#also yes i'm sure there's at least one other game where the antagonist just wants to blow everything up so you are welcome to @ me w/ that

[legobiwan]

I think what makes Super Paper Mario stand out from many of the other plot-based Mario games is the motivation of the villains. (And no, I have not played all of them, but I'm familiar enough with the major titles to take a leap with this idea here).

You can write a laundry list of bad guys who have wanted to take over the world: Smithy and his gang want to reforge it (literally) in their image. The Shadow Queen wants to rule over a dark, new reality. Cackletta wants the Beanstar to fulfill her crazed wishes of destruction and power. Antasma wants command through the Dream World. Princess Shroob wants, and maybe even needs, to a degree, to siphon off the life force of the Toads in an interesting twist on an alien species' resource issues. In fact, one of the few antagonists we encounter who is not 100% fueled by power-lust is King Boo, who walks a tighrope between a pedestrian desire to rule reality via ghost army and a need to exact revenge, a tightrope he eventually falls off of decidedly in the direction of bloodthirsty vengeance directed specifically at Luigi. (He built, bought, or at least took over a whole-ass, multi-level hotel for this express purpose, not only luring Luigi into this trap, but roping his brother, his friend, and some random Toad acquaintances into the whole ordeal, as well - which is categorically insane and the topic of another rant for another day).

But Count Bleck doesn't want power for power's sake. He merely wants to use the Chaos Heart to end reality. There's no throne he covets, no crown he searches for - he desires only utter annihilation of everything, including himself. It's such a nihilistic goal and is so striking in comparison to the other enemies we encounter in and around the Mushroom Kingdom. Even Dimentio, whose initial plan was to seize power and reshape the world in his own corrupted image - even Dimentio chooses this final destruction over the promise of false power in the end.

How do you fight against someone who seeks death as their ultimate goal? It's such a depressing and fascinating concept in a Mario game, of all things, and is one of the reasons I personally see SPM as a kind of climax to the events of many of the preceding games, including SM: RPG and Thousand Year Door, which you can see as the "prequels," as it were, to SPM, if you look at these games as existing along a timeline that began with the creation of the Pixls and the Tribe of Ancients and ends with Bleck and Dimentio's defeat at the threshold of apocalypse.

Anyway, I'm starting to come up with some lore ideas that would possibly tie these three games together in a slight AU where the Bleck gang would show up in 7 Stars and Geno's role is extended past the restoration of the Star Road.

[timeskip]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @leviathiane !

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

109!!! I'm a writing machine

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

507,410 ^-^

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Mostly HxH right now, but I'm always thinking of writing more Zero Escape. I also have fics for AITSF, A3!, and other stuff (obligated to mention that I have 57 A3! fics)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Care - Mizuki & Date (AITSF) Coexisting for Traumatized Detectives - Yosano & Dazai (BSD) An Undefined Truth - Killua/Gon (HxH) Shaking - Kokichi/Kaito (DRV3) Love, Justice, and the In Between - Boss & Date (AITSF) ...Most of these I still love, but one of them is indicative of my dark, dark past. I'll only link the top kudos'd.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes!!! I try to every time!!! Because I like getting responses as a reader mostly, it's nice to know that I've made someone's day better and I like the community that comes with comments!!! Also it's nice to add numbers to that comment counter.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

kill switch, save switch (Zero Escape) - Everyone dies in the Submarine Ending!!!!! Honorable mentions to: Turning Back (A3!) - Chikage abandons a child (not of his own choice, but fully aware of how damaging it is) and then thinks that they're probably dead Playing the Part (AITSF) - Iris is dead, but nobody knows it. Blood Trails Leading Home (AITSF) - It's an Annihilation End fic, everyone is dying and the antagonist is planning to kill even more people.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I try to give most things a hopeful ending at LEAST fdkfkkgfdff it's impossible to choose. I'll go with Follow the Light to its End, a Killugon fic that ends with a kiss ^-^

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really? I did get a comment recently that said "once the confession is over, I don't feel the love anymore. Still nice fic," which......... thanks (sarcasm) Usually comments like that are people trying to be nice but ending up too blunt... so it's whatever.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Nah. Nothing against it, just not my zone.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

Sometimes!!! Never in the form of X meets Y though, always putting one character into another's universe. I don't write them often, I'd write them more often if there were more people who would read them and my niche ideas. I think the only one I can remember posting is paradoxical, an A3/ZE crossover which. is crazy. What if Azuma's brother Hajime was actually Hisoka's brother August, but in the same way Akane from Zero Escape is June--the way that June is a mask, a cover. What if they were in a nonary game. What if Azuma accessed the morphogenetic field. CRAZY.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope! But I'm totally open to it!!!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Sort of!!! I did the Masukyu magic AU series with my friend Mikey :> Cowriting is really hard but it's fun.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

ALL TIME is hard. I'll give you a top 3: Killua/Gon (HxH), Hisoka/Homare (A3!), Junpei/Akane (ZE) Also honorable mention to Chikage/Citron/Itaru (A3!) for being the subject of my longest fic.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I'm constantly writing like 5 things at once, so it's a gamble with everything I write... I really doubt I'm going to finish the Pariging time loop WIP I have though orz I really love what I have so far of it, it's just... I don't know where it's going orz

16. What are your writing strengths?

Character emotions!!! Showing how characters respond to each other!!! Introspection!!! I like to think I'm pretty good at a lot of things.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I've been working on making sure that my characters don't talk in a void lately T-T I'm not BAD at description, but it so often falls to the wayside... Also comedy is hard for me.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I mean... it can work, I suppose? I wouldn't do it myself, because I'm not confident in any language other than english (I'm sorry high school german teacher...! I fell off because of covid...! I'm unlikely to use more than a couple german words for Klavier's faux-german thing, if I ever write a fic about him, lol) When other people do it, it's fine, except if I notice them using it wrong I think it's silly.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

First fandom I wrote a fic for ever: Warrior Cats First fandom I posted a completed fic online for: My Hero Academia

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Since I have so many it's kind of impossible to choose... But I'll say my long fics, especially the 40k multichapters. I put so much work into every long fic of mine, I can't choose a favorite child T-T Here's a link to my AO3, filtered for only fics over 10k words just in case anyone is interested in the 8 longer fics of mine Also mentioning you, at last, a little shorter than the above at 8.6k, but definitely one of my favorite A3 fics I wrote!!! It's a platonic soulmate AU, I'm constantly tempted to use the AU for another fandom because I think the rules of soulmates in it are really good. And while it's not a long fic, I reread smoke signals (HxH) recently and I love what I did with it. I think a lot about it still because I think that the offscreen apology Gon is implied to have given Killua is really interesting, and smoke signals is me writing my idea of it ^-^

Tagging... anyone who wants to, I suppose!!! If you're a writer and you're reading this I'm tagging you. Yes, you.

[coinandcandle]

Do you know if the shadow self can manifest as a separate being? I have a, sort of, another self that I call Super, short for Superego. I used to be afraid of her and she used to hate me because I locked her up in a cage deep in the recesses of my mind. She would be the voice that would tell me to harm myself but when I played the game Celeste and saw how the antagonist was accepted rather than told to let go and move on, be free, I started doing that.

Even if she started out telling me to harm myself, eventually we grew close like twin sisters. I have a better understanding of her now. She's my more pragmatic side full of logic, reasoning, and the more aggressive emotions I used to be too timid to show. The side that wants to protect myself and has the backbone to do it.

I myself am the emotional and empathetic side. What she lacks in compassion and sympathy I make up for. I tried for a very long time to figure out what she was. My best friend said it could be a fae side of myself since it's possible I'm half fae- but that's an entirely different can of worms for another day. Point is: we complete each other.

I picked up my first pendulum and went through a list of things. Fae? Yes. Higher self? No. Past self? No, but she does have more memories of past lives than I do. Shadow self? Yes. I'm still new to the pendulum so I could be wrong but I just want to know: can the shadow self become a separate entity?

My dear anon this is an incredibly loaded ask and I am not really qualified to give you an answer, this sounds like something a mental health professional who is knowledgeable or at least respectful of spiritual and religious beliefs might handle. Not saying that you're wrong or mentally ill and therefore not truly having this experience, but shadow work/shadow self are a psychological approach that was later picked up by the spiritual/witchy community and often should be handled with a professional.

But I'll give you my thoughts on it, just don't take them as stone-set truth.

Can an aspect of yourself turn into a separate being? Maybe, people have created thought forms and similar entities before and there are records of these beliefs in different cultures as well. So I don't think it's a crazy idea, but I feel like it doesn't just, like happen one day.

That being said, your shadow self isn't usually a hateful creature that has its own sentience and tells you to hurt yourself; it's all of the parts of yourself that you don't like and are repressing, if we're talking about psychology which is where the idea originates. This, by definition, is a part of you so it can't really be an entirely separate being. So perhaps you're looking for a different term for this entity.

Either way, you need to make sure you have boundaries set and they need to respect these boundaries.

Also, an entity does not have to tell you the truth. Personally, I don't use a pendulum cuz my hands are too shaky and I'm too skeptical but I'd suggest doing some different forms of divination as well just to see if your answers are the same across the board. And perhaps get others' opinions, folks who are unaware and as such unbiased of your situation.

[bykalopsia]

faiz episodes 11-20 notes

i had a whole rant written out about mari's age in here since this batch of episodes drops a whole bunch of Skeevy Romance Plots That Really Didn't Have To Be Skeevy but i deleted it bc it was A Lot and i don't think it's anything that hasn't been said eight billion times already so there. i'm just acknowledging it now. it just sucks because in a normal situation i'd be very much up for it bluhhhhhhhhhhh (i'm cutting myself off. no more ranting!!!!)

i can't help but wonder what my reaction to kusaka would be if i did not have The Stuff Everyone Knows About Kusaka lingering in the back of my brain. bc i don't know if my endeared "oh look at this asshole" reaction is because i Know or not. but so far i'm at the very least enjoying him bc he's making takumi act like a bitch and bitch takumi is my favorite takumi so yayyyyyyy. tldr i love antagonistic fake bitches!!!!

the fact that yuka is the most violent of the orphnoch trio is intensely funny to me. 1) because yuji keeps monologuing to her about not hurting people and she keeps going :] yep. that's definitely what's going on over here! 2) kaido talks the most game but literally hasn't done anything ever

also yuji's obliviousness is getting increasingly funny both re: yuka killing people (which tbf he has no real way of knowing about it's just funny) and. well. he kind of just bungles all of his interactions with yuka it's just amusing to me.

not-hojo's haircut seems to get less flattering by the appearance. fascinating. extremely funny that one of his attacks is just POETRY BLAST. extremely unserious show. anyways he's way more competent than i was expecting i really thought he'd be outta here by the time this set of episodes was over.

increasingly becoming more and more enamored with takumi. like yes he's pissing me off bc he's terrible at communicating but he's also wallowing in his own misery which is lovely. also his hair has been looking really great. (i wrote this and then immediately in ep 20 it looks perhaps the most jank its ever looked)

btw i keep doing the thing where i'm like "i'm gonna take my notes concurrently this time so i don't lose all my funny thoughts" and then i go watch 5 episodes on my tv where i can't be writing shit down. so i've lost all my funny thoughts. but rest assured i am cracking myself up on my couch between the hours of midnight and 2 am.

for the minutes in between episodes 14 and 15 where takumi and yuji were both in the river i thought they were going to somehow bump into each other and i nearly made myself cry laughing

also takumi and yuka are making me want to bite chunks out of my television. oughjafjhgfjgkgjjgf pain pain pain pain suffering

everybody point and laugh at kusaka's mandatory sidecar

the idea that yuji still thinks that faiz is being used by a smart brain agent is interesting

also. these episodes have a critical lack of smart lady. where is she!!!!!! :[

i feel like no one in this show gives a fuck about collateral damage. if i was at this college that got attacked by monsters and once it was fine to leave i went out into the parking lot and i found out my fucking car got exploded bc takumi couldn't step around it to do his finisher i'd go crazy.

