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msfcatlover · 10 months ago

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Moonbeam Dick

I probably had too much fun with this one, but Dick's had so many iterations & costumes over the years, so much cool lore, and is one of the heroes we can actually track real-world influence on his designs! (Whoever came up with the idea to take the Doyalist reasoning of superhero costumes being based on circus performers & wrestlers, and retconning it into Dick's backstory to make the Robin costume based on the Flying Graysons' performance outfits: I see you, and I love you.) So this has been a wild, whirlwind trip through the real-world evolution of gymnastics outfits, acrobatic costuming, and comic history (paying special attention to the different costumes we've actually seen in the various flashbacks/retellings of Dick's origin over the years,) while getting way too many design ideas along the way.)

Now here's a hurdle, because Dick's not going to start with a past Moonbeam costume as his base and alter it to reflect himself. Dick Grayson is going to start with his acrobat costume, and alter it to become Moonbeam. So we're starting with a bodysuit. Skin-tight, full-sleeve, the type that loops around your middle finger to stay in place. Neckline like this fucking fantastic redesign by mabychan.

(Gods, every time I see this picture, I need to stop & stare for like... at least 3min.)

Next: the colors. Dick likes bright colors & high contrast; you barely need to glance at even one of his costumes to realize that. I, personally, really love the version where the Robin suit was a tribute to his family, but red & green really aren't "Moonbeam" colors. Fortunately, the Flying Grayson's costumes have also been shown as potential inspiration for Dick's Nightwing suit, which seems to me like a great way to keep that tidbit in without defaulting to the Robin colors! So the new color scheme is sky blue, dark blue, and white-gold (which would probably be either more silver or gold, depending on the artist.)

So the suit is predominantly light blue, with a larger the dark blue triangle like his Lost Carnival costume on the upper chest, the shoulder-points of which partially run down his upper arms. While some artists might have them go all the way to his elbows or even the finger-loops on his hands personally I don't see them going further than about halfway down Dick's biceps (at first), where the very tips of them disappear behind golden arm-bands which can be used to store gadgets. Matching bands around his thighs, too, though those are larger, for bigger pockets.

(While I am trying to evoke how some people draw the 90s Nightwing gold stripe as separate bands lower down the arm, it's probably easiest to imagine Steph's leg-bands to explain this. Also, the bands on this absolutely delightful bedazzled Nightwing by rinpin that I cannot get out of my head are a good reference for placement.)

The triangle also does a great job of framing Dick's Moonbeam symbol: a crescent moon that covers most of his upper chest, filling the triangle from side to side.

(It's another subtle tribute to his parents. Also, the green & gold "All-Star Batman and Robin" costumes are the best look the Flying Graysons have ever worn, don't @ me.)

Like with Cass, I actually found my inspiration for this when I realized what Dick would use to hide his identity: a "colombina" masquerade mask.

(These two specifically inspired me while I was doing research.)

The legs are dark blue, cut at an angle where they meet Dick's torso to evoke Tim's original Robin costume (and, to a lesser extent, the Earth 2 grown-up Robin costume) and make the bodysuit look even more like a classic leotard. Dark blue or black gloves underneath the finger-loops to protect Dick's hands & keep his fingerprints off of things. Black boots with a lighter hem on top (either the light blue or white-gold, I don't really care which) with the V top we see on the Earth-2 Robin's boots, echoing the triangle on his chest. The soles of the boot are light blue.

(The boots will, almost certainly, end up being drawn as just part of the leg, colored the same dark blue as the legs and just having a lighter stripe around his shins as well as the band around his thighs. This is not at all the intended design, but I've been looking at comic costumes for months now, and I know how details get fudged.)

So. That's the acrobat angle with enough details to make it at least passable as Moonbeam. I feel like it needs some more armor. Looking at what I've got so far, how about something like these gauntlets I used as a reference for Shadow!Steph and some simple pauldrons, both in white-gold?

Finally, while Dick's "utility belt" is more of a waist sash with hidden pockets inside, I keep going back & forth on whether or not to give him a scale-mail skirt for the extra protection & flair. It makes sense, but I worry it might be a bit much...

(Styled much like the one on the left, but closer in length to the one on the right. Color could be either light blue to extend the line of his torso & keep the colors balanced or white-gold to keep all the metallic bits consistent.)

This one has been, despite how much fun I had brainstorming, the biggest pain pinning anything down on. I'm so glad I'm done with it now.

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chromotps · 11 months ago

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YOU MENTIONED ACELU MODERN/GANG AU. but what about — I know it’s cursed but please listen — supernatural AU? I don’t mean like the entire thing (monster hunting maybe, but not the entire angel/demons plot) but just consider the vibes of the first two seasons?? The “road-trip” thing. Struggling to get by (I’m such a huge sucker for “Ace struggling to make ends meet but he always makes sure Luffy gets food and clothes even if it means he’s not eating as much himself”-dynamic in modern AUs. God). Sleeping in shitty motels + having to share the bed more often than not. Taking care of each other’s wounds in dimly-lit, dirty bathrooms. The general, ever-present worry of how things are going to be in the future or the terrifying scenario when one of them doesn’t make it (except Ace just worries about Luffy, bc of course he doesn’t consider a future where he lives and Luffy doesn’t. Neither of them can think about it too long either way bc it makes their brains shut down). They’re blood-brothers, they think of each other like that, they call each other that except. Taking physical comfort from each other is also a thing, because that’s what they’ve been doing all their lives, because there’s always been just them, and it’s all they ever had. They kiss and sleep together, bare skin pressed against bare skin because it’s always been like this, and it doesn’t feel the same with anyone else (mostly on Ace’s side, because he did try — with barmaids, waitresses, men in shady bars, because he felt responsible for Luffy’s upbringing and well-being and it felt like an older sibling thing to set and maintain appropriate boundaries. But nothing ever compared to Luffy, even in the slightest). Both of them having to play so many social roles they kind of start blending into one another (because again, there was never really anyone around long enough to fill them in for them) - bc yeah they’re siblings, but. They’re also friends except it goes way beyond that. Ace, as the older one, has been Luffy’s caretaker too, he had to think and plan ahead for them both. But there were times when Ace was hurt they the caretaking role became reversed and Luffy had to take on all the responsibilities, until Ace recovered. Obviously none of it is how a healthy sibling relationship should look like, but god, I’m just soooo weak for the developing co-dependency, especially in scenarios where clearly unhealthy/potentially harmful behavior becomes a source of physical/emotional comfort (and tbh I’m pretty sure it also translates well into in-canon Ace/Lu because they didn’t really have anyone else either, for a couple of years in their lives. And Luffy needs social interaction like he needs food and sleep).

Oh man, anon, I was shipping and reading smut for Wincest like WILD back in the day, so. This AU is perfect. I'm eating up all the details of it just being the two of them, and a car, and a map. On a good day they'll get to jam out to music for a few hours on the road before pulling into a diner, and Ace splurges on treating him and Luffy to a meal of steak, burgers, shakes and pie.

But on a bad day. They get out of a rough fight, Ace with a nasty gash down his chest but they can't get help between all their papers being forged and being wanted for a crime they were framed for anyway. So for once Luffy drives them back to the motel, and sets Ace up in the tiny bathroom tub to clean out the wound and patch it up. The whole time they're just quietly saying stuff to each other like "thank you. you didn't have to take that hit for me. it saved my life" and "you're the only reason i do any of this. nothing else matters." "you matter. it's always been just you and me, right? what would I do without you?" and then... idk MaybeTheyHave"Thank God You're Alive"Sex or something who can say?? you know???

but omg yeah I LIVE for some codependency in my ships. I do have this weird thing where whenever I write headcanons it's like I'm in denial. like, I can't totally commit to calling it unhealthy even though it totally is, bc.... they're happy together!! Maybe they learn to accept help when they need it from some kind of Uncle Bobby figure (Jinbei?? Rayleigh??). but when it comes down to it, they only really care about staying with each other and keeping their brother safe.

I'm not really sure what's up with me today but I'm sort of in a horny mood so. I'm still thinking about what you typed with "They kiss and sleep together, bare skin pressed against bare skin because it’s always been like this," and I know you probably meant literal sleeping together. But I love thinking about the slippery slope Ace and Luffy took in the AU from "pressing each other close for comfort when they're shaken" to "Luffy noticing how good it feels when Ace holds him and Ace unable to stop his eyes from lingering on Luffy's lips" to "one time in the dead of night in the hotel, their breaths are mingling and their mouths are almost touching until, it isn't 'almost' anymore. and then somehow ace is on top of luffy and the orange glow of the streetlight outside is falling on where their arms are wrapped around each other. and even though that night should have been shocking, what they can't admit out loud is that it felt completely natural. it's just another part of everything that they are to each other, and no one else needs to understand this, either."

ANYWAY UH I can. talk about other aspects of this AU since I'm sure there were other things you meant to focus on but uh. I was in a mood. oops!

#i know i shouldn't be sorry for adding to the tag but #i can be a little embarrassed about this one #acelu #headcanons #also i LOVE these asks i am so grateful #supernatural au

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bleeding-star-heart · 1 year ago

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My Mage Wardens, generally, would probably spend the rest of of their lives in Kinloch Hold. They'd be scholars in whatever topic held their fancy, writing and publishing books on it. Most likely they wouldn't leave the Circle unless their research demanded it. Would never have met any of the companions. My typical Cousland, well, it depends on whether or not Howe still fucks them over. If Howe doesn't fuck them over, my Cousland would have continued being the rebellious younger child until, one day, some noble causes them to abandon their ways and settle down. Very romance novel-esque. Zevran MIGHT meet them if a contract is put on my Cousland's life for some reason, but that's it. If Howe DOES fuck them over, then my Cousland is on the run and well, anything could happen.

My Aeducan would likely have died as a result of Bhelen's frame-up, even though they DIDN'T kill that douche of an oldest brother. Maybe they would have toughed it out of the Deep Roads and made it on their own as a surface dwarf, but eh. If they do, they could totally meet Morrigan or Zevran. Leliana would still be in the cloister, and Alistair's a long shot.

My typical Dalish elf would have stayed with their clan, no question. Maybe they would have pair bonded with Tamlen, maybe a different elf. They'd definitely be on the move, so they could totally have met any of the four love interests. Maybe my Dalish Elf could potentially persuade Zevran to give up his assassin ways and join the Sabrae clan. They 100% wouldn't leave the Sabrae clan for Leliana, Alistair, or Morrigan. But they'd be down for long-distance, and most likely Leliana or Morrigan would agree to that. My City Elf would have happily married their assigned spouse, dutifully living in the Alienage together, if it weren't for that bastard Vaughan. As it is, the city elf does the canon rampage through Vaughan's mansion, slaughter Vaughan, and then claim they did it all by themselves, saving Soris and the co-conspirators from a hanging. Then they flee Denerim to join up with the Dalish. From there...it'd be pretty similar to what Mahariel does, monogamy for Zevran, casual for the humans. Although Alistair MIGHT convince my City Elf that humans aren't all bad. Leliana, eh. Too religious. My Commoner Dwarf has two fates. Die for impersonating a non-casteless, or take over the Carta so as to protect Rica. Because NO ONE touches Rica. Inadvertently giving Bhelen a mafia boss for a brother-in-law. Morrigan and Leliana would likely NEVER show up, but Alistair or Zevran could end up as my mafia! Brosca's sugar baby, depending on circumstances. Zevran being the main man is not necessarily because I like him the best but because my wardens aren't really "think outside the box" types. Without the Blight they'd probably conform to the box they were given in life. And since Zevran would be the only one who travels without a Blight, he's the only one who can conceivably meet my Wardens. At least, Zevran's the only guaranteed traveler. I don't know if Alistair would still be a Warden without the blight. But he might not be a templar regardless. And Morrigan would still be in the wilds, Leliana in Lothering.

alright dragon age mutuals followers and countrymen. it is time for a question. if the blight never happened, what life would your warden have led? would they still meet their love interest from origins or would they never even cross paths? tell me!!!!!!

#warden aeducan #warden surana #warden amell #warden cousland

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that-yandere-life · 4 years ago

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sorry if it too much but loki from thor for the abc thing please 🌷

[Thank you so much for helping me celebrate! I hope that you enjoy, and that it was what you were wanting!]

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

Loki can come off as inconsiderate to some, but never to you. He will fully take care of you, bathing you in the finest soaps, getting the best wine and feast imaginable. Anything you need he is right there ready to be tended to.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Favorite part of his: His tongue, let’s be real he is known as the silver tongued God for reasons other than his ability to lie his way out of any situation. Able to put it to good use making you fall apart over and over again.

Favorite part of yours: Your neck/throat, whether he is kissing or sucking on it, or wrapping his hands around it gently squeezing. It’s an incredibly intimate thing for him to be trusted by you with such vulnerabilities.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

He is a God who desperately wants an heir at some point, so likely it will always be inside of you. Even if you have a problem with it he will talk you into it, which he is incredibly good at.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Really enjoys multiplying himself and having all of them pleasure you at once, including but not limited to double penetration. Truthfully it’s the only other way that you would have multiple partners as Loki doesn’t share.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

He is incredibly old, so he has an immense amount of experience, all the better to make you fall apart with. Definitely knows what he is doing, sometimes to an extreme, wanting to try new and potentially dangerous things.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Cowgirl, sitting on his cock as he thrusts up into you with a brutal pace sure to make you cum until you can’t anymore. Grasping your hips in a bruising fashion, using them as leverage to pull you down on him at the same time.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

Most of the time he is pretty serious, but he also has lighthearted moments where the two of you can’t help but laugh or giggle at the situation.

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Impeccably groomed down there, trimmed neatly, not a hair out of place. While the hair on his head is lengthy, it would not translate to his manscaping.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

Incredibly intimate, even in your most lustful of love making sessions. Always telling you how much he loves you, and how lucky he is that you allow him this part of you. It’s the time where he can be honest with you, and not have to worry about what anyone else might think.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

Occasionally, when you are too tired, or aren’t in the mood for whatever reason. It’s more of when the moment strikes him and he doesn’t have you to fulfill his needs kind of thing.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

Voyeurism, in the way of having sex places where you can and usually do get caught by whoever is nearby. Sometimes it's his brother, other times it's a servant, or party guest depending on the occasion.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

In the garden of the palace, somewhat closed off and private, but still the threat of getting caught will always be there. Besides the view of the flowers, their scents add to the sensory overload that he provides every time you are together.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Whenever you try to defy something that he says, or prove him wrong on something that he has told you. For some reason you standing up to him turns him on like nothing ever has before, enjoying your defiance immensely.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

I don’t think there is anything that he wouldn’t at least try with you, unless you were not interested at all. Then he would definitely not suggest it, wanting you to be comfortable at all times.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

Again Silver Tongued God ™ he will use that tongue to bring you to orgasm, making you count each and every one until you are unbearably overstimulated. Of course he would never turn you down if you offer to return the favor. Possibly also using it for punishment if you get out of line in his mind.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

I would say it’s about 50/50, it really just depends on the mood, and the amount of time that the two of you have to get away. If you have all night he will start off sensual and slow, wanting to take his sweet time with you. If you have to engage in a quickie, or are particularly into the act then it will be rough and fast, banging your brains out until you can’t think clearly anymore.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Loki prefers to take his time, but if there isn’t an option he will take a quickie. Not to mention that your public forays tend to be quick as the mood typically gets squashed if caught by the wrong people.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

No risk, no reward is his motto. Always ready to do something outlandish, or try something dangerous, within reason of course. He would never put your life at risk.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Being a God, he has endless stamina. Able to go for literal days if you could, but he knows that isn’t realistic. So he relies on your communication to know when you have had enough, happy to just hold you close to him after.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Probably doesn’t really know about sexual toys, but once you introduce them to him… he is all in baby! Wants to use them on you, on himself, use them together. Astounded that Midgard has so many things to aid in sexual pleasure.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

The ultimate tease, let’s be real here! Always flirting with someone to make you jealous, gender notwithstanding. Enjoy’s it very much when you try to get him back by doing the same, teasing him, making him want more. Leading to some intense fucking that night, the bed may even break...

