#being a monster in broad and specific terms

[skunkes]

i wasnt even a vampyre truther til recently but aughhh there really is something about them you really can fit so many metaphors of all kinds in there. they're so Susceptible. To the Metaphors.

[toxycodone]

❥ facesitting. (laios touden x reader)

rating. nsfw.

content. facesitting (reader on laios), fingering, a little ass play. reader has a vagina but no gender specific terms are used.

word count. 1.4k

an. this is not proofread *silly anime girl pose* enjoy it nonetheless. ive been asked a TON for Laios and facesitting so. this is for all y'all out there. also im trying something new...reader has no specific dialogue (for the sake of being more immersive), so let me know how that works for your experience reading!

Laios is hungry. Starving. Absolutely famished. There’s only one food that can quell his longing, and by the grace of whatever deity favors his unworthy self, the object of his desire lays a few mere inches from his mouth.

Your knees rest on either side of Laios’s head, digging divots in the mattress. Each passing second, you can feel warm breath pass over the space between your thighs, causing you to shiver. You’ve spent enough time dry humping this lovely slab of a man, he owes you a proper orgasm after wasting himself inside his briefs. You position yourself a bit more comfortably on the man, lowering yourself onto him.

Faced with the view between your inner thighs…Laios can’t help but lick his lips. The soft flesh before him is covered in a coating of curly fur. Shiny wetness between them highlights your slit, its surface causes him to reminisce of the slimes he’s encountered in the dungeon. He reaches out to scoop a bit onto his index finger and smears it between his thumb so he can admire the way it coats his fingers and stretches between them. The sight before him never fails to make Laios’s jaw slack open. It’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous.

For once in his life, Laios knows better than to say something out loud. But you remind him of his most favorite thing in the best way possible— a monster. And you’re his beloved specimen by far. The appearance changes to your discretion. The flavor always unalike what it was once before. He’s always itching to get a taste. The hunger inside him never dissipates when it comes to you.

He leans forward and gives a tentative lick, due to a blend of nerves and excitement. The gentle sigh you heave out makes him smile.

You always have a unique taste. Laios would describe it as tangy, but with certain undertones that make it more of an umami flavor—no, experience. He wonders what you’ve eaten today. Must’ve been something out of the ordinary. Your flavor is a bit more pervasive than usual. He’ll have to get another taste. And another. Mulling it over bit by bit seems to occupy his mind.

You feel his tongue lick a stripe up you, the tip just barely parting your slit. You whine a bit, pushing yourself further into his face. Laios doesn’t mean to tease, you’re aware of that. He always has to take his time to savor you. But you’re growing impatient. You don’t want him to wait—you want him to devour. Show your slit the same lack of discretion he does with the variety of questionable dishes he adores making.

Thankfully, he seems to get the message. Laios hoists his arms over your hips, pressing his warm lips to the expanse of your inner thighs and groin as he starts to sink your weight down onto his jaw. The apex of his broad nose rests against your clit as he takes a deep inhale of your scent, and you can see him roll his eyes back when he does. He swears it drives him mad, and in an entirely biological sense it does. (He’s given you quite the information session on the pheromones your body produces and how it activates his senses on a hormonal and physical level.)

“You smell so good…” He mumbles. He’s not lying. There’s a line a drool streaming from his lips.

Warm, moist breath coats your skin as he sighs out a pleasured exhale. Now, his tongue ventures out his mouth with purpose. It slowly trails your insides as he maps out the part of your body he’s come to love so much. Instinctively, you twitch against him, your noises cutting the silence of the room—save for Laios’s deep breaths and pounding heart.

The way his tongue feels against you is always a delightful experience. It’s soft and warm…you think if you concentrate you can feel each one of his tastebuds as he attempts so sap you of as much of your taste into his mouth. Laios isn’t shy in the slightest as he licks between your labia and up to your clit, giving the bundle of nerves a slight suck and grinding the underside against the flat of his tongue before moving back down again just to repeat the motion. He eats you like a man starved, but with enough tact to showcase he’s not doing it just for you—but for himself as well. It's almost selfish, in a way. Eating you out is an extreme turn on for him.

Tasting you is like having a bite of his favorite dish. He wants more. Needs more. Thick, calloused thumbs move to open your lips apart. He has to taste everything you have to offer. The cool feeling of Laios’s sharp exhale makes you shiver with anticipation.

Ever the experienced eater, Laios applies the same tactics he used eating the Living Armor a while ago onto your clit. As much as he loves exploring and flicking his tongue over ever part of you, he knows it’s important he focuses attention on that nub especially. He’s sure to lavish it with attention in between his ventures down to gather your slick into his mouth, swallowing it with a pleased groan as you tremble before him. One of his thumbs impales your hole, followed by another, as he stretches you out ever so slowly. The sight of you so open before him makes Laios swallow audibly.

“You taste even better than you smell.” Laios’s voice is gravelly. You’d swear he’d been hypnotized. “I just—.” There’s an audible shudder in his tone as he whines. “Love you…”

His brows furrow in concentration as he pulls you flush against him. You’ve always been a bit hesitant to put your full weight on him, which makes Laios roll his eyes internally. He’d gladly let you break his neck and then some if it means you’ll grind against his face like an animal in heat while he laps up your juices. His thumbs leave you, now being replaced by his warm tongue diving in your hole. He rocks you against his face as you’re fucked thoroughly on his appendage, your clit bumping the point of his nose every now and then. It’s a phenomenal feeling. Your walls flutter and clench around him as your orgasm starts to build.

Laios lifts you for just a moment to catch his breath, but also gather some slick onto his wet thumb and spread it along your asshole. He lowers you back down again, not before rimming the surface of your ass to spread a plethora of wetness, then lets the tip of his thumb glide over the muscle and gently penetrate you from behind as well. He’s sure not to go too deep, just enough to add a little bit more your experience. If he could eat your ass and pussy at the same time, he’d more than gladly do it. The rhythm he fucks you on his face matches the pathetic way he humps the air. Despite being spent already, he can’t help but do so.

Not much time passes before you start to feel close—that all too familiar feeling of warmth spreading from the base of your spine to your groin. Your brows furrow as you catch your lip between your teeth. As if on instinct, your thighs start to slowly begin to encase Laios’s head as your breathing starts to become labored. You’re almost there. Right on the edge. Laios can tell from your body language. He hums in delight as you shudder, now grinding yourself on his face and rubbing your clit against his nose as your orgasm starts to rear its head.

One of his hands stalls you for just enough time to allow Laios to catch your clit in between his lips. He lets the flat of his tongue stroke the underside of it before beginning to suck at at—and that’s what does it. You come undone with a cry of his name onto his face, noises of pleasure and curses spilling out your mouth as you do so. Laios happily licks at you as you do so, coaxing you through your orgasm. You have to physically remove yourself from Laios’s face as the pleasure becomes too overstimulating. If you didn’t, Laios would keep going until you’re numb.

As you flop over onto the sheets, Laios quickly moves over to kiss you. You can taste yourself on his tongue—that same distinct flavor he’s obsessed with. You’re not sure why he’s infatuated with it. But you let him have it. There’s plenty weirder things he could be tasting—or honestly, has tasted. At least you can be sure you’re definitely number one in his culinary experience.

[thesiltverses]

Hey Jon! Looking for a bit of writing advice since you seem to be pretty good at this- How do you write metaphors without being too on the nose? It’s something I’m struggling with at the moment. Thanks!

I'm probably not the right person to ask this question because I have very strong and specific opinions.

When we talk about metaphors being too on-the-nose, I think we're really saying one of three things.

It's too obvious in the sense that it's been done before (e.g. an oppressed fantasy race being used as a catch-all metaphor for real-life marginalised peoples)

It's too obvious in the sense that it's offputtingly reductive and over-simple, either in terms of making the story and characters feel real, or as a tasteless misrepresentation of the issue it aims to address (e.g. an oppressed fantasy race being used as a catch-all metaphor for real-life marginalised peoples).

A century's worth of establishment critical analysis attempting to make sense of modernism and post-modernism has made us all hopeless idiots who believe an allegory is invariably no good unless it's buried deep in complex referentiality and can only be retrieved with months of study. (e.g. a very timely example - J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls, where the author uses the format of the detective mystery to address the role of the super-wealthy in social murder and make the case that it is every bit as real as lawless murder, is extremely on the nose! It's taught in schools because the message is very clearly spelled out! But that's exactly what it needs to be and it would not be better if it was subtler! Being on the nose means you've landed the punch!)

So for me there is no broad-brush answer, it depends very much on the position and role of your metaphor in the story (and so this answer is probably useless, again, without knowing the specifics). I'd begin by asking yourself the same question on two fronts: where does the metaphor take me next?

As the writer, does the metaphor give me more to play with, or is it entrapping me into an over-familiar structure or tropes? A much-discussed 'bad metaphor' right now is horror movies where the monster is Trauma...which then blocks the narrative into a predictable corner where the hero inevitably has to cathartically overcome the Trauma or it'll send the wrong message.

Correspondingly, as an audience member, once I grasp the metaphor, what am I going to feel other than 'oh, I get it?' Children of Men is too direct and on-the-nose to even be considered an allegory. Its extremely unsubtle and one-note depiction of a monstrous near-future Britain that's forcibly rounding up refugees fills me nonetheless with powerful emotion - with terror, with unease, with anger, with a faint hope in the kindness of strangers. But that's in the immense strength of its characters, its careful observation, and its tense action to make me care. By comparison, when a fantasy story has human bigots locking up impoverished nomadic elves or what-have-you, I usually feel absolutely nothing, not because it's too fantastical, but because the writer doesn't have any genuine insights or depth of empathy for the issue or the (in)humanity involved, and is instead just using the metaphor as a piece of worldbuilding shorthand to signal to the audience who is good and who is bad. (Some writers will then attempt to gussy up the metaphor by introducing moral complexity - oh, no, the elves have stabbed a random innocent human! - but this doesn't actually improve anything, it only makes the parallel ever more tasteless.)