this really does bring up the question of what the public thinks about faiz. though tbh it seems like orphnochs have some sort of quality that impacts people's memory of them and they fight generally in secluded places so idt it's all that well known (+ the police are actively covering the whole thing up) but like. they're exploding shit and knocking chunks out of parking garage beams surely someone's got an idea about faiz. he's got a flying fucking attack bot for christ's sake. kusaka just sent a fuck ton of missiles into a completely public area. huh???? (this is not legitimate pedantry going on here i'm riffing bc it's funny but if they actually address this i'd die laughing)

kaido seems to have been downgraded to being a sleaze / jokey character but ultimately this is Fine. Whatever. i'll just ogle him without any seeds of Investment forming it's Fine.

anyway my curiosities for the next batch of episodes are: 1) we still do not know wtf is going on with the underground school???? are those guys just dead now???? 2) what bizarre cult shit was going on with the ryusei academy stuff / how do they relate to what smart brain is doing now 3) i know delta is showing up next ep so i'm curious about that (EDIT: it was not delta i'm maybe an idiot and forgot takumi could get other forms) 4) i need to dissect yuji's brain or something man i feel like i Still don't have a handle on him

[vinxwatches]

(re)watching Transformers: Prime season 1

this was a series that was on during a time, but i don't think i ever saw the end or even a lot of it, though i do remember the motorcycle robot well and thought she was really cool (may have been lesbianism or gender envy), and Red from OSP mentioned is with some regularity which has kept it in my mind. also it was what i was watching when i got picked up to see my sibling for the first time after they were born and i remember being quite annoyed i had to stop watching the show, which clearly has stuck with me for way too long.

ep1 darkness rising, p1

well, it almost looks good. almost, but the lighting engine is just too weak to pull most things off. the graphic quality just doesn't seem to be able to pull of what they want it to. the terrain is extremely low in quality. i expect that to get a lot better, not just with seasons but even though the first season as they build up more assets.

damn that wasn't long for the first death. might also explain why he didn't look great. how much time do you put into a character that exists for 5 minutes?

it's interesting to see an enemy with a plan we know at least in part will fail as they don't truly have the element of surprise. for protagonists it's common, classic tragedy stuff. but never for antagonists.

wow, real subtle guys. two dark purple spiky cars driving like assholes. no one will ever notice anything up. also pausing really reveals how bad things blend. the entire scene has motion blur Except the characters. even still the action is surprisingly good. i just hope the human cast won't be unbearable.

small dextrous fighter dodging around strikes for larger opponents that she can take down? well if that isn't my favourite. no seriously that's always what i try to play in games. i'm no good at hit but it's my fucking jam.

oh she has way too much detail to be a background character. i don't remember this goth girl at all for some reason though. she does have the best personality so far though (yes i like enthusiastic characters)

p2

good way to make him intimidating: give his every footstep a screen shake.

i thought they were going to go somewhat light on combat. NOPE. the bad guys will cut people in half. the good guys will do a fancy kick move of someone's neck and take their head off.

and sometimes it's Very ps2.

damn, it didn't take long at all for the villain to make a turn for the monstrous. i thought that would be season finally or at least mid finally shit. oh shit i think i remember that tiny robot very well, may well have inspired a lot of things i've come up with over the years.

p3

man they really use a lot of plotpoints in the opening multi parter. my fear is that that'll result in a very status quo no progress middle of the season.

i'm getting the feeling that they either don't have the ability or time to fully render some scenes which is why some turn out way worse then others.

and of course the military can't be shown as truly bad.

p4

seriously that the undead army is already a thing is worrying to me. where do you get to go beyond that? "if your opponents are already dead how can we defeat them?" you stop them from being able to move.

ah, they are trying to give the humans a purpose... good luck.

blades extended straight out of the forearm. seems rather impractical. severely limits the amount of cuts you can make as you can't edge align, and these blades seem really short.

the boy walks away... i'm sure i'm supposed to be sad about it, but i'm really not. he added nothing other then being whiny. he'd obvious return. got to have a "default" guy, lets hope he find a bloody use. because responsible isn't interesting.

ok, pretty good threat for what to avoid in the future.

p5

i repeat again: a LOT of big plot point early. i'm afraid for the rest of the series.

transformers is pretty big on defending the home you didn't choose. there's a really harmful message in that. patriotism is incredibly dangerous, which is part of why america is so dangerous, to others and too itself. it's also big on them choosing to defending the home they didn't choose. there's a much less harmful message in that.

Masters and Students

oh, Starscream has a goa to work towards. will it be one episode or a seasonal thing?

"you are a motorcycle, shouldn't you know how to put one together?" "you are a human, can you build me a small intestine". there are some significant differences (motorcycles are designed and lack most useless parts while humans are not and our internals are a bloody mess design wise). but also fair point and fucking funny.

also neat choice to make soundwave, who acts the most like a robot, a drone in plane form.

oh i think i remember this episode. at least the science project subplot i hated.

Con Job

oh yea, he has the high villain shoulders.

Convoy

i was going to say that there were less and less ps2 moments. then they introduced a new setting and yea it's not looking great.

pretty good ending speech and pretty interesting concept for future plots.

Speed Metal

fucking hell don't say "that's my girl" it's fucking weird and gross.

at least they aren't (currently) pairing up the main human male and female character because i don't trust this show to do that well.

Predatory

oh shit we're diving into some heavy shit here. i'm afraid spider lady will be an obvious bad guy.

damn there's serious PTSD going on here. and how RC seems perfectly equipped to fight her could be extremely deep story telling if you read it that the made herself perfect to fight exactly her again.

Sick Mind

ok, they found the hidden enemy ship. so things are maybe moving forward. also really telling that they'll try a rescue of someone they don't know over hitting the enemy they know they have.

a plague ship. such a cool idea. so sad that it's currently probably a bit bad taste to use for things like ttrpgs. though if it's like a necrotic disease. zombies that turn you into zombies by biting you it's probably fine to use.

oh, inside someone's brain episode? really liked those in the owl house, lets see how they visualize it and what they do with it.

"i have thoroughly researched the theoretical literature" and today in least confidence boosting sentences.

interesting it's bumblebee and nor rc. i wonder why.

damn, smart play by bumbles, smart counterplay by megatron. not smart enough. really cool.

not to inventive with the visuals, but probably the coolest episode so far, maybe with predatory. and damn that cliffhanger.

Out of His Head

powerplays between the two people conspiring together. very interesting dynamic.

ok, megatron is back, things do move... and no one seems to be too bothered about it atm. i'm guessing that's what the next episode starts with.

Shadowzone

oh damn, starstream going to use the dark energon in desperation to be level the playingfield.

oh hey, people being out of phase, i recently saw this startreck episode. damn, and they left most of a zombie in the other phase. that'll be interesting for the future.

Operation: Breakdown

damn, how much transformer gore will we see in this one? just one lose eye and where it was supposed to go, kind of a letdown

Crisscross

fucking hell this episode is going brutal. more brutal then the breakdown episode.

Metal Attraction

damn, first instance of damage being permanent.

so they try to make the mom look bad by being over protective. but we don't get any sense that most recon missions go perfectly smoothly and safely. now i'm sure that's like characters in stories going to the toilet, but it does make it feel like they are very often dangerous making the mom seem more then reasonable. they also try to make RC seem over protective even though she takes them on missions she believes are safe and sends them back when dangers shows. i don't think they'll make the conclusion stick well.

i wonder how permanent they'll make those very neat retributive cuts. she seems like the type who'd keep them until she killed the one that gave them.

oh, his dad left... i though he might have died... that's either a much stronger stance, or his father will be revealed later making it much less interesting because we've seen that dozens of times. and they didn't make them worrying the bad thing they did, but instead not accepting change. surprisingly well handled.

Rock Bottom

not like this (be burried under a metric fuckton of rock and then drilled to death)... why not? a swift, easy end to one of the biggest threats. boring for the series? sure. but they could have made it saving before attacking and it would have made total sense.

Partners

i just realized the autobots make for a pretty standard 5 man band... sort of. some are easy. like bulkhead is the obvious big buy, ratchet is the obvious smart guy. now arcee and optimus are obvious leader and lancer. but you could question who's who. for the leader optimus is rather rarely the focus... but yea no he's the leader. and arcee is a neat lancer being the smallest compared to the largest, nimble and dodging instead of standing his grown and tanking. which would make bumblebee the heart which makes total sense.

if anyone would turn coat starscream would make some sense... but also not as he'd want to tripplecross. however he thinks he'll get more.

T.M.I.

damn this episode felt like one of the writers was struggling trough a family member suffering dementia.

Stronger, Faster

i think i remember this episode. unless the energy problem keeps coming up.

i mean... is what he's saying not true though? he's saying it like an asshole, sure, but what did he say that was wrong?

are you really giving the decepticons two corrupted forms of energon? seems redundant.

One Shall Rise, Part 1.

the only vagally reasonable natural threat to europe is something weird that kills power. sorry, it's just bizarre how safe Europe is compared to the rest of the world. this is not a flex, Europe is life on easy mod.

on the one side that's some cool lore. on the other i'd love it if for once something was called "the blood of X" and it's just myth, nothing more. not the plot twist of "the blood of X was Actually the blood of X and not just a fancy name".

One Shall Rise, Part 3.

damn, that's one hell of a cliffhanger for season 2. sure, the threat is defeated, but now the decepticons have optimus.

[cnl0400]

Nah don't worry, I really like talking about this game, so thanks for your thought :))

(Tangent 1#)

Most of my memories of S3 are of basically every character talking shit about Raphael, more in a "Man, this dude used to be insoportable to be around" (The only person with a favorable opinion of him was Belphie? lol). Anyways, it could be a case of "bait and switch" (considering what he says in his introductional video) but everytime I re-read it, it make me feel that the plan for him was to have a more antagonistic role, but anyways, I really like current Raphael so it's not like I would like him to be meaner or anything lol.

(Tangent 2#)

Ah... thats a really fun story (not really lol). It was the same reactions that the english fandom ("She's going to be a rival", "She makes me uncomfortable", "This game is only about the men", etc) but like, way more extreme lol, they even tried to review bomb the game to the point there was a time the OG had below 3 stars in the japanese playstore lol, I remember that even the official account made an apology? those were darker times, really;; at least judging at the end f the season and the birthday phonecalls, it looks like they might be dateable soon, or at least I hope so.

I also don´t think they cant fix this, I want to be positive but honestly, my bet is that they're going to ignore it or MAYBE they will make an small nod to it (something like a gag or a "well, that just happened" moment, I don't hope to much) but my biggest wish is that they dont make it worse, I'm not too sure if they're caplabe of that lol. I think the principal differences in speach is that Raphael has a very direct way to talk, and Michael is TOO formal (at least in those "???" cutscenes he appears), but yeah, maybe it got lost in translation.

(About Michael.....)

Yeah, everytime Luke talks about him he just sounds like the saddest guy alive lol still, I understand why a lot of people dislike him because of His very... Questionable choices (I almost wanted to kill him for this one lol) also because Is easier to push all this nasty flash into one person who can't really "defend himself" (I mean, he talks like one Time per season lol)

Still, I'm sure they are going with the "I had no other choice" type of deal, I really think he loves all His brothers dearly even If he commits mistakes, I don't think that justifies the war crimes but... Honestly I doubt Nightbringer Is going to have a war arc or something, I'm sure Michael didn't even think they would say yes (Him not knowing what to say when Raphael asked "what are you doing to do now" Is very telling lol, he didn't really think this through)

Him being an scapegoat of the fandom when everything goes wrong Is also very funny, I know people are starved for am antagonist but come on lol, a lot of Theories fell like they're picking at straws

Also yeah, I'm tired of this weird interpretation of him lol, honestly the weird religious trauma people put him feels very much like proyection lol, I know a lot of people want to be like Religión Bad™️ bit I mean, Michael doesn't strike me as this Evil Priest stereotype people want to put in him

Honestly all this religious trauma people proyect onto OBM it's something people proyect onto all the angels and it's so fucking tired lol, I'm tired of reading hc where Simeon Is characterized as this weird Christian hoy stereotype, same with Luke as this Christian brainwashed kid or Raphael as your most conservative aunt, it's very weird because I can't Remember one instance were the Celestial Realm Is described like that? I know OBM picks a lot from religious stories but I think OBM choses very liberaly about what to adapt or not (Like Solomon doesn't have 10000000 concubines for a reason lol) so the angels being all characterized as conservative christians always Will be funny to me I'm sorry lol

And I know Michael Is very sketchy sometimes, but honestly I can't see how someone can write him as being abusive at anyone, at that point just make an OC idk

I know a lot of people didn't read the later leasons where Michael appears but some people are very weird about him lol why do you wants this guy to suck so badly, a lot of people proyect a lot of weird stuff in this characters in general, but all the angels get some of the worst treatement by the fandom, like some random person wrote a HC with S1 in reference and everyone treated It like that's how he acts in canon........

