seeks allies, has top-class spiritual abilities, and already knows the ins and outs of the industry. Natori is from a fallen exorcist clan. He grew up being loathed and ostracized and mistreated by his family members because of his abilities. He is intelligent, ambitious, and powerful despite his family’s expectations and views of him. Matoba has massive expectations and burdens from his family that he’s had to grow up with. Natori has no expectations on him or burdens to carry. Matoba has a narrow role assigned to him by others that he has to fit into, Natori has had to assign a role onto himself. 

Because Matoba has been given a clear and set path to follow with an entire clan backing him and guiding him, he is strong and unwavering, he knows who he is supposed to be and knows how to exist as that person. But because of this, his freedom is limited and he has very little space or opportunity to explore any options outside of what’s been given. He wasn’t given the choice on who he wants to be because it was already chosen for him. Because Natori was essentially discarded and cut off from his family at a young age (at least emotionally), he has never had a clear path ahead of him to follow and has had no one to back him up. He is shaky and uncertain about everything. He knows what kind of person he wants to be, but is unable to clearly see the kind of person he already is. However, the lack of expectations on him means he has the freedom to explore his options and think on what path he wants to create for himself, since there was never one given to him. 

They have natural gaps between each other that aren’t terribly big, but can never be crossed. Natori and Matoba are both powerful, but Natori will never see the beautiful chrysanthemums on the kimono. The two are close in age, but Natori will always be a year older than Matoba.

Despite their differences, they have more in common than Natori would like to accept. They are both very lonely, and they both crave closeness even if they deny it or put on fake ulterior motives.

Natori is lonely because he was isolated as something scary and unwanted, and his family kept him at a distance out of disgust and hatred. Matoba is lonely because he was isolated as a powerful asset for his clan, and may have been seen and raised as the future clan leader more than as just a normal human child.

In-between

We don’t know a lot about Natori between our two glimpses of him as a teenager and when we first meet him as an adult in the series. What we do know is that he had achieved his goal of becoming a powerful exorcist, acquired two servants (we still don’t know the story behind Sasago), and somewhere along the line became a charming up-and-coming movie star. His personality had also developed both for better and worse, you could argue. On one hand he had become a charming and more friendly person to be around, as opposed to his withdrawn and irritable teenage self. On the other hand, he had grown a lot more cold and cynical, and seemed to pick up a lot of behaviors and mindsets from the exorcist community (belief that youkai are either dangerous or they exist to be used as tools, manipulative behaviors, it’s better to take care of youkai before they pose a risk to humans, etc). 

Natori’s strengths: He is a charming and friendly person who’s kind and polite to his fans and coworkers. Even if he could be acting this way for appearances, he’s still learned to put aside his natural irritability and distrust of people in order to treat people he encounters politely (as opposed to the irritable and brusque way he interacted with his peers before). He is quick to recognize his mistakes and apologize for them, able to admit when he’s in the wrong (such as apologizing for the way he involved Natsume in his exorcism business). He is very concerned for others and it is his goal to help and protect others. He is determined and persevering and wants to search for his path in life.

Natori’s flaws: He has picked up deceptive and manipulative traits in order to thrive in his work community (such as omitting information or doing things in secret, acting charming to get what he wants or asking harsh questions to try and get Natsume to change his views). He is overprotective, and tends to use deceptive behavior in order to go about trying to keep people (Natsume in particular) safe. He is cold and cynical early on, often speaking harshly to Natsume when it comes to their disagreements about youkai (calling him naive and hypocritical, telling him he shouldn’t be soft to them, saying he needs to choose between youkai and humans).

Meeting Natsume

“I’m sorry, Natsume. I didn’t want to get you involved like this. You remind me of how I used to be. I just wanted to talk. I thought there were things I could tell you.”

After spending years being influenced and exposed to the exorcist community, Natori’s life was altered again after meeting our protagonist, Natsume. Exorcists exist at one end of a spectrum of youkai-seers: sympathizing with youkai is foolish and dangerous, youkai should be used as tools, you can’t protect people if you’re too soft; and Natsume is at the other end: being very sympathetic towards youkai, believing youkai are complex and have feelings and should be respected, you shouldn’t hurt them. 

Natori had many expectations in place when he first met Natsume: he was a young child who needed to be protected, he knew the same suffering and therefore must have responded accordingly (aka the same way Natori did), he’s very powerful and would prove to be a powerful assistant and exorcist, he needed someone older who could see the same things as him as a guide and mentor. What he got instead was a very headstrong kid who had become very sympathetic towards youkai, even to the point of being very against hurting them even in the case of urgent self defense. Natsume showed zero interest in helping with exorcism and continuously resisted Natori’s efforts to persuade him otherwise. 

Natori backed off on recruiting him for exorcism after seeing his reckless behavior, but still saw him as someone who needed to be guided and protected, and he still remained concerned at Natsume’s sympathy for youkai. 

Natsume and Youkai

“Don’t be naive. You have to have zero tolerance when they attack humans. [...] You see them, don’t you? Surely you of all people understand, after the suffering they’ve put you through. [...] You need to stay detached… or you’ll regret it someday.”

“It’s too late to be sorry after there’s an incident. You’re being a hypocrite. What if they lived near your beloved Fujiwaras? Would you still say it’s no big deal? [...] It’s about time you decided which is more important to you – humans or youkai.”

Natori has been in a community that only sees youkai as tools to be used, or dangerous creatures to get rid of. It’s a shock to him when Natsume yells at him for attacking a youkai in self defense, and later on when he jumps into a dangerous spell circle to protect one. Natsume shows as strong sympathy for youkai as he does for humans, something that Natori has never seen before. Youkai cause suffering to humans, especially humans who can see. Natsume has suffered because of youkai like Natori has, but yet he still cares for them as if they’re people. Natori early in the series sees Natsume as naive and foolish for this. He’ll regret getting emotionally attached to them, he’ll regret it if he doesn’t hurt a youkai who is dangerous. Natori has absorbed what the community taught him, what Matoba taught him. He needs to help Natsume realize how dangerous his mindset is. He chides Natsume for his softness, and he speaks very harshly and coldly to him during the situation with Kai. He ends up telling him he must make a choice between humans and youkai. If he really cares about humans, he should stop caring about youkai. But Natsume refuses to choose. He cares about both equally. Natori realizes he was too harsh and apologizes. 

He keeps his concern and caution, but he gradually begins to accept Natsume’s nature and his insistence at being connected to both worlds. 

Natsume and the Exorcist Community

“I’m sorry, Natsume… I brought you here so you’d see you weren’t alone. But maybe someone with your power shouldn’t make yourself known to others.”

“Now I’m sorry that I got you involved in this business in the first place… back then, I think I wanted to enlist you as an ally. Someone who could help me. That wasn’t fair to you. But now, I’m just happy to help you.”

It’s strange to me that the fandom often hated Natori for trying to involve Natsume in exorcism. It was very early on that he strongly regretted this, and he has spent most of the series trying to keep Natsume away from exorcists. The only two times he directly got Natsume involved in exorcism was when they first met (being very pushy about involving him even though Natsume was disinterested) and when he took him to the assembly (which Natsume actually did want to go to and help with). I don’t count the hot springs trip as he hadn’t expected it to turn into a big situation or intended to directly have Natsume help him. Every other time he’s either asked Natsume to leave (with Natsume choosing to stay or being unable to leave for some reason) or he’s let him tag along because he knew it would be safer than Natsume getting involved by himself. 

Keeping Natsume away from the exorcist business has been one of Natori’s primary motivations for most of the series. He knows it was wrong to involve him in such a dangerous world, and that Natsume should be able to grow up and try to live a normal life. This is what he wants for him. 

Natori especially grows concerned once Natsume gets involved with the Matoba clan, and he tries to interfere with them getting involved. The first time happened during the Kai arc. He specifically took the job from the Matoba clan to keep them away from where Natsume lives. He’s even unusually cold and harsh towards Natsume to try and dissuade him from being even remotely involved in the situation.

But then Natsume does get directly involved with Matoba very soon after this. It is especially the incident with Matoba’s letter that causes Natori to involve himself secretly. He finds out Natsume received a letter from Matoba, and decides to monitor the situation from a distance, using a paper doll to interfere when needed. He ultimately destroys the letter without Natsume’s knowledge. This is where we first see Natori’s desperate attempts to interfere in hopes of keeping Natsume safe. This then leads to the situation with the Book of Friends next time he shows up.

The Book of Friends

“Urihime. Natsume is carrying something that’s important to him. Find out what it is. Ginro made it sound like it’s something dangerous… that exorcists shouldn’t know about. Natsume is too nice and reckless. I wonder if it’s something he shouldn’t even have.”

“Such a dangerous thing… should be thrown into a fire.”

The situation with the Book of Friends is the other thing Natori has received a lot of hate for from the fandom. It was interpreted simply as a betrayal of trust and an action he took because he thought Natsume was too naive and innocent to be in possession of such an object. But was anyone considering the situation from Natori’s point of view?

Natori is an adult. Natsume is a child. Natsume is in possession of a dangerous forbidden object that attracts the attention of youkai, some of whom are hostile, and would attract the attention of most exorcists if they were to know about it. Natori is part of the community that both forbid the object, but which also contains many people who’d probably want it for themselves. Natori is understandably very protective of Natsume, and finding out about the Book of Friends was very troubling. It explains why he’s so involved with youkai, and it is a situation that puts him in danger quite often. 

Natori knew Natsume was hiding something after overhearing Ginro talk about the Book. And then later he saw how Natsume reacted to the matter of forbidden contracts. This gave him a pretty good idea as to what Natsume was secretly carrying. Natori knew he had to do something, even if it meant trying to find out about it behind Natsume’s back. In Natori’s mind and experience, it’s better to be deceptive and secretive than to wait until someone gets hurt.

Natori frankly is the only human who can protect Natsume from both youkai and the exorcist community. He also should take some responsibility for his safety, as he is an adult figure and also was the one who first dragged Natsume into the world of exorcism. 

It was arguably “wrong” to search for information on Natsume’s secret, but it also would be bad to just completely ignore his younger friend being in danger. It makes sense he felt it was very important to try and learn more about it.

Natori and Natsume

“Will you help me with my other job? Hmm… You’re speechless. I’m sorry. This must seem pretty sudden. I was just feeling happy. Do you get it now? You’re not alone. You and I are alike.”