[andreilslovechild]

A Study on Aaron Minyard and Hatred

I've been in this fandom for years now. somewhere around 5 years or so. and since I've been here there's always been a distinct theme in how people talk about the brother of our beloved main love interest. see people speak about aaron in two ways mainly. the first way is, of course, labeling him as hateful and homophobic and disliking him because he dislikes Neil. the second way is building on his more personable characteristics and having him paired with someone else like Katelyn or Kevin to mellow him out. both of those are all well and good, everyone is entitled to their opinions and all, but I've never quite seen people look at both of those sides at the same time so I want to try and consolidate my thoughts on the matter.

first of all, I personally rarely consider aaron inherently hateful in my own understanding of him. annoyed or disgusted sure, but not necessarily hateful. mainly that hate is focused on three people from what the fandom talks about: Neil, Andrew, and Nicky. I'm using hate a broad term for dislike just for the ease of things right now so don't yell at me, but I think it fair to say the fandom typically pits these three up against aaron in a way that makes aaron look like the bad guy a lot of the time.

if I'm honest, I never really felt he hated Neil more than just didn't care much. at least until he found out about him and Andrew and gave him his version of the shovel talk. maybe a bit when Neil used Katelyn against him. but overall I never quite got it when people said he hated Neil, let alone hated him for "no reason". like id be annoyed too if a guy waltzed onto my college sports team while im studying premed, and turned out to be the long-lost son of a serial killer with a mouth so big it was a wonder hes still alive. plus he was super shady before all that was revealed too, but aaron was still pretty neutral when Andrew brought Neil into the monsters. he even spoke back to the upperclassmen when they freaked out about Neil sitting with the monsters. if you all need me to get the quotes I will, but it's currently like 2am, and I just can't be asked right now lmao. either way, the only time aaron really hates Neil in the books is when he uses Kate against him to get him to go to therapy. which was done for his own good in the long run, and I doubt aaron stayed upset about it for too long. plus we always have to be careful here because we are seeing things from Neil's perspective, someone who is inherently an unreliable narrator in the story.

in Nicky's case, there's a lot to consider. aaron definitely does and says some things (again not finding specifics rn because it's 2am) that are hurtful to him, or offensive. I certainly don't really blame people for reading it as homophobic on a surface level. but that's exactly what it is. surface level. his feelings about Nicky are probably the second most complex in this instance. because Nicky is his cousin, caregiver, friend, whatever you want to call him. They're close, they mean something to each other. but aaron also grew up with Tilda, probably talking with his family over the phone every few months, seeing them maybe once a year or two. when aaron moved to South Carolina he was 13. Nicky would have been 17. aaron probably spent a lot of time with him at first to avoid being alone before he made friends himself. used him as an excuse to get out of being around Tilda alone. which undoubtedly left him susceptible to Luther's preaching. I could make a whole other post on this alone. Still, he would have known Nicky was gay and that it was "wrong". He likely saw only his mask, not the depression inside because Nicky would have wanted to be happy with his cousin. he probably was around when Nicky went to Germany and then came back loud and proud, telling him about a man named Erik and finally standing up to his parents. to us, it's inspirational, exciting even, but for aaron it was like Nicky was abandoning him. He had gotten through Nicky being gone with drugs and staying out of the house as much as possible, but now knowing Nicky was leaving him there alone with his mom for what he assumed would be forever would have hit him hard. he never hated Nicky for being gay. he was angry he had left him, and he had grown up surrounded by the ideals Luther preached and likely his mom did too. with that, plus how uncomfortable it would be to have your cousin being openly sexual around you to an extreme extent like Nicky, I don't blame him really for how he reacted. he was disgusted by the thought of his cousin having sex, not who it was with. I can't remember if his disliking Erik is a canon or fanon thing. Still, he disliked him for taking Nicky away, not because he was a guy. Long story short I don't think aaron ever truly hated Nicky or was truly homophobic. I think he was just a scared kid who learned the wrong words and didn't know how to be vulnerable.

Andrew. good old Andrew. the most complicated relationship in Aaron's life save maybe his mom. I think we all know aaron doesn't hate Andrew. just like Andrew doesn't hate aaron. it's impossible for them to hate each other because they are so irrevocably tangled up and tied to each other's lives. from the second they found out about each other, everything they've done has been for the other in some way. mostly on Andrew's end sure but aaron has also done his share. see out of everyone here I think Andrew is the person that aaron thought he hated the most. he was angry about Tilda, about the drugs, about how Andrew refused to look at him. but deep down he knew he couldn't really hate Andrew. if he truly hated him he wouldn't have stuck around him this long to try and form a relationship with him. he wouldn't have bothered renewing their deal after graduating high school. he may have been stubborn and confusing and made aaron want to pull his hair out in frustration, but I don't think hatred for Andrew truly existed in him. For certain actions maybe, but him overall? definitely not.

Aaron Minyard may have been complicated, cranky, and annoyed for the majority of the times we see him, but he never truly hated anyone. not in the way people seem to think at least. and certainly, never the three people hes accused of hating the most.

[valtsv]

i'm intrigued by the ghost revenant girl and chimeragirl ocs you mentioned. they sound cool, can you say something more about who they are?

sure! they're all ocs from NTHBD, a collaborative original fiction rp setting i joined and contributed to along with some friends which, in broad strokes, is set in a fictional underworld-esque location known as "the nether" (of no relation to the minecraft domain), where the living, the dead, the neither, and the mythical and strange live side-by-side.

raz and shevaun are voidsouls, which are essentially revenant dead that spawn in the nether as a kind of afterlife, usually as a result of a traumatic and untimely death. they're tangible, so not exactly ghosts, though they bear some similarities. they can also be killed again, though usually not permanently - if they suffer mortal injury or illness, they'll disintegrate upon death and "respawn", usually where they first appeared. they can't use magic, unlike some inhabitants of the nether, and any nether inhabitant that returns as a voidsoul after death loses any magical ability they might have had. raz and shevaun were both regular humans before death, though, so they're not missing out on anything in that department.

raz is a former internet personality (some combination of streamer and youtuber) focusing on the occult and paranormal. she's a trans woman, and only started transitioning after death and some time to come to terms with certain realisations. the appearance of a voidsoul reflects how they perceive themself, so as raz's understanding of her identity changes, so does her appearance to match, which is pretty neat. raz had a pretty rough childhood, with her parents having been indoctrinated into a cult where she herself was abused and groomed by the leader, who developed a fixation with her, and was liberated from in her mid teens, resulting in her being forced to rapidly come to terms with much that she'd missed while being cut off from the outside world, including basic schooling and sociocultural norms, which she's privately rather insecure about. she's fairly laid-back, but this is a result of her anhedonic, traumatised nature rather than genuine placidity. she's charismatic and attractive, which leads to people tending to become obsessed with her on a shallow surface level, which she secretly dislikes, but isn't above exploiting. she has a cruel streak, and doesn't mind hurting people to get what she needs. annie is one of the few people who sees her as a person and is still devoted to her, and raz just straight up doesn't care that annie is a terrible person, or rebuke her frequently unsuccessful attempts to be more than a monster, which is why they get along so well. raz died by suicide, and still carries that passive suicidal ideation with her in death, so she doesn't really understand why annie is so passionate about not letting her get killed again, and slightly resents his protectiveness of her when it gets him hurt, even though she appreciates his concern for her dignity.

shevaun is also a former public figure; a political journalist to be specific. they were shot and killed with extreme prejudice by an unknown assailant; they covered a lot of controversial topics, so it could have been almost anyone on the political spectrum. her appearance often reflects this - voidsouls experience something known as "traumatic recall" where, when stressed, they begin to manifest the wounds and general appearance of their state of death (to the point that they can be cut off mid-conversation with you by having their jaw ripped off, or water from when they drowned flooding their lungs and rising in their throat to spill from their lips, or something like that). shevaun is a lot more neurotic and anxious and insecure than raz, so they have a tendency to literally "lose face" (well, a chunk of it that was blown off by the bullet that got her in the head, to be specific) while attempting to socialise or assert themself. she's understandably pretty freaked out about this. she hasn't adjusted well to the nether at all, and tends to respond to the entire thing with the attitude of someone who sees any discomfort as an inconvenience, and is easy to rile up, which makes her the object of a lot of people's ridicule (though less now that they're travelling around with vacille).

annie is a chimera by birth, being what's known as an "ideolite" - the hybrid offspring of a titan (often based on mythical figures; a long-lived, powerful species that populates the nether, sometimes worshipped as deities, but not inherently divine) and any other species. annie is the daughterson of lamia, a titan with the lower body of a snake and upper body of a beautiful woman, cursed with an insatiable hunger she can never fill, which tends to lead to her losing focus and devouring both her mates and her young. annie is one of her few surviving children, as lamia gave him up to her human partner's family to raise after eating him out of some inscrutable motivation (she doesn't appear to feel guilt). annie has some pretty understandable issues and psychological complexes about being related to a legendary figure known exclusively for relentlessly, indiscriminantly fucking and killing, particularly as she matures and develops more chimeric traits and grows to resemble her mother. unlike lamia, however, annie's chimera parts are draconic, and cancerous - he grows excess clawed limbs and dragon heads like tumours along the length of his serpentine lower body, which is in fact a stress response to his concerns about being perceived as weak and incapable of protecting the things and people he loves. annie is utterly besotted with raz and fiercely devoted to her. the two met when annie was a gladiator/pit fighter, and annie left that life behind to pursue one with raz.

vacille is a manticore, and not a born chimera, but stitched together from experimental magic. she was a regular mostly-human native to the nether, a general in the army of a now-extinct imperial power, before she was captured and made a prisoner of war, and fashioned into a weapon (don't feel too bad for her, she tortured and pillaged and did all the horrifying, ugly things that people at war feel entitled to in her service, while hypocritically punishing those whose behaviour she found too obscene). she spent several years being used as a beast of battle (and degraded as no more than an animal) before freeing herself and roaming wildly, alternately attempting to ingratiate and redeem herself in various small communities in fits of guilt and well-intentioned restitution, only to swing to savagely destroying everything around her when betrayed, or when the people she had managed to find kindness and belonging with were attacked by neighbouring communities or fell to infighting, and in her attempts to punish the perpetrators and protect her people, she exposed herself as a monster and failed to find respect in either the eyes of those she wanted to save, or those she wanted to strike fear in. she initially came across shevaun during one of her rampages and was prevented from crushing them like a bug by the way they addressed their grievances with her as if she were a person rather than a dangerous animal, essentially attempting to debate her into submission. shevaun, for their part, did this as a fear response to being completely defenceless in the face of a raging manticore and having no weapons or experience with them. vacille decided to keep her around as an amusing plaything, initially as a hostage, but shevaun was so annoying that she ended up stuck with them as much as they were with her (since they took advantage of vacille's intimidation factor to avoid various unfortunate situations), and they sorta mutually stockholm syndromed each other into a relationship.

