#and it doesn’t help that so much official info is in Japanese and will never be translated

[moophinz]

I’ve made a short, tiny piece of criticism regarding fandom’s behavior of being super demanding and not engaging with the thing they demanded. But there’s something else that’s been bothering me for a while now…

This fandom feels very baby. In that way, I mean that it feels super young. So young, that certain popular people on Twitter who would have been called out for numerous counts of various flavors of poor behavior in other fandoms get strangely shared around a lot here. I don’t find much in the way of deeper analysis topics or video essays. Memes (that if I may be honest) have been used to death and beyond still get repeated— even when it’s completely unwarranted. The worse of the meme brain rot crossover with steep bigotry people tend to overwhelm and act incredibly disgusting in some corners of the fandom and on official posts.

Like with any thing or community or what have you, there’s people who seek engagement bait and spread negativity. I’m surprised at how successful it can be to do that in this fandom on Twitter. It creates such a rotten atmosphere. All in all, a lot of these things have been pushing me away from the community even though I only joined into this series in 2021. It feels like some kind of tide turned for the worse.

Yes, this fandom is in fact relatively new in a way. It’s existed for almost two decades but exploded some years ago with a continued high stream of sudden growth. But there are certain things that I’m still astonished by.

[layton-heritage-posts]

Well shit.

So much for not making another post about the whole thing. I would say this is the last one but I already said that two times before and you see how that worked out.

After getting some, you know, actual information and not just straight up hostile messages towards me, there’s a bit more info about the Clora stuff.

First off, Localization errors:

Apparently, in the official art book, Flora is described as a self-proclaimed bride to Professor Layton, meaning that baron Reinhold was actually searching for a potential Husba for Flora, not a father figure/mentor.

(Btw shoutout to @sixtyfourk and @clora-feels for giving me real facts and counter argument’s instead of just writing “fuck you asshole” in an ask like a surprising lot of you)

If we’re going with my “looks like it isn’t as canon as I thought it was”-age, that would leave us with the assumption that the Baron wanted to marry of his daughter to an adult. That doesn’t sound good either.

The reason why I (and luckily not only me) thought that Flora was underage was, surprise surprise, implied in the translation. Especially in the German one, you know the one I played, where they basically spill it out in all three games.

So, Flora is actually at least 18 in the actual, official Japanese translation. Does that mean that I like this ship more now? No actually not. I still hate it. I have been seeing Flora as a teenager since I got into the series (and I mean come on her model doesn’t look 18), so a simple translation error really doesn’t change that.

BUT, I also admit that I absolutely could have answered some asks better, and probably shouldn’t have let that thing escalate. That plus all the sudden aggressive asks (that I deleted, obviously) once I talked about my thoughts about really didn’t help my opinion.

Still, I guess I owe some of you an apology. I could talk about how I was never in the wrong and was just a poor unknowing innocent person and so on, but I should have at least done the minimum of research before getting into arguments.

I probably go through the blog and delete every post about the whole thing I made, really don’t want to let it all stay here now that I got some additional Info.

Oh yeah also everyone who send me an ask about how terrible I am, fuck you, that’s not what a gentleman does.

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 1: La Seine no Hoshi (1975)

1. Introduction

Well, dear reader, here it is. My first ever official review. And, as promised, this is one of the pieces of Frev media that you have likely never heard of before.

So, without further ado, sit down, relax, grab drinks and snacks and allow me to tell you about an anime called “La Seine no Hoshi” (The Star of the Seine).

“La Seine no Hoshi” is a children’s anime series made by Studio Sunrise. It consists of 39 episodes and was originally broadcast in Japan from April 4th to December 26th of 1975.

Unlike its more famous contemporary, a manga called “Rose of Versailles” that had begun being released in 1972 and is considered a classic to this day, “La Seine no Hoshi” has stayed relatively obscure both in the world of anime and among other Frev pop culture.

Personally, the only reason why I found out about its existence was the fact that I actively seek out everything Frev-related and I just happened to stumble upon the title on an anime forum several years ago.

So far, the anime has been dubbed into Italian, French, German and Korean but there is no English or even Spanish dub so, unfortunately, people who do not speak fluent Japanese or any other aforementioned language are out of luck ( if anyone decides to make a fandub of the series, call me). That being said, the series is readily available in dubs and the original version on YouTube, which is where I ended up watching it. The French dub calls the anime “La Tulipe Noire” (The Black Tulip), which could be an homage to the movie with the same name that takes place in the same time period.

Unfortunately, while I do speak Japanese well enough to maintain a basic conversation and interact with people in casual daily situations, I’m far from fluent in the language so the version I watched was the French dub, seeing as I am majoring in French.

So, with all of this info in mind, let’s find out what the story is about and proceed to the actual review.

2. The Summary

(Note: Names of the characters in the French dub and the original version differ so I will use names from the former since that’s what I watched)

The story of “La Seine no Hoshi” revolves around a 15-year old girl called Mathilde Pasquier - a daughter of two Parisian florists who helps her parents run their flower shop and has a generally happy life.

But things begin to change when Comte de Vaudreuil, an elderly Parisian noble to whom Mathilde delivers flowers in the second episode, takes her under his wing and starts teaching her fencing for an unknown reason and generally seems to know more about her than he lets on.

Little does Mathilde know, those fencing lessons will end up coming in handy sooner than she expected. When her parents are killed by corrupt nobles, the girl teams up with Comte de Vaudreuil’s son, François, to fight against corruption as heroes of the people, all while the revolution keeps drawing near day by day and tensions in the city are at an all time high.

This is the gist of the story, dear readers, so with that out of the way, here’s the actual review:

3. The Story

Honestly, I kind of like the plot. It has a certain charm to it, like an old swashbuckling novel, of which I’ve read a lot as a kid.

The narrative of a “hero of the common folk” has been a staple in literature for centuries so some might consider the premise to be unoriginal, but I personally like this narrative more than “champion of the rich” (Looking at you, Scarlet Pimpernel) because, historically, it really was a difficult time for commoners and when times are hard people tend to need such heroes the most.

People need hope, so it’s no surprise that Mathilde and François (who already moonlights as a folk hero, The Black Tulip) become living legends thanks to their escapades.

Interestingly enough, the series also subverts a common trope of a hero seeking revenge for the death of his family. Mathilde is deeply affected by the death of her parents but she doesn’t actively seek revenge. Instead, this tragedy makes the fight and the upcoming revolution a personal matter to her and motivates her to fight corruption because she is not the only person who ended up on its receiving end.

The pacing is generally pretty good but I do wish there were less filler episodes and more of the overarching story that’s dedicated to the secret that Comte de Vaudreuil and Mathilde’s parents seem to be hiding from her and maybe it would be better if the secret in question was revealed to the audience a bit later than episode 7 or so.

However, revealing the twist early on is still an interesting narrative choice because then the main question is not what the secret itself is but rather when and how Mathilde will find out and how she will react, not to mention how it will affect the story.

That being said, even the filler episodes do drive home the point that a hero like Mathilde is needed, that nobles are generally corrupt and that something needs to change. Plus, those episodes were still enjoyable and entertaining enough for me to keep watching, which is good because usually I don’t like filler episodes much and it’s pretty easy to make them too boring.

Unfortunately, the show is affected by the common trope of the characters not growing up but I don’t usually mind that much. It also has the cliché of heroes being unrecognizable in costumes and masks, but that’s a bit of a staple in the superhero stories even today so it’s not that bothersome.

4. The Characters

It was admittedly pretty rare for a children’s show to have characters who were fleshed out enough to seem realistic and flawed, but I think this series gives its characters more development than most shows for kids did at the time.

I especially like Mathilde as a character. Sure, at first glance she seems like a typical Nice Pretty Ordinary Girl ™️ but that was a part of the appeal for me.

I am a strong believer in that a character does not need to be a blank slate or a troubled jerk to be interesting and Mathilde is neither of the above. She is essentially an ordinary girl with her own life, family, friends, personality and dreams and, unfortunately, all of that is taken away from her when her parents are killed.

Her initial reluctance to participate in the revolution is also pretty realistic as she is still trying to live her own life in peace and she made a promise to her parents to stay safe so there’s that too.

I really like the fact that the show did not give her magic powers and that she was not immediately good at fencing. François does remark that her fencing is not bad for a beginner but in those same episodes she is clearly shown making mistakes and it takes her time to upgrade from essentially François’s assistant in the heroic shenanigans to a teammate he can rely on and sees as an equal. Heck, later there’s a moment when Mathilde saves François, which is a nice tidbit of her development.

Mathilde also doesn’t have any romantic subplots, which is really rare for a female lead.

She has a childhood friend, Florent, but the two are not close romantically and they even begin to drift apart somewhat once Florent becomes invested in the revolution. François de Vaudreuil does not qualify for a love interest either - his father does take Mathilde in and adopts her after her parents are killed so François is more of an older brother than anything else.

Now, I’m not saying that romance is necessarily a bad thing but I do think that not having them is refreshing than shoehorning a romance into a story that’s not even about it. Plus most kids don’t care that much for romance to begin with so I’d say that the show only benefits from the creative decision of not setting Mathilde up with anyone.

Another interesting narrative choice I’d like to point out is the nearly complete absence of historical characters, like the revolutionaries. They do not make an appearance at all, save for Saint-Just’s cameo in one of the last episodes and, fortunately, he doesn’t get demonized. Instead, the revolutionary ideas are represented by Florent, who even joins the Jacobin Club during the story and is the one who tries to get Mathilde to become a revolutionary. Other real people, like young Napoleon and Mozart, do appear but they are also cameo characters, which does not count.

Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI are exceptions to the rule.

(Spoiler alert!)

Marie-Antoinette is portrayed as kind of spoiled and out of touch. Her spending habits get touched on too but she is not a malicious person at heart. She is simply flawed. She becomes especially important to the story later on when Mathilde finds out the secret that has been hidden from her for her entire life.

As it turns out, Marie- Antoinette, the same queen Mathilde hated so much, is the girl’s older half-sister and Mathilde is an illegitimate daughter of the Austrian king and an opera singer, given to a childless couple of florists to be raised in secret so that her identity can be protected.

The way Marie-Antoinette and Mathilde are related and their further interactions end up providing an interesting inner conflict for Mathilde as now she needs to reconcile this relationship with her sister and her hatred for the corruption filling Versailles.

The characters are not actively glorified or demonized for the most part and each side has a fair share of sympathetic characters but the anime doesn’t shy away from showing the dark sides of the revolution either, unlike some other shows that tackle history (*cough* Liberty’s Kids comes to mind *cough*).

All in all, pretty interesting characters and the way they develop is quite realistic too, even if they could’ve been more fleshed out in my opinion.

5. The Voice Acting

Pretty solid. No real complaints here. I’d say that the dub actors did a good job.

6. The Setting

I really like the pastel and simple color scheme of Paris and its contrast with the brighter palette of Versailles. It really drives home the contrast between these two worlds.

The character designs are pretty realistic, simple and pleasant to watch. No eyesores like neon colors and overly cutesy anime girls with giant tiddies here and that’s a big plus in my book.

7. The Conclusion

Like I said, the show is not available in English and those who are able to watch it might find it a bit cliché but, while it’s definitely not perfect. I actually quite like it for its interesting concept, fairly realistic characters and a complex view of the French Revolution. I can definitely recommend this show, if only to see what it’s all about.

Some people might find this show too childish and idealistic, but I’m not one of them.

I’m almost 21 but I still enjoy cartoons and I’m fairly idealistic because cynicism and nihilism do not equal maturity and, if not for the “silly” idealism, Frev itself wouldn’t happen so I think shows like that are necessary too, even if it’s just for escapism.

If you’re interested and want to check it out, more power to you.

Anyway, thank you for attending the first ever official meeting of the Jacobin Fiction Convention. Second meeting is coming soon so stay tuned for updates.

Have a good day, Citizens! I love you!

- Citizen Green Pixel

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 275 “Tokyo Love Story”

So we’ve a new chapter and I’ve discovered…

Yeah, the fake Yuusaku theory turned out right and wrong at the same time as we’ve someone posing as Yuusaku… but it’s definitely not how I was expecting things to be.

But whatever, let’s start.

We’re in Kanagawa, in 1901. The scene is placed after the one in chap 35, when Toraji and Sugimoto fight the night of Toraji’s marriage, because Toraji is afraid Sugimoto came back to snatch Umeko away from him.

Since Sugimoto’s father died in 1899 according to the official timeline, this confirms Sugimoto waited 2 years before coming back to his village.

Evidently the two have calmed down because they aren’t fighting anymore and Toraji is asking Sugimoto where will he do now. Sugimoto informs him his father told him to search for a place he can be happy. You might not remember this bit being included in chap 236 because it was a volume addition.

Sugimoto says he wants to go to Tokyo, since up until now he was in places with few people, which makes sense since he feared he was infected with tuberculosis.

In the Q&A section from the Golden Kamuy fan book it was said:

Q8: What did Sugimoto do in the 2 years between leaving the village after burning his house and coming back to Ume’s wedding? Noda: He travelled to places such as Tokyo and Kyoto. [translation here]

But it’s likely Noda means Sugimoto didn’t stay in the big cities, but in the areas around them.

So okay, we move to Tokyo and after getting a glimpse of Sugimoto moving overly excited through the city playing ‘singing in the rain’...

...we see him being involved in a fight with more than 10 candidate officers.

Kikuta is called in to stop the fight. Evidently they forced him to interrupt his meal as he is still holding chopsticks and a bowl of rice.

We learn from the info box that Kikuta, full name Kikuta Mokutarou, was at the time a Sergeant in the 1st division (which tells us in his future he was promoted and transferred in another division, the 7th in fact in 1902 he’s working for Tsurumi during the Koito kidnapping), in charge of instructing and providing guidance to the officer candidate students enrolled at the Imperial Japanese Army Academy.

He’s also keeping his hair short and there’s no facial hair on his face, giving him a much more proper appearance than the one he’ll have later on, although he keeps his uniform unbuttoned, which is less proper.

As Kikuta tells at the rather bruised officer candidate students to stop fighting as it’s disgraceful for them, they protest they can’t let Sugimoto go as he’s dangerous while Sugimoto, completely restrained by their weight, seems to bark and growl like a wild dog. Kikuta offers him his bowl of rice and this gets Sugimoto to calm down as he starts eating the rice.

LOL, Noda couldn’t have made more obvious with this scene that Ogata and Sugimoto fight like cat and dog because THEY ARE A STRAY CAT AND A STRAY DOG.

Kikuta comments that by how it took such a huge number of students to stop him, he expected Sugimoto to be some sort of monster… but now he thinks Sugi can be of some use for him, so he tells the students he’ll take him and tells Sugimoto to follow him as he’ll get him something to eat.