“Natsume. Thank you. It made me happy… that you trusted me. For real. I want to be your friend. I want to help you. With all my heart. So… I… want you to keep this safe. I don’t think I could trust myself as much as you trusted me.”

Natori and Natsume’s relationship started off rough, but it’s probably gone through the most changes and growth out of all of the relationships in this series. In the beginning, Natori is harsh and cynical. He sees Natsume as being too naive and soft, and believes he needs to adopt Natori’s own ideas: that youkai are mostly bad and dangerous, and it’s best to take care of the particularly dangerous ones before they hurt people. He thinks if Natsume keeps his soft idealism, he’ll be in bad situations and have to regret it one day. 

But Natori continuously watches how kind and wonderful Natsume is, and he grows to deeply admire him for this. He still worries a lot about his safety and is skeptical of his relationship to youkai, but he’s nevertheless supportive, and would do anything to help him out. He quickly regrets how he got Natsume involved in a dangerous world, and is fiercely protective of him. Natsume grows very fond of Natori, and considers him a dear friend. 

In the beginning, Natori sees Natsume as someone who needs to be guided and changed and molded to fit his own ideas, but he gradually comes to see Natsume as a strong and kind person, and wants to be his equal and his friend. He also admires Natsume’s perseverance in staying connected to other people, something Natori gave up on. Natsume almost gave this all up after seeing Tanuma was hurt, and Natori is the one who told him he needs to hang on to these connections.

Despite how shaky their relationship started off, Natori has become a very kind and supportive friend who cares for Natsume deeply and is willing to help him no matter what. He has grown to respect him even though he didn’t understand him at first, and even admires him for his differences. Their friendship has become solid and reliable, and they have both started learning to be able to lean on each other for support.

Growth Between Natori and Matoba

“You’re quite right. But I like it my way. The Matoba clan has their ways… and I’m looking for my own way… the ideal I want to strive for. That’s my goal, even if I’m fighting in the dark.”

“I won’t pretend to know what it’s like… to bear the burden of the legacy you’ve had to shoulder. But I think… that these days, a person doesn’t have to bear it alone.”

Natori has shown a lot of growth in his recent interactions with Matoba.

Back when they fought a youkai together as teenagers, Natori thought he had failed. His spell barely worked, and Matoba was the one who killed the thing. When Matoba congratulated him for his help, Natori denied being of any use, saying Matoba was the one who took care of it. He couldn’t take care of things himself like he wanted, so he took that as a complete failure and denied any credit.

After getting locked in a room together as adults, Matoba once again thanks Natori for his help. Natori doesn’t deny it this time, and instead thanks Matoba for his help as well. He proceeds to tell him he thinks nowadays people don’t have to bear their burdens alone. This shows a lot of growth, compared to when he thought he failed for not being able to take care of a dangerous youkai by himself. Now he happily cooperates with people, both offering and accepting help. 

His interactions with Matoba as of late have also shown how patient he’s become. In the past, he responded to Matoba with frustration and irritability at anything that rubbed him the wrong way, even shoving him once. But then when Matoba chides him for having weak servants when they’re locked in the room, instead of getting angry, Natori calmly tells him he’s happy with how things are, and he’s still working on searching for the path he wants to follow. 

He’s still lost and unsure of things, but he’s accepted that he’s still working on himself, instead of wallowing in self-pity and feeling like a failure.

In the past, the two of them seemed to dance around each other, avoiding help and brushing off concern. Natori wanted to be far apart from him, while Matoba wanted a partner. Natori wanted to be of help, while Matoba brushed off the concern with a smile. In recent chapters, they have been working together efficiently, accepting and offering help. 

Natori is getting better at no longer stubbornly refusing help from others, and can accept that it’s better if people work on things together. 

Identity Issues

“I suppose there’s nothing riding on my shoulders. I wonder if… that’s why the world seems so unstable.”

Natori has an unstable sense of self. He’s unable to see himself clearly, struggling to see his virtues and strengths, being unsure of his personal values, and is very disconnected from both himself and others. 

He could also be interpreted as having alexithymia (inability to recognize or understand emotions in oneself, and also ties in to struggling to understand the emotions of others). He doesn't understand why he feels the way he does, and his emotions seem to have more of a physical reaction (saying he "feels sick") than being actually processed well. He seems to have a hard time understanding others' points of view and emotional responses as well.

Despite the identity disturbance, he does acquire strong goals. To become a powerful exorcist who doesn’t waver, and to be a kinder person who doesn’t hurt others. This is why discovering the exorcist community was such a pivotal moment in his life. He went from being driftless and detached to finding a strong purpose in life.

Natori faces a dilemma: he’s stubborn and doesn’t want to be shaped by someone else, but he also has a weak identity, leading him to be easily influenced by others. He wants to follow his own path, but still succumbs to some of the toxicity of the exorcist community. He describes his world as wavering. 

He doesn’t have any burdens like Matoba has. He has nothing tethering him to the world, and therefore he doesn’t know who he is, or who he’s supposed to be. He feels lost and disconnected. This is perhaps why the exorcist community is so enticing. It finally gives him a purpose in life, a goal to strive for. He now knows what he wants to be. But he still remains lost after this, and still struggles to figure out his path in life. 

However, in later chapters he seems to accept that he’s still searching for the path he wants to follow, and he’s determined to keep looking for it even if he makes mistakes along the way. He still struggles with his personal identity and his purpose in life, but he’s grown from his unsteadiness and fear he used to feel.

Deceptive Nature

“I’ve gotten too used to tricking people. You were having so much fun. I should have explained it to you. I’m sorry, Natsume. I’m really sorry.”

While he’s quick to admit he struggles with it, deceptive behavior is probably Natori’s most prominent and persistent flaw that still hasn’t completely gone away. He has a tendency to omit details, find out information in secret, or simply lie about things. This is also one of Natsume’s flaws, although they have some similar and different reasons for lying. 

Natsume’s reasons are generally for keeping his abilities and youkai a secret from others, which requires lying frequently. This is naturally something Natori also has to do. He and Natori both will come up with lies or stories in order to gather information. Natori will often find out information about people in secret, such as when he tried finding out about the Book of Friends behind Natsume’s back. He isn’t explicitly lying to Natsume, but he is being deceptive by intentionally gathering information about something important to Natsume without his knowledge. 

Something that Natori does that Natsume doesn’t is lying to get his own way. This mainly happened when he lied to Natsume about the situation with the hot springs, telling him he won the tickets in a contest and omitted the fact that he was actually going for an exorcism job. He also uses charm and wit to try and hide his true intentions at times. 

Natori, like Natsume, has had to learn to lie in order to survive in a society that won’t believe what he’s gone through. However, even though he found a community that sees what he can, he has to become a worse liar to survive there as well. It’s ironic, as Natori believed it would be a community where he wouldn’t have to lie. But sadly the exorcist community is full of back-stabbing and trickery, and Natori’s had to pick up these skills himself. 

Fortunately, he is well aware he’s struggled with these things and is working on unlearning them. He has been becoming a more sincere person for Natsume, and they’re both getting better at not hiding important things from each other anymore.

Relationship to People

“I’m not looking down on anyone. It’s just that… when your perceptions are different, conversations don’t mesh. And it makes me feel uncomfortable.”

Natori is asocial, and strongly avoids being close to other people. He doesn't seem to mind being around other people, but personal interactions are kept at a minimum. It seems he avoids actually mingling with any of his coworkers from either job, despite being friendly and charming to them. He lives alone and lacks close friends, only having professional or casual relationships. 

Natsume becomes the one exception. But the reason this happened is that Natsume was easy and safe. He’s young (young being something adults equate with being impressionable), he has similar trauma as Natori, he can see youkai, and he isn’t part of the exorcist community. Additionally, Natori didn’t originally approach Natsume as a friend (despite wanting this), but as a potential mentor to him. Natori presented himself as someone who could teach Natsume a lot about youkai, and how to protect himself and others. So Natori at first sees him as someone he can shape and guide. 

There are natural boundaries between Natsume and Natori that keep them at a safe distance. They are almost a decade apart in age, they live in different towns, Natsume is a student, Natori is an adult with two jobs. Natsume is someone he can be familiar with and fond of, while still maintaining a safe distance. Being friends with people his own age would have higher risk of them trying to form a closer, more emotionally intimate connection with less excuses to escape. Natsume is someone further in age he lives away from and only has a chance to see on occasion. He doesn’t risk having constant inescapable contact. Ironically, it’s because of all these boundaries that Natsume is easier to approach and form a bond with. 

Matoba is a different story. He’s a similar age, has an almost opposite background, wants to be the one to shape and guide Natori, and lives nearby and is part of the same community. He is also more skilled and experienced. This is troublesome for Natori. He doesn’t want to be close to him, and actively chooses to be apart from him. He doesn’t want to be shaped by someone else, the way he wanted to shape Natsume when they first met. The idea of being close to someone his own age who’s both so different and yet also similar is a terrifying prospect to him, so he stays away from Matoba. 

Natori faces a dilemma where he can't be close to people without sight, because he's too uncomfortable being with others who can't see the same world as him, but he also can't be with others like him due to his family being resented by his community. This again is why Natsume is the one safe person he feels kinship with. Someone who can see his world clearly, but who isn't a part of the community that looks down on him.

Natori is scared of being hurt and affected by others, but also scared of hurting others. So he waits until he finds the "perfect" person he thinks he can find a true kindred spirit in. But they still struggle to get along and Natori ends up being hurtful multiple times. This thankfully doesn't deter him, and instead he finally challenges himself to maintain and form a friendship despite the difficulties and despite making damaging mistakes. He remains determined and doesn't give up, and he always tries to make amends.

Famous Actor

Natori’s acting career ties into both his issues with his identity and his asociality. When you act, you get to wear someone else’s face. People see the character, not you. This works perfectly for Natori, and gives him the means of connecting with people without having to risk any intimacy or actual closeness. He receives love and attention and praise, but doesn’t have to lose anything by giving himself in return. He gets to be different faces on screen and be pretty and popular and beloved, but he can avoid having to get close to anyone. 

Again, Natori doesn’t mind being around people, it’s the actual closeness and conversations that make him uncomfortable. He’s happy to walk and talk with passing fans and receive congratulations from his movie coworkers, but he stays away from anything beyond that. He also is averse to being vulnerable. Acting is considered a vulnerable job, but the thing is, it's a safe vulnerability. The audience is watching the character, not you, even if you’re pouring yourself into the character.