[thydungeongal]

Hey there! I just say your post about dungeon crawlers. I was curious about your second bullet point, "Dungeon-crawling challenge games actually kind of own if you're willing to engage with them on their own terms! There's a lot of potential for cool gameplay if you let go of silly reductive notions like "roleplaying" being just being when you play-act your character or social interaction!" I was curious if you'd mind telling me more about how you feel roleplay should be handled in these types of games. I am genuinely interested to hear your thoughts. :)

Okay, first of all, I have a very broad and admittedly circular definition of role-playing (in the context of role-playing game): role-playing is when you're playing a role-playing game.

As said, it's circular, but ultimately, throughout my years of playing role-playing games I've found that all other definitions are unsatisfying. To conclude that role-playing is the parts where the mechanics aren't used (the roll-playing and role-playing dichotomy) implies that mechanics are somehow inherently contrary to a good role-playing game experience, which is simply untrue, because good mechanics can actually enhance the narrative! Saying that only the social parts of play are role-playing undermines the fact that players will be still making decisions for their characters in various other situations where the personal and emotional stakes can be even greater than in social situations!

Ultimately, role-playing games as a medium are defined by the possibility space, and specifically that possibility space being near infinite. There's an old line I keep bringing up from some painfully twee eighties RPG ad which goes like "Role-playing games are like board games but you can move outside the board!" and ultimately that is the thing that defines a role-playing game. It's a game where the players collaborate in a shared fictional space to produce cool little narratives although sometimes the cool little narratives aren't the point but it's literally like a lil challenge that the players try to overcome by interfacing with the fiction and engaging with the mechanics.

To tie this into dungeon crawlers: even a traditional dungeon crawler is ultimately a role-playing game because it has the players engaging, via their characters, with the shared fiction, sometimes mediated by the rules. A lot of people assume that a dungeon crawler must mean that the gameplay is nothing but a meat grinder, but this is actually ahistorical and not actually reflective of how old-school dungeon crawling RPGs play out!

Even the most basic dungeon is still a location in the setting it's part of, so there is plenty of narrative content to be found there. The characters might just be motivated by greed, but there is plenty of narratively satisfying content that can happen in the pursuit of that goal once one accepts that there need not be a linear narrative where the characters must hit certain story beats, but the story itself can just be "the characters went into a place, explored, interacted with the locals, found out some secrets about the dungeon, fought some monsters." That is still role-playing.

None of this is to say that the play-acting part of play (which I sometimes call characterization) is in any way bad: in fact, it can very much enhance the gameplay. But that is in and of itself not the end-all-be-all of role-playing!

Anyway role-playing is so much more than describing your cool elf kissing other cool elves, it can also be your cool elf finding a cool sword in a dungeon and giving it a name. Dungeon crawlers kick ass because the GM can craft a whole narrative about how the dungeon used to be and then reveal it slowly to the players through their characters finding fantasy audiologs and that is already narratively satisfying in and of itself!

[room-surprise]

IS LAIOS A FURRY? AN ANALYSIS.

(Laios imagining himself transforming into a wolf in Marcille's mindscape.)

(SPOILER WARNING FOR THE ENTIRE MANGA! This is an excerpt and elaboration from The Essay about cultural and linguistic references in Dungeon Meshi)

WHAT IS A FURRY?

The furry fandom is a subculture interested in anthropomorphic animal characters. Some examples of anthropomorphic attributes can include human intelligence and facial expressions, speaking, walking on two legs, and wearing clothes, but not all of these traits must be present at the same time. Warrior Cats, The Lion King, Zootopia and Sonic the Hedgehog all have huge furry fandoms, to give a few examples.

Many furry fans feel a deep connection to these characters and desire to “become” one through designing their fantasy alter-egos (a furry persona, or fursona), making artwork, role-playing, and if they can afford it, building and wearing costumes called fursuits that allow them to dress up as their fursona in real life.

(Laios' ultimate monster design, you could argue this is his fursona that he's been dreaming about, and refining since childhood.)

Ryoko Kui self-identified as a furry on her blog a long time ago, saying that she “was a furry in high school.” I’ve been unable to track down the original artwork or blog post that states this in order to cite it properly, but I think by looking at Kui’s extensive history, interest, and skill in drawing animals, monsters, and anthropomorphic characters, one can clearly see the “furry” influence.

She has a very clear interest in the intersection between humans and animals, several of her characters are furry characters, and a lot of her work appeals strongly to furry fans in ways that work made by non-furries often does not. She even makes an extremely specific joke about the Japanese furry subculture in a comic about Lycion and Laios arguing about authenticity, which I will get to in a moment.

But whether or not Kui has ever considered herself a furry, I think it’s safe to say that she’s on the internet enough that she must be aware of the subculture, and so it’s possible that she wrote Laios with that in mind.

Laios’ intense desire to become a monster, the way he repeatedly fantasizes about being a dog or wolf, his fascination with all animals (but especially monsters), his skill at drawing animals (and lack of skill in drawing people, or anything else), his interest in becoming a beast-man, and his desire to visit a kobold country because they look like dog-people, all paint a very vivid picture of his interests, and his experiences match up astonishingly well with the experiences of many people who identify as furries.

Western fans often call Laios as a “furry,” or a “monster fucker” mostly as a joke, however I think this should be taken as seriously as interpreting him as asexual or autistic, which are other labels fandom commonly applies to him in a more serious manner… And, incidentally, there is a great deal of overlap between the autistic, asexual and furry communities, so if Laios is one of these things, it’s also very possible that he’s some of the others, too… Even if Kui didn’t intend it, and simply modeled Laios after “some people she’s known” without realizing they were furries, autistic, or asexual, or any combination of the three. This happens frequently in fiction.

I think the most accurate broad labels for Laios would be “therian” and “monster fetishist,” because I believe these two terms encompass the canonical behavior we see from him in the manga and extra materials in a way that I think “furry” and “monster fucker” do not.

JAPANESE FURRY FANDOM: KEMONO VS. KEMONOMIMI

Japanese furries use the terms kemonā (ケモナー) to describe themselves, or kemono (ケモノ) to describe the characters they create and love. Both words mean “furry,” as in, covered in fur.

In the What-If comic where Lycion and Laios meet, Laios awkwardly says that Lycion isn’t a real furry because turning into a beast-man didn’t change him into a wolf on the inside.

“Isn’t that just like wearing a pair of animal ears on a headband and saying you’re a beast-man?” Laios asks, to which Lycion derisively tells Laios that he is just a “beast-man wannabe” or “poseur.”

This is a direct reference to one of the major conflicts in the Japanese Kemono fandom: are characters who are mostly human, but have animal ears and tails really kemono, or do they not count? The general consensus in the fandom is that ears and tail alone are insufficient; these characters are called kemonomimi, literally “beast ears”, like the headband Laios references. Most “cat-girl” characters fall into this category.

A real kemono character includes a muzzle instead of a normal human face and/or an animal-like appearance on the body surface, such as fur, scales, or feathers. According to researcher Inokuchi Tomohiro, this is due to the recognition that "disconnection from humans" is a crucial factor that distinguishes between kemono and non-kemono. He then defines kemono as "an animal that is depicted as a non-human being, but with the potential for mutual understanding/communication with humans.”

By this definition, Izutsumi in Dungeon Meshi is a kemono (furry) and not a kemonomimi (cat-girl), since her body is covered in fur, and she doesn’t have human breasts, but a more beast-like torso. The Winged Lion, the Goat, Kuro the kobold, and possibly the orcs are all kemono (anthropomorphic animal) characters as well.

IS LAIOS A THERIAN?

Though the terminology is very modern, and wouldn’t exist in the Dungeon Meshi setting, it’s possible that if Laios existed in the modern world he might identify as a type of Otherkin known as a Therian. Otherkin and Therians are sometimes part of the Furry fandom, but the two subcultures do not overlap completely.

Otherkin are a subculture of people who identify as nonhuman. Some Otherkin believe their identity derives from spiritual phenomena (such as possessing a nonhuman soul, reincarnation, or the will of God), ancestry, symbolism, or metaphor. Others attribute it to unusual psychology or neurodivergence and do not hold spiritual beliefs on the subject.

Therian refers to people who identify specifically as a real animal of the natural world. The species of animal a therian identifies as is called a theriotype. Therians mainly attribute their experiences of therianthropy to either spirituality or psychology, and often use the term "species dysphoria" to describe their feelings of disconnect from their human bodies and their underlying desire to live as their theriotype. The identity "trans species" is used by some.

Therians may seek out opportunities to perform species-affirming acts like wearing costumes, adopting animal-like behaviors such as making species-specific noises, eating species-specific foods, or moving/performing actions that their theriotype would do.

For example, someone with a horse theriotype may experience joy from snorting and neighing, pulling a cart, stomping their feet, or having a vegetarian diet. Someone with a shark theriotype may want to swim every chance they get, or enjoy eating a lot of raw fish. They may have special accessories they like to wear that make them feel connected to their theriotype, like animal ears on a headband, an actual animal’s tail or a symbolic tail hanging from their belt, an animal tooth necklace, or even just a t-shirt that has an image of their theriotype on it.

In Laios’ case, we know that he likes to imagine himself as a wolf, and in the real world he enjoys/is proud of his ability to bark and move like a dog. He’s practiced and performed this dog impression so often and so well that Falin thinks it’s his most noteworthy and amazing skill. He clearly holds hunting dogs in high esteem and admires them, and says that he learned many important life lessons from spending time with them. He enjoys playing with leftovers from monsters they kill (bones, skin, seeds, fur, etc.) and sometimes tries to collect them for either practical or sentimental reasons… And at the end of the manga he takes the pelt of his ultimate monster form and chooses to wear it as a cape, something that he continues to do for the rest of his life, possibly just because he likes to wear it, or because wearing it eases the pain of no longer being the ultimate monster.

It’s also possible that he’s only wearing it because he thinks it is a pragmatic, politically expedient move, but I think Kui very clearly communicates to us that Laios likes his monster cape, and it is the one thing he immediately thinks of when he wants to try and be king “on his own terms.” He’s willing to accept being king… if he can wear his monster cape. Whether or not it’s a good idea to wear it is secondary to the fact that he wants to do it.

Otherkin and Therian are of course both modern names for this phenomenon, but the concept of people strongly identifying with and being fascinated by animals is as old as humankind itself, so it isn’t impossible that Laios may feel this way, since so much of his behavior overlaps with things a Therian might do or feel.