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Doesn’t really make noises per say, but he will be talking pretty much the entire time. Telling you what he wants you to do, dirty talk, praising talk, discipline, you name it and it will be coming out of his mouth.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Really enjoys using his abilities to cause sensory deprivation to you, causing your sight to go dark, “tying” you to the bed frame, and touching you with your heightened awareness.

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

Honestly he can make it look however you want him to, but his actual member is satisfying on it’s own. Long, slightly above average thickness, and 100% able to use it.

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

Surprisingly it’s pretty normal, nothing over the top, a few times a week, or whenever you are in the mood. Don’t worry if you want it he will rise to attention ;)

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Only falls asleep once you are comfortable and drifting off in his arms. Would need to make sure that you are taken care of first before he could even think about falling asleep himself.

#yandere marvel #marvel yandere #loki laufeyson x reader #yandere loki laufeyson #yandere loki #Anonymous

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phoenix1410200 · 3 years ago

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Well, here is the post clarifying my thought process for the next few cards and the characters I'm unsure on. (Hope you'll enjoy it and that you may can help me with the decisions.)

Here are the remaining cards I still need to do (four of the cards I've already decided on a character/event with 99% certainty, regarding the rest I'm quite torn on which character/event/object I want to depict):

• The Magician (Card 1)

• The Hermit (Card 9)

• Justice (Card 11)

• The Hanged Man (Card 12)

• Death (Card 13) -> The Titan (probably)

• The Devil (Card 15)

• The Star (Card 17)

• The Moon (Card 18) -> Amity Blight

• The Sun (Card 19) -> Luz Noceda (I am waiting for the reveal of her palisman)

• Judgement (Card 20) -> The Day of Unity (probably)

• The World (Card 21)

[Note: Firstly, I'm not an expert in Tarot, so not everything will be 100% correct (especially due to the fact that Tarot is highly symbolic). Secondly, I'm using the Rider Waite deck, so the characters I chose are mostly fitting the description of that deck.]

Now, let's get to the potential candidates and my reasoning behind them.

Card 1 — The Magician

Keywords of "The Magician":

• UPRIGHT: Manifestation, resourcefulness, power, inspired action, willpower, desire, creation, skill, ability, concentration

• REVERSED: Manipulation, poor planning, untapped talents, wasted talent, cunning, trickery, illusions, deception, out of touch

First of all, I need to explain some symbolism regarding this card. In this card the four suits of tarot are shown (wands, pentacles, cups, sword). Each one stands for one of the classical four elements (wands = fire , pentacles = earth, cups = water, sword = air) and represents how the Magician is a master of the elements ("he has all the tools (and elements) he needs to manifest his intentions into being"). This of course would translate to (elemental) glyph magic and a master of glyphs.

Candidates for "The Magician":

• Luz Noceda — Luz wants to be a witch aka a magic user. She rediscovered glyph magic and is very skilled in using glyph magic. Also, a snake is usally depicted in this card (which might be Luz's palisman).

• Eda Clawthorne — Eda is (or at least was) one of the most powerful magic users on the Boiling Isles. She was a master of all kinds of magic and currently learns glyph magic. Eda can also be deceptive and manipulative. Her plans aren't always the best, but she's still very cunning and skilled.

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Despite his young age, Gus is a very skilled witch (especially or rather mainly in illusion magic). In "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins" he felt down and how he felt like he was useless and wasted his talent. Also in this episode, Gus started to use glyph magic which he could still used later down the line.

• Hunter — Hunter is a very skilled person, both physically and in regards to his magical abilities. He also can be manipulative and deceptive (as shown in his appearances so far). He is also interested in wild magic and knows about 'elemental magic used in the Savage Ages'. Not to mention the potential of him learning glyph magic.

• Philip Wittebane — Mostly for his potential as a character and the fact given that he must have learned some sort of magic (probably glyph magic) during his life on the Boiling Isles.

Card 9 — The Hermit

Keywords of "The Hermit":

• UPRIGHT: Self-reflection, introspection, contemplation, withdrawal, solitude, search for self, search for truth, inner guidance, being alone

• REVERSED: Loneliness, isolation, withdrawal, recluse, being anti-social, rejection, lost your way, returning to society

Candidates for "The Hermit":

• Eda Clawthorne — Eda lived a long period of her life in solitude and isolation. She had to do a lot of introspection in order to get where she is now. This card also sometimes represents a mentor figure and is sometimes considered the mature and wiser version of "The Magician".

• Hunter — Hunter is quite a lonely character that needs to do a lot of introspection. Also, he has potential to fit this card quite well.

• Philip Wittebane — Mostly for his potential as a character.

• "King's Father" — He seems to travel alone in a chariot, so the descriptive term 'hermit' does seem to fit. This card often depicts a star which fits the astronomical symbolism found in King's orginal home. There is also a lot of potential for him as a character. (We really don't know much about this guy, so he's kinda a wild card.)

Card 11 — Justice

Keywords of "Justice":

• UPRIGHT: Justice, fairness, truth, cause and effect, law, clarity, karma, consequence, honesty, integrity

• REVERSED: Unfairness, lack of accountability, unaccountability, dishonesty, injustice, retribution, corruption

Candidates for "Justice":

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus is a very juste and morally good character as we see in "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins". He has a very explicit moral compass in that episode, though he isn't flawless in that regard as shown in "Something Ventured, Someone Framed".

• Warden Wrath — He works as an enforcer for the Emperor's Coven.

• The Coven Heads — Mostly for their potential as a characters.

• The Emperor's Coven — They are basically the police system of the Boiling Isles, just extremely corrupt and founded/controlled by Emperor Belos.

• "Statue of Hekate" (S1E19)

Card 12 — The Hanged Man

Keywords of "The Hanged Man":

• UPRIGHT: Pause, surrender, letting go, new perspectives, sacrifice, release, martyrdom, waiting, uncertainty, lack of direction, contemplation

• REVERSED: Delays, resistance, stalling, indecision, needless sacrifice, fear of sacrifice, avoiding sacrifice, disinterest, stagnation, standstill, apathy

Candidates for "The Hanged Man":

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus did sacrifice quite a bit during his episodes like "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" and "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins". In the latter episode, he expressed the desire to learn new kinds of magic.

• Raine Whispers — Raine sacrificed themself for Eda in "Eda's Requiem" and created the BATS, a resistance movement against the Emperor. So, they fit quite well.

• King — Mostly for his potential as a character.

• Hunter — Mostly for his potential as a character (e.g. Titan Sacrifice Theory).

• The Bat Queen — Mostly for her potential as a character.

• "King's Father" — Mostly for his potential as a character.

Card 15 — The Devil

Keywords of "The Devil":

• UPRIGHT: Shadow self, attachment, oppression, addiction, obsession, dependency, excess, powerlessness, limitations, restriction, sexuality

• REVERSED: Independence, freedom, revelation, release, releasing limiting beliefs, reclaiming power, reclaiming control, exploring dark thoughts, detachment

For people who do not have much knowledge of tarot and this card, I should explain something. This card does NOT stand for a literal devil or an evil person. The most common and basic description for the card is about an unhealthy bond with someone or something that's (usually) not for the greater good like an addiction, an obession or a toxic relationship. This card also symbolizes instant gratification, even if it is at the expense of your long-term well-being.

Candidates for "The Devil":

• Hunter — Hunter has clearly a very unhealthy bond with Emperor Belos. This is especially shown in "Eclipse Lake" and how badly the relationship to Belos affects him (Hunter literally dug his own grave due to the negative influence Belos had on his sense of worth). Also, both the upright and reversed keywords of this card do fit him quite well. He is a powerless witch that works for the restrictive and opressive Emperor's Coven and is dependent on Emperor Belos in regards to his own self-worth. And we know from "Hunting Palismen" that Hunter wishes some personal freedom and independence for himself (especially regarding his future). There is also the potential of Hunter's possible redemption arc in S2B and his breakaway from Belos.

• Emperor Belos — Emperor Belos is a dictator that causes a lot of opression and limitations on the Boiling Isles. His relationships with characters like Lilith, Kikimora and Hunter and his treatment towards them is quite unhealthy and even abusive. He himself is also very dependent on the essence found within palismen for his well-being. (So, most of the upright keywords fit him quite well.)

• Alador & Odalia Blight — Like Emperor Belos, Amity's parents are quite unhealthy people to be around (especially Odalia). This was shown in regards to their treatment of Amity. They also seem to be quite materialistic which this card can symbolize.

• The Titan — Mostly for his potential as a character and his design.

• "King's Father" — Mostly for his potential as a character and his design (a horned demon with wings).

Card 17 — The Star

Keywords of "The Star":

• UPRIGHT: Hope, faith, purpose, renewal, spirituality, rejuvenation, inspiration, positivity, healing

• REVERSED: Lack of faith, faithlessness, discouragement, despair, hopelessness, self-trust, disconnection, insecurity, negativity, despondent

Candidates for "The Star":

• King — King is quite interesting character. We know his hopes in regards of meeting his father. He also felt a lot despair and distress due to absence of his father. In his original home, there is also a lot of astronomical symbolism like stars.

• Augustus "Gus" Porter — Gus is a very positive character. And he has insecurities and he felt discouraged in "Through the Looking-Glass Ruins".

• Hunter — In "Eclipse Lake" Hunter is shown in his most despaired state so far, as well as his mindset in regards to one's purpose. He has also a lot of potential as a character.

Card 21 — The World

Keywords of "The World":

• UPRIGHT: Completion, fulfilment, wholeness, integration, achievement, accomplishment, travel, sense of belonging, harmony

• REVERSED: Incompletion, feeling incomplete, seeking personal closure, lack of closure, lack of achievement, short-cuts, delays, emptiness

Candidates for "The World":

• The Boiling Isles — The main setting of the series.

• The Titan — The Titan makes up the Boiling Isles which is the main setting of the series.

• The Bat Queen — Mostly for her potential as a character and her design.

• "The Collector" — Mostly for her potential as a character and her design.

If any of you have other suggestions regarding the remaining cards and the placement of the characters, please let me know. I would love to hear your ideas. :)

#the owl house #toh #tarot cards #fanart #upcoming work

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bmblboop · 4 years ago

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Understanding Lilith

Author’s Note: This was written before the Season 1 Finale aired. I will not be changing it in any way even though the theories herein are outdated. Thank you for understanding :p

Lilith cursed Eda for a yet unknown reason. We may get the reason next episode, we may get it next season, but I wanted to elaborate on what we saw in Agony of a Witch and reverse-engineer a theory as to why Lilith cursed her sister and how we got to where we are.

First, I will establish the assumptions of the theory. Considering the flashbacks and photos of the two when they were younger, I believe that Lilith cursed Eda BEFORE she joined the Emperor’s Coven. By that logic, it doesn’t make sense that the curse was cast to give Lilith an excuse to get Eda to join her there. (“Belos can heal you” is the only connection we have tying the curse to the coven thus far). We are also under the assumption that Eda IS a stronger witch than Lilith, something supported by their fight this last episode, that even debilitated by her curse, a Covenless Eda is stronger than Emperor’s Coven Lilith. Eda was also at a disadvantage due to Luz’s hostage situation and having to redirect her spells.

Now, onto the theory of ‘Why’. Perhaps Lilith saw Eda’s chaotic nature and incredibly strong magic and sought to rein her in. Perhaps she knew that Eda was going to be a powerful witch. Maybe she felt jealous, as the older sibling, being outshone by her crazy little sister. In her youth and blinded by jealousy (perhaps a jealousy spurred on by a third party?? That could be a twist) she gave Eda the owl curse.

(Photo of younger Lilith in Eda’s bedroom doorway. She is backlit by white light.)

By giving Eda a curse that only she could lift, that ensured that Eda would stay in line - it was a form of control. The theme of control and falling out of line has been a big theme in TOH - with Eda outside the law, outside of covens, and with Luz outside of conventional human behavior and often having to bend and break the rules to get a desired outcome (such as the events of First Day, illegal mind repair in Understanding Willow, and learning magic through old, wild techniques long forgotten etc). The curse represents Lilith imposing control over her sister, ‘I can give you the path to heal your curse if you join me in conformity’ while also turning her into a monster – literally – to demonstrate the extremes of non-conformity and how damaging it is to yourself (rapid aging and loss of full magic potential), those around you (potential to forget and hurt loved ones) and society (highly capable of property damage – even “the Owl Lady” namesake comes from her beast form, causing further ostracization from the other residents of the Isles.)

However, she could not TELL Eda that she cursed her, because that would shatter her trust forever. We can tell by their interactions and the coy remarks of Kikimora that these sisters still care deeply for one another, and specifically the one who is most concerned about their bond breaking is Lily (Sense and Insensitivity – “I thought you wouldn’t save me”). She knows, deep down, that what she is doing to her sister is wrong, but fixing it would mean outing herself. So instead of telling the truth, she chooses to lie in wait – watch as her sister’s curse makes her weaker and easier to capture. She says as much to Belos, with enough time she will surely be able to catch her. But instead, Belos gives her an ultimatum – capture Eda today or become covenless – a threat that implies persecution and death. If we know anything about covenless witches (Eda), we know that it is illegal and she will be hounded by the law and thrown into prison AT LEAST. The screaming photo seems to imply a worse fate.

Now, the reveal. Eda and Lilith get into a screaming match where Eda proclaims herself to be better than her sister and Lily snaps back: “Then why were you so easy to curse?” The taunt itself falls flat immediately. As soon as she said it, Lily’s hand flies to her mouth in realization. She has laid the spark next to the bridge, and any moment it will burn. Her conflicting selfishness to be better than Eda, her desperate desire to fulfill the Emperor’s wishes, and her too-human, too-sentimental love for her little sister all coming into conflict in a whirlwind of emotion.