Acting also provides a sort of temporary identity. You get to put a mask on and play out an imaginary scripted person. You can lean on your own experiences while being a completely different person. It's a safe and guarded way to explore human nature and personal identity. Perfect for someone who struggles to see themselves clearly.

Problems with the Fandom

“He’s always dragging Natsume into his exorcism business!”: I already went over this a lot. He got him involved a couple times and realized very early on this was wrong and apologized. He has spent most of the series trying to keep him from getting involved.

“He’s an asshole!”: He was mean several times and apologized each time. He’s mostly a kindhearted and gentle and supportive person.

“He’s a liar!”: So is Natsume.

“He wants to change Natsume and tries to push his views onto him!”: He did at first, but realized it was wrong and has come to deeply admire Natsume and respect his differences.

Conclusion

Natori is a very fleshed out and well-written character in Natsume Yuujinchou. He has a lot of flaws, but that just means he’s had even more positive growth as a character. He goes from being harsh and cynical to being a very kind and supportive friend to Natsume. His similarities and differences to Natsume make him an intriguing character in the series and his relationship with Natsume to me is one of the most interesting parts in the story. He’s sadly received a lot of hate and backlash from the fandom, mostly due to misinterpretations of his character. Thankfully it’s gotten a lot better, but I think it’s important in the fandom space to discuss these things in detail instead of misreading everything and jumping to conclusions. 

[0pooleart]

Sonic Redesign Masterpost

One thing I've always passively thought about the Sonic franchise is that it's great, but also always felt just a bit short of perfection in a bunch of random aspects (mostly some character designs and some stories). Around like late August of 2024 I sketched out some redesigns for some of the main Sonic characters, and I quickly realized that I kinda physically had to not only redesign like, all vaguely notable characters from across the entire franchise (not just the games) but I also really wanted to rewrite a ton of stories, so I just like, did, you know? I'm basically obsessed now so here's a giant masterpost that's more about the thoughts behind my redesigns than just the images. Don't expect this to be super organized and fun to read lol

(and I can feel the hyperfixation dying down so I really should just get this out there)

Also, if you'd rather read it in the form of a Google Doc, here's the link to that: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VvXMzQ2kr7HrqmUd0Z7Aa9xCprUZ1ojm5cD8lcAEjbQ/edit?usp=sharing

First things first, for one, Mobius and Earth are two distinct planets, and Mobians are one set species. I didn't think that was a crazy idea until I actually watched a video detailing how current Sonic treats the setting but yeah, I really want them to just be completely different planets.

Origins

Anyway, the main draw for rewriting most Sonic stories was the fact that he doesn't really have a canon origin in the main series games (yet?) so I felt the need to give him one, and a more discrete timeline. However, everything starts with Eggman (and this is a heavily truncated version):

Robotnik enters Mobius via a Ring portal (similar to how the movies portray them), but he's instead a skinny, charming young man (similar again to Jim Carrey's Eggman in the movies, a drawing of him is further down). At first he pitches his little, cutesy animal inventions to the Mobian public, and they actually like them quite a lot. He's not without an ulterior motive though, and as his inventions get more and more popular, he actually hires some Mobians to help produce them. He begins building his business over the years, using the unique powers Mobians have to boost production. He even gives some of his workers their own homes built up with his technology, but he starts using this as a way to control them, since he basically can take away their whole lives if he so chooses. As he keeps building and building, he steals more and more resources from Mobius, and he builds over the Mobian city he started in (haven't really specified what it was yet), slowly making it his own over time. The only place he knows he shouldn't touch (just to stay in the good graces of Mobians) is Green Hill, a place that's sort of sacred, but more sacred in the way art is sacred, since it's a place hand built by ancient Mobians to be a wild place for them to roam free. Time passes Robotnik has been fattened up by his personal chef/baker Vanilla, and he's settled into being in control of so much of Mobius.

It's around this time when Sonic is born into the factory (of course given the canon name Ogilvie at first). He's taken away from his parents, whoever they are, immediately, and is put to work as soon as he's able to push a button. As he grows up, he's obviously too restless to do something so sterile, so he's put to work on the hamster wheels that power the Robotnik Empire. He never even thinks there's anything special out for him in the world, but eventually he, like the other workers, is given his semi-yearly vacation to the Green Hill, where they can recover their will to live. However, Ogilvie is so completely overrun with joy that he just runs off, never to return to the factory again. Eventually, of course, he changes his name to Sonic to fit his new life of just running around Green Hill.

Robotnik catches wind of there being a deserter, and decides to set out his robots, who secretly had battle functions all this time, into Green Hill to catch him. This is essentially where the first game would begin, just Sonic running around destroying Robotnik's robots as they come at him. However, Robotnik has a second in command: A young, two-tailed fox who he found outcast on the streets, who had a surprising knack for machines, something he didn't see in many other Mobians. He was named Miles Prower, and he grew up working for the one person who didn't ostracize him for his tails or his skills. He was only around 12 when Sonic, approx 16, escaped, and he was tasked with leading some of their more sophisticated creations into battle. 

Robotnik came along too with his own weapons, but they were both completely outmatched by Sonic's unbridled confidence and cockiness. Robotnik tore out what hair he had in anger, and of course that's when Sonic taunted him with his new nickname Eggman. Since Miles was there too, and he felt like he was on a roll, he called Miles "Tails," but Miles' reaction was much more ashamed than he expected, so he felt a bit off about that one. After the fight, Miles was repairing the machine Sonic destroyed, but he found him and met him on more even terms, and tried to convince him that there's probably a much better life for him out with him. He wasn't totally convinced yet, and couldn't exactly just defect from Robotnik like Sonic did, so Sonic left him be for now.

This is the general part where I start writing too many fine details, so basically Miles slowly starts enjoying himself more and more fighting Sonic and meeting him after the fight. He even adopts the "Tails" nickname for himself on the card of a present he drops off for Sonic, which was his much more durable and iconic sneakers. He finally breaks away from Eggman completely during an aerial assault on Sonic, where he prepared some supplies in the plane he was set to pilot, so he could take it away with him. He even was able to use some scrap from the battle to build a workshop for himself to live and work while Sonic still mostly just roamed free. This is around the point where the second game would start, since Tails has joined the cast and they can both battle Eggman together. If this were to be a game, I'd want Tails to be in the cockpit of each boss in the first game, so it helps set up his inclusion in the second, but obviously this is just a random floating idea for now. This isn't meant to be a concrete game/comic/animation/whatever.

But, that sets up most of the future events, even though there are some major stories to come, so on to the designs themselves:

As for overall Mobian redesigns, I always thought their giant ass hands and feet sometimes got in the way of their expressiveness, if they didn't just look kinda doofy (especially with characters like Knuckles) so the generic "Mobian" template has a smaller head, feet, and hands, and has a generally longer torso. Basically they just have slightly more """realistic""" proportions even though they're still obviously cartoony, just more realistic on the spectrum compared to the canon designs. And, since they're all one species, that means they evolved over time to match some of the animals around them, like a macro-evolution version of how Chao take on animal traits. That also means that the animal parts of their names are more like tribe affiliations, since they aren't actually the animals they say they are. For example, Knuckles the Echidna isn't an echidna in the species sense, he'd just call himself that to show he's affiliated with the Echidna tribe, and more generally that his people took on traits of the local echidna-echidnas. Meanwhile, characters like Tails/Miles Prower have a more family-based last name and a nickname for reasons I'll get into later. Also aside from that, I wanted characters that are Reptiles and Insects (Espio and Charmy mainly) to seem more unique from the mammals, so they look more distinct. And even the mammals look more animalistic in general, with longer snouts, getting rid of that weirdly detached muzzle thing most Mobian characters seem to have. Characters that are like Cats and Rabbits don't end up changing much since they aren't known for having long snouts anyway.

Sonic

Sonic was obviously the first one I tried redesigning so his design went through a bunch of changes, but the first thing I dealt with with him was his stupid conjoined eye thing. Obviously in that classic CD animation everyone loves it works out because its super stylized and simple, and all the current Mania versions of him make it work too, but it's really hard to unsee now in his modern designs. It's obviously meant to be like a Garfield type of thing, where it's just a cartoony way of having two eyes close together, but nowadays it really feels more like a Lightning McQueen type of eye windshield. If every Mobian had that then I'd keep it and just call it a stylistic thing, but no, only Hedgehogs have them, so... At first I tried representing that by making him have some kind of goggles to protect his eyes from the wind as he runs, but I couldn't get that to work, so I just split his eyes up. In his goggles-form I gave him this black brim to the goggles to kind of mirror Shadow's random red eye splotch he has, and since I liked that enough I kept a small bit of it in the current design. I also gave him some kind of double-sock type thing going on with much more athletic-seeming stuff to go under his more fluffy socks and gloves, which didn't feel all that necessary until I removed them at some point, and that just made him feel extra naked somehow. I do like them though. And, of course, he's actually wearing rings.

Aside from that, I kinda inadvertently made him look a lot like his Movie version, with his extra frazzled quills and blue arms and such. I definitely feel like he benefits from being extra sharp, so I added a bunch of spikes to things like his chest and shoulders. Even though it's not really important to mention I might as well, but the weird thing I think about his arms is that his normal Game design does basically need tan arms, but I actually think overall there's no reason not to give him blue arms in a form like this. It just makes sense.

Tails

Tails is mostly unchanged, just making his face fur blend more smoothly into his face instead of just being solo hairs glued on. His chest fur is more like a ball of fluff focused more around his actual chest, instead of just being a flat pattern on his stomach. I also gave him bigger ears for a bit of fennec energy, and a red scarf so his red shoes aren't the only red on his design. Aside from that, it's all just restylization, like making his tails extra fluffy.

Eggman (and Miles)

I'm still torn on what I want Eggman to truly look like. At first I wanted him to look a bit more like his SatAM-style version, with really short legs and a big fat belly, but then after seeing more and more fanart of him I tried to give him back his weirdly scrawny legs. No matter what though, he needed to have a giant coat with a massive collar to show his impression of himself. Also, I will always want to preserve his iconic smile, where his big toothy grin is basically glued to his mustache. That's pure Eggman.

And of course there's pre-Sonic Tails there too, with his fur very organized and clean, and with a much more grim demeanor. I also thought his tails would also be a lot less fluffy, and he kind of wraps them together like how a person wrings their hands together when they feel shy or awkward, showing how he hasn't fully embraced his mutation yet.