MONSTER FETISHISM

In English, the word fetish originally described an object believed to have supernatural powers. Fetishes are often used in a spiritual or religious context. However, over time the word fetish has been used so frequently as a euphemism to describe a type of unconventional sexual interest that “sexual fetish” has become the primary meaning of “fetish” in English.

Fetishism is a sexual fixation on an activity, inanimate object, living thing, or human body part that is not normally involved in sex. The object of this interest is called the fetish; the person who has a fetish for that object is a fetishist. The current medical consensus is that sexual fetishes are very common, and as long as they do not negatively impact a person’s life, they are harmless.

Like the English word fetish, the Japanese word 趣味 (shumi), has multiple meanings, such as “hobby”, “interests/tastes”, but it is also used euphemistically to refer to “sexual taste, vice, or fetish.” What meaning is intended must be intuited by the context surrounding the word. I believe the other words used to discuss fetishes are the loan words フェティッシュ (fetisshu) or フェチ (fechi), but these are extremely blunt and direct, and shumi is preferred in situations where polite euphemism, ambiguity or plausible deniability is desired, or is perhaps even necessary in order to make a joke.

Shumi is used throughout Dungeon Meshi to describe various people’s interests, including Laios’ interest in monsters.

Meanwhile Namari’s interest in race-specific weapons and gear is never explicitly identified as shumi as far as I’m aware, but she is called 武器マニア (weapon maniac) in the World Guide, and in the Bicorn chapter, Chilchuck labels her as 武具フェチ (armor/weapon fetishist), and uses the English loan word フェチ (fechi) which is very unambiguously “fetish.”

(The official English translation from Yen Press changed this to “armor fiend.”)

It seems odd to me that Namari’s interest in weapons and gear is identified by most readers (though not Yen Press) as a fetish, but Laios’ interest in monsters isn’t always, when their behavior around their special interest is shown to be the same in the manga:

Both Namari and Laios blush while talking about their respective interests, and get embarrassed and/or excited about the subject. In the post-canon comics, Laios blushes, hides his face, and has to be prodded to confess to Yaad, Kabru and Marcille that he wants to have his body eaten by monsters when he dies. He obviously finds the idea embarrassing and titillating somehow, and is too shy to admit it out loud until they force him to do it. He also blushes on several other occasions in the manga while thinking or talking about monsters.

I think this is because having a “weapons fetish” is normalized: many people have a fetish for weapons or armor and find it sexy. However the idea of a monster fetish makes people uncomfortable because in a story were monsters exist and are a type of animal, they assume Laios having a monster fetish must mean he wants to participate in bestiality.

This is not necessarily true. A fetish of this nature can (and most often does, for reasons of morality and safety) exist entirely in the realm of imagination, and the sexual fixation may not even involve the act of having sex with the fetish object.

WHAT IS A MONSTER FETISH?

In a world where monsters exist, a monster fetish could involve a sexual interest in the sight, smell, sound and feeling of a monster (looking at or creating artwork of monsters, observing monsters in the wild, wearing a monster costume, or owning monster pelts or body parts that can be safely touched, smelled, etc.), the experience of hunting monsters, eating monsters, the fantasy of being a monster, or the fantasy of performing sexual acts with or as a monster.

The fantasy element could be Laios simply wanting to be a monster, and that giving him sexual gratification without any further scenario being necessary, or it could be imagining himself as a human having sex with a monster, imagining himself as a monster having sex with another monster, or imagining himself as a monster having sex with a human.

All of these possible scenarios would fit under the “monster fetish” umbrella. We know Laios canonically does at least six out of these eight things, but we don’t know whether or not he derives sexual pleasure from them… However, we do know that talking or thinking about monsters makes Laios blush in a way that interacting with other human beings does not, and blushing is often a sign of intense emotion or sexual arousal. Kui’s meaning is intentionally ambiguous, but both meanings should be acknowledged: Laios might be emotionally excited, or he might be sexually excited and Kui is leaving it up to us to decide which it is.

This is, specifically, why I think “monster fucker” isn’t an accurate label. We don’t have enough evidence to assume Laios wants to have sex with monsters, or for monsters to have sex with him. All we can tell is that he becomes excited by the subject of monsters, and often times it is specifically the idea of eating them or being eaten by them that gets him the most excited.

VORAREPHILIA

Because so much of Laios' interest in monsters revolves around eating them and being eaten by them, and Dungeon Meshi's plot revolves around the very concept of eating and being eaten, let me make a brief side-bar to discuss the extremely popular, but niche furry sub-culture of vorarephilia.

Vorarephilia is often used as the butt of jokes on the internet, and very poorly understood by most people, so I felt taking a moment to explain it would be beneficial. Most people are probably not even aware that a fetish like this exists, and therefore aren't able to identify that the things Laios is interested in are something he shares with an entire subculture of real people.

Vorarephilia is a fetish that revolves around the fantasy of devouring or being devoured by another person or creature. The prey can either be swallowed whole and alive, or killed and then eaten... But the former is vastly more popular, and most fetishists imagine themselves as the prey, not the predator.

The fantasy of being eaten or eating someone else is just an extreme form of power exchange. Since vore is an impossible fetish in the real world, it exists entirely as artwork, writing, or verbal role play.

Like in most sex practices, the majority of people want to be the submissive partner, and have someone else do the work of pleasing them. You could compare the "predator" in a vorarephilia roleplay session to a "dom" and the "prey" to a "sub" in BDSM. Incidentally, most predators identify as women, and the vast majority of prey identify as men.

Kui's personal work seems to involve some themes that are similar to vorarephillic art.

And Dungeon Meshi features a lot of content which appeals to vorarephiles.

Meanwhile, the many tiny Laioses being eaten by the Ultimate Monster is a classic example of Macro/Micro, another niche furry sub-culture that sometimes overlaps with vore... A giant monster eating mouthful after mouthful of tiny humans is a classic theme.

The vore fandom is extremely diverse, some of them are furries, others are not, and the exact element of devouring and being devoured that appeals to every one of them can be totally different.

What the demon does to Mithrun and Thistle, and Laios does to the demon, is specifically a fetish called "soul vore", where someone's personhood/soul/awareness is eaten and (usually) destroyed by the predator via some kind of "digestion"... Often while the prey is conscious and aware of the process.

For many, the fear and pain the prey experiences while dying is essential to their enjoyment... And remember, most people want to imagine themselves as the prey!

The art on these pages is indistinguishable from things you would pay thousands of dollars for if you hired a furry artist to draw them.

It's also very important to note that on the other end of the spectrum, some vore fantasies revolve around the prey wanting to be loved by someone so much that they would devour them completely, so that they can absorb the prey and keep them with them forever.

Sometimes it's about wanting to become part of something greater that the prey admires or idealizes… the way Laios admires monsters. He explicitly states that when he dies, he wants to become a part of the food chain… While blushing furiously.

And although it isn't about Laios, I think it's important to note that Mithrun's desire was for the demon to finish eating him. A key part of his depression is the fact that he felt he wasn't good enough to consume, that the demon didn't love him enough to want to eat all of him.

I won't go further into vore or macro/micro, because I want to keep this post as simple as possible, and it's already quite long... But if one wanted to dig even deeper into what specifically Laios' interests are, beyond the very broad umbrella of "monster fetishism", I think vorarephelia would be worth considering.

DO OTHER CHARACTERS THINK LAIOS HAS A FETISH?

Characters frequently notice that Laios gets very excited when he’s talking about monsters: he talks louder and faster, his pupils dilate, he blushes, and he forgets what he’s doing, where he is, and what the appropriate behavior for his situation is. This behavior almost universally causes other characters to react with intense scorn, disgust and disapproval.

I don’t think it makes sense for everyone in the manga to react as negatively as they do to Laios’ behavior unless they think there is something off-putting, unsavory, or creepy about it. Their reactions mean they must think Laios’ interest isn’t innocent. It isn’t just a hobby, but of course none of them will say this explicitly, it would be much too direct and rude, and also it wouldn’t be funny if they started accusing Laios of wanting to participate in something as horrible as bestiality.

Part of the joke Kui is frequently making is that nobody says what they’re thinking out loud. For example, at the end of the manga, Kabru gives Laios a disgusted look and warns him to “not talk about your hobby (shumi)” while addressing the participants of the feast. I think we can intuit that hobby/shumi in this instance is probably meant as a euphemism for fetish, otherwise why would Kabru have such a disgusted look on his face? If he just meant hobby, his expression would probably be much more relaxed. Shumi being a euphemism is the joke.

Another example is the fact that Chilchuck frequently calls Laios a psychopath, sick in the head, etc. Those are extremely harsh things to say if he thinks Laios has a completely innocent interest in monsters. He doesn’t call Senshi a psychopath, even though Senshi is equally interested in eating monsters… Because Senshi doesn’t engage in any of the other, suspect behavior that Laios does. Senshi’s interest in monsters is perceived as innocent, while Laios’ is not.

For clarity’s sake: I am not arguing that Laios’ interest in monsters is canonically a sexual fetish, I am only arguing that there is evidence that it is, and that other characters in the story perceive it to be a sexual fetish, whether it actually is or not.

DOES LAIOS THINK HE HAS A FETISH?

People who have fetishes, especially extreme fetishes that are not normalized, often try to hide them. They do this out of fear of social disapproval, and feelings of shame, because they feel guilty for having abnormal desires. This is true even though the majority of fetishes are completely harmless, and morally neutral.

Most people also know that things which provoke sexual excitement are supposed to be kept private, and it’s not acceptable to express those feelings in public spaces, so even if they see something related to their fetish while in public, they will repress their sexual feelings about it.

Laios, who has difficulty understanding social rules and nuance, is aware that his interest in monsters is socially unacceptable, even though there are many other social things he is not aware of.

Laios has spent most of his life hiding his interest in monsters as much as he can, and it is only during the events of the manga that he starts to express himself openly, because his monster knowledge has become useful for their survival, because Senshi encourages him, and because Falin isn’t there to act as a social buffer for him.

But Laios knows people won’t approve, he knows something about his interest in monsters and the way he expresses it will cause people to react negatively, like in the post-canon comic where he doesn’t want to tell his friends about his desire for his corpse to be eaten by monsters, and the part of the finale where he is hiding in the woods, too ashamed to let people see him because they now know that his greatest desire was to become a monster, and not reviving Falin, which he thinks is the "correct" desire that he should have had.