(Every gifset on this episode seems to neglect these frames. So, I had to make my own gif. Enjoy)

TL;DR - While Lilith is not in-the-right for everything she’s done, her actions come from a place of misplaced anger and misplaced faith, and she is far from heartless. Her curse was an attempt to control Eda by making her dependent on Lilith and the coven (which again, is not a good thing), and she knew that confessing that the curse was hers would destroy their relationship.A relationship she has shown several times to cherish deeply. The deadline imposed by the Emperor made her act hasty and cruel out of fear of angering him. Lilith is torn between her duty to the coven and her love for her family and that tear will only deepen now that Luz and Eda know the truth.

Coming Soon: Lilith Redemption Theory (lol jk, the show beat me to it)

#the owl house #toh theory #lilith clawthorne #agony of a witch #toh spoilers #the owl house spoilers #sorry for the essay - I got hit by inspiration

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stray-tori · 4 years ago

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TPN Vol 8 - Chapters 66-70 Thoughts

[we're already on vol 9 but I'm slow with compiling]

I know I always rag on the "cop out" deaths and it is true that no corpse no dead, and I am curious if there will be any more worldbuilding regarding Lucas' survival (hello deus ex machina person) but uh. Idk. I'm sure it has a point and it makes sense in universe (having him be the reason for the knowledge among GP kids is good) but it just feels a little. Eh. Like it feels like paddling back on a small part of geezers guilt and feelings. In part it also feels like a "reward" for choosing the heroes moral side and going to help save Emma (why ever that happened - ig bc Gilda would blow up the shelter if he doesn't so. YAY).

...

Obviously the development is still his, and he obviously isn't expecting to find anyone alive there, but ig i felt like he was leading up to... healing more through the kids and not one epic Emma speech and "oh your one friend is alive btw" reveal later on. It feels like a spark of hope and happiness for him that I'm not sure if was needed narratively. He already decided he wouldn't harm them.

Like maybe they handle it very differently so i might be jumping the gun here but idk. It just feels a little... weird to me. Probably in a similar way how speeches about Norman hurt but also kind of get that "well uh about that...." Air once you know. I feel for the characters and their separation but it doesn't have the same weight it could have anymore.

In theory it reminds me a bit of the whole gate reveal structure in s2. With a setup being built up or established and a reveal just going "nvm that's not what we're doing".

It makes sense, I'm just not a huge fan of what it does for me for previously established things.

But i guess writing wise it puts its cards on the table with small scale Lucas and then Norman haha.

I find it rly funny how much the arc sort of mirrors the s2 arc so far (character assumed dead is alive, new cast of demon kill children introduced, a plan to kill demons).

Ig that might be intentional, for all intents it's a good method of conveying character change. Or different specifics or how things might be judged differently with different specifics (like hunting for enjoyment vs. farming)

I'm totally jumping in on this too early but idk it's interesting to think about.

That and also our whole "There's someone I want you to meet" - "ITS NORMAN" jokes made me think, like you could probably ACTUALLY restructure some of this in a way that would allow Norman's return here instead lol. Could be a fun AU, esp since we have the seeds of a (small-scale) demon annihilation plan anyway.

I also just find it funny to think about Norman grumbling from his future self that Emma agreed to some random guy's plan so easily udkhjsd

Obviously the time is a bit of a mess -- it's only been 3 months? is Adam out bc Norman's escaped already or was Adam just shipped to GP? if he already escaped, our boy is quick - plus, why would he go to GP. the supporters in Lambda probably know it's been compromised, so aside from freeing the children, there isn't a lot of reason to go there and while that may have priority, I feel like 3 months is a bit of a short timeframe for Norman to settle in there well enough -- so it's more wonky than anything BUT IT'S FUN TO THINK ABOUT.

btw I find it so funny how Emma has that whole "intent to kill" thing going on now, considering her later moral stance - like it's fair but coming from s2 it's a bit of whiplash haha especially since she's so determined about it right from the start. (though I have no idea if she ever addressed killing demons before this, memory bad)

Though notably she said "she wants to shut down the hunting ground too", not "want to kill them too" - and it's good that she draws a line but IDK IT'S JUST INTERESTING because what bothers her is the toying / no respect for their lives, right? - "this kind of hunt", not hunting in general.

... so like, if you were hunted by a demon in the wild, who didn't toy with you, just killed and ate you, that would be fine then? Idk, it's a very fine line and I get it, but it's interesting to think about. A quick, suffer-less death is of course a valid thing to want if you will die anyway, but you're dead afterwards in both variants.

Of course maybe I'm reading it wrong and it's just her sort of realizing that between mass production farms and GP, they really did have it good, even if they died an early death, and how this is much more hate-worthy than GF's method. Which is true, I suppose, and might expand on the building blocks of her moral development down the line (as in "there's different stages of demon-badness").

Also a more funny thought but imagine if Lucas DID have the pen, would... Geezer-senpai just not find the way back? And even if he did would he even get into the bunker? That'd be one tragic ending pff. Tell the person to run away and they can't even go back inside sudhdjd

Also i thought about it and isn't it weird that none of the books or materials mentioned what goldy pond actually is? Like youd expect sth that important to be in there.

We know WM wasn't at the bunker in the last 13 years and we know that the books he supplied to GF, the newest one was 2015. What if he was discovered or had to limit his WM activity 30 years ago?

So 30 years ago, he still sent people to goldy pond.

I'm just realizing.... That totally sounds like a setup for minerva to actually be on the demons side or a demon himself sjdhjddj. Like he orchestrates escapees (who are likely to be smart) and then sends them to GP where he and his noble friends can hunt them.

But where i was actually going with this uh, what if GP 30 years ago (potentially longer depending on how long ago he was there last) wasn't actually a hunting a ground? Why would you send kids there without a warning otherwise? What if it WAS a small human community (tho that would likely have been passed around by the inhabitants) or it was at least WM supporter base like the bunker, intended for humans to live there. Not sure about mansion then but YKNOW.

If it was, i wonder if it being discovered was a huge part in WM cover being blown OR if the demons decided to keep it secret bc you know this place is rly convinient haha

I also wonder how wm even finds and builds all these underground things lol. Bc it can't have existed since before the world split i think?

Man has some big construction projects running pfff.

I'm also not sure how that underground thing works-

its tori is confused about minor things hour

[Emma takes the axe with right hand, her right hand is still behind her as if she was winding up, but the axe is already thrown?]

like if she had the axe still in hand it'd make sense or if it was in her hand AND spinning, it'd be like "2 frames".

but this?? i am just-

im rly late with this but the glove is Lucas' memorial. the pair will only be together again when they reunite :<<

what I want to know is HOW. like the John thing is already questionable but I guess he could have gone back again?? but with this.

he has both gloves when they part he still have one glove on when his arm is gone. but the arm Leuvis has, doesn't have a glove?? So either Leuvis took it off but i wouldn't know why, and just dropped it on the ground for geezer to come pick up ORRRR he took one off for some reason?? maybe he threw it at the demon pff something is very un-continous here and i need answers-

the duality of man... not wanting people to know a) your age and b) your name (which you may have forgotten, who knows)

we just assumed geezer's name is censored here but I guess it could be anything haha-

#tpn #tpn manga #tpn manga thoughts #tpn manga theory #tpn theory #tpn spoilers #tpn manga spoilers #ynn spoilers #ynn manga spoilers #tori talks #tori has opinions

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maddmuses · 4 years ago

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Zaraki Tenchi (更木天地)

Art Credit: Indibundraws

Age: 4 (Pre-Timeskip), 6 (Post-Timeskip), 16 (Epilogue) DOB: July 30 1997 Division and Rank: Unseated 4th Division (initially), 10th Seat 1st Division Family: Kenpachi Zaraki (Father), Nanami Ishikawa (Mother), Yachiru Kusajishi (Adopted Elder Sister)

Appearance Tall and lean-built, Tenchi immediately invokes memories of his father’s youth, though his body and face are less carved up from scores of battles to the death. Due to his training, as well as his generally physical fighting style, Tenchi’s frame is wiry, though still well-muscled, possessing a strength belying his actual stature. Generally, Tenchi will wear his modified shihakusho with the kosode (which appears to more resemble a happi than a traditional kosode) and shitage open, exposing a lower-abdomen that’s been tightly bound with bandages. On the back of the kosode in white paint has been written the character 惡 (aku). Typically, Tenchi wears martial artist’s shoes, rather than sandles. With wild brown hair, Tenchi usually wears it held from his face with a bright red headband, and is often known to have various parts of his body bandaged, including his hand, face, torso, legs, and feet, depending on where he’s recently suffered an injury. Though often compared to his father in appearance, Tenchi often insists that he resembles his mother, particularly in things such as hair color and face structure. When Hokami is released the colors of his shihakusho invert, becoming primarily white with black trimmings where the white once was; while his headband changes black. Furthermore, when Bankai is released, Tenchi’s skin becomes more pale, eventually almost ashen, as if he’d been burnt directly by it.

Personality Gruff and off-putting, like his father, Tenchi inherited the spirit of someone who loves battle, and is excited at the idea of shedding blood in an exciting fight. Though, he is somewhat tempered by his mother’s upbringing, as well as the lack of his father’s long lifetime of killing, meaning that Tenchi is willing to put a stop to any fight for the sake of sensibility, but at the cost of not always being able to see what is sensible in the moment. Where Kenpachi was willing and ready to kill another captain not only for the battle, but also to become stronger than the sums of their previous strengths, Tenchi wouldn’t have entered that fight in the first place, believing two captains are better than one. On the other hand, if Tenchi is in the heat of the moment in such a situation, he will probably not be able to rationalize enough to stop the fight, even if it could serve to give him a better one at a later time. Something of a momma’s boy, Tenchi’s upbringing in a largely single-parent household has shaped his outlook. Often the type of person to consider more than a single angle before coming to a conclusion, he’s rarely the kind to behave judgmentally, usually giving some reasonable degree of consideration to other’s situations. Motivated and fiercely protective, Tenchi fights for his own enjoyment just as much so he can be strong enough to protect his loved ones, after seeing his mother while she had been injured during the second Quincy War. Seen as something of a mama’s boy, his mother was Tenchi’s most supportive influence in his young life, and he’s been known to break the jaws of other shinigami who have an unkind word to say about her. Despite their shared love for combat, Tenchi has a somewhat rocky relationship with his own father, with Tenchi seeming to be chasing the man down, and actively having little to do with him in his young adulthood. This, however, stems from a desire to his father’s recognition of his strength, something that Tenchi believes he won’t be able to prove until he defeats Kenpachi with his own might. Seen as somewhat wild growing up, Tenchi fights hard, plays hard, and eats hard. Especially the latter, with the boy’s appetite being so large that his mother, who largely didn’t require Kenpachi’s support to raise him, did need occasional financial contributions from the father to feed their rather large boy. Accordingly, in his adulthood, Tenchi is also known for his ability to eat a lot. Due to his relationship being somewhat strained with his father’s, though not unfriendly, Tenchi’s main desire in life is to seek Kenpachi’s approval. Through this, he refuses to do things such as join his parent’s divisions, and ultimately works towards defeating his dad as a goal, believing that’s the ultimate way to receive the approval he desires. Accompanying this is a desire to give his mother a comfortable life, even if Gotei 13 doesn’t allow shinigami to retire under most circumstances, he intends to use the windfall from his rank to bring her comforts and ease her workload in any way that Tenchi can figure out how.

Biography It isn’t really something many people in the seireitei expected to happen. Zaraki Kenpachi never really struck anyone as the type to have romantic impulses, or even sexual ones for that matter; most people had assumed he was more the type to get excited at the idea of a good fight, and just that. But in the late 90s he defied odds, and proved everyone who thought this of him wrong. With Nanami Ishikawa, a seated officer of 8th division, he shared a night, then roughly 9 months later Zaraki Tenchi was born. Though his birth was something of a shock for some people, Kenpachi wasn’t really the type to ignore or otherwise not acknowledge a child of his. Not the type for a traditional family unit, Kenpachi and Nanami co-parented, rather than eloped and lived together. This would give Nanami the ability to give their son, Tenchi, the most normalcy for him that could be managed, given her parent’s professions. Though he almost always spent time with his mother, Nanami made it a point to allow him and Kenpachi to see each other as often as possible, which also naturally lead to Tenchi and his elder adopted sister Yachiru bonding too. Though nothing of any exceptional incident happened until during and following the war. Leading up to this, Tenchi had a voracious appetite for his age, being able to eat more than some adult Shinigami in a single sitting, which was later determined to be a symptom of his unusually large amount of reiryoku, a quality he inherited from his father. Additionally, on multiple occasions, Tenchi would pick fights with other child souls in the seireitei, more often out of boredom than any actual malice or enmity. No, when pressed for why he did these things, he simply would answer that, “I felt like fightin’.” During the second war with the Quincy, like a number of other civilians connected to Gotei 13 members, Tenchi was placed into protective housing for the duration of the conflict, only allowed to see his mother, briefly, at one point while in medical care. However, when they tried to remove him from her side, Tenchi quickly became incensed and struggled against medics, even biting one at a point. This is when the soul would be known for his wild nature, something his mother remarked upon as being “only natural, you know who his father is.” Following the war, and the loss of Yachiru, Tenchi wouldn’t speak about his sister to most other people, but would also spend more time around his father. They would have many conversations, and in one he would explain the nature of his title and first name, to which he did explain, while in the same moment giving his son a motivation and a goal. His father, who he hadn’t seen very often, had respect for this title, and people named Kenpachi. So Tenchi would become Kenpachi, so that his father would see him as strong and have respect for him. Several botched “attempts” at assassinating his father with a kendo stick later, and soon enough Tenchi and Kenpachi were training somewhat regularly, though it was never particularly intense, and seemed to be more about Ken teaching Tenchi how to exert his spiritual pressure. Training that was offset somewhat by Nanami teaching him how to properly control his spiritual pressure. Eventually, at the age of ten, Tenchi would take the enrollment examination for the Shinigami Academy, and be admitted. Going through the traditional curriculum and program, he would complete his training in six years, graduating the same year as Rukia’s promotion to captain. During his education Tenchi excelled in fields such as Hakuda and Zanjutsu, but struggled in Kido, the last being the only area in which he completed his time at a below proficient level. However, consideration was given to the fact that he imprinted on his asauchi within his second year, it taking shape, though he was unable to manifest shikai at the same time. When the time came for him to join a division, he applied for membership to any of them, excepting 11th, knowing that the only way he would accept himself as a member of that squad would be as its captain. Interestingly, Tenchi initially joined with 4th, due to his powerful reiatsu compensating for his lack of natural kido skill, he is largely able to brute force a lot of kaido with little loss to his own stamina. This choice also would allow him to work more on his weak kido abilities as a whole too Upon unlocking his shikai fully, he would later be transferred to 1st Division, where he could focus more on cultivating his abilities and talents as a whole.

