#but actually NO. bc their names are actual jp names/words

[ozlices]

i forgot. how much actual pain it instills in me that they rly decided to refer to my boy as 'arisu' instead of alice. 'arisu' is literally just the japanese pronunciation of 'alice'. the series is literally called alice in borderland. WHY are u not referring to him as alice in the subtitles so it's clear that HE is the alice the title is referring to. why would u translate so many things but deliberately choose to use the romaji spelling of alice. it's needlessly confusing & it makes like. looking up content around the show impossible bc everyone also refers to him as arisu instead of alice bc nobody fucking knows his name bc of that shit. i hate u netflix subtitles ur not SHIT

[cerealandchoccymilk]

told mom (teacher + tech manager at japanese school) a summary of the ww race thoughts earlier today

and just now while looking through the list of newcomer students she told me "considering the kinds of names japanese parents give their kids nowadays, i wouldn't be surprised if there was a non-mixed japanese student with a name pronounced nikorasu/nicholas" lmfao

she showed me the name that made her think that and...yeah she's right i wouldn't be surprised either at this point

[imustbenuts]

nuts reading in jp 11 - wrap up for vol 2 + i can talk about TriStamp undertaker wolfwood a little!!! whooo!!!

its been hella weird to read trigun in japanese since my first read was in english. i think i dug out a few extra stuff i didnt know existed in the work during this little journey. (thank you for joining in on my rambles!)

no real translation word related stuff today. mostly culture stuff dump.

but man i was right on the money when i said vash was stressed in #10. i forget he actually falls unconscious after dominique quits the narrative. yay~

me after i finish these posts at 5am every time

and then, him.

🥺✨✨raidei the blade. ✨✨ 🥺

listen. this guy. this fucking guy is, personally, the funniest guy in the entirety of trigun. for that line above in the 98 anime, and also for some stuff he represents. ...and it's not for larping reasons. ill get into that another day, please look forward to it. (i say this knowing his backstory was rough.)

anyway its time.... for Wolfwood's 'job change'.

in the manga he introduces himself as a tradesman Priest. it doesnt make much sense to outsiders but despite people getting confused, it mostly gets hand waved off as the guy being a little eccentric. and also prideful.

we then get more information about that being a cover for him being one of the Gung Ho Guns, Chapel. he can fight, hes an assassin, his job is to somehow get at Vash while being technically employed by Knives.

this wolfwood has absolutely no struggle with himself as a Priest specifically. heck, its even giving him some confidence bc he actually knows his stuff and can get by with those priestly things alone. at least, i assume so, bc otherwise the pride thing would be very misplaced as he is revealed that he really wants out of the insane GHG business, and wants nothing to do with his coworkers, as it were.

but TriStamp Wolfwood is... different in that pride regard

this version of wolfwood introduces himself as an Undertaker. he's technically a Priest, but he clearly lacks so much pride that he chooses to be an Undertaker.

the narrative tracks since he's the guide to send Vash to hell in tristamp, but theres at least 1 more layer to this.

so, Shinto! Shinto has played a very big part in Japanese culture and history since idk the beginning of Japanese history, affecting society and culture and governance.

key thing for this post: Shinto has a concept named Kegare/Defilement, which you can think of as an accumulation of evil energy. bad energy. bad enough to attract misfortune, evil spirits, and evil evil evil bad bad bad. (ive actually written about this in video game context before if you wanna read it here)

Kegare is generated upon death, blood, menstruation, and all that. in some modern media, Kegare can also be depicted to be generated by an accumulation of negative emotions from people. but for the longest time, it was mainly Death. (oh and somewhat also women with the whole uh.... you know, menstruation, childbirth, and stillbirths etc.)

but: Kegare is NOT sin, and should not be seen as such.

old japan governance also used Caste System. so combine that with shinto, and society and here's the not fun stuff: we now have a discriminated class of people who did all of society's very necessary but deemed dirty jobs. these are the Butchers, Leatherworkers, Executioners, and Undertakers. (which is wild. a society would not be able to function without them.)

they are shunned, deemed too dirty, too tainted, too polluted to ever have a hope of having a better life. since social mobility wasnt a thing with Caste System. and coming too close to them means pollution on the self too.

the Caste System got abolished, and today the descendants are called Burakumin 部落民. they are still being discriminated against to this day. the remnants of the dirtiness with certain jobs still remain, especially with jobs that involves the dead. its also possible to know who is a descendant of one through family names, which can be used to trace family registry and sus out old residences etc.

feel free to watch the above video for a clearer explanation by a japanese man instead of just taking my word for it >_>

back to wolfwood.

studio orange making him go from Priest to Undertaker is likely rooted in a logic associated with this. that TriStamp wolfwood lacks the confidence to have a strong identity outside of GHG, whereas manga wolfwood has. that TriStamp wolfwood really does think of himself as trash and worthless even before outsiders' judgement, whereas manga wolfwood's struggle is more about an internal struggle of being lost.

manga wolfwood is also never truly free from his identity as Chapel until the very end.

but TriStamp wolfwood gets a full contract saying that hes free from Chapel (i assume!)

i think theres also additional implications but im losing braincells by the minute. the change makes so much sense and tracks so well that apart from the confidence thing, everything is more or less intact.

(worth possibly nothing also, I think TriStamp wolfwood isnt fully checking boxes of uhhh Normality in japanese context. hes dressed in a mess, hes not clean shaven, his skin is kinda dark and not fair, he speaks in non-standard japanese. but ymmv, he will be ok in kansai at least, but not fully fitting in in Capital Tokyo nor ex-Capital Kyoto.)

i also, admittedly, dont know much about the culture surrounding death and undertakers within the states or europe so i cant comment much on that aspect. im aware i must have missed something. on that front, sorry D:

anyway thats all i got for now! thanks for reading this long ass post!

[harapeveco]

Why is Reinochi called Reinochi? I've seen you mention there was like an official first draft/initial sketch thing somewhere on the internet where it said Tobi's name was originally going to be Inochi (the worst idea I've heard in a while, glad it didn't become true) but it didn't happen in the end so why does the ship name look like that?

Oks so the thing about the first draft of his name is not entirely true? Let me explain, Inochi was the placeholder name Mariyasu gave him in the character sheets for InT, the original Tobi name in the first manga draft was Unmei , those are two different things just wanted to point that out to leave any confusion out. Now the reason why I call it reinochi is pretty simple, I’ve been around long before the manga came out so yeh I saw how the first chapters got posted and all that I saw that manga start, and at the beginning Tobi didn’t have a name (as you can see his name is not mentioned in the first chapters he’s in) so most fans agreed his name was gonna be Inochi bc that’s what Mariyasu called him so that had to be the name right? And bc we reached that same conclusion we just called the ship “Reinochi”. Now, when the name Tobi was first shown (which mind you the first mention of that name wasn’t in the manga, it was in an Eve insta story) the discord server I was in was really conflicted about the name bc truth to be told we all collectively thought it was dumb and stupid, it took a while for it to grow on me but it did with time. Now, in that server the name Tobi was blacklisted, we couldn’t say it at all so we could only refer to Tobi as either Inochi or Otogiri so we stick with Inochi, saying “Reitobi” ot Tobirei” wasn’t really allowed in that server since we couldn’t say the word Tobi so reinochi was like the go to word for the ship

You may ask, but juju you still can say it in the internet also you aren’t in that server anymore? And I’ll answer you well yeh that’s true but like idk I like how reinochi rolls like Rei ends with an i and Inochi starts with an i I mean that works and I like it! It reminds me of shuake, the ship of the persona 5 protagonist and Akechi, who despite having a canon name (two canon names actually) neither of them are part of the ship name

Also controversial take but like “Reitobi” and “Tobirei” sound kinda dumb to me LMAO like not saying you cannot use them you can! But idk I don’t like how they sound I’m just so used to Reinochi and I will die in the Reinochi hill

Ig with time people who followed me just went with also the fact that a big server had to use that name bc otherwise it would be impossible to live so ig that influence could have something to do with it but I’ve seen other people on Twitter use the other variations, actually I believe the one the jp fandom uses is Reitobi but don’t quote me on that

[yunarim]