As they eat Sugimoto confesses he got into the fight because the students glared at him, revealing quite a horrible temper. Kikuta points out how his was a stupid reason to start a fight, asking him if he’s a STRAY DOG (ノラ犬 ‘nora inu’). This leads him to nickname Sugimoto “vagrant boy" (ノラ坊 ‘nora bou’), warning him Sugimoto was lucky Kikuta got in between the fight, because otherwise, if the students had managed to take him away, Sugimoto would have been in deep troubles.

As Sugimoto asks why he’s called in such a way, Kikuta explains it’s due to the norabou vegetables that grow in his area. Kikuta then proceeds to explain that there’s an officer candidate in the army named Hanazawa Yuusaku, son of the commander of the 7th division.

Kikuta wants Sugimoto to take his place. So okay, it’s a chapter in which we’ve a fake Yuusaku… only he’s not the one I was expecting.

Kikuta then proceeds to explain how Hanazawa ‘I’m the worst father of the century’ Koujirou, wants his son to become the regimental flag bearer because whoever cares about the high death rate of flag bearer when he can gain more honour through Yuusaku?

Yuusaku’s mom, Hanazawa Hiro, from whom Yuusaku got his nose and, probably, his eyes, doesn’t like the idea of her son being used as cannon fodder for her husband’s glory,

but know better than to say it out loud and also know it would be a crime to murder her husband so she did the next best thing, she plotted against him, secretly contacting a “marriage agency” in Tokyo so as to find a girl desperate enough to get a husband she would be willing to steal Yuusaku’s virginity (you might remember virginity is a fundamental requisite for a flag bearer), Kaneko Kaeko, daughter of an executive in the Mitsubishi Zaibatsu.

If the name Mitsubishi feels familiar to you yet it doesn’t make you think of a car, it’s probably because we already had to deal with someone from the Mitsubishi in the Igogusa/Harumi Chiyo story.

In GK it seems people from Mitsubishi are always desperate to get married... it makes you wonder if Tsurumi had a hand in this mess as well or it’s just a coincidence...

Sugimoto, who’s poor, doesn’t get why a rich girl would be desperate to find a man, so Kikuta explains him her potential partners wouldn’t care about her being rich as they’re rich as well.

Overall Sugimoto ends up on showing again how he’s not very good at placing himself in the shoes of people of upper classes.

Turns out though Hanazawa figured out how his wife his plotting behind his back and tried to plot behind her back as well, asking the help of the commander of the 1st division, whom he trusts, who passed the job to Kikuta (I guess Kikuta might still be loyal to his former commander, which might be he’s okay with plotting against Tsurumi... or was he sent there specifically to do so? We’ll see...).

Anyway Sugimoto, who’s so NOT FAMOUS for sitting around a table and having a honest discussion with people, asks why they didn’t just do that. Really, Sugimoto, if you know talking can solve problems why don’t you try implementing it?

Kikuta replies the things had gotten too far and they’re afraid this could cause an incident that will affect the morale of the division, and, more importantly, could put Hanazawa’s wife patriotism into discussion and this would SURELY reflect bad on Hanazawa who was already willing to sacrifice his son on the altar of his own honour.

To all those who’re reading my meta for the first time, in case you’re wondering no, I don’t like Hanazawa. Not one single bit. Sorry for being biased against him.

Anyway Sugimoto gets a haircut and then Kikuta has him wear an uniform with some stars on the collar so as to make him look like a candidate officer.

Sugimoto wonders why Kikuta picked him and isn’t just using another candidate officer. I don’t know if this is relevant but Kikuta seems thoughtfull when Sugimoto says so, his hat slightly shadowing his face.

Hopefully this doesn’t mean this deception is going to put Sugimoto in serious troubles.

He then explains Sugimoto if they were to use someone from the army they would risk bad rumours about the Hanazawa to spread around.

Kikuta then comments that Sugimoto, wearing the full uniform, looks good as there’s a touch of elegance on his face that can help him impersonate Hanazawa Yuusaku, son of a high-class general. I wonder if this is meant to foreshadow Sugimoto is actually more than the commoner we believe him to be or if it’s just another way to inform us Sugimoto is good looking, in case we’ve missed it.

Sugimoto wonders if, by joining the army, he wouldn’t have to worry about food anymore and I facepalm here because really, if this is what pushed him to join, he really made a poor decision, but his expression as he talks makes me wonder if he’s just being so very naive I kind of feel bad for him... did he really have no idea what joining the army could include?

His words cause Kikuta to remember his younger brother, apparently sick, telling him to take the army cap back with him.

I guess Kikuta is kind of adopting all those young men, Ariko, Sugimoto, maybe even Nikaidou and Ogata, because he lost his younger brother.

It’s interesting how Noda shadows his face here...

Anyway Kikuta proceeds to educate Sugimoto, as he’ll have to be capable to eat great food at a fancy restaurant. So, once Kikuta thinks Sugimoto is ready as he mastered enough good table manners, a nervous Sugimoto can take part to the marriage interview… where Kikuta discovers with horror they served western cuisine… with Sugimoto being completely ignorant about western etiquette and trying to eat the shrimps using two forks… and Kikuta, who’s pecking through the window while being seated on a tree, panics, thinking he’ll be discovered immediately.

Well, that’s all for this chapter.

It was undoubtedly a fun flashback chapter that reveals that the fake Yuusaku theory wasn’t completely baseless… but definitely not what I expected it to turn out as I would have never guessed Sugimoto impersonated Yuusaku.

On another note this give me additional fun when I think at this scene.

Sugimoto should have been thinking at the time he played the high ranking officer, here... though I guess the idea is that Kaeko didn’t immediately recognize him because she’s not in the army? Didn’t they gave her a photo of Yuusaku? Sugimoto’s nose and probably his eyebrows too are different.

We’ll see.

I don’t dare to think Kaneko is also a fake sent, this time, by Tsurumi, to steal Yuusaku’s virginity because Tsurumi doesn’t want Yuusaku among them.

This would just be too crazy.

On more serious topics we can assume now that Kikuta saying Sugimoto to forget about Yuusaku in the previous chapter is due to the interview failing and Yuusaku now being forced to become a flag bearer, high mortality rate and all and the whole fake Yuusaku thing having to remain a secret between the two of them so likely Sugimoto doesn’t know anything dark about Yuusaku… beyond the fact his father wanted to use him as cannon fodder to increase his own prestige but whatever, I hardly think someone could have missed it.

I find rather fun how Noda isn’t really fond of drawing Hanazawa, he’s just using the same image of him over and over… and how instead he had no problems showing us Yuusaku’s mom, name and all, but we still have to see Yuusaku’s face. Really, I can’t wait for the big reveal.

Oh well, we can only wait and see.

[moonlightchild-otome]

Ikemen Vampire - Jean d’Arc Route Summary Chapter 10

here is the tenth chapter!

to clarify again, I’m not very good at japanese so if anything is wrong or weirdly translated everything is on me.

of course there is going to be some spoilers so do not read if you don’t wish to know jean’s story yet.

*also little bonus at the end about Jeanne d’Arc real story! of course you don’t have to read it to understand his route in the game but it’s very interesting :)*

The Count tells MC the history of the war between France and England, also known as the Hundred Years’ War...

【 Comte 】  Jean was a soldier who led the French army during the Hundred Years War.

Jean fights for his country, France and defeats the English army. Jean d’Arc, soon after the defeat of the enemy, becomes a true hero for his people.

However, such glory won’t last for Jean :( 'The most tragic end of the world's heroes', as they say.

In the course of the battle, Jean was captured as a prisoner of war by the enemy. The King didn’t want to help him for some reason. 😡

And of course... 🙄

【 Comte 】  Jean was convicted of heresy and it has been decided that he would be sentenced to fire.

After Jean's death, the king ordered a re-examination of his treason and found him to be innocent, and he went down as a hero of France.

The fact that Jean never knew went down as a hero after his death and this won’t change the fact that he died as an innocent. The protagonist is angry because it doesn't make any sense.

From the bottom of my stomach, I feel a mixture of anger and frustration.

Here, the MC asks the Count a question. “Why did he bring him back to life after such a death?”

There's something different about the Count returning the great men of the mansion and Jean.

The MC wonders if Jean really wanted the Count to bring him back to life. Before the Count can answer, Jean appears, interrupts him, takes the MC by the arm and leads her away.

【 Jean 】  One look at this man's face is enough. I don't like it. Let's go, woman. 

As soon as they arrived in the library, Jean seems to have calmed down a little lets go of the MC's arm.

The protagonist apologises for trying to find out about his past without his permission, but Jean says that's okay. Jean says it's okay, because his life has been written about in books anyway. However, he says that he doesn't want the Count to tell her about it.

【 Jean 】  ...It's not enough to say I hate it, it's too much.

Jean says that he is not a hero and that he is no different from the children's book he used to read, The Ugly Duckling.

it hurts me so much that this is the way he perceives himself when he deserves all the love in the world </3

Jean's gaze fell on the book 'The Ugly Duckling', which was still on the table.

That’s it for chapter 10!

here is some real background info about the real Jeanne d’Arc! She is such a brave and interesting historical figure. The epitome of a real badass, fearless and powerful woman.

so, the hundred years' war, if we summarize as much as possible is a series of armed conflicts that began in 1337. which opposes the kingdom of france and the kingdom of england.

in 1328 at the death of king charles iv, the question arises as to who will inherit the french crown.

one then has the choice between the cousin of the preceding king philippe de valois and edward iii the king of england who by his mother isabelle is also a descendant of the french throne.

you can imagine putting an english king on the french throne, wasn’t seen very well. 

edward not happy, which led to a succession crisis, which lead to the hundred years' war.

obviously this conflict, quickly overcomes a simple succession crisis.

it's a mess.

what you have to remember, is that the english are gradually invading part of the kingdom of france.

in 1415, after the battle of azincourt and the english victory, the english king henry v controls much of the north of the kingdom of france, including paris for that matter.

but it is far from being the only concern.

what you have to keep in mind is that the king of france at the time, charles vi, is reached at rather regular intervals of madness.

this obviously prevents him from administering the kingdom properly.

as a result, in parallel with the conflict with the english, a real civil war breaks out.

to find out who between his son the heir charles and his cousin the duke of burgundy will be able to take back the reins of the kingdom; the duke of burgundy is supported by the burgundians who will end up allying themselves with the english and the son of the king the heir charles is supported by the armagnacs.

but during this time, charles is betrayed by his own father who disinherits his son and after his death, gives the crown to the english.

i warned you that it was really messy.

and it is in this incredible mess that our jeanne arrives.

and where exactly does jeanne come from? from domremy.

she is also often called the virgin of orleans.

she is associated with the city of reims, but jeanne was originally born in domremy.

and where exactly is this place? domremy is this little town to the west of the city of the vosges department, on the banks of the meuse river.

isn't it pretty?

this is jeanne's birth house,

she would have been born around 1412. the building classified as a historical monument since 1840 includes in addition to a cellar, three large rooms originally used to house the whole family, her parents and four siblings.

according to jeanne's trial, it is here that she would have learned to sew or weave which were two occupations of the young girls of the time.

her father was a ploughman, so she often had to look after the animals.

and since she is very pious she spent a lot of time praying.

she went on pilgrimage at least once a week, for example in the notre dame de bermont chapel, about three kilometres (as the crow flies) from her birth house.

and jeanne d’arc, as you may have guessed, wasn't always called jeanne d’arc.

no, in history she has had different names and official nicknames.

there are of course the best known ones: the virgin of orleans, jeanne the virgin or even just the virgin and in the vicinity of domremy she was also called the jeannette de rommée, in connection with her mother's name. she has even signed several letters with the name jehanne.

and it's even more complicated if you're interested in her surname “d'arc”.

which was originally written darc, without the apostrophe. here again there have been many variations, and i'll mention a few of them: tarc, dars, darx and even d'ailly or daly according to the phonetic transcription of her name, with a lorraine accent. from there we move on to duly, then du lys.

when the king ennobled jeanne and her family, it is written on the deed, la dame du lys in reference to the royal coat of arms.

this is the magnificent bois-chenu basilica, which was built between 1880 and 1940 in honour of jeanne.

and for the record, this incredible basilica was sometimes considered to be the place where jeanne would have heard voices.

however if we refer to the trial, it is in her father's garden, near the house, that jeanne would have started hearing voices, celestial calls, coming from saint catherine of st. margaret's and the archangel saint michael.

the divine mission entrusted to her was very “simple”.

she was only commanded to be a cavalier, to cross a kingdom occupied by the english to go and find the future charles vii and convince him that she is the one sent from heaven.

to help him to take his place on the throne by her coronation in reims.

to show him how to liberate the kingdom of france, of the english presence.

it seems to be an easy enough mission for me. 😅 (nope)

so obviously you can imagine that the people didn't take her seriously right away. it took a few years before she managed to convince the world that she wasn't completely crazy.

- jeanne?

- yes?

- this is the voice.

- is someone talking to me?

- you are the chosen one, jeanne, join me.

- yes, i'm coming.