Abilities and Skills High-Level Shinigami: An early riser in terms of ability, Tenchi is the son of a captain, as well as a seated officer. Due to his love for combat from an early age, he is considered second-to-few in that particular respect, especially between his abilities in swordplay and with hakudo. Though he struggles for the better part of a century with communicating honestly with his zanpakutou, he still managed to obtain a seated position fairly quickly. -Immeasurable Spiritual Power: Inherited directly from his father, Tenchi’s reiryoku is considered the only one that could potentially rival his father’s in the seireitei. On some level, this is considered to be an explanation for his powerful appetite, as his body is constantly producing so much spiritual power that he has to consume a massive ratio of nutrients compared to others in order for his body not to become malnourished. --Strong Spiritual Control: Having grown up with Nanami, who has a more conventional Shinigami-training background, Tenchi has learned to reel in his spiritual pressure more easily, though unless he is actively keeping it down (a process he likens to consciously holding in when you have to really badly use the restroom) he tends to still exude an extremely dense and potent aura. While manifesting an aura it often takes the shape of a tiger, with an intensely murderous energy similar to Yachiru’s. -Expert Swordsman: Though not in the traditional sense, Tenchi is extremely capable with Hokami, and with a more standard-length katana. However, Tenchi mostly relies on power and speed over technique, being able to generate a lot of force and momentum with his movements. This ability is at least Expert level because he is able to access Shikai. -Shunpo User: Tenchi’s physical prowess is likened to his father’s, and accordingly, he often relies on his own foot speed more than hoho to outmaneuver an opponent, and instead uses it mostly to close distances between himself and further-away opponents. -Hakudo Master: Tenchi’s actual preferred method of fighting isn’t armed, and is actually martial arts. After years of fighting other souls in this fashion, prior to entering the academy, his sense for martial arts is unmatched when coupled with his natural instinct for fighting he inherited from his dad. Much like his swordplay, Tenchi has a fighting style that doesn’t resemble traditional technique, but instead relies on his physicality and an almost brawling-method to overwhelm opponents who cannot keep up. --Haymaker: A powerful single swing punch in which Tenchi puts his weight and strength behind his arm to maximize damage. While it’s telegraphed, it also is loosed with such force that a shockwave usually follows, meaning that your best shot is to dodge towards his blind-side or it, rather than back, or to the sides. --One-Two: A pretty standard jab-straight combo that Tenchi often uses to either prime an opponent to block one punch and get hit by the other, or otherwise negate an opponent’s ability to defend themselves. -Kido Novice: Tenchi’s overall weakest ability in terms of shinigami disciplines, Tenchi knows basic kido, and is able to use them to a mild degree in synergy with his other combat skills, though he cannot manage much higher than Grade 10. -Reiatsu Detection: Though nothing to write home about, Tenchi is able to detect the presence of other strong spirits, though if they are beneath a certain threshold relative to his own, he’s unable to do so because of his own pressure clouding out his ability to detect them.

Combat Instinct: Like his father and sister, Tenchi has a strong instinct for combat, particularly while and against unarmed opponents. Tenchi is able to react to outside sources of danger, such as the intent to kill. It’s likened to a feeling in your gut that tells you there’s nothing else to do but kill the source of the feeling. Additionally, Tenchi has some natural feeling for tactics and isn’t easily fooled or juked out by others, though his own ability to manifest tactics is still developing.

Enhanced Physicality: On similar keel to his father, in one kind likely from genetics, and another due to his absurd spiritual energy; Tenchi’s physical prowess is at that level. Moreso in the case for his strength, durability, and endurance, Tenchi is able to largely keep up with other high-seated Shinigami in combat in the other areas.

Zanpakutou Hokami (日神 lit. means Fire Spirit) Later on revealed to be Amaterasu (天照 trans. “That which illuminates heaven): Tenchi received his zanpakutou as a boy, when he entered into the Shinigami Academy. Like his father, he was able to imprint onto it soon after obtaining the weapon, changing its shape to a massive sword-like glaive, though the spirit of his sword initially had an aloof behavior. Through this, she limited the kinds of abilities that he had access to, and despite the fact that she is an Elemental-Type Zanpakutou, the spirit presented somewhat ranged-type qualities initially. Originally, Hokami provided to Tenchi some degree of enhanced strength and durability, though not much else aside from the first Special Ability it expressed. The soul within Tenchi’s sword is something of a goddess herself, and accordingly, her expectations for a potential master are high, and initially she is unsure if Tenchi is the one. Within his soul, Hokami, during her initial appearances, took the form of a vaguely feminine storm of flames, without concrete shape and no distinct features beneath the fire. Once she reveals to him her true name and form Amaterasu appears as a woman with delicate features and fine robes, but notably a brilliant golden head-piece that is meant to serve as something of a crown.

Special Ability: When released Hokami’s appearance doesn’t much change, as in its sealed state it seems to have its shikai’s shape somewhat, though it is not in a state of constant release, such as the case with Ichigo. This zanpakutou’s command word is “Desiccate”. Hokami gains the ability to levitate, as well as enhancing Tenchi’s physical prowess somewhat. This enables him to have his hands freed up, while the sword fights alongside at him, to use his hakudo.

Bankai: Megami Amaterasu(女神天照 trans. “Goddess which illuminates heaven”): Otherwise undetermined

Weaknesses Reiatsu Pressure: While considered Tenchi’s greatest asset, it’s also what holds him back in some regards. Having such high power on all the time, even when subdued somewhat, makes it difficult to properly manifest complex kido, or detecting the spiritual pressures of others.

Intelligence: Not the best thinker, Tenchi can often be outwitted with more complex wit and strategy, and often will have trouble dealing with opponents who create puzzling scenarios.

Distrustful Zanpakutou: Ama is a judgmental zanpakutou spirit, reflecting Tenchi’s own overly-high excpectations for himself. Much like he refuses to acknowledge himself without his father’s respect as a warrior, the sword refuses to give Tenchi the truth of her name and depth of power until he does the same to her.

#The Tree That Grows Slow (Tenchi Zaraki)

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emsartwork · 5 years ago

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Magic Masterpost

ok this is gonna be super long so under the cut

OK so these are the main four types of magic, magic can mostly be categorized into these four types but there are some exceptions that don’t fit the mold but there are still sciencey things we cant explain so (ball lighting, the 9th planet etc) so whatever.

Core Magic is like another organ that belongs to individual beinigs that have a certain level of consciousness (humans, merfolk, elves, pixies and sprites, leprechauns, dragons) some beings that don’t have core magic, but do have the same level of consciousness as humans are discriminated against (trogs, vampires, ogres, trolls etc). Animals and plants do not posses core magic or the consciousness level characteristic of core magic users. They do sometimes have magical abilities but this is thought to be a side affect of either wild or natural magic sources.

Natural Magic is magic that is found in plants, minerals, water, and other non-conscious things. Usually is centrally localized and flows outward like a stream. has a large area of influence and natural sources can interact with each other with minimal conflict. good examples are the Tree of Magic(birthplace of the pixies and sprites and is linked to the core magic users in the universe), the Second Sun of Solaria(a source of warmth, solar light, and growth on Solaria), the pillars in the Infinite Ocean, Tir Nan Og and the sources I talked about with the earth fairies. Planets have a lot of natural sources and locations with out natural magic are rare(the wildlands in season 2 are unique to Magix and have a special magic suppressing aura)

Wild Magic is connected to natural magic but has its own unique section because its effects are so extreme. Natural sources can become wild sources in a defense mechanism, and some natural sources have a dependable cycle between wild and natural(ex. zenith’s core). Otherwise Wild sources are centrally localized around the same objects natural sources are, but can transfer to spirits and animals as well. Wild magic has a much smaller area of influence, and most animals will clear out of a place with a lot of wild magic because their instincts are like “danger????”, there are rarely multiple wild magic sources in the same area, and if there are they don’t interact well. Wild magic sources are a necessary part of nature, functioning like volcanic eruptions or geysers and relieving magical pressure on the planet. If a wild source isn’t treated with respect and is messed with (ex kalshara) it becomes severely unstable and instead of a potentially dangerous source in small doses it become a downright hazard with far reaching bolts of magic. This is the only reason Fractix exist lol.

Ethereal Magic is something you do not want to mess with. It’s basically the most powerful type of magic, and is theorized to be the actual creative force behind the universe. The great dragon and the shadow phoenix used up most of their ethereal magic creating the universe, other ethereal magic holders didn’t participate much lol

This chart says human but really its the development of any creature with a core magic. Babies have zero magic but needs ambient magic (a mix of all the magics just kind of around) in order to develop further(0-10). Children will start to develop their magic in short, unpredictable bursts, its normal for their signature color to shift a lot in this stage, they can begin to learn magic theory but their magic isn’t firm enough or powerful enough to produce any results when spell casting (10-15). Young adults are fully developed magic wise (generally they are still younger age wise and not as practiced but their Core is the same as any adults) their core and signature color are set and don’t really change(exceptions to that below) this is usually when a person begins to practice their magic.(16-25)

Ok so here are the basic differences between female and male magic. female magic stays within the core and body, only reaching outward when directed by the person. Male magic absorbs ambient magic, processing it through the core and letting it flow outward. Female magic users need to learn how to direct their magic outward in order to use it. Male magic users need to learn how to contain their magic in order to use it. its really easy to overwhelm female magic users and fights between two female magic users are either over v quickly, or have a TON of dodging. A fight between two male magic uses is dependant on how much magic the two already have stored (stamina kind of) and how much they can force themselves to absorb from their surroundings(ex, Nabu was naturally more resilient to absorbing and channeling magic than the rest of the group which is why he volunteers to close the black circle, unfortuntely the wizards had packed SO MUCH magic into their circle that when he did manage to close it, his core was overwhelmed and he died :( if say, aisha had volunteered to close it, her core would have been overwhelmed more quickly and she would have died with out closing it.

Intersex peeps!!! ok so, just as a disclaimer, I’m not intersex, if you wanna talk to me about anything I say here feel free to send and ask for direct message!! it would be really easy to align Core magic with sex organs, but because one is more “spiritual” an the other is physical its a little different. Intersex people are Intersex from birth, but Intersex Magics only manifest at magic puberty(the child stage in the previous chart) and varies a lot from person to person. An intersex person could have either classically female magic or classically male magic or any of the four examples in the image, but any number of manifestations are possible. So I know Intersex people are subjected to unnecessary “corrections”, but i want to make it clear that Intersex Magic is ONLY changed if it is actually causing harm to the person. The painful and dangerous examples are life threatening in the long term, and usually begin as one of the healthy examples. Being able to produce and absorb, but looping the two into each other is unsafe because the core is literally eating itself(eventually resulting in death). Being to absorb but not expel is dangerous because the magic buildup can cause pain and eventually crack the outer membrane of the core resulting in death.

Trans peeps!! again as a disclaimer, I’m cis, if ur trans and ya wanna drop me a line about any of this please do! So Trans dudes and trans ladies have to wait for their core magic to grow in naturally before transitioning(some trans peeps are cool with not transitioning their magic obvi) but they would see a magic medical person, receive “hormones for magic basically” and begin transitioning. The whole process can take about a year but only about 4 months of that leave the person with low magic and physical weakness, and even then it depends on the person.

So these are the traditionally masculine magical practices. Unlike witches and fairies they don’t decide their practice until they’ve gone through basic training (the white, grey and black stages) and it most depends on what magic the person likes to absorb and where/how they store collected magic. Male magic users can use fairy transformations, but they have to be much more prepared and keep a lot of stored magic on them.

The fairy and witch paths are traditionally feminine, but the labels can be used by any gender obvi(same with the masc magic user labels). The witch path has two stages before deciding their profession, and the outfits are just uniforms or items associated with the profession. The fairy transformations are outfits specific to the transformations and are linked together in a way that makes it necessary to earn certain transformations before others, where as witches can jump professions as much as they want lol. The purple transformations here are the ones the trix used, and while they aren’t fairy(because no wings) they aren’t witch either because the transformation actually generates the outfits, they’re kind of shunned among both communities even though they have tremendous potential and should be explored. Reaching Enchantix can only take 3 years at the shortest, but a lot of fairies prefer to spend 2 year reaching charmix, and then 3 years working up to enchantix(so a total of 5 years is an alfea norm). Witchcraft takes a lot longer to learn and doesn’t have the instant power boost fairycraft has, so each of the first three stages take 2-3 years(6 to 9 years is a cloudtower norm) this time frame also applies to the masculine magics, but usually the last half of it is the specialization(ex, nabu spent three years in white/grey/black and then was in his second year of specialization as a magician when he was introduced into the series.)

So because magic is being pushed out of the core for female magic users, it shows up physically on the body in a way that doesn’t seem to happen with male magic users. For female magic users who DON’T use fairy transformations this generally shows up in color around the eyes or hands. which is generally where most of the magic flows from. for fairies, wings marks are present on the back and are more individualized pattern wise but more natural color wise than witchmarks.

Fairy wings are solid/rubbery, and are the physical manifestation of a fairy’s core looping in on its self(think of a car battery). Once initiated, the fairy can stay in transformation for a fairly long time, but does eventually tire out, and the loop dissolves. However if the loop is broken too abruptly or by an outside force there can be negative results for the fairy(namely pain and magic blockage preventing transformation for a couple months to several years depending on how bad the break was). The wing retains its shape for about 24 hours, and then dissolves into ambient magic. If a fairy breaks her wings by a freak accident she can combat some of the magic blockage by eating her own wings(kind of gross sry lol). If however some one else eats the fairy’s wings they gain a magic boost and can unnaturally extend their life/keep their youth full looks(ex. the wizards of the black circle did this)

one of the manifestations of mer core magic is Morphix (yes aisha has this too) while it is considered a magic property, its technically a physical substance that conducts magic EXTREMELY well. Merfolk are usually not allowed to go to the surface until their morphix has grown in, and people with high levels of merblood in them often have to be in a very humid environment or literally spent most of their time in saltwater until their morphix grown in(ex. aisha had to have salt water baths every couple hours as a kid.)

Elves are another notable difference in core magic in that they are all linked to eachother. While this doesn’t transfer individual thoughts or damage or anything, it does allow individual elves to pull magic from elves who aren’t currently using their magic for more powerful spells. Elves can also sense large scale events that happen to the elf community as they happen but rarely are they clear on specifics(ex. when the ancestrals pulled all of domino into oblivion, the elves on other planets could feel the sudden disappearance) as a result Dominian elves are basically a seperate group now. Earth elves still have a loose connection to the elf community at large, and as earth enters into the magix dimension again they should strengthen it as elves marry and have offspring.

Pixies, Hobkies, and Sprites! So because i detailed intersex magix, I also wanted a companion species that represented intersex peeps. Pixies are born from the blossoms of the tree of life, Hobkies are from the trunk and somtimes branches, and Sprites from the roots. Hobkies used to just be called Sprixies, but people are pushing to have that changed as its just a combo of sprite and pixie and not unique to the species. Their wing and tail sizes are varied, but they usually have both, sometimes the wings are fleshy insect style wings, and sometimes the tail is made of the same stuff as magic.