No but fr fuck that Hard lesson, Raphael stans keep losing I guess 👎👎👎

[yokohamabeans]

What are your personal thoughts on each of the Tenjiku guys? You said you had a soft spot for them so I'm curious 👀 obviously you love Kaku and Ran but why and what about the others? Please word dump all you want lol

ANON are you sure you wanna unleash me like this?? Alright alright alright... Since you asked for it...

I love Tenjiku because out of all the antagonist gangs in TokRev, the villainous found family trope is the strongest and most genuine with them, and I'M ALL FOR IT BABY!!! They're built up as this gang of incorrigible sadists who have no qualms about dealing drugs, ruining lives and murder, and yet they all readily took the rap for Mikey, Toman and even (at least some of) the lower-ranked Tenjiku members, and we get official art of Tenjiku just having fun and genuinely enjoying each other's companies. Each of the S-62 is an asshole of some level and yet they truly cared for each other AND KAKUCHO! Always remember that none of them snitched on Kakucho when they were arrested, and even Ran tried to deter South from getting to him. A bunch of big brothers... all of them... Honour among thieves... (I have so many thoughts about them meeting and forging strong bonds in juvie, and even more about how they took in Kakucho ahhh) Also, Tenjiku's strong Eastern/'Chinese' theme is just really appealing to me. Tenjiku being from Yokohama (which has Japan's largest Chinatown), the Journey to the West references, Four Heavenly Kings, Yin-Yang motif etc. (Speaking of Yin-Yang, the Yin-Yang dynamic between Izana and Kakucho is just so strong that it even shows in their colour schemes haha)

Alright, now on to the individual members...

Izana: My heart is broken...... There are many tragic characters in TokRev but Izana just has to be the most tragic. Yes, he's had a wretched fate but at the same time, he's also convinced himself of it a lot and driven himself down that path. Not only does he stubbornly denies Kakucho's and Tenjiku's respect and loyalty, he even undermines their camaraderie as fear and self-agenda. This is a person so consumed by his own demons that even in death, when he has done the most altruistic deed of sacrificing his life for another, he still believes that there is no salvation for him (which I find realistic tbh, because there's no way Mikey could've convinced otherwise in one night, when Izana's been telling himself that he's beyond redemption his whole life). He is shown to lack any empathy nor love for his men/subordinates, but I'm sure he must have shown some off-screen because why would the S-62, a bunch of selfish jerks, be so sincerely loyal to him? I hope Wakui gives us more Tenjiku content in the DVD extra booklets. Izana as a character is just so enigmatic and mysterious, IMO. His background as a character is practically fully explored but at the same time, you get the feeling that you can't know what his thoughts are (or maybe that's just me). Kakucho has been with him almost his whole life, but I still think that even Kakucho does not fully understand Izana. If there was anyone who really knew Izana, it would be Shinichirou. Anyway, this guy is the definition of the 'Alas, Poor Villain' trope and my heart is in pieces because of him.

Mucho: Like Kakucho, Mucho is very much of a 'Wrong Place' kinda guy. He's mentioned to Sanzu that he's got 'nowhere to go' which is why he's in the gang life, but you can tell that he does want to be a good person. He's compassionate and fair to his subordinates and Sanzu, can distinguish between right and wrong and good and evil. He’s really underrated as a character: this guy is obviously strong and powerful, and also self-disciplined, smart and cunning (his long con game?? Wow). Out of all TokRev characters (aside from Shin) he’s probably the most mature and sensible, and he’s also really self-aware as a person (he knows where his morals lie and admits he would’ve been better off with Mikey instead of Izana, but he just can’t help but commit himself to Tenjiku). It’s a pity cuz he would’ve been a terrific Oyabun. And when you think about it, his death is really sad (too bad Sanzu stole all the attention LOL). I have the feeling that he wanted to turn over a new leaf and repent his sins (either by joining or helping Toman, or even just giving up the gang life) after his 2nd juvie stint, but got murdered upon release (sooooo yakuza-esque btw haha I wonder if it was Wakui’s homage to yakuza films). And he did say he was all alone, so I wonder if anyone ever found out that he died. Did the remaining Tenjiku members (especially Kakucho) look for him?? How did they feel if they found out about his death?? It’s unlikely but I hope Wakui sheds some light on this!! Anyway, Mucho needs more appreciation!!

Mocchi: Unfortunately I can’t really form much of an opinion about Mocchi because he doesn’t get as much screen time and introspection as the other characters haha. But at the very least we know that he values honour in fights, really enjoys fighting, openly acknowledges/respects his teammates’ strengths (Haitani Bros) and is one of the goofier guys in Tenjiku. I think as a youth/young adult he probably hung and went out more with the other ‘fun’ guys like the Haitanis, but seems to have grown up more grounded/cautious/responsible because he was shown being kinda naggy about how Sanzu should dispose of the corpses. All in all, he seems to be the pretty standard ‘muscle brute’ guy, but hopefully Wakui will give him more spotlight in the upcoming chapters!! (Also, I just feel kinda bad for him cuz he’s always left out of the fandom’s thirst for Tenjiku/Bonten💀)

Shion: Again, can’t really say much about him because the limited chapters and panels he’s been in only show him to be an overconfident butt monkey haha. I don’t think he’s exceptionally strong, my headcanon about him is that he’s got clout and a place in the S-62 because of other factors like connections (perhaps from his BD era) and just the general reputation of a wacky guy who’d do literally anything. There’s a chance that Wakui might give him more spotlight and a backstory to hype him up as a character because he’s facing off against Akkun, and I think Wakui might wanna give Akkun a little more dignity by fighting someone ‘strong’/‘impressive’.

Ran & Rindou: HAHA ACTUALLY I like Rindou more than I do Ran 😜 Rindou’s character design appeals more to me, and his personality (simultaneously lazy and disinterested and yet cocky, bratty and sadistic) is just more fun than Ran lmao. I’ve said quite a bit about them (and trust me I’m gonna say more) so I’ll just talk about why I like them here. I’m not gonna lie anon. Like most Haitani stans it’s mainly thirst over their character designs and general mysterious and enigmatic charisma. I was really neutral on them upon their first introduction (Valhalla viewing gallery) but then Tenjiku gave them way more of a personality and then with their Bonten appearance?? I was a goner!!! And there’s something so interesting about their incredibly close brotherly bond, I’m just waiting on the edge of my seat and biting my nails for the next Haitani backstory reveal!!

Kakucho: WHY DO I LOVE KAKUCHO?? ANON WHY DO I BREATHE?? Jokes aside: I think I’ve always had a thing for the dark-haired brooding type but I just really love Kakucho’s character. Despite his absolutely tragic and horrible childhood, he’s a good person through and through and doesn’t make excuses for himself nor his actions. In a way, he’s kind of a foil to Izana: they both have a traumatic past, were in the same orphanage, experienced the loss of an important person (Shinichirou for Izana, Izana for Kakucho). Izana goes down deeper into the dark path, blames other people for his agony and strives to make others suffer too. But Kakucho doesn’t lose himself, takes it all upon himself and never wants to hurt other people (out of the context of a fight). His loyalty to Izana is more heartbreaking because you know that he’s struggled a lot (probably secretly) with his morals while being steadfast and loyal to Izana. I think he views himself as a bad person, not in the ‘guilty’ way but in the ‘I did what I had to do and so I’ll live with that’ kind of way. He’s just so steady and solid as a character I love him. You can be neutral about him but there’s no way to dislike this guy!!!

Well anon you asked for this!! My unhinged primal thoughts about Tenjiku (or at least the core members, I know Koko, Sanzu, Kisaki and Hanma were part of them too but they were never truly aligned with them)!! I’d love to hear your thoughts and opinion about them too if you don’t mind sharing!!

[maxer-blaster]

When I first watched OFMD, I didn't think about Izzy Hands much.

I got into the show for Ed/Stede. He was an obstacle to that.

To the point where, when he dragged Stede (dressed as Blackbeard) away in ep 4, I thought "quit ruining their fun".

I did find his interactions with Lucius in ep 5 interesting and that's when I started to wonder about just what was UP with this angry little weasel.

But ep 6 I was still all, "there Izzy goes, ruining things again"

Hell, with the mutiny in episode 9, possibly being thrown overboard to drown, I thought " Well, that's what you get".

Even with the choking scene...

Even with the FUCKING TOE SCENE I was thinking

"Play shitty games, win shitty prizes ".

Because I was watching the show for Ed/Stede, and Izzy was "ruining the fun".

I didn't stop to question it, only grumble that he was preventing me as the viewer from getting what I wanted.

And then I saw Izzy meta

And discussions

And yeah, Izzys a dick when he drags Stede away in ep 4, but he's not wrong.

They do need to discuss provisions, plans and weapons.

It might be "interrupting" the dress up games, the flirting, the FUN for Ed and Stede but like...

They're in fucking DANGER.

They need to do SOMETHING.

On ep 5, he is a total PRICK to Lucius. Most of it from a place of internalized homophobia.

But, Lucius and Black Pete probably shouldn't have been FUCKING NEXT TO THE FOOD! It was bagged, sure but contamination could still fucking happen.

They probably SHOULD have been working. In some capacity. And yet, there are 3 crewman hanging out in the kitchen doing NOTHING (well, no work at least) and it's a pretty small crew.

Blackbeard, Stede, Frenchie and Olu are GONE! They are short staffed. It probably should be all hands on deck.

Then in ep 6, again we don't want Stede to die. But look at how Izzy goes about it. He brings up that it was Ed's shitty policy in the first place. That killing Stede was EDS IDEA. ep 4, Izzy was prepared to fucking LEAVE.

Ed's the one who proposed killing Stede, as a way to keep Izzy on board.

And Ed was gonna kill Stede. Was gonna stab him in the back

But, when that didn't happen, Izzy challenged him to a duel.

He could've pulled an Ed and stabbed Stede in the back.

But he threw Stede a sword, laid out the rules and, aside from the face slap, fought fairly.

Sending Calico Jack to get Ed, getting Ed put into his custody, was shitty, sure, but done out of love. Out of protection. His views of survival may be twisted, but by God, Izzy thought it was the only way to care for Ed.

While I still think Ed was in his right to punch Izzy.

While the mutiny makes sense (and I'm not sure it would've been fatal)

The chokeslam?

As the audience it feels like a buildup. Like a punishment a long time coming. But for Ed? Izzy talked shit and Ed LOST IT IN THE MONENT.

And it's nor much worse than many other things Izzy has said.

And my reaction was "you shouldn't have made him mad"

Then he waits, presumably hours, until Izzy is asleep

Until he is vulnerable

Sneaks into his room like a thief in the night

And cuts off his GODDAMN TOE AND FEEDS IT TO HIM!

Makes him bandage the wound

Alone

Get up right after

In the middle of the night

And walk on his freshly mangled ass foot.

And Izzy?

Says yes Sir

Of course Sir

And hops fucking TO IT.

And when I watched that the first time ..

It was NOTHING compared to how I felt when he pushed Lucius off the boat.

Is part of that because we see Izzy alive after and Lucius' survival is "unknown" (we all know), yes.

But another part of it is, Izzys not a nice person

Not a good person

And Lucius is.

Izzy's the "asshole victim"

The obstacle in the rom com.

He's the "bad guy"

So I just didn't feel pulled to any sympathy.

Maybe it's partly because he's a man. If I saw an antagonistic female character have the same thing happen to them? I'd feel DISGUSTED!

Hell I'd probably consider Ed irredeemable after this (not sure what I'd feel if Ed's character was female too)

I also doubt that my first instinct of "well you shouldn't have threatened him then" or "you brought this on yourself" would have happened.

Because look at that victim blame-y shit. Dude had to eat his own fucking toe and my first thoughts/feelings boiled down to "he was asking for it".