- i hope you like human barbecue. (ok i'll stop :/)

how is the legend of jeanne forged? how does one go from being a peasant girl eager to help, to jeanne of arc, heroine of the kingdom of france?

this is le centre d’interprétation (the interpretation centre), which is just behind jeanne of arc's birth house and retraces her youth and adventures.

her journey is incredible, at 17 years old, jeanne can't stand not doing anything anymore, she has been hearing voices urging her to act for four years now.

so she decides to return to the châtellenie de vaucouleurs, to meet captain robert de baudricourt, one of the king's faithful followers and after several vicissitudes, she manages to convince him. it wasn't easy, i remind you that her main point was that she hears voices. but yeah, he finally agrees to send her with an escort, join the heirn in chinon.

the journey is quite long and above all risky, we are talking about more than 500 kilometres and in this period of turmoil, the dangers were quite present especially if you look at the map, one realizes that the small expedition crosses areas not controlled by the enemy coalition.

fortunately, everything went well for jeanne, who arrives at her destination on march 1429 and gets an audience with the heir two days later. he was quite suspicious of this young woman at first, who claims to hear divine voices but according to the story she made a revelation to him that we don't know which eventually convinced him.

for the entourage of the suitor of the throne, it's not that simple and you can understand them, betting on jeanne is a little bit like a poker game. so they insist that she will be given a few interrogations, she is questioned about her life, about her morals and finally confidence is established, she is equipped with military equipment. she then undergoes mini combat trainings and here we go, her dream is about to come true, she joins a supply convoy in blois and on april 22nd, with more than 4000 men, she is headed for orléans.

the arrival of jeanne of arc changes many things.

her faith, her confidence in victory gives hope to the soldiers and to the inhabitants, who are filled with new energy. they manage to win in less than 10 days, 10 days and the english are obliged to give up their plan, which consisted of taking the city and then attacking the south of the loire.

jeanne who comes out of this battle with this image as a victorious, ultra badass woman and just earned her nickname... la pucelle d'orléans (the virgin of orleans).

thanks to her victory in orleans, jeanne thus becomes a kind of national heroine. she represents by her fame and her qualities, a not insignificant asset for the heir in his fight against the english and the burgundians.

but what makes a real difference is less her qualities as a war strategist and more her ability to charm and to galvanise the troops and the inhabitants along the way.

it's quite simple, before jeanne's arrival, the english had a reputation for never losing their invincibility.

and jeanne achieves the feat of restoring confidence in a possible victory.

it gives the impression to the troops that they are going to receive a kind of divine help and it changes everything in the soldiers' minds, all the more so because before her arrival there was a prophecy, who said that a virgin would help defeat the english so when jeanne arrives, everyone thought "it's ok, we're saved"!

jeanne persuades the future king to start a ride to reims who is in the middle of enemy territory, to be crowned.

jeanne thus succeeded in carrying out one of the following missions which were supposedly entrusted to her by the voices she hears; in other words, since she has succeeded, she is necessarily an envoy of god, and that for the mood of the troops, it makes a huge difference.

unfortunately after the time of victories comes the time of defeats.

after the coronation, the king and jeanne no longer really agree. she is convinced that her mission is to keep the english out of france.

the king, for his part, is longing for a little rest.

for example, he does not feel at all capable of taking back paris, while jeanne, a little bit stubborn, goes there anyway and suffers a failure.

on top of that she is wounded, she gets a crossbow arrow in her thigh, moreover, she breaks her sword which had for all victories...

it's a bad sign.

some people think that the virgin is abandoned by god. some time later jeanne went to compiègne, a city besieged by the burgundians and by some english contingents and once again it goes wrong, she is taken prisoner in may 1430, by the burgundians.

she tried to escape, but all her attempts failed and in november of the same year, she was sold to the english. jeanne is then taken to the castle of rouen, where members of the church judge her for heresy.

the trial was to say that charles vii was crowned thanks to a witch, she is also blamed for everything and anything, for dressing in men's clothing,

for deferring directly to god's judgement without going through the church, for hearing the voices of demons and not of saints.

jeanne really plays her life on each of her answers, in addition, she faces accusers totally committed to the english cause on her own when she was only 19 years old.

moreover, the witnesses are obviously not chosen at random, everyone who could speak up for jeanne is under pressure. everything is being done to ensure that she is condemned. finally, she ends up at the stake, on the market square, and we make sure there's nothing left of her body, to prevent it from being turned into holy relics.

and then after the end of the hundred years' war, i.e. almost 25 years later, the church reverses this first court decision. king charles vii wants to wash away the insult that was done to him through this trial and he pushes jeanne's family to ask for a review. pope calixtus iii agreed and jeanne was rehabilitated in 1456. the investigations carried out are more serious, many of jeanne's contemporaries jostle to plead in her favour and even people who had once spoken badly of her finally return to saying good things about her.

the first judgement is broken and the young woman's memory is rehabilitated.

an unusual little fact in the end - many people have not been able to admit that the story of the virgin ends up on a pyre. for them it was impossible, this story was too beautiful, this too extraordinary woman.

and it went far enough that people found stories of women, who a few years later claimed to be the real jeanne.

just imagine them saying stuff like "oh yeah, yeah it's me i didn't burn at all, my face has changed a little bit but it's me, i assure you, believe me, really".

a certain claude des armoises is said to have pretended to be her, in the metz region. after having acquired a certain renown, having been given gifts by former relatives of jeanne; she even went so far as to meet two of the virgin's brothers, who (hold on because it's completely insane) believed her.

they really believed it was their own sister who had died at the stake.

it's a crazy story!

well, we don't really know if they really believed it, or if one pretends to believe it for financial reasons for example.

in any case, this woman, who was talked about everywhere, is unmasked by the king himself, so that this fraud can be stopped.

in the end, i find this story quite unusual.

here are the friends!

i hope it wasn’t too long to read (it probably was) and that you have learned two, three little things on our dear jeanne d’arc. after all, she is one of the most famous women in history!

[blastoisemonster]

Pokèmon World Magazine: Porygon Net (Various Issues)

We’ve had a very long streak of Photoset posts lately, didn’t we? Let’s have a little break from anime and tie-in games and let’s go back to oldschool Pokèmon and my favourite childhood magazine, Pokèmon World!

This summer I'm working on my own portfolio site: it's getting built from scratch and, due to the kind of art it's going to showcase, I'm designing its layout to look like one of those old personal pages a lot of Internet users used to have back in the first 2000s. This choice was also influenced by one of my childhood dreams, which was, infact, owning a corner of the Net all for myself; without the right equipment or spare money to purchase a domain, though, the idea of having my page online was only hypotetical, so all I could do was designing some cute layouts on Microsoft Frontpage and admiring what others were doing. Of course, as Pokèmon was my main interest at the time, I found the Porygon Net section of Pokèmon World mag to be extra inspirational.

Porygon Net was a very small section with just a double page: every month, the magazine's staff would choose and review an italian site dedicated to everyone's favourite monsters. These online corners were, most of the times, built by fellow readers and fans who sometimes even wrote back either by mailing the staff or boasting about it on their site's news section, thanking for the feature and the subsequent wave of new visitors. As these places were built by teens or even kids (I may have seen some online pages managed by 10 year olds at the time o.o), their quality varied greatly depending on their web-making skills: some were very simplistic, other more orderly and neat, and some... showed potential, but needed more work. Pokèmon World's staff, though, never mocked these attempts, and instead also published suggestions to make certain parts of the site more functional and pleasing to the eye. I found this very encouraging, and I wonder if many of these people have continued with a career in the online world.

I went and browsed among my mag issues to find some sites to showcase: I mostly picked the ones that stuck in my mind since reading about them, or that I actually used to visit back in the day. Wayback Machine may have not been kind to the italian community, and I fear the majority of these sites are now lost; however, I'll post links if, surprisingly, I find them still alive!

Issue 4: Pokemon Mania

The pictures have been displayed in chronological order, but I still would've chosen to display this site first as I used to actually visit it before it was featured on Pokèmon World. Due to its easy and straightforward name, Pokèmon Mania was one of the first fansites to show up on the search engine if you ever looked for more Pokèmon content. It was managed by a guy with the alias of Professor Kao, and the whole feeling of the site was that of a Pokemon lab at the start of your monster journey. Though it wasn't exactly a marvel in terms of layout esthetic, the site aimed to amaze with content: it had simple browser fangames, a section dedicated to drawing tutorials (with pictures taken from japanese sources- which at the time were very scarce and hard to get!), many sections dedicated to the Cardgame (apparently, the main focus of Kao's Pokèmon interests) and its live tournaments, and one centered on the monsters' trivia. One very interactive section even proposed quizzes given by the webmaster himself that visitors could answer via mail: Kao would then contact winners and even send out special official merch like Pokèmon Center plushies or other branded toys. Generous! This site has been preserved in the Wayback Machine with a lot of snapshots, though unfortunately without many graphics. We can still navigate and read most of the sections!

Issue 20: Pokemon Museum

My second site of choice striked me with its very homely layout: even looking at the snapshot in its article feels like I'm viewing a cozy corner of the Net, in which the webmaster poured its personal thoughts and passions more than providing a service like PokèmonMania did. The issue is number 20 and quite some months have passed: online trends regarding these kind of pages had changed a bit and now people preferred to offer their own content instead of copy-pasting what Nintendo produced. Pokèmon Museum's graphics have all been drawn by the owner, Kabutops: the background texture, banner, and a lot of the graphics all around the sections! Kudos for being to prolific and precise during a period in which digital art still hadn't reached its peak popularity, and drawing tablets were only restricted to professionals. Going past the many sections dedicated to the anime, games and lore, one interesting aspect was the beginning of affiliates: fellow webmasters were starting communicating with eachother and sharing their visits by dedicating a little button to other sites. I loved the affiliates section because, once finished looking through a site, I could click on the cute little rectangle banners and find myself in another home without passing from Google searches! But webmasters wouldn't affiliate with everyone, and for the purpose of only interacting with other best Pokèsites, awards had become popular as well: graphics that people would exchange after rating a site and feeling impressed with their content, presentation, or popularity. Pokèmon Museum's magazine review focused on its affiliates and the awards, inviting fellow readers to have their site reviewed by Kabutops. Unfortunately, the site is not present on Wayback Machine. I'll never know if Kabutops came back updating its museum after summer vacations :(

Issue 35: TBPS

Let's have another jump of several months; issue 35 featured a page under the bigger domain Pokevalley and named itself The Best Pokèmon Page, rather narcissistic! This was one of those rare times Pokèmon World featured an english-speaking site. The layout doesn't impress me too much, yet the fact that the header reads "Crystal Water Version" conveys that the webmaster(s) used to periodically change aspect and palette of their site, an activity that proved to be very prolific for many page owners at the time: sites were often in construction, and people were experimenting with different colours or HTML code tricks to impress viewers and reviewers, have as many affiliates as possible and collect positive awards from other sites. Such was popularity, back in the day! The site has a long menu with many sections dedicated to the main games and movies; although, none of those pages were catching anyone’s attention anymore as everyone had the same copypasted guides and info; instead, what’s interesting is the hefty section dedicated to browser games, the big menu with pages concerning the site and staff themselves, and the oekaki board! Oekakis were very popular in that period, as it allowed fellow aspiring artists to meet eachother and show off their own skills by drawing live! If a site hosted one, they could quickly become a melting pot of creativity. Wayback Machine, sadly, doesn’t have anything concerning this site as well.

Issue 36: Arcywof

We’re back on italian sites with a page that definitely impressed even Pokèmon World’s staff for its pleasing graphics. When I first saw this among the magazine’s pages... my eyes lit up! I can’t hide that after seeing its beautiful palette, checkered background and condensed menu, teen me adopted Arcy & The Fire Pkmn as design guru: many of my subsequent mockup pages had exactly this layout, or variations of it. It’s too bad, though, that aside from the beautiful presentation, the site’s contents aren’t exactly interesting: the Pokèmon images are ripped straight from Nintendo’s official archives, and most sections are concerning the anime’s characters, episode plots, and broadcasting dates. However, Arcywof also offers a forum and a live chat, which definitely helped the staff build an interactive and affectionate community around it. Among all reviewed here, I’m most bitter that Wayback Machine hasn’t archived this site, because seriously, it’s a little jewel ;w; its pastel colours and checkered texture remind me of candy shops!

Issue 38: Pokemon Super Site

I wanted to finish this little jump in the past with a positive note and show at least one more saved address from Wayback Machine. Although not in its updated version originally featured in Pokèmon World Issue 38, Pokèmon Super Site has been archived and it’s more or less complete to explore. It’s too bad a lot of the graphics haven’t survived but hey it’s something! It’s 2003, and the trend has changed once again: forums are as popular as ever and considered one of the most successful ways to build a solid audience for one’s own page, which are now treated more like portals or an extension to the forum itself. Super Site’s sections are centered on game guides, nothing too special, but I do love the grey and white grid background on menus and header, as if we’re viewing a notebook page; reminds me of school days. I also really like the gifs section as featured in the review, all those old graphics bring back so much memories of scouting the net to save them all on hard drive!

If you stumble upon one of these sites in Wayback Machine, chances are the ever present affiliates buttons will still be working, allowing you to visit even more fansites. It’s a true trip to the past, and a never ending source of inspiration for me!

[yumeka36]

Secured another piece of rare Frozen 2 merch: a limited edition deck of card set from Korean company JL Magic. The set comes with a few things...firstly is this adorable bag and tin case (anyone out there who speaks Korean, I’d appreciate a translation of the writing on the bag!)

Here’s the card box outside the tin case.

In addition to the deck of cards, it also includes three pretty lenticular cards (two of the three are perfect matches though I’m not sure why they chose a scene of Elsa about to freeze in Ahtohallan as the equivalent for the Queen Anna one...weird choice, lol).

But what I was most interested in are these acrylic standee figures.

(I had that Arendelle Castle background from a Frozen 2 magnet set I bought last year...it looks nice though it’s not quite big enough. I’ll keep the figures in my display case or maybe bring them to work and keep them on my desk).

And here are images of the playing cards. Lovely selection of scenes~ What’s interesting about these cards is that instead of using the standard card suits of club, diamond, etc., they have special Frozen 2 ones, which are Elsa’s snowflake, Anna’s letter, Nokk/Elsa profile, and Arendelle Castle. It’s a cute touch, though my only complaint is that some of the colors of the suit symbols are hard to see against the color of some of the pictures. There’s also the fact that the cards aren’t split between red and black, which makes it tricky to play card games that rely on color (not that I play cards much, I just wanted them for collection purposes!)

How I managed to acquire this set despite it not being available for official sale in the US (or on ebay currently) is actually kind if interesting. I saw images of the set as a retweet on Twitter from one of the Japanese fans I follow. I really liked the acrylic standees and was wondering how I could get them, but unfortunately the tweet was in Korean. I asked on discord if anyone could help me figure it out and a couple people did: they shared links with me that informed me of the company, JL Magic, and the fact that the set with the standees, tin case, bag, and lenticular cards, was exclusively given to people who contributed to the kickstarter for the product...in Korea only of course. JL Magic does have an English online store that ships to the US, but they only had the deck of cards for sale, not the whole set with everything else. I actually managed to find the deck of cards by itself on ebay and a few others sites, but not the exclusive set. JL Magic has an email address so I figured I’d email them and ask if they had any sets left and if they’d sell it to me. I wasn’t expecting to get a favorable response, or even a response at all. But much to my surprise, they replied to me soon after! We exchanged a few emails and they confirmed that they had some sets left, what the cost would be, and that they’d ship it to me (I made it clear that what I wanted was the set and not just the deck of cards...was a little worried they might not understand English too well). Strangely, when we got to the point where I sent them my shipping information (didn’t actually pay yet), they disappeared for, like, a week. I sent them a follow up email during that time but still no response. I was ready to give up but decided to send one more email a couple days later...and then they responded again. Not sure what happened there but glad I tried one more time! After that, they sent me their PayPal info, I paid them, they shipped it and sent me the tracking number, and it arrived soon after.

So I guess the moral of the story is, if you really want to get exclusive merch, try everything you can...ask around, see if the company has an email, and keep following up. Doesn’t always work but you never know when it will ;)

[gorogorogorochansan]

CP2077 OC ask game *:･ﾟ✧⚔️🤖🔮 [x]

PERSONAL.

1. what is their full name? do they have any nicknames? what are they and why did they get them? His full name is Maximilian Noirceuil Roquentin Vandermeer. Vandermeer to others, Max to his family. His mother just loves French literature and culture.

2. how old are they? how long have they been living on their own? 33 as of 2077. He’s been living on his own for 15 years since he joined Arasaka.

3. what are their astrology signs? sun/moon/rising. He was born on May 2nd 2044, which makes him a sun Taurus, moon Cancer and ascendant Leo.

4. what tarot card from the major arcana would you associate with them? The Devil.

5. are they religious or spiritual in any way? Not at all. Max is rather materialistic and self-indulgent at times.

6. which of the four elements would you associate with them? Air for intellect and mental intention.

9. which of the nine alignments are they? (lawful good etc) Lawful neutral.