(This of course ignores the fact that the desires the demon preys on are unconscious, and cannot be controlled by the victim.)

This likely means that Laios has encountered negative reactions to his interest in monsters so frequently, and they have been so intensely negative, that it has trained him to conceal his feelings. It is one of the social rules that he has learned.

Laios thinks there is something shameful, wrong, and inappropriate about his desires related to monsters so he thinks it is something he needs to hide.

IS ANIMAL/MONSTER FETISHISM ANACHRONISTIC?

Some may feel that being a furry, a monster fucker or a monster fetishist is something only modern people do, and therefore anachronistic for Dungeon Meshi’s setting. However humans have been admiring, dressing up as and pretending to be animals for rituals (including fertility rituals) since the dawn of civilization, and continue to do so in the modern era every time someone dresses up in a “sexy cat” costume for Halloween, or wears a multi-thousand dollar fursuit to a furry convention.

There are many instances throughout history of people wearing pelts, masks and tails in order to “become” animals, poetry and art of people fantasizing about either becoming a beast/monster (modern werewolf erotica), or having a beast/monster ravish them (the many, many times artists choose to depict Zeus turning into an animal to have sex with women), or coming of age rites that involve animal sacrifice and the adoption of an animal-like persona as part of the process of becoming an adult.

The stigmatization of this behavior, where “sexy cat costume” is normal and “fursuit” is weird, most likely originates from the disappearance of religious and social context for it. In the past, the admiration, imitation and idealization of animals by humans was part of many cultures, but the modern dominance of religions that forbid the worship of anything other than one, immaterial god has left no room for such things, and so society can only view it as the deranged behavior of abnormal people, who have something “wrong” with them, rather than a harmless, common human impulse to admire, fantasize about, and imagine themselves as animals.

[ryin-silverfish]

I really appreciate your knowledge sharing on shenmo and xianxia topics and the most influential media from those genres. It’s been a super helpful reference for creative works.

I hope you don’t mind me asking, but from my understanding of “mo” which is more synonymous with Western Devils/Demons than the Yao and Yaoguai that get mixed up in English translations, there are xinmo which translate to heart demons. The heart demons are personal struggles and vices of the cultivator, like the classic shadow-self trope, or can sometimes be curses placed on them among other causes.

Can these “mo” or Devils also possess people like in the classic western sense where they puppet the host’s body for their own purposes, or is this a trait exclusive to “gui” or Ghosts perhaps?

And in this sense, for characters such as the Bull Demon King who has the character “mo” in his name, how does this distinguish him from the other yao or Monster Kings who form alliances with Sun Wukong as sworn brothers who translate to Spirit Kings rather than Demon Kings?

Wooo, that's a fun question to answer...

See, Mo, or at least its most common definition, likely comes from a translation of the Buddhist "Mara".

It's a catch-all term for things that mess up your mind, harm you, and stop you from reaching Enlightenment, which can range from psychological phenomena to actual evil spirits like ghosts or baleful spirits.

The defining characteristic is that it's more specifically about getting in a religious practitioner's way instead of just, being bad. Theoretically, this definition can cover anything from a gacha game addiction to alcoholism to Mara's temptation of the Buddha.

However, after its introduction into Chinese culture, Mo evolved into a generic term for "Bad Monster Things", which, in practice, made the boundary between them and yaoguai/ghosts/Yakshas & Rakshas extremely blurry.

Like, for both traditional definitions, it's less about them being an independent species in the western devil/demon sense, and more of a negativity modifier about how much the thing in question is gonna mess you up.

Thus malicious yaoguais can be called "yaomo", celestial spirits incarnating into the mortal realm on divine order to Fuck Shit Up (like the 108 stars of Water Margin) can be called "Demon Kings", the word "Mogui" as an uncommon synonym of the Mo, etc.

And because the traditional definition of Mo is either an abstract concept or a broad descriptor, instead of a supernatural faction or independent species, there also aren't rules governing what they can and cannot do as a whole.

Thus, a fox yaoguai possessing people, a stellar god incarnating and become a local "demon king" that possesses people, and a ghost possessing people can all be "Mo", if their behaviors cause harm and their motivation is malicious in nature.

The Bull Demon King and other yaoguai warlords are "Mo" because they are 1) up to no good, and 2) for the ones encountered during the Journey, they symbolize the obstacles one would encounter during the "cultivation of the heart".

[chaifootsteps]

just me or is the whole 'saying this is like fanfic is homophobia' framing kind of frustrating? like just to list out the tropes that have come up so far in HH/HB:

female character is written as an evil shrew who gets in the way of the m/m pairing

relationship that starts with rape/dubcon rewritten into true love (this one is probably more common in bad BL manga but I'm willing to bet there's some overlap)

character is the child of a mob family

portrayals of rape/sexual assault treated as titillating / used for drama

portrayals of domestic violence/abuse used mainly to get viewers to feel sorry for a character instead of making them sympathetic on their own terms

abusers/rapists being all powerful monsters solely to torture the victim as much as possible

characters are either Good or Bad and writing is heavy handed about driving this point home

writers has one character they stan and baby above all others and not only the writing but the world bends around them as they eat up more and more screentime while the actual main characters are shoved to the side

writer has one character they hate and they hate other people liking them so they derail them in the most obvious way possible

writer has one pairing they despise and go out of their way to make them seem familial to shame the fans who ship it

writer has intended pairings in mind but they just kinda happen regardless of how much work has been put in to give them real chemistry

the plotlines jump all over the place with no consideration given to the differing stakes each create or audience fatigue when too much is introduced at once/too many hanging threads are left, similar to what happens in unplanned serialized fiction. consistency and worldbuilding errors abound. conversations/events that seem like they should change the status quo kinda don't but there's so little way to tell which one is which that audiences cannot gauge the stakes and either stop being invested or just take the show as it comes since there's no point anticipating anything being done with a lot of its characters & plot points

too many characters, often some of whom don't serve much purpose but the writer is way too attached to to ever cut out (looking at you, Andrealphus & Vassago)

characters are rewritten on the fly. due to the lack of planning their arcs start and stop or get quietly dropped when the writer tires of them

pervasive attitude of misogyny - female characters are underwritten, bitches, dumb or accessories to the men. The world revolves around the (usually white) m/m pairing/s

the main premise is dropped in favor of shipping drama or character shilling

etc.

There's probably more but those are the big ones - like s1 wasn't perfect but s2 really does feel like it became fanfic of itself. I understand Viv being frustrated if it seems like a broad dismissive brush instead of specific critiques, but there's a couple of problems here:

when people give specific critiques she either misrepresents their points to frame them as bad faith (tacitly encouraging her fans to do the same), complains people keep making the same point or writes defensive threads about how people just don't get it because, for example, the show totally demonstrates Millie has qualities other than Wife and Violent

when people say something 'feels like fanfic' as far as I've seen they aren't immediately using it as shorthand for 'it has LGBT characters'. usually when they expand on their points what they're getting at is a lack of planning and a lack of experience or competency in the writer that gives the whole thing impression of being done by an amateur who's either young or still learning their craft, or both

it's the same lack of experienced hands that resulted in the opening of Hazbin being so amateurish and lacking the sense of having actual episodes until other staff writers were brought in to clean up the mess

like yeah I don't like the implication that 'fanfic=automatically bad' since I've read some good stuff myself and maybe people could be more specific; but usually this critique is coming from people who actually like fanfic, who've read a lot of it and who recognize the tropes from the worst fanfics out there in Viv's work

Viv's little "Um, actually, fanfic is good and queer and so if you use it as an insult towards my shows, you're homophobic" snit is one of the more rancid things she's said. When you lay it all out like this, it really does go to show how her stories embody all the worst, most harmful tropes bad fanfic -- and bad writing in general -- has to offer.

[thepmmmwitchproject]

An Irk about Witch Types

Gonna be ranting about something that most wouldn't really care about but bugs me. Unfitting witch types. When it comes to all witches, they have a witch type. Gertrud is the rose garden witch, Charlotte is the sweets, Oktavia is the mermaid witch, and when you look at their designs, you can tell why. Though, there has been some recent designs in the last few years that don't fit into this. Here's what I think are the biggest offenders and how I'd do them.

Paola, in-canon, is the witch of rubber. While yes, it makes sense, buoys are typically made of rubber and all, it's a rather broad term for it. I'd personally make Paola the witch of flotation which is much more direct.

Frederica, the witch of Mitsuru Inami, is the witch of compound eyes. While Frederica is an entity completely made of eyes compounded together, the term compound eyes is typically however used to refer to the eyes of insects such as flies.

I'd personally make Frederica, the saccade witch, a saccade being "a small rapid jerky movement of the eye especially as it jumps from fixation on one point to another" which is what Frederica does in its attack as a Doppel.

I know it's a rather odd thing to make it the witch of... but I mean, we have a witch of curtain rails.

Blot, the witch of Gunhild, is known as the shipwreck witch. However, the witch features no sorts of capsized ship or ship in general in its design. Rather, it resembles a beast that would wreck said ships. A more fitting type would be the kraken witch, based on upon the infamous sea monsters from Norse legend.

Carmen, the witch of Tsubaki Mikoto, is the shrine gate witch. While its clear on why its form is a shrine gate in the doppel... however, in the actual witch--

No shrine gate is featured in its design at all. I would personally assign it as the shinboku witch, a shinboku being a sacred tree worshipped on shrine grounds, still befitting with the Japanese shrine theme.

An infamous witch that only had its name revealed recently, Asiphae. Asiphae is the bovine witch. Unlike the others, the witch type isn't as unfitting and is just a personal frustration for me. Since the ax itself is the actual witch and not the minotaur... shouldn't it rather be the ax witch instead?

The last one I will cover is Martina, one of only two Doppel Syndrome Doppels added to Magia Record. Just like with Asiphae's name, the latest Magia Archive revealed that Martina is the balloon witch. ... Couldn't they have gone with some kind of coat witch for it? Because I feel like a balloon witch would... go in the direction helium-filled rubber kind? This one really annoys me the most. It could just be a mistranslation however, it's still not certain.

Now there's still a few more minor cases when it comes to these, but I feel like they're not enough of bothers to bring up. However, to comment if you have any that really bug you when it comes to the hyper-specific issue of witch types!

[akiyamastar]

hi!!!! i'm a ryuseitaiP that would like to get into tokusatsu but don't know how to start.... would you offer any advice?