And holy hell, that is FUCKED UP!

Not even sure the writers meant for us to react this way

Or for the abuse subtext to be there

But my God, why did I react this way? When this kind of thinking really PISSES ME OFF.

When I would've never guessed I could see someone maimed in their sleep and feel NO sympathy.

And I think it'd behoove us to question why.

Why are our reactions to this show and various characters what they are?

And why wasn't I able to muster up any sympathy until I had other people point out how fucked up it was?

[tedturneriscrazy]

Here's Eclipse Lake, an episode that has been highly anticipated! Will it top Knock, Knock, Knockin' On Hooty's Door?

I'll skip the pretense: No. It won't.

You'll see under the cut.

Hmm, that list of ingredients for the Grimwalker...I'll let other people theorize about this (like @sepublic ), but it sure looks like a thing

Guess the mysterious green goo won't cut it, huh?

Belos face reveal already?! Huh, didn't expect it so soon.

Oh, no, he's hot! (And I'm mad about it)

Still an ass, though

Now we know why Hunter was wearing a different outfit (because people fixated on that for some reason)

Amity with the clipboard gives me strong Dipper vibes

GHOST! My beloved!

I need a moment because CAT!

(Also, someone pointed out earlier that Ghost was based on Dana's cat, and that's super obvious in hindsight)

Raine?! Oh, wait, you mean rain. Sigh.

Eda gets training tips from DBZ confirmed

(Also Amity's face when reacting to Eda's explanation is priceless)

Oh God Eda's a weeb I need another moment

Damn, Amity just straight up calling Eda old

Oh, loopy Luz

(The abomination holding the tissue box is adorable for many reasons)

Yeah, don't want Luz to eat the McGuffin

I have several questions about those Tamagotchis that I'll refrain from listing here

Amity your Odalia is showing

Girlfriend counter: 1

(Yes I am introducing a counting gag, deal with it)

Was wondering if they were ever gonna reference the dissection incident. We've come a long way, baby!

Oh, so that's what everyone was looking at

Luz honey your enthusiasm is admirable but no

Luz burrito is quite cute, though

Girlfriend counter: 2

(Damn, still wild to think that that's the case)

Just occurred to me that "Boots" is probably shortened from "Bossyboots" from earlier

Guess the Luz hiss compilation needs to be updated again

Those tunnels ain't the only thing around here that's unstable, amirite?

Oops, guess Kiki was justified, after all

Maybe don't talk so loudly about your plans, dude

That is her son, get it right!

Serves you right for having that stupid strand of hair sticking out like that

Is this just the episode where everyone dunks on White Boy? Because I can totally get behind that.

Already mentioned this, but I am loving the parallels between Katara and Amity with that bottle of abomination goo. Insert obligatory "Two Nickels" meme here about Mae Whitman.

We really are just dunking on the white boy and I am living for it

Hooty had to get it from somewhere, I suppose

Nothing says mother-son bonding like shooting things at each other (see also: Separate Tides)

I'm sure the magic bouncing off the veins won't come into play later at all

Oh well, at least the echolocation looked cool

At this point Amity would kill Hunter for a Klondike bar

Wait why does Hooty need a chair

Willow with the galaxy brain ideas

"A bad but sad boy" Luz is a genius at succinctly summing people up

Kikimora continues to be unhinged. Ironically she's not wrong about Hunter.

Motherfucker stop acting like you know what that says

(Also, projecting much?)

Girlfriend counter: 3

Friendly reminder that Hunter is still an antagonist

Uh oh

UH OH

I know someone mentioned Willow having the brain cell, but honestly it seemed like Luz had it this whole time. And that's not good.

WHY IS FOOL'S BLOOD EVEN A THING

Aaaaand cue the getting screwed over

Further reminder that he's still an antagonist (Apparently there's a vocal segment who's Really Mad at him that seem to forget this fact)

You unhand Ghost right now!! And Amity too, I guess.

(I kid, she's literally my second favorite character)

For what she did to Raine it warms my heart to know Kiki has had zero peace of mind

Wait, the Abomatons are Transformers?! Okay, that's kind of awesome, actually. Alador might be a shit dad but he is a brilliant inventor.

Chucking kids off cliffs is a surpisingly common pastime in the Boiling Isles

Owlbert no!

Eda did spend literal decades fighting the Owl Beast within, so I guess she can't be blamed for not thinking to talk to it

Also hurry up guys I'm very concerned about Owlbert

Fuck yeah Harpy Milf!

Yay Ghost returns!

She's glad they're okay (I didn't need to take this, I just thought it was cute. Also this is surprisingly high quality considering I just took a photo of my TV screen)

Oh, so they do have video games in the Demon Realm. That or Luz introduced them.

Trailer shot!

Oh dear, we about to have a fight over the key

Wow, being so high ranking under Belos is really bad for mental health

Jesus Christ Belos what have you been putting in this poor kid's head?

Leave it to King to give radical recontextualizations

Amity, I'm glad you remembered/realized this about Luz, please don't let the sad white boy play you like that again

Also, I appreciate the gesture you're making, and it's a wonderful summary of your character development, but goddamnit he's gonna go for that key because he's STILL AN ANTAGONIST

"Being nice usually works for Luz!" A) Not always, and B) Amity I love you but Luz you are not. A valiant attempt nonetheless.

Ooh, cool fight scene!

Always lovely to see such superb animation

I was privately griping about not seeing Amity use magic for so long, and now I am fed

Don't think I didn't hear the glass breaking

Appreciate your ass from a hole in the ground, Golden Boy!

(jk I don't actually feel that strongly about him still. That kind of threat still isn't cool, though)

Oh so that's why it's the Common Mold!

It's kinda cute, actually. Or maybe it's just because it's Luz.

TIL Hooty is heat resistant

Apparently Owl Beast just wanted a snack

Girlfriend counter: 4

Also love how calling Amity her awesome girlfriend is literally the first thing Luz says to her upon returning.

Yesssss return the hug! You deserve it!

(I know there are higher quality versions of this screenshot, I just didn't feel like looking around)

King demands huggies, too! (And gets 'em)

Reminder that Amity is smart as hell. I knew that glass breaking indicated something!

So once again I've been had. I let the fandom trick me into thinking this episode would be way more intense. Guess that one screenshot was from the next episode.

Overall this was...fine. Some nice Lumity moments, Harpy Eda strutting her stuff, that gorgeously animated fight sequence; those were all lovely.

I do wish Willow and Gus had a bit more to do. And I'm still rather unenthusiastic about Hunter, to be honest. I've seen his type several times before, and the path they have for him is rather obvious. I may never share the fandom's love for him, and I guess I'll have to deal with that.

Anybody who says this was better than KKKOHD is a damn fool.

Mid season finale next week! I think Yesterday's Lie will finally bring the pain!

[a-master-procrastinator]

Long ass post about the Eternal family not being a copy-paste from ATLA (aka I like the memes but my god can you please stop)

Because some people truly think that Vaylin is off-brand Azula, Arcann is Zuko and so on.

It's. Called. A. Trope. (I mean how often do we come across abusive manipulative fathers in media? Mothers who couldn't much to change anything? Children, desperately looking for their parent's approval no matter what?)

Of course, you have to consider the fact that the writing of ATLA is simply better than of KotFE/ET, so this might have been one of the reasons why people say that.

Spoilers for Avatar: The Last Airbender, Knights of the Fallen Empire and Knights of the Eternal Throne expansions!

Okay, so here's my unprofessional, maybe biased, not super deep take.

(not going to mention that all of them are members of royal, ruling family, kinda obvious)

What roles do they play in their stories? Well, both Valkorion and Ozai are main antagonists, but their presence throughout the story is very different. Ozai is rarely shown in first two seasons, we don't even see his face until season 3. He doesn't have a direct connection to the protagonist, they only meet at the very end of the show, and Ozai's role is to pose a threat to the world, while Aang's is to save it. Valkorion, on the other hand, is constantly on the screen, interacting with the main character, challenging their viewpoint and influencing them directly. His end goal is similar to Ozai's (destroy everything and be the only ruler of the his nation), but with one major difference - he's trapped in Outlander's mind, so to achieve his goal Valkorion attempts to take control of the main character. Their interactions play important role in the story, and we spend a lot of time with Valkorion.

In addition to that, their relationship with children are also not exactly the same. It seems like Azula is Ozai's favorite and Zuko is a failure in his eyes until he meets his expectations, and the same goes with Vaylin, Arcann and Valkorion, right? Well, partially. Indeed, Valkorion and Ozai's treat their sons in similar ways (are disappointed in them until they meet their expectation by doing something that goes against their morals), but when it comes to Vaylin and Azula, it's not that easy. See, Valkorion claims that Vaylin was always his favorite creation (even though we know it's actually his empire), and he certainly seems to take pride in her potential in the Force. But her power is the very reason he's afraid of his own daughter, and in this fear Valkorion literally locks Vaylin away and allows to put her through physical and mental torture just to make sure she won't become a threat, won't overpower him. Maybe he thought of her better than of Arcann, but she wasn't his favored child for sure. I don't want to say that Azula hasn't experienced abuse from Ozai, but for the most part he clearly favored her over Zuko. He has never shown fear of Azula's power and abilities (or at least I haven't noticed), quite the opposite - allowed her to do a lot, as long as she brings results.

I could also mention their slightly different characterization (mostly that we get more characterization of Valkorion, get to learn his motivations, views, philosophy and all that, also he's portrayed as more nuanced, even if he not really is) and role in their respective governments (ozai is one of many Fire Lords and arguably not the greatest, while Valkorion is a god to citizens of Zakuul, their only Immortal Emperor), but those are details, and I think you get the point.

What's similar: role of the main antagonist, manipulative and abusive father, goal of destruction of everything that isn't their nation/empire, relationship with disgraced son.

What's different: presence in the overall narrative, relationship with the main character, relationship with daughter, role in their societies.

Senya and Ursa are even less similar. Yes, they both are mothers who love their children, but have to leave them, but these are probably the only things they have in common. Just as with Ozai and Valkorion's presence throughout the story, Ursa is only shown in flashbacks (for obvious reasons), and Senya is one of major characters in KotFE and (a bit less major) in KotET. Ursa leaves because she has to kill Azulon in order to save Zuko, and later isn't present in the story (I'm aware that her fate is told in comics, but we aren't talking about it). Senya leaves because when she tries to take children with her, they refuse, and she understands that she can't force them to, nor she can help them to break free from Valkorion's manipulations. For a long time she's absent from Arcann ad Vaylin's lives, but at the time of game events she attempts to save her children and stop the madness and destruction they've caused, and it isn't a small part of the story.

I also want to add that their relationship with Ozai and Valkorion are also different, but can't say much about Ursa. I heard that she didn't choose this marriage and suffered emotional (and maybe physical???) abuse from Ozai. I can say with confidence, though, that Senya genuinely loved Valkorion, and strangely enough, he seems to at very least respect her. But, of course, this wasn't the best marriage either.

Plus, we see more of Senya's relationship with Vaylin than Arcann or Thexan, but with Ursa we see her more with Zuko than Azula. Just a detail to remember.

(also Senya is simply a better character but that besides the point, moving on. in this house we stand Senya)

What's similar: role of loving and caring mother, abandoning their family at some point.

What's different: presence in the overall narrative, relationship with husband, characterization in general.

Boy, where do I even begin. Vaylin and Azula are similar in that they are both extremely powerful (one is firebending prodigy, the other is potentially stronger than Valkorion), both are cruel "craaaaazy" (i hate that cliché), both are younger sisters, have serious mother issues (seemingly more so than father issues), both go through betrayal of people they could always rely on, which eventually leads to their downfall. But when I took a look at their personal arcs, it became clear that they aren't the same (unfortunately, Vaylin's arc is very rushed and underdeveloped, but we'll have to go with what we have and my personal view, sorry).

There's a really good video about writing corruption and madness, and I'm going to base my thoughts on it. To summarise it: a good corruption arc should have 4 components:

- the character has a specific goal (or a goal and subgoals);

- in pursuit of said goal they become the cause of a significant event that brings serious consequences;

- as the result of these consequences, character abandons their morals, ideals or a code in pursuit of goal;

- character either will not achieve their goal or will succeed, but it won't be enough to satisfy them.