This is a quick little sketch I did of younger, thinner, and less bald Eggman when he first enters Mobius. 

After them, there are some characters that'd just be appearing around this point in the story, so here they are:

Amy… the Cat?

So for the longest time, I legitimately believed Amy was a cat, so I decided to make her a cat. It's that simple. She never really looked like a hedgehog, anyway. Plus, I do want to keep the main group as being Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and Amy, so it'd be nice if they were all different "species." Aside from that, I just made her former quills look like much more fluffy and soft hair, and gave her long sleeves just because this drawing convinced me it was a good idea. However, I did do a quick sketch to see how she would look if I kept her a Hedgehog, and in that one I took away the long sleeves since I thought that would be annoying with her chest/shoulder quills.

As for how she meets Sonic, she's working under Eggman as a blacksmith when Eggman starts going berserk over actually losing both a devoted worker and his right-hand fox. He puts up signs everywhere asking for people to enlist into an army with the sole purpose to capture him, but Amy is instead just smitten with this rebellious hunk she's just now heard of. She joins Eggman's forces, but breaks off on her own to join him. He's super willing to let anyone join, but since Tails knew how devoted to Eggman some Mobians could be, he thinks she's a spy at first. Over time, though, she proves herself, even if she can't quite catch up to Sonic.

Cream, Cheese, and Vanilla

Cream was always perfect, but I really hated that Vanilla was basically just a taller copy of Cream, so I tried to give her her own identity. Also since they're all named after food I decided to specifically make Vanilla a baker/chef, which also meant I could turn the one tuft of hair on her head onto an ice cream-y dollop. And even though that was decided before I decided to make Eggman start off skinny, it also meant that I could make her a pretty major part of Eggman's life, being the one who makes desserts so good he just couldn't help himself. Even though Eggman definitely loves stomping on the hopes and dreams of Mobians, he's actually quite fond of Vanilla (not in that way, thank god) and tolerates Cream. As for Cheese, I had this big idea of how to redesign all Chao mechanics a while ago, and one such idea was to have Luck and Intelligence forms of Chao just like the other stats, and I decided to make Cheese a Neutral/Luck Chao just before he evolves into his main adult evolution, since he's lucky to have Cream by his side. Literally. He's only with her because Eggman was experimenting with Chao, and Cream caught him in the act, and he tried to save face by giving her Cheese as a gift, which definitely took him off her radar. 

But, also, since when do rabbits only have one kid?

They're just rough ideas for now (except for Milk and Sugar for reasons) (and I also thought of there being a baby Butter as well but I can't be assed to save a new version of the sketch). Even though it doesn't make sense for each kid to be a different age, since rabbits more so have large litters, I just think this is more fun from a design perspective. Also, Vanilla having so many kids to worry about makes it more reasonable why she's so beholden to Eggman. She definitely can't just get up and leave when she has to worry about all of them. 

As for how Cream meets Sonic, I literally have a whole animated short planned out in my head because, if you couldn't tell, she's easily one of my favorite Sonic characters, but the gist is that once Eggman "gifts" her Cheese, Cheese starts drawing crude drawings depicting how Eggman treated him and other Chao. Cream slowly catches on to Eggman's evil in her own oblivious little way, and eventually just… walks out. Much to Vanilla's dismay. As she leaves though, Vanilla basically snaps from her goodie-goodie persona and practically holds a knife to Eggman's throat, telling him if any robot ever harms Cream while she's out there, "so help me god…" He relents as much as he can. Meanwhile, Cream just keeps walking to Green Hill. Tails notices her as he's flying the Tornado, and picks her up. She's a little disappointed that everyone's basically just living in the wild or Tails' crude workshop, but they try to make due for her pampered little self.

After that comes the first big story since the Origin/random extra happenings. 

Knuckles

Honestly I feel like Knuckles has to be one of my top redesigns. I definitely needed him to look more buff and big compared to Sonic, but not quite to the level of Boom Knuckles, and I think I really nailed it. Not only that, but making his coat and "skin" color darker just works so well. And, of course, with the dread-bands/paint of his tribe. Him just looking so much more square also just fits so well.

Knuckles starts off as usual guarding the Master Emerald all alone on Angel Island, but soon Eggman visits him without any armada, reading about the Chaos Emerald's power and finally wanting to use it to stop Sonic. He does his usual schtick of convincing Knuckles that Sonic is the real threat, and since Knuckles was so isolated he didn't even know who Eggman was, and joins him to stop Sonic. 

However, Tails isn't stupid, and keeps a solid ear to what Eggman is doing, and hears about his plan to take the Chaos Emeralds, so he and the others set out on a world-sprawling journey to get the Emeralds before he does. However, they aren't the only ones looking for treasure…

Rouge

Technically I redesigned Rouge first out of everyone, but for other reasons than the franchise-wide redesign. This is basically an adaptation of that. Similar to Amy, whose design was cursed by Girl-Character-Syndrome, I also wanted to fix up Rouge by going where no anthro female character has gone before… giving her a bare crotch. Crazy. The boys can run around stark naked while the girls can't not wear full body clothing, so someone had to pick up the slack. She at least has her top covered, but that's mainly because I'm kind of a sucker for her heart-boob thing. I really can't deny it. Oh yeah and the heart motif continues into her nose, because she's a bat, of course it would. Bats literally have heart-shaped noses but they didn't bother even giving her a tiny heart-shaped nose in canon. AND she even has full body fur, because her being completely bald across her body is even more of a sin to me than forcing her to wear full body clothing. Anyway, she's got dark skin too, because obviously, and I tried making her arms her wings at some point but I also wanted her to have normal humanoid hands, and that just didn't mesh well, so she's still got back wings. Aside from all that, I gave her a long index fingernail on her glove for lockpicking purposes or whatever, it just seemed like a weirdly fitting thing for a character once called Nails.

Anyway, Sonic and co stumble upon Rouge who had the same goal as they did, but of course with a different motive, although she promises to play nice and help them find the Emeralds (until she betrays them once they have them all)

At every Emerald, each situated in a different biome, they encounter Knuckles, who uses the elemental power of each Emerald to fight Sonic, although Sonic is usually able to snatch the Emerald away from him and make away with it. After every fight, Knuckles is more and more sure that Sonic is a threat, but once Sonic and co actually have them all, and find the Master Emerald too, Eggman is the one to make the first move, and snatches them away all at once to power the giant mech he built behind the scenes just for the Emeralds. Everyone teams up to steal back the Emeralds again, and Sonic feels a strange power inside of them and the Master Emerald. He asks Knuckles what it could be, and he says the Master Emerald must have determined that he should be granted their ultimate power. Sonic seems stoked, but Knuckles is seriously worried, thinking back to the tales his people told him of what happened last time… but thankfully this time, Sonic just turns an electric yellow, beats Eggman's mech to a pulp, and turns back to normal once the deed is done. Knuckles is a bit shocked, but relieved.

With all threats neutralized, Knuckles accepts that he was wrong, and makes amends, but he stays with the Master Emerald. Rouge goes off on her own again, too.

It's at this point, while still on Mobius, some other characters probably emerge. This could happen either after or during the previous events.

Sally Acorn

Even though I don't have much personal nostalgia for Sally, she used to be such a big deal that I couldn't NOT add her to the roster. Like Amy, I also got her species wrong, since I thought she was a squirrel and they just didn't have the guts to give her a big, bushy tail, but I was remiss to hear that she was actually a chipmunk, meaning her redesign couldn't have that amazing tail… but chipmunks do have pretty iconic patterns, so I made sure to include that in her hair. Apart from that, you can see all the changes. I imagined her home town being smaller, and even though she could be the daughter of her town's mayor, she wouldn't be a princess. I never really got princess vibes from her. Oh yeah, and she's still smol, like how she was always drawn in her original era. She can make up for it with her spunk. She would also have her own Speed/Fly/Power dynamic with Ray and Mighty, who are also still smol.

Bunnie Rabbot

I basically just mish-mashed all the parts of Bunnie's various designs that I liked, but the main part of her is her new story. She basically lives in this classic Western-style town held under Eggman's boot, and she's hired as an outlaw to catch Sonic, where she was given robotic enhancements both to give her extra power but also so Eggman could more directly control her. She's also the "bawss" of Fang and Trip, other outlaws hired by Eggman. Even though she doesn't personally hate Sonic, she needs to do what Eggman says, or else she knows he'll wreak havoc on her town. No amount of speeches about friendship and being a good person could turn her.

After all those events, the next stage of the story begins, where at some point Sonic goes Super to fight Eggman, but Eggman was ready. He manages to suck the Emerald power right out of him to power his ultimate plan--- the thing he more or less planned on doing from the moment he stepped foot on Mobius. However, the damage Sonic and co did to his plans during that time caused it to go haywire, sending giant white explosions shooting across the entire planet of Mobius. Practically every Mobian was transported to Earth, Sonic X style. And not just the people, but massive chunks of the planet too had warped on to Earth, practically fusing the two planets together.

But of course that opens up too many stories so time for a rapid-fire design overview lol

Chaos & Tikal

Obviously the events of Adventure would be next, but for the most part Tikal's design is just updated to match the new Knuckles. With Chaos however, I slightly changed his story to make it so that he mutated from a Chao for when he first turned into Perfect Chaos and destroyed the Echidna clan, and obviously making it so that he used to be a Neutral Chaos Chao. I also have a whole animated short mentally planned out of that moment which I'd kill to create. After the events of Adventure though, instead of like getting dragged off to Heaven or whatever Chaos is instead gifted just a little bit of power from the Master Emerald so that he could maintain a more solid form than his 0 form so he could live alongside people (as much as a water monster can), and in this form (which I'm calling Controlled Chaos) he looks more like a Chaos Chao and of course he also has an emotion ball, which the Chao quickly recognize and accept him in with them. I also like to think he could replace the role of Gemerl from the comics, where he is the superpowered being that helps protect Cream and her family (although clearly Vanilla is a bit more hesitant)

As for the events of the Adventure story itself, it's mostly the same, except for the fact that Knuckles wasn't at the Emerald when Eggman broke it open because he was slacking off alongside Sonic, which he beats himself up about before realizing the Emerald can be repaired. Also, with their Master destroyed, the Chaos Emeralds actually turn into chaotic masses of power that greatly affect the areas around them, making them more dangerous to obtain for Sonic and co. For example, maybe Ice Cap wasn't really that icy, but the Emerald Sonic was to get from there turned whatever it was before into a frigid mess. Maybe it would also spawn some sort of boss for them to fight to protect itself.