10. which of the myers-briggs personality types are they? ESTJ, the Executive.

11. do they have any cyberware? is it cosmetic or is it weaponry/armor? He’s not into combat much, he prefers doing his job quietly if he can. Better yet - a silver tongue coupled with unsettling look can achieve a lot more than a weapon. Hands: Smart Link; Ocular system: Kiroshi Optics; Nervous system: Kerenzikov; Cyberdeck: Stephenson Tech Mk.2; Integumentary system: Optical Camo;  Skeleton: Endoskeleton, Bionic Lungs; Legs: Lynx Paws.

12. what is their occupation? He likes to call himself a free artist but technically he’s a solo. Murder, sabotage, thievery, recovery, delivery - you name it and he’ll do it, quick & clean. A man of high standards he prefers to be silent, precise and effective about his work. Even during his Arasaka days he never shied away from hard or morally repulsive (to some) tasks. A job is a job and needs to be done.

13. if you were to choose a class for them, what would it be? The closest would probably be a Stealth Solo.

14. what is their weapon of choice? HJKE-11 Yukimura pistols & Electric Baton.

15. what is their preferred vehicle or transportation of choice? Black Quadra Turbo-R V-Tech.

16. how would you describe their style? Neomilitarism. Corpo chic through and through.

17. are they a early riser or a night owl? Normally he’s an early riser but not averse to adapt if work demands it.

18. share three songs you associate with them. Eisbrecher - Verrückt [translation] Dorothy - Wicked Ones Oomph! - Augen auf! [translation]

NIGHT CITY.

19. is your character from night city? if no, where were they born? what brought them to night city? if yes, what area of the city did they grow up? He is from Charter Hill, Night City. His maternal family is from North Oak but his parents moved to something more affordable before he was born. He worked his ass off to stay in Charter Hill on his own but after his boss Jenkins lost the power struggle in Arasaka, Vandermeer had to survive and look for a cheaper place.

20. where do they currently live? describe their home. Watson, Little China, near Sutter Street. He rents a small apartment that satisfies his needs, which turned out to be rather simple - a quiet (as much as possible), clean and efficient space that is suitable for living and working in.

21. do they have any favorite spots around NC? Lele Park in the evening and night. And Dark Matter club.

22. do they like to cook for themselves, or eat out? do they prefer restaurants or street food? and how do they feel about vending machine food? He can cook a few things thanks to his mom but generally prefers street food and restaurants. He finds vending machines repulsive.

23. do they prefer the city or the badlands? The city. He loves comfort, hygiene and availability of things only megalopolis can offer. 

24. what gang/faction/corporation do they align with, if any? He prefers to keep balance and mutually beneficial relationships with everyone strictly for business. He always looks for people reasonable enough to bargain with. 

25. which radio station(s) is their favorite? If it’s a car radio then it’s Vexelstrom most of the times. He likes hearing heavy rhythms in the background. When it comes to listening to music at home he has a variety of genres in his playlists from classics and jazz to heavy metal.

26. if they do merc work, do they have one dedicated fixer? if so, who? It’s Rachel Vogelman (another OC created by @bnbc). They used to be corporate rivals during their Arasaka days. To add fuel to the fire their colleagues believed them to be siblings because of certain visual similarities between the two. When Max lost his job Rachel was the only person he could ask for help. It wasn’t easy, and it still isn’t but they focus on the business side of things. Or at least try to.

27. have they ever had run ins with the badges? He doesn’t like to attract unnecessary attention. Nobody likes when you’re the star of TV news.

28. are they quick to help a stranger in need or do they prefer to stay out of other peoples business? He most likely won’t help unless it can benefit him in any way.

29. do they have any favorite celebrities that frequent or live in NC? how would they feel meeting them? He doesn’t give a shit about celebrities. But he knows Michiko Arasaka, and their first meeting face to face left him baffled to say the least.

RELATIONSHIPS.

30. is your friend a social butterfly or more of a loner? Something in between. He hates useless small talks and fake politeness but understands their necessity when required. 

31. who are their closest chooms in NC? He doesn’t have any. Never cared enough to rely on people and always expected a knife in the back. His most regular stable contact is probably Rachel Vogelman but  they’re not even close to being chooms.

32. do they have anyone they would consider family? His mom and his sister are the only family he needs.

33. what is/was their relationship like with their parents? He loves his mother Jessica who raised him to be a well-rounded personality that can always land on his feet. She’s an economist with a good sense of humor and interest in arts. But he doesn’t have much emotional connection with his father Mark, since the guy is always busy with his retail business.

34. do they have siblings? He has a sister named Brit who is 15 years younger.

35. how would you describe their relationship with their family? Max is close with his family, although they’re all often too busy to meet regularly but they keep in touch.

36. who is their biggest enemy? Detective Marc Sanderson? Hard to say for now because there’s no official lore information on him yet.

37. tell a short story about your character with their best choom. His rivalry with Rachel Vogelman was almost comic at times, which only worked against them as their colleagues called them siblings on purpose. But since the two have mutually beneficial relationships now he can admit Rachel is pretty good at what she does. He won’t tell it to her though to avoid giving her the pleasure. They have both grown up after losing their corporate jobs but some habits die hard.

38. do they have a love interest? if so, who? His current LI is Michiko Arasaka. Initially he'd met her as Ichigo (a Japanese name that means strawberry) in a cyber sex VR club while he still worked in Arasaka. It was a series of encounters they both enjoyed until he abruptly put an end to it during his unemployment. He suspects she started digging info on him because she reached out to him some time after he had made a small name for himself as a solo. 

39. are they in a committed relationship or do they date around? Given the social gap between the two and solely sexual nature of their affair it’s implied they’re in open relationship. Besides it’s unknown if Michiko is still married. However, despite loving sex Max can be picky because he’s slightly fixated on hygiene. Michiko also sparked genuine curiosity and creativity in him with her wild and magnetic personality.

40. has your character ever been in love? if so, with who? No, what is love? He won’t recognize it even if falls in it.

41. do they believe in soulmates? No, he believes in shared goals.

42. do they believe in love at first sight? A ridiculous notion.

43. describe their ideal date. Their idea of romantic evening is to hook up in clubs where it’s noisy and crowded enough to ignore them but also to tickle their nerves. Sometimes they have a follow-up in motels (Michiko knows all the right places) if they can afford it. I don’t mean financially of course. Currently such state of affairs suits both of them perfectly.

44. would your character ever get married? Theoretically he can but marriage is a serious commitment, and right now he’s not interested in making one. And when it comes to Michiko it’s a no-no for a variety of obvious reasons. 

45. what was your characters first impression of their partner(s)? Michiko Arasaka was not someone he expected to see when Ichigo asked for a real life meeting. She definitely enjoyed the effect she made while Max was trying to figure out in his mind if this was a setup. She was bold, straightforward and irresistable - not like anyone he has ever met before. The whole situation felt like getting into a sports car without breaks. Once in a lifetime opportunity, a one-way ticket. And he took it. He suspects he’s not the first and not the last such input for her but life is too short for missing out the fun.

46. are they open about their relationship or low key? how would other people feel about them together? Somewhat semi-open. Max’s mom knows and she’s worried for him, although she knows he can take care of himself. And Michiko doesn’t mind him telling about her to his family as he has no friends and isn’t the type to brag, and she doesn’t care if anyone recognizes her in public. Her social circle wouldn’t care about him, and those who might won’t be able to do a thing about it.

47. share a headcanon about your character and their partner(s). Just one? I’ve already got plenty. • Michiko calls him Max and he calls her Ichigo or Ichi (one) because that’s how they’ve met and it's something of their inside joke, a secret; • Michiko keeps him at distance on purpose. She studied his profile long before they’ve met face to face and probably knows what he wants for breakfast before he even wakes up. So she knows Max has opportunistic tendencies like majority of mid-tier corpos. But another reason is that she also doesn’t want things to get serious and complicated between them because it can ruin the fun. She appreciates he doesn’t ask stupid questions or demands more attention than she can give him; • Michiko likes to подъебывать Max. I guess the closest English equivalent would be to tease - cracking suggestive jokes on him, giving him simple presents she finds hilarious, sending him nudes and demanding payment with his in the most inappropriate times. She is amused Max tolerates her shit so stoically - but she’s never malicious, disrespectful or obnoxious. In return Max knows it’s hard to impress someone who comes from the Arasaka bloodline & that it would be safer not to get on their bad side, so he focuses on making her feel good. And strangely it makes him feel good too.  • Max loves to touch her hair. Michiko always looks flawless when they meet and he adores her for it. • When Arasaka Tower was under attack Max called her until she finally picked up as he was genuinely concerned about her safety. He asked if she was alright and offered to take her home but she refused. She doesn’t know he was waiting outside.

48. share three songs you associate with your character and their partner(s). Garbage - Bad Boyfriend Eisbrecher - Exzess Express [translation] Eisbrecher - Rot wie die Liebe [translation] Bonus: Dinah Washington - Relax, Max - a song Michiko likes to tease him with.

NSFW.

49. name three of your characters biggest turn ons. Mature, confident women who know what they want and don’t waste anyone’s time.

50. name three of your characters biggest kinks. Touching Michiko in public - it’s the kink of kinks.

51. do they like having multiple partners or do they prefer monogamy? He doesn’t like being in relationships. The secret to his successful affair with Michiko is that both are totally free of any commitments and expectations from each other. Normally he prefers flings, BDs and cyber sex. But currently his mind is occupied with one specific woman with blue hair.

52. do they watch porn or braindances? Porn is ancient, BDs are far more superior.

53. would your character ever make an explicit braindance? He doesn’t have the right implant for that. He might though but not with Michiko - he’s not that stupid. 

54. do they have any cybernetic enhancements that serve sexual purposes? He’s no netrunner but he got himself a Stephenson cyberdeck that supposedly prolongs orgasms. Turns out the cyberdeck can be useful for other things as well, even moreso as now he doesn’t have a corpo protection and needs to be more careful.

55. do they have a preference for ‘ganic bodies or do they like modifications? He doesn’t like cheap implants. Other than that he doesn’t care.

56. name three of your characters biggest turn offs. Poor hygiene, naivete and girls who don’t know when to quit. 

57. what is their ultimate fantasy? or ““secret”“ kink? Michiko is his ultimate fantasy now. There’s something liberating and intoxicating about having her at the tips of your fingers moaning your name. He feels like he can try anything with her and she won’t say no, although he is aware it’s an illusory freedom.

58. would they ever use any substances like aphrodisiacs, alcohol or drugs during sex? Yes because why not? It’s not necessary but it can’t hurt.

59. what is their wildest sexual experience? A corpo group sex party. It was fun but he doesn’t like joytoys, even premium ones. Had to do a medical check-up afterwards.

60. are they more submissive or dominant? Dominant. But one time Michiko cuffed him to bed and he didn’t mind.

61. does your character need to have an intimate relationship with someone to have sex? or do they prefer being unattached? Unattached is best at the moment. Though he’s not fully aware he’s currently attached.

62. has your character ever participated in group sex? In the past, during his Arasaka days. 

63. do they like to sext or play over the holo? Why not both, depending on situation. 

64. has your character ever ghosted someone after a sexual encounter? Yes because he doesn’t like attachment. The reason he didn’t ghost Ichigo was that she was always creative during their virtual meetings.

65. how would they react if they were ghosted by someone they like after a sexual encounter? If Michiko ghosted him he’d be probably pissed and then upset. But he suspects she’d tell him first because there’s a certain amount of trust between them.

66. do they prefer kink oriented sex or spontaneous passionate sex? Usually the latter but the former is good too.

67. how do they get down on their own? quick and easy or do they have to romance themselves a little? It depends on a moment.

68. in what outfit do they feel sexiest? how do they dress to impress? Naked is the best. He dresses sharp because that’s how he was raised and also because it makes him feel good about himself. He mostly prefers clean black suits.

69. do they like having music on while they have sex? share three songs they’d play while getting down. He usually doesn’t care but Michiko likes to put on something energetic and loud when they’re in motels. This is just to give the idea of the mood: Fatboy Slim - Ya Mama Beastie Boys - Sabotage Mylène Farmer - Des larmes

[mrs-falcon]