And then the author brings Azula's arc as one of the best examples of compelling story of corruption (so basically, she represents it perfectly). In short, Azula's main goals are perfection and control, and subgoals help achieve the main ones. In pursuit of these goals, Azula causes Mai and Ty Lee to betray her (by pushing them too far to do something they wouldn't do), which then causes her to become paranoid, which makes her to attempt controlling everything and everyone around her, *breathes* which makes her lose control over herself and ....

Now, I thought if Vaylin's arc could fit into a corruption one, and next part will be based a lot on my assumptions and personal view of her character (plus rushed writing doesn't help), but I think yes (or at least mostly). The difference is in goals, ideals and details.

While the story strongly makes us think that Vaylin's goal is freedom (or control over her life and everything around her) or power and destruction, I think it's actually self-determination (which was said by Tenebrae in 6.2) and feeling safe. Let me explain (and here I thought this would be a short comparison). Sure, when Valkorion caged Vaylin on Nathema, he took choices and control over her life from his daughter. But let's not forget whom Vaylin blames for this (even more than Valkorion): her own mother, and I think this details tell us that the most important thing that Vaylin lost on Nathema is feeling safe. Then, after Arcann brought her home, I assume Vaylin still didn't feel safe enough under Valkorion's rule, still too afraid that he'd simply send her back to that hellish place.

It's when Valkorion is struck down Vaylin finally has a feeling of personal safety, even if she isn't the one on the throne. Why? Because back on Nathema there were two people who haven't turned on her - Arcann and Thexan (yes, this is also a huge assumption, bc the game states that only Thexan visited her, but it doesn't make much sense).

I've always noticed (and I'm not alone in this) that her behavior in Fallen Empire is different from the way she acted in Eternal Throne. Most likely bc of rushed writing, but I see a character driven reason here. In first of these expansions, Vaylin is the second person in power on Zakuul, and with Arcann being in charge, person she can trust more than any other living being, she feels safe - she can test her power, and now Valkorion won't prevent it, she can do pretty much everything she wishes, and the most Arcann will do about this is mildly complain (without blaming her). Really would be nice if we got to see any normal hobbies of Vaylin (like wasn't there something about books or art?), but I digress. She might have some questions about Arcann's tactics, but they get along just fine. The important thing to note is Vaylin not seeking to hunt the Outlander personally, to rule or conquer the rest of the galaxy, or trying to achieve absolute freedom or power. She's kinda there.

This, however, changes when Arcann doesn't allow Vaylin to kill Senya. Their relationship was getting somewhat worse towards the end of KotFE, but this is a turning event Vaylin caused by attempting to strike her mother. By saving the person Vaylin blames for all the trauma from sending her to Nathema, Arcann threatened her feeling of safety. And now Vaylin starts to believing that to achieve safety she now needs to kill people who hurt her (that's why she's so determined to find Senya and Arcann), take the throne and hunt down Outlander (she was manipulated by SCORPIO to these subgoals).

(The following is the weakest, I'll admit, but I hope I can at least express what I see). So, in trying to achieve goals she didn't want before Vaylin loses in self-determination, being either driven by overwhelming anger or manipulated by others (SCORPIO or Commander on Odessen), desperately trying to accomplish anything, or even goes against her morals (like by erasing GEMINI's free will protocols, when earlier she agreed that freedom to choose is important; or breaking the deal on Odessen). All of these result in her downfall.

But even this isn't the end. The key difference between arcs of Azula Vaylin lies in it's resolution, or that Vaylin have a chance to overcome corruption in the main narrative (and Azula doesn't. again, not including comics here, sorry). After death, Vaylin is again controlled by Valkorion in Outlander's mind. First time physically (she can't resist it), second time mentally. This is where Vaylin has to choose - kill brother who betrayed her and Commander who killed her, or go against Valkorion, person responsible for almost all of her pain and trauma. She has t choose by herself, and I think it's a good start.

Now, before 6.2 we all thought Vaylin was dead for good, but that story update hinted at possibility of her coming back to life. What I like to think is that now that she dealt with people responsible for her trauma (helped defeat Valkorion and actually for once listened to Senya), Vaylin can now have a different life, finding herself with support of someone she doesn't hold a grudge against and who treats her well (Satele, I mean).

I'm so sorry for going into details, but I needed this long explanation to present the point (and I suck at explanations). As said before, this is my version of her arc, and most likely wrong interpretation, but even with personal freedom of choice, Vaylin character differs from Azula a lot.

Need I mention that Vaylin relationship with Arcann and Valkorion are drastically different from those between Azula, Zuko and Ozai?

(Also a little detail - with royal family of Fire Nation, Azula is the golden child, while with Tiralls it's actually Thexan, not Vaylin).

What's similar: role of extremely powerful, emotionally damaged daughter with little to no regard towards others, close people betraying them, resulting in their downfall.

What's different: characterization, role in the narrative, relationship with father and brother.

Arcann and Zuko is the most difficult part, but I still believe that calling Arcann just a cheap copy of Zuko is incorrect.

So, they fall into role of less successful son, always getting disapproval from father, being in shadow of more talented sibling, both obsessed with capturing the main character but ending up helping them end the war after going through a redemption arc with help of caring family member. Even both have scars on left side of face. Yeah, seems similar. I still think they are different characters.

Let's start with their relationships with family. In Valkorion section I said that his attitude towards Arcann is similar to that of Ozai towards Zuko, so not going to spend too much time here. However, there's slight difference - Zuko didn't kill his father even he had a perfect opportunity (bc it wasn't his goal), Arcann did (bc it was one of his goals), which says something about their characterizations.

Zuko and Ursa were shown to have a good mother-son relationship, and it played a role in Zuko's character. With Arcann and Senya, we don't really know (not much was shown in expansions). We know Arcann didn't hate his mother, but possibly didn't have warm memories of her either. The reason is most likely, like Senya said, her children wanted nothing to do with her (which is a bit untrue about Vaylin, but okay) and leaned more towards Valkorion. We need to remember that on Zakuul Valkorion isn't just one of many great leaders, he's the greatest, and seen as a god by most citizens, so safe to assume the same would apply to his children as well.

Zuko and Azula's siblingship (i'm out of words) is a bit similar to Arcann and Vaylin's in way of brother knowing that his sister isn't good, but still caring about them (even if not showing). At least it's what I saw. What's different is how Azula treats Zuko, compared to how Vaylin treats Arcann. I think Azula showed compassion or concern for Zuko maybe twice, but I'm not entirely convinced that it was 100% sincere. Vaylin, on the other hand, seems to trust and care about Arcann (with bits of sass and questioning his life choices), and switching to complete opposite after him saving Senya. Also, I don't she ever called Arcann a failure in their father's eyes.

Now I want to say that their roles in stories aren't the same either. Sure, both are introduced to us as antagonists, but in reality, Zuko was never a true antagonist (we get to learn this somewhere mid-season 1), when Arcann remains the main antagonist for whole of KotFE. Zuko didn't start a war and didn't participate in conquest of other nations too much, his main goal was to capture the Avatar so to restore his honor (and deserve his father's forgiveness). Honestly, I think it's safe to say the Zuko is one of two main protagonists of ATLA. Why does Arcann want to capture the Outlander? Solely because his father's spirit still lives inside this person's mind, and the best solution to keep Valkorion away from the galaxy is not letting the Outlander free (hence the carbonite freezing). And Arcann doesn't want or need Valkorion's forgiveness when he attempts to kill him (or kills him, depending on your choice. anyway, his action directly leads to Valkorion's "death"). And right after that he becomes a ruler of Zakuul and begins the conquest of Republic, Sith Empire and everything he can reach (the reasoning behind this is still unclear to me though; maybe because he was raised with ruling Zakuul in mind and he didn't anything else, idk). Point is, he's responsible for war and main's character imprisonment, which makes him the main antagonist of KotFE. They have it the opposite ways - Zuko starts as disgraced prince, supported by a little group of people, and in the end he's recognized and appreciated by his nation, and Arcann starts as respected by his empire, later becoming less and less loved, until some groups start rebelling his rule, and in the end he doesn't get to rule Zakuul again.

This leads me to their morals. See, Zuko didn't have the worst morals in Fire Nation, even more, he expressed care for loyals soldiers of his nation before getting punished by Ozai. During first season (and about a half of second one) his views on other nations are what he was taught before. However, these views are challenged by travelling in Earth Kingdom, witnessing people suffering from war Fire Nation started and hating its people (you already know all of this), and with this he comes through final stage of redemption when he's back home. Unfortunately, Arcann doesn't go through this, and he's shown to be more ruthless.

Alright, when it comes to their redemption arcs, well let's say they are different (both in quality and the way they go through it), I'm just a bit tired of long explanations at this point. Zuko's arc is one of the best ever put on television, and Arcann's... well, it definitely has potential, but is criminally underdeveloped (there are other people who will explain it better than I ever could).

What's similar: role of disgraced son, living in shadow of their sibling, serious injuries on the left side of face (though with different meanings), obsession with capturing the main character, having a redemption arc.

What's different: role in the narrative, role in their society, characterization, relationship with sister and mother, different end goals (before redemption), paths to redemption.

[shroombaskme]

Useless but mildly entertaining idea: Killing Game but I use my Pregame characters. Which of course means Kagehara doing what Kagehara does best: Go Ham. I'll just write what I come up with briefly here, don't mind me.

- Nobody remembers Danganronpa in this since its the typical brain wiping. Yes it might alter a few of them by a little if they base their existence around the game, but that's the fun of it.

- Ultimates would likely be, at best, either randomized where it takes from a small piece of their normal personality. For example, Akamatsu or Momota might be the Ultimate Arcade Player, while Iruma is still an Ultimate Inventor but different from canon Miu.

- I have only a handful of (sort of) fleshed out characterizations of characters from my GTITW fic, but I have an old list somewhere that would act as a skeleton for the rest of the characterizations.

- Shipping would likely be minimal, friendship is forever. There might be SOME romance in it though, because that's always interesting. Especially if one of them dies. Or gets killed by their love interest for any reason, including mercy killing.

- I don't know who would be the Protagonist. Maybe Amami like I did with GTITW, but to be completely honest I do not think he cares nearly enough to help solve a murder. Kagehara maybe, he's pretty observant, but also he's a little impulsive/loud and I'm not sure if anyone would rely on him as heavily. They may want someone more level-headed as the leader.

- On that same stream, I would not know who would be the support, or the antagonist. This may just be a matter of me only having so many characters that I actually used so far/Have any firm idea on what their Pregame versions are like in a standard setting.

- Imagine though that Kagehara's role is technically as the antagonist, but not intentionally in a mean manner. Or really as the antagonist at all, description-wise. Antagonists are at the baseline someone who opposes the ideas of another, and he's not actually opposing ANYTHING. The only problem is that he keeps accidentally messing up the crime scene and generally makes it harder for the supposed protagonist to do anything, because even the crime scene can't be entirely trusted.

Basically Togami Chapter 2 except multiply that by 5 or so.

- The only way it gets solved is because there is at least enough to convict someone, the culprit confesses, or someone remembers a detail that would somehow tie into either the tampered evidence (Perhaps even lack thereof) or the potential culprit.

- The only reason Kagehara isn't barred from being ANYWHERE near the crime scene is either A) He keeps doing this before anyone notices, or B) They've tried and they keep failing to keep him away.

- Most of the kids I have at the moment are at the core kind of boring for a killing game, to be honest. Then again, I use them in a slice of life type of fan fiction, so that may be part of the issue. If I used them for a killing game their personalities may be a little more... livelier? Something more interesting to watch at the very least.

- The idea of Kageguuji being a witness but not at all a reliable witness is a funny idea. He's in his own head more often than not so the culprit may end up killing someone - Perhaps discreetly because I don't even think they would get away with a loud one even in front of Kageguuji - in front of him and be confident enough that Kageguuji could not say who did it first try during the trial.

- However this can only work in front of him. Anyone else may have the slightest of suspicions. Granted, there is the chance he actually is paying attention, but if it's Chapter 3 and there's only been one victim so far...