Also, here's Big. He's mostly the same except I wanted him to look more wild and unkempt. I also made it so he actually has a giant mouth, because in all his modern forms I honestly think his really tiny mouth looks super weird. 

Oh yeah and I guess one major thing I changed about all Mobians, they actually have feet and not just weird nubs. Really expanding the boundaries of design.

I also have ideas for Gamma and Omega from here, but it mostly boils down to Gamma actually having more personal interactions with the main cast, and once his story finishes and he explodes, Eggman laments that his best creation was going to waste, so he decided to rebuild him… but with less empathy. This backfires when the new Omega is disgusted by Eggman's method of just rebuilding him, and lashes out, going off to join the cause against him.

Then, for Adventure 2…

Shadow

For the most part, I just updated him to match Sonic's design, and gave him cooler gloves/shoes, but the main change is that I want him to feel more like a crazy genetic experiment. For one, you can see that he actually has gills similar to those of the Biolizard in his base form, probably just to help him take in more air/energy so he is less likely to tire, but more importantly I want his inhibitor rings to essentially be holding in the Doom powers he gets in Shadow Generations. When he takes them off, he basically becomes a darker shapeshifting mass that can barely hold himself together, instead of just becoming an objectively more powerful version of himself like in his canon form. It also makes more sense, since Gerald probably made those rings as he was ashamed that he had to resort to giving him Black Doom's DNA, and so that he could interact with Maria without hurting her.

The other big change is to Maria herself, who I wanted to be as goth as Shadow is, with her being more of the rambunctious goth type than an emo goth. I was always kind of annoyed at how generic anime-UwU precious babey Maria always was (even though she was greatly improved in Shadow Generations and Movie 3) so I thought making her have a more fun/imperfect personality would be more interesting, and would be more impactful during the Ark raid where she turns from a full-nonsense personality to someone who's actually afraid and desperate. I don't really have a solid visual design for her right now, but I've had a couple of iterations. I kind of want her to look less assured than she does here

Team Chaotix

You have NO IDEA how much I needed to change Charmy and Espio. Charmy looked like a weird cat/bear with a bee tail and Espio looked like some completely unrecognizable animal, even though you might be able to at least assume he's a chameleon if you knew his powers. 

For Charmy, I just needed to give him big bulging black eyes, a jagged mouth, and another set of arms to really show that he's an insect. If nothing else, it at least makes it obvious that he can't be anything BUT an insect. As for Espio, I decided that I could give reptilian Mobians various scales on their body instead of the mammals' chest coloring or whatever. I also gave him a more unique head shape and that weird fin thing which is much more chameleon-iconic than what he had before, and even gave him that wrinkly eyelid thing they have, while still giving him a more humanized expression.

As for Vector, since he was the rare Mobian who had an actually unique body type and head design, he stayed mostly the same. He's the main reason why I know the character designers at Sonic Team aren't ALWAYS copy-pasting their body types. I did have to change his outfit, mostly just to get rid of his weird shoulder-ball things which never will make any sense. What even are they?

Now, for the biggun

Blaze

Oooohh my god Blaze. When I was first thinking about adding her to the roster, I liked her a decent amount but didn't think about her too much. I did know that I wasn't going to change much about her design since it was already pretty much perfect, I just added more gold to her and made her ponytail more like a flame than her canon design, which looked more like feathers of some sort to me. I then just updated her tail to match the style.

What really changed was when I completely rewrote her story. I always thought it was so weird that they made her so special and weird, being a fire-bending princess from another dimension, but they barely went into fine detail about her, like, AT ALL. It doesn't seem like there's anything special about the Sol Dimension, aside from the Sol Emeralds, and her actual role as a princess is never really touched on at all besides her living in a castle as depicted in the comics, AND worst of all she's just sort of… born with fire bending powers? That's crazy even for Sonic characters. I mean I'll accept it but still, I feel like there should be something there. And it's also crazy that all of this was introduced in Sonic Rush, which, let's be real, has the most non-story there could be in a Sonic game. Nothing interesting and unique really happens in it. At least Rush Adventure did something new, but still. She deserves better

So anyway I changed practically every detail and am mentally organizing the full story, but the gist of it is essentially that 06 is now her debut game, and everything regarding Soleanna now involves her instead of Elise and all takes place in the Sol Dimension. You'd think it would be a little on the nose to make Soleanna a location in the Sol Dimension, but they didn't even bother to make that a thing. Same goes for Solaris. It feels so obvious, like it was meant to be that way in a beta form. On top of that, though, since she replaces Elise you can probably guess that she actually derives her fire bending power from Iblis, which is actually a power passed down in her family ever since Iblis and Mephiles were sealed. And, since she's clearly in more of a position of power than Elise, she can actually be the third in the 06 main character group instead of Shadow, since he gets enough attention elsewhere. 

As the story goes on and she realizes she has a flaming hellbeast inside of her, her sheer confidence gets broken and then regained thanks to Sonic supporting her. Maybe also includes a relationship with Amy because I can't help myself. Apart from that, there are so many details and story beats I'd love to share but really that would be a whole document all on its own. I'm surprisingly close to being able to write basically a whole movie script's worth on this thing.

But yeah every single detail I added to her story has now retroactively made her one of my all-time favorite Sonic characters, tied with Cream and Chaos. I basically freak out whenever she does literally anything, I'm kind of obsessed.

Also since the role of princess suggests there's a queen (unless you live in Equestria), here's the Queen of Soleanna

Silver

Now of course, ANOTHER peak redesign. I really think Silver specifically is the biggest upgrade out of everyone. I really needed him to look more weird and futuristic, making his whole body actually silvery instead of just kind of white, and making his clothes black to make his glowy tech bits more stark. I even turned his quills into flowing hair, just because. I like to think he's one of those characters that's unimaginably handsome without any effort, even though he doesn't realize it. 

Story-wise he doesn't change much, except of course since Blaze is doing her own thing, he's completely alone fighting to protect his future, which personally really helps show his character. He's the type to fight to his dying breath even if he knows he can't win, just so he can protect as many people as he can. I also think he's still the type who would take a can out from the bottom of those can pyramids in a cartoon supermarket, only to freak out when the whole pyramid topples down. He's a devoted warrior who, in low-stakes scenarios, is still kind of a lovable loser.

Except he wasn't always alone. He's the last remaining member of the Crested Knights (or whatever I want to call them), a genetically engineered and cybernetically enhanced army of people made to quell Mephiles and Iblis as much as possible in the future. The second-to-last, his mentor Steel the Wolf, fell in battle with him, so he vows to keep fighting for him. Personally I think Silver having a deep personal attachment to someone in this way really makes him feel more loving and empathetic, which makes his goofy sides much more charming. I imagine him sharing stories of their past together over a campfire while Sonic and Blaze listen intently.

Also just because Blaze gets her own special super form because of the Sol Emeralds, I thought since the Chaos Emeralds are said to grant wishes, each individual who gets their power has a different "super" form. If we get Super Sonic and Burning Blaze, then we can also get Psychic Silver (it's still alliteration) where his psychokinetic abilities go haywire and his senses basically become perfect. 

Forces

The one thing I realized I didn't like about the IDW comics is that Amy was barking out commands like she was some seasoned war hero (which she kind of was) in her cutesy old Adventure dress, so that made me think that I should give her and everyone else their own special outfits for the Forces section of the story. Also, since the story of Forces is practically the same as SatAM aside from Sonic being involved, I made the Freedom Fighters become a part of this story, which are their own little task force. That also includes Nicole, who now actually looks like a holographic projection instead of just some random Mobian, although I might eventually design a more corporeal form for her. And, since Forces is one of those games where you realize they just didn't want to include humans for some reason, I decided to give Topaz from Sonic X a spot alongside Rouge in the Resistance. She'd still start off as a cop that Rouge enjoys ""messing"" with, but then once Eggman starts taking over she joins the forces against him. And since the IDW comics are practically a part of Forces' story, Lanolin can also be here, who I made chubbier since sheep always have a chubby aura. Tangle is there too but she's completely unchanged since she's already perfect. Same would go for Whisper but I haven't drawn her yet. And really the same goes for pretty much every other IDW character, since their designs are some of the best in the series imo.

The Ancients

I really thought the Ancients needed to look more alien and weird, and I wanted to give them clothes to mimic that of their tech. I also thought that the Koco could instead be their true brains/bodies, and the gel is another part of their tech. 

The main thing of their story is that I want them to be the origin of all Mobians and Chao. When they fled from The End to Mobius, after the big fight The End broke their bodies and brains, destroying the rocky shell around their true bodies, and making them back to being nearly animalistic. However, over time their malleable bodies evolved over time, some turning into the more capable and intelligent Mobians, while those that ended up in more protected areas didn't change quite as much and became the Chao, still being pretty soft and helpless. However, I also thought that the branch of them that fled to Mobius surely couldn't have been the ENTIRE species, so the other branches that fled away from The End ended up evolving into the species of the Black Arms and the Wisps. The Black Arms being a people who use more meaty, grotesque technology, and with the Wisps tending to use more abstract, colorful technology, assuming they use any at all, since they decided to live more naturalistically, even with their core bodies living outside of any other tech. This essentially makes Shadow the Hedgehog (the game) and Colors parallel stories, where they deal with the offshoots of the Ancients. If you couldn't tell, I also made them have traits of the Dark and Hero Chaos Chao, with Black Doom having the flame orbs above his head, and Mother Wisp having the halos and the head protrusions of the Hero Chaos Chao. They each also have cores similar to the Koco, with Doom's Eye essentially being his core, and the Wisps themselves each being a core, but with the Mother Wisp having a bigger body her core goes into. 