Vincent is finally getting his own ref sheet :3 This character is part of universe I created called "Shadows of the Real World", partly drawn, partly written complex story. Character created - 2017 (along with Raven) BASIC INFO: Current name: Vincent Jackson Former/Original name: Dmitry Sergeewich Trutliv (Дмирий Сергеевич Трутлив) (hopefuly english ppl will understand the pronounces xd ) - exhausted (looks like he's chill with almost everything) - can get easily mad/upset - quite slim figure after his mother - can be a loving parent/partner - caring about others he loves - hates his father - took care of Raven he'd found on streets Family: - father: Sergei Vasileevich Trutliv (Сергей Василеёвич Трутлив) (Black Yukon wolf) - mother: Alexandra Antonovna Trutliv (Александра Антоновна Трутлив) (Arctic x Eurasian wolf) - "stepmother": Melanie Manson (Shiba inu dog) - half-brother: Frederich Manson (Black Yukon wolf x Shiba inu dog) - partner: Sherab Azuki (irbis) - daughter: Rozaline Jackson (hybrid) Gender: male Age: 40 years (from the beginning of the written story) Height: 190 cm Species: inclination to Eurasian wolf Spoken languages: - native: Russian - first foreign language: English (American) - second foreign language: Japanese Born country: Russia Currently living in: USA Job: (currently) security guard in metal factory DETAILED HISTORY: [*WARNING - following text contains lots of triggers and mature stuff (such as abuse mention, violence, character's trauma mention,...), please read at your own risk] Born in a cage? First what Vincent, formerly Dmitry, remembers is aggressive voice going toward his mother. His father was a rich (yes - rich, not wealthy) and very famous person in his country for his position - Sergei was a successful communistic leader, business man and ... a professional rook. Living on far east part of Russia wasn't easy and, of course, not cheap. Thanks to Sergei's intelligence and extensive contacts he could easily manipulate with all people in his region, which led to exploitation of the lower classes working under his control, making Sergei's life much more "rich". However, a typical successful businessman has to have a perfect partner, right? Sergei's and Alexandra's encounter was a pure coincidence - Sergei needed a proper wife who would do anything according to her husband, Alexandra needed a man who would take care of her and financially secure her. Alexandra was a very young lady from a poor family. But what was worse than living from hand to hand was her untreated illness - fragile bones, fragile mind and a slowly growing cancer - that all was a secret Sergei never found out about. And due to Sergei's aggression and growing presure from his work and political position, Alexandra had to suffer slowly... and no-one could do anything about it. Not every home is the best After Alexandra gave birth to her son, Dmitry, she became even more fragile and exhausted. Her husband didn't care anymore, he only did his best to keep himself as a successful person in strangers' eyes. And because of that Alexandra had to gave up on her faith, who's a Orthodox Christian, and started to centralize around Vincent, her only hope. However, even in presence of their only child Sergei didn't hesitate to relieve his aggression on his wife. Alexandra was helpless - she could not leave without Dmitry, without money, without her own strength. Alexandra suffered five more years until she finally reached her prayed heaven, leaving her only son behind... Since Alexandra gave bith to her son, her health condition became worse, every day, and with this thought Sergei blamed little Dmitry from Alexandra's death and started developing aggression towards him. Little Dmitry, confused by why his father started hating him so much, tried to enjoy his free days somewhere outside. However, making friends with their long lasting rivals, tigers, was not acceptable, right? Little Dmitry learned another hurtful lesson. It took long time for Dmitry to get used to this life - he hated it, but he could not hate his birth country... which was taken away from him another five years later. Sergei could not handle the situation of his low class employees who finally after so many years started a revolution. Sergei's and Dmitry's home was in a centre of revolution - bricks broke the windows, fire engulfed the furniture... Sergei and Dmitry had to literally run away from this place, once called home, and run away from their country. Better start? America - a place of golden streets, a place of free lands. That was Sergei's new target. But was is exactly as he dreamd of? As other immigrants Sergei and Dmitry lived in crowded flats filled with filth and limited basic life needs. Dmitry was tangled to his father's back luck, whether he wanted it or not. But his father had still contacts. After few months they could move into a large, already rotten and almost fell apart, building with no-one around. Sergei saw a new change, Dmitry only worse start. His father started to get bored of his son's company and started neglect his son even more than before. Dmitry was sick of his new life, worse that before, but Dmitry's new "mother" was even bigger nightmare than he could imagine - a simple streetwalker only few years older than him. However, young people can get surprisingly mean. After Sergei's new mate, Melanie, found out about his fundations, she started to make a plan how to force Sergei leave all of his legacy for her. Best idea? Give him a better heir than Dmitry was. Get onto your own feet Dmitry could not handle the current situation in his life and decided to run away from his abuse father and his new rival. But who would accept a half-wild wolf cup in thier nest? With people's prejudices Dmitry started calling streets his new home since he had no other choice. And returning to his father? He would rather die than that. It didn't take Dmitry long to understand money are a key to, at least, standart life. But due to his low age no-one would employ a kid into their business... except for black markets and perverts. Ready or not, Dmitry knew living only from garbage wouldn't keep him alive for long. As a shadow, as a no longer officially existing person, Dmitry started making money through "gentle work" which left a great trauma on him. However, his first luck appeared - his body started to get features after his father and Dmitry started getting offers for street fighting. It wasn't exactly the best, but definitely better that his previous experience. "Vincent... now this sounds like a fighter!" Now Vincent earned his new identity and could finally afford a smaller flat and a proper food. He visited his "family" only few times since that. After that, he tried to focuse on his new, hopefully better, life. Luck! Luck! Luck! But that doesn't last forever With higher earnings everything went much more smooth. Vincent asked for asylum in a new region for young adults who aspired to find a job a leave the place as soon as possible. The workers of that place gave him few tips for work with recommendation. Another long years of his life Vincent kept up like a security guard. Was it a coincidence or not? The same working place was requested for a quite young female irbis immigrant, Vincent's future life partner - Sherab Azuki. Both of them did not honour the ancient traditions since Azuki was brought up by pair of ibex. Vincent knew this will be his life partner and tried his best to not lose her - he learned Japanese, found another two jobs for better earnings and even bought their own flat, that all only for his beloved Azuki. At the top of it, the pair was lucky to have their common child - Rozaline, tehir sweet Rose. Vincent could not even express his excitement and joy for his new, true family. His daughter and partner gave him new energy for their future life. Vincent tried to do his best he could, tried to be better father then his was. However, Vincents death number appeared once again... After the wolf came back from his work, he could not believe his eyes - Rose and Azuki were murdered. Who could do that? Someone who feared ancestros such as Vincent and Azuki were? Someone who did not accept hybrids? Someone who new Vincent was related to Sergei? There were so many options yet no-one could finds the true sinner of this terrible crime. Waiting for death The new energy quickly vanished, Vincent lost all of his jobs, his flat, his new hope. What did he do wrong for such terrible things that happened to him? Lost in emptiness of his inner world and left with despair, Vincent didn't try to continue in his life. Isolated at the far edge of the large city, somewhere in the middle of ruins, he waited for death to consume him. To quicken his "process" he started damaging his organs, especially lungs. But to the wolf's surprise his younger brother, now successful businessman like their father was, offered him a help. Vincent didn't trust his half-brother, but Frederich's current power over regions forced Vincent to join him. What an irony they ended up in the same place where it all began - in the old rotten building, now one of the greatest and high productionable metal factories in northern part of USA. Vincent wasn't surprised that this all inherited Frederich, now that their father is gone. But why so sudden? Even though Vincent was offered a job and a place to live, his current life was like a street's rat - hidding from the world and waiting for death... That all changed a young cat Vincent found behind the factory almost death, yet still breathing... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Even tho Vincent's past was more drastic, Vincent's and Raven's lives are somehow very alike... This kind of "storytelling" leaves a lots of quetions. Does the Sergei's death and Vincent's murdered family have a connection? And what about Frederich? We haven't heard much of him in this post... Artwork, Vincent, story & SotRW (universe) © MrsFalcon (FalconFeatherTheCat) (me)

[iaintyourbro]

But isn't the one who forget about Zack the devs not us they were so bias toward Aerith all these years as someone who's a big fan of Zack I felt so disappointed and furious at them because Zack gave his life to Cloud and Aerith gave her life to save the planet but all I saw is his over the top guilt over Aerith heck even the op of AC had him bury her in the water where's Z ?? No where to be found it was only in the complete version , what IAM saying it not us who keep forgetting about Zack(1)

Not to mention all these years despite Tifa who ended up with him SE kept promoting A as the love interest while Tifa kept being negelating by SE so it not only Z but T too , that why I'm happy right now with their treatment to T after years of being so bias toward A and forgetting what Z done to C and T ,but I know I can't trust SE i know what they're going to do for next parts I do know one thing they are going to hype A to the last scene of her and leave T to the last as usual (2)

Hi anon.

I’ve never felt they were biased towards Aerith. Talking to Japanese fans, Tifa is by far more popular overall in Japan. Worldwide she’s had more cameo appearances. The only other FFVII character that has more than her is Cloud. When polls that are actually controlled (not bottable), Tifa is more popular. 

Google trends shows that Cloti has always been more popular - since 2004, which is the furthest back it’ll go. I don’t fully trust it since I don’t think it takes every area into account, but it is interesting to see the stark difference. 

There will always be fan service - and in the case of things like Airship Brigade (I think that’s what its called) you can have whatever couple you want. It’s for fun, but it’s not canon.

I think that’s where people can get mixed up. There’s fanon/fanservice and canon. Canon doesn’t show any type of romantic relationship between Cloud and Aerith. In fanon you can have this happen - but that’s because it’s fanon. I can also make Clack/Zakkura legit in fanon. It’s not canon. 

There’s actually more evidence for Clack/Zakkura and AerTi than there is for CA, but that’s not for this post.

I think unfortunately some antis spread a lot of false information online and they really do make it seem like its their life’s work to do this. New fans can get confused and discouraged and slowly learn what the truth is. Yesterday I saw a tweet that somebody just finally found out that Maiden Who Traveled the Planet and Dismantled weren’t actually canon resources, but had been told by people online that they were. 

Fans of C/A - especially Tifa haters - will make people think that Tifa is hated by SE and everyone else. It’s just not true. SE is going to go with where the money is in most cases. Nojima and the team want to make sure their story is clear now. OG, Advent Children, and Case of Tifa are usually very misunderstood. If you put ALL of the compilation together and actually look at it as it should be looked at, all of this makes sense. 

In the case of Zack, he’s a very popular character. I think timing can cause a problem here, and I just had this argument last night. 

Dirge of Cerberus came out in 2006. 

Crisis Core - 2007

Advent Children Complete - 2009

Revised Cases in OtWtaS - 2009

People will argue since in DoC it’s not explicitly stated that Cloud and Tifa are lovers/romantically involved, that it must not have ever worked out. The devs purposely put Crisis Core out. They purposely redid parts of Advent Children and their novels because they realized people had SEVERELY misunderstood things.

Zack isn’t mentioned in DoC because at the time he was only mentioned in OG briefly and shown briefly during the Lifestream and then if you go and find the hidden/optional scene from the Shinra Mansion basement. 

The reason Tifa is called a childhood friend in things like user guides is because the big reveal on what is actually going on with Cloud is the plot twist. Why would they freely advertise that? It’s a big reveal, it’s supposed to be a surprise. In the case of DoC’s guide, they get stuck on that and the “engraved in heart” which is actually “who he’ll never forget” in the English version - either way - why would he forget her? She was killed in front of him. He tried to kill her twice.

The other thing... people really forget how much guilt Tifa has. It’s just not heavily talked about and a LOT of people haven’t read Case of Tifa. I think it was one of the best things I did because it filled in some concerns I had over Advent Children. 

So Zack isn’t forgotten - but they do keep his stuff sealed because it’s part of the ending of Remake Part 1. Zack was WRITTEN in so much for the Famitsu poll, they had to censor his name because of spoilers. He wasn’t even an option and people still got him int he top 10 - that’s how well liked he is. 

A lot of people also will flat out deny Crisis Core. I saw this just as recently as yesterday as well. It’s hard to navigate at times. I think the only way I can keep myself sane is to ONLY refer and look at canon materials. To ONLY use non-optional scenes in arguments. 

Even spin-off games like Kingdom Hearts end up showing Cloti. People said he was looking for Aerith, but he was actually looking for Sephiroth. People say Aerith was his light, but Nomura confirmed that Tifa was his light.

These two here are good to go over the KH and some other stuff. 

The Love Triangle of FFVII - LS.net

Cloud and Tifa in Kingdom Hearts - by @danseru-kun

In conclusion, the devs love Tifa too much to be neglecting her. The internet is a den of monsters. It’s like SOLDIER. It’s messy, it’s brutal, and full of lies. You can think something is more popular just by reading a biased person’s blog or going to certain websites. They’re very good at swaying you. Look at official materials, what games have been released where Cloud and Tifa have cameos, and decide for yourself on it.

I think Mobius also has a whole One True Love thing where Cloud is trying to remember something and it’s heavily implied that it’s Tifa. The little fairy thing actually is the one trying to help him with this. @silver-wield may have some more info on this. 

Hey, Silver, I think I picked a good summoning gif for you. :)

[adventure-hearts]

I was asked about this topic recently, and, being bored out of my mind, I felt inspired to use it as a starting point for a new series! I hope to share my current headcanons about the personality types of the Digimon Adventure universe’s main characters, according to different personality systems: astrology, Enneagram, MBTI... feel free to suggest any other typologies you’d like me to explore in the future.

In this first post, I’ll try to explain which of the Sun Sign personality archetypes I find more likely and interesting for each character. Consider this this an update of my previous headcanons, post-tri. (and post LAST EVOLUTION Kizuna).

1: DIGIMON ADVENTURE + ZODIAC SIGNS

Taichi - Aries

Yamato - Aries

Sora - Pisces [semi-canon]

Koushirou - Aquarius

Mimi - Leo

Jou - Virgo 

Takeru - Libra

Hikari - Pisces

Daisuke - Sagittarius

Miyako - Gemini [canon]

Iori - Capricorn

Ken - Cancer

Meiko Mochizuki - Virgo/Libra

Maki Himekawa - Scorpio

Daigo Nishijima - Leo

Note: Every single headcanon is highly subjective and even I will probably change my mind about it. This is only a PROPOSAL.

If you’re interested in my interpretation and methodology, read on!

Canon Clues 

Although there are no official birthdays for the characters, several Adventure materials have provided “goalposts” where we can fit some characters’ birthdays. I strive to make my HCs as canon-compliant as possible, so it’s important for me to take this info into account.

Miyako is stated to be a Gemini in 02.

The official synopsis of tri. Indicates that Taichi is 17 years old during the series, suggesting the has an April-June birthday.

Sure, you’re free to ignore this little nugget if you prefer, but I personally like to think there’s a reason they mentioned Taichi’s age explicitly — something they never did before. They also never mentioned the explicit age of any of the other characters.

Funnily enough, the DALEK official website and novel lists the character’s ages during the events of the film. Since the film takes place in the summer of 2010, taking those numbers at face-value would require us to believe all 8 characters have birthdays in the first half of the year. 

This contradicts the explicit on-screen information about Jou’s age in the original series (see below). 

I’m proposing this should be interpreted as their “average” ages, rather than precise ages at this specific moment in time — after all, in Kizuna it’s more difficult to identify the characters by their school year, like they always did before.

Sora’s birthday is canonically before the events of Our War Game. The film takes place during the spring holidays, which typically begin around the third week of March.

Sora having a March birthday is so universally accepted by Japanese fans that it’s even on her Wikipedia page. I wouldn’t be surprised if more recent writers took that information into account, post-OWG, and portrayed her accordingly. 

Notice that Pisces is only the more likely option considering the canon timeline and Sora’s personality — Aries (late March) and Aquarius (mid-February) could fit as well. Hence why I consider this choice [semi-canon].

Jou, who is a 6th-grader, mentions he’s 11 years old during Adventure. This suggest his birthday would be after August 1.

Ken is supposed to be 9 years old in August 2000, when he’s in Year 3, suggesting he has an April-August birthday.

This is different from other guidebooks which only list the characters “average” ages, because this lists Ken’s precise age during a specific event.

I believe Ken being exactly 9 years old went to the Digital world is deliberate, since Osamu is stated to be 3 years older than Ken, hadn’t yet turned 12 when he died.

Again, except for Miyako, Sora, and Jou birthdays, I can understand why fans chose to ignore any of this.

Personal Notes

My method isn’t about finding a putative “Official / True Birthday” — that never existed, at least for the Adventure eight. It’s about finding birthdays that work within the limitations of canon (see previous section). 

My HCs are based on the personality / character archetypes represented by the the zodiac signs. In theory, any Chosen Child could be understood as representing a specific symbolical archetypes.

The problem is that the Adventure characters are quite complex and often deconstruct traditional archetypes. This explains why it’s so hard for fans to agree on which sign they are supposed to represent. I should also note that anime series seem to understand astrological archetypes slightly differently from the Western mainstream tradition, which explains why typical anime zodiac signs sometimes feel a bit “off”. 

Nevertheless, some archetypes are so strong that most of the fandom seems to have reached a consensus: Jou/Virgo and Koushirou/Aquarius, for example. Then you have textbook examples of archetypes like Gemini/Miyako (unsurprisingly canon), Taichi/Aries, and Hikari/Pisces. But even there is a lot of room for disagreement and subjective interpretation!

*

The 02 writers clearly intended Daisuke to symbolise Fire, Miyako Air, Iori Earth and, due to the Dark Ocean connection, Ken Water. In fact, it’s super easy to place those four characters into any traditional 4-group personality types, such as the four temperaments, Jung’s types, blood types, ABCD personality, etc. 