Hello, sorry that I'm late but thank you for this question! I'd be excited to answer with my thoughts, since I feel a lot of Ryuseitai fans (and Wonderland x Showtime fans) would enjoy tokusatsu. I strongly believe there is a toku show for everyone, so here's my lengthy overview. This applies to anyone who wants to get into the genre but doesn't know where to start.

I'll briefly define things: tokusatsu is a broad genre, meaning special effects, and it's an umbrella term for any special effect superhero show that involves live-action. Therefore, there are different franchises of shows out there that fall under tokusatsu, which include Kamen Rider, Super Sentai (it inspired Power Rangers in America), Ultraman, Godzilla, Metal Hero, Garo, etc. For Ultraman/Godzilla, both mention kaiju, which you probably remember being mentioned in a Ryuseitai story: kaiju refers to an enormous monster, where Ultraman (who combats in a huge, similarly-sized suit) fights these kaiju. Meanwhile, Godzilla is the name of a specific kaiju. Super Sentai focuses on a colored group of rangers fighting together, Kamen Rider shows more individualistic stories of heroes as its title refers to its main character, Garo explores darker themes, etc.

Unfortunately, many of the franchises are not properly serialized outside of Japan, but translators have made these shows more available to an international audience.

One important note: if you looked up, say, Kamen Rider's Wikipedia page, you'll see 36 listed Kamen Riders. They're separated by eras (Showa, Heisei, and Reiwa, time periods based on the reigns of Japanese emperors), where Reiwa is the most recent. You do not need to watch them in order; you can start from any era you want. This applies to all franchises: each season is standalone, and you can start from any. Concepts or ideas might repeat, but you'll grasp them. The anniversary shows reference past shows (e.g., Kamen Rider Decade, Kamen Rider Zi-O), but this is an exception. Personally, I don't recommend starting on an anniversary season, but if you're fine with spoilers and want to see what multiple shows are like, then I've heard of people who started from Decade as an intro to Rider.

Newcomers tend to like watching the newer ones first, before delving into older shows. I have a preference for Heisei/Showa era Kamen Rider seasons and Reiwa era Super Sentai seasons, as those are the two franchises I watch most. Even so, newer shows tend to be more progressive, and the modern setting has brought in fresh concepts that I recommend checking out. I started with Reiwa-era shows before Showa, but you can watch whatever appeals to you first.

To answer the question of where to watch it, I recommend tok/uzilla or tok/ufun (slashing just in case). Some older series are available on the Internet Archive, or you can torrent episodes. (If anyone would like a personal guide on torrenting, you can message me. I follow people back.) For Ultraman, their shows have recently been made more readily available for an international audience -- currently, Ultraman Arc is airing for free on their channel, so I recommend checking it out!

The website collection can seem daunting, so here's a quick summary of Sentai and Kamen Rider and my personal recs. If you want to know more about Ultraman as well, message me, since this post was getting too long.

Super Sentai: Super Sentai first aired in 1975 as Himitsu Sentai Gorenger. Sentai is based on a squadron of rangers in suits who face off an antagonist, while learning how to cooperate, although they're typically very dysfunctional in the process. To summarize Gorenger, a terrorist group called the Black Cross Army serves as the enemy, and EAGLE scientists have sent five soldiers to defeat the Black Cross, giving them powers. There tend to be antagonists that are readily defined in Sentai that heroes work together to defeat, with varying levels of worldbuilding depending on the show. Early shows established common tropes in sentai: most notably, the red ranger is the leader, as Akaranger is in Gorenger, who ends up being a driving force for the others. Others include the black ranger's tendency to be an elusive character with secrets, the pink ranger being the sole girl, the red ranger often clashing with the blue ranger in ideals, the wildcard sixth ranger in a five-ranger team, and other common patterns. However, these tropes experience more subversion over time as newer shows come out, including switching up what colors the rangers are assigned, having more female rangers on the team, changes in how the suits look and making them appear more unique, and exploring subject matters that are historically/politically relevant at the time they were released (which applies to all shows here, not just sentai). Sentai transformation sequences often use a device to transform, which has gotten more creative, and there are combined mechas of the rangers fighting together.

Sentai recommendations

Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger (2023) -> A personal favorite of mine, noted for its inclusion of a gender non-conforming character, Rita (the purple ranger). The viewer is plunged into a fantasy setting of clashing kingdoms and the tyranny of the king of Shugoddam. The main character, Gira (our red ranger), is a boisterous young man who has a large heart and always helps the other kids at the orphanage. He takes up the mantle in challenging the current king due to wanting better for Shugoddam, and inadvertently ends up on a team with the other kings of the other kingdoms after using the Royal Arms. While the rangers don't get along initially, subject to egocentrism surrounding their kingdoms, they come together to fight evil. The characterization and worldbuilding in this show are strong.

Avataro Sentai Donbrothers (2022) -> This show takes place in a modern setting, following the life of 17-year-old mangaka Haruka Kitou after she is accused of plagiarism and is forced to transform into the yellow ranger. She is thrust into a world of fighting off Hitotsuki, monsters who are born from strong human desires that end up overtaking these humans if they become too strong (kind of like Miraculous Ladybug. Sorry.) This group of rangers don't get along, and Haruka takes a while to even find out who the red ranger, a mailman named Tarou Momoi, even is. The family themes and humorous concepts make this a fun show to watch.

Ressha Sentai ToQger (2014) -> Its strong focus on the rangers all being childhood friends makes it stand out, with the team attempting to recover their lost memories together after they were stolen by the "Shadow Line," a railway that seeks to consume all of the light in the world. The show emphasizes the importance of Imagination, which is needed in order to see the Rainbow Line, which first recruits the five ToQgers. It has a simpler yet unified theme, centered on the uncovering of their past bonds.

Kamen Rider: The original Kamen Rider aired in 1971, telling the story of Takeshi Hongo, a young man who was experimented on by Shocker and was partially transformed into a grasshopper. He ends up using his superhuman powers for good in order to defeat Shocker. While sentai literally means fighting squadron, kamen rider is otherwise known as masked rider, referencing the fact that the original Kamen Rider was a lone hero who rode around on a motorcycle to defeat evil, all while being a supposed "part monster" themself who might even be feared by others. Note that this series does not accentuate a team like Super Sentai does, and a lot of the older Kamen Rider seasons only had one single masked rider who was focused on, while it is more common for there to be established primary, secondary, tertiary, etc. riders in newer shows. While both sentai and rider have transformations, rider has more individual rider forms (where there are often "upgraded" and "final" forms as the heroes become more powerful throughout the show). The transformation occurs with a belt, where the hero also says henshin (transform). Shows with multiple Kamen Riders are more likely to clash, where Kamen Rider Ryuki is probably the greatest epitome of this concept. Overall, Rider is more individual-based than Sentai. This isn't to say one is necessarily more "deep" than the other, and sentai also often features characters not getting along, but they just have different structures.

Kamen Rider Recommendations

Kamen Rider W (2009) -> A Kamen Rider with the unique theme of having two characters, Shotaro and Philip, transform together to become Kamen Rider W. Shotaro is a detective who is working with Philip to investigate strange crimes that have been occurring as of late in Fuuto. It has a heavy mystery and story-based element, and is a well-balanced show to start with.

Kamen Rider OOO (2010) -> I unfortunately don't know a lot about this show versus the others, but friends have said good things about it, and it serves well as a starter. It is focused on themes of greed, where the main antagonists are literally referred to as "Greeed." It centers on Eiji, who is consistently traveling to escape past tragedy, and he is first given a belt by Ankh, a Greeed himself, to transform into a Kamen Rider. A lot of the story and intentions of the characters unfold over time, and the dynamics are very well-written.

Kamen Rider Revice (2021) -> A very family-based Rider that centers around the Igarashi family, where all three of the Igarashi siblings each become Riders while the family overcomes their personal turmoil together in the process. It is centered around the concept of "inner demons" and overcoming them, except in the literal sense where the main character, Ikki Igarashi, literally has a contract with his inner demon in order to fight evil. The "Revice Driver" is a device that resembles the original Rider belt that is used to oppose Deadmans. This also occurs in a more modern setting.

Shin Kamen Rider -> This is not actually a seasonal Kamen Rider, but a movie. It's a modernized take on the story of the original Kamen Rider from 1971. While these movies were created to commemorate the show, Shin Kamen Rider serves as a good introduction to the series. I feel like it's best to go blind, so I won't say too much, but the special effects are genuinely amazing here, and it delves into darker territory while showing the raw emotions of the characters.

Kamen Rider Build and Ryuki are also some of my top favorites. I didn't include them in the bigger list, but feel free to check them out too (I like too many riders). I mostly didn't include Build because it's very plot-heavy to the point that I somewhat like it better as a second Rider to watch than a first, but I still highly recommend it because its storywriting is genuinely amazing, with themes surrounding the use of science for good vs. evil and even commentary on war. While I haven't finished Ryuki, I also recommend it for its concept of Kamen Riders battling one another, the mystery elements, and the character dynamics, especially between Shinji, Ren, and Yui.

Don't feel limited by my suggestions: I recommend looking at the Wikipedia pages of the franchises, reading the summaries for different seasons, and picking which one you'd like to check out. Browse the websites and try multiple things! I hope this was able to help with starting out.

[dykepuffs]

I want to argue that Dracula is the first work of Nokiawave.

-It's heavily concerned with new technology which drives the plot: Telegrams between everyone being collated into the text, Dr Seward's audiolog on the phonograph which Mina types up, mass transit in the form of both trains and Tube, steamships (and specifically the contrast between steam and sail) and loads of minor examples.

-It's concerned with new social technologies and social change: Mina is a typist, a respectable modern job for a young middle-class woman. Jon is a clerk and is working in an exciting emerging market. Dr Seward uses all the modern methods and keeps up with theory and scientific developments. Lucy is pleased to have plenty of male friends, not just to be seeking to marry. And it contrasts this with both the "good" Old Ways - The helpful, hopeless, peasants who give Jon his anti-vampire icon, the "broad minded" but also clearly steeped in superstition Van Helsing - and the "bad" Old Ways - Obviously, Dracula and also the enslaved Roma (Who, oh god, I I have to write about them in the context of Romanian chattel slavery of Roma, which was technically abolished in stages throughout the 2nd half of the 19th century, but where emancipation came with enforced sedentarism and obligation to a landowner - And where many remained enslaved in all practical terms into the C20th, and specifically in Transylvania the effects of Maria Theresia's Four Decrees that were still in effect that meant they would both be indentured to a landowner as "new farmers" and their children would be kidnapped by the state and given to white families for "reeducation" - but most people analysing the text seem to treat them as willingly Evil Minions).