Those are all the major designs, but of course that isn't even it. For example, Some other characters that exist in my redesign are Sonia and Manic (fans of Sonic who hype him up in battle with music), Bokkun (mostly unchanged), Metal Sonic (just looks cooler), Sage (who I redesigned but honestly might not keep), Cosmo and the Metarex (both made a bit more alien), the Zeti (the Deadly Six and others of the species), and a whole redesign of Secret Rings and Black Knight which features even more stories like Peter Pan and Journey to the West. I could basically go on and on about it all but I have to stop somewhere lol

Thanks for indulging me

[kickbutts-singsongs]

My favorite animal is me getting struck with more and more bkdk aus and getting progressively more frustrated about it lmao

[batsplat]

following on from this. not to always bring marc into everything (sorry marc) but if assen 2015 had happened against jorge, valentino would have very likely pulled something similar again imo. rather than what he actually did, which is approach marc almost immediately for a nice normal friendly handshake and backing off during the podium celebrations. should be noted that during laguna seca '08, valentino was very much committed to yapping at casey on the podium with the world's biggest smuggest grin on his face

partly that disparity is because jorge not marc was the direct title rival, partly it's because valentino was treating marc with kid gloves right until the second that he wasn't, which marc was seemingly entirely oblivious to. if anyone other than marc had said what he said in that presser, had then continued on with similar rhetoric during sachsenring, valentino would quite likely have gone nuclear. he's done it over less than that. his fondness for marc made him continue to exhibit uncharacteristic restraint... except that fondness unfortunately is what left valentino feeling so very betrayed when (to his eyes) marc could not leave well enough alone

[ehlnofay]

my tes secret santa for @anotherclassicpretence! truth be told I've been having a tad bit of writer's block lately but some of your prompts were VERY interesting (I liked the idea of writing delphine before the main quest a lot... this more or less counts) so I hope I've done them justice. hope you're having a splendid holiday season!

...

“Steady on, Hilde,” Delphine says with a brusque, manufactured sort of calm. “You’ll do yourself a mischief.”

It's a relief, she thinks, that the day Hilde has elected to barge in with world-upending news is a convenient one; it isn’t as though Riverwood is the kind of place to attract crowds, most of the time (part of the reason she chose to live here at all) but the inn is unusually quiet now. Orgnar is nominally organising something in the cellar, which means that he’s spending an hour swapping two bottles around and calling it a day, and the dining hall is warmed to a swelter with the ever-going hearthfire, and utterly empty. No-one’s come in for lunch yet. No rooms rented out last night, either, so it’s all silent on that front; it’s just Delphine and her wet cotton cloth, wiping down the stained tables till they shine, and Hilde with her hair wrapped and her string of beads tangling round narrow, hard-knuckled fingers. She’s sat herself on the chair with the wobbly leg; it needs fixing soon. Ordinarily, Delphine would herd her onto another, but right now she doesn’t think there’s anything in the world that would get Hilde to listen.

“Hark at her!” she complains to the bead-string - all marbled glass dyed blue and red and yellow, clinking together on their leather cord. “Do a mischief - do a mischief - it’s as if she can’t bloody hear me -”

Delphine swipes the cloth over the chip in the corner of the table. “I hear you,” she replies (does she ever hear her). Hilde’s hands are white where the necklace bites into her skin; her lips are pinched into a puckered line. Her eyes are red-rimmed and fierce. “Hilde. I’m going to get you a drink to calm your nerves, and then we’ll talk it over properly, all right?”

“Talk it over,” Hilde repeats, high and scornful, and then her face screws up quite suddenly as if all the fight has fled it - the wrinkles in her cheeks deepening to uneasy valleys, knuckles pressed to the thin slat of her mouth, beads digging hard into her cheek. “Nine have mercy… thank you, Delphine.”

The inner corner of Delphine’s lip snags, near imperceptibly, between the blunt ends of her canines. She nods once, and she ducks behind the bar, folding the cloth with damp precision as she goes. The cask of ale is near empty, the mugs lined up on their shelf, sparkling clean, cutlery rattling around in its tin. It's not fancy - Riverwood is a small, old town, built on the bones of an older one, and no matter how well-run the inn has been since she bought it it's not exactly a prime destination, but it's a good sort of a place. And innkeeping is decent work. Keeps you busy. Keeps your ear to the ground. Gives you something to focus on, in the meantime -

When Delphine grabs a tankard, she notes with some incredulity that her hand is trembling. She stills it. She pours the ale until the cup rim is flecked with froth.

(Gives you something to focus on in the meantime, in between real work, while you're waiting -)

(There is a feeling rising in her body, foaming like the ale; a sour, stomach-turning excitement, as if she's in her twenties again and wet behind her ears, biting back all the intrigue. Like she has an unlined face and fresh armour and is standing again in line for her induction ceremony. Like she's staring something in the face and thinking, finally.)

Delphine caps the cask. She is not in her twenties, and she is not staring anything down; bar Hilde, a seventy year old woman with tannin-stained hands and the latest in a line of tall stories. Delphine didn't get this far (how far?) (still alive, isn’t she) through credulity. She's a pragmatist through and through - won't believe anything she hasn't seen evidence of with her own eyes; and yet.

And yet.

She sets the mug down on the table; a pale and lukewarm drop slides down the pewter, just next to the handle. She'll need to wipe it all down again, after this.

Hilde takes it, absent-minded; the beads slither from where they’re strung around her hands to rest in a smooth curve over her chest. Her hands are shaking - she doesn’t seem to notice, or if she does, she doesn’t stop them. There is a look about her, all of a sudden, that seems dreadfully, fixedly haunted, like a woman looking down the barrel of a cannon, some rapid-rigged explosive, something to level the town. Like she’s caught the apocalypse’s eye. Delphine reaches out, perfunctory, and pats the back of her hand; Hilde grimaces and downs half her tankard in one long, desperate swig.

Light’s coming in through the window-slats up by the rafters, dull and gold, dust motes in the shafts of it. It makes the white wimple of cloth swaddled hastily around Hilde’s head shine in places.

“Big as the mountain,” she mumbles into the lip of the tankard, fingers wrapped tight around its handle, “black as night - flew right over the barrow like something fit to block out the sun.”

Delphine’s teeth scrape over that spot at the corner of her lip. She can’t help but say, “Are you sure -”

“I know what I saw,” Hilde snaps. Her knuckles and lips are blanched and colourless. Liquid sloshes over the edge of her cup with her sharp, abortive gestures. “I saw a dragon.”

Delphine is very careful not to let her face do anything at all, there.

(It’s adrenaline, she knows; the pointed, muscle-coiled readiness to move - to act - to make a plan in service of a solid end and carry it off perfectly; the comfort of seeing possibility roll out before her like a long many-doored hallway, like a road she might be able to walk instead of these four walls she’s circled for too many years. Innkeeping is decent work - keeps her ear to the ground - keeps her busy in the interim, but it’s not what Delphine does, not what she’s been trained to do; not a purpose, not something to strive for, and oh, Divines -)

(None of this is substantiated. Delphine is not a rash and green youth, not anymore and not again, and she will not start running away with silly fantasies before she’s checked anything at all; she has had her fill of disappointment, and should know better than to invite it - should know better than to start spinning grand plans, before she’s even sent out some missives to the pale cobweb of contacts she has left - over the barrow; west, then - is there a significance, to the barrow? Does she have anything about it in her side room? Nine, it’s times like this she misses the old library and the mad old codger that kept it, and, no. No.)

(Yes.)

“It’ll come back,” Hilde’s saying with fearful certainty; lips flecked with spittle and beer-foam, hands still shaking. “It’ll come back, and it’ll kill us all, and then you’ll believe me -”

“I believe you,” Delphine tells her, and it is inexplicably, regrettably true. (She’s thinking about the library. She’s thinking about the dragonlore. She’s thinking that if dragons are back, someone will have to do something about it - and oh Divines how she has missed being the one to do something about it.)

Her hands are still, but only through some effort.

She feels like she’s been dozing for twenty years and only now has been shocked awake.

Hilde looks at her, white-mouthed and white-scarved; she frowns, a tense, sour thing, and she says doubtfully, “You look like you need a drink.”

Delphine laughs. It’s a short, gruff bark of sound. Her hands are flat on the tabletop; her hair is coming loose in thin wisps from the tight knot at the base of her skull. Sunlight trickles through the windows, golden-fresh. “No,” she says. “No, thank you, Hilde, I'm good."

[pup-pee]

so i have a problem & its called rereading this fic i just quickly doodled these 2 thingss but ill prolly make an actual piece bc i think about this a lot

sunshine. falling.

u can decide which part of the convo theyre on kfjsdh

gift 4 @radioactive-earthshine

HERES THE FIC AGAIN BC I REALIZE THE LINK MIGHT NOT LINK? ignore mefjksdh\

((idk y the quality is so badfjsdgf BUT THE DIALOUGE WAS CUTE OK ik part of it was from superboy & the ravers (#7) but just ok just))

this is like a couple weeks old @ this point idk y i never posted it

[corviiids]

For the director's cut fanfic thing: ⭐⭐⭐ (these are THREE stars valid for whatever. I'm giving you blank checks)

thank you again <3

blank check 2/3 goes back to as you like it again! but this time i want to talk about my shadow designs for the akechi bossfights we've encountered in the preceding chapters >:3 there are five - the Puppet, the Singer, the Bard, the Dancer, and the Magician.

but this got really ABSURDLY long this time so ill stick to mostly the Puppet, and just do a brief ("brief") overview of the others for now.......