My HCs respect this, and ended up creating two polar opposites within the team: Daisuke/Miyako (mutable) and Ken/Iori (cardinal).  

*

It’s tempting to ascribe 12 main characters = 12 signs, but post-tri. I’m inclined to do something different and not put myself into such a limiting framework.

For this reason I repeat some signs, and I don’t have any Taurus character (sorry!).

*

My MAIN innovative choice is that I suspect Taichi and Yamato might represent the same sun sign.

Now, I understand this is an extremely controversial opinion. It isn’t a possibility I thought about until quite recently.

But Taichi and Yamato being “different but the same / two sides of the same coin” is incredibly well represented if both of them correspond to the Aries personality archetype. 

After all, they’re the leaders, the heroes, the Knights in shining armor. This explains their incredible similarities, despite superficial differences. as well as their love-hate dynamic: the rivalry, the union, the way they complement and balance each other out in an almost instinctive way.

Here are some examples of the Aries/Aries dynamic from the literature... 

Both of you are independent individuals and you don’t like feeling “owned” by anyone. Neither of you can tolerate being dominated or bossed by anyone else, so you probably make your own decisions, and direct your own lives. You respect one another’s autonomy, and a relationship that is based on constant togetherness and dependency wouldn’t suit either of you. Sometimes, however, there is too much emphasis on individualism rather than on being close and nurturing the relationship. You both have proud egos, and are sensitive to criticism. Almost inevitably you will compete with each other, and in small doses this can be invigorating. But it easily becomes nasty, and one of you is likely to get hurt. If you’ve ever seen two rams locking horns, you know what I mean! You either respect one another immensely or detest one another – rarely anything in between. (X)

If your relationship has been built on the basis that you are equals, the fire element produces tremendous vision and industriousness. Your combined power and effort could well be a force to be reckoned with — but again, only if you both learn to subdue your own ego in the service of each other. Remember, you can’t always be right. You need to try hard to see things from each other’s perspective; this will help the two of you become a great partnership over time. (x)

When Mars clashes with Mars, the result can be full-scale war, with all flags flapping, bravely and colorfully. Occasional flare-ups are bound to occur when these two are thrown into close, daily proximity, without the relief of some separateness in their association. But there will also be some glorious Highs to offset these Lows. (...)  It's been said that Aries people have a way about them. They do. Their own way. Yet, despite that sometimes antagonistic Martian exterior, they'll sense each other's desperate need to be appreciated and liked. When they get together, they may struggle for leadership, but the experience will supply some well-needed lessons. The shock of living with someone - or being around some- one - as innocently thoughtless, selfish and aggressive as one's self, is sure to soften any battering Ram, although there may be a few scars to show for the les- sons in living thus mastered. Aries hearts always carry more scars than the Rams ever show, or openly discuss. (x)

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The more you read, the more this pattern begins to make sense. Try to watch the Dark Masters arc, the Agumon-is-kidnapped mini arc, tri., and even Kizuna with this possibility in mind, and you’ll understand what I mean.

Sure, order to accept this theory, you have to understand Yamato as a more atypical reserved / sensitive Aries (influenced by a Cancer Moon, perhaps?) and Taichi as a more “pure” Arien type. Yamato is more like a baby lamb, right? (don’t tell it to his face).

You can make a very strong argument for Leo!Taichi (that was my initial HC as well) or Yamato as almost anything else. I wouldn’t disagree. But why not come up with a fresh perspective to explain these two? 

Oh, and in case you’re curious, their (canon) Japanese Zodiac is also the same: Dragon, the direct equivalent to Aries. 

*

A note about tri.: typing Maki and Daigo seemed straightforward enough. Maki is the stereotypical Scorpio antagonist, and Goggle Boy Daigo’s partner evolved into a literal lion.

I couldn’t resist the idea of making Meiko a Libra, considering her digimon partner is literally the Libra and Meiko is the 9th member of the group. But  personality probably fits other signs better — it’s very tempting to type her a Virgo, the polar opposite of Hikari. She could also be the missing Taurus element (Mei as the literal May Queen). 

The truth is... I can’t decide!

*

Disclaimer: There is zero scientific evidence for astrology and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s only interesting as a tool to analyze fictional characters in symbolic /archetypal terms. My headcanons are based on extensive reading about astrology, its symbolism and psychological profiles; I’m happy to share my sources (they’re not from pop astrology). But I’m also aware of the Barnum effect. We are all biased; there are no right or wrong options. Everyone’s conflicting headcanons are equally valid.

Feel free to ask questions or request more in-depth explanations for my suggestions, but FFS don’t start arguing with me and insisting I’m “wrong” based on other people’s equally subjective and disputable headcanons.

*

BONUS: Sun sign Archetypes / Personality Keywords

Aries

Aries at its best : Brave, assertive, pioneering, quick, determined

Aries on a bad day: Aggressive, hard-headed, selfish, impulsive, impatient, brutal

The Aries archetype : Prince Lancelot, the brave and romantic rock star of King Arthur’s court

The Aries stereotype : The rage-a-holic in the pickup truck who just gave you the finger after cutting you off on the freeway

Gemini

Gemini at its best : Curious, inquisitive, quick witted, communicative, inventive, clever, adaptable

Gemini on a bad day : Verbally cruel, deceptive, disloyal, restless, doesn’t follow through”

“The Gemini archetype : The jester; clever and mischievous, your wit and agility are your best defense

The Gemini stereotype : The meddlesome neighbor, snooping and eavesdropping

Cancer

Cancer at its best : Family-oriented, nurturing, intuitive, domestic, maternal, sensitive, sympathetic, emotional, patriotic, retentive, traditional

Cancer on a bad day : Moody, touchy, oversensitive, negative, manipulative, overly cautious

The Cancer archetype : The universal mother

The Cancer stereotype : The smothering mother

Leo

Leo at its best : Regal, creative, magnetic, performer, generous, inspiring

Leo on a bad day : Vain, domineering, attention seeking, insecure”

The Leo archetype : The benevolent monarch

The Leo stereotype : The shallow playboy or party girl

Virgo

Virgo at its best : Discriminating, thorough, scientific, clean, humane, scientific, analytical

Virgo on a bad day : Picky, critical, petty, self-centered, hypochondriac, gloomy, pedantic

The Virgo archetype : Sherlock Holmes, with his staggering powers of perception and analysis and his earthy tweed jacket

The Virgo stereotype : The quiet, slightly geeky scientist or secretary with horn-rimmed glasses and a repressed manner

Libra

Libra at its best : Refined, artistic, diplomatic, sociable, peace loving, persuasive, just

Libra on a bad day : Fickle, over accommodating, argumentative, indecisive, insincere

The Libra archetype : The diplomat

The Libra stereotype : The gigolo or “kept” man or woman”

Scorpio

Scorpio at its best : Determined, probing, brave, passionate, insightful, empathetic, penetrating, investigative, powerful

Scorpio on a bad day : Jealous, suspicious, sarcastic, secretive, vengeful, manipulative

The Scorpio archetype : The magician, able to transcend the laws of nature to achieve transformation

The Scorpio stereotype : A secret agent, skilled at investigative work and most comfortable working behind the scenes”

Sagittarius

Sagittarius at its best : Philosophical, adventurous, freedom loving, scholarly, funny, honest, athletic, traveler

Sagittarius on a bad day : Crude, blunt, know-it-all, arrogant, superior, intolerant

The Sagittarius archetype : The wayfaring stranger who transforms a community with his knowledge and wisdom before moving on

The Sagittarius stereotype : The clown who trips over his gigantic shoes and throws pies in your face

Capricorn

Capricorn at its best : Responsible, authoritative, traditional, pragmatic, hardworking, economical, serious, mature, ethical

Capricorn on a bad day : Domineering, stubborn, inhibited, unfeeling, fatalistic, judgmental, unforgiving”

“The Capricorn archetype : The wise elder

The Capricorn stereotype : A cranky old man or woman who keeps yelling at kids to “stay off my lawn!”

Aquarius

Aquarius at its best : Independent, genius, iconoclastic, rebellious, logical, scientific, progressive, intellectual, humane

Aquarius on a bad day : Eccentric, temperamental, unpredictable, cold, opinionated, radical”

“The Aquarius archetype : The charismatic rebel who wins over his fellow men by thumbing his nose at authority

The Aquarius stereotype : The mad scientist

Pisces

Pisces at its best : Sympathetic, compassionate, emotional, intuitive, musical, artistic

Pisces on a bad day : Impractical, timid, procrastinator”

The Pisces archetype : The mystic

The Pisces stereotype : The flake

from Kent, April Elliott. “The Essential Guide to Practical Astrology: Everything from zodiac signs to prediction, made easy and entertaining”.

[entamesubs]

Regarding Past Mistakes & the BD Release

Hello everyone, entame here.

As I get closer and closer to beginning the sub process for episodes 1-13 of SEVENS using its Blu-Ray, I do want to address some issues regarding my subs that have been brought up either directly to me, or anonymously across other sites.

Before I begin, I want to note that this concerns most of my earlier subs, which is why I thought to make this post with the BD releases on the horizon.

------------

As of writing this, this “sub group” consists of two people (and is in the process of adding a third, mostly to help with timing)—the person writing this post (”entame”), and Yona, the proofreader. When I first began subbing SEVENS (specifically for episodes 12 and 13), it was a one-person job. This means I did translations, proofreading, and timing by myself (to some extent, I still do all three of these jobs, but not as much as I used to). Yona did not join until around 13-14.

I realize that I have made a lot of mistakes over the course of this subbing career, but especially concerning the beginning episodes, which were the finale of the first arc, and therefore very important in the grand scheme of things. 

I want to deeply apologize for them, and address what happened and what’s going to change about them (and possibly future subs) going forward.

Episode 12 in particular was rife with some mistranslation errors. The most “obvious” was concerning the first release of the episode where the context of Roa’s rule-sharking was different than it is now (I don’t quite remember it exactly, so this is why it’s vague). Obviously, a lot of this was corrected in the second release of the episode, and the first version isn’t a thing that exists anymore, even on my own hard drive. It is somewhat fortunate that it also doesn’t exist on anime mirror sites either, as the first group to get a sub out was SevensRoadSubs, so it is their version of episode 12 that exists on most streaming sites.

Likewise, episode 13 suffered these mistakes as well. One example is translating the tournament that Otis was disqualified at as “the 60th” instead of the “the 666th”, which is the correct one. Stuff like this slipped past my notice, so please accept my apologies.

However, the framing of 12 and 13 also laid the groundwork for how certain things would be subbed in future episodes. This means mistakes would endure, such as Roa saying “Distortion Power Code” or the phrasing of his summoning chant in the subs of 13 and 18, despite the fact that it should be “Distortion Power Chord” (as I learned later on). Some of you will also remember the notice I made regarding the decision to use YGOrganization’s translations of cards (where available) post-episode 15, for the sake of consistency across fandom.

Doing subs for SEVENS every week has been a very great joy to me, and something I don’t regret doing. That said, I also know I have made a lot of mistakes, earning some ire. I have learned a lot in the past 3 months since I started. I have never done large-scale translation work or fansubbing before this, so a lot of it has been growing pains. I intended to use the translation of SEVENS as a stepping stone to improving my Japanese (which it has!), but I am not perfect, and always open to corrections.

I say this on every sub release post and also at the end of every episode—I am always, always, always open to corrections. I will make mistakes, and though I try my best to notice them, sometimes I may not. Sometimes, as in the case of “Distortion Power Chord”, I will not even notice them until weeks down the line, when it is too late to change them.

That is why I always try to release 1080p versions where available—because they correct mistakes in the first 720p batch, which are speedsubs.

Still, I think it’s important to acknowledge the mistakes I’ve made for the sake of transparency and to let the fandom know of wrong information I inadvertently circulated.

The upcoming BD releases of episodes 1-13 will go through a much more rigorous subbing process than my usual weekly episodes. For that reason, it may be a rather slow process of working on them, as I plan to have multiple eyes comb through the episodes before release. The BD release will not have a re-release, nor will it be possible to correct potential mistakes after release, so it needs to be the best version I can confidently put out.

I say this because episodes 12 and 13 in particular were extremely rough in terms of translation, as it was my first foray into fansubbing. This means the existing scripts for them may be completely re-translated or re-worked in the BD release, leading to some inconsistencies of future episode’s subs (particularly those past episode 14). If I can ever get the 2nd Blu-Ray set, these will also, of course, be addressed there.

For full transparency, and going forward, there will be some changes to how certain things are phrased, worded, or translated.

YGOrg will always take priority in terms of card name translations. Previously, I played a little loose with my own interpretations and having some fun with puns, but going forward this is now a hard rule. If they translate a card name a certain way, I will use their translation for the sake of consistency. This means no more instances of things like “Kill-Lure Bait Ball” or “Washbuckler” (though they were fun, it became confusing).

BD-specific: I will also try to match information with stuff on Yugipedia. This is BD-specific because weekly speedsubs may come out faster than info on Yugipedia, so there will always be some inconsistency there. However, for the BD, things like “Beastgear World - Trike Fox” will become “Trike Fox of the Beast Gear World”, and other such changes.

Also BD-specific: 2 subtitle tracks! One will use official spellings of names, like Ohdo Yuga, while the other will use transliterations, like Oudou Yuuga (as I usually do). On Luke/Rook - not sure what to do yet. I don’t want to make 3-4 different tracks for official and transliteration, each with Luke/Rook options. Both tracks may use Luke just for my sanity. No change for weekly releases, however; those will always use transliterations.

Weekly episode titles will always follow DMC’s translations of the summaries beforehand. This was also a loose rule before as I always tried to do this unless I wanted to have some fun with puns or references. This will now become a hard rule.

Regarding BD release timelines, while I don’t have a “date-by-date” planned out, I do expect to be done by the second or third week of December. This may change or be delayed, but I will always announce here ahead of time. The second BD comes out in January, so I want to be sure to finish before then, as January and February tend to be busier months for me (fun fact: despite living in the US, neither my family or I celebrate Thanksgiving or Christmas, so these two months are prime time for getting things done).

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far! Please know I would never have gotten to this point without your support, and am always deeply humbled by the positive response. The BD release would never have happened without you, as it was crowdfunded by you. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

When I first started subbing, I thought I would be a second subber alongside another group, so I could never imagine having come to this point now. This is why I chose to make this post addressing my mistakes and future changes, for the sake of clarity.

Before I close off this (extremely long) post, I do want to give a shoutout to Yona! There would be a lot more mistakes without her. While I control the blog, the name, and the posting process, she has been indispensable with her work and I don’t want to leave her out. This sub group went from one to two, and I am extremely grateful for the help.

Thank you for reading to this point. Hopefully this clears a lot of things up going forward! As always, my submit and ask box are both always open for questions, comments, or corrections. Please never be shy to correct me on anything—I welcome another set of eyes!

[mikami]

Light Up The NEW World Novel

A summary of all content that wasn’t in the movie.