Each species goes through a similar cycle, when a person is born a corresponding spot appears on the tree of magic, as the person grows their magic levels the spot gets bigger, once a certain level of magic is reached the companion is officially born. This happens for fairies at their first transformation, but depend on routine practice for everybody else.

One of the unique things about Natural magic is that people can actually bind their magic to it. Female magic users reach out with their magic and “tie” it to the magic thats stemming from the source. Male magic users form a loop with the source pouring magic in and absorbing magic out. forgot to draw it but Intersex peoples would use about the same techniques, it would just depend on what they leaned more toward/what they were more comfortable with.

Animals, having no core magic, are able to metabolize and evolve with exposure to wild magic unlike humans who’s core magic either flushes the wild magic out like a toxin or breaks(killing the human in the process). Kalshara is actually quite a revolutionary because she figure out a way to inject the human body/core with wild magic, with out her dying or the wild magic dissolving. but she’s a dick and didn’t respect people so her project never got financed or peer reviewed lol

ethereal fairies technically have a core, but because its made of ethereal magic they’re put into their own separate category. They seem to exist outside of time and space, and it’s unknown if its because of their nature or because they can wield ethereal magic. Ethereal fairies usually appear with a humanoid body and spears of light off their backs, which is why human fairies are even called fairies, but ethereal fairies come in a lot of different forms(they’re basically a cross between gods and high high fae). The three gifts can be used every 300 years, and are little bursts of ethereal magic that layers over whatever magic the recipient normally uses. It is unknown if the gifts grow somewhere, or if they are crafted by the ethereal fairies. Really powerful magic users sometimes get chosen to join the golden kingdom (whether they want to or not) usually these are “good” aligned people but some villains are theorized to be there too. The general consensus is that the golden kingdom is like a pet palace for the ethereal fairies who think the people people the put there are interesting little creatures. The ethereal fairies use to interact with people more frequently but have backed off in the last couple 1000. Fairies who have completed the Elementix can ask the ethereal fairies to give them Nymphix, but honestly there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme of reason to whether or not the ethereal fairies grant it or strip the person of their magic completely . Ethereal fairies also grant their power to non-fairies but it doesn’t manifest into a transformation. and usually the term “Ethereal” is put before their title (so like Griffin would be an Ethereal Sorceress.)

not much to say about these things. A long long time ago a massive dark spell was cast and created both Obsidian and Realite(i got tired of the “ix” so its “ite” now) Two pocket dimensions. Realite was originally the greater threat because it was just spewing magic everywhere so it was locked with the codex. Obsidian was originally thought to have only sucked magic in, but there have been some long term consequences that weren’t expected, one was the mutation of a dominion noble into Lord Darkar, the other was the slow death of planet Omega and the radiation effect on the three ancestral witches who were born there. (realite was locked so fast it didn’t have time to get any long term damage out in the world but its just as powerful)

so the dragon and the phoenix are *kind* of still ethereal which is why they’ve persisted as a power source and taken to specific bloodlines, but they aren’t anywhere near the full ethereal ones anymore. Dragon fire and Phoenix fire are two sides of the same coin, they kind of function as the equal opposite rule but not really. Their equal opposites are the water stars and the earth hearts respectively. The dragon flame bearer usually has light and creation powers, Bloom generally channels the fire aspect of her dragon flame, like hardcore. Daphne, when she held the dragon flame was less heavy on the flame and more on the creation side, she was especially good at summoning items and had a decent healing talent. The shadow flame bearer has been lord Darkar for..... a very long time lets just say that. But the Phoenix deals with shadow and destructive magic. Stealth, spell breaking, and straight up carnage are all possible magic focuses for a phoenix bearer (the shadow phoenix isn’t necessarily bad, just like the dragon flame isn’t necessarily good, they are attributes that change with the people they are tied to). The water stars were collected and stored in the golden kingdom a long time ago and as such don’t have a ton of lore. Bloom CANNOT touch them with out feeling at least mild pain and weakness. The water stars have incredible containment powers, being able to hold things within individual stars, and restrain a full powered dragon flame if used all together in a binding circle. The Earth Hearts are still in nature somewhere, buried deep in the ground. There are some theorized locations but they’re harder to get at than the water stars and as such no one has collected them all yet. Earth hearts are good for dispersing magic and breaking it down to bite sized pieces. Both Earth Hearts and Water Stars are technically destructible, but they will always “grow back” and regenerate in new locations and cannot be eradicated completely.

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thequirkdetective · 4 years ago

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Investigation 6 (10/7/2020): Hardening – Eijiro Kirishima

This time, we’re going to be tackling a quirk I have been thinking about for a while now; Hardening. This allows Kirishima to “make his entire body [as] hard as a rock”[1]. The quirk is mainly used for defence but does also make Kirishima’s body rough and sharp, which causes his attacks to be more dangerous to opponents. We’ll look at the exact composition of Kirishima’s hardened body, as well as the systems that allow the body parts to both harden and soften.

Firstly, we need to know what Kirishima’s hardened skin is made of, and to do this we need to know how much force it can withstand.

The largest easily measurable force Kirishima withstands is when he is crushed underneath a few robots in the sports festival [1]. It is difficult to tell how many robots of which type(s) he is caught under, but we can do the maths on both types, and see how they compare, starting with the largest robots. These are in fact the same model as the one Deku punched in the entrance exam due to it nearly crushing and killing Uraraka[2] (I’m not sure how UA spun that one in the risk assessment to allow them to make a reappearance). In any case, whatever fate would have befallen Uraraka instead turns its gaze to Kirishima in season 2, but rather than being steamrolled Kirishima instead undergoes the more abrupt and deadly force of a robot in freefall. He survives (unsurprisingly, or this investigation wouldn’t have much data to work with), due to his quirk.

The whole scene plays out with the contestants of the obstacle course race coming across a group of the aforementioned giant robots. Todoroki (no doubt fuelled by chronic daddy issues) freezes the robots and gets through, but makes the decision to freeze them in such positions as to cause them to fall over. Ignoring the rather worrying possibility of Todoroki deliberately killing the entire student body of UA (get mad in the notes), only two people are caught underneath the ensuing pile: Kirishima and Tetsutetsu. The actual moment of impact isn’t shown, but a few seconds afterwards, an unnamed student declares that they see someone trapped in the rubble, and Kirishima bursts upwards in a shower of metal and testosterone, followed closely by Tetsutetsu.

This shows, in the most basic interpretation, that quirked-up Kirishima is harder than a UA robot, since if he were less hard he would be immediately crushed. Sadly, material science is a little more nuanced than that. The exact definition of ‘hardness’ is difficult to pin down, and the stresses would not be equal across Kirishima’s whole body. This blog doesn’t have access to laboratory grade material simulation software (yet), so we can’t see the exact forces involved in a student-robot collision. We can, however, estimate the rough pressures Kirishima’s body withstood after being mercilessly crushed by Todoroki.

There are no viable references for discerning the height of the robots in season 2, so let’s go back to their first appearance in the entrance exam [2]. The scene where Deku punches on of the robots in the face gives us a nice tall building in the background, which we know from earlier is about 15 storeys high (50m or 164ft). Deku jumps upwards until he is level with the robot, and gives the robot a good whack. It topples backwards, his bones shatter, and he is accepted into UA, all due to his incredible feat of self-sacrifice for his love interest. However, in the many, many different shots between the jump and the impact, the height of both the boy and the robot’s head varies from level with the roof to well above any of the surrounding buildings. This is in part due to camera angles and fisheye effects, but whatever the reason it is difficult to say for certain how tall the robot is. Let’s approximate between the two extremes, and say it’s around 55m tall (180ft). The area of the base of the robot is, you guessed it, difficult to get a proper estimate of. This is mostly due to it being framed close-up or surrounded by clouds of ice and dust. Taking this into account, along with the fact that I have strayed way too deep down this rabbit hole, allows us to approximate the robot’s base size as the same as the surrounding buildings’, since it is shown in front of one and nearly blocks it from view. This means the robot is around 15m x 15m x 55m (49ft x 49ft x 180ft). Piling on another wild guesstimate of average density gives us a robot with a mass of ~4000 tonnes (~4400 tons). Now, we can use a bit of physics to figure out the force the robot exerts on Kirishima.

We now need to use what is fast becoming the most useful equation in these investigations: F = ma. We now know m, but we have yet to find a. Fortunately, it has an equation: ΔV/t, or the change in velocity over time. Unfortunately, since the robot topples sideways, we cannot use simple acceleration due to gravity. We have to get velocity in a slightly more roundabout way.

The velocity can be found with two equations, using the principle of conservation of energy (we’re ignoring air resistance, as is traditional in physics). In the process of falling, the robot’s gravitational potential energy gets converted into kinetic energy, and so if we know the amount of energy converted, we can find out the resultant speed. Gravitational potential energy is given by , or mass x gravitational field strength x change in height, all relative to the centre of mass. Pairing this with the kinetic energy equation ( ½mv2, or ½ x mass x velocity squared), and using conservation of energy, we see , so . Rearrange, and voilà: sqrt(2gΔh) (a very nice equation that serendipitously does not contain mass). The robot has a large, heavy base, so lets say the centre of mass starts 20m (66ft) up. Then, the robot falls and the centre of mass ends ~5m (16ft) from the ground. Now we know is 15m (49ft), and is, at least around sea level, 9.8m/s2. Therefore, if a 0-point robot toppled over, it would hit the ground with an average speed of 17m/s (38mph).

Now we can work out , if we approximate the distance it took for the robot to stop. It fell onto soil and kicked up quite a dust cloud, so lets say it embedded 1m down. Assuming uniform deceleration across the 1m of distance, comes to 144.5m/s2, and is a whopping 5.78×108 N, spread over ~750m2 (8073ft2), giving 770667 Pa (112 PSI), or 7.5x atmospheric pressure.

The smaller robots seem to be no more than 10m tall, so the force of their fall is only 10m/s (22mph). This means the force is a measly 50N, and the pressure 0.5Pa (7×10−5 PSI). Now, finally, we can find out what these numbers mean in terms of Kirishima’s quirk.

The pressure would be spread over ~1m2 of Kirishima, meaning the force on him is anywhere from 0.5N to 770667N depending on the type of the robot. The issue with this calculation is that it assumes the fall of both robots is distributed evenly between the ground and Kirishima, so the forces would actually be more in the range of 50N-770667N, the equivalent of balancing a weight on your head with a mass of 5-80000kg (11-176370lbs). A force of 770667N is about the force a house exerts on its foundations, but the shock needs to be taken into account. It’s the difference between having a house resting on concrete, and dropping half the house from 10m onto the same concrete. From this example it becomes rather clear which one does more damage.

Due to this, as well as the sheer magnitude of the resultant forces, we can rule out Kirishima being crushed by the largest robots. Such a robot would flatten almost anything in its path, including Kirishima, no matter what his quirk made his body into. This also explains his quick escape; he was underneath a small robot and only had to dig through a metre (3ft) or so of robot wiring and metal panels.

Kirishima’s quirk is continually compared to rock [1], which to me says silicates. Silicates are the predominant compounds in the earth’s crust, and are mostly responsible for giving rocks their hardness (sorry geologists and material scientists, but I do have to end this somewhere). The question now, as with many other investigations, is where the silicates originate. Many health food such as spinach, soy, and bananas contain high amounts of silicon dioxide, also known as silica or quartz. However, a much more efficient way to increase silica intake is sand. Sand is mostly silicon dioxide, and is also fairly easy to ingest, making it very useful for such purposes as turning into rock at will. We’ll figure out which one Kirishima employs later on.

In the Shie Hassaikai raid, Kirishima’s quirk is shown to deflect a quirk-destroying bullet[3]. These bullets are hollow, and do not cause nearly as much damage as a standard metal bullet so it may not be the case that Kirishima is fully bulletproof. This does make sense; granite shatters easily upon contact with a bullet and the quirk-destroying bullets did not give Mirio an injury comparable to a bullet wound. The ‘bullets’ instead act more like flying syringes. However, Kirishima does also defend against a rapid succession of punches from Kendo Rappa[4] using his quirk. This is again feasible, since it is akin to Rappa successively punching a brick or granite wall. Therefore, Kirishima’s hardened body is made of some silicate, most likely akin to quartz – the primary compound in both granite and sand, with trace amounts present in food.

This means that Kirishima’s body can in some way store silica, and then reconstruct it onto or into the surface of the skin. Silica is notoriously insoluble, only trace amounts dissolving in water or acids, and the main viable solvents for dissolving it being hydrofluoric acid or hot alkaline solutions. It’s the same story for pure silicon. However, if Kirishima’s body were to absorb silicon as an ion (a common way to absorb minerals) then the compound could be made soluble in some interesting ways.

Detergents are used to make oil and grease soluble in water, by having a hydrophobic end that binds to dirt, and a hydrophilic end that is attracted to water. The detergent molecules then surround dirt particles and make them hydrophilic, forcing them into suspension (not technically solution). A similar mechanism could be used to lift silicate ions into suspension in Kirishima’s bloodstream. These would collect in Kirishima’s cells. Then, all it takes is the degradation of the ‘detergent’ molecules to force the silicates out of suspension, where they then crystallise. This essentially turns the inside of Kirishima’s cells into rock, if given a few tweaks.

The first main problem is that the silicate ions would not necessarily create silica unless they were introduced to oxygen ions. This can be fixed by the other chemical required – one to denature the detergent molecules. The whole process involves ionised molecules that bind to silicon ions and bring them into suspension in Kirishima’s blood. They travel to his cells, and collect there. The activation of the quirk is in fact the release of a specialised chemical which breaks down the ionised molecules, releasing the silicon ions. This chemical could then also contains oxygen ions which bond to the silicon, creating silica within Kirishima’s skin cells. Then, when the quirk is deactivated, the silica is broken down and more ionised molecules are released to bring the silicon back into suspension.

The only remaining problem with this system is movement. Turning all of Kirishima’s skin into rock would lock up his joints and prevent him from moving his limbs. The solution to this is leaving some of the skin cells at points of motion un-hardened, allowing certain areas of skin to stretch and flex whilst still gaining some defensive advantages. This does leave Kirishima with a few relative weak points at his shoulders, elbows, knees, and hands, but overall, this mechanism fulfils the brief almost to the letter: turning his body into rock. It also means that it simply strengthens his skin, and does not create a new layer of rock. This has the added benefit of transferring any damage to his hardened form onto his normal body, for example a large chunk of rock being blasted off would leave a large chunk of his flesh missing once the quirk was deactivated.

Finally, we need to establish the source of the silicate ions. It is most likely diet, but is eating silicon-rich foods enough to provide the amount of silicate required?

Kirishima’s quirk manifested when he was quite young [4] , let’s say 3 years old since he can’t remember the event very clearly. At this point just his hand and arm could harden. The amount of silicate required can be calculated by the surface area of the affected area multiplied by the thickness of Kirishima’s skin.

The average surface area of a man’s hand is ~0.1m2 (1sq. ft). Kirishima is a toddler at this point, so a 0.1m2 area would cover his upper arm too, as shown. Skin is around 1mm thick on average, so the volume of silicate required for the first manifestation of his quirk is ~0.26g (0.009oz) of silica, the same amount as present in 40 bananas. This is a very feasible amount of silica to have ingested in three years, and if Kirishima made a habit of eating silica rich foods he could have enough silicon ions to harden his whole body in 10-15 years, depending on the thickness of the hardened skin. This matches with the anime, because his quirk was not very strong and could not activate across his entire body when he was in middle school [4] . In fact, the quirk could even manifest throughout most of Kirishima’s cells, leaving a few un-hardened for movement, and the amount of silica needed would still be plausible to intake over such a time period provided his body’s ability to absorb it.

Another fun effect that corroborates with the source material is silicon-rich foods like spinach being prone to wearing teeth down, possibly leading to the strange, sharp teeth Kirishima possesses. Most likely he has them filed due to their continual wearing.

In summary, Kirishima’s body can absorb silicon ions, using detergent-like ionised molecules to force the ions into suspension. Then, the silicon is carried through the bloodstream to Kirishima’s cells. When his quirk is activated, a molecule, most likely some kind of enzyme, is released that destroys the ions responsible for keeping the silicon atoms in suspension. This causes them to react with the oxygen ions present in the cells and enzyme, creating silicate crystals within Kirishima’s cells. Some muscle cells are left without crystals in order to preserve movement, and some skin cells are kept softened for the same purposes. When the quirk is deactivated, more ionic molecules are released which bring the silicate back into suspension, softening the cells again.

[1] Season 2 Episode 16: In Their Own Quirky Ways

[2] Season 1 Episode 4: Start Line

[3] Season 4 Episode 68: Let’s Go, Gutsy Red Riot

[4] Season 4 Episode 72: Red Riot

If you liked this investigation and want to have a say in the next one, then make sure to send a recommendation for which quirk I should investigate!

#bnha #boku no hero academia #mha #my hero academia #kirishima eijirou #eijirou kirishima #tw: gore #gore mention #quirk investigation #bnha analysis

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drsilverfish · 5 years ago

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Nine Minutes to Midnight

5x21 Two Minutes to Midnight

Nine episodes to beat God, and fifteen years since Kripke pitched his original On The Road fan-fiction meets folk horror.

I’ve had a lot of fun in this little corner of Tumblr SPN fandom, over the eight years I’ve been here. I arrived as a newbie in 2012, and people already here were kind to me. I’ve seen people come and go, get disillusioned with SPN and move onto new fandoms, or arrive latterly into this one, brimming with excitement.

This is a weird social media platform, and I doubt it will be around forever, as one of its joys is how singularly bad it has been at integrating advertising.

Some of my favourite things here have been;

Comments in the tags, often funny, thinky, joyful - love this element of Tumblr.

Coda fic - this short-form story-style, which leaps into the fan-fiction gaps, loud silences and lacunae of the text - what a joy.

All the different roles people take on in fandom, as labours of love - gif makers, fic and meta writers, artists, vidders, archivists, signal-boosters, enthusiastic readers and beta-readers, art-lovers, networkers, collaborators, question-askers and answerers, and participants of all kinds (introvert and extrovert).

Completely unrelated to SPN, posts which are full of puns and hilarity, from “lik the bred” to Brits vs Americans on the subject of drinking tea. I still love Tumblr’s collective sense of humour; it’s witty and charming.

The language of gifs; those delightful comtemporary hieroglyphics of emotive expression.

The diversity - English is the shared language, but gradually it’s apparent that despite US dominance of the site, there are people from all over the world here, whose native tongues range from Russian to Italian to Brazilian Portuguese.

The collective meta experience - sharing “live” textual analysis has been huge fun. Viewing a text in a hive mind this way always shows you something you’d have missed on your own. It’s like holding up a crystal to a thousand lights and watching all the different refractions happening at once.

Again, not SPN specific, but experts in various subjects, from Egyptology to Medieval History suddenly emerging from the depths to provide a passionate and erudite exposition on their topic. Often prefaced with, “My time has come...”

Fandom has a dark side. It can be a coping mechansim, for many, in a healthy or less healthy way. There are unfortunately, always the formation of various “in-groups” and “out-groups”, ship wars, harrassment (of other fans, cast and crew), entitlement, and wild unpleasantness. And, that scourge of the internet in general; performative outrage (otherwise known as the outrage economy) which turns up the dial on provocative statements and negative emotion because that acts as catnip for engagement. A lot of people act out their shadow-selves online, projecting their own internal stuff onto others, from behind the screen.

Almost no media texts get to run as long as SPN (fifteen years) but my first fandom was (and is) Doctor Who and that has been going for over 50. It has some absolutely horrendously toxic spaces and places online, and many of pure joy. My advice is - find the joy.

Stories, by inviting us into the shoes of others, teach us at their (and our) best, the invaluable gift of empathy.

Take care of yourselves. Endings are hard, no doubt.

Special shout-out to fellow LGBTQ+ fans - hold onto your hearts.

It can be complicated loving a story telling its queer (romantic/ erotic) love story implicitly (i.e. in subtext).

Don’t forget (as I always say in my tags) subtext is part of narrative - meaning, the totality of a text contains its explicit and implicit elements; its text and its subtext, just like Metatron (aka Robbie T) told us in 9x18 Metafiction.

I wasn’t in the fandom myself, here on Tumblr, but I saw some of the fall-out from BBC Sherlock S4, and it was particularly distressing to see so many young LGBTQ+ fans feeling deeply hurt and even suicidal, because they’d read all the (extensively crafted) queer subtext in that show as a promise which would, inevitably, lead to an unequivocal queer “coming out” for John and Sherlock.

Those queer fans weren’t “self-queerbaiting” - they were just reading the totality of the text. And after all, why not read the subtext that way, as a promise? Being of a generation who’d already gotten to see many explicitly out queer characters on-screen; why not dare to imagine the subtext was a slow-burn romance with an inevitable “out” climax? Especially because Mark Gatiss (one of the writers) is out and queer himself, young queer fans were even more certain that his Sherlock would be the first “out” queer Sherlock on-screen (The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, 1970, which Gatiss is on record as being a fan of, had previously queer-coded Holmes, as indeed does Downey’s version, in Sherlock, 2009, and Sherlock 2: A Game of Shadows, 2011.)

Of course, the corporate and production politics were no doubt complex behind the scenes at the BBC, and Gatiss himself (apparently) saw things differently saying (in an interview in Oct 2010):

“No, I don’t think I’d make a kind of gay programme. It’s much more interesting when it’s not about a single issue. And equally, I find flirting with the homoeroticism in Sherlock much more interesting.” (Buzz Magazine Oct 2010: p10).

All of which, is why I’ve been adding a disclaimer to my readings of SPN’s queer subtext for a while now - namely, that reading the subtext doesn’t promise a rainbow of obviousness at the end.

As I said, take care of your hearts, lovelies.

Perhaps we shouldn’t need the narrative closet any longer.

But, we are walking between worlds, an old one and a new, both of them currently existing simultaneously, especially in a globalised world.

Queer audience fractions are, generally, more attuned to queer subtext, because it often uses codes derived from queer culture (although reading cinematic/ television subtext of all kinds is a learned skill, and no one is born with text-reading gaydar). So, whilst queer subtext may appear “loud” to some audience fractions, it remains invisible to others. That is, historically, by design, because, whilst “out” queer characters have gradually emerged on-screen since the 1950s [and the end of the Hays Code in Hollywood] queerness was, and still is (depending on where one is in the world) subject to legal penalty, state censorship or corporate production censorship.

A contemporary kind of state censorship is e.g. in China, where overt LGBTQ+ themes and characters cannot be depicted on-screen (hence, the queer subtext in The Untamed). A contemporary commodity kind of censorship might be e.g. notes from the Network, or TPTB at Marvel Studios with an eye on box-office. Queer subtext has the ability to slip past the censors, or be tolerated by them; because, now you see it/ now you don’t. A character with a straight “surface” reading and a queer subtextual one may (depending on the film/ TV product and its market etc,) be seen to pose less risk as a commercial product, whilst being able to appeal to different audience fractions simultaneously. For example, Captain Marvel (2019) and, as above, BBC Sherlock (2010-2017).

And yes, it’s complicated, because in the midst of that still extant censorship, which queer writers and other creatives on set may indeed be trying to work around by using queer subtext, we can see another world is possible. More out queer stories are being told. And, although we may love to see implicit queerness rather than no queerness at all, and indeed although implicit queerness may (arguably) have the freedom (still) to tell less boundaried or stereotyped stories than explicit queerness (with powerful effects on the audience fractions, both queer and straight, who do “see” it) we can’t deny that it does suit corporate entities, in some cases, to be able to appeal to a dual audience without the perceived “risk” of “outness”. A form of “queer-sploitation” which leads to the charge of “queer-baiting”.

The issue is, perhaps, particularly one surrounding male hero characters in Hollywood (and here in the UK) a) because “queer stories” are (still) often, not seen as likely to have universal appeal for broader audiences, whereas “straight stories” are not framed as “straight stories” but as universal ones, and b) because of the persistence of the prejudiced belief in particular that “queerness” undermines masculinity, especially “heroic” masculinity (here we have diverged markedly from the ancient Greeks). It’s somewhat different for female characters, but that’s another post. Fantasy, in the on-screen medium (if less so in fiction or comics) appears to be a more regressive genre than, say, comedy, in terms of the depiction of “out” queer central (rather than side) characters, with the exception of the Wachowskis’ Sense8 (2015-18) in which pretty much everyone is queer. I know there’s Ruby’ Rose’s Batwoman (2019- ) which I haven’t had a chance to check out yet, and we’ve got some queer Marvel (side) heroes upcoming, apparently; Valkyrie in Thor: Love and Thunder and Phastos in The Eternals - let’s see how that goes.

Moreover, queer subtext doesn’t have an exact analogy i.e. a “straight subtext” equivalent. Yes, many films and TV shows imply romantic/ sexual tension and interest between M/ F (pre)couples before it is “confirmed” they’re into each other in the text. However, because straight is the default assumption, audiences may muse and disagree about the potential for a M/ F romance at the implicit stage (as they have done in SPN fandom re Sam/ Rowena) but they don’t ask - “Does this mean they might be straight ????” It is assumed. Queerness, on the other hand, in order to be widely recognised (rather than solely by the subtext-reading audience fraction) must “come out” in some manner, explicitly, in the text (I don’t mean graphically, but “beyond reasonable doubt”). In other words, as painful as it is, we are not starting on a level playing field. It’s not fair, but it is the deal.

That doesn’t mean we can’t love contemporary queer subtextual stories, just that it’s important to acknowledge it can be painful, for some, to do so, and just as it’s important to acknowlege it’s OK to find them too painful to love, also (historical texts obviously operated under different circumstances).

Queer audiences are not homogenous. We can, and do, see things differently from one another, perhaps particularly across generations.

It is the case however, I think, that the structuring of a story by the narrative closet, as SPN has been structured by the narrative closet (up to this point, mid S15) (by which I mean its queerness is transparent to some, invisible to others, by design) cannot help but remind many queer audience members of our own struggles with the real world closet. Indeed that may make the story attractive, or unattractive, to different folk.

Incidentally, which is why I avoid it, I think the “it’s canon”/ “it’s subtext” debate is a false dichotomy and a bit confusing, as there are two, perfectly legitimate (within their own terms) definitions of “canon”. In the fandom sense, where “canon” means a romantic/ erotic pairing explicitly confirmed in the text, Destiel (meaning romantic/ erotic orientation between Dean and Cas) is not “canon” (as at 15x11). It is implied. Of course, it is explicit text that they care deeply for one another - “You’re my family. I love you, I love all of you” (12x12 Stuck in the Middle with You), “You’re my best friend” (15x09 The Trap). The exact nature of that relationship remains, however, deliberately, ambiguous.

In the literary sense, in which “canon” means “the official body of work”, SPN’s official body of work contains a metric tonne of implicit romantic/ erotic Dean/ Cas, so, it is part of the SPN “canon” in that sense - “subtextual canon” if you like. Although, of course, because implied, therefore open to interpretation.... deliberately transparent to some and invisible to others.

Despite all this complexity, and, indeed despite other elements of the SPN narrative which I have struggled with personally (the early seasons’ misogyny is off the charts sometimes, the brutally insensitive manner of Charlie’s death) I have loved this story, Supernatural, truly, madly, deeply, in large part because of its (implicit) queerness. And for may other reasons additionally, from its folkloric beginnings and dark initial cinematographic palette, to its melodrama, to its, eventual, Ourboros structure, and its Jungian alchemical journey marrying the cosmic to the earthly.

Reading the show without the queer subtext remains possible, but oh boy is that analogous to only considering the above sea-level portion of an iceberg.

I would prefer a rainbow of obviousness at The EndTM, but I don’t expect one. What I expect is continued, deliberate, ambiguity. Something I am sure we will be debating the ethics of, long after.

I could be wrong :-). But I am taking my own advice, and taking care of my heart.

For now, it’s nine minutes to midnight; let’s see how the story ends.

And afterwards, however the chips may fall, the characters will (as this most meta-narrative of seasons has been busy telling us) be set free of “Chuck’s” control. They will belong to us, in a thousand thousand fan-works, for as long as we care to keep on loving them.

#Supernatural #SPN meta #Meta #5x21 #Two Minutes to Midnight #Endings are hard #Who am I kidding #Fandom is going to go wild #Whatever happens #The great queerbaiting debate #Reading Subtext #Dean is bisexual #Destiel #Still subtext #But subtext is part of narrative

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sicklyscribe · 5 years ago

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y’all thought I forgot about this one

a good (3) of you really wanted this meta and well. It’s been like. Four years? Anyways.

‘Stolen Dance’ was on the radio today and it makes me think of Klaus and Care, because I get it mixed up with ‘Dangerous’ and that’s my song for them. Also, Stolen Dance has a line that I THOUGHT was ‘Stolen Paradise’ and it’s ACTUALLY ‘stoned in paradise’ so I USED to get K/C vibes from that. Anyways. Whenever I think of that ship I think of @hairzier, and I remembered that I had given her a teaser of this meta a while back. Before I got home, I had FINALLY constructed a thesis (wow amy what a nerd) for this analysis that I’d tried to write FOREVER ago, but it didn’t have a central focus and it was way too bogged down with me trying to find one as I went along.

Don’t know what the hell I’m talking about?

The meta is this: Klaus as an artist + Klaus’ relationships with three featured women in his life circa 2010′s. If you came to the fandom late or haven’t ever seen my username, hi, I used to write a ton of TO meta, I Don’t Do Ships Really At All For It. At least, not the ‘big’ ones. I digress. Just -- don’t expect me to bash or gush over any ship, I’m gonna compliment and critique them all. Please avoid or read on accordingly <3

Caroline: The Art

I tried to find my write-up for Sahar from ages ago, because it was clear and concise and exactly what I intended. Oh well. Once more.

Shippers and Antis pretty much love it and hate it for the same reason: Klaus is so different around her. Well, that and it’s either empowering for Caroline or abusive. Depends on perspective. I am firmly in the camp that every relationship in Klaus’ life during this time period is abusive in some way. What he does to Caroline is particularly messed up, but also particularly kind, in turns. The lightness and puppy-love-ness of Klaus around her was so jarring, is so jarring, because he doesn’t display that behavior for anyone else. He allows himself to be foolishly partial to her, but he also seems to only have selective guilt for the horrors he subjects her to. As a viewer who will bend over backwards to create complexity rather than label something ‘bad writing’, I found that Klaus’ relationships, especially with women, especially with Caroline, are steeped in his relationship with art.

To Klaus, Caroline is an exquisite work of living art. Pleasing to the eye, challenging to his thoughts, but benign -- safe, and static. More than wanting to ‘own’ her, though, I believe he wants to join her. Make himself into something that compliments her colors and her lines, because the experience of interacting with art is one of the purest joys Klaus knows. In this way, he intimately analyzes her life and feelings, he inserts himself into her narrative, he plays a part that he enjoys -- maybe one, at times, he truly wishes was not a performance. In this way, he adores her, he respects her, but not really as a person, and certainly not as an equal. He values every moment with her, treasures it; lets himself get drunk on it. She’s the Mona Lisa, living, breathing, and bold enough to insult him to his face. When she breaks the frame he makes for her -- when she really challenges him in ways only a person can -- he can only retreat, and lash out.

And ask for forgiveness with acts of kindness, or material value (he even, incredibly, uses his art to soften her to him, on more than one occasion) -- trying to shift her attention as if she can forget his abuses. In all: he wants her to enrich his life, not change it.

Hayley: The Clay

(Or the canvas, or materials, or what have you.)

One of Hayley’s first scenes with Klaus sets her up as a direct foil to Caroline:

Klaus: Painting is a metaphor for control. Every choice is mine-- the canvas, the color. As a child, I had neither a sense of the world nor my place in it, but art taught me that one's vision can be achieved with sheer force of will. The same is true of life, provided one refuses to let anything stand in one's way.

Hayley: So this is your thing-- show a girl a few mediocre paintings, whine about your childhood, and I swoon and spill all my dirty secrets?

Hayley doesn’t want to see him as a person. Klaus doesn’t really want to see her as a person, either. Eventually, he learns that he has to respect her as a mother, at least, or he will not deserve his daughter. Eventually, he learns to see her as family. But at the core, and I don’t think he ever loses this -- he sees Hayley as his work-in-progress. Potential. Not only to be a strong ally, but to be -- just maybe -- an equal.

Which is annoying for him, because she also happens to be the only person he cannot reliably control, or predict. His only choice is to try to shape her into someone that he can work with. That someone is himself, mostly, but with some key improvements. His tone with her is so often instructive, mentor-ly, a thin veneer above his need for her to be someone he doesn’t have to worry about, damn it! He can understand her so why can’t he control her!

This kicks into gear, mostly, after Hayley’s transformation. She estranges herself from Elijah, somewhat, and Klaus does not interfere with her spiral into blood and rage because it’s part of the process. He sees himself in her, but not like he saw himself in Marcel. His perspective on Marcel was so tied to fatherhood that he was trying to raise a young Klaus, while in Hayley’s case, he is trying to sculpt her in his image.

His advice on how to deal with rage, vengeance, and wildness is sincere and from personal experience. His advice on what to do about love? Well, certainly stay with Elijah while it’s convenient for me, but don’t let love blind you to what you need. What we need. What I need. Don’t tell Jackson you slept with my brother -- honesty won’t keep this vital political alliance strong. Don’t forget you’re one of us now. It’s what I would do.

I guess you could even say that Hayley, while pregnant, was a very different kind of work-in-progress for Klaus that made it near-impossible for him to see her as anything but a thing meant to be changed or cause change. Art, unfinished, and his.

Camille: The Critic

All of these relationships are unique and powerful in their own ways. I admit I’m partial to the poetry of this one, the radicalness of this one, but again, I don’t really ship it as a romance? Maybe I do, now that I’ve had time away from it, but I don’t ‘stan’ it as ‘otp’.

This one is obvious. Their ‘art’ scene is straightforward, and kind of cliche. A woman watches a street artist fill a huge canvas. Another passerby notices, and stops to ask her what she thinks. She floors him with her response -- so insightful, so bold, and so compassionate. The clever bartender that Marcel has a crush on just so happens to be a psychologist -- and, he learns later, with a particular, personal empathy for violent and cruel offenders.

He feels a unique desire to be seen by her, and to be considered by her, in his entirety. Not that he does not want to control what she knows -- obviously -- but that he does not want to put on a single, convenient mask with her to accomplish his ends. He wants to be known, and he wants to know what she thinks of him.

Again, he does not want any of this to touch him, or change him, really. He begins his Gallery Of Self not by making a therapy appointment but by ‘hiring’ (forcing) her to transcribe his biography (and making her forget everything she knows the moment she leaves his sight). This is safe, and it lets him bring out the masks and the goals and the good and the ugly of him and air them for her reaction. Will he, too, be worthy of empathy?

Yes. But he’s also worthy of critique. Eventually, he takes baby steps to allowing her to impact his life (to varying degrees throughout all seasons that, in my opinion, make for a shamefully circular set of arcs on the writers’ parts. The point is I saw where they were trying to go with it, and letting Drama of the Week get in the way). Eventually, he makes real appointments. Tells himself he needs to change, somewhat, for Hope’s sake.

And Camille is the kind of strong, confident woman he can imagine Hope to someday resemble. He wants his daughter to be free from the cycles of Mikaelson abuse, and he wants her to know goodness and have no reason to be evil. And if he is to do that, and if he is to know that Hope, then someone like Camille should be able to look at him and deem him capable. Worthy. Warts and all. He’ll spend time with her because he likes her, because he’s attracted to the beauty in her heart (like Caroline!) -- but he opens himself to her scrutiny because for once in his life he knows he has to change for the better. He knows he has to get help, and, well, the clever bartender seemed to fall into his life at exactly the right time to take in all of his decades and all of his deeds -- piece by piece, movement by movement, style by style, and understand them. Critique them. Maybe with that in mind he can make himself into a work that he can one day show to Hope.

With that in mind, I can’t help but have a soft spot for those cheesy lines from the very first episode.

Klaus: Do you paint?

Cami: No, but I admire. Every artist has a story, you know.

Klaus: And what do you suppose his story is?

Cami: He's...angry. Dark. Doesn't feel safe and doesn't know what to do about it. He wishes he could control his demons instead of having his demons control him. He's lost. Alone.

Cami: Or maybe he just drank too much tonight. Sorry. Overzealous Psych major.

Klaus: No. I think you were probably right the first time.

@florafaunaandeldritchhorrors @ptonkin @furrydolphin @jungshoook (DID YOU ABANDON THE KLEBEKAH URL REDIRECT????? MOM??????!?!!?!??!?!??!?!!?!!?!??! I JUST CHECKED AND IT’S NOT THERE ANYMORE???? I NEED TO *MOURN* AND YOU JUST DIDN’T *TELL* US??!)

#art in the originals is the ship I stan #anamysis #WOW GUYS LOOK I ACTUALLY DID IT #i could probably add in Aurora to this but hey give me like 2 years okay #no tags this is Special Edition Members Only Content #i wrote this in 1 hour and i've been sitting on this concept for...............longtime #granted the original version would have had a TON more line-by-line analysis but HEY you GET WHAT YOU GET #i seriously didn't realize the Cami section is longer I promise it's not some sort of Sign #it's just I was trying to write this fast and 1. couldn't remember specific Hayley scenes to reference #and 2. I pretty much copy/pasted a lot of my Cami & Hope meta discussions wholesale into this one soooooo more to work with more to write #and 3. I already wrote the caroline one like two other times before this and I kind of felt like I hit the stuff I Really Cared About #in not a lot of words

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bbq-hawks-wings · 5 years ago

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Chapter 263 Discussion

Hello, it is I back from my cave to finally get back into fandom discussion.

Sadly, I don't have too much to offer this time around except speculation, and most of it is dependent on assumptions and observations of the Heroes Rising movie, so if you haven't seen it this is unfortunately your stop, but when you do eventually see it go on ahead and send me an ask geeking out about it because almost everyone I've heard agrees if nothing else that it was hype and worth the price of admission!

All right, warning and disclaimer out of the way, let me lay the groundwork for how this post will go.

1. If you didn't know, the plot for Heroes Rising is a scrapped concept for the end of the series. Because it was scrapped it can't really be used to accurately predict how Horikoshi actually intends to end the story, but finding common plot lines and elements from what we're seeing now in the manga to the events in the movie might give us a clue to which lines he dropped and which he decided to keep. In the end it's a hunch, but it's a more informed guess than not having the clues.

2. I believe we're in the end stages of the story - or at least what is the beginning of the story in the same way Naruto was a precursor to Naruto Shippuden. Because of that, I don't feel like trying to predict things very far ahead and prefer to try to stick to interpretations of what's immediately going on since I feel we’ll get our answers fairly quickly anyway. I've made some lofty ideas of where the series is going before, but those are really better as overarching themes and end points for certain characters than necessarily an accurate prediction of events.

With that, let's jump into it.

The MLA/PLF is a front for the LOV

So to start, something I really wanted to address in the last chapter was the last page:

A lot of people are amazed Hawks seemed to go so deep into their ranks without ever raising suspicion, but I think this clarified, if not confirmed, a couple of points I've been hanging onto for a while.

The LOV never cared about these folks - that much has kind of been obvious from the get-go. They just threw themselves at Shiguraki as the second coming of Christ and offered him a free army. "...I mean, twist my arm, why don'tcha?" There were enough commonalities between the groups to seem like an obvious fit, but the League has always had different plans. Now, not only do they have a disposable army to fight the heroes and die for them but were a perfect opportunity to throw off the heroes to their main objective and draw out all the heroes at once in a fight to the death - all without practically lifting a finger. Shiguraki is a strategist, and a resource not utilized to the best of its potential is wasted even if using it well uses it up completely. These aren't their people, and they signed up for this fight to begin with. It would have made less sense to not effectively double-cross them like this.

I haven't been looking much for discussion regarding the movie, but a notable thing that immediately stood out to me when I saw it was the fact that Shiguraki was individually watching Hawks, and Hawks specifically - all alone and seemingly completely unprompted. A particularly overpowered aspect of Twice's quirk is the fact his doubles are SO close to the same thing they're in every way, down to the way they think and their core motivations, that they’re indistinguishable from the real thing, even to the original and doubles themselves. They really are perfect stand-ins for the actual people they copy. It's 100% possible that real Shiguraki could be powering up under the doctor's care, and - because he's not an idiot to leave himself completely vulnerable and out of control when he doesn't need to be - literally be running the show through a double, behind the scenes, in secret the entire time without the Heroes' or the MLA/PLF's knowledge. This also means that him personally spying on Hawks while he thinks Shiguraki has been out of commission is completely plausible as well.

These two frames have been circulating for good reason. While the army and organization honest-to-god have no idea what's going on, the OG League members seem to be taking it more like a stage cue - particularly with Dabi's obvious movement against the flow of the crowd rushing to battle. This very much feels like something they've planned for; but only them and their squad. They’re known to hold grudges against those that use them and abuse/hurt their core members, but none of that protective attitude has been directed towards this larger organization/movement.

"So what's got you so convinced about parallels to the movie? That's the only one you've brought up."

This was the first thing that stood out to me this chapter as I was reading through it fresh. In the climax of the movie each member of class 1-A had to strategically use their abilities to survive against Nine and his band. One of the abilities they had to counter was calling lightning down from the sky to which they used Kaminari as a lightning rod. Though it was played up for laughs a bit in the movie, it was still very much a life-saving tactic in the moment, and the concept clearly carried over into the final product.

A point of speculation we’ll be able to verify soon is a hunch I have that Tokoyami and Toga will clash one-on-one seeing as he’s also in the front-runner group. Slice very much felt like an easy stand-in for Toga, given the knowledge that those events are modified from the original ending concept, and it was thanks to Tokoyami losing control of Dark Shadow that he was able to beat her in the end. We’ll find out in a couple of weeks, and if it proves right I’ll be pulling more common threads to see if we can’t anticipate what’s going to happen next.

So, yup!

That's it!

Nothing left to see or talk about until next week!

*sigh........*

Ok.

Let's go over what we know for sure:

That’s clearly intent to kill in Hawks’ eyes: a lot of fans are aware of the practice of falconry, which is basically the same thing as a hunting dog but with a trained bird of prey instead; and it’s the image hammered into our heads about the way the Commission has treated Hawks and the way he personally deals with threats. Hawks considers Twice the single, greatest tool the League has in their belt - able to exponentially create duplicates and reinforcements which would turn a strategy-based battle into one of attrition, and the heroes would lose the latter easily. He clearly hasn’t killed Twice yet, and we don’t know why, but if he has to he’s prepared to do so without hesitation or remorse. This is a fight the Heroes CANNOT lose.

Hawks is done: This is more inference, but bear in mind he’s been on this case long before the Commission told him to infiltrate the League. He’s been at this in some capacity for almost a year and neck deep in recon as an undercover agent for months. He’s been walking on eggshells, keeping his eyes and ears open, relaying information, keeping up appearances on both sides, and watching the threat grow from a surprisingly capable group of guerrilla terrorists into an army capable of bringing all of Japan to its knees in a matter of days, tops. The stakes are too high, personally and otherwise, to not take this threat seriously.

This is Twice’s POV: Literally everything he thought he knew about this guy he considered his friend has been turned upside down. That whiteboard that was a catalyst for their friendship is thrown aside (symbolically along with all the memories and time they spent together), and here Jin is: knocked on his back, no longer looking into the friendly gaze of a great guy out to help a friend, but the murderous glare of a wild animal - a monster, even - having no idea how he got to this point and how fast it’s unraveling before his eyes. What we’re watching now could have happened in literally under two seconds. Hawks is that fast, and he’s been waiting for this to happen.

Considering the sudden tonal whiplash their relationship has just gone through - and the fact that it’s framed through Twice’s perspective, not Hawks’ - I don’t think we can make too many solid predictions about what’s going to happen right now. Hawks has been shown to be unpredictable to anyone but himself. When we’re not hearing his own internal monologue or seeing things directly from his point of view, everything we “learn” about him from a scene has to be taken with a grain of salt. He’s guarded, private, and keeps others at arms length so he can anticipate and respond to get the results he wants. It’s not just his fighting style, it’s his survival mechanism.

Twice himself is a grab bag of surprises, and being the heart of the League may yet find a way to appeal to his humanity, question his motives/actions, or any number of ways to bring him down to earth again; but there’s an equal opportunity that Hawks is beyond that at this point. His mission is almost done, and if he wavers now he could literally end up dead in a heartbeat. There are a lot of feathers trained on Twice, but not enough to bring his wings all the way down to stubs like we saw with High End. He’s set to fight not just Twice, but everyone in that compound.

In other words, this might be the point we finally see Hawks truly go apeshit, and I don’t think it’ll be a pretty sight to see. We’ll just have to wait and see where this leads from here.

#heroes rising spoilers #sp heroes rising #bnha movie spoilers #mha movie spoilers #chapter 263 spoilers

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schraubd · 5 years ago

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If You're One in a Million...

Many of you are familiar with the saying "If you're one in a million, there are a thousand people just like you in China alone." It helps illustrate that while one in a million is certainly very rare, on another way of looking it at it's also quite common. A thousand people! You could fill a high school gymnasium with that! Push the proportion down a bit and things get even more stark. Imagine a political view held by only 1% of the population. That's pretty fringe, right (for reference, 33% of Americans believe that alien UFOs have visited Earth)? But it's also one in a hundred -- in America, that translates to well over three million people. That's a lot! (We explored this dynamic previously in my "how to tokenize with proportions" post.) One thing I often think about is how modernity and modern technology, in conjunction with our decidedly pre-modern lizard-brains, don't always mesh well. We know, for example, that fat tastes delicious because in the primordial environment it was rare and vital, and thus highly desirable to consume -- unfortunately, this doesn't translate well to a contemporary context where calories and fat are plentiful and we can easily over-saturate ourselves. I suspect there's something similar going on with political opinions. One of the oft-proclaimed virtues of the internet is it allows you to find communities of like-minded persons no matter how obscure or random the interest. Obsessed with underwater basketweaving? You can find dozens of people who share that passion with minimal effort! What does it mean when the same is true for political opinions? I suspect our brains have a rough heuristic at the ready that correlates how difficult it is to find holders of a given opinion with how uncommon it is in society. If one struggles to come across individuals who believe ideology X, one assumes that X is rarely believed in a given society. If one comes across X-believers without too much trouble, one infers that X is a common ideology. If 1% of Americans hold a particular political stance, that may be three million people -- but (at least until recently) they're not going to be easy to find via the normal modes of political engagement. If you just read newspaper columns, chatted with your neighbors, watched TV pundits, and so forth, you'd probably come across it rarely, if ever. If one really wanted to find a sizable chunk of Americans who believe this 1% view, one would have to expend considerably more effort. Now to be clear: what I'm describing is only a heuristic, which means it's imperfect -- there are all sorts of reasons why, for example, a rare opinion might nonetheless be easy to spot "in the wild" (it's favored among extroverts or celebrities, e.g.) or a common one might be rarely seen (it's embarrassing). But it has some logic as a rough-and-ready way of telling us which views are common in our social circle and which aren't. It's not quite the same as the availability heuristic, but it is similar. Call it the search heuristic. Something easy to find upon commencing a search for it is common; something hard to find even when searching for it is rare. The problem is that if modern technology makes pretty much any opinion with even a speck of public salience "easy to find", that hijacks our heuristic circuitry to make all of these opinions register in our minds as "commonplace". What is the result of that? One potentially positive result is that it might offset some mechanisms that serve to silence dissident views via the so-called "spiral of silence" -- they learn that they're not alone, and so they're more willing to air their dissident views knowing that there are peers who share their perspective. But there are also some potential upshots that I'm more ambivalent about. One thing that we might experience is the erosion of perceived consensus -- a sense of widespread opinion balkanization and a corresponding vertiginous inability to tell when there is an opinion that carries significant social agreement. There's a push/pull on this -- sometimes, a feeling of "consensus" is dependent on wrongly not perceiving the existence of dissent, and so the elevation of dissident voices corrects a widespread social misperception. But, assuming "consensus" does not require universal agreement, sometimes, a feeling of dissensus is falsely inspired by the presence of high-profile but ultimately negligible dissenters. To the extent that modern technology makes very small ideological minorities loom larger, we might believe ourselves to be far more disunited than we actually are. And if the search heuristic causes a wide range of opinions (many mutually incompatible with one another) to register as "common", we may have trouble grasping onto distinctions between actually common versus fringe outlooks. In a similar vein, it is at least plausible that in a democracy there is a prima facie obligation to consider and give airing to certain viewpoints simply by virtue of the fact that they're common. This wouldn't necessarily mean that uncommon views can be automatically rejected, only that they must "earn" their space on the democratic agenda by means other than "because many people believe it". If this is so, then the perception that more views are "common" mean that more views can claim access to this prima facie obligation of consideration. Perhaps that doesn't strike you as a bad thing -- but consider it in the case of, say, openly avowed racism or extremism -- views which might objectively be as rare as ever, but perhaps feel more common than they've been in recent memory. There are also risks latent even for the holders of the dissident opinions themselves, for they as much as anyone might be mislead into thinking their views are more widely shared than they are. If someone holds a view they know is rare but wish was widely shared, they must endeavor to persuade others to adopt it. If they then, say, run for office on its platform whose tenets are held by only 10% of the population, if (or when) they lose they probably won't be happy but they at least probably won't be confused. Unpopular opinions don't win elections. But things are different if the search heuristic misfires and makes the dissident believe they are actually expressing a very common view. If they nonetheless persistently lose in the democratic arena, they might suspect bias, corruption, institutional barriers, or other forms of foul play are obstructing them. To be clear: there are many cases where such things are at work; I'm not saying that everyone who believes their views are not carrying the democratic day because of various social biases is simply misleading themselves. But sometimes a democratic spade really is just a spade; and there is at least the potential for this sort of self-deception to accelerate -- the result being greater mistrust and resentment of social institutions. It's worth noting that there isn't an "objective" way of declaring whether a view is "rare" or not. Much of it already lies in framing: "held by 1% of the population" sounds uncommon, "held by three million Americans" sounds reasonably common. So we can't quite say that, even if the search heuristic is misfiring, it is objectively causing us to label "uncommon opinions" as "common". But I do suspect that our wider net of appraisals around how we relate to an opinion based on its perceived "commonality" are tied to the same set of assumptions under which the search heuristic should function at least roughly well -- meaning that if we no longer exist in that social world, the whole edifice comes under serious strain (if it doesn't collapse outright). These are preliminary thoughts; they are not wholly hashed out in my mind yet, and I'm curious to hear others' views. Here's the tl;dr

The search heuristic tells us that, roughly speaking, a view that is hard to find upon searching for it is rare, and a view that is easy to find upon searching for it is commonplace.

The social media revolution has drastically reduced the search costs required to find large absolute numbers of persons who hold any particular view, even when they are actually relatively uncommon.

Together, (1) & (2) cause us to mentally code many viewpoints which we'd perceive as uncommon as quite common (since we are able to find examples of them with little effort).

The effects of this are unclear, but may include (a) increased willingness to air dissident views; (b) decreased sense of social consensus; (c) decreased ability to distinguish relatively common versus uncommon views; (d) decreased trust that formal mechanisms for measuring public opinion reliably track actual public viewpoints (even when they are in fact doing so reasonably well).

via The Debate Link https://ift.tt/2UIHAaO

#discourse #math #polls

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chiseler · 5 years ago

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The Crowd Doesn’t Just Roar, It Thinks: Warner Bros.’ All-Talking Revolution

“Iconic” is a gassy word for a masterwork of unquestioned approval. But it also describes compositions that actually resemble icons in their form and function, “stiff” by inviolate standards embodied in, say, Howard Hawks characters moving fluidly in and out of the frame. Whenever I watch William A. Wellman’s 1933 talkie Wild Boys of the Road, these standards—themselves rigid and unhelpful to understanding—fall away. An entire canonical order based on naturalism withers.

To summon reality vivid enough for the 1930s—during which 250,000 minors left home in hopeless pursuit of the job that wasn’t—Wellman inserts whispering quietude between explosions, cesuras that seem to last aeons. The film’s gestating silences dominate the rather intrusive New Deal evangelism imposed by executive order from the studio. Amid Warner Bros.’ ballyhooing of a freshly-minted American president, they were unconsciously embracing the wrecking-ball approach to a failed capitalist system. That is, when talkies dream, FDR don’t rate. However, Marxist revolution finds its American icon in Wild Boys’ sixteen-year-old actor Frankie Darro, whose cap becomes a rude little halo, a diminutive lad goaded into class war by a chance encounter with a homeless man.

“You got an army, ain’t ya?” In the split second before Darro’s “Tommy” realizes the import of these words, the Great Depression flashes before his eyes, and ours. No conspicuous montage—just a fixed image of pain. Until suddenly a collective lurch transmutes job-seeking kids into a polity that knows the enemy’s various guises: railroad detectives, police, galled citizens nosing out scapegoats. Wellman’s crowd scenes are, in effect, tableaux congealing into lucent versions of the real thing. The miracle he performs is a painterly one: he abstracts and pares down in order to create realism.

Wellman has a way of organizing people into palpable units, expressing one big emotional truth, then detonating all that potential energy. In his assured directorial hands, Wild Boys of the Road sustains powerful rhythmic flux. And yet, other abstractions, the kind life throws at us willy-nilly, only make sense if we trust our instinctive hunches (David Lynch says typically brilliant, and typically cryptic, things on this subject).

I’m thinking of iconography that invites associations beyond familiar theories, which, in one way or another, try to give movies syntax and rely too heavily on literary ideas like “authorship.” Nobody can corner the market on semantic icons and run up the price. My favorite hot second in Wild Boys of the Road is when young Sidney Miller spits “Chazzer!” (“Pig!”) at a cop. Even the industrial majesty of Warner Bros. will never monopolize chutzpah. The studio does, however, vaunt its own version of socialism, whether consciously or not, in concrete cinematic terms: here, the crowd becomes dramaturgy, a conscious and ethical mass pushing itself into the foreground of working-class poetics. The crowd doesn’t just roar, it thinks. Miller’s volcanic cri de coeur erupts from the collective understanding that capitalism’s gendarmes are out to get us.

Wellman’s Heroes for Sale, hitting screens the same year as Wild Boys, 1933, further advances an endless catalogue of meaning for which no words yet exist. We’re left (fumblingly and woefully after the fact) to describe a rupture. Has the studio system gone stark raving bananas?! Once again, the film’s ostensible agenda is to promote Roosevelt’s economic plan; and, once again, a radical alternative rears its head.

Wellman’s aesthetic constitutes a Dramaturgy of the Crowd. His compositions couldn’t be simpler. I’m reminded of the “grape cluster” method used by anonymous Medieval artists, in which the heads of individual figures seem to emerge from a single shared body, a highly simplified and spiritual mode of constructing space that Arnold Hauser attributes to less bourgeoise societies.

If the mythos of FDR, the man who transformed capitalism, is just that, a story we Americans tell ourselves, then Heroes for Sale represents another kind of storytelling: one firmly rooted to the soiled experience of the period. Amid portrayals of a nation on the skids—thuggish cops, corrupt bankers, and bone-weary war vets (slogging through more rain and mud than they’d ever encountered on the battlefield)—one rather pointed reference to America’s New Deal drags itself from out of the grime. “It’s just common horse sense,” claims a small voice. Will national leadership ever find another spokesman as convincing as the great Richard Barthelmess, that half-whispered deadpan amplified by a fledgling technology, the Vitaphone? After enduring shrapnel to the spine, dependency on morphine, plus a prison stretch, his character Tom Holmes channels the country’s pain; and his catalog of personal miseries—including the sudden death of his young wife—qualifies him as the voice of wisdom when he explains, “It takes more than one sock in the jaw to lick 120 million people.” How did Barthelmess—owner of the flattest murmur in Talking Pictures, a far distance from the gilded oratory of Franklin Roosevelt, manage to sell this shiny chunk of New Deal propaganda?

How did he take the film’s almost-crass reduction of America’s economic cataclysm, that metaphorical sock on the jaw, and make it sound reasonable? Barthelmess was 37 when he made Heroes for Sale; an aging juvenile who less than a decade earlier had been one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office titans. But no matter how smoothly he seemed to have survived the transition, his would always be a screen presence more redolent of the just-passed Silent-era than the strange new world of synchronized sound. And yet, through a delivery rich with nuance for generous listeners and a glum piquancy for everyone else, deeply informed by an awareness of his own fading stardom, his slightly unsettling air of a man jousting with ghosts lends tremendous force to the New Deal line. It echoes and resolves itself in the viewer’s consciousness precisely because it is so eerily plainspoken, as if by some half-grinning somnambulist ordering a ham on rye. Through it we are in the presence of a living compound myth, a crisp monotone that brims with vacillating waves of hope and despair.

Tom is “The Dirty Thirties.” A symbolic figure looming bigger than government promises, towering over Capitalism itself, he’s reduced to just another soldier-cum-hobo by the film’s final reel, having relinquished a small fortune to feed thousands before inevitably going “on the bum.” If he emits wretchedness and self-abnegation, it’s because Tom was originally intended to be an overt stand-in for Jesus Christ—a not-so-gentle savior who attends I.W.W. meetings and participates in the Bonus March, even hurling a riotous brick at the police. These strident scenes, along with “heretical” references to the Nazarene, were ultimately dropped; and yet the explosive political messages remain.

More than anything, these key works in the filmography of William A. Wellman present their viewers with competing visions of freedom; a choice, if you will. One can best be described as a fanciful, yet highly addictive dream of personal comfort — the American Century's corrupted fantasy of escape from toil, tranquility, and a material luxury handed down from the then-dying principalities of Western Europe — on gaudy, if still wondrous, display within the vast corpus of Hollywood's Great Depression wish-list movies. The other is rarely acknowledged, let alone essayed, in American Cinema. There are, as always, reasons for this. It is elusive and ever-inspiring; too primal to be called revolutionary. It is a vision of existential freedom made flesh; being unmoored without being alienated; the idea of personal liberation, not as license to indulge, but as a passport to enter the unending, collective struggle to remake human society into a society fit for human beings.

In one of the boldest examples of this period in American film, the latter vision would manifest itself as a morality play populated by kings and queens of the Commonweal— a creature of the Tammany wilderness, an anarchist nurse, and a gaggle of feral street punks (Dead End Kids before there was a 'Dead End'). Released on June 24, 1933, Archie L. Mayo's The Mayor of Hell stood, not as a standard entry in Warner Bros.’ Social Consciousness ledger, but as an untamed rejoinder to cratering national grief.

by Daniel Riccuito

Special thanks to R.J. Lambert

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