(for context: this is my palace au and akechi's keywords are akechi goro, the world, theatre.)

the Puppet (photos of giant puppets below if that freaks you out!)

the first Wing the thieves encounter is the puppet show, and the boss shadow is a giant marionette:

For one thing, it’s huge—maybe three or four times the size of a human being. It’s also gleaming, carefully polished and buffed, reflecting light more viciously in the areas where it seems the wood might be chipped or worn. The polish throws the lines of joints and pieces into sharp relief, giving the puppet the general impression of something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails. Behind it, mostly concealed by its limp bulk, is a door. As they might have gleaned from the chatter of the audience, the show does not yet seem to have begun. As such, the puppet on stage is limp on its strings. Most disturbingly, it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks. They can just make out the side of the thing’s eyes from where they’re standing. Gravity has not been kind to them: the puppet’s eyelids are dropped open, bulging eyes left wide and staring up as far back as the build will let them. They haven’t rolled all the way into the wooden skull, presumably because they can’t. Instead, the unseeing yellow eyes remain fixed on the back corner of the stage. The puppet is entirely still. “I think I’m going to be sick,” Makoto says faintly.

i think the Puppet is my favourite of the five because he's so disturbing. i imagine he looks a bit like the giant marionettes by the french street theatre show royal de luxe:

but i really love these guys, so i think it's uncharitable to say akechi's shadow looks exactly like them. i know giant puppets are always a little freaky but i genuinely love the royal de luxe puppets and i think the workmanship on these does genuinely do a ton of work to dispel that uncanny vibe.

puppet akechi on the other hand is absolutely drenched in uncanny valley, so i guess imagine these puppets but much scarier. the main thing is those places where different pieces of wood are joined, in the joints / on the limbs / etc, because that's very key to puppet akechi's look in my mind, hence "something whole that had been cut up and pieced slowly together with hinges and nails". the Puppet is a marionette, but the way he's been constructed and set up on stage almost calls to mind the imagery of a corpse that's been reconstructed to perform. the way he moves is really unnatural:

Ren is beginning to think they might be able to get past and slip through that door without a fight when the whole creature rears up, back strings going taut, and lashes wildly out at him with a horrible clack of its arms—he leaps back and crashes directly into Haru, who catches and dips him like a princess before twirling him frantically into Ryuji and the puppet gouges a deep gash in the stage floor.    As they watch it screeches, howls an unnatural shriek, eyes suddenly wide and bulging larger. They ‘blink’ a few times, eyelids flipping, then the puppet Akechi goes limp on its strings again, though decidedly more upright than before, like whoever’s pulling the strings is now on guard. Its eyes stay open this time, bright gold and piercing.

very much not like something exercising its own agency, but like a body on strings being operated by someone who did not care to practice in the artistry of operating a puppet to make it look like a live thing - the puppet is literally just a tool to be flailed about.

this also shows in the way the puppet sits when it's at rest. guys do you know how god damn hard it is to find normal pictures of puppets? when you google marionette it just comes up with a bunch of fnaf shit. anyway check this guy out

at rest, they usually just kind of dangle innocently, or might slouch forward if given too much slack, right? it was important to me that puppet akechi look very wrong at rest, as if he's not "at rest" so much as he's just been left to hang. hence: "it’s draped backward, not forward, snapped unnaturally at the spine and giving it the extremely uncanny look of a corpse on uneven ceiling hooks." i'm basically imagining meat hooks, like, in a slaughterhouse or something you know? like he's just dangling from those.

that imagery was inspired by persona 5 dancing, actually - akechi's finishing pose in his dance is this:

this is just such an unnatural pose. when i saw it for the first time, i just couldn't get the image out of my head of a string puppet who'd been hung up and left to dangle without any regard for how it might look or feel (lol). not to mention that blank look in his eyes. i think a lot of the Puppet was born from this dance because the dance itself is so dynamic and silly but then the lead-up to the end suddenly gets very jerky and puppet-like. i really like his dance!

the Puppet's battle mechanic is that the applause will continue as long as the Puppet is either acting or getting hurt (kind of like the mettaton fight in undertale actually?). if the applause stops, then the Puppet will be inflicted with Despair - in p5 the Despair effect means you lose SP for each turn and then instantly die on the third turn. makoto ends up healing the Puppet and yusuke mercy-kills it before it can commit suicide:

Fox silently raises his gun. The Thieves collectively flinch as the Puppet dissipates. The applause starts back up. “If we’d left things silent,” Yusuke says, “it would have only happened again.”

because this is the first shadow bossfight the thieves encounter in the Theatre, i needed it to have some broader implications (vs some of the later shadows who have more specific interactions). so obviously the analogue for akechi is that the performance needs to continue and he needs to continue receiving acknowledgement from the public / from shido / etc because if he's not useful and entertaining and noticeable and such, then he's nothing - his life doesn't mean anything. obviously, if he doesnt perform for shido (perform in the sense of working, but also in the sense of showmanship) he'll probably be killed. but also, akechi really externalises his sense of self to an insane degree. the conceit of the palace is essentially that his entire internal world is the show, it's just this shallow performance, the backstage is empty. if he stops existing in the cognition of the masses, he essentially "stops existing".

i think a lot about third semester akechi in royal and how completely he's faded from public awareness. he doesn't care because he's a dead man walking and has locked into nihilism at that point. but if you look at what akechi says in the engine room:

his voice when he says this says a lot to me. akechi's envisioning the world as it will look when he has to return and face the consequences of the world discovering what's behind the curtain and realising his credibility was all a show. to be honest, i think this also plays a role in his decision to sacrifice himself in this scene. i don't think he wanted to die, but i think he did realise that the post-thieves, post-truth world wasn't a place that held anything for him anymore, and his desire to return to that reality was dramatically weakened, so it was an easier decision for him to choose to make that sacrifice than it otherwise might have been.

um, i had a point. okay, so, i was saying that once the applause stops, the Puppet begins to despair. the Puppet also is the most direct representation of akechi as someone who is being used. all the shadow bosses correlate to some aspect of akechi's need to perform and to the varying reasons why they all have that sense of desperation:

“Kinda feels like they’re just defendin’ themselves, you know,” [Ryuji] says. “Or somethin’. Look too much like him. It’s weird they can’t talk, cos it’s like fighting a dumb animal. Don’t they all seem real scared to you?” None of Akechi’s Shadows have delivered grand speeches about conquering the world. Even Futaba’s Shadow had given them a fairly strong indication of what was going on with her, that overwhelming guilt which had given birth to a resolve to lock herself up in her mind and die. Akechi’s Shadows have lashed out, tried to destroy them, sure. But it feels different in a way that’s growing more and more impossible to ignore. Desperate to fend them off, more than anything, like each one is the final bastion standing for a world that could crumble at any moment.

that's why once you figure out how to stop each shadow's "show" from going on, they instantly die:

ripping the Singer's mask off causes him to cease to exist (see below)

silencing the Bard, who relies on the power of his words to manipulate others, removes his power and reveals that he's pretty easy to take down

the Dancer's feet are always bleeding because he can't stop moving. he's hard to catch, but the moment he stops dancing, he's revealed to have extremely low defence and can be taken out very easily

but the Puppet is literally being manipulated by a puppetmaster. because he no longer has any use when the applause stops, he no longer has a reason to exist. i also just thought this would be a fun effect to start on because it's so drastic as an introduction to akc's psyche and really gives the thieves a sense of what they're working with by throwing them directly into the deep end.

ok let's leave the puppet behind for now. im gonna be more brief with the others i promise (maybe)

the Singer

LET'S TALK about. beneath the mask. a song about ren. but it's also a song about goro.

I'm a shape-shifter at Poe's masquerade Hiding both face and mind All free for you to draw

the fic goes over some of my meta about this:

[Yusuke] I have done some research. [Makoto] Oh? [Yusuke] I believe when the Opera Shadow sang of “Poe’s Masquerade”, he was referring to a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, entitled “The Masque of the Red Death”.

eternally grateful for the scene during the pyramid arc where yusuke loredumps about egyptian mythology so i have precedent to do this

yusuke summarises the story in this chapter (chapter 4), but basically: the story is about rich people abandoning the common folk to a plague, until a personification of the plague wearing a red mask enters the castle. when his mask is removed, it's revealed there is nothing underneath. everyone in the castle then succumbs to the plague.

the superficial connections to akechi are pretty obvious - red mask, plague doctor. etc. but this song is really, really telling for both ren and goro. i briefly went over this in my last dvd commentary post about the palace fic, but this relates to my meta around both of them as mask wearers. the line "all free for you to draw" is a big one - ren is "all free for you," the player, "to draw" - he becomes who you need him to be, and because you need to max out your confidants, he becomes (via you) who his friends need him to be.

goro is similar on a different scale because he moulds his personality to what the public expects him to be. he takes it one step further, because it's less utility for him and more foundational - as i said, to an extent the performance is the substance of his personality, which is the core of the distortion. so both ren and goro are wearing the mask, malleable in character, their actual personality being somewhat questionable, but that emptiness is only true for goro. ren's definitely got something underneath it, but goro feels like he doesn't.

brief cw for suicidal ideation, but i also generally take it as a given that goro doesn't really expect to live past 18 after defeating shido. not that he's actively suicidal, but i think literally or figuratively he knows after shido's downfall, his own life will pretty much be over, and that's part of what drives the emptiness. the show really only needs to go on until that point, and after that there's no need to build a real thing underneath to return to. he's very much living for that goal.

anyway: so the Singer starts out singing the Phantom of the Opera - the Shadow is very much modelled after the phantom - but swaps to beneath the mask and begins to connect with ren. the Singer wears a red mask. i really like this mask! i envision it as looking like someone pouring blood over his face and then the blood freezing in place, so it just looks very molten and liquid but fixed over half his face.

ren defeats the Singer by ripping his mask off:

[Ren] Please don’t take off my mask, revealing dark [Ann] OMG!! [Ann] THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE TOOK OFF HIS MASK!! [Ann] HE REVEALED DARK!!!! [Ann] HE DISAPPEARED!!!!!!!!!!

(i love the thieves because i dont have to be subtle about my symbolism i can just make them say it)

anyway, just like the figure in the Masque of the Red Death, ripping off the Singer's mask reveals "dark" underneath - he ceases to exist.