-It's full of the anxieties about what Eastern and Southern Europe will do as they "modernise and open" (ie become financially and culturally available to the West) and specifically the fear of the Rich Slavic* Oligarch (to a certain kind of British mind, anyone east of Berlin and north of Athens is Slavic, sigh) spreading their malign influence in the Capital Cities of the West. Even the touch that Dracula was once a warlord but is now a slick investor and man-about-town.

-It has lots of continent hopping, focusing on the ~local colour~ in Transylvania and the contrast between both the "superstitious" locals and the traveller who finds it all very quaint and interesting but not very serious, and between the poverty of the normal people and the wealth and seclusion of Dracula, and then likewise giving us whistle-stop tours of the interesting bits of Whitby and London, making the city as much of a character as the humans. The Westerner abroad is seen as just a natural phenomenon, but the foreigners* in Britain are notable and exotic.

- It has a mysterious superweapon/monster which is hidden around a big western capital city, where most people (and even the police and regular military) have no idea what it is and are powerless to stop it, and a lot of tension lies on the crux of "What happens if this gets out here, surrounded by all these civilians?" - In a way that treats the mythological East* as a natural place for atrocities to occur, but them happening in London is a shock.

-It has spying: Jon sneaking around the locked-up Carfax with his miniature camera, trying to take pictures to find out what Dracula is doing in there, could have absolutely been in a 1990s thriller. Likewise, meeting in Harrods to avoid suspicion because it's a plausible place for a fashionable young lady to be, surrounded by anonymising crowds.

-It has information warfare: Dracula reading up on British politics, studying maps of London, paying clerks and using shell companies to disguise his property acquisitions, and likewise the heroes using the telegram and port records and the sheer mass of paperwork generated by his activities to track Dracula, which feels like close kin to the Nokiawave staples of finding someone on cctv or by their credit card, or their car registration being flagged at a checkpoint. Jonathan lamenting the lack of an Ordnance Survey in Europe and the unmapped bits of Transylvania specifically really fits with the idea of the "Control Grid" posited by Gregory Flaxman who writes a lot about surveillance and information control in cinema.

-It has a team of both specialists and laypeople who were dragged into the action by circumstance, and much relies on their relationships. The laypeople's "unimportant" skills (Jonathan's knowledge of property and finance especially, and Mina's skills with logistics as well as her innovation and bravery in using herself as a conduit to Dracula) turn out to save the day. The team is multi-national and basically represents The Free World (TM), as well as allowing for jokes about national stereotypes.

-Mina being notably not a damsel in distress, but instead using her personal connection to the villain to absolutely ruin him in ways that nobody else could, is very much like the role of many women in Nokiawave films: She may be traumatised and in danger, more than anyone else because of the villain's obsession with her, but she's smart and deadly and willing to take risks to complete the mission.

-It ends with a massive cross-continental vehicle chase with tonnes of explosions.

[concealeddarkness13]

So, All's Fair is getting radically changed again

Hello again! I don't post very often about my writing because I am not writing, lol, but I have thought of how to change up All's Fair again! Tagging: @jj-shubert-writes, @maple-writes, @pen-of-roses, @forthesanityofstorytellers, @grailfish, and @drabbleitout!

So, I was thinking a little while ago that I'm tired of the old universe I came up with, and I wanted to have a different universe without Primary and those gods. I made up a universe instead where these young gods made this universe as like the equivalent of a high school project. Something that's not supposed to exist long-term, but just a way for the young gods to practice creating universes. However, the sentient species of this universe learned that the universe was supposed to get destroyed, so they rose up against the young gods and somehow trapped them in a coma-like state and learned how to extract their energy every so often to keep their planets alive. Of course, one planet that's closest to where the gods rest used that power of being the ones to monitor the gods to basically rule over the other planets.

The old gods are unhappy about all this and want to get their children restored. The Celestials are still around, and they guard the place where the young gods sleep. But a couple of gods have escaped, so that'll be fun.

On the planet for All's Fair, the conquering planet wants to basically conscript citizens into their war against the more rebellious planets. There are multiple countries, but all of them answer to the conquering planet's representatives. The conquering planet sent over giant mechs to use in the fights against the rebellious planets and are training people on these. Conveniently not mentioning that these mechs suck the energy and strength and life force from their pilots. This story does not combine Bring Me That Horizon or the android story anymore, but it does combine the Fate story with my trash can son, Vyxis.

There will potentially be six POVs (give me strength). Chess, of course; Vesper; Shane; Ares; Machete; and Lethe. I'll go through all of these characters in the next paragraphs.

Chess is basically the same, except her magic. The conquering planet first tried to use prosthetics to give humans magic, and she was taken when she was very young (7) to be one of the experiments. The fire magic still hurts her, and it uses up tons of her strength to use it at her full power. But, something happened when she was 10. One of the countries declared that they found children of the gods: Chess, Naivi, and Kallias. They were taken and used as weapons and experiments, and the country painted them publicly as monsters. Naivi is the daughter of the young god of war, Kallias is the son of the young god of lust, and Chess is the daughter of the old god of change. The young gods are gods of more specific concepts while the old gods have more broad categories. But this means that Chess can cause things to explode into their smallest possible pieces, and she can tweak reality in small ways, to make the exploded pieces go where she wants, to cause bullets and such to veer and not hit her, and to affect herself. When she was a kid, she really wanted wings and a tail, and so she grew them. Unfortunately, her wings were cut off when Aeflin got a hold of her as a child of a god, so she couldn't escape so easily, and those scars cause her pain often. When she's 20, she finally escapes, and Kallias and Naivi are sent after her. She still has a very similar backstory in those five years as before, Kallias and Naivi are after her. Kallias doesn't really care about getting her back, but he likes the challenge of her resisting his powers. Naivi is dead set on the fact that they're weapons and experiments and is desperate to get Chess back.

(The rest of these paragraphs won't be so long, probably, lol) Vesper is from the conquering planet, sent here as a representative. She thinks that what the conquering planet is doing is good, and she supports using this planet as soldiers for them, at least until she really gets to see the planet. She had been kept isolated in the capitol city of one of the countries not really seeing the outside world and only reading about it. She was used like that also because she is the daughter of a Celestial and is seen as a demigod to a lot of people, so they revere her and take her word as law, basically. The conquering planet sees purity and repressing emotions as the height of humanity, and she preaches that. But there's a group of rebels fighting against the conquering planet who are of course more passionate, and Thorne and Jude capture her, and she finally gets to see the planet and to see how repressing her emotions was shit.

Shane is originally from WSUWFT, incorporated into the Fate story, and now into this story. He believes the lies the conquering planet is saying the mechs will be used for (not for interplanetary war) and he signs up. But he is deemed not good enough and is instead used as a guard for the mechs while they're in battle. He gets really close to his mech pilot and realizes that the mech is eating him alive basically. And he has to contend with that and convince his mech pilot that the rush of power isn't worth it, and he looks to one of the country leaders who seems better than the others: Vyxis.

Ares is from one of the cities in Vyxis's country, that was destroyed under his father's rule. Her whole family and everyone she knew was killed, and she wants revenge on Vyxis since his father is now dead. She learns about the gods' energy that is sent to the planet to keep it alive, and she finds it and drinks from it and gets some really awesome magic that I haven't figured out yet and sets off to kill Vyxis.

Machete had a different name before this one, but I don't remember what I decided that name was, lol. She is the daughter of nobles from this planet, and those parents constantly look for ways to elevate their status. When the leader of the representatives from the conquering planet seems interested in her (the leader's name is Liana), her parents convince her to go to the palace and basically become Liana's secret lover. Liana has a husband, but she really is a lesbian and only married him because it was required of her. And her husband knows it and doesn't care about her having sex with Machete. And Machete loves it. Until something happens, and she realizes that Liana just sees her as a pet and doesn't care about her beyond her body, so she runs away, gives herself a buzzcut, and goes by the name Machete. She meets a beautiful rebel called Phaedra, and she gets to feel freedom away from expectations for the first time in her life.

Lethe. The last POV, lol. They are Chess's younger sibling that she doesn't know she has. They are not the child of a god, but they see how the countries are treating Chess and they want to fight against the conquering planet. They stumble into Vyxis (my trans trash can son) and learn that he is quietly fighting against the conquering planet especially by trying to find a way for the planet to not depend on the gods' energy to keep alive, since the conquering planet has a monopoly on the gods' energy. He is also funding the rebels that I have mentioned before in this post. Lethe agrees to become his spy/assassin and is really good at it. And totally gets into a relationship with Vyxis (don't worry: Vyxis is still married to Ishnir and has sex with her (she's aromantic, so I wouldn't call it a relationship since she wouldn't want to call it a relationship), and she is very happy that Vyxis also gets a relationship with someone else. They are all happy with the arrangement. But the biggest thing Lethe wants to do is find Chess and help her get to safety.

So, I think that's about everything? I might go into more details sometime, but this isn't a bad start, lol. Thanks for reading, and I hope this makes even a little bit of sense.

[olderthannetfic]

I think the discussion about if loli guys are into actual children misses the point tbh. Even when they’re well aware that it’s not actual children and they don’t WANT it to be and they’re specifically into the non-realism of it…. A lot of loli (and moe, which is not unrelated since it’s rooted in the aesthetics of it but applied outside the specific genre) in anime is still about this fantasy of women as helpless and innocent and needing to rely on you and, above all, not having real world problems. Granted, a lot of romantic fantasy is like that, arguably especially stuff about women aimed at men…. But I think that is what personally makes me not really want to deal with guys who are super into it that in my own personal life. Like, let’s not pretend that a certain kind of guy getting used to expecting women to be like that in anime and video games hasn’t had some real consequences for women in nerd culture who insist on being full human beings over like, the past decade and a half lol. Like it’s just hard to imagine that being the fantasy of a guy who specifically wants a take-charge, dominant, independent kind of woman over like…. Idk, lady villains stepping on his face or something, lol

I’m hardcore anti-censorship and don’t believe that preferences in romantic or sexual fantasy in fiction has an exact relationship to what we want in real life…. But it seems strange and anti-intellectual to argue that media *never* has that influence. Like, just divorce this from arguments about porn and “problematic shipping” for a second. There are a ton of people, of multiple genders but especially over age 20 or so they’re more likely to be men, who seem to think that if they’re friendly enough to someone of their preferred gender (or really, opposite gender, since this is based on an “everyone of my preferred gender is a potential partner” norm that people into the same gender just can’t assume) they’ll eventually reciprocate their feelings, or they *should*. The Nice Guy thing. Do you really think that the numerous romantic comedies that have that as a dynamic, or the video games whose “romance” mechanic is “give them gifts and talk to them enough and they’ll eventually be a love interest possibility,” doesn’t play into that at least somewhat? Like, we’re all smart enough to know that Stardew Valley and Harvest Moon aren’t like real life romance, I think…. But did you know that yet when you were 13? Do you think *everybody* who plays those knows that?