The newest Death Note novelization, Light Up The NEW World, has received an official German translation recently. I have the pleasure of being German, so I was able to obtain and read it and I will now summarize to you guys all the content from it that is new or interesting. Spoilers: it isn’t much.

The novel is honestly... not good. It’s largely a play-by of the script and instead of delving deeper into the characters’ mindsets, it usually opts to simply describe the body language of the actors á la ‘he lifted his arms’ without any emotional prose surrounding it. It doesn’t really answer many questions either, it just raises a few more and largely calls it a day. Nevertheless, it’s content, so let’s dive into that content!

Prologue

The movie merely states that the shinigami king was delighted by Kiras actions and ordered for a new Kira to be found for that reason. The novel elaborates on this... completely nonsensically.

The shinigami king is described as ‘evil incarnate’ in the prose.

His announcement is as follows: “The foolish humans won’t stop murdering one another. If we allow them to keep going, the foolishness of mankind will sooner or later pave the path to their destruction. This would also mean the end for us shinigami, since we live off human lifespans. That’s why we need to give humans the means to regulate their boundless wretchedness. 10 years ago, a human called Kira tried to stop the murdering with the help of the Death Note. By ruling over the wretchedness that is innate to humans, one can end the circle of murder. We need a human who can imitate Kira’s methods. We need Kira’s successor!”

.... yes, giving them murder weapons to stop the murdering, all of this is very logical, this novel gave me a headache from page 1 on.

Alexei, the Russian doctor from the start of the movie, mostly has poor and old patients.

Shidoh shows up in the novel - he is the shinigami that gave Alexei the notebook. When Alexei dies, there is a short description of Shidoh being annoyed that he has to look for a new human and then a mini-scene of a person (read: Shien) coming in to take Alexei’s Death Note.

We get some more info about another one of the initial users: Roger Irving, the Devil of Wall Street. He committed murders to improve his own business and officials already suspected him but then he commits suicide. Shien, again, takes his notebook.

Chapter 1

Sakura kills because she thinks killing is hilarious. It just annoys her how long it takes to get people’s names. She immediately takes the eyes to make killing faster, no hesitation. Much character depth. Wow.

Sugawara, the task force’s superior, thinks shinigami and the notebooks are all nonsense, despite literally just having seen a shinigami... he thinks they’re wasting too much money on the Death Note task force.

Ryuzaki and Mishima here explicitly discuss that if they have all six notebooks, there won’t be any further Death Note incidents. In the movie, Mishima thinks about this on his own, at home.

Matsuda implores Mishima to trust Ryuzaki because he trusted L.

Matsuda thinks that Light was manipulated by the notebook to lose his mind and still thinks of him somewhat fondly. He feels guilty for having shot him.

There is a short segment about Misa intentionally leaving the Kira virus on her phone and wondering why Light never told her he was Kira.

Chapter 2

Kenichi Mikuriya, the judge who is a Death Note owner, is motivated by spite for Kira and his followers. He thinks that they should be punished for enjoying these unlawful killings, which is... why he kills them unlawfully, with a Death Note. His shinigami is called Ives. Ives looks like a 2m tall deformed skeleton with a coat. 

Ives has a brief chat with Shien during which Ives claims that everyone who is in contact with the Death Note loses their mind - because THAT is exactly what we needed canonized in any version of DN, clearly. Shien doesn’t seem to believe him though and blames Ives personally for manipulating Mikuriya into losing his mind.

The best part of the novel is the added in shinigami because they all end up sticking to Shien as he collects the notebooks. He lives with Ryuk. Ives, Shidoh and a shinigami who is very tall and who’s name he doesn’t know. Shidoh wants chocolate and Shien laughs and tells him to check the fridge for it.

Random additional detail about Roger Irving: he killed people who were developing an alternative to oil so he could get rich of oil stock market prices.... They go on about Irving’s business process for like 2 pages, but the rest of it isn’t really all that interesting.

The novel adds a segment of Ryuzaki telling them to not IP trace Kira during the chat sequence. He suspects it will lead to death for them.

After Matsuda dies, Ryuzaki tells them he tolds them so. He calls Mishima reckless and says he doesn’t know anything about what really counts. He says that Shien would have killed Matsuda anyway, but he wanted them to go through the extra efforts. He says Shien made them all look like idiots, so it’s no wonder their department is getting disbanded.

When Ryuzaki thinks back to L he’s like ‘he always stuck to his baseline of never being part of a crime and he only broke it to write himself into the Death Note because the mere act of writing into it is a crime’ and that’s so stupid on so many levels, I need to take a moment.

Ryuzaki does specify that the medicine he has to take is because he’s made from L’s gene material. The German specifically calls him a clone, but the Japanese isn’t that specific. Since the New Generation drama calls it artificial insemination and no Japanese source ever uses the term ‘clone’, I guess that’s... what it is? Not sure why it’d lead to health complications though.

In that scene where Shien texts Misa to meet him at the City Hall, Shien’s whole shinigami gang is there. Shien has a cooling box of chocolate in his car for Shidoh, but he ran out. Shien apologetically smiles at Shidoh and tells him he’ll buy new ones.

Chapter 3

There is a small extra scene of Ryuzaki negotiating with Shien that he can keep his face hidden until they’re both present to demask at the same time. In the movie that’s just a given.

The message by which Shien messes up the police servers in the novel is by simply opening an IMMENSE mass of Kira video files to overwhelm the servers....

Sugawara gets threatened by the people from National Security to get the Death Notes back as soon as possible. The US have threatened military actions and potentially a nuclear strike to neutralize the threat of the Death Notes by simply bombing them into oblivion.

It is also confirmed that Neo Kira also restored peace in the world.

There is a bit of specification about Mikami and Light’s son. They lived in the abandoned hotel for a year. Mikami raised the child out of immense loyalty to Light, an adoration that could ‘almost be called abnormal’. But as the child killed more and more people wildly, Mikami grew scared the kid would kill him next.  Light’s son started to see himself as a literal God and started treating Mikami as a slave, meanwhile.  

The only reason Mishima wasn’t a Kira supporter from the get-go was Soichiro’s influence. It was Soichiro who convinced him to join the police. But in secret, Mishima still supported Kira. “Following Kira’s traces, for him, was like a pilgrimage for a believer.”

After the special unit attacks, Ryuzaki and Mishima have a dialogue in which Ryuzaki scolds Mishima for never thinking of the fact that other countries might attack Japan to get rid of the notebooks.

The only worthwhile scene in this novel if the shinigami gang saying goodbye to Shien, so I’ll actually write this one out. It happens after Shien gets shot and gives the notebook to Mishima. “Say, is this what you meant when you promised something interesting?” Powerlessly, Shien raised his head to the voice that was sounding from above him. That is where Shidoh was crouching and looking down at him. “You could... say so. But... it’s not quite over yet.” “Man, how boring.” With those words, Shidoh got up and disappeared soundlessly. “Hey, remember when I told you you were kind of like a Kira?” The shinigami whose name Shien didn’t know looked at him from across the sideboard. Shien returned his smile, but didn’t manage to say anything. “That was a lie.  Us shinigami can see your remaining lifespan after all. But you know, I had fun with you. Shidoh seemed to disagree though.” “And you? What do you think? You were pretty confident. Do you still feel this way?” Ives asked, a mocking note in his voice. Sluggishly, Shien looked up at the two shinigami. He tried to answer but didn’t succeed. “Well, we’re going to watch what you have to offer for a bit longer.” With that, the shinigami disappeared into thin air. The words of the shinigami should have been enough to plunge Shien into despair, but strangely, he felt nothing. On the contrary, he had the feeling that his powers,which had left him before, were returning. “I’m glad... that you guys had fun.”

Ryuzaki asking Mishima for his motivation to become Kira goes differently in the novel. In the movie, Mishima says he had no choice, that it was the only way to stop the search for a new Kira. In the novel, he says that he thought Kira really was justice. That Soichiro was the only reason he didn’t sink into the darkness entirely. He was motivated by Soichiro’s suffering to investigate the Kira cases after they happened and prevent any future ones. But then he grew more and more fascinated with Kira’s morals. 

When Mishima moves in front of Ryuzaki to be shot by Nanase, his internal monologue is this: He doubted that he could atone for his crimes as Kira with this but if his death could free just one person from their pain, that was already a better solution. Of course, that was just an excuse to make himself feel better. But in this moment, he didn’t have another choice.

Epilogue

There is an extra scene with Ryuzaki waking up in the hospital and talking to Takahashi, the mysterious man from National Security. Takahashi informs him that the transport with multiple dummies that Near organized for the notebooks was attacked and that four notebooks burned in the process. Takahashi suspects this was a certain international crime syndicate, hoping to sabotage relations between Japan and the USA. 

It is also Takahashi who suggests swapping Ryuzaki and Mishima so that Mishima can survive in Ryuzaki’s place. 

The ‘just as planned’ clip of Light that plays after the movie credits gets an in-universe explanation in the novel: it is the only trace left behind by the Kira Virus, just this one tiny video file. The file deletes itself after it is played once.

[luckystarchild]

INUYASHA Volume 01, Scroll 01: “The Accursed Youth”

Welcome to Lucky’s INUYASHA recap—a recap of the Inuyasha manga by me, Lucky, an anime fan who has somehow never read it or seen the anime before.

Over the course of these posts, I’ll be recapping and reacting to the events of a chapter (or series of chapters) of the Inuyasha manga. I’ll be using the official VIZ manga volumes as my source material. References to Not Quite Kagome (“NQKagome”) pertain to my ongoing fanfiction series, Lucky Child.

And without further ado... chapter 01 of Inuyasha (or volume 01, “Scroll 1,” as VIZ titles the manga chapters.)

We begin in media res; Inuyasha has stolen the Jewel of Four Souls (the “Shikon Jewel”) and is rampaging through a village. He wants to use the jewel to become “a true demon.” Kikyo, mortally wounded, shoots him with an arrow and pins him to a tree. Her body is burnt along with the jewel by her young sister, Kaede.

I don’t generally like prologues that employ flashbacks in writing, as they sometimes seem like a way to shoehorn in backstory that either isn’t necessary OR backstory that could be imparted through the reader more organically. (They’re all-too-often lazy, basically.) But this is a manga, so maybe it’s not so bad. Not sure how I feel TBH.

Was sort of surprised we learned what Inuyasha’s goal concerning the jewel is so soon; thought maybe that would get dragged out a bit longer, though IDK why I got that impression exactly. I’ve seen a few random eps of the anime and know he isn’t fond of his own half-demon status. Perhaps I feel like we should’ve earned this revelation during the narrative and on Inuyasha’s terms, rather than have it handed to us right off the bat by a faceless narrator. But that’s me being overly critical, perhaps.

Flash forward to 1997. The day before Kagome’s 15th birthday. Her grandfather tries to tell her a legend about the Shikon Jewel, but she shrugs it off. 

Kagome’s family lives inside a big temple, and everything has a legend attached to it (including the massive 500-year-old Go-Shinboku God Tree), but Kagome never pays attention to them. Later, her brother loses their cat in the mini-shrine, specifically in the well house (which a sign declares the home of the Bone-Eater’s Well). Kagome bravely ventures inside to search for the cat.

Right off the bat, we get the impression that Kagome is a pretty average teenage girl—a bit of an airhead with a sharp sense of humor who isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty or shy away from a dark and spooky well house. Nice bit of characterization in just a few panels. Well done, author-san.

NQKagome Bonus: She’d probably pay more attention to all the legends her grandfather tells, which could give her an edge in the Feudal Era.

Kagome hears odd noises coming from the covered well; the cover pops off the well and a horrible, Noh-mask-faced women with a skeletal snake body to leap out and drag Kagome into the darkness. 

Her body regenerates, turning into a... centipede body. Not a snake. D’oh. Frightened as they fall, Kagome emits a light from her hands, breaking off the woman’s arm and sending her careening away into the dark as she cries something cryptic about the Jewel of Four Souls.

Soon Kagome stops falling and finds herself at the bottom of the well, but upon emerging, she’s lost in an unfamiliar forest.

I gotta say that as far as first-chapters go, this one is pretty good! We immediately know who Kagome is, where she’s from, what she’s like as a person, and this introduction to the supernatural is spooky and interesting. The stakes are high and the action is fast-paced, without an overload of exposition.

Kagome spots the God-Tree and hurries toward it, noting that she always used it to find her way home in the past, but she does not find her familiar home at its base. Instead she finds Inuyasha pinned to the God-Tree.

We’re treated to this gorgeous two-panel spread:

She notes that the boy pinned to the tree has inhuman ears before some villagers find her in “Inuyasha’s forbidden forest” and bring her to Kaede, the younger sister of Kikyo (who is much older than she appeared in the earlier flashback). Kagome realizes she is in the Sengoku Period (1467 to 1615 CE). The villagers theorize that she’s a spy, a kitsune, and similar before Kaede realizes that Kagome looks identical to the deceased Kikyo.

Kaede tells Kagome briefly who Kikyo was before the centipede woman attacks the village. 

That bit where Kaede tells Kagome about Kikyo is where I would’ve placed the flashback from the start of the chapter, FYI. Would’ve given the earlier parts of the chapter more mystery to withhold some information from the reader.

Also we have TOO MANY K-NAMES. Already three of the four named characters start with K, and two even start with the “ka” sound in Japanese. We have this problem with YYH and I foresee it being a problem as I type these names a ton, LMAO 🤣

So... Kagome realizing what time period she’s been magically dropped into after approximately seven seconds seems… IDK, kind of handy? Easy? The only info she has to go on are the vague references to “battles” a few villagers shout at her, and maybe the way they’re dressed. She supposedly doesn’t pay attention to old legends, so it doesn’t seem plausible that she’d pay enough attention in history class to discern what period she’s in now based on the cut of a kimono.

(Disclaimer: I’m American and the American education system is notoriously horrible at teaching the subjects of history and science with any accuracy, so I might be projecting my experience onto hers to some degree. Maybe Japan is better about this stuff. IDK, but thought I’d mention it.)

ALSO, Kagome jumps to the possibility of time travel really fast. I would jump to “this is a dream” or “I have fallen into a historical reenactment amusement park in which no one will break character” (a special hell of its own) first. Again, though, this chapter is moving quickly to draw in readers, so I can see why they didn’t give her confusion more screen-time. Especially with serialized manga, you have a handful of chapters (if that) to grab readers, so it’s gotta move fast as a matter of necessity.

I appreciate that some of the villagers mentioned “kitsune” in this section (and not just because it reminds me of all the reasons Yu Yu Hakusho is so easy to cross over with this manga). It shows that the supernatural is something the locals consider on a daily basis, which helps with worldbuilding.