Just a cage of bones There's nothing inside

the Bard and the Dancer

when i was first plotting this fic, i was actually designing the palace not as a written environment but as though it would be a playable place. so a lot of it is informed by me picturing what this palace would be like to play through and explore, building it out as a video game environment in my mind's eye and then trying to describe it from that point. i took the same approach to the bossfights, so they're all designed around central gameplay mechanics which are largely based on status effects and how the player would strategise around them. (to that end, a lot of the design stuff in my doc never made it into the fic...)

the conceit of the bard was a shadow who can manifest abstract concepts into being by manipulating reality with his words. so the status effects he uses are brainwash and sleep, mostly. his monologues are modified versions of shakespeare's works.

part of the reason why i started writing this fic was specifically to challenge myself in aras of writing im not very confident in: so longform planning, progression of plot, environment description, and action scenes being major ones. writing all the boss fights was and continues to be a real challenge. the chapter that the bard shows up in (chapter 5) ended up taking ages and ages in part because i kept putting off writing this fight. now that it's done, though, the bard fight is actually maybe my favourite fight scene i've written lol. it always turns out that way!!! the reason i like it is because i realised the physical action wasn't the fun part of writing a fight like this. since it was focused on status effects, it meant i got to crawl into ren's headspace when he got brainwashed, which i really really enjoyed doing because i got to drag out some trauma that joker has lovingly repressed.

   to set my fellows, phantoms in the wings    in deadly hate the one against the other…    This isn’t the Casino. This is somewhere else entirely. The Casino, and everything that came with it, that was months ago. How did he forget? The cottonwool that had crept so slowly into his blood dissipates in a mad rush that leaves him dizzy with disbelief. His hands, now that he can feel them again, are trembling. The knife between his fingers, trembling. The cool floor beneath him, the air in his lungs. How close had he come to never feeling that again?    Had he really just been feeling safe about that plan? Had he really felt everything was going to be okay? If anything had gone wrong—anything at all—he’d have been gone. He’d have been dead. How had they made it so he felt okay with that?    A trick? A ruse?    How blasé they’d all been, when it was his life they were gambling with like a worthless set of poker chips! And they’re here—all around him. Safe? He’s never been in more danger.    “Joker!”    Surrounded. He’s surrounded by the ones who left him for dead.

the Dancer doesn't get as much attention in text because i didn't want to slow down the pacing of the story every few minutes to do another huge scene tgat doesn't really serve a purpose, just like the exploration of the Globe Wing didn't. all that mattered was that he was shown to be adaptable, agile, and resilient - the Dancer needs to be in top condition at all times and ready to dodge any threat. the imagery that came through to me the strongest was the idea that his feet are always bleeding, so he leaves bloodstains all over the floor.

the Magician

this was another scene i adored writing. i think environment-wise, the House of Cards is my favourite Wing in the palace because it's the most unique structure. it's not a styled theatre like the others, it's more on-theme to the Magician, like he's set up his own performance environment. so it's just a huge house of cards made of crumbling playing cards which is really difficult to navigate and which joker kind of blends into.

the premise for the Magician was someone who needs to perform miracles and present impossible illusions as reality with a flair for drama. the Magician fools the Thieves over and over and over again, because they are good-hearted people who want to save him.

did you ever see that unused mementos request in royal where akechi tells the thieves about a target to save someone, and doesn't tell them that the someone in question is dodgy themself, and watches to see how quickly the Thieves immediately trust them?

i don't think i based this fight off this request because im pretty sure i had it planned out before i ever saw this, but i was really pleased to see it because it's very much the same idea. even in the engine room, akechi calls the thieves idiots for inviting him back into the team. of course, this isn't a good or healthy worldview lol and it's something he has to unlearn because he literally trusts no one and that's not an extreme anyone should be endorsing, but he also has a point in that the thieves are willing to throw their faith into things way too easily and don't look critically at people or situations. so the magician fools them, victimises them, tricks them into considering him a victim, fools them again, traumatises them, but they all continue to feel empathy for him and try to save him when he's in trouble. akc's cynicism vs the thieves' faith is a big theme of this one i think and the question is like, when to doubt vs when to trust even when you have evidence to the opposition. i think the right position is somewhere between thesis and antithesis (which iirc is not actually the wording hegel used when describing dialectics? lol... i might be wrong. i never studied hegel so my knowledge is pretty superficial. but i think this was a translation thing anyway because allegedly goro doesnt refer directly to hegel in jp? someone can confirm or deny idk)

anyway those are the bossfights we've had so far!!! just the VIP Box to go now......................... :3

[chaosduckies]

What do you use for your writing?

I use google docs! Though sometimes it does mess up since it likes to autocorrect things for some reason add on words I didn’t want-

Really simple and all I have to do is copy and paste on here! if you were talking about what I write on, it’s my laptop! (I just bought a new one and the battery life is amazing)

thank you for the ask anon!

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

I've been looking for this one au where Len basically becomes a mad scientist and turns his friends into robots one by one for a while now, and I'm beginning to realize that I just read through your blog while half asleep a few months back and mixed together my memories of your flower hivemind and composite au

this is very funny to me. i'm absolutely honored this blog's posts were enough to evil-farming-game an entire vocaloid au into your memories 😂

i can give you this doodle; it's composite au but i'm sure it'd fit very well with this theoretical mad scientist len au lololl

[exoshroommie]

i am making great strides with my exocolonist cook book. next step: try to make soysweets!

thank you @elvexen for making the inspiration for this project!! (this post)

I've decided to make them flavored like various ingredients in the game. only mango soysweets are said to exist i think, but why not have some fun!!! :)

[mordremrose]

I’m just gonna write a little thing! A little thought for Bloom, nothing too intense, just so I don’t forget it!

1000 words later? Whoops

Writing below the cut, major spoilers for the end of Heart of Thorns and implied End of Dragons spoilers but nothing explicit from EoD :]

Bloom

“Kill me, Commander.” Trahearne could hear his own voice tremble, as horror overtook his dear friend’s face. Around them all, their friends— Rytlock, Caithe, Canach, Marjory, Braham— were exhausted. Worn thin by the fight against the jungle dragon, both physical and within the Dream.

“What? No! Mordremoth is dead. We destroyed its mind from the inside.” The commander protested, their fingers curled around the hilt of Caladbolg.

“But I still hear its voice.” Trahearne looked down at his hands, twisted and blighted as they were. His body was not his— he was corrupted. It was only cruel fate that he had kept his mind this long. Or perhaps something more sinister.

“Mordremoth is alive. One last hateful vestige… a terrible seed, planted deep in my mind.”

Trahearne’s hands curled into fist, as he took a deep steadying breath.

“You must kill me, Commander, before that seed grows. Before… before Mordremoth reclaims what it has lost.”

He reached out now, hands on his friend’s shoulders. The tears streaming down their face broke his heart. He did not want this. He didn’t want to hurt them, to see them suffer so.

Trahearne wished there was another way.

“What is left of me can’t survive on its own, my friend.” He croaked, and felt the Commander tremble beneath his hands. Were they always so small?

“Strike now or—“

Against his will, a rage rose up. A sick bile that boiled in his stomach and burned through his chest as his mind lurched.

Through his mouth, Mordremoth spoke.

“I am the future! I am this world! You cannot destroy me!” The dragon roared, hands tightening around the commander.

“Run while you can!” It took everything he had left to force his fingers to uncurl, to release the commander even as the dragon wanted to tear them to shreds to be remade anew.

Caladbolg flashed in the corner of his eye.

“No!” The commander yelled. Strike true my friend! Trahearne wanted to yell. But he couldn’t, and his mind went dark.

There was no great explosion. There was no dying scream.

If you asked those present what happened, none of them gave any concrete answer.

Canach hesitated to answer, but would confirm that Mordremoth was no longer hounding his mind, or any of the sylvari.

All Rytlock would say was that the confrontation wasn’t pretty.

Caithe mourned Trahearne, in her quiet and melancholic manner, and asked not to push the matter further.

Braham would scowl, shake his head, and shove his way past, unwilling or perhaps unable to describe that final blow.

Marjory Delaqua, normally so elegant and clever with her words, who could see the twists of a plot before anyone else— when she was asked, she could only shake her head and reply ‘I don’t know’.

The Commander didn’t answer at all, because no one was able to find them to ask.

Eventually, researchers at the newly established lab of Rata Novus confirmed what the entire world held its breath to hear.

Mordremoth was dead. He had to be, to explain the slow steady trickle of magic escaping the jungle, supposedly as the dragon… decayed wasn’t the right word, but it conveyed the idea well enough. It was a slow death, they said, not quite the explosive reaction from Zhaitan, who had gorged itself on magic before its death, but a gradual decay. It changed things, about magic, about how the people of Tyria and the soon to be established Dragon’s Watch understood the flow of magic around and through the Elder Dragons. But it was dead.

It had to be.

He woke up. His body ached, as it always did, as he woke. A consequence of being too bigsmall. He stirred slowly, limbs stretching out and tail dragging behind. He had buried himself beneath massive vines this time, the weight of them both familiar and restricting. These conflicting sensations, the constant disagreement with himself… it was the only thing he could rely on. Even his name escaped his memory, although he could hear whispers of it on the edges of his mind.

Traherdremaneth.

It didn’t matter, really.

He moved slowly, not truly wanting to rise, but knowing he must.

He was something in between, and there was no stillness for him. No place of his own.

His one companion, if you could call it that, would be upon him soon. A dogged purserer, both a thorn in his side and a trusted ally, trailed behind him. For a time he thought they left him— and the feelings that had wrought left him stationary in a deep cave for nearly a week before they had reappeared.

He didn’t want them close, he knew that much, but they were one of the few things he had, a consistency. He couldn’t see them well, not with the distance between them, but he could always make out the broken blade at their hip. The one that made the scar across his chest ache.

He wondered what would happen if he let them get closer. Would they strike? Would they know him?

They were his enemyfriend. What would they make of him? Caution kept him at a distance from them.

The longer he was awake, the more memories he could half-remember.

The Orrian landscape stretches out before him and it reeks of his sibling, twisting beneath the dirt. The undead don’t notice him, not yet, and he can take a moment to look closer at the coral. It was neither alive nor dead. Not unlike himself and yet so different to him or anything he had ever encountered before.

He missed his siblings, their quiet talks among the then empty roots, among safe coils with their constant presence around him. They were too distant to feel or simply gone now and it unnerved him. This was wrong. Perhaps they could help him make it right.

There was one other thing, other than his sort-of companion and his unsteady roiling mind, that remained constant. And this was the true constant. A steady beacon, that he could not see or hear, but simply felt in a way that he could not describe. A magnetic sort of pull that had him orbiting closer and closer.

It drew him in, out of the depths and dark underbelly of the jungle and the cave systems, towards the strange golden stones, the elegant walls meant to keep out creatures that wished to destroy the beacon. He was not welcome there, not yet, even though he meant no harm. He just needed to be closer.

He didn’t know how he knew that. He just knew it.

[gothsuguru]

ok. will scrap whatever i’ve written for “premonition of love” and start anew 🙂‍↕️

[nach0]

au where everything's the exact same except yopper is osha compliant, featuring backstory

headinhands this was meant to be a QUICK DOODLE for a JOKE. "oh that parkour isn't very safe" says my friend. "oh wait i can do a funny doodle about that" i say back. one hour later here we are

[pupuseriazag]

Making my own region for a dnd out of spite for lack of mesoamerican (in the case of this region, Nahua) cultures and cities as well as also inserting the names of cities from my country because of their meanings (like for example Nahuizalco means "Four places of obsidian" god thats so cool)

[fruitsyrups]

hi guys. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. sorry i just thought about the passage of time

[orcelito]

This is so funny actually. Tumblr time is perfectly believable, but apparently I spent 11 hours just chattin 😂

U can see when I wake up in the middle of the night and check my phone too. Inchresting...