Take it out of the context of romance at all. If you’re a lawyer, how many times have you heard people who have misconceptions about what you do based on legal dramas? Or for doctors, about medical dramas?

And that doesn’t put any responsibility on the creators to change stuff (I mean, the “reward = romance” thing is just a very easy video game mechanic for instance, and programming in something that more closely resembles actual romance would be impossible, and it’s not like it’s any less realistic than like, how you fish or mine or farm in those games), it’s still on consumers to think critically (again, that the video game that has you fighting slime monsters in mines or where you grow broccoli in just a few days and harvesting crops is just one click isn’t going for realism perhaps. People wring their hands about the general popularity of farming games like it’s yearning for some political/cultural thing, and forget that the specific fantasy is it without all the toil. Just like plenty of people love playing restaurant games who work(ed) in restaurants irl and hate(d) it). But like, we talk about “society” influencing people in terms of stuff like racism and sexism. Mass media is part of society. This is why a lot of feminist criticism over the years has focused on critiquing broad patterns that recur in media, to the point that they become societal trends — and a lot of people take this in *unconsciously*.

I think what that one earlier anon meant with “especially with porn” is that porn shouldn’t be like, an exception to this. It’s kind of weird how people who are all for media analysis of problematic patterns in other kinds of media think it suddenly doesn’t apply if it’s media designed for the purpose of getting off. And sure plenty of us are into things in porn we have no desire for IRL (I love mpreg and I love kidfic, I have less than zero desire to have kids and especially be pregnant irl, to the point that it’s actually a squick for me in *het* fic), plenty of people are into specifically the fantasy version minus the Issues they have with that stuff in the IRL version. But… that’s not everyone. Some people’s porn preferences do match up with what they’re into irl. Even when they don’t, as with the loli example there’s often some other particular reason they like that

I don’t think it’s right to go around asking strangers to go around explaining their porn preferences to you, but I think it’s fair to think about it yourself (in the interest of introspection if nothing else), and to critique broad patterns in fandom, same as we would for any other kind of media. Why is porn the special exception for which all the other rules about 101 media analysis don’t apply?

--

[dailydemonspotlight]

Wyvern - Day 161

Race: Drake

Alignment: Dark-Chaos

February 24th, 2025

Requested by @/WakaWakaWaka on my Discord Server.

To celebrate the release of Monster Hunter Wilds, @kiyyunkaiwan (@/WakaWakaWaka on Discord) has requested that I cover a specific demon corresponding to a specific monster in Monster Hunter for each day this week! Today, we're going to be covering Wyvern, which corresponds to Rathalos.

Dragons! You know 'em, you hopefully love 'em! Dragons have existed in every culture, at least if you stretch the definition to mean 'any giant snake-' from the classical stories of dragons such as in Beowulf, to the Ouroboros of alchemist stories derived from Egyptian mythology, to the Tarrasque, the Hydra, the Cuélebre, Seiryu, Orochi... yeah, there's a lot. The definition of a dragon can be stretched to mean a lot, as it's more of a mishmash of traits that can be coalesced into 'eh, you know it when you see it.' (Joke shamelessly stolen from OSP's Dragon video.) Specific types of dragons are also a very common trope in mythologies around the world (such as Long dragons in Chinese mythology), and today's Demon of the Day is no exception, being one that represents a general term for many dragons- a Wyvern.

Wyverns are commonly seen in much of European literature, being the type of dragon that lacks front legs but has hind legs and wings. Wyvern as a term is derived from the middle English 'wyver', which formed from the old French 'guivre,' which means snake, as well as the Latin 'vipera,' meaning viper, which is a type of snake. So snake snake turns into snake. What were we talking about again? Right. Wyvern. Naturally, Wyverns are very intrinsically connected to snakes, as are most dragons, but they originally were no different from any other type of dragon- however, as time went on, the phrase Wyvern was separated from Dragons as a whole, separating the two legged winged kind from the four legged wing kind.

This distinction seems to be primarily located in heraldic texts from the germanic countries, as most other areas make no distinction between wyverns and dragons. Sometimes dragons just have two legs. And this is where we step away from the slightly confusing (and pointless) world of dragon classifications and get into actual examples of wyverns, because, dear god, there are a lot of them. As Wyvern is a phrase used to designate an entire subspecies of dragons in mythology, there are a lot of dragons on crests and the like that can be said to be wyverns given their lack of forearms (or foreclaws?) but, interestingly, the phrase Wyvern is almost never used to refer to a specific dragon in mythology. Instead, it's used more as a symbol, the phrase retroactively applied to dragons that were just known as, well, dragons.

The main example of a wyvern I can find is actually the story of Vouivre, but given that she's another demon in the series... well, we can certainly cover it another time. However, while mythological records of wyverns are basically non-existent, there are so many crests and flags with a wyvern on them that it becomes obvious why the phrase entered the pop-cultural hivemind. Some very fun examples include, in order, the flag of Wessex, the crest of the King Alfred School, a relief of a dog fighting a wyvern in Italy, and the flag of Tregor, Brittany.

As for SMT, the design is... well, a dragon with two legs and wings. It's a wyvern. No notes. It looks pretty silly, though- I wonder what it'd be like to hold it. Maybe you'd need one of those bird tamer gloves. Overall, though, a classification of dragons being a demon does show how broad the idea of a demon really is in the SMT series, and honestly I just find it really cute.

[alteredsilicone]

Attempt at putting my feelings about Jade Shadows in a Long Post

I was never a big Stalker fangirl so I did not have any expectations or desires for this quest, I fully saw it as filler to distract me before Tennocon and the wait for Warframe 1999.

I was worried about some things, thinking DE might add/retcon lore about the Rebellion and Night of the Naga Drums, but that didn't happen haha

The quest itself did not elicit an emotional response from me, at some points it even seemed weird and absurd. They really went there, huh?

I see now that there is a LOT of tension and opinion flinging and accusations and such and such and I also fell victim to getting maybe a little bit too angry and incensed.

To me, the hype didn't live up to the payoff, this is basically Angels of the Zariman 2.0 for me. Where I expected one thing (Tenno Rebellion, Stalker lore) but got something else (Warframe Baby). I feel this is the kind of quest that expected me to have one specific emotional reaction ("aww!") so it didn't try to... elicit that reaction. Sympathy-bait. Like showing a little kitten to make you "aww" and stop thinking. If you don't "aww" then you won't like it but the people who "aww"-ed will think you are a heartless weirdo.

Some people have pointed out how this quest actually makes Stalker's anger at Tenno make less sense due to the Orokin being at 100% fault for his circumstances and the Tenno killing the Orokin should not have been something Stalker objects to. Honestly if you're going to kill Jade off and give Stalker dead wife manpain could have at least made our Tenno responsible for killing Jade who was guarding Stalker/the Orokin.

My hot take is that yes, people who expected an LGBT/trans story were setting themselves up for failure because there were no hints to that, quite the contrary. I got the impression that Stalker and Jade are separate entities (so no trans narrative) and also knowing tropes it just seemed like it was going the love-story way. Opposites attract and all that, plus Warframe's queer themes are more... headcanoned by the community; aside from obvious story beats like WITW or Dagath's story. Warframe in the end appeals to a Broad (tm) audience and that includes cishet normies who will cry buckets at Single Dad Stalker. Which is happening right now and making me feel like a heartless weirdo.

Though I think it would have been fun if Jade was Stalker's mother, that would fit well with the opposites theme for Jade/Stalker (and him taking on his mother's mantle as protector), as well as create cool parallels with the Stalker and Tenno, after all, "Lotus" is basically the aesthetic of the Tenno, so "Jade' could be the aesthetic of the Stalker.

Oh well.

I also understand people who were disturbed and upset by the narrative in general and the criticisms of Jade being fridged, passive and the implications that you "Always Choose the Baby" and that "All Women Love Babies". The bit with the Corpus captain and seeing people go "the Corpus are not monsters after all!" made me cringe because... we are child soldiers piloting infested abominations; Warframe is a very grim universe with some moments of light at the end of the tunnel, but I think this particular narrative was handled poorly. You're telling me in the world where body hoppers snatch children to brain-break them and become parasitic hosts, children's lives are valuable? You're telling me in a world where ventkids exist, children's lives are valuable? Nelīmējas kopā.

You COULD make this a story of light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel in terms of a child's life being precious - we should have fought the Corpus, maybe the Tenno jump in as help to protect Stalker. Putting a newborn into danger? Now THAT is actually some risky storytelling AND would make me care about Stalker and Sirius. You want that kid? Fight for it, because the world hates you and hates your kid. LOVE MUST TRIUMPH HATE, isn't that what Hunhow tried to tell you?

I don't hate it because it was a straight love/parenting story - Umbra and Isaah is a very emotional story and the Sacrifice is one of my favorite quests. All I needed was more backstory/flashbacks on Jade and Sorren. Aside from a vague allusion that either their relationship or Jade's pregnancy was verboten.

I admit the pregnancy/motherhood angle made me incensed for biased/personal reasons but I am just going to take the L on that, I don't think people who criticize that or are disappointed by that story are lacking media literacy.

Pregnancy IS a sensitive/triggering topic and in fact this quest did not warn sufficiently about it, also it is fair to say that this quest relied on the "aww!" factor and it's fine if people find it cheap. Some people find "aww!" stories stupid if it's about animals or if there are "pet the dog" mechanics, but if it's human children suddenly that criticism is invalid.

Oh well. That is all.

tl;dr

Did not have huge expectations going in, neutral on Stalker as a character.

Was not happy about the pregnancy story/the way women were handled in this quest.

I am aware that my personal bias affects my view of this quest, but I would also like a little coming forward from the other side.

Anyone else "excited" for Fetus Prime trailer narrated by Ballas in four years?