Also, I wasn’t expecting the nipples on the centipede woman??? In her first panels, her breasts were covered up a bit, but now we’ve got detailed nipples. I’m guessing the scant few episodes of the series I watched were censored quite a bit. I’m wondering if there’s going to be more fanservice in this series than I expected, especially after reading that the series’ author, Rumiko Takahashi, advised the anime team to avoid using Kagome for any pantie-shots…

The centipede claims Kagome has the Shikon Jewel, and Kagome flees the village (toward “that light” in the east, which Kaede notes she shouldn’t be able to see) as the centipede woman gives chase. Elsewhere, Inuyasha wakes, stating he can smell the scent of the woman who killed him.

So I know a few things about this series already thanks to the research I did for Lucky Child, and chief among these things is that Kagome is Kikyo’s reincarnation. We can already see this tidbit coming through in obvious ways: Kagome’s resemblance to Kikyo, the Jewel being connected to her somehow, etc. Kagome seeing that light is probably a power she got from Kikyo, too.

It’s interesting that these connections are as physical as her having the same scent as Kikyo, though; scent is informed quite a bit by genetics. Obviously we’re dealing with magic and not science in this story, so I’m not looking for infallible logic when it comes to this reincarnation plot device… but it’s almost like the magic here overrides things like genetics and the extreme differences in what Kagome and Kikyo must’ve eaten in their respective times when determining their scent and appearance. The soul is more important than the body, etc. Wondering how consistent that will remain over the course of this admittedly massive story.

And that’s it for chapter 1. This was super fun! I’m guessing I’ll have more to say once we get past the set-up and are introduced to more characters, but overall I think this was a really strong start to this feudal fairy tale.

If you enjoyed this recap, feel free to buy me a Ko-Fi☕, and subscribe to the tag “lucky’s inuyasha recap” to see more!

NEXT CHAPTER

[mysimtopia]

Update on my franchise zoo again!  I rather like making these, to be honest.  It allows me to figure out where I wish to place things next and stuff.  I didn’t really explain much of my zoo on my last post, so I’ll go more in depth here:

House of Primates I’ve officially finished my area that I’m calling the House of Primates!  Let me tell you, these monkeys were bitches to get.  I sat there for twenty minutes just to get my orangutans.  The Chimpanzees weren’t any easier either!  The area contains two viewing houses (East and West), with a staff area connected in the middle.  Despite never showing it, this build replaced the Tortoise House and Komodo Dragon exhibit that I previously had.  The Gorillas will be included in the Work Zone, but the Japanese Macaque will be included in my Temperate and Taiga area.

Tropical Adventure This building has over 1000 pieces, I kid you not.  It was also the second build I did in this zoo.  The building houses Lemurs (Red Ruffed and Ring Tailed), Taipirs, and Pygmy Hippos.  The building is three stories, technically (Bottom level contains the staff areas and habitats themselves, the second level is the elevated pathway to view the animals, and the third is just to give the place height).  The one down side to this whole building is the amount of vandalism the area gets.  I’ve put in security cameras and extra security, yet the info screens and trash bins still get vandalized!  I do wish that they’d make it where the caretakers pick up the tipped bins and the mechanics could fix the broken info screens, because having to constantly check the place to make sure all my stuff isn’t vandalized is getting annoying.  Now, as for info on the animals in Tropical Adventure:

The Red Ruffed Lemurs are breeding like rabbits lately!  I have over 30 of them now.  The Ring Tailed Lemurs aren’t having nearly as much luck breeding as my Red Ruffed Lemurs are.  The downside to this building, is that the lemurs get stressed out A LOT.  There really isn’t anything more I can do for them for stress.  I’ve given them a semi-closed off shelter so that they can hide, which helps them out tons, but with so many lemurs, I’m constantly getting notifications on their stress.

There really isn’t much to say about the Taipirs.  This pair of Taipirs don’t seem to get as stressed out as my last pair (or maybe the exhibit isn’t getting as much attraction now that I have many others, but I’m not about to bitch about that).

Like the Taipirs, there isn’t much to say about the Pygmy Hippos.  They seem to really enjoy the habitat I’ve made for them, though.

African Grasslands I originally wasn’t going to do an African exhibit in this zoo, but then the Cheetah Community Challenge came up and I just had to do it.  As you can tell, I started the area with the Cheetah exhibit.  As you can tell from my last overview, I’ve expanded the Lion habitat slightly.  They’ve gotten a new cave, and just more space overall.  I’ve also taken out the temporary food stalls and made the Grasslands Eatery (which includes some very needed toilet stalls).  As for the individual exhibits:

Alaric and Allyria both had max stats across the board.  They had three litters of five, which gave me two perfect stat Cheetah and many almost perfect Cheetahs.  Allyria has since passed away of old age, but Alaric is still on display.  When Alaric dies, I’ll be placing either Tytos or Cerenna in with one of my bred cheetahs I have left over from the challenge.

The lions have had a baby boom, hence the need for expansion.  I believe I currently have nine lion cubs at this time.  You can only imagine the feeding costs!

This weeks community challenge are to breed Zebras, so I’m debating on having a Zebra exhibit combined with giraffes possibly when I’m satisfied with the genetics I’ve gotten from the Zebras.  This is still up for debate on my end.

Taiga and Temperate (aka, I have yet to come up with a snazzy name for this area) I actually added in the Timber Wolves before I did Tropical Adventure, because they had just updated the pack system for them, and I wanted to see how the changes were.  The snow leopards were the last exhibit I did before starting the House of Primates project.  Overall, the area runs rather smoothly, and sees decent amounts of traffic.  Thankfully, there’s barely any vandalism or littering over here!  As for each individual exhibit:

I’ve just recently had an Alpha Female change, with Lyanna taking the status from her mother, Rosie, who was rather old.  Lyanna and Brandon have had their first litter of pups as well.  Given that Rosie lived until she was 22 years old, I have high hopes that Lyanna will live to be quite old as well.

The snow leopards honestly have been a pain in the ass!  They like to climb the trees, and then start complaining when they realize that it’s warmer in the tree tops than on the ground.  They also complain when getting in the water, which is a nuisance.  I’ve recently added in a one-way glass barrier around the viewing house, though it doesn’t seem to be helping at all.  

As for expansion on this area, I’ve marked out an area where I’d like to put the Japanese Macaque.  I already have one Macaque that I received from completing last week’s challenge in the top 9%, so hopefully finding more to complete the exhibit won’t be a pain in the ass.  Other than that, I do believe I might add in Pronghorns and Siberian Tigers over here.  I just haven’t planned that far yet.

Future Project: Bear Canyon From my previous posts, you can probably tell that I am a huge fan of the bears in this game!  I cannot help myself.  I’m thinking of putting Bear Canyon in the large space next to the Staff area and above the lions.  I’m also thinking about having a train run through the canyon as well, but this whole area is just in the planning stages.

[chartreuse-gale]

Dragon Warrior/Quest ramblings/collective review

I rant about the Dragon Quest franchise a lot.

Two of my video game pet peeves are when people laude the original Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest as ground breaking (it’s not, see Wizardy/Ultima), or the great grandfather of JRPGs (it’s not, see Hydlide/Dragon Slayer/Fantasian/) I’m generally not a fan of silent protagonists. I rarely identify enough with a character to feel like I’m “in” the game, so I prefer to be playing the role of a character with some kind of dialogue and a personality. Every dragon quest (that I’ve played) has a silent protagonist. That said, I do have some love for the series. I’ve suddenly found myself interested in giving Dragon Quest XI a spin, but instead I went back to Dragon Warrior IV. I remembered liking it as a kid and I’m happy to say I’ve been having as much fun playing it now as I remember having back then. Here are my thoughts on the dragon quest games separated into the ones I’ve finished and the ones I haven’t (mainline only).

Games I’ve Finished

Dragon Quest: This is grinding the game.

Strategy is almost nonexistent in the battle system outside of “Grind XP to LVL UP/Gold to buy better equipment”. You have 1 character and you never fight more than 1 enemy, so all fights are one-on-one. There isn’t any equipment with special traits or functions (just better Attack/Defense). You get access to a total of 6 spells in the game: Heal Heal More Heal Most Hurt Hurt More Hurt Most (these last 3 are usually a waste of MP) The plot is linear (except for potentially at the very end of the game). At least there’s a decent amount of exploration. Worse than Final fantasy I and Phantasy Star I by far, but to be fair, Enix did better with Dragon Quest II, which beat both of these competitors to the punch. Dragon Quest II: So much better than the original.

The grind is mediated by choices that matter in regards to equipment and combat. Also, you have an actual party this time (of 3), Also, Also, you can fight multiple enemies at the same time. Dragon Quest II added a much wider variety of spells (buff, debuff, and elemental damage spells); Equipment that had special functions when used as an item in combat (e.g. the Lightning Staff can cast whoosh), and a smidge more plot. Many people say more grinding is required in II than in the original, but I would argue that Dragon Quest I is nothing but grinding whereas Dragon Quest II breaks up the monotony with a dose of strategy. Comparable to Final Fantasy I. Far worse than Phantasy Star I. Dragon Quest V: Decent.

Also the first game originating on the Super Famicom (although we didn’t get an official English translation till the DS remake)

Allows for a party of 3 (4 in the DS remake). Considered groundbreaking by many for it’s monster recruitment system but it wasn’t the first game to have one by any means (Megami Tensei beat it by 5 years and Wizardry IV by 4). The game is divided into sections based on time periods as you grow from a kid to a teen to an adult, which is a cool way of pacing the games content, and gives you a little more perspective on the setting than you typically get in a Dragon Quest game. Characters are mostly boring outside of one (or two) of the love interests. Did I mention this game has love interests? I think I would have liked it better if there was only one, because it punched me in the heart for not picking the one it leads up to as the primary love interest (who also happens to be the canon one). Has really frustrating setting/plot-gender dynamics with two characters late in the game who I won’t name because spoilers.

Games I’ve Played but haven’t finished

Dragon Quest III: My least favorite game in the series (out of the ones I’ve played).

This time you have a protagonist and you can hire adventures to join you on your quest. They are all nobody characters. Their personalities are assigned at random, and (from what I can tell) only effect their growth. There’s no fucking dialogue with them (which is something I expected after DQ II). Personalities and seeds are fucking annoying, because both of them are random, have huge differences in their effects, and their effects make a huge difference in character capabilities, so it makes me want to spend hours saving/reloading until I get the effects I want. Fuck this game for introducing seeds to the series which appeared in many Dragon Quest games after this (thankfully I haven’t run into personalities again yet). Often lauded for having the “groundbreaking” option of changing character classes/jobs. Yes this came out before Final Fantasy III (Japan), but I would like to make the following points: - Final Fantasy I let you pick your character classes (which came out beforehand) - Final Fantasy III had a class change system you could actually make use of throughout the game (unlike DQ III where you need to get about halfway through the game first) - The original Wizardry came out 7 years earlier and also had a much more accessible class change system than DQ III I played very little of Dragon Quest III (I dropped it before even getting to my 2nd town). Two great thing about this games: It’s the first in the series to give you the option of playing as a woman, and I heard it’s the game that introduced the casino/mini games to the franchise. Dragon Quest IV: This game is Great! Also, Unlike the first three games in the series, Dragon Quest IV might actually be groundbreaking. You ever play Wild Arms I, II, or III? Did you enjoy playing through the prologues that introduce your early party members? Well Dragon Quest IV does a similar thing: The game is divided into chapters. Each chapter has a different protagonist. In their chapter you play them as silent protagonist, but when you encounter them later in the game they have dialogue. This does a lot to develop much of the cast, because you can see how people react to/talk with them and later on you can see how they engage with the player character (who you’re actually introduced to last). The cast is great and falls into a mix of both very old school and very uncommon tropes for a JRPG: You have an aging knight who goes on a mission to rescue children and then goes on a journey to find more about the ominous forces behind their kidnappers (Ragnar). Then there’s a princess who wants to go on an adventure against her fathers wishes so she kicks a hole in the wall of her room and jumps out of the castle (Alena); she’s joined by a young priest (Cristo) and an elderly mage (Brey) employed by her father, who give up on bringing her home and instead ask to travel with her to help her out. Next you have a merchant who wants to raise enough money to buy his own storefront (Taloon). After that you play a Fortune Teller (Nara) who travels with her dancer sister (Mara) on a quest to avenge the death of their father (an alchemist who was murdered by his apprentice).  Each chapter ends on a climax related to motivations/goals of its lead character and each chapter shows more of the world/gives out more info on what is going on behind the scenes. While you actively control the primary characters of a chapter other characters are either controlled completely by AI (in chapters I-IV), or loosely follow a tactical strategy you select (chapter V). I’ve been getting on fine with it, but this might be a deal breaker for some. The music is better than any of the Dragon Quest games I’ve finished (and what I’ve heard from any of the ones I’ve played, but not finished). A remake of this game has an interesting flaw: they cut all the party chart dialogue from the foreign language versions of the DS version; so if you don’t know Japanese, you’ll probably miss out on a lot of character interaction with that version. (I heard this had something to do with concerns that the game wouldn’t make enough sales to cover translation costs of the party chart [which was reputedly two thirds of the game’s script]). Dragon Quest VI Honestly I’ve barely played this one. You have actual characters for party members (a big plus in my book). I’ve heard there’s a job system as well. Plot/setting seem decently interesting on first glance. I might come back to this one later. Dragon Quest VIII I got about halfway through this one.

They included a character-specific skill tree system which is cool, except that there are objectively best routes to take for some (possibly all?) characters and these best routes are not even close to obvious from the outset. It introduced a pretty fun crafting system.

There’s  a decent cast of characters, but they don’t have quite enough going on for my tastes (my fave is Yangus). Plot has an interesting premise, but feels very barebones, and the environments/towns/npcs aren’t very interesting (maybe about as good as DQV, but worse than IV).

This game gets lauded for the 3D models of characters/enemies, but honestly I’ve never been a fan of the character designs of Dragon Quest (especially the monsters), so I feel pretty “meh” about it outside of being able to see your party members in combat (for I think the first time in the series), which is very nice. The music is very ambient a lot of the time. It does a good job of fitting melancholy moments, but doesn’t do such a great job of building excitement during battles and high-tension events. Dragon Quest IX This game feels a lot like Dragon Quest III.

You don’t have any actual characters, you just recruit them and use them in battle (no meaningful intraparty dialogue, character development, etc.) I think I played around 10-20 hours before dropping it.

Final Thoughts

Dragon Quest games vary from game to game in terms of gameplay mechanics, but they vary a great deal more when it comes to characters.

If you like having a lot of control over your party composition and don’t care about having characters with personality, you might like Dragon Quest III, V, or IX.

If you want a party comprised of characters who interact, have personalities, and might even develop over time, you might like Dragon Quest IV, or (sort of) VIII (I haven’t played much of VI, or any of VII or XI, but I heard they also fall into this camp). If you want to play an old school, 8-Bit JRPG that launched a spectacular franchise, might have actually been ground-breaking for its time, and is still fun to play today, check out the original Phantasy Star. . . . . . . (at least, for me it’s still fun to this day) [notes: - edited some typos, and mistakes most notably regarding the Hurt series of spells in Dragon Quest I - Revised some word choices - Added a comment about being able to see your party in combat in Dragon Quest VIII]