- I don't know what Mono-Creature would exist here other than Monokuma himself. There's always the Monokubs, since the Pregames are still V3 characters, but what if.... they weren't here for that? I could say it would just be Monokuma and not worry about an extra mascot. I could also say I put in a new Mono-Creature in for fun. It's my little thing after all, who is to say I can't put in a character just for them?

- If I did, it would most likely just stay bear-like, since again it's V3 just tilted a little to the left. If it were a new cast then maybe the realm of a new Mono-Creature comes to be, but for now it's just a bear thing.

- The scenery would stay the same, no use making a new one when there's a perfectly functional zone right there. Of course, labs would have to be rearranged and altered since it wouldn't match up with anything.

- New outfits for everyone, just because I can. Heck, why not just let them have a new outfit for each day? It's not like I'm programming a game, no reason why they have to wear the same outfit like it's a common cartoon.

- The motives might change, they might not. Honestly the idea of crafting new motives sound fun, because it's at the palm of my hand and I can legally do anything with it.

- What if, along with Kagehara generally disrupting the crime scene every time, someone was there as the unintentional helper? They bring up evidence others may not notice or even find on their own? Granted, it would equally be as concerning, because having all this extra evidence and viewpoints on hand kind of sounds like they have a lot more first hand experience than they should reasonably have. Otherwise they're harmless.... Unless they really are the blackened and are helping for some other reason.

- What if, just like V3, they genuinely do not have Ultimates and are really just normal people who were brainwashed to believe they did? Here, they have different personalities, and by the end perhaps different survivors, so how would the reactions go this time?

----

So this ran on longer than I expected, sorry about that. Just had to get the idea out there, since I have no reason to save it to myself. I likely will not act upon this idea unless something strikes me to, so just have it as a theoretical premise.

[captainkurosolaire]

Things I Like RP Partners to Know

I like to be called: Captain, Kuro, Zach, Degenerate, w/e. I'm typically not nerved by really anything, mostly chill. (Went in-depth and tagged below cut)

One thing you should know about me: I really just write for passion anymore, I don't care about this whole Post+ stuff, it won't play a factor in me. Tumblr has really everything that allows me to write and further myself. However, it ever goes away, even if becomes Myspace 2.0, I'll probably still maintain writing here off and on in spurts. --Now if they shut-down, I might convert over somewhere that's identical, cause Twitter couldn't handle my girth. I'm mildly autistic and suffer from a few other conflicting health aliments, writing is my obsessiveness and remedy. Used to be gaming, but I became less of a gamer, and replaced it more for writing cause It's a place where I can contain and throw all my thought's to usage. My mind overlaps with so much thing's at once, I get side-tracked, misplacement, my concentration shifts horribly, before I know it, I haven't slept for twenty-four hours or more. Lot of stuff is just me being redundant by fault. Or I become overwhelmed with a story ideas, that impulsively takes me, but majority of my best thing's are sudden. Not the one's that are ever planned. But I don't live to make excuses never care to be defined, by one thing, or person. I don't aim to attain much of anything in life but be a better me, until my end. And by analyzing your mind, you can do or achieve a lot I've discovered. So I repetitively no matter what jog down my WIP's and unleash, or my errors, I put them all on badges displays, then I go back and repeat until I show progress. That's how I have to learn. But passion is a candle, so when it burn's out I lose a lot of what I learned, it's natural after that to be discouraged, but instead, for me, that gets me going again. Cause mean's I can come at thing's with a whole new mental perspective and different flow, then compare, and again, adapt and improve. One thing you should know about RPing with my character(s): Everything is a factor and story with me. Losses, they matter. My character originally was highly killable almost every session, but advanced due to the actions of others, because of them, he found the value of his own life, and that's how I like to do my characters. Even the win's my character gets from stories, will most likely have a 'bad ending' occasionally or result into something new sprouting from it eventually, however that doesn't define at-all how permanently it effects them. But seasonally they go through their struggle. Life for real, is up and down's, these are the component's I factor in. Realistically, sure we fall. We never truly decline unless we allow it. Our character's philosophies, their mental judgement, dislikes, etc, all these thing's become ingrained they decide how much they want too fight and live, they step to improve or sometimes stumble under roadblocks, but not truly devolve. So the more people he interacts with or meets and encounters in RP, they are factors, they're meaningful to meet again, or live, their short teachings are insightful. No matter how small or large or incomplete stories went or passed-by. I created a character who was filled in by others initially. Even one-shot smuts, they're important experiences. Lot more to appreciate when your character learns on their own how to surpass their weaknesses and suffering organically. Still do RP with others but typically I do collaborations, or pre-established or short things, or Discord, one-shot in-game stuff, screenshot things that can convey RP. Want to build this Crew as their own functioning characters, not so much minor throwaways, but shippable, and highly in-depth. Essentially building an optional anime for my partner's, one-day. Long-term with me right now just isn't something I'd ever ask or expect from me. I'm too jumbled and a mess. But it's not a never, I do have two people who are among all my stuff and involved. I'd include anyone in my stories too if they wanted partaken. First language: Gibberish / English. Age range: under 13  |  14–17 | 18–22 | 23–25 | 26–29 | 30+ | 40+ | 70+ Am I okay with NSFW?: yes |

no | some nsfw I came solely off that, my reputation, was known as 'That ERP guy' on Balmung OG day's, I'm one of the degen's from that era. But character's evolve and adapt as do their people, they become more, but maintain their origins to degree. Those perspective's and things learned from NSFW are very paramount to a lot of SFW too. My favorite/most common thing to RP is: angst | fluff | smut | crack | action | plots | AUs are fine | Violence | Darker themes |  I dunno. * I'm pretty open-ended in all things. It's all fascinating for me to attempt at improving. Reason finally pulled the trigger and made a diverse Crew for Captain was give off different interactions and also more reason's to write beyond my usual trends. I'll tackle eventually every genre... now doesn't mean I'll excel in those fields more than my specialties, but I'll do it. Canon Character RP Friendly?: yes | no | depends * I stick with the sandbox but I'll stretch out all the space and limits of it. Building skyscrapers and UFO's with that sand, just happens that this Universe has magic, science, alchemy, holograms, all-around unlimited absurd possibilities, more than even D&D, which makes this game the best to RP within. When comes to interacting with anything Canon base, It'll always dwarf me though. Most likely I'll write my own legit WoL's, thinking of making an 'antagonist' one, but more 'protagonist too' (maybe hunk viera male?) I like making construed lines between characters, that's really complex, it's avidly up to a reader to decide who's in the right or wrong or if they're rooting for the villain or good-guy. I see most lore characters as Celebrities which my character would be rightfully cultured in, and they're untouchable, least for my characters. To me the source of what, who, or with you're writing is what determines a lot. But yeah RPing with anything Canon related, I switch to being a just minor gnat. And there's going to be a lot of consequences, that come if there's anything that does effect something that matters in the Universe. Just cause my pirate is causing havoc and having fun for now, doesn't mean law's don't catch-up or something else doesn't. Cause and effect always. RP blog: does contain ooc posts | doesn’t contain ooc posts | occasionally contains ooc* I would do more OOC if did asks, or inbox related things and was wanted, but outside occasional updates, I stick to my role. That's just write stories and screenshots and practice everything. I'm thankful for anyone who does enjoy anything I share or supports me, It's what brings me back faster and I do always think of you too when I want to get better, it's uplifting and inspiring, alongside boosting. If I do bring any motivation to anything, I do. Then that's the best payment I could get. I like seeing others thrive, or soar higher than me, and unleash their creativity. Tagged by:@spotofmummery (Thank ye my treasured friend!) Tagging anyone/everyone: @roguestly @scholarlybreadbun @under-the-blood-moonlight @lettersnorth @violet-warder @lukawarrioroflight @eligos-venator @corpse-dancer @silvernsteel @silvertail-ffxiv @roxinova @lavender-hemlock @fracturedfantasia @zhauric @fair-fae @avwalya @yuki-yukichan @crow-iv @cadrenebula @spellsandtales @casualcatte @seascrapes @mishivymendi @thorcat @aqueerfishtheyis @ljoturyalre @seabound-dragoon @scornedjustice @laylahcousland @layla-grey @moonstruck-ffxiv @snow-covered-moon (Apologies if missed anyone. If there's more who'd like to be tagged again on all these type of things, let me know.)

[nyarmand]

also all of the asks for ace attorney

doing this one first bc i want to

What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?* i'm not sure if it really counts as a fandom otp all things considered but i never understood lang and edgeworth together, just doesn't work for me

Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?* yes actually, see above, i think they should just hang out and exasperate each other but in a fond way

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? don't even get me started. there was a whole week last year where the unfollow button was hit so many times...

Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?* yeah. the creepy ones

Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?* i mean i still engage in it on my own terms but aa fandom treatment of phoenix and edgeworth makes me crazy and i can't go into the tags or i'll die

Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?* not that i can think of

Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* uhhhhhh nothing is coming immediately to mind. unless you count like, dahlia hawthorne, who i thought was a very entertaining antagonist right up until i found out about iris (now i would punch her in the face if we met)

Have you received anon hate? What about?* not for this i don't think

Most disliked character(s)? Why? kr*st*ph can fucking die die die die die i HATE abusive big brothers i hate them i hate them. also mvk can fuck off for being an irredeemable abusive piece of shit

Most disliked arc? Why? does kr*st*ph's existence count as an arc? if not then turnabout big top for being the most uncomfortable thing in the damn game

Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? who's unpopular in aa? i dont know these things

Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? i don't know. see above

Unpopular opinion about XXX character? have you seen the hatred i hold for certain characters...

Unpopular opinion about your fandom? i would take half of them to court in a heartbeat. i hope when they present evidence the music keeps playing

Unpopular opinion about the manga/show? if we're talking about shows, i actually didn't mind the anime! i have some complaints, but i'm glad i watched it

If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? i want to see kristoph gavin die (actually i just want to see klavier punch him right in his smug face)

Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen… i want a couple of the investigations characters to be in the main trilogy! i want to take out some of the characters like max galactica and put in characters i actually like instead!

Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased? in denial? no. biased? yes. all people are by nature. i don't say it in a derogatory way, that's just how it is. people who don't ship something are biased in the same way that people who do ship something are biased (just in opposite directions)

What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom? every time i see a kr*st*ph stan i feel very sad and angry. i am going to fucking snap one of these days

What is the purest ship in the fandom? idk. faraskye is pretty damn pure

What are your thoughts on crack ships? me/justine courtney/katherine hall when (in all seriousness as long as they're not creepy then go for it idc)

Popular character you hate? please see the guy i've been complaining about all post

Unpopular character you love? aai2 characters automatically less popular by virtue of no localization

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? depends on who it is really

How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX? gay marriage

Most shippable character? i... dont know

Least shippable character? idc the context i cant see trucy shipped with anyone ever or my brain starts steaming like a tea kettle

[nep-moved]

lotsa nyall don't know Iothric so here is my overly long post in which i tell u abt him 👁👁

i'm bad at talking nd idk how 2 start this off but here we go fjdjsk. i will be leavin out lotsa stuff abt the game bc i am just here 2 talk abt my husband gjfjsk

the game describes everythin so vaguely so forgive me if this this part sounds confusing but: in dark souIs there's this thing called the first flame !! it brought the age of fire, nd it was a v prosperous time nd bred lotsa nations !! before the age of fire was the age of ancients; the world was unformed nd not much existed there.

to keep the first flame going nd therefore keep the world from returning to that time of darkness, a rly powerful soul has 2 be given to the flame to keep it goin fr a while. lord gwyn was the first one 2 sacrifice himself to the flame (( he's also gwyndoIin's awful dad but this ain't abt him )) but ye. as time goes on there's more and more sacrifice needed to keep the flame alive.

in the time of dark souIs 3, Iothric's family wanted 2 create a child so strong they'd be the perfect person to link the flame. but they couldn't have a child like that naturally, so they resorted to 'unspeakable means' and that's all the game tells u gjfjsk. i'm not sure if i wanna know what they did BUT as a result of it, Iothric was born cursed. he was supposed 2 be a champion so strong he could link the fire but ALAS he was weak nd had v frail health, nd he didn't grow much, as an adult he could still wear his swaddling as robes, nd it's the only thing he's ever worn. why didn't nyall giv this boy some fuckign CLOTHES ffs.