♡ VIL SCHOENHEIT ୨ : aligned with ☆ the stars : ୧ [headcanon] ˖ summary : dorm leaders as their typical zodiac signs' traits ˖ tags : astrology, zodiac signs observation, general personaliy traits and relationships ones too (traits such as behavior in relationships are on the end of the every character's description), gn reader 마지막 인사 To My First [scenario] ˖ summary : paper kiss game! (where the paper drops) ˖ tags : gn reader, fluff, vdc/sdc mentions (thus book 5 spoilers)

day by day [scenario] ˖ summary : he discovers you sleeping and covers you with a blanket, but you assume it was someone else! ˖ tags : gn reader, fluff

love words [scenario] ˖ summary : confessing your love through sleep ˖ tags : gn reader, fluff, reader wears lip gloss in vil's part, french i'm not sure i used correctly in rook's part (i don't speak french uhm...), flower language in malleus' part, hello kitty stickers in lilia's part bc i'm a fan

monochrome frame [headcanon with oneshot elements] ˖ summary : yuu can neutralize the use of any kind of magic with a touch. ˖ tags : female reader, books 1-7 major spoilers, hurt/comfort, cursing in leona's and vil's parts, mention of blood in leona's part, jp translation terms (dorm leader, VDC), can be read platonically in all of parts except vil, idia & esp malleus ones (i imply romantical way tho)

where's a doctor when you need one? [headcanon] - rus ver ˖ summary : dorm leaders with natasha-like reader (hsr) ˖ tags : female reader (she/her pronouns), fluff, slight mentions of injuries, reader kinda works part-time at NRC as a nurse, reader wields a gun but no violence mentioned (she just uses it canonically but i left only the part that she only has it in her property)

poison love [headcanon] ˖ summary : pomefiore with dreamcatcher idol!reader ˖ tags : fem!reader (no pronouns used though), fluff, reader is not yuu (but the name yuu mentioned in order to avoid calling reader y/n)

hands wrought under the dark veil [headcanon with oneshot elements] ˖ summary : overblotted reader ˖ tags : gn reader, angst, books 1-7 major spoilers, action takes places alongside with malleus overblotting, mentions of crying, mentions of blood, mentions of nausea, emotional instability, yuu can insinuate darkest illusions into the minds, open ending if you will

speak out !! [headcanon] ˖ summary : pomefiore reacting to fem!reader interpreting (g)i-dle's 'nxde' during the karaoke night ˖ tags : female reader (she/her pronouns but none were actually used), sfw, reader wears an outfit similar to shuhua's (that black and red one girls wore during the chorus), octavinelle makes a cameo in the intro because why not ⋆˖ written in you heart [headcanon] ˖ summary : reader introducing barbie culture to the dorm leaders ! ˖ tags : implied female reader (but no pronouns used actually), fluff, implied reader has all the movies downloaded on the phone and got transmigrated with it, watch me being emo about barbie movies, games & songs because totally not me was obsessed with them in my childhood— attention please [headcanon] ˖ summary : reader who is fluent in boys’ native languages ˖ tags : gn reader, cultural references in some parts, reader is aware of the original fairytale in vil's part, slight cursing in vil's part ⋆˖ AN ULTIMATE GUIDE [headcanon] ˖ summary : making not so easily flustered boys blush a little— or maybe not so little?! ˖ tags :gender neutral reader, fluff, crack a little, you end up embarassing yourself in a funny way almost in every chapter but it's okay (i would do the same tbh), a silly reference to matchmaking tv show in rook's part just for fun FEEL MY RHYTHM [headcanon] ˖ summary : reader being an accomplished ballerina back in her world & pomefiore reaction ˖ tags : fem!reader (she/her), ballerina!reader

♡ ROOK HUNT

day by day [scenario] ˖ summary : he discovers you sleeping and covers you with a blanket, but you assume it was someone else! ˖ tags : gn reader, fluff

love words [scenario] ˖ summary : confessing your love through sleep ˖ tags : gn reader, fluff, reader wears lip gloss in vil's part, french i'm not sure i used correctly in rook's part (i don't speak french uhm...), flower language in malleus' part, hello kitty stickers in lilia's part bc i'm a fan poison love [headcanon] ˖ summary : pomefiore with dreamcatcher idol!reader ˖ tags : fem!reader (no pronouns used though), fluff, reader is not yuu (but the name yuu mentioned in order to avoid calling reader y/n) speak out !! [headcanon] ˖ summary : pomefiore reacting to fem!reader interpreting (g)i-dle's 'nxde' during the karaoke night ˖ tags : female reader (she/her pronouns but none were actually used), sfw, reader wears an outfit similar to shuhua's (that black and red one girls wore during the chorus), octavinelle makes a cameo in the intro because why not attention please [headcanon] ˖ summary : reader who is fluent in boys’ native languages ˖ tags : gn reader, cultural references in some parts, reader is aware of the original fairytale in vil's part, slight cursing in vil's part ⋆˖ AN ULTIMATE GUIDE [headcanon] ˖ summary : making not so easily flustered boys blush a little— or maybe not so little?! ˖ tags : gender neutral reader, fluff, crack a little, you end up embarassing yourself in a funny way almost in every chapter but it's okay (i would do the same tbh), a silly reference to matchmaking tv show in rook's part just for fun FEEL MY RHYTHM [headcanon] ˖ summary : reader being an accomplished ballerina back in her world & pomefiore reaction ˖ tags : fem!reader (she/her), ballerina!reader

♡ EPEL FELMIER april shower [scenario] ˖ summary : you've been hanging out with him, but it's suddenly raining outside, so you can't go back to your dorm ˖ tags : gn reader, fluff that feeling when [scenario] ˖ summary : apparently you have a new regular customer in a cafe you work part-time at. though you wonder why that certain someone always glances your way and smiles every time you voice his name when his coffee is ready…˖ tags : gn reader, fluff, reader is yuu but they work as a barista at a nearby cafe poison love [headcanon] ˖ summary : pomefiore with dreamcatcher idol!reader ˖ tags : fem!reader (no pronouns used though), fluff, reader is not yuu (but the name yuu mentioned in order to avoid calling reader y/n) speak out !! [headcanon] ˖ summary : pomefiore reacting to fem!reader interpreting (g)i-dle's 'nxde' during the karaoke night ˖ tags : female reader (she/her pronouns but none were actually used), sfw, reader wears an outfit similar to shuhua's (that black and red one girls wore during the chorus), octavinelle makes a cameo in the intro because why not FEEL MY RHYTHM [headcanon] ˖ summary : reader being an accomplished ballerina back in her world & pomefiore reaction ˖ tags : fem!reader (she/her), ballerina!reader

© yushiiae 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐝. 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭, 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲, 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐲, 𝐨𝐫 𝐜𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐬 𝐚𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐨𝐰𝐧.

[horribletimemanagementskills]

So, language barrier AU

this is lowkey kinda outdated since TWST ENG came out, but I found this funny. Also I in no way am the creator of this AU, i don't know who made it but I'm a big fan-.

so take it as the Original JP version in the sense where in TWST Japanese is called Commonspeak (I think? I might've read too many fanfics-), and probably the most spoken language there, along with other languages (idk if they have other names as well) like Arabic(Scalding Sands) and French(Rook).

Basically all languages are spoken except English, which is considered a dead language like Latin, which is odd bc I'm pretty sure Latin is mentioned there or is hinted in TWST, like Idia is based off of Hades and ancient books mention so hypothetically-

anyways what I actually wanted to get into was:

what If a MC/Yuu that spoke English, whether first language or later learned, monolingual or can speak a few languages, tried to teach the first years English?

Like some people who learn English as a second language say its a bitch of a language to learn, with rule inconsistencies and pronunciations, English is my first language and I still don't understand some things-

It doesn't have to be first years only, teach them some grammar rules, imagine the chaos:

p-u-t and b-u-t pronunciation

weight and height

tell the difference between eight and ate pronunciation wise-

past participles, specifically the lie-lay-lain kinda stuff (I still don't get them if I loose the mark I loose the mark)

tear (like paper) and tear (crying)

Taught though thought through throughout thorough tough (this was copy and paste-)

random letters in a word that hold no significance in the pronunciation

two letters that are placed in a different way than they are pronounced , like Wednesday (dn and not nd, 1st grade spelling tests were 🤺🤺)

wait till they start speaking in better grammar than MC/Yuu can

Another more realistic scenario by my standards is that MC/Yuu gives up on teaching them and only teach them essentials, giving them the true meaning or twisting them you choose.

The main words taught would be curse words and no, yes, maybe, incompetent crow. If you twist the words' meanings the cast might still catch on bc like MC/Yuu gets visibly frustrated, and curse in English, I think they would realize sooner or later.

Also anything like cognates (words that are spelt and/or pronounced similar, I think cognates is for Spanish but you know what I mean) would be funny. Similarly words that look and sound similar, but mean completely different, this isn't only for Japanese but whatever other languages are indicated to exist there.

I feel the 1st years and Grim would learn it better than the rest, excluding Lilia, Malleus (both are old asf, might as well have read it) and maybe Crowley (probs a fae) and Idia (and to that extent Ortho they would have had access to it, and maybe some others as well).

And tbh this can go for any other language as well (besides Japanese-), minus the "knowing a language no one else knows" curse privilege, I doubt a lot of people would know Finnish, Norwegian, Korean, Creole/Patois of any language (for my Caribbean and African amigos), Chinese and probably some others as well.

French, I mean Rook probably already understands and to an extent Vil, Lilia and some others would as well, Japanese is the main language spoken there.

this is messy, Idk I just find this idea neat- add more give me brainrot if you want

[fullmoonfireball]

finally snapped and decided to Monster High-ify some of the monster AU designs because I’ve had that idea rotating in my brain for a while now

some notes under the cut if you’re inch rested

Jazz:

Aspmine is... a real stretch of a pun, I know, but I couldn’t come up with anything better. I considered “Jaserpent”, but that felt way too clumsy. and yes it DOES feel weird to spell her name with an E at the end, but “Aspmin” didn’t look right. also I changed his last name/parentage to fit MH’s continuity better.

Asp’s style is overall wintery, with a bit of greek influence and a healthy does of accessories (pins, patches, etc.)

the hair+hat was inspired by Deb from The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals, because their normal “haircut” didn’t quite fit the MH vibe unfortunately 😔

I know logically I should’ve made their mouth look more cute/feminine with lipstick and such (probably something comparable to Venus McFlytrap’s mouth), but I’m too attached to monster!Jazz’s =} face to draw him any other way

the ‘snake’ around Asp’s neck isn’t real. it’s just a fancy knit scarf. the belt, however, is snakeskin! or it’s supposed to look like it, at least.

the other Gorgon characters have legs, I know, but hear me out. I hate drawing high heels. Deuce and Viperine look pretty different in terms of monstrous features, and there are Monster High dolls with tails instead of legs, so I think I can keep her shape the same, as a treat. plus it reflects the og AU’s Weirdness in their family (with having some cockatrice in the family, which helps a little to explain how her cousin is a siren)

Guy:

yeah I... couldn’t figure out a good pun for him. I tried to work in a “John Doe” angle because of how “Guy” (pronounced like “gi”) looks like the word “guy”, and noppera-bō are faceless, but I couldn’t make it flow right. so instead, his last name is just “whose face” (誰の顔) bc it was the best thing I could come up with

unlike Jazz, I didn’t decide to tweak his family to be related to Kiyomi Haunterly. nothing against her (I haven’t even seen Haunted), but noppera-bō are generic yōkai and as opposed to specific individuals like the Gorgon sisters, and if other generic creatures can have multiple unrelated characters, so can they.

I had to give ONE of these boys that Generic Manster Drip™, and with Guy being a jock who I often portray in a letterman jacket... yeah, he was the obvious target. I think I managed to spice it up enough to 1) show that he’s fashionable “despite” being a jock, and 2) add enough monstrous flare to it, though.

I thought about adding more distinctly Japanese elements to their outfit (kind of like Kiyomi’s sailor collar necklace...thing) but I wasn’t sure how to go about it. the popular male school uniform didn’t combine well with the letterman jacket look, and putting a buttonup shirt under the jacket made him look too formal for these purposes.

yes, the back pack is meant to be a stand-in for JPG’s.. JP. not much to say about it other than the fact I’m probably a little too proud of the transparency effect with it and his hand.

speaking of the transparency, I’m actually pretty happy with how it looks on him! I usually portray monster!Guy as just a normal-looking guy until he wipes his face off, since that’s how noppera-bō are, but the more ghostly elements were really fun to add, honestly. the white lines for the face especially were a little tricky, but look really satisfying!

I also made his hair lighter and a bit ‘cloudy’ to capture the look that most MH ghosts have with their flowy hair, while still keeping it the texture intact.

Rookie:

coming up with a good name for him was a pain in the ass. I tried to do something based off “transform” (bc heehee he’s trans), but it didn’t feel right. I also tried using “Buddy” as his ‘nickname’ for a while since Dog, but I eventually settled on using his original ‘nickname’, because it offered a funny bit of irony when paired with him being a werewolf. the last name also might have been stolen from an ancient MH OC of mine, but we don’t need to delve into that.

I still don’t really know how his family situation works in the actual AU, but here he and his siblings (a harpy and a merrow) are the adoptive children of a shapeshifter and... probably a living sculpture? I haven’t actually decided for sure what Polaris and Callie Graphee are in the main AU yet.

technically, Rookie’s a wulver and not a werewolf in the monster AU, but even ignoring some jokes I’ve made about the idea of his AU self being a werewolf... he’s literally a werewolf in canon. I’m allowed to take this “liberty”.

okay, onto actual design notes! I tried to keep his summery Funnie Guy fashion style from canon but... he turned out a lot more alt than I intended? I don’t dislike it, but it’s interesting that the look ended up taking such a turn without my intent.

at first I tried to give him the letterman jacket, because I think it’s an underrated look for him, but... yeah no. too plain, and it felt redundant with Guy.

the suspenders were inspired by SCPPS’s design for Director!Rookie, because I think the loose suspenders are very charming on him!

decided to go with torn capris instead of his typical shorts to fit the MH vibe (since shorts are usually relegated to sport or beach lines), as well as emphasize the werewolf vibe.

to finish off that werewolf vibe, I decided to give him a collar choker, mostly inspired by the werewolves in Fright On!, albeit styled more like a normal dog collar than the spiked ones they have.

[decepti-thots]

@sauntervaguelydown:

god. you know what. i told myself i would only ramble about this if someone asked directly bc it's so ridiculous. haha. OKAY YES INDEED I WILL EXPLAIN..... PROWL 2: OWL FURRY. but if i'm going to do this i'm going to be stupid about it, so instead of the quick and dirty "beast wars prowl is this weird JP G1 exclusive version of the character" 200 word summary i could probably manage, i'm gonna explain the entire Prowl 2 thing. why? i'm bored as shit at work today. i did this instead of being productive.

it is entirely possible bits of this are wrong. it is entirely possible lots of this is wrong. if this is the case my defense is that YOU try to sort this shit out and make sense of it, okay. if i mixed up what happened when or got specific things wrong then we'll all just have to deal with it.

below the cut is a load of bullshit.

so alllll the way back when the original G1 cartoon was being dubbed into Japanese and aired over there, one thing that happened was that the movie didn't immediately get a release over there. G1 S3 and then the JP only continuation anime The Headmasters came out before the movie was dubbed into Japanese and shown. this created some continuity errors, namely: famously, fuckton of characters gruesomely die on screen in the movie, and some were shown as alive in the JP G1 stuff. for our purposes, the important thing is that this includes prowl. which, on the one hand, massive continuity errors are par for the course in G1, because it's a very silly 80s cartoon. but as time went on and JP continued to produce more and more G1 stuff well past it ending in the US, it wound up becoming a lot more complex and interconnected than the English language continuity ever was, and also a bunch of nerds started caring about all this dumb nonsense. (this is self-directed.)

(EDIT: I have been reminded the below all refers specifically to transmetals II beast wars prowl- i added an explanation at the end as to why that is.)

jump ahead a few years. beast wars comes out. the important part here isn't anything in the actual show, but is instead the "expanded" lore provided by the bios in the toyline. a couple of names from G1 characters were re-used for "new" characters in the toyline, to e.g. extend copyright protection on the names for Hasbro. however, at this point in the brand's history, Hasbro has still never actually "rebooted" transformers- they re-imagined it, but BW is set in vaguely the G1 continuity, albeit nobody really cared about the details and making it line up perfectly. later on (like, way later on, in the 2000s), there would be material that dealt with the fact that a bunch of names that definitely belong to characters that already exist in this continuity are now given to unrelated toys by suggesting they were just really old autobots who survived into the later BW time period and got reformats. this is what happens with BW ravage, famously, since he shows up on the actual show, so this became the standard explanation slash fanwank. and even at the time, this was a pretty common assumption apparently, since no other explanation was given.

but prowl, in western G1 continuity, is dead! they got around THAT and made his bio say that he has a vague sense that "in a past life" he used to be a bigshot tactician. beast wars is the show that introduced sparks and the afterspark, so like, whatever, that's a cheeky continuity nod, fun for the fans, etc. so it stays just like that, a weird little joke on a toyline-only character's bio. 'look, this new Prowl character might be vaguely connected to that G1 guy you remember, cool, huh?'

THEN. we get to 2000-2001. Car Robots, the first Japanese produced Transformers show since the 80s/90s G1 continuations ended, is made. this is the show that is later imported by Hasbro on the cheap and dubbed into English to fill a one year gap in their toyline, when it became Robots in Disguise, aka RiD01. in English, this is the first ever Transformers reboot, taking place in a fully new continuity with a new version of e.g. Optimus Prime. in the Japanese original, it's... a little more complicated. the main character is actually another dude who just looks like OP, and while it's in a totally different style and doesn't REALLY make any sense as a part of G1, it's not explicitly stated that it's a reboot.

spoiler alert: for some insane reason, Takara did indeed later decide it was not a reboot. (OK, that's slightly unfair. CR does actually use some concepts from JP only G1 stuff that western audiences don't necessarily tend to notice, apparently.) Car Robots is not in the same continuity as RiD01, it's a part of the G1 timeline over there. for the record, here is an incomplete map of the G1 JP continuity:

this is years out of date now, btw. but i wanted to show you all what we're working with here. ANYWAY.

one of the characters in this show, in both versions, is Prowl. in RiD01, this is fine, he's just the new continuity's Prowl. in regards specifically to Car Robots, however, this is now once again a continuity error.

which is probably about where this weird plot hole would have stayed, if not for the fact that for NO REASON ANYONE CAN DISCERN, a random toy released for this character in the RiD01 toyline was called. Prowl 2. like that's his name. on the box. just. Prowl 2. prowl two: the sequel. he doesn't have a bio. no reason given for this, nobody has a clue how it happened.

he was also a US-only toy, so this was mostly also just an oddity that would have stayed unimportant... if not for the fact that in 2005, the collector toyline Binaltech had fiction (not the toy itself) used this weird one-off probably-an-error US toy name for its lore. the toy ITSELF is just called 'prowl', but the actual story...

being an adult-oriented collectors line in a pre-bayverse era, binaltech didn't get a fully realised fiction tie in like we tend to see now with e.g. the WFC netflix show. but it had *some* fiction in Japan, through little bits of the story being included with each toy alongside the standard toy bios, and this was ALSO part of the G1 continuity. so now Prowl 2 is in Japanese G1 as a canonical character, instead of being exclusively a weird US-only name in a different universe, or whatever. and the story is... uh... okay. i literally can't summarise this. basically it involves the creation of a split universe timeline that is linked to Beast Wars Ravage surviving and then time travelling, and it results in G1 Wheeljack finding out in advance that Prowl is gonna die, so he tries to create like, a clone that he can move Prowl's spark to after he's destroyed to save him? chip chase is also there. it doesn't work but his personality is still copied to the new body. chip's lifeforce is used to make him come to life so i guess that's weird. in fiction, this is Prowl 2. he's literally a failed clone of Prowl. i think at some point they find OG prowl's spark and it replaces... you know i really don't understand this part. at some point. a guy called prowl is alive. idk man. (did they just kill prowl 2 or something, this is the impression i get???)

...AND THEN the end of binaltech makes it all non-canon because it branches into an alternate universe timeline at the last second so this doesn't even FIX ANYTHING. this is about the part you're legally obligated to lose your mind, i think. so post-movie inexplicably alive G1 prowl is not prowl 2, but prowl 2 is now a character in an alternate universe version of japanese g1. also btw the characters in the new alternate universe develop dimension hopping and sometimes show up in the regular universe eventually. canon is an abyss and i am falling into madness.

and then. finally. a decade later. we have the solution to this, which came from a fucking facebook post. i've explained everything in excruciating detail for no real reason SO far, so may as well explain about Ask Vector Prime even though i'm pretty sure most folks do know about that. just in case anyone doesn't: AVP was a facebook feature, endorsed by Hasbro and considered canon, run by a bunch of reeeeal big fans (think 'the people who wrote like half of tfwiki' level of nerds here) where you could submit the kind of incredibly dumb pedantic nerd questions that I promise you I also inexplicably care about, this is a self roast- and they'd answer them and the answers were canonically factual, hasbro endorsed, 100% true. (this makes it sound like AVP is insufferable nerd bullshit, but to be clear, it's not. it's fun and silly and written by self-aware people who want to enjoy the franchise, and i highly recommend reading the archive some time if you haven't; the whole thing is archived on tfwiki.)

in 2015, they reached out to the guy who wrote the aforementioned binaltech fiction, with the hope of collaborating with him to clear up some stuff that had never been reconciled within the canon itself. chief amongst this was that they asked if he would provide them with an explanation, finally, that made the Prowl 2 stuff make sense. and... he did! he sent them across some stuff they used to create a retcon that basically ironed the whole thing out once and for all. from tfwiki:

"When Prowl and Wheeljack traveled from BT World to OG World and subsequently took up permanent residence in the latter dimension, they transferred their sparks into new, non-Binaltech bodies, leaving the old bodies in storage. Years later, when the elderly Chip Chase fell ill, Wheeljack remembered the time his essence had powered Prowl's Binaltech body back in Wheeljack's home universe, and repeated the process using the Cortexitron and Prowl's Alpha BT unit in hopes of preserving Chip's lifeforce. Unfortunately, the process was not entirely successful, and the new Chip/Prowl fusion was put into stasis until eventually, Maximal technology enabled it to be reactivated. Some memories were lost, but Prowl II was once again alive."

translation: prowl went from the new alternate dimension to the original one after a while. he changed his weird alternate universe clone body for a regular cybertronian frame. i think this is the original prowl in prowl 2's body. then when chip was gonna die wheeljack tried to use prowl 2's original clone body to mad science their way out of it, failed, and they were fused(?) and in stasis for millenia until beast wars era technology was able to revive him/them, and he became a maximal. at some point he reformats into an owl, i guess. also this is definitely prowl 2 and not OG prowl.

so beast wars prowl is, canonically: the failed attempt to save the life G1 prowl after BW Ravage time travels and alters the timeline, which still resulted in an identical copy/clone of him called Prowl 2, who wound up in a split timeline alternate universe but who eventually made his way back to regular G1 continuity after being replaced with OG Prowl, where he is essentially any version of Prowl seen in G1 fiction that occurs after he's supposed to have died in the movie, who is then in a coma for ages while his brain is merged with chip chase's after a failed experiment, who is woken up in beast war times by the BW characters and turned into an owl furry, and also by that point he's Prowl 2 again.

note that while JP G1 is not generally considered obligatory for western G1 cartoon canon, it's also like, not really contradictory. so for all intents and purposes this is just... true everywhere BW Prowl exists, even if it's not liable to come up outside Japan.

bonus: there's one ambiguous and two unambiguous references to this prowl in IDW, which comprise three seperate characters. one is the "other prowl" who is "a predabot" that Skids references in Shadowplay. this one is maybe not a deliberate reference, but "predabot" seems to have been derived from "predacon", and "beastformers prowl" is at least a POSSIBLE sly reference to BW prowl, and people have speculated it was a nod. but even without that one (and when Milne draws him a cameo, he makes him a lion alt, so eh), there's still TWO. one is that one of Tarantulas' chimeracons in SotW is BW!prowl. (he dies at the end of SotW.) the other is that when in TAAO they go to the beastformer colony, Eukaris, BW!prowl is also THERE, and so it's definitely a different character.

EDIT: the reason i thought of the first one as a reference is because i forgot the following.

yeah, there's also another unrelated BW prowl who only exists as a single toy and doesn't even have a bio. jesus christ.

lmao. god. transformers is so dumb. i love it. i hate it. help me.

[imustbenuts]

hiii okay! i have, in fact, been following the manga and read it all the way until the end. im able to follow the convo, but honestly i havent took the time to process fully what its all about. might be missing some stuff. (ill leave a tl;dr at the bottom if anyone wants to mentally check out real quick at any point)

that said! yeah i think when we put together all the biggest driving plot points of jjk's motivation factor as a Jump manga its about breaking the cycle of suffering. dying a good death by living a good life, stopping more suffering, being affected by existing bullshit and then deciding to perpetuate it or not -- all these are in the work itself.

for the sake of not over inflating stuff i think ill start yapping about the more Shinto side of things relevant to jjk's themes. (buddhism is there but not relevant. too long)

Shinto is the native religion of Japan. again, its whole thing is about appeasing the spirits and nature through rituals. while this religion seems almost shamanistic, its so important that the royal family of japan claims to be a descendant from one of the Big Shinto Gods. the first Emperor of japan according to lore. this was Emperor Jinmu, a child of Amateratsu the goddess of the sun, who then descended from Izanagi, who himself and his twin and wife Izanami was popped into existence from a void soup.

Shinto was so important that Shinto Priests were paid to do rituals in governance. what some in anglo speaking sphere will call witchcraft they call practicality.

so, this means in jjk, the Jujutsu Society in times of old may as well have been these Shinto Priests and Priestress. Shrine Maidens/Miko. with their ritual song and dance. like Utahime, whose name can be directly translated into Princess Of Songs.

now again since Gege uses everything BUT apply the word of Kegare to build his world, i think he wants to avoid a 1:1 of Curse Users = Shinto bc simply, that road is paved in Rigid Hierarchical Rightism Hell.

let me try to explain.

(take a break if you have to im going into the reeds @_@)

in order to solidify the rule of the Emperor, shintoism was overwhelmingly used as a rhetoric to get people to submit to the Emperor, and build the understanding of society and world as a whole. jp language has a hierarchical quirk built into it not by total accident. Caste System was used alongside all of these too, even if the clear order may have shifted throughout history.

even if at one point, the Shogunate actually overthrew the Emperor and effectively became king. this was 1185-1868. during which the Emperor was basically a well kept pet in the background. and also, the Caste System went from some social mobility to almost none at all. and oh so many wars oh my godddddd

this was also when lots of people who did society's death related jobs fell through the caste so hard society wants to treat them like they dont even exist. (burakumins)

all of these are to say that there is a rigid social order. and when there is one so rigid, abuse naturally follows. and when you go way overboard.... and when the outside world comes knocking... and when civil war keeps happening... well...

we get the hyper imperialistic, racist, fascist japan of ww2. complicit in damn near genocide with conquering and forcing the oppressed to speak JP and change their names to JP. (tho this has been happening natively in japan itself with tribes of yore. the Ainus are one such group.)

"expel the barbarians (foreigners), revel the emperor". its a rabbit hole and... i need to move on.

so all of these to say that certain aspects of Shinto can be really dangerous to put into a work. there exists a certain amount of aversion to loudly declare and portray shintoism in full because of all that ww2 baggage. at best.

at worst, it can become a neo-imperialistic dog whistle. and we dont need that. jjk doesnt need that.

back to jjk

so all of the above is to say that, yeah, jjk is very much about trying to break the cycle. with the context of knowing how long 1 potential cycle has been, with sukuna's existence as an indicator being 1000 years, and you can see all of the above are quite relevant in tone.

that 1000 years coincides with the whole shogunate thing too.

gojo, a millennial possibly, wanting to break this hierarchical traditionalist structure that perpetuates more victims is very understandable. but in the ending of jjk, he doesnt seem like he manages to fully accomplish his goal of breaking the cycle, only improve it by wrenching open a path for the next gen to tread.

in fact, gojo cant even defeat the reality of a 1000 year history on his own. he needs help from the next gen and even guys from overseas to help take him down. (thereby saying fuck racism in shinto context)

and in the ending, this 1000 year walking history says "you know what, maybe i was wrong. maybe i should do something different".

and its why in the ending yuji has this scene

TL;DR

so what im putting forth here is this.

jjk is very much a call to look at japan's past in the eye and choose a different path. to break the cycle of suffering as an individual even if they must live under some nonsensical system. that the new must take over the old and having the old latch on too long isnt a good thing in the long run (kinda a buddhist thing lowkey)

anyway

id like to hear about geto if you feel up for it...! geto and gojo are such fascinating characters even if my favorite is yuji sadfads

This post by @imustbenuts got me thinking about death and its relation to bad energy that attracts misfortune and evil spirits, and how that seems to also show up in Jujutsu Kaisen.

This is present from the very beginning of the story, as Yuuji's introduction to Jujutsu Society is enmired in death. Of course, there's the bit where he consumes Sukuna's mummified finger, but bookending that on either side, we have Yuuji's grandfather's death. His grandfather kicks the bucket before everything with the finger goes down, and it's right after that when he meets Megumi. That's really where his path starts. If he hadn't met Megumi, he would have never found out about the finger, or about the danger the other members of the Occult Club were in. They likely would have all been killed by the cursed spirit, and while Yuuji would have been drowning in grief, he'd likely be none the wiser about all the crazy spirit stuff going on.

But instead, Yuuji meets Megumi before he's even left the hospital.

And because of his grandfather's final words to him, Yuji feels compelled to try and help, even after Megumi warns him how dangerous it might be.

His inevitable flow from that point to swallowing the finger (and surviving) is enough to get him the attention of Jujutsu Society, but that's really just the first step. They don't accept him, and it's only the intervention of Gojo that gets him a postponement on his execution.

But even after intervening, Gojo puts Yuuji to the test. He doesn't do it at the school or on some sort of neutral grounds. He doesn't wait for Yuuji to enroll and then see how he does on his first mission the way he does with Yuuta. Instead, Gojo accompanies Yuuji as Yuuji goes to take care of his grandfather's cremated remains. He answers Yuuji's questions and gives him a very straightforward picture of the sheer amount of death Yuuji's going to be dealing with.

In the manga, the whole conversation and Yuuji's acceptance of this path takes place outside the crematorium. In the anime, they take it one step further, and have Yuuji decide to consume the second finger and officially begin his path into Jujutsu Society as a punctuation to Yuuji performing the final care for his grandfather's remains. We literally get to see him picking his grandfather's bones out of the ash and carefully placing them into an urn.

When that urn is finally closed, he asks Gojo about the finger, then consumes it, accepting a path full of bad energy and misfortune as his own.

But the idea of Jujutsu Society being associated with bad energy isn't simply used as imagery around the beginning of Yuuji's journey. It comes up multiple times in the story, and it's not exactly subtle. Jujutsu sorcery is performed by channeling negative energy and using it to combat, restrain, and/or destroy the spirits that have arisen due to a concentration of it. I'm curious now if the words used for cursed energy in the Japanese correlate with the Shinto concept of kegare. After all, it would hardly be the only Shinto concept referenced in the series.

[merakiui]

Btw love the new theme, in ur vampire palette era I see, very nice!

So a friend started playing eng twst and I was watching them go through cards and the story, and while I noticed some differences from the fan translations, I’m acc impressed by some of the smart/cool references they made in the eng trnaslations. Like when u groovy Ace’s dorm uniform card he says “Your ace in the hole is the Ace of hearts”. Most fan translations have it as “my winning trump card is the ace of hearts”, so at first I thought that the eng translation worded it bit funny but didn’t think much of it, (I’m used to having en translations of jp content worded funny), since it was able to get the meaning across: a pun on his name as he was referring himself to an “ace up your sleeve”. But I got curious and this man(Ace) made me do research and I was pleasantly surprised on how much more depth/detail the eng translation has for Ace’s groovy(fication). It’s a reference to poker; in poker, an ace in the hole is an advantage that is reserved to use for a strategic moment against ur opponent (which is pretty close to my initial guess as an “ace up you sleeve”). Also, in jp they refer to the Ace Deuce combo as Adeuce, while in en they’re referred to as hunting season instead. Apparently, this is bc in poker, Aces r known as bullets and twos (Deuces) are known as ducks, hence hunting season. Like that amount of detail, I have to applaud the translation team for those little bits of trivia in those lines.

Thank you!! I like the colors and the bats are cute to look at. :D

Some of the translations are actually really clever! I thought it was interesting that they chose to call Adeuce Hunting Season based on poker. It’s a funny line that makes sense when you look into the context, so it isn’t as if it’s completely random. As silly as the translations can be at times, I will admit that it’s very enjoyable to read and some of the lines are surprisingly brilliant.

[imustbenuts]

Kiran is luck itself Part 2. Brief analysis of the absent mechanics in FEH.

If you’ve read part 1, welcome back. If not, here’s a brief ramble about the Luck stat in FE and its absence in FEH anyway. Stat mechanics ramble.

Luck stat in FE outside of FEH is actually a gainable stat when characters level up, but is not present in FEH. And neither is the Dex stat, but I’ll talk about this later. 

Overall, luck is… not really an important stat, but it kind of is, too. It doesn’t give a unit a tremendous consistent edge enough to fuss over it, but it does mess with 4 things significantly. These 4 things are:

Hit rate

Critical hit rate (Receiving and inflicting)

Avoid (magical evasion)

Dodge (physical evasion)

Luck also affects certain skill’s % to trigger such as Miracle and Armsthrift. 

An example from FE: Three Houses

According to fandom.com, luck in most games will increase both hit and evasion by 1 point, and reduce enemy crits by 1. But if one looks closely at how the formulas work, stats like Atk/Mag/Spd are far more important in determining the ceiling of how hard a unit can hit, which thus determines how viable they can be in a playthrough. Having a high luck character with meh stats isn't great since they tend to fall behind a lot due to inconsistent RNG, or unreliability.

So overall Luck can be overall summed up as the most useless-useful stat. It's just… better to be there and not be abysmally low, basically.

Another important stat for this topic is the Dex stat. This stat affects hit rate and crits chance. This stat is named 技 (waza, Skill) in JP, which is very apt. No matter how lucky a person is, if they can’t even draw their bow they are not going to get very far.

So. That’s like 250 words to explain 2 stats which doesn’t exist in FEH. And I think I’m being Captain Obvious here, but that’s because… Having dex and luck is going to add a layer of complexity that ultimately wastes the player’s time for what amounts to a F2P predatory gacha game.

….

Oh wait that’s not it. Wrong script. (Who says that when they’re over analyzing a F2P gacha game anyway, looool)

I mean, for my analysis about Kiran’s luck, their luck here is clocking so high that things like hit rates, dodging, crits, and skill procs become consistent rather than random RNG. It's overwritten all units' luck. It’s so high that, while having proficiency and skill in the use of a weapon is ideal, it’s not critical for survival under the OoH’s banner. It’s so high that heroes can feasibly walk into a battlefield in swimsuits and floaties and yet beat the shit out of enemies and walk away with a ‘teehee’. 

It’s so high that the game doesn’t even bother with logging the stats for our use. That skills which might only proc once in someone’s playthrough can now be consistently proc’d in 4 hits. Or less with skills.

But that luck still has its limits. 0 damage is still 0 damage and no luck can salvage that. 

I think this is why the writing in FEH gives the braincells to Alfonse and not Kiran. Rather than the tactician going "let's go to the ancient temple for a mcguffin", it's the lord, Alfonse who does it. Kiran tags along like 3 lucky cats in a trenchcoat in stories, and seem to rarely do anything by themself, which may imply that they’re keeping their head low which helps hold back the effects of that luck. (And subsequently limit the fate breaking aspect of it all)

(There’s also a common Japanese saying of, “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down”, so there’s some degree of characterization possibly going on in the main story here, but that’s not the point of this analysis.)

In my part 1, I gave a very very brief overview about their luck being present in the story, but those points aren’t the entirety of it. I left out a lot of stuff to not inflate the words. I hope people apply this theory for funsies and see how deep this could potentially go. Bc it really goes.

Anway, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading!

[cielospeaks]

thoughts on f-h 9/2021 update

the good: sumo rinka and mordecai! oh my gosh words cannot describe how glad i am that theyre the free ones! sumordy is the cutest and most wholesome, the fact his voice lines are that he likes sumo bc its a nonlethal way of fighting are the most wholesome thing ever. best boy. i also love that he seems to do a sumo pose as his untransformed battle pose. best boy. and rinka as the oni chief class(?) is amazing! its cool that they show more flame tribe specific outfits since rinka is the only flame tribe character in 14 (ppl were complaining abt the twins and their dad being the only ice tribe and the others being generic models, but the same is true for rinka? idk. the fans act weird abt the japan inspired classes :/ ) but anyways i love her outfit and design! i love that she has the sumo referee fan thing as her weapon also! and thanks for being 4 star pls come home. also the tana and peo convo was actually really wholesome and as i was hoping, compared both of them having protective older siblings (and again soft confirmed peo and tri are sisters, which im still salty that the book 4 story ditched for the sake of the abusive gaslighting “parents” of the fairies’ story and the stupid askr royals storyline)

the not so good: at worst the storyline of tt is really not appealing to me but its b3 and you knew it was coming, what with the story only having the ubw ripoffs of the main story characters besides eir and hel. its cool that the new character is being brought up to be a competent ruler and i kinda get her beef with eir (but cmon the girl only was ever show not-torture by the people who took her as a war prisoner and manipulated her and now treat her like a pet do you really expect her to do anything else) but i feel like theyll just be killed off/vilified for no reason in order to boost up “askr is so perfect and wonderful and flawless uwu and anyone who opposes them bad”

the as of now??????: puts on conspiracy theory hat. so ok i saw a theory that this lif isnt ubw ripoff bad character but actually the real historical lif. the fact he doesnt sound like a guilt tripping sack of shit in his jp voicelines seems to support that (the eng voice is just regular angry/edgy in both), as well as that askr (the character) mentioned him in the main story recently, and that he doesnt give eir a fucking guilt trip when he meets her in the story. however, a lot of ppl are turned on by bad ubw ripoff character and his ingame code is “lif 2″ so more than likely its the fucking asshole i know and dont like. but hey. wait until his epiteth to judge him. if hes historical lif and hes not a fucking tool i might actually even roll for him in his banner.

what about conspiracy theory and ocs?: so ofc this begs the question: what abt alcinous if the conspiracy theory is true? alcinous, the mysterious man in the “castle beyond memory”, is actually the true founder of askr, High King Lif, but due to being betrayed, usurped, and banished, he goes by his middle name now. well, i actually worked this out when askr started exposition dumping abt historical lif. so Alcinous (who ill call that for easiness’ sake) is betrayed, and a few generations later the “ancient Askr” becomes the Askr of the main series due to the descendant of the usurpers making a contract with the dragon (bull?) and becoming the first king. tbh that makes more sense bc the only relationship i could see alcinous having with askr is him being a total doormat and letting himself be walked on, and having it assumed that theyre best buds (which would parallel ichihara as the summoner, and add to the alcinous + ichihara similarities)

another note abt this is that the fact that these characters get ascendants makes me happy since it means theres a chance tri and plumie can get ascendants in next yrs story. plumie i love and i love the not fully formed idea i have abt plumie betrayal arc (and ursula betrayal/going solo arc that i really hope she gets an ascendant, but thats also partly bc memes), but tri really deserved it as she got super screwed over in literally everything, from being released as a pawn of her abusive manipulative “mother” to being treated like an unstable killer (she killed her and peo’s abusive parents in self defense since they wouldve killed peo if she didnt for fucks sake this is worse than the otr nonsense tbh) and she deserves the good content, even if the game doesnt give it to her. im glad at least tri came home during the leg banner

[crowreans]

trails in the sky - kevin i love kevin so much hes my guy of all time while im hyperfixating. i already know all that happens in the 3rd but im running through it myself just to get all of the achievements and i cant wait to put him in the deepest part of the therapy box again and shake it violently. i love his self-loathing and mental issues and guilt its like looking in a mirror. i love the complete switch that he had at the end of sc. i love how his "weird way of talking" is the kansai dialect in the japanese version. i love how he still just feels like a complete dork despite everything. i want his gender and the way he talks in both en and jp and his personality. hyperfixation to the highest degree. i should write him. i should learn kansaiben.

trails of cold steel - (has only played through cs2) crow :) i like to pretend i hate him for stealing my name but im enamored with him. i wont give explicit spoilers bc i have friends following this blog that im trying to drag into trails but he was so right at the end of cs1. he should do it again

ys - geis hes so funny to me. in one game he goes from "stay away from all of this and mind your business" to "youre the only one that can help us all" in the span of like three conversations. im so obsessed with him. i should go back to ys 7 just so i can see him again

the world ends with you - i like rhyme a lot. it seems like she gets put to the side a lot which makes sense since she had so little screen time in the first game but shes my daughter. to me

rune factory - kiel !! hes so little i want to hug and squish him so bad i like how gullible he is and how much he spreads rumors and its not even malicious or on purpose. i married him on my second rf4 playthough and hes my favorite in my little comfort therapy game

.hack// - silabus is my favorite. in the whole series. dudes like the nicest dorkiest guy ever. he gives me dopamine and i wish he didnt get set to the side as g.u. went on. i could only ever dream of being this nice and friendly and dependable but unfortunately rabid and unhinged and weird fits my personality way more. i still want his gender

hi-fi rush - korsika shes so cool dude. i play it in japanese sometimes and her boss fight singlehandedly got me into actually parrying. but also i would totally let her kill me

samurai warriors - hanbei was my favorite since like day 1 since i pretty much immediately mained him. i like how hes a really formidable strategist but he just drags his feet and wants to be lazy all day every day. me too my guy. massive L to his irl counterpart tho

disgaea - christo ! disgaea isnt really known for anything like Top Tier Storytelling or Character Development but well. i like how hes a horrible liar and manipulator but winds up helping the rest of the party despite them being demons and him being an angel. d5 is also my disgaea game of Ever since the ones after that are. not great

your turn to die - keijis probably one of the more interesting characters ive seen out of a rpgmaker game. he gets so close and pushes everyone else to put their trust in sara but it takes nearly the entire game for him to say a single word about himself but he Still has things he could be hiding. hes so interesting to me i want his life story

Tagged by @g1ngerbeer 10 fandoms/10 characters/10 tags ok let's see if I'm doing this right yeehaw

Trails of Cold Steel - ITS SO HARD TO PICK JUST ONE but well if I have to its gotta be Rean. The guy ever. He's done absolutely nothing wrong and the universe hates him. I love him sm. Shakes him in a snowglobe.

Star Wars - Anakin is the problematic fav ever. He's just the worst. God awful. King of bad decisions making. Virtually a demigod but is exceptionally stupid about it. Icon.

Splatoon - Does Captain 3 count. The fucking, faceplanting after doing something cool. The Booyah. The peace sign. They're so funny.

Monster Hunter - I LOVE UTSUSHI he's just so funny. Uses the word bodacious unironically. His pupil's No. 1 fan. He sparks joy your honor.

The Magnus Archives - Jon is so poor little meow meow. Just, so meow meow. Incredible character arc of bastard to pathetic to soft marshmallow with god powers and a martyr complex. Immaculate.

Legend of Zelda - Every single iteration of Impa is the GOAT. Guardian, protector, friend, she's got it all. BIG fan of Skyward Sword and Hyrule Warriors iterations specifically.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - YJH IS SO. Local man having depression and mental illness due to regression, and then some asshole comes around and throws approximately 50 wrenches into his plans. Unfortunately, he becomes immensely attached to said asshole. His life is a nightmare and it's funny to watch.

Pokémon - N Harmonia was baby's first blorbo and I miss him sm. We love a cult survivor learning about how the world actually works, good for him.

Percy Jackson - SPECIFICALLY the Lightning Thief Musical especially the production I watched understands Luke Castellan better than anyone ever will and I am spinning it in my head all the time

Fantasy Life - Yuelia my daughter light of my life dearly beloved she's an angel she's grace she's done nothing ever wrong and I would die for her

Ok ok can I tag 10 people. Let's see. @foolsbangle @harasharaved @dracolunae @ashenknightt @the-carrotella @rosenmarille @ephemeralcemsilee @crowreans @charxan @kulvefaggoth

[deansmultitudes]

thanks for being against this and being mad at Jensen. the delusion at the idea that it's not going to romanticize and whitewash his abusive parents and their terrible actions is enraging. dean girls - DEAN GIRLS - are really okay with this when it stomps even more on his life and will force him to be an apologist and will give dean cr/tical fandom even more reason to hate him? absolutely not. who the hell CARES when we know how this story ends and it's with their sons dead/suffering for NOTHING

Know what, Nonny, I drafted this response before going to be at 7am as not to post something I’d regret, woke up quickly with a thought, why be mad at a real person for a fictional story. And then it hit me again that jensen will make dean whitewash his abuser and tell his love story. And I’m fucking mad again, so here we go, under the cut because it got long:

Let me preface this by saying that this isn't meant as hate on jensen. I'm angry at him for this specific thing, I'm disappinted that he's doing dean this fucking dirty and i'm fucking tired.

I also don't want this to be an attack on dean girls, we've all been through too much and we're all trying to deal with the crap we've been handed, in our own ways

But if any dean girls want to explain to me how exactly is this supposed to be good or at least not insulting, I'd love to discuss

Frankly, it feels like, at least among the dean/jensen girls, jp*d accidentaly did jensen a favor, because when you're protective of him there's just this snap in your head and you're all ready to defend him against jp*d fans lmao. Trust me, I felt it too

For real though, the things moved pretty quickly from the anger to lolz at the twitter drama and now that that's over we're gonna be left to stew in it so we'll see how that's gonna go. (actually I really hate that the drama derailed the anger)

But yeah, agreed, I don't see how there's anything to defend here. firstly J*hn and M*ry simply shouldn't get to have their story told especially since we already know the story! what the fuck is there left to say that isn't seven retcons wrapped in a burrito or whatever else crap that'll be showing how awesome they were? Some new freaking mythology shoehorned just for the sake of keeping milking it, that doesn't make any sense in the universe? Oh well, guess that's spn's middle name.

But no matter what they do, here's the thing:

Abusers don't fucking deserve to have their story told, I don't give a flying fuck how fucking wonderful he used to be. Oh yeah he was nice and lovely and believed in good even after war, and he loved mary and was so cute, basically a puppy yadda yadda. I don't care. He lost that fucking right when he started turning his sons into soldiers, leaving them alone in crappy motel rooms, using them as fucking bait for monsters (just to mention a few)

And they especially don’t deserve to have it told by the child they abused when said child can’t even fucking say a bad word about them because this isn’t about him.

And there’s a big difference between the complicated emotions Dean might have for Dean, both hating him and loving him because he’s his dad, and the entire freaking show about the good guy young j*hn winchester.

And as amazing as Dean is, he’s not gonna be the narrator this story would deserve bc he’s not gonna serve us takes like “aw how cute my dad is making PB&J. when I was 14 16 he said I can rot in jail for stealing peanut butter to feed sammy.”

We ALREADY fucking saw Dean forgiving john without john doing anything to deserve it because he's d*bbs fave or some shit. was saw dean drink his fucking crappy beer and smiling and we narrowly missed dean and j*hn hugging it out at the roadhouse. i don't fucking wanna hear dean say it was a tragedy that changed him and its not j*hns fault :(((((( or whatever else fucking apologia we're gonna hear from him like none of this fucking mattered. dean's already been tossed to trash by the finale, what's the difference i guess, might as well move the whole bin into the trash compactor

(actually now that I think about it john ended up having a redemption arc that was entirely dean’s emotional labor over 15 years, while john was dead lmao. just because dean made peace with his life doesn’t excuse john one fucking bit)

or well, since it's a spin off about j&m is there even gonna be so much as a mention of how fucking awful they will be in the future? will the people who tune in just for TW (oh lmao nice acronym. TW on the CW, cool) without watching spn even realize they're watching a show about a future child abuser or are they just  gonna fall in love with a cute matt c*hen look-alike, this sweet guy who loves mary so much OTP OTP OTP #relationshipgoals???

And as for Mary, what she used to be like before dean was born doesn't change anything of what she did to dean, the way she never tried to get to know him and took every possible chance to put as many miles between her and her sons as possible. Thanks to amara's little test, that ship has sailed

Like I'm really trying to look at this having put away the hurt and disappointment I feel now that the hope of jensen giving Dean his life back is gone. Because sure I'd feel it whatever other story jensen would decide to tell. But any other story wouldn't be a deadseaful of salt on that wound.

Or hey maybe it is some sort of a cruel twisted chance at closure if in the last 2 days I went from "let him live again one day" to "please, just let him rest in peace. Leave him out of this if you have to do this crap, please." This is so fucking insulting to dean and it just makes his death so much worse. I don't fucking want a constant reminder that he's eating lasagna with that fucker like it's a picture perfect family in a tv commercial. While still being dead. I don't want him to be telling a love story if he never got to and never will live through one*

*I'm not counting cassie bc it was so short it was barely a story and according to jensen lisa doesn't count either

But to the point. I think there is a solid line between not shitting on jensen and being able to criticize this project. You don't have to praise it just because jensen is making it. dean and jensen girls would not be trying to excuse it if it was jp*ds or d*bbs or whoever the fuck else's. why should it get a pass just because it's jensen's?

I for one am so fucking disappointed that jensen would throw Dean under the bus like this, and for what? Because I'm really not seeing any love here. I don't know, maybe he's lived with dean's death for so much longer that he's desensitized. he's moved on to better things, dean's not that important, he's just a tool to tell this story that will allow jensen to be in it

Funny, I always thought jensen was one of those who recognized j*hn was awful and that he fucked dean up. for fuck's sake he was the one who headcanoned that dean turned tricks in his youth because j*hn left them without money for food. But what do I know, I never really kept track of what the cast said except for these last year and a half, maybe he’s always thought the guy was awesome and misunderstood.

but hey, he's a rich guy with the rights to the universe and the means to do whatever he likes with them and this is what he chose to do with them, which makes things very clear. From his perspective things are mighty different than from where we're standing.

By the way I really hope they actually expected the backlash. Otherwise, if jensen and danneel thought the show's fans were gonna be happy about it meant they had to be living under some fucking rock at the bottom of the marianas trench or never cared about how the fandom feels. I don't see any other option here. well besides the obvious one.

Or maybe they're just really filled with so much hubris they think they can actually make a show about two most hated characters from the og show a hit. or that a slapped on voiceover by a beloved and still grieved character will be enough for that the way jp*d is enough to have his fans keep w*lker afloat. Or hey maybe they'll just gonna market it to the riverdale and legacies audience who won't even fucking know this shouldn't be a cutesy teenage love affair with some monsters

I know it was so, so easy to fall for “my first love”, “my best imaginary friend” and “he’s not going anywhere, I got him”. I mean, how could we not? We love Dean so much we wanted to believe jensen feels the same way. But in the end, for jensen, dean is a character he played on tv, and that’s all, he couldn’t possibly feel about him the same way we do. And we gotta remind ourselves that he loved the finale, said that it was an awesome way to end the show and that snuffing dean was the right thing to do. He and j*red practically rewrote that entire deathbed dialogue and added the ak/f crap. He said Dean’s ending was satisfying. Why would he ever try to destroy an ending that great?

I just wish he never teased us with the possibility of dean getting his life back on that panel

However we thought jensen feels about dean or his parents or any of it is just our projecting, so i guess the fault is just mine that I'm disappointed. damn I really screwed up that no parasocializing part didn't I?

Sorry this got so off-topic. I’m furious and no amount of rambling about it will help.

Fuck, I still can’t believe he and danneel are fucking doing this

“who the hell CARES when we know how this story ends and it's with their sons dead/suffering for NOTHING”

amen

[cosmosrival]

👀 Does Kama like to peg Ash? 👀

u know what... ? u know what ?

KamAsh headcanons (AND NSFW HEADCANONS) time!!!!!! i don’t care anymore i had fun writing the kama*master ones 

so have these !!!!! might also become a character analysis and trivia because i cannot stay consistent when im talking about them !!!!

reminder bfore i start: ITS FINAL ASCENSION KAMA. NOT THE OTHERS. 

ok we’re good now

i think kama tops by default in every relationship they’re in, but their true strength resides in the fact that they are vers. and i believe that ash is ALSO vers. because flustered kama is a luxury and super cute and delicious and BECAUSE YOU WOULDNT LET YOUR GOD OF LOVE TOP YOU ???? ARE YOU SURE ??? YOU WOULDNT LET URSELF BE PAMPERED BY UR GOD ? ARE U REALLY SURE ?

ash is very cute because he’s gap moe, his respect for parvati shows that he’s not just a rage machine and can very much think normally like ur regular gold hearted delinquent anime boy !!!! god i Love him... anyway, i think he respects kama enough to look out for them and worship them like a proper God!! i believe that ash would call kama things like ‘your divinity’, ‘your grace’ (and if u have some jp knowledge, i think he’d add “-sama” to their name) because they... are god? (i think arjuna and karna also call them like this !! polite mahabharatan warriors are good boys)

since ash never married in the epic, i like to think that it’s because he was very much focused on his duty and ALSO because his participation in the war was out of loyalty towards king dhritarashtra and hastinapur so he was... perhaps planning on getting married once the war Ends ??? HE WAS OUT THERE FIGHTING !!!!!!! but we all know what happened to him (sheds a tear) 

anyway i think he’d be a bit of a masochist. (the room falls silent and you all look at me)

SORRY THAT WAS VERY HARDCORE ALL OF A SUDDEN but hear me out, FIRST OF ALL this man was able to endure an immortality curse until lord krishna eventually decided to free him so he’d join the throne and SECOND OF ALL, in his interlude he speaks of looking for ways to repent because he regrets what he’s done. and since we’re kinky over here, i’m gonna throw gentle femdom in the mix bc i think it fits them and its cute. especially because kama is literally the best person he could apologize to. and the only person who’d make his repentance pleasurable (because its their mcfreakin talent !!!!!) even if it technically wasnt his fault, i think his need to atone would just... overpower that and he’ll want to do anything kama wants, just to earn a crumb of forgiveness (without being desperate about it because... HES GOT AN EGO STILL, COME ON)

i like to think that he’s tried to apologize properly before... in a tense moment when they’re both more calm and alone. but kama stopped him because it’d just make things worse. if kama loses the need to have a grudge, will they even be useful as a servant anymore ? would they forgive themself for being so lenient ? forgiving their murderer’s protégé when they havent even had proper revenge ? kamadeva might have been a benevolent god before, but now they’re a lot more malicious (mara...) and this pointless anger would just make them look like an idiot (because servant shiva doesnt exist (YET?)). and i think ashwatthama would understand. 

so he won’t say the words “i’m sorry” because it’d just hurt them. 

THO WILL HE STOP LOOKING OUT FOR THEM AND SPOILING THEM ? no he will not

kama would find him interesting because he’s perfect bullying fodder but as i said before, it doesn’t work on ash. HE’S A WARRIOR ??? A CURSED IMMORTAL ? DO U THINK THAT PETTY PRANKS LIKE THE ONES KAMA DOES WOULD AFFECT HIM ? “are you bored ?” he asks while they’re trying to surprise him from behind and jumpscare him, without even turning to face them. kama groans in defeat.

SEDUCTION DOESNT WORK ON HIM EITHER AND THATS SO FUNNY but thats where it becomes subtle, he grows attached to them because they’ve gotten used to eachother’s presence (and strength in battle... small things like that). love can be born out of simple things!! blatant bimbo seduction doesn’t work on him but when he comes to wake kama up, and they’re too lazy to get up or float and groggily order him to lean forward so they can hold onto his shoulders so he’ll lift them up when he straightens himself is...

he’d find it cute. they’re cute. when they reach the cafeteria it’s still quite early and he already knows what they like to eat and get their plate ready for them while they’re waking up and yawning. god... they’re cute... its so subtle and cute...

......ok time to be horny !!! (TOMATOES GET FLUNG AT ME)

i think that they’d reach this stage after a while, when kama just gives up on bothering him cuz he’s annoyingly strong (and ganesha is more fun to bother anyway) and since they’re around eachother very often, kama would grow comfortable around him. same for ashwatthaman ! they’re very nice to be around when they’re calm and just chillin. 

the only teasing kama hasn’t tried on him is being openly horny and come onto him, asking him things about himself. and ash revealing that he’s never done these sorts of things before (HES A LIL MAD CUZ ITS EMBARRASSING ... DAMN... !!!), i think it’d give kama ideas. I MLAUGHING TYPING THIS BC I DIDNT THINK OF HOW THEY’D COAX HIM INTO GETTING NAUGHTY YET AND IT SOUNDS LIKE A BAD PORN INTRO AHHHHHHHHHHH

ok yeah like i said i didnt think of the coaxing yet but knowing ash, kama could turn it into a competition and make fun of him a little and he’s ready to go. arrogant dummy. 

he’s polite but his arrogance is a charm point because he’ll def want to prove himself to the god of carnal love. imagine kama’s reaction when he actually outfucks them.

HONESTLY ? I BELIEVE HIS WARRIOR STAMINA WOULD JUST BE INCREASED ONCE HE BECAME A SERVANT. AND KAMA WAS NEVER A WARRIOR theyre a lavish and lazy god.

BUT THEIR EGO IS WOUNDED and their shocked reaction is cute and ash wants to keep holding them for a little longer

their sessions genuinely feel like hatefucking at first since they’re both weirdly competitive like that but then, guilt hits and kama feels like an idiot because they just came onto someone thats supposedly their enemy??? and they’re a bit distant in the aftermath, they almost... look a little shy. 

ashwatthaman isnt beating himself over it as much as they are tho. it felt good, he got to see a new side of them he never thought he’d get to see so intimately and... he outfucked God :) SO HE IS PROUD. but looking at them lying there, breathless and looking all sad worries him. so i can see him leaning forward and spooning them, holding their hand and kissing their fingers and it’s such a soft gesture, kama stutters and asks “Where.. where did you learn to do that.” and seeing their reaction, Ash blushes as well and explains that he saw his father kiss his mom’s hand once???? AND ITS... SUCH A CUTE AND OBVIOUS REASON. kama feels dumb for asking but it makes them chuckle. 

and i think seeing someone who constantly looks so tired and depressed, have a genuine little chuckle would melt ash right there. i think he’ll want to see more. 

AND FROM THAT POINT ON, i think kama would also get used to this... intimacy they start to share. when he wraps his arms around them he always hugs them in this protective way, as if he wanted to shield them from something. and when he holds them like that, they always feel the need to wrap their legs around his waist, hide their face against his neck and Allow him to cuddle them.

they both have an ego u know aha. so if u openly ask them about eachother, they’ll get embarrassed and shut u down. IT’S... IT’S NOT LIKE THAT (sweats)

it is. it is like That. 

ANYWAY THEYRE BOTH VERY VERSATILE and ash is pretty much into everything kama could teach him about. like i said earlier, he’s also fine with being manhandled, mostly the feeling of kama’s nails gently pressing against his skin, or being bit. i think he’d be into getting a lil feral.

a mutual once said that sexually liberated ashwatthama is hot as hell and i feel it in my bones.... kama coming onto him after a particularily short mission that got ash angry but not enough to let out some steam --> they get pounded into the mattress and they live for it because riling him up when he’s like that is actually really fun.

OBSESSED WITH THE BOTH OF THEM SLOWLY SEEING IT AS A GAME AFTER A WHILE... 

OH ash bottoming is also very cute. his first times would be awkward but kama is a pro at this anyways and i’m finally going to answer ur ask: YEAH HE GETS PEGGED !!!!! he finds out how excited he gets when kama calls him a good boy !!! and he never knew that he was into these sorts of things but holy shit it feels nice.

when kama gives him his first blowjob he almost loses his mind

what i really love about kama is that they can see how tense he gets, even if he’s having a great time, and i know they’d teach him how to relax. EVEN WHEN THEY’RE RIDING HIM, they’ll massage his pecs and his shoulders, set the pace and squeeze down on him just to hear him moan. stare at his surprised little face because he didn’t know he could make THAT kind of nois e ? ? ? ? ?

HE’S EMBARRASSED but he doesn’t want them to stop

OH YEAH i wanna come back on the whole masochist thing (I GET SNIPED), him getting repentance and being punished through sex is both very liberating and hot as hell, especially when it’s kama. ashwatthaman moaning ‘your divinity’ like it’s a prayer is also hot as hell !!!!!!! IDK i just think that they can both get very intense, and also last a while, until they’re thoroughly SPENT.

...and leave room for softness. kama gently brushing his wet hair behind his ear, leaving him breathless and a little shy. they then lean in to kiss him and he immediately melts into their touch. but then they bite his lip. and he ... he Likes it but he could almost pout.

time to get a little angsty (i lock gazes with you) i think that after a long while of sharing such a relationship, ash would almost say The Forbidden Words in a daze. and kama deeply kisses him so he stays quiet. and they’re just staring at eachother, until kama tells him that he’s not allowed to say it. and if he does, it’ll almost be a betrayal towards shiva AND themself. they’ve grown impossibly close but neither of them can say Those Words because they both feel like they’ll break something.

also bc they both have huge egos.

but i think that deep down they really want to say them. 

another variant of this is kama wanting to make him admit it, have him say Those Words. but because of his blessing and respect towards lord shiva, he cannot. both because of the guilt and that it’d end up feeling like a lie, even if his touches, his kisses and the way he looks at kama screams otherwise.

BUT REE WHAT ARE THE FORBIDDEN WORDS

"I Won't Say (I'm in Love)" Hercules (1997).

is this enough of a clue ;;);)););;;))))))) HAAHA

THEY HAVE SO MANY LAYERS TO THEM ITS UNREAL

anyway shower sex hot !! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

i also think that them mutually jerking eachother off is hot as all hell and ONCE AGAIN, flustered ash who doesn’t know what he’s doing (at first) is cute !!!! cute !!

ashwatthaman LEARNING from kama is also a big fave. they’re abt to bathe in kama’s luxurious bathtub they had master buy for them and they’re removing their earrings and he silently leans forward and bites their ear and suddenly their face is red. god. huge dummy god of love. i love them soooo much its unreal

THEIR DYNAMIC IS BASICALLY.. I WONT SAY IM IN LOVE but still look at eachother like they’re newlyweds everytime they get intimate and (sheds a tear) i think theyre super married

GOOD GOD .......BODY WORSHIP IS SOMETHING THEYRE BOTH HEAVILY INTO ALSO. both giving and receiving, even if kama is a lot less obvious about it and a lot more smug.

oh, i think ash would be the loudest between the two !! THIS ONE WAS OBVIOUS. hearing him like that would also coax kama into making more noise as well so its win-win 

ok to be honest i think i should draw porn of them being soft like... THERES DETAILS I HAVE IN MIND THAT ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO WRITE DOWN IN THE HEADCANON FORMAT and i’m too nervous about writing fics (looks away) but i have things to draw.

ANYWAY I THINK THIS GOT VERY LONG ????????? SO IM GONNA STOP HERE. IF U MADE IT THIS FAR: THANK U FOR LISTENING TO MY BRAINWORM !!!! 

[natsubane]

okay so the cutscene made me cry through it so. i'm rewatching it now so...

i'm not sure if i should know what roxas means when he says "he" chose sora... i had to go back and look because i'm guessing this is about riku asking roxas why he had the keyblade when they fought outside the skyscraper...? is this him asking why, out of the two of them, why he would choose to believe that sora is the chosen one??? and it's only seeing riku on the stained glass which makes him realise how important he is to sora (and i'm assuming vice versa) which explains why riku would decide to back sora...

huh. that actually makes some semblance of sense. i'm impressed

also when i went back to that fight scene, it seems like riku was fighting using the darker keyblade... which... roxas gave him in the kh1 secret ending...?? and the other keyblade has kairi's good luck charm so that's. kinda neat huh

so sora being able to recall the keyblade is what roxas figures makes him the chosen one...? even though he managed to do it once by accident back in twilight town... :(

poor roxas is just trying to find meaning for himself and his existence separate from sora bc him being sora's nobody is literally everything that he has... (punches a wall)

i think it's neat that nobody names can be bestowed. noting that down

axel's conversation with roxas made me cry So Bad the delivery of all the lines were so . charged. oughhghgh and the music

(excusing the fact that i have no idea how they're talking... mage has explained that it Could be some sort of limbo... so my gut feeling is that they're in limbo after axel gets evaporated, but that this is still a flashback)

i remember talking about how roxas has a lot of history with twilight town and i think i'm finally trying to get it around my thick head how it works... there's one real one, and one fake one... the fake one is where roxas has all his memories planted (unsure about this?) after he left the organisation...? (i'm also guessing this is namine's work) and from the sound of things he probably keeps them... i really do hope he gets to see the trio again, though whether they remember him will be a different question... i hope they remember him i still remember crying when they said they were waiting a long time to meet someone.....

axel's face when roxas says he'll meet the trio again and when he says sora is waiting for him... when axel died (?) i remember sitting there thinking that he never ended up getting to see roxas again... but i wonder if this limbo flashback thing means that he did... no wonder this bastard cried. oughhgghfggh..... it's nice thinