#Whelp. Guess we'll see

[imaginariumwanderer]

So I finished the latest story...

This is pretty horrifying from a cookie's perspective. One of cookiekind's main forms of happiness is their ability to express their various colorful flavors/personality. I suppose it's the same thing as tripping a living human of their sentient and individuality. Ego death. Leaving behind hollow flesh

We be committing unspeakable crimes against nature with this one✨

We be crumbling our colleagues while slowly losing our mind with this one✨

On another note, "eyecing" make its glorious return. I have no memory of it being used before the Mystic Flour update. Can anyone point out the other times it was used, if there's any?

????!!!!! OMG HIIII

MORE CJ PAWLIKOWSKI VOICE ACTING YES YES YES

Don't do it, don't give me hope...

I know he's the last to be released u don't need to tease me like that

So the other-space here clearly refer to the Dark side of the Moon, right? Is there any other-space I don't know about? Also, I guess this confirmed Shadow Milk is the only one able to do this astral projection thing. On one hand, it increases his chance of appearing a bit more before his own update, on the other hand, we most likely won't see the other Beasts having any talking-role any time soon

The implications here...

So the Beasts may likely have their own voices of their Light just like the Ancients does. And "Soul Jam"... Without an (s), Shadow Milk is specifically referring to his Soul Jam here, I can't believe my headcanon of the Light of Deceit/Knowledge whispering things to him is becoming true

It's a thing unique to Shadow Milk and not the other Beasts too. Interesting how both the voices of the Light of Truth and Deceit operate differently from the other Lights' (referring to the theory that the Light of Truth have never make an actual appearance since all instances of it in-game were all Shadow Milk's disguise)

... Clownage. Whelp! time to integrate that into my daily vocabulary!

Alright, so we got confirmation Smilk is not only aware of Dark Enchantress' plans but he's actively helping her out. Whenever he's oblivious to her other, secret plans (stealing the Beasts' Soul Jams) or he's aware and already have a counter measures to it though, is still up in the air.

My money is on the latter. Shadow Milk have shown time and time again he's way more knowledgeable than he let on. The way Dark Enchantress was depicted in his previous "play" does show us a certain level of... Appreciation(?) but who's to say he actually trusts her? It really does feel like a "I rub your back if you rub mine and then we'll backstab each other" kind of deal. Now I'm curious about the other Beasts' opinions on Dark Enchantress as well.

Where's Dark Enchantress anyways? We haven't seen her make any on-screen appearance in a while. I, um, I missed her a lot actually. I missed the diabolical meema

Laughing at Wind Archer cookie repeatedly telling Smilk to stfu from the moment they've met. He's saying what we've all been thinking

Also laughing at Shadow Milk basically only here to make cryptic riddles and mocks our Wind Archer. He really does have nothing better to do lol

Yeah that's right, FRIENDSHIP will save the day!

For real tho, tons of intriguing implications about the Ultimate Cookie with this one. I gotta mulls over them for awhile...

GUYS NEW SMILK'S SPRITE JUST DROPPED

HE'S ROLLING HIS EYES. HE'S SO DONE I'M DEAD

"In conclusion, this changed nothing!"

Kidding, kidding! I was getting real worried for Wind Archer there despite knowing full-well it's not crk's style to let something happen to a character unless they're a minor villain or an elderly *grinding my teeth trying not to bring up Elder Faerie again oops too late-*

The unexpected yet sweet moment of empathy Wind Archer have toward the Ultimate Cookie combined with the stunning animation toward the end were definitely my favorite part of this little adventure. Although I half-expected for him to have his magical girl transformation like White Lily and Dark Cacao right then and there-

"Beast-Yeast EP 5 coming soon to theaters near you! Remember to stay tuned, mkay? Okie dokie? Pinkie promiseee?"

[astaroth1357]

My Incredibly Spoiler Heavy Thoughts on Nightbringer

TURN BACK IF YOU HAVE ANY INTEREST IN PLAYING THE GAME AT ALL. I MEAN IT.

Hello. I have completed all 10 lessons on the Normal difficulty. These are my thoughts:

First, a disclaimer. All of this is my opinion. If you feel differently about a character or plot point, that's fine. This is all just as I see it.

Holy hell, I love the setup here so damn much. The Nightbringer story so far is truly more than just a rehash of the OG plot, largely because of all the small stuff that keeps happening in background. Yes, we're befriending the brothers again, but we don't know WHY. Why are we in the past? Who sent us there? What do they want from us, or... what do they want out of somebody else?? 👀 I have to hand it to the writers for coming up with this premise, it's soild. Will they stick the landing...? We'll see.

The New! (Old) Cast

Lucifer:

Whelp, Luci is being colder to us than ever... But far more openly involved with his brothers than we saw previously. You can really tell that this is fresh off of the War and he's just trying his best to keep everybody corralled and (somewhat) comfortable.

He still holds onto his Celestial Realm prejudice against demons, so he doesn't trust MC at all which is an interesting turn on the dynamic from before. As a human, Lucifer saw us as weak and insignificant so he didn't give us much time of day. But as a "demon," and someone more knowledgeable about the Devildom than himself, he has to suck it up and rely on MC even if he wants them to stay away.

By the end of Lesson 10, it's safe to say whatever trust he had in MC is going to be shattered. MC has talked their way out of a lot, but even Dia looks shaken by their abilities this time... I'm curious to see if they can reestablish a relationship with him when he was already keeping them at arms length to start with.

Mammon:

Ah, Mammon... Once simp, forever a simp across time and space. Bless him. I guess he's just doomed to always fall first when it comes to MC. It DOES NOT take long for him to be down bad even if you don't romance him specifically (I would know because I'm trying to stay mono-Levi this go around).

Aside from his tsundere-ness, though, we do get a look into more of his insecurities. I find an interesting pattern developing in him where he just tends to latch onto a person and follow them unfailing. He did that with Lucifer before the Fall, he didn't even think about the consequences before going through with it. You could see him doing much the same with MC. I think it stems from a lack of confidence in himself and his own abilities, constantly relying on others to guide him through big decisions and provide him with validation. Add another poor thing to the list...

Leviathan:

I swear to God, the devs realized that Levi's charm lies in his pathos, so they went out of the way to make him EVEN MORE pathetic than normal. I still love him for it, of course. But seriously, Levi starts out practically afraid of his own shadow when the story starts. It makes sense, Levi would have probably one of the more negative impressions of demons of the seven, having fought them head on. He was a shut in before the War and now he's even more terrified to leave the house, let alone his room... (I can't be the only one who's wondering how the hell Dia's going to look at him and go, "Ah yes! I see Admiral material right there!" right?)

I do like that the writers took the time to show that he's one of the more empathetic brothers, right alongside Asmo and Beel, even if he's bad with people. Levi is quick to sympathize with beings and creatures who don't fit in and it's always very sweet to see. I also guess that Simeon wrote TSL in secret or after the War? You think he would know of it at least having lived so long with the author... Anyway. I digress.

There's a lot of... small things around Levi that I think hint at the inner feelings of the brothers, though (of all seven of them, he has the WORST poker face I swear). I may touch on those in another post because I need time to gather my thoughts on how it all connects there... Anyway, he's still my favorite and I'm going to try to see if there's any truth to this "you get a deeper connection if you stick to one brother" thing. Wish me luck.

Satan:

Okay, load your guns now because I think Satan is the real star of the show here. They're actually pulling way more than the "He's mad because he's seen like Lucifer" card. We're at a point where Satan doesn't even consider himself associated with the brothers AT ALL. That means something and has consequences on the story. He didn't even go with them to check on Beel, despite having enough fire power that he could have probably helped a lot.

Now before someone goes screaming at me that they've devolved him into comic relief, I'd first like to ask what did you think he was going to be? OG Satan told us himself that he used to feel nothing but anger. He's going to be pissed, irrational, and violent. He's Wrath.

What truly they're giving us under all of that is a look into a vulnerable guy who doesn't know anything about the world around him and is trying to pick it up on his own because his brothers can't (and maybe won't) teach him. They keep chaining him up (which I hate btw) and talk about him like he's a beast. But it's partially because they're such terrible communicators that he flies off the handle so often to begin with.

Satan is more alone than really anybody else is the Devildom. His brothers already have all this history together and memories shared during their time as angels, stuff he has no context for and could never experience himself. He's still an outcast among demons for his association with them, despite being a fully fledged demon in his own right, and he doesn't know why he has to be linked to them because he barely knows them anyway. He's taking baby steps to understand the world, but when he goes to his brothers to ask questions they lampshade him for even having clear thoughts. All they see him as is a roaring beast. This version of Satan is fascinating to me. How does he start here and end up the eloquent, emotionally-controlled bookworm with a planet's worth of connections? I gotta know!!

Asmodeus:

They FINALLY started giving Asmo his proper flowers! I still think it could have been more, but he's gotten way more depth than he had before. I know that Asmo part technically involved MC's input the least out of all of the brothers, but I think that was by design.

Asmo is a surprisingly introspective individual under his urge to perform. MC didn't have to give much input because he just didn't need as much. He knows himself very well (unlike some of the others). He's an emotionally intelligent guy who can sort out his own inner problems and remain empathetic enough to want to help his brothers in his own way. I wanted to hear more from this side of Asmo, honestly, but the game seems to make it clear that he's content with his spot of being the family's brightest smile. I hope it makes more appearances as we go on.

Beelzebub:

This one is tricky, because lesson 10 leaves off on a cliffhanger related to Beel... So I think Beel's feelings will have more consequences than the other brothers' on the story. Most of all that we see of Beel is, unfortunately, him being hungry or off being wholesome with Belphie but lesson 10 did give us some eye-openers regardless.

First, apparently if he flies off the handle, Beel is quite the challenge to handle. It takes Dia himself to restrain him, which is pretty insane for the sixthborn in the line-up. It's possible some outside magic is cranking up his power somehow, but we won't know until the next lessons are out.

Secondly, I find it very interesting that Beel's "heart-to-heart" moment with us is being saved for last... It was definitely the most surprising one of the secrets in the teasers (in my opinion). Beel and Belphie are glued to the hip and share everything together so for him to have a secret "not even Belphie" knows is pretty shocking. I hope it's not just that he saved Belphie instead of Lilith since we all already know that. It'd be a pretty cheap pay off to all this buildup... Not that I haven't been disappointed before or anything.

Belphegor:

Similar to Beel, Belphie doesn't get much attention until the end and it isn't much that we haven't heard before, unfortunately. You kind can't blame them, since plumbing out Belphie's inner trauma about the War was the entire climax of the first game. It's nothing we don't already know. That being said, I think there's some more interesting things that are being said about Belphie or left unsaid by the others that I find more fascinating to keep track of.

TLDR, I think there's some weird distancing going on between Belphie and the others. It doesn't seem super apparent, but Levi dropped some weird bombshells early on and I can't help but notice how he just never seems to be without Beel. Those two are close, yeah, but in this game they're practically a unit. I'm pretty sure Belphie is using Beel as a security blanket of sorts. He's also the ONLY one to mention Lilith in any great detail. Unsurprising, but it's worth noting that the others haven't really brought her up despite it (supposedly) starting the War.

Diavolo:

Somebody give this guy a vacation and a raise... So apparently, the brothers were cast down, the old King took one look at them and counted to seven, then conked out. Now our boy has to rule the kingdom. He's... the same really. As far as I can tell. You can really see how much he's taken to the brothers' antics though, which checks out in the other game too.

WAAAY more fascinating to me is apparently there's some kind of body called the House of Lords who think that Dia is too young for the job. What's the House of Lords?? Who are they? Are they like a council or advisory board...? Or is this a UK setup? Is there a Parliamentary board?? I dunno, could just be my Poli Sci talking but I'm now so lost on how the Devildom operates now...

Barbatos:

Oh my God, if there is any character I could live vicariously through, it was Barbs here. For whatever unnamed reason he is NOT having any of Solomon's shit right now and I'm living for it. Setting my delight aside, we don't get to see very much of him and what we do see doesn't really differ from the norm, which only makes his detest all the more shocking.

Through Barbs, we also see just how potent the power of the pacts can be when Solomon summons him and more or less forces him to do as he says. Nothing seems to stop him from retaliating after the fact, as he sent Solomon off who knows where, but seeing that kind of power wielded over a being who's almost unattainable to us is... Well. I feel bad for Asmo.

Simeon:

There's a lot to unpack with Simeon... and a lot of it is in the stuff that goes unsaid. First, I already found it strange that he didn't seem surprised to see Satan in the House. Or if he was, he didn't say it or bother introducing himself which is... telling for a guy like Simeon. He's back to being Luke's minder in front of demons, but I can't help but notice that he doesn't do much to counter Luke's tirades. He only indicates that it's impolite to say them, so he may still harbor the very same feelings.

Simeon and Lucifer have something of a heart to heart together that they never would in the OG title where Simeon admits his biggest regret. It isn't that he didn't follow Lucifer, as we might think, but that he doesn't feel like did enough to reach out to him before he made his decision. Lucifer dispells this, but I think it goes to show that Simeon stands behind his decision to stay and that it was the better option. Lucifer also confront Simeon on why he didn't take a high position (seraph) and instead settled for archangel. It's left open ended what his real motives for that would be, but I suspect that it has something to do with Simeon's troubling streak of going against the grain, even in subtle ways. Or he has too much anger about what happened to accept taking Lucifer's old position.

I found it interesting how easily these two seemed to talk about intimate topics together here where Lucifer barely even acknowledges Simeon's attempts to reach out in the OG story. I wonder what may have happened to sour their relationship so severely...?

Luke:

Luke the Racist Chihuahua returns!! Okay, I'm being a little mean but he's pretty much just self-righteous little kid the whole way through. I will admit, it is a little funny that the person who came up with the nickname was actually Lucifer. I think it's now retconned and confirmed that Luke and the brothers never knew each other before the Fall... though Luke seems to know OF their former selves in some capacity. I could be misinterpreting things though.

The Rat Bastard Solomon:

I swear to God this was me playing through the whole game tied to this guy.

He's lying. A lot. Constantly. And it pisses me off to no end. I was wondering why things he was saying and the stuff he was doing weren't lining up and OF COURSE it's because he's either working his own agenda or being outright deceitful. I hate him so much, y'all, you don't even know...

That aside, as an impartial observer Solomon is pulling a lot of work to support MC and you can TELL how down bad he is for them, which actually has significance for the plot I think. He's keeping them in the dark about something, but considering his feelings I say we can at least be charitable and assume it isn't to hurt them or cause them any suffering... intentionally. He's also as unscrupulous as ever, considering how he ordered a very angry Barbs around and more or less took advantage of a life or death situation to make a pact with Asmo.

So. At the end of the lessons, we're reintroduced to the mysterious Nightbringer. The character who actually sent us back in time at the start of the game. Yeah, it wasn't Barbatos... probably. At least not our reliable neighborhood butler anyway. They seem to be different entities but I THINK they might share some connection....

I have to wonder who disguised MC when they first arrived. The marketing made it seem like it would be Solomon but the marketing has been hit or miss on actual accuracy about the game we're seeing. If it was Solomon, then he had to have known where the MC was before he called. If it was Nightbringer then... well actually. We need to touch on that first.

Nightbringer:

Now, much of this is just me speculating so take things with a grain of salt. Nightbringer's name is blocked out, but it seems like it identified itself to us in the beginning before sending us to the past. It appears like it wants something from Solomon.... to fully corrupt him maybe? And it's using MC as leverage against him.

I suspect that all of the weird stuff that has been happening is tied to its meddling in some way, but to what end is unclear... Sending Levi and MC into TSL, tricking Asmo then trying to feed everyone to a spider, and, likely, whatever is going on with Beel. I can't tell if it's trying to push MC and the brother's closer together, or just making vaguely comical attempts at homicide by fictional characters, spider, and Gluttony incarnate.

The situation with Adam does give us a hint into its nature. It appears to be some kind of dark, trickster being that gives a person what they desire, but never the way they intended. A walking monkey's paw, if you will. Solomon says that Nightbringer made him what he is today, so perhaps he worked under it or is simply under the influence of one its "deals." Their relationship is adversarial, though. When they're speaking, they talk about the two supernatural sides, Angel and Demon, and Nightbringer seems to want to force Solomon to make a choice between them. Lose his humanity, maybe?

I'm not quite willing to say that Nightbringer is a demon just yet, at least not one of the ones we normally encounter. Something about it seems... older. More powerful than that. But we'll have to wait for more info.

My crackpot theory?

Solomon has made a deal with Nightbringer in order to go back in time and do... something. He's after something. Nightbringer agreed, but dragged MC along as collateral for Solomon to get it done within a certain amount of time or makes sure he honors his part of the bargin. Barbatos knows this, either because he is linked to in some way to Nightbringer or saw it happen in the doorway, and is disgusted by his actions but unable to speak about it due to the pact. Or, you know. That's our present Barbie also dragged along for the ride and he's pissed that he's been essentially hijacked and taken away from present Diavolo, but forbidden to speak about it.

[radish-club]

Whelp, I guess she's a goner and this is the last we'll see of this Victoria girl.

[givemewallywestorgivemedeath]

Some panels from the new Flash writer that I really liked:

Wally's imposter syndrome! It rears its head once again! Man, Wally was working on a PhD in Physics and yet he still thinks he's an idiot. He's the Flash and he's saved the world a million times and yet he still thinks Barry hung the stars.

Wally casually being really fucking smart and downplaying it. This fills me with joy to see.

Wally is often played off as the 'dumb one' in the Flash family because Barry and Jay are scientists, Bart's a certified child genius, Jesse has a doctorate and Ace was valedictorian. Hell, Wally often plays it up himself! He's really good at pretending that he doesn't know what's going on (like how he played the idiot in front of the 'hot' scientist and got her to explain the 'big words' to him when he was a Physics student working on his PhD) but man! He really does know what's going on. He really really does! And that doesn't get noticed very often.

I love to see a deep understanding of their powers! Wally's aura got stripped? Whelp. No air, no sound, a lot of friction burns and injuries, ect. Without his aura Wally is subject to the real world implications of superspeed and that's INCREDIBLY PAINFUL!

And finally! Wally being in such deep denial over his powers developing yet again. Love it. That's such a classic Wally West thing. It's great.

Anyway, I have to say, from this issue at least, that the new Flash writer understands Wally's character and Wally's powers. I like that a lot. However (and this is a whole different post) I have a lot of concerns about this new writer not understanding Linda's character. But we'll see with time i guess.

[dirtyoldmanhole]

made it past black flames... gunter fans know what that means. :'))))

et iz emotional pain time!!

anyway it was cool the description text for the chapter said "descend on valla" while it had "floating isle" right there on the location box.

whack geography there you have, fates!

i suppose it makes sense in terms of "descending down into the bottomless canyon" but since i'm doing an unsubtle amount of parallels to [valla = the underworld] for Symbolic Fic Reasons it was neat to see the game itself nod towards that versus an ultimately less descriptive word like "fell down the canyon".

you ever think how that sky was likely the last thing gunter thought he was going to see the first time he fell down? :') and then what he must feel like to be kinda forced to do it all over again? :'))))

speaking of the literal devil....

[internal screaming]

god this second rev playthrough is going to emotionally wreck me WORSE than the first playthrough, and that one pretty much broke my brain as is!!!!

anyway this is the first shot you see of gunter in-game since... I think it was right before the wind tribe chapter where you fought the "faceless"? i'm pretty sure I would have screenshotted it had there been another one.

i also think it's really interesting you don't see him next to azura, which feels like it'd make sense considering both of them, you, and jakob had already been down in the bottomless canyon. (ngl jakob got shafted in these little map scenes, he feels like he should be there more.)

anyway, very subtle yellow flag number one for what's coming up.

the royals have their one obligatory moment of sane 'wtf we ain't jumping down no canyon' reasoning. gunter gets this kind of random 'hey i'm alive still remember me' line for the players who aren't single-brain cell'd gunterfuckers (:P) :

corrin reveals she's prepared to sacrifice herself to valla's curse (you die if you mention anything about the otherworldly kingdom) to reveal to everyone exactly who the enemy is----

(....OUFFF can you imagine gunter's moment of panic there.)

-- everyone trades a few lines about trusting corrin, after wanting her to order them to jump.

they jump. first, hilariously enough.

so this is probably the clearest shot we'll ever get of Scarlet's flower. hold that thought for future Plot Reasons.

(i also do think it's a little interesting / a flub that the cinematographers had gunter already jump in the bottomless canyon--Scarlet and Corrin trade 3-4 lines before they jump too. then again i suppose if he was still sticking around at this point the whole "who killed scarlet" jig would be up way before it was actually resolved.)

speaking of, i still can't believe i fucking called it with possessed!gunter killing scarlet the first go around. :') all i knew beforehand is he got possessed somewhere and there was something whack with his family.

here we goooo......

whelp whelp whelp

THIS REALLY HITS DIFFERENT WHEN YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHO IT IS

GEE I WONDER

control your kinky af boytoy corrin!!! safe word is anankos!!!!!

(if you squint, you can see how the game uses anankos' cloaked model -- privately i think they should have used the great knight model since it would have been an infinitesimal 'blink and you miss it' hint but an absolute genius bonus the second time. just stick the helmet on if you don't want to give everything away. )

something exquisitely painful: guess who targeted corrin first, before scarlet dives in to save her?

:')

... whelp. nice seeing you.

damn even the game ships ryoma/scarlet hardcore.

corrin gets all of 30 seconds to grieve/freak out about scarlet dying and then enemies show up, thankfully followed by allies.

gunter's in the third wave of sprites that show up, the first being corrin, then xander&ryoma.....

... aaand i just noticed he's right next to corrin. :'))))))))))))))))))))

time to roll valla!

[autumnrory]

whelp looks like all but one of the lipid tests are IMPROVED from last year but still not in the ideal range which ya know. figured. guess we'll see what the doctor wants to do but i guess i won't hear from her for a few days so that's fucking superb

[dollsonmain]

Whelp, I've done salon stuff, done some diamond painting, watched a movie that made me sad, didn't get a call nor email about that job, guess I'll go see if this warping method worked out for me... I don't think it did because one side string kept going slack more than the others. But we'll see.

[unfortunate-adventurer]

Treasure chest open! Rogue has acquired the Boots of Streak- Sneaking. A pair of enchanted boots that massively boost one's stealth rolls. Unfortunately they can't be activated unless the wearer has no other clothes on. (Pouches, satchels, and other accessories are still allowed)

"Ooooo, and they're thigh high too! Whelp, guess there's no helping it~" And of go her clothes as she stuffs her outfit into her bag, slipping on the enchanted boots. "Alright, time to take these babies on a test run~ Hmmm, we'll see if I can get from one side of town to the other without getting spotted~"

[rule-number-3]

Do you have any thoughts on Skaras relationship with trolls like Draal, Vendel, ballustra, Blinky, aaarrrgghh, kanjigar and maybe Bagdwella?

I've answered a few of those from time to time but I'm constantly going back and forth on some things in my mind. So I guess we'll call this the definitive Canon for Skára for right now.

Draal - she likes Draal. She thinks he's a good warrior but very childish and too eager to prove himself. He reminds her of another she knows. She's known about him since he was small and comments on it whenever they're around each other, however rarely that is. Draal, however, does not like her. He thinks she's condescending and doesn't trust her motives because she has a bad habit of being cryptic (more on this later).

Vendel - also doesn't fully trust her. He's seen his fair share of fights against Gumm Gumms. Skára likes that about sassy old goat. But, much like all of the "good" trolls, she finds it hard not to give him some trouble. Vendel isn't the type to be intimidated, though, and has more than earned Skara's respect.

Ballustra - is one I've been back and forth on. As warriors, they've met on the battle field more than once and have a semi-mutual respect for one another's battle prowess. She's the one who gave Skára the crack on her cheek.

Blink and Skára do not get along well. She absolutely loves bullying him because it's funny. Blinky has insulted her brutish nature and doesn't like when she gets involved with anything.

Arrrgh - She's known Arrrgh since he was first brought to the Gumm Gumms. He was feisty and playful. She's trained a few whelps in her day, Arrrgh being one of them. She always says she doesn't like kids, but can't help having a soft spot for him. She doesn't blame him for abandoning the Gumm Gumm ways. She says he was always one of the softer ones. Probably one of the few she can and will be genuinely nice to until she starts bullying blinky, then he has to stop her.

Kanjigar - another frequent victim of Skára's antics and bullying. She doesn't much like trollhunters on principal but as she has softened over the years (something she will never admit) she's decided to offer her assistance. However, as she is very much in denial about getting softer in her old age, she disguises whatever help she gives as taunts, riddles or subtle clues - if even that. I have a whole thing that goes into that I just haven't finished writing. On Kanjigars end, he has his apprehensions, but she has actually helped him with some things and he knows she's nicer than she let's on.

Bagdwella has canonically fought in at least the battle of killahead and those skulls aren't just decorations, I've decided. She doesn't really like seeing another old gumm gumm around, but trusts Kanjigar to keep her in check. As for Skára's opinion, she'd say smash.

[otakween]

Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 - Disc 7

There's a mysterious tamer/partner on the inside of the cover of this one. Will there be another crossover omake or are those just new characters...?

Ch. 41

-Neo really reminds me of Yami Bakura with his heavy eye liner and white hair. (Except he's less interesting cuz he was rotten from the start).

(God, Yu-Gi-Oh! could get ugly...)

-Omegamon powering up via the "power of hope" and then the other side characters conveniently being like "we still have things to do here, so we can't go with you, Hideto" felt pretty contrived. I guess whoever wrote this likes to handle a small amount of characters at once and I can respect that.

-Yaoi anatomy spotted. Neo's waist is literally slimmer than his neck. What is this Winx Club!?

Ch. 42

-I stand corrected, we're now cutting back and forth between Hideto and Taichi and the rest of the gang. I like this, keeps the pace quick and the plot interesting.

-Neo's henchmen (Neo Devimon) beating up Omegamon when he was already half dead felt pretty dark. Are they called Neo Devimon because of Neo or is that just an awkward coincidence? lol

Ch. 43

-Jijimon kinda looks like a little furry penis lol. In black and white it's hard to distinguish where his head ends and his body begins.

-What was Birdramon there for (next to Jijimon)? Literally served zero purpose...

-Suddenly they threw all these new digimon at me at once! I had to look up where Callismon's name comes from and apparently it's supposed to be a reference to Callisto. All the new digis are boring to me because they're the buff, robo-cop-esque variety. Meh. (This is why I prefer Pokemon designs, more animal-like and cute compared to digimon's human-like and manly)

Ch. 44

-Whelp, that explains why I've never seen Callismon before, Neo created him! Whenever they introduce these man-made digis, I wonder what their fate will be in terms of reappearances. Will we never see Callismon in another part of the franchise since Neo wouldn't be around? Guess we'll see...

-Not much happened this chapter, just some predictable battling -yawn- a lot of padding in this manga.

Ch. 45

-Boring end to a boring battle. Once again, this just felt like padding.

-Demon's castle looks more like a factory plant than a castle. Ooglay

-Neo is such a sore loser. Every time his minions lose he's like "no, you see, I MEANT to do that. All according to keikaku."

-Digimon Frontier Generation Omake

-This volume ends with a one-shot Frontier cross-over omake. Why did they just skip over Tamers? Oh well...I've never seen Frontier so this is my first exposure to it. Feels backwards...

-What time period is this supposed to take place in? Taichi and Takuya just get yanked out of their own adventures and into a new one. Realistically, shouldn't they be like "uh, I'm kinda busy!" Especially Taichi who was on his way to Demon's castle lol. Maybe time freezes when you go to a parallel world tho...

-So Frontier has humans digivolving? Do they all digivolve into human-like digimon? I hope not...that sounds boring. Also, I guess that means way less characters and higher stakes for the kids? I think I would miss the digimon-human relationships...(Edit: apparently they have a human form and a beast form, but the beast form looked pretty human-like to me so meh).

-So is Babamon parallel world Jijimon or does Babamon also exist in Taichi's world? I bet we'll see them paired up at some point lol

-They really said "I know, brown hair and goggles!" for Tamers' protagonist. -sigh- groundbreaking...

-Zero uses Dragon Impulse, but wasn't that the attack he was supposed to never use again? Fuck his lifespan I guess...

-This manga had some kind of barcode gimmick that I can't use without a toy. Wonder what they do lol...I do think it's a clever gimmick that I would have enjoyed as a kid. It'd probably be a QR code nowadays.

This felt very similar to the Digimon Adventure 02 collab. Fluffy little filler omake where two worlds collide and the kids learn to respect their differences. I'll always enjoy a crossover, even if they are kinda low effort.

[bylightofdawn]

Whelp, I am writing a quick outline of this Post-Order 66 Grey-Depa-Caleb fic and am re-watching TBB ep1 as well as planning on re-reading the Kanan comics.

I guess this fic really is gonna happen now. Pffft. I rarely write actual outlines for fanfics, I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants and go with the vague string of scenes I have circling around in my head sort of writer.

I want to be more organized as a writer but my brain really doesn't work that way most of the time. So we'll see how this goes, I guess.

I kinda lowkey want to slip some of my pro Depa/Grey bias in there cause I do love that pairing but the evil part of my brain is like "'But what if Grey and Styles are both in love with her from afar but don't think they don't stand a chance because she is a Jedi and therefore as far beyond their reach as the moon is in the sky and they settle on a two sad clowns afair where their longing for Depa draws them together. And then Grey has to kill Styles to protect her?"

And I am finding it difficult to come up with a counterargument for this and very-well may lose to my own evil side. I've never actually written clonecest though and I'm high-key unsure if I want to deal with the potential flammers that inevitably come from that.

I have always been pretty neutral on it but have never really written it unless you cound Waxer and Boil in my modern AU where they are definitely not relatec thing. Of course I feel like Waxer/Boil is the gateway cloneship pairing. Pffft. We all love our gay clone dads who adopt their adorable twi'lek kiddo and love to say fuck canon they get to live happily ever after. So I've definitely always espoused a sorta 'do whatever you want' mentality when it comes to clonecest pairings but actually writing it is a little fraught with anxiety for me.

Of course, I'm also a grown-ass woman who has zero problems with telling people they can kindly fuck off if someone does come at me for writing it. But man the shit I've seen in this fandom at times it can be so horribly toxic and wrapped up in pearl-clutching where they are willing to demonize other people just for writing a pairing they don't like.

It's fucking wild. I don't put up with that shit and don't engage with people who do that but even I see it in my little bubble and it blows my mind cause it's fucking pixels and fictional characters. Ya'll do know that, right?

So I dunno, do I go for the painful gut punch here? I guess I'll see when I'm writing this.

I also need to edit the next chapter of Seeds For the Future but uggggggggh I don't wanna.

[zumpietoo]

Has Amy told people in dm's what happens in the first 2 episodes yet? If there are leaks, we'll know exactly who they came from.

Oooohhhh....touche!!! Whelp, guess we should see what Rose is posting, huh???

[conspirwbytheorist-inactive]

Time to Say Goodbye

Hey guys. So. It's err, been a while, but I figured it was way past time to make it official: I've decided to completely leave RW/BY and the FN/DM. Sorry it took like. . . 7+ months(?) to post this. When I took a break to gather my feelings, I had intended to say goodbye in a month tops, but then life got in the way. Hit a point where I thought it might be easier to just abandon this blog without a word and move on but. . . It just felt wrong to leave without saying anything. Even though the show isn’t for me anymore, my time in this fandom meant a lot to me and it felt wrong to turn tail without some form of closure, you know?

So, if you’re interested in any of that, feel free to read below the cut. No real “hard hitting” analysis. Just me processing my complicated feelings and how I came to realize the show isn’t for me anymore. This blog will remain up for folks to stumble across, but since it was my main, after I finish tweaking my name and appearance I will be off to a new blog and will no longer be able to be reached here.

Thank y’all for everything. This was my first active fandom experience. Definitely a complicated one, but not one I regret having taken the plunge into. It was very nice while it lasted, but it’s time for me to move on. Wishing you all the best.

 -Grim

Choosing to leave the fandom sucks and was a difficult decision to come to. This was the first show I ever felt passionate enough to participate in its fandom. I made good friends and found support here that was invaluable for getting me through 2020. Not to mention how much of my own personal stuff it helped me process and work through. This show meant a lot to me. I only came in at the tail end of V6, but it had so much heart and charm and love put into it that I couldn't help but hop on for the ride. But, compared the 6 volumes that got me hooked, 7 and 8 felt. . .hollow. Lacking depth. Focusing on constantly ratcheting up the plot and stakes instead of devoting time to developing the characters that previously drove its story.

I came to RW/BY because of its characters. Learning the backstories behind them, hearing the writers and actors talk about them, it was abundantly clear that they truly loved them. And that meant a lot to me. Yang's story, her personality, her flaws and trauma, they hit so comically close to my own that I had no choice but to finally see myself in a character. Unlike other shows, CR/WBY cared enough to let her be messy, to let her be complicated - angry and emotional and impulsive but still compassionate and smart and thoughtful - in a loving way that didn't make me feel shame. I received a lovely anon a while back thanking my Yang analysis specifically for inspiring them to start analyzing and being invested in the show themselves. I don't know who you are and I'm sorry for never responding, but that meant so much for me to read.

Analyzing Yang was an exercise in self-love for me. While I struggle to be kind to myself, I felt nothing but compassion for her. Having this character, having her be visibly flawed and complicated in a way so similar to my own insecurities and being handled by a team that obviously loved her for it, was something I'd never felt before. In analyzing her story, I could finally put words to my own traumas without the shame and judgement I had felt before. Each and every one of those posts was an exercise in vulnerability for me and to hear that that inspired someone to explore their own passions means more to me than I can express. Especially since I know there are so many others in the FN/DM who have had similar relationships to characters as me. Some with Yang, as well, others with We/iss, Whit/ley, Penny, Raven, Ci/nder, you name it - there's something about how the characters were handled that seems to resonate deeply with people. If my taking the dive to openly talk about mine encouraged you to take a chance, then I have no regrets.

But, that being said, I need to accept that the show can no longer serve that purpose for me and move on. The main reason I felt comfortable enough to be so emotionally invested was the trust I put in this team to do right by its characters. That even if the plot got rough, they'd prioritize doing their stories justice. Penny's death shattered that faith. Not because they decided to kill her but because of how they went about doing it. I don't mind a writer killing off a character I love so long as it does right by them. As much as Pyr/rha's death stings I still think it was the right choice: she was an idealist and those ideals and convictions ended with her death. We saw this. We spent time with her, learned her perspective, to the point where, by the time she died, it felt fitting for the character.

Penny didn't get that. Despite being bumped to an honorary main for a whole season, Penny didn't talk much. She reacted to things, sure. Voiced some doubts and worries. But, outside of her desire to be seen as a person, not a tool, we didn't get her perspective on much else. To the point that, by the time she died, we didn't have any clear idea as to why. Sure, she had this weird thing about immediately asking people to kill her during the hack and risking herself for friends, but it wasn't really examined. From what we saw it looked like Ruby's pep talks were doing the trick. Did she miss the mark somehow? Did Penny see herself as less than for some reason? We'll never know because the narrative didn't consider important enough to include. The same way it didn't consider it important enough to include exploring her emotions around becoming physically human. As a trans person, I can attest that there are a lot of feelings wrapped up in body stuff (even when it involves things that affirm your identity), Penny's had a central tension between her humanity and her body for a long time, why not was there not so much as a throwaway line to acknowledge it?

It's true that time constraints are a real factor in storytelling and producing media. No matter how grand the intention, at the end of the day you can only do as much as time and resources allow. Choices about what to prioritize have to be made. But, that doesn't change the fact that they knew this was going to happen, knew Penny was going to die, and still made the choice not to prioritize making sure the narrative focused enough on her internal motivations to connect that death with a greater character arc. Maybe they meant to, maybe they didn't. But without that context and internal motivation. Penny's death feels like something to advance the plot (a tool, if you will) more than anything having to do with her as a character. It’s shocking and upsetting, sure, but lacks any of the deeper meaning needed to bring catharsis.

Think the difference between Adam and Yang’s semblance, if you will (to give a visual demonstration). On the surface, both function the same way: they take pain/damage meant for them, store it up, and transform it into an attack to deal more damage. But, beneath that, they have one key difference: Adam doesn’t feel the pain he weaponizes. He doesn’t have to. He takes it in his sword, tucks it away and that’s the end of it. He doesn’t need to understand or empathize with why it hurts to weaponize it. All he needs to do is fling it out at the right time.

Being “shocking” or “upsetting” in and of itself doesn’t take much skill or effort. You just kind of need to watch people, see what hurts them or makes them the most uncomfortable, and just do that. Think jump scares, or shock comics, or even just internet trolls: they don’t really have refined tactics. Jump scares rely on activating fight or flight reflexes (hence why the scare usually doesn’t linger), most shock comedy quickly devolves into a contest for who knows the nastiest slurs, and trolls often have prompts that they will use to spam accounts until someone responds. Doesn’t really take a lot of work. You don’t need a degree to realize “hey, calling people slurs makes them angry” just like you don’t need one to realize that having a beloved character semi-graphically kill themselves without prompting on screen is going to hurt people.

Nuanced tragedy takes work. It takes a willingness to understand why something hurts, requires being able to empathize with an audience and to actually feel, in some way, what their experience may be like. Unlike Adam, who can dish damage on a dime, Yang has to physically take in that pain first. She has to actually take the hit, feel the hurt and internalize it before she can do anything with it. Because of the toll it takes, she doesn’t get to use her semblance left and right, she has to be smart about it. Decide which key moments are worth the risk and which she has to hold back on. And, while it may be less efficient than Adam’s method - all damage without having to feel - it’s helped shape her into the heart of her team. She knows what it’s like to hurt, to have to feel pain in order to move forward. Unlike Adam, who sees it only as weakness, a point of pride that he not feel it, she doesn’t judge or exploit people’s flaws, she accepts them. Makes them feel connected in a way they hadn’t before.

RW/BY stood out because it did a similar thing. Unlike so many other big-budget films and shows coming out nowadays, you could just feel the amount of love put into it. Instead of doing what Marvel, or the CW or so many large companies do and prioritize speed and keeping characters at a surface level, it stopped. Took the time to ask and analyze and attempt to empathize with why they might be that way and take care to give them what they need to grow as people. They very easily could have taken Yang, seen this massive mix of seemingly contradictory personality traits, and tried to “fix” her. Take away her faults, have her “get over” her anger, paint her as an emotional idiot and had someone take those away - essentially center her arc on getting rid of the “bad” things in her personality. Lord knows the reason I hated Yang at first is because I’d seen so many other shows do the same. But, they didn’t. They recognized those faults as a key part of her. Centered her arc on finding balance instead of perfection. Let her stay impulsive and scared and aggressive but also intelligent and badass and caring all at the same time. Just as they didn’t try to “fix” Blake’s quietness or Ruby’s optimism or Wei/ss’s coldness. Where the show may have struggled technically (especially in earlier seasons) or in making grand statements, it excelled in the small things - in working with its characters needs and wants to create very powerful emotional beats that resonated with a lot of people in a way they hadn’t before.

So it was bizarre going from that approach all the way from V3 through V6 to suddenly shifting the focus in V7. Trading small, intimate moments with characters for sweeping shots of the new engine’s capabilities. Relying on blood and gore and theatrical shots to give weight to important deaths (Cl/over, Vine, Penny, Hound) instead of doing so through character significance. Completely dropping character aspects that had seemingly been building up to Atlas (Blake and the fa/unus, We/iss and her family, Blake and Yang navigating a relationship) and leaving those characters with nothing else to do.

Like. I’m not gonna sit here and lecture whoever the heck has made it this far about how this is “objectively awful” or the show “sucking now”. There’s nothing inherently bad with any of this. I recognize that some people really enjoy having a lot of action and a plot with higher stakes and seeing new lore and monsters and such. It just. . . is not at all what I enjoy.

Looking back on these volumes, most of the plot beats didn’t surprise me. They’ve been saying that they’d mapped out thru V9 from the start, and looking at the isolated beats themselves, I’ll believe them. They add up. But, the thing is, I don't care about the plot for plot's sake. I don't want Ironwood to be a villain because the outline said he should. That's boring. I want him to be a villain because it shows how even a seemingly "good" ideology can justify evil when taken to an absolute extreme. I don't want Blake and Yang to just kiss for validation: I want them to have a complicated romantic relationship to show how they help each other grow as people. The beat doesn't interest me. What it means for the characters does and without that, there isn’t much reason for me to stick around.

And, like, I don't want to blame CR/WBY. Like I said, for six solid volumes they did amazingly by these characters and I do believe, at some level, they still genuinely care and this is still very personal to them. Even as much as I disliked these volumes, there were still little bits (R/en and Nora's arcs, C/inder's backstory/focus, Penny getting powers, and Yang and Ruby's discussion of Summer) where that heart still shone through.

Looking at the timing and how quickly the shift came about (between 6 and 7 right after RTA went through massive restructuring following multiple scandals) I suspect some form of corporate interference. A lot of the things that, if included, would have addressed these issues (Blake and Yang's relationship, mentions of fau/nus, examining Jacques or James' roles/motivations) seemed very much like what a businessperson trying to sell to their idea of stereotypical cishet, white, American male anime fans would tell writers to cut to avoid controversy. As does the new policy of doubling down on every writing decision instead of the previous willingness to own up to mistakes. Not to mention that the reason the “technically perfect, depth lacking” approach is so common strictly because it does make writing so efficient. Like. . . yeah. Would be very surprised if there wasn’t any of that there.

Also wouldn't be surprised if after 3+ years of being grilled by fans M&K just kind of burned out and started handing the reigns off for Eddy and Kiersi to take over starting V10. Weird pattern in V8 especially where a. . .disproportionate amount of the "payoff" episodes (episodes whose events contained major events that ended arcs and steered the tone/course of the narrative and plot) were written almost exclusively by Eddy. Combined with him being the most vocal defender of a lot of the writing decisions that felt most disjointed from the older volumes (Clover’s death, Penny’s death, the whole finale) makes me wonder if they're passing the torch. Which, can't really blame them for. I. . .can imagine getting multitudes of hatred and death threats for the show you're continuing specifically to honor your late friend isn't exactly good motivation to continue. But it doesn't change the fact that whatever's going on, I think this is the new normal and this new normal is not for me.

Doesn’t help that it unfortunately reached a point where I don’t think anything they do going forward could “make up for” some of the decisions that were made. Bringing Penny back won’t fix how they handled her death. In fact, for me, it would kind of make it worse. If she had to die in such a bloody, gruesome way, I want it to be for a reason. If she was coming back, they could have kept her a robot and saved the human thing for later. Have that heartbreaking moment with Pi/etro bringing her back at the cost of his own life instead of having to make up some new and magical loophole to resurrect a full human. If she had to be human for that death, it better have been for a reason other than for the shock of showing red blood. Similarly, even if Blake and Yang’s relationship gets confirmed, doesn’t fix the fact that they had no qualms reverting them into a couple of co-dependent stereotypes rather than complete the step that the narrative itself set up to be crucial to each of their character developments.

Do I hope I'm proven wrong? Yeah! Absolutely! I would love to check in out of idle curiosity a few years from now only to find out I was wrong and they somehow pulled it off and actually it turned out to not be half bad. I have no judgement on anyone who's still sticking around. But, for me, the potential emotional toll that the writers staying this path may have far outweighs the potential benefit that I might get if things pan out.

Like, I haven't kept up on the fanbase or show. Most I've gotten is from scrolling through my feed while taking breaks trying to write this over the past few months. But the moment I saw the bit of V8 commentary where Eddy admits to throwing Yang off first simply because it would "hurt the most" I knew I needed to rip off this bandaid now instead of waiting for the perfect words. There's no love in that. No care or empathy. Not only that, it ignores the fact that the show literally already did this in V3-V6. We've seen Yang fall. We've seen everyone react to Yang falling, come together when she gets back up. To do that all over again only reinforces the sense that the characters have become stagnant, or at least that he is not interested in pushing them in interesting directions. As much as it sucks to drop something that carried me through for so long, and as much as I struggle to let things go, I need to accept that whatever this is, it's no longer for me.

I don’t regret it, my time spent here. Much as I dislike the current direction, these characters will always hold a special place for me. My partner and I will probably continue to slip little hints of purple and gold in wherever we can. I’m 1000% certain I’ll get the “scathing eyes” quote from the yellow trailer tattooed on me at some point. Will still probably think of a sad, angry bird watching but fearing connection when I think of my own distant mother. Little things, you know? Bits that are mine now because of the meaning I’ve imbued them with. No one can take those from me and I’ll treasure them for a while yet.

I'll be fine. One reason it took me so long to write this is that I've been working on applying to law school. The processing I did here, along with my therapist, friends and loving partner, helped me to become much more comfortable in myself. For the first time in a long time, as shit as the world is, I feel I have purpose. I'm moving forward. Healing. It's. . .nice.

Well. I think I’ve done more than enough rambling at this point. If you’ve managed to make it this far, thank you so much. (I hope I managed to communicate something, lol) Kind of long, but I think I finally feel the sense of closure I needed to move on. All the best

-Grim (fka, conspirwbytheorist)

[boyfriem-moved]

cursed shinoa who will mock you for a thousand years

[nostomannia]

We are mutuals, and to be frank I am not smart either, this is taken from another source and is by no means a riddle -FC

Me squinting hard at the ppl i follow

[demonslayedher]

How Does Eating Humans Work?

Hello, Gotou here. We’re shamelessly borrowing from the format of a KnY Fanbook #2 comic to launch an investigation into demon metabolism and development by crossing the Sanzu River again to interview demons in the underworld. While we’ll be using canon materials as a base, the analysis and conjecture herein is personal, so we ask for your understanding. Also, please note that consuming any food in the underworld will make you unable to return, and we cannot promise your safety even though the interview subjects are dead, so please come along at your own risk.

Some of the questions we’d like to answer are, why do demons need to eat humans? How much do they need to eat to survive? Are there factors that influence how eating humans makes them stronger? If they don’t want to kill humans, what are their other options? We’ve rounded up some special guests below the cut (hidden for length and grossness), everyone from the lowly Temple Demon to the lovely Tamayo, to see what their actions in canon might tell us.

First, a review of what canon tells us, mostly as summarized in Fanbook #2: 1. With one exception named Yushirou, all demons were created by Kibutsuji Muzan, for his own purposes. They all have some amount of his blood, and can be divided into four classes depending on how powerful they are. From top to bottom, the Upper Moons, the Lower Moons, demons with special abilities, and other demons without any special characteristics. 2. Demons may be stronger depending on how much of Kibutsuji Muzan’s blood they have. Most beings’ cannot handle a large amount of his blood, and it will rupture the cells and that being will die, but there are demons who adapt well to it. 3. Typically, sunlight is the only way to kill a demon, by either bathing them in sunlight or cutting of their head with a Nichirin blade. However, there are powerful demons for whom chopping off their head does not work, and if it’s strong enough, demons can also be killed by wisteria poison.

4. Demons eat human blood and flesh. The more they eat, the stronger they become, and the faster their regenerative abilities become. Some humans have “Marechi,” a rare blood type, which is especially nutritious to demons, and eating one Marechi is the equivalent of eating several humans.

That’s an interesting thing we’d like to come back to, especially since we’re looking for quantitative information about how demons gain nutrition (though I have my doubts we'll get enough for statistical analysis). As an interesting note, Fanbook #2 also tells us that if demons try to consume the same edibles humans do, they’ll vomit it back up.

I’m told that Miss Tamayo drinks tea, though. That’ll be an interesting question for later. In my notes, it seems she’s also explained to Tanjirou back in Chapter 15 that demons will normally go berserk if they go a long time without consuming any blood or flesh. Berserk is one thing, but I wonder if they can starve to death? We’ll see if these canon clues will lead us to anything. We’ll begin now in an interview format. Hopefully this will go smoothly, but I’ve got a feeling it won’t. First up, we’ve the Temple Demon.

Temple: Who were you calling ‘lowly’ just now? Up there, above the cut?

Gotou: That was in a literal sense, not having Blood Techniques means you’re in the bottom common tier of demons.

Temple: Argh. Fine. What do you want to know?

Gotou: In Chapter 2, you were spotted with three human victims. However, it seems you left their bodies mostly intact and only ate small parts instead of consuming one full human at a time. Could you comment on this?

Temple: I’d have gotten to more later if that whelp with the strong legs didn’t interrupt me! Who’s got time to eat entire humans anyway? I went for the easy stuff first.

Gotou: I see. It appears you might had focused on key organs, like the heart and the liver. Would you say these are especially nutritionally dense?

Temple: I guess. If I’m going to eat humans, I’m going to start with what’s worth bothering to digest. Blood’s easier on the stomach, so that’s what I was busy with on the lady there.

Gotou: Then it takes effort to digest? Hmm. Let’s come back to this later. How many humans would you say you consumed, including these three?

Temple: Not a lot… I tried to get a variety so I could get stronger faster, but…

Gotou: I’ll put down a guess as ten or less. Let’s move on to someone who has a sharper memory for numbers. One of our longer-lived guests at Mt. Fujikasane for 47 years, the Hand Demon. While most of the demons on the mountain had only eaten two or three humans, you’ve eaten a whole 50 of the children who headed into the Final Selection, didn’t you?

Hand: Yes, that’s right. It was hard at first since I wasn’t very strong, and the demons usually all went crazy there eating each other, just like that one brat who got away in Chapter 7 said. If you could manage to kill any of the kids, you had the other demons to fight off to even get a piece to yourself. That was enough to get me by, and stronger, little by little. Your body learns to make your meals last, and make the most of what you can get. I usually only had a bite of one child a year, can you imagine how horrible that was? Most demons who survive usually figure out some way to develop and survive better, and once my cells found something that worked for me, I kept doing it. I got really good at snatching away prey from other demons, and soon enough I was a bigger threat than any of them. None of them could, you might say, lay a hand on me.

Gotou: That’s an interesting point about self-development. A demon named Nezuko was spent two years doing that in her sleep.

Hand: She must have had a big meal before that!

Gotou: Well, anyway. It seems that in near starving conditions, your metabolism made the most of what you had, leading to the most efficient use of whatever food was available to you.

Hand: That’s right, I got really good at it. Wasn’t always pretty, but I made it work. I got to a point where I could go two years without eating and still keep my wits about me while the other demons were going mad. But I chose to eat. I liked to keep my appetite for specific children.

Gotou: That smile is not reassuring. Some humans taste better than others, I guess?

Hand: That’s for sure. This one kid tasted awful, like rust and man sweat! I still don’t have that disgusting taste out of my mouth! But he was one of my more satisfying meals, so I ate more of him.

Gotou: Then why would you… nevermind, I don’t like that smile, no further questions. While I had hoped to keep these interviews focused on quantities of humans consumed, it does seem personal taste is worth asking about. I had tried to invite a Swamp Demon from Chapter 11, but it kept arguing with itself and it felt like I’d be wasting my time. The one definite thing I learned was that this demon is picky, with a distinct preference for 16-year-old girls. Based on the number of trinkets he kept, it seems he had consumed at least seventeen of them, including several in one town. Sheesh, that’s sort of a rough mission to send a first-timer on. I’ve got a more cooperative guest here to discuss her tastes, a Snake Demon who, according to Chapter 188, has a special taste for baby flesh.

Snake: Thank you for having me here. It’s good to be appreciated again.

Gotou: Did you only eat babies?

Snake: Goodness, no. Babies are delicious, but they aren’t very nutritious. And their skulls certainly aren’t that big, the ones I lounged around with were from the people whom I killed and stole from. But you know the nice thing about baby skulls? They’re still soft. They take a long time to digest, but I can swallow them whole.

Gotou: Like… like a snake, then. Sorry, I’m a little ill hearing that. Let’s back up, were all those skulls the remains of adults you ate, then?

Snake: Meh, I ate some of them of better-looking ones, but most of them I only killed. I could usually kill a lot more at a time than I could bother eating, my killing record was fifty women all at once.

Gotou: And you didn’t find that wasteful?

Snake: Wasteful? Not at all. I wasn’t exactly in dire straits, I lived a more luxurious life than most demons do. That meant I could afford to wait for a truly delicious meal, like how you humans might leave something in a slow-cooker to enjoy the perfect combination of doneness and tenderness, plated in the most appetizing of ways.

Gotou: I guess demons and humans are similar in that regard.

Snake: I’m so glad you can relate! Then you understand the frustration of a meal you’ve be preparing for years opening up the slow-cooker and running away right when they were just about done.

Gotou: I have never had that experience.

Snake: I’ll get you, my pretty. And your little snake, too.

Gotou: I think we might have gotten a little off-topic here. It does seem digesting humans comes with some difficulty. I’d like to invite the Drum Demon in next. Your name is Kyougai, I hear?

Kyougai: !!

Gotou: Kyogai, right?

Kyougai: You’ve heard of me! You know my name!

Gotou: I happened to, yes.

Kyougai: What have you heard???

Gotou: That you were kicked out of the Lower Moons for being unable to consume enough humans.

Kyougai: Oh. ……..yeah, that’s me.

Gotou: I thought demons go berserk if they go a long time without consuming humans. Wouldn’t that make an inability to consume them problematic?

Kyougai: It wasn’t that I couldn’t eat them! Like I said in Chapter 24, I had to in order to sustain myself, just like any other demon. But, at some point, I couldn’t eat as much as I used to. That happens to humans too, doesn’t it? When you just can’t stomach anymore?

Gotou: You mean like when you’ve overeaten? In a human’s case that feeling may go away within a few hours.

Kyougai: Sort of like that, but you know, humans reach a time when nothing is appetizing or the thought of eating makes them feel sick, right? Isn’t that the human condition?

Gotou: …uh… maybe if they have a medical condition? Or anxiety? Do demons get anxiety? Or eating disorders?

Kyougai: I… I don’t know. I just wasn’t good enough.

Gotou: I think it’s plenty good if you stopped eating humans. Though to have developed Blood Techniques and been a Lower Moon in the first place, you must had eaten a great number of them.

Kyougai: You think I’m great?

Gotou: What?

Kyougai: No, sorry, I was getting ahead of myself. It’s true, I used to be able to eat as many as the other Lower Moons always consumed. Our stomachs were stronger, you might say. Demons got strong by eating humans, and then the more you did that the better you usually got at it, so the strong ones would eat more and more and keep getting stronger and stronger. At least, that’s how it usually worked. I’ve seen other demons below me reached that point too, where they feel the drive to eat, but then they have trouble digesting it for a long time, so they don’t wind up eating that many people.

Gotou: Then it would make sense to eat the most nutritionally dense parts first.

Kyougai: Or a Marechi.

Gotou: Yes, or a Marechi.

Kyougai: It was a great idea, wasn’t it?

Gotou: I cannot condone any consumption of humans as a good idea.

Kyougai: I knew it. I’m nothing. Go ahead, stomp all over everything I ever tried to accomplish.

Gotou: I think I’m going to move on to my next interviewee now. It looks like we’ve got… oh, would you look at this? Lower Moon One. Enmu, I believe.

Enmu: You can believe whatever you want. I’m happy to help.

Gotou: I don’t need any help, thanks. I’m curious, since you were one of the stronger demons out there, it seems you had a stronger capacity for consuming humans.

Enmu: I did, I was always careful and paced myself so the Demon Slayers wouldn’t notice me. I took my time. I liked to enjoy e-e-e-a-c-h one.

Gotou: Then you had tastes too? Like babies, or 16-year-old girls?

Enmu: I could season any human to my liking. They’re all very easy to prepare.

Gotou: I’m still trying to get quantitative data. Can you tell me at least a rough estimate of how many humans you consumed?

Enmu: I told this more precisely to that boy with the earrings back in Chapter 59, and I can tell you this too. At my best, I could had eaten over two-hundred people at once if I took my time.

Gotou: OH MY GAW----sorry, I dropped my pen. Two hundred, at once?

Enmu: Yes. If I had just. Had. A little. More. Time.

Gotou: Clearly there is a huge difference between what common demons are capable of and what the Twelve Moons are capable of.

Daki: Psh, those were all any random common people. That’s nothing to brag about.

Gotou: Excuse me, and you are?

Daki: Daki, Upper Moon Six. You want something really impressive, you talk to the Upper Moons.

Gotou: I’m sorry, I don’t see you on my list.

Daki: What! Your list is stupid. Look me in the eyes, I’m Upper Moon Six!

Gotou: Very well, then. What can you tell me about your diet, Miss Upper Moon Six?

Daki: That’s more like it. It’s true that digestion takes a while, and takes some effort. Even though we Upper Moons may have eaten hundreds of people in our lifetimes, it’s not as if we gorge ourselves. The clever ones among us save prey for later to eat when we feel ready for it.

Gotou: Food storage? How do you keep them fresh?

Daki: You leave them still alive, numbskull. Nobody wants to eat something cold, that’s gross.

Gotou: I see, so that’s why demons prefer to go after new kills instead of saving what they’ve already managed to kill. That also might explain why the demons on Mt. Fujikasane wouldn’t had eaten many humans, if they found long dead ones in edible.

Daki: You want to know the real secret to eating humans? You can eat what you find tastes good, sure. But to get stronger, you eat strong people. Like your Corp members, the ones besides chumps like you? Using all that Breath makes their muscles really lean and potent, it’s like they come offering themselves as protein bars for us.

Gotou: You make them sound like a fad diet…

Daki: The real secret is eating Pillars. Besides Marechi, they’re the strongest meals out there. Guess how many I’ve eaten?

Gotou: I don’t have the data to make an educated guess.

Daki: Then get educated! Look back at Chapter 88! I’ve eaten seven Pillars, and my brother has eaten fifteen!

Gotou: Your brother? Who is he, then, Upper Moon Five?

Daki: What? Ew. Gross. Gross! No way, ew!

Gotou: Hmm… eating Pillars, huh? Well, I can think of one Pillar who was…

Douma: Me too!

Gotou: Speak of the devil.

Douma: Actually, we Upper Moons can! And he's not Satan, that's not how this works. But I guess Muzan-sama’s curse doesn’t effect us now. Ask me anything you want!

Gotou: That Chapter 143 reference was such a rude entrance. I understand that Pillars are particularly nutritious—

Douma: Oh, please don’t misunderstand! I don’t even eat all the Pillars I’ve encountered. There was the one Flower Pillar who got away from me, but some of the boy pillars I just leave around. What’s really the key to consistent nutritional intake is women! It’s really unhealthy for a demon not to get enough women in their diet, that’s why even if you’re only looking for Marechi or Pillars, your metabolism is going to get thrown out of whack with sudden big meals. You grow a stronger metabolism with consistency, I believe!

Gotou: If I could stop you there, I had an image from Chapter 142 I preferred to focus on for this case study. I see you keep a wide collection of skulls, from victims whom I assume you ate.

Douma: Yes, they all stayed together inside me for eternity, but the room looked lonely without décor.

Gotou: It seems other demons usually go for nutritionally dense organs like hearts or livers, or easy to digest parts of the body, perhaps just blood sometimes. Eating the entire victim, bones and all, doesn’t seem to be the norm.

Douma: Bones are organs too, you know! That’s where blood is made, at its freshest. They do take more practice in learning to digest, and I had to find a way around not having to chew them, but the bone marrow is very, very good for you, so I make sure to consume it frequently. It may take more time and it causes some of my followers to panic more while they wait, though, that’s a bit of a downside. Oh, and I guess bones can make good storage for some sneaky poison. Even fingernails and hair follicles, who’d have thought?

Gotou: I don’t think hair would have much nutritional value in the first place. In all my years, I can never recall seeing a victim with their hair eaten.

Douma: Tsk, tsk! Clearly you haven’t done much metabolism research in advance. I was really impressed by how well Shinobu-chan understood how my digestion would work. Eating hair can do amazing things! Isn’t that right, Genya-kun?

Genya: ?????????

Gotou: Genya-kun!?

Genya: What am I doing here?

Gotou: I don’t think you’re supposed to be here. Isn’t there, you know, another side? The other direction?

Genya: What are you doing here? Did you die?

Gotou: I’m here doing research on demon metabolism and how they get stronger by consuming flesh.

Douma: What can you tell us about what up with having your friend feed you hair you found on the floor in Chapters 170-171, Genya-kun?

Genya: I’m not a demon!! Why the hell are you asking me?

Douma: ‘Hell’! Haha, good one!

Gotou: How do you even know about that? You were dead almost a full volume before that. And Genya’s different, he’s not a case study in how demons consuming humans works!

Douma: Are you certain?

Gotou: I hear the term get thrown around a lot that he’s ‘half-demon’, but—

Genya: I’m not a demon!!!

Gotou: --how would that even work? That would imply that one of his parents had to be a demon, and that—

Genya: What did you say about my mother!?!

Gotou: What? Nothing—

Genya: You say that to my face! You just trying saying something about my mother to my face! My mother never actually ate any flesh, you got that? She doesn’t deserve any of this!

Gotou: Genya, calm down, what—

Douma: I see we’re learning nothing about hair at all. Maybe Kokushibou-dono would provide better commentary on that?

Genya: Mom? Mo-o-o-o-m? Are you down here somewhere?

Gotou: And there he goes… wait, did you say Kokushibou? Upper Moon One? Oh no—he—he didn’t want me bothering him, he did not agree to another interview—

Douma: He-e-e-e-e-y, Kokushibou-dono! How did that work with Genya-kun eating your hair? Hair can be nutritious, right?

Kokushibou: You would gain… nothing… from consuming human hair… it’s not… flesh… you wasted your energy digesting it…

Douma: Aww, cutting it off them would had been sad, though.

Kokushibou: Demon hair… like demon weapons… is made… from our unique cells. It’s not dead… like human locks. Because that boy ate my live cells… it affected him…

Gotou: Yes, because he had a very, very unique metabolism, analyzed separately in this post. To be perfectly clear, Genya is completely human with cells that could temporarily transform, and he never consumed human flesh.

Kokushibou: He… vexes me…

Gotou: Um… while I’ve got you here, you’re one of the longest lived demons, clocking in at over three, maybe four centuries. Do you have any estimate of how many humans you’ve consumed?

Kokushibou: ……I see in… Chapter 100… that you are 23 years old?

Gotou: That is correct.

Kokushibou: Do you bother… remembering how many meals… you’ve had in a mere 23 years?

Gotou: I’m very sorry to have bothered you.

Douma: Kokushibou-dono’s ancient compared to the rest of us! But if I tried, I could probably recall. Let’s see. One, two, three, four…

Gotou: Is that? Your finger in your brain? Oh—ohhh—that is disgusting---I really don’t need to know numbers that badly, please stop. Is there maybe just some average you can give me for the Upper Moons instead? Like how many you’d eat in a month?

Douma: I wish I could, but a certain someone was an annoying outlier and didn’t like to eat so many humans. He made me worry all the time about his health.

Gotou: Really? Who might that be?

Douma: Hello-o-o-o-o-? Akaza-dono? Yoohoo! He spends all his time with his wife now and never answers when I call, it makes me so sad. Akaza-dono did eat humans, plenty of strong ones, but any time he wasn’t under orders from Muzan he liked to spend his time training instead of eating. Fanbook #1 says he did that way more than eating!

Gotou: Training? What sort of training?

Douma: Similar things to what your Corp members did, I imagine. Doing squats, throwing punches, things like that.

Gotou: Then demon muscles had similar function to human muscles, and could be strengthened through hard work? That’s surprising.

Douma: I know, right? I’ll let you in on a secret, I don’t think it was the physically repetition that did anything. I think it was his willpower getting honed and shaping his muscles.

Douma: I had to focus when I acquired new skills too, like breaking down poisons. A lot of sad, lowly demons, like that Hand Demon fellow? They focus as hard as they can in their desperation, or focus on some strong emotion or attachment or whatever, and they grow and develop because of it. Sometimes all their weak bodies can manage is an ugly mutation, but that’s proof enough of how much focus they had.

Gotou: That sheds a lot of light on Nezuko, actually.

Douma: Shed “light” on Nezuko-chan, hahaha! Sunlight! You humans are all so witty!

Gotou: Speaking of willpower, I’ve got one more interview I need to get to down here. Of all the demons I have records of, only Nezuko went her whole time as a demon without consuming any human flesh, although she did go through moments of berserk cravings for it. It’s possible that other demons were killed before they could consume anything, but typically they will consume flesh as soon as possible, which is why its common for their family and close relations to be among the first ones killed. Tomioka-san even mentioned in Chapter 1 that these close relations are especially nutritious.

Gotou: A demon about as old as Kokushibou, if not older, is a special case of her own. She was one of the only demons we know of to have escaped Kibutsuji’s curse and acted in dependently of him, including having created a demon of her own after two hundred years of trying. Most notably to our purposes, she trained herself to subsist on small amounts of blood, after having survived on corpses and wild animals for a time, according to the extensive Taisho Secrets at the end of Volume 21.

Tamayo: I explained this in more detail to Tanjirou-san in Chapter 15, but I went on to purchase blood from poor people, and extracted it in ways that wouldn’t be harmful to them. The one demon I created, Yushirou, could subsist on even less. I gained enough self-control that I could treat injured humans without feeling tempted into a berserk state.

Gotou: I was just talking to Douma about willpower making demons capable of accomplishing new physical developments. Was that how you were able to gain this state? I heard you even enjoy a cup of tea now and then.

Tamayo: Yes, I’ve taken a liking to it. I’d offer you some if not for this, you know, being hell. It’s nothing like the hell I went through when first resisting consuming humans, though. My demon body refused to take anything but fresh human flesh at first, but in the hardest moments, I always remembered a kind demon hunter who said he believed in me and my desire to defeat Kibutsuji Muzan. I believe Nezuko may have summoned her strength to resist the call of her demon cells in a similar way; she knew she had her brother there to rely on. Once she mastered something as remarkable as resisting the need for human flesh, it gave her the freedom to prioritize other developments.

Gotou: You spent centuries researching demon cells, especially how demons may break down and metabolize poisons.

Tamayo: I had not studied the metabolism of poisons until working with Shinobu-san. The medicine we concocted for Kibutsuji was only possible thanks to her work, and I couldn’t had worked with many of those wisteria-based substances on my own. I feel I was only there to fill in the gaps of her brilliant understanding.

Gotou: You’re very humble. I would pass along my thanks and compliments to Shinobu-sama too, but I’m pretty sure she’s not down here. On that note, did Genya-kun go back home?

Tamayo: He did after a nice reunion with his mother just now, it was very sweet. Shizu-san and I get along well, after all, we both carry similar guilt.

Gotou: Wait, was his mother a demon? That means Wind-sama’s mother was too? Wait?? What??

Tamayo: The worst hell I went through, or that any demon has gone through, is to realize what you’ve eaten after the hunger-driven madness clears. Being similar to your own cells, they’re easy on a volatile new anatomy to break down and digest. That’s why many demons may have driven themselves to forget everything all over again, or to twist their personalities to justify the horror, saying that because they ate the hearts of their loved ones and because demon flesh can live forever, then they never truly killed them. The truth always remained untwisted for me, and to this day, it torments me more than anything in this underworld can try.

Gotou: …

Tamayo: You should wake up now, Gotou. You’ve been through a lot; the nightmares must be taxing on your health. Please remember to eat well.