but also can i gush a bit 🥺🥺 pls lookit him i think he's v cute despite his resting bitch face gjfjsk. also he looks like he rly needs a nap.. ME TOO c'mere let's snuggle.

nd pls note i say "despite" him always lookin grumpy but i lov that abt him gjfjdk

nd i'm sure nyall hav heard me talk abt his voice lots nd how much i adore it gjdjk. so pwease listen 2 him if u haven't his voice is SO preddy i am in lov nd i swoon whenever i hear it gjfjdk

NYWAYS !! Iothric has an older brother named Iorian !! the game never states why, but he decided to share Iothric's curse. a lot of ppl think it was 2 help ease his suffering which is 🥺🥺🥺 but nyways !! the curse left Iorian mute and unable to stand, nd their souls were nearly inseparable bc of the curse; they could nearly meld together. but it's said they're also nearly inseparable in kinship !! which u can tell bc Iorian obviously cares a lot fr Iothric nd givs up everything in order 2 protect him ;w;

eventually Iothric decided he didn't want to link the fire. we don't know exactly why but alas. him doing this sorta makes him the main antagonist of the game?? bc if he just linked the flame none of this shit would be happenin but LISTEN he is not bad ok. i don't blame him fr not wantin 2 do it, he had no say in it he was destined to from birth :(( it's v understandable that he doesn't wanna burn esp when ppl are tryna force him to fjdjsk. nyways him nd Iorian decided to hide far away nd just. wait for the fire to fade.

many ppl have attempted to come and kill them, but ofc they haven't succeeded gjfjsk. the ashen one, the character u play as, has to (( among lotsa other things but i am here 2 talk abt Iothric not the whole story of the game )) find nd kill him. him nd Iorian are the last boss u face before the Final Battle™️. so lemme talk abt their boss fight 👀

when u start off the fight Iothric's way up on his bed where u can't get to him, but this ain't an issue since he doesn't attack gjfjdk. just Iorian does, nd since he can't use his legs Iothric helps by teleporting him around the room !! when u kill Iorian, Iothric teleports down nd revives Iorian !! then he clings onto his back, nd that suggests he's too weak 2 walk :(( nyways during the second part of the fight u still gotta deal w Iorian but now Iothric's on his back shooting magic at u gjfjdk.

a v interesting thing abt that !! he can use RLY powerful magic, if being able 2 bring his brother back from the dead didn't already tell u that gjdksk. nd he does it all w/o a catalyst !! it's not said why he doesn't need one, but it's impressive bc even gods like gwyndoIin need one to cast spells but Iothric can do it w his bare hands just.. bc he wants to i guess JFDJK. either way i'm v proud of u sweetie !! nd remember when i said his soul's intertwined w Iorian's?? yea bc of that Iorian can't truly die unless Iothric does as well, so if u don't kill Iothric he'll just keep reviving his brother gjfjsk. but when Iothric dies Iorian also does immediately :((

there are multiple endings in the game nd in one of em u don't even hav 2 link the fire, but ur still required to kill Iothric nd Iorian?? why?? fr context in the game ur told 2 kill Iothric so u can go link the flame urself since he won't gjdjsk. but if ur not gonna link the fire?? why do i still hav 2 kill them?? i hate u fromsoft fjdjsk neither of them deserve this.

OOH can i talk abt this other thing 👁👁 i've been meaning 2 but never hav gjdjdk. OK SO !!! when i said Iothric was meant 2 be a champion nd all that, he was also expected 2 wield a special platinum sword !! but bc of his poor health he couldn't do that. nyways originally he was supposed 2 wield a scythe !! the sexiest of all weapons 👀

in conclusion...

its fuckign BIG so there's no way he'd be able 2 wield this if he couldn't do the same w that tiny sword gjdjsk but !! i always think how cool it'd be to see him use it in the fight... alas that will never happen gjdjsk 😔😔 NO MATTER i am happy enough seein him cast his pretty magic..

so uh. i think that's it?? unfortunately we do not get 2 know anythin abt him personally ;(( at least we have headcanons gjfjsk i hav many~

i lov my husband SO much he's brought me sm happiness.. nd i hope i can giv him plenty in return ;; he's been thru sm nd he only deserves the best jgdjkd i just want him 2 be happy nd safe :(( i Also lov my big brother Iorian w all my heart nd he Also deserves only the best !! both these boys r so good pls appreciate them

[ghostmeep]

are you going to make a post on why you think sonic isn't to blame for letting metal go? i'm curious on your thoughts on it

Ah, I’m guessing you are referring to my little side note I made in my Sonic feels guilt post 

Well, tbh that sentence was less of a ‘I’ve got a lot of important things to say about this matter’ and more of a ‘I’m trying to not get off topic’ - but I’m up for expanding my thoughts on it. Don’t expect ground breaking points tho haha

Disclaimer, this is way less fact driven than my other post about Sonic feeling guilty in the Zombot arc. It’s more speculation with not as much direct support from canon. But if you are cool with that, read on

Anyways, so to first clarify what I want to try and express in this post:

I do think that the current arc is a direct result of Sonic’s actions and I’m not trying to disprove that Sonic is to blame here. He is to blame when all is said and done, but it isn’t like he single-handedly caused the Zombots to spread? I just think people are shitting on Sonic just a bitttt too much 

But, I do think that Sonic’s actions were in character enough to forgive. A bit of a stretch here and there, but enough to let it pass imo

———–

I’m going to first talk about Sonic letting Eggman free even though you only asked about Metal because the two kind of goes hand in hand.

And here I ask everyone to let go of their beyond the fourth wall knowledge. Forget about how you know the franchise as Eggman and Metal Sonic are antagonist and there is no way Sega would change them.

Try thinking about it from Sonic’s perspective and think of Eggman as a real person - meaning someone who can change and grow, because all people can - I’m not saying all people do, but it is possible

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So we look at Eggman’s situation. At first Sonic was super suspicious and wasn’t willing to trust Eggman and thought it was an act.

But the more time he was with Mr. Tinker the more he had to accept that Eggman really did have memory loss - and guess what? He was right about that part at least. 

In that moment of time, Eggman was truly different and didn’t remember any of his past doings.

In that situation, wouldn’t it have been a little harsh to imprison him? Or kill him? I dunno, if Eggman never remembered and could live the rest of his life peacefully as Mr. Tinker, wouldn’t it be okay to let him? – Forget about what we know happened later on and just think about it from that situation in time. 

If Sonic just threw Eggman to prison at this point, I feel like that would have been more out of character for him. More harsh than I would have expected him to be. Because, for all his cool guy attitude, Sonic is a nice, caring guy. 

And it wasn’t like Sonic was the only one who wanted to give this chance to Mr. Tinker. Shadow was the only one he had to really convince.

Everyone else was on-board more or less?

They all deferred to Sonic’s decision, but if they had a problem with it they would have spoken up. Or tried to persuade Sonic against letting Mr. Tinker free. It’s because they agreed, at least on some level, that they just went with what Sonic decided to do. Espio took some convincing, but again, not all that much. Barley any at all. 

And then the town mayor put in his two cents - so everyone pretty much came to a mutual agreement, no? it’s a bit much to say it’s all on Sonic for letting Eggman stay as Mr. Tinker

( That is to say, I’m not saying that it was wrong of the characters to blame Sonic. The characters did trust Sonic to make the right decision, so when it proved to be the wrong one, and with all that is going on and everyone running on emotion, it makes sense they would turn on Sonic. Because Sonic did have the final say, and as the ‘hero’ who everyone looked to for guidance he did let everyone down in that sense. It was his responsibility to bear. Fair or not. ) Us as readers shitting on Sonic though is a bit different. We can absolutely say it was a stupid decision and I’m sure all of us called it that Eggman would return, but in universe, there is enough to support Sonic’s decision. So I wouldn’t call this Sonic grabbing the idiot ball, since it does adhere to parts of Sonic’s personality as we know it. 

Anyways, back to the Mayor being up for letting Eggman stay. We can see that Sonic still has some doubts and is unsure what to do at this point. 

He’s still thinking about it, and while it’s likely he would have reached the conclusion of letting Eggman stay anyways, there is something that pushes him to make that decision. That cements in his mind that Eggman is gone for good.

Because when the Badniks invade the town and Sonic rushes to confront Eggman he sees –

Eggman trying to protect the children

This is the moment that convinces Sonic the most, I think. Because when the going gets tough is when people’s true colours start to emerge. And Mr. Tinker did what he can to protect the children, despite being scared. There is no way Sonic can throw him to rot in a cell after that

I also want to point out that even Rouge, who doesn’t have the hero persona like Sonic does, even she thought it would be for the best to let Eggman free as Mr. Tinker? Why else would she even bother giving a tip to the Chaotix knowing that Sonic would likely come to this decision?

And it isn’t like Sonic just made the decision to let Eggman roam free and washed his hands of the matter. We see his doubts when Eggman Land is mentioned and he says himself how he’ll definitely be stopping by

So Sonic is aware of the dangers, and he is also planning to stop by and check up on Eggman himself. Sounds kinda fair to me. 

So hopefully it’s clearer from this that letting Eggman free isn’t really the most unbelievable thing to do, it made enough sense for people other than Sonic to be on board of it at least.

And Sonic even managed to convince Shadow. Yeah, Sonic is dumb stubborn so trying to change his mind would have been difficult, but the same goes for Shadow, right? But Sonic managed because what he said made sense at the time. There is logical thought to letting Eggman free and that is why he was able to convince everyone.

Of course, now everyone regrets it because it led to this disaster, but point still stands that at the time it didn’t seem like a bad idea. 

I’ve got no good counter for why Sonic and co. didn’t leave someone to look after Eggman just in case tho. 

The best I can think of is because to them, Eggman was the ‘big bad’. After all, how many disasters didn’t start because of Eggman in some way? Not really any. 

So since they deemed Eggman was a non-threat maybe they just assumed it would be safe to leave him here? Because without Eggman, who would they have to worry about? Any new villain that would pop up would be a threat to the world sure, but no threat in having Eggman restore his memories. It’s hard to imagine a situation where a new villain takes the time to help Eggman regain his old self in-between destroying the world…

Because, let’s be honest, I don’t think anyone would have ever thought that there was an Eggman fanboy on the loose. 

So they likely deemed that there was no need for a bodyguard when they thought there was nothing to guard from. 

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Now for Metal Sonic.

Okay, so this is a little harder to defend because, well, oof Sonic you really dropped the ball here. But I can still say it’s kinda in-character?? It’s pushing it, but I don’t think it’s so out of nowhere to the point where I think Sonic’s characterization was ruined from this moment.

After all, we’ve seen Sonic show compassion to previous enemies, right? He’s pretty much known for making friends out of enemies, honestly.

So Sonic’s forgiveness definitely doesn’t come from nowhere, at least. We’ve seen Sonic’s willingness to give people multiple chances before

Seriously, which of Sonics friends didn’t start out as the antagonist? 

We have Knuckles, Shadow, Silver, Blaze, all who I won’t talk about much since I’m assuming everyone knows their stories.

But we also have other games showing Sonic’s forgiving side. 

In Sonic and the Black Knight, we saw Merlina pulling Sonic from his own world, just to trick him, and then attempt to make her world never changing (thus killing innocent souls). And at the end, all Sonic did was give her a flower and tell her to live life to the fullest in the time we have. 

And yes, you can make the argument that the people who Sonic forgave weren’t inherently bad people, just people led astray, but that’s also the point? Sonic believes that everyone has good in them – that no one is inherently all bad – even Eggman and Metal Sonic. 

You can make the argument that Metal is programmed to be evil by Eggman, but hey, weren’t Gamma and Emerl too? And yet they turned out good. 

So we do have proof that Eggman’s sentient robots are capable of changing sides. And with Eggman out of the picture and not able to influence Metal negatively, Sonic probably saw this as the perfect chance to let Metal find the good in himself. 

And yes, Metal is at a bit of a disadvantage because he is programmed to be forever loyal to Eggman, but 1) Eggman is no more as far as Sonic is concerned. So that ‘loyalty’ is a moot point. Because Metal is basically loyal to a person who doesn’t exist anymore. 2) just because you are loyal to someone doesn’t mean you can’t come to disagree with their actions. 

Metal can still learn about what is good or not even if he is programmed to be loyal to Eggman. And I think that is what Sonic was going for.

Look at Metal Sonic’s situation

They let him go, but it’s clear that he wouldn’t have been any danger to anyone. It doesn’t seem like he was fixed enough to even get close to Sonic’s speed like he normally could, and he had all his weapons removed by Tails. 

So the only one who could have made him dangerous again would be Tails (which wasn’t going to happen) and Eggman (who, as far as Sonic knows, is still Mr. Tinker)

Metal Sonic really wasn’t a danger to anyone.

Yeah, Sonic could have at the very least done a quick check on Eggman to make sure that everything was fine and he was still Mr. Tinker, but Sonic just left Eggman - what, a day or so ago? What are the odds that something happened in just that amount of time? And what are the odds that the village looked for Sonic for help at the moment he was at Angel Island?

And again, to Sonic, Eggman was the ‘big bad.’ With him gone, Sonic probably got lulled to a false sense of security. 

So it makes sense to me that Sonic is willing to give these risky second chances because he is pretty confident that Eggman, and thus evil geniuses that could rebuild Metal, are not a problem anymore.

So, Metal is not dangerous, and as far as Sonic knows, won’t be able to become dangerous. The world is rebuilding itself and it seems like they’ve finally come at peace. 

It’s the ideal situation for Metal to change. Because remember, it is possible for Eggman’s robots to be good. 

So from that line of thinking, letting Metal go isn’t all thattttt bad? Hindsight is 20/20 so it’s easy to say Sonic was wrong to letting Metal go, but at the time Sonic had at least some reason to risk it.

Sure, Sonic could have taken a bit more precaution, like maybe follow Metal to keep an eye on him, but being Mr. Free-As-The-Wind, he probably thought letting Metal go to do his own searching would eventually lead to triggering a good change – and it would all end well. After all, it is unlikely that Metal would change in the presence of people he deems as ‘enemies’ – so Sonic was likely hoping Metal would run into a more neutral party who would nudge him in the right direction. 

Also, with Sonic running around as much as he does, he probably figured that he would run into Metal sooner or later and be able to check on his progress. 

Too bad Metal tracked down Eggman instead. 

So yeah, still rather stupid – and careless, but I can see some reasoning behind it. 

It’s not too hard to imagine Sonic being over-eager to have all the danger behind him, and he wanted to wrap things up in a nice neat bow asap, so he rushed things too much. 

He seemed really ready to get to the whole ‘relax with no worries’ stage at least. 

So Sonic jumped the gun. Not exactly hard to accept for the fastest thing alive. 

I’m going to add this point in too — but let’s not forget that this takes place after Sonic Forces. Even without the English version’s unnecessary add-in of saying Sonic was tortured for six months, Sonic was still at the very least held in captivity for six months. And then immediately had to go and take up the mantle of being people’s hope ( in Tails’s words ) and win a war for everyone that has been going on for far too long. I don’t think you can really blame a guy for wanting peace so badly after all that. 

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And just going to insert one more point about whether Zombot arc is all Sonic’s fault or not that people are going to hate me making, but Imma do it anyways. This isn’t my main argument, at all, but I just want to include it anyways. 

Because if you want to be super super technical. If you will allow me to be nit picky here…

It’s not really his fault. 

Yeah, he let Eggman free, and thus he was easy to kidnap. Yes he let Metal free, and thus was able to help Eggman recover his memory. Yes and yes.

But, my girl Tangle made valid points too. 

And I get it. This is kinda a dumb argument, because the point is is that Sonic should have taken measures to prevent Starline from being able to restore Eggman and Sonic should have prevented Metal from even being able to reach Eggman to get re-weaponized. Yes. But still. 

Are we really going to hate the fact that our Hero character tried to make the best out of a situation? Sonic wanted the best possible outcome to come true (For Eggman and Metal to find purpose in life that was good) and when he saw an opportunity for it to happen, just within his reach, he took it.

Yes it was reckless. Yes it was stupid and idealistic. Yes, it was naive, but Sonic, with all his good heart, just wanted a happy ending for everyone. 

It just sucks that there are people like Starline and Eggman who chooses to be bad, even when given the opportunity to be otherwise. But bad people existing, who choose to bring chaos and destruction, isn’t Sonic’s fault. 

Because Sonic is responsible for his actions, yes. But Starline, Eggman, and Metal are responsible for their own actions too. 

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Well, I guess I already made my points that I wanted, but because this post is obviously not long enough, I’m going to keep going. (I just can’t stop once I’ve started, so bear with me as I go on semi-tangents from the original question) 

I’ve seen some people say how if Sonic didn’t let Metal Sonic go Eggman wouldn’t have remembered his old self — but we don’t know that???????

Sure, Metal Sonic was the last straw that allowed Eggman to remember – but it’s not guaranteed that Eggman wouldn’t have remembered without Metal.

It’s obvious that Starline wouldn’t have given up on Eggman, at least. Who knows what measures Starline would have taken to get Eggman back to all his glory. And well, he was making progress in restoring Eggman. Super slow progress, but progress nevertheless.

And this point I’m about to make is a bit of a stretch, but I want to make it anyways because I think it’s interesting to think about 

But look at what the badnik makes with the bush? It’s pretty much Sonic’s head. And, while sure it doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it could also mean that Eggman’s subconscious is at least starting to get hung up on Sonic again? Because out of all the things the badnik could have made, it’s Sonic’s head.

And we saw when the town’s doctor tried to see if Eggman really lost his memory, we see him using a blob that looks awfully familiar

Again, it doesn’t really prove my point in any way, but I just found it a kinda cool connection. Because we’re shown that a hint that Eggman is returning evil again is showing signs about his obsession with Sonic, and that obsession is peaking in here, if ever so slightly. 

So we could say that it was only a matter of time for Eggman to return to his old self, and the trigger could have been anything if not Metal. It probably wouldn’t have happened as quick, but it likely would have happened eventually.

One more thing I want to about Sonic’s decision to let Metal go. – I don’t think Sonic made that decision behind anyone’s back. 

I’m not going to go into the whole ‘no one disagreed with Sonic’s decision so it’s not like Sonic is the only one at fault’ point I made with Eggman here, because it doesn’t hold the same truth to it for this. Because I do think in this instance letting Metal go was 100% Sonic’s decision, and 100% Sonic’s responsibility to shoulder, but saying Sonic did this behind everyone’s back is a bit much.

When he meets with Knuckles again, Knuckles says how Metal is trashed

At this point I think I’m the only one who thought this, but I took Kunckles’s words as ‘Metal is in trash condition and not a threat’ not a ‘Metal is in the trash and offline’ 

Because otherwise it seems a bit weird for that line to be included but have no reaction from Sonic? Not even a side eyed glance of guilt or a sweatdrop or a small ellipsis bubble from Sonic indicating his silence on the topic under Knuckles’s first speech bubble. Absolutely nothing is given. 

And I guess I wouldn’t put it past Sonic to omit details from his friends if he thinks it’s for the best, but it is just strange how we didn’t get any indication of Sonic choosing to omit details here when it very easily could have been shown.

Then when Silver and Sonic faced Metal, there is no surprise from Silver. No indication that Silver wasn’t already aware that Metal was out there somewhere.

And I doubt that absolutely no one thought ‘huh where did Metal’s body end up’ If everyone wasn’t aware about Sonic’s plans. It seems like it would have been an odd thing to overlook, since Metal is known to be resilient. You would think someone would have wondered what happened to it if they were being kept in the dark. 

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And my very last point in all this huge mass of words – the biggest reason I am okay with Sonic letting Eggman roam free without supervision and Sonic letting Metal Sonic go, is because Sonic is showing signs of learning from his mistakes

(yes, I’m reusing the same screencap in the same post shh) 

Sonic says how believing that everyone has good in them came to bite him in the end and he regrets it

It’s why I can’t really get mad at Sonic chasing that idealistic happy ending for everyone. Because in order for someone to be less naive, they need to face reality first. And oh boy, has Sonic been facing really harsh reality one after another since this arc began. 

Now, it’s too early to tell if IDW will let this lesson stick, but here’s hoping. The fact that Sonic has been so hung up about his mistakes makes it seem like he’ll learn from this whole thing.

And isn’t that nice to have? A character making mistakes and then learning from it. I feel like it’s so rare to have that I’m willing to forgive idiotic decisions if it leads to character growth and the promise of this similar situation not happening again. All IDW needs to do is not brush everything that has happened and Sonic’s guilt under a rug to be forgotten and things will be fine. 

I’m not saying I want Sonic to never give second chances ever again, but showing a bit of hesitance next time would be cool. And definitely never showing Eggman and Metal such leniency after all this. 

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And with this being my second post supporting Sonic’s actions now, I just want to clarify that it’s not like I think this arc is without flaws. I’m not trying to hype up this comic to be this amazing and perfect thing. There are a lot of issues I have with this arc, and the fact that at least half of my points I made in this post was from speculation means that there were too many holes in the storytelling. 

But, while I do see plenty of flaws with the comic, I just don’t think it fun to constantly negatively criticize something I’m reading. If I’m reading something it’s because I’m enjoying doing so, so I don’t want to be bogged down by focusing on all the holes in it. I’ll just recognize the flaws for what it is, maybe come up with a theory or two to make things easier to swallow, and move on. It’s how I enjoy reading, but I know it’s not how everyone likes to go about things and that’s fine too. 

[wonderfulcinderella]

Oh! So you're also a fan of Niko... Mind to explain to me why, exactly? It's a genuine question! He bullies Roman and Brucie, as well as Patrick to some degree, betrays pretty much everyone he's ever worked with (killing a McReary brother and then coming to his funeral, just to score Sensitive Guy™️ points with Katie was the most cruel thing I've ever seen in media ever), plays the victim all the time-- At some point I literally started rooting for Dimitri :-/. Please, tell me why you like him!

Okay so listen, this took me a while to answer 'cause I actually had to think about this for a bit -

First of all, thanks for asking, I really do love talking about GTA IV, since it's my fave GTA :)

Sooo let's talk about mah boi Niko. I fell in love with Niko literally the second I saw him. Well, that's not exactly correct. I fell in love with him while playing The Cousins Bellic when he was talking to Roman about his past (since you said Niko was bullying Roman - Roman literally fell asleep when Niko was talking to him?). I know Niko has his flaws, I'm pretty sure R* makes sure their protagonists have quite a few flaws so you can identify yourself with them. Anyways.

Considering the bullying, I don't think that's what it is? Sure, you can read a lot into it, but tbh me and my siblings do "bully" each other quite a lot, too. You have no idea how many times I told my sister she was raised by fucking wolves before we found and adopted her - she usually answers with flipping me off and telling me that I was adopted (which is actually true, that's why it's funny). I don't think Roman nor Brucie nor Packie would be as close to Niko as they are if they actually felt bullied? I mean, I wouldn't risk being shot just to support my cousin taking revenge for his dead girlfriend if I actually felt bullied by him? But it's a game and you can read into it whatever you want.

I also don't exactly know what you mean by betraying? 😂 who exactly did he betray??

Sure, he kinda DID betray Francis or Derrick (whoever you picked, I usually shoot Francis), but I don't think he wanted to work for Francis in the first place and he also didn't have that much of a choice, and yes, no matter if you kill Francis or Derrick, Niko will attend the funeral, which is kinda shitty, but what was he supposed to say? Sorry Packie but I'm the one who killed your brother, I don't think it would be appropriate to come? And if you mean Playboy X and Dwayne (the first time I played GTA IV I shot Dwayne and I never ever did that again), he did betray one of them, sure, but again, he could've said no and then they would've gotten someone else to do it.

Considering the victim part - well, he IS a victim. Based on a lot of conversations ingame Niko was very young when he had to fight in the Yugoslaw wars (I don't know where you're from or what you know about european history, maybe you wanna look that up yourself), it's implied his father was an alcoholic, they didn't have electricity in their house until he was 12, so yeah, he seems like a victim because he IS a victim. At least he's more of a victim than most other GTA protagonists (for example, Michael). I think maybe that is why I like him so much? I don't really know.

And now, last but not least, how the fuck can you even consider rooting for Dimitri? God, I hate that rat so much 😂 but I have to admit, he was a brilliant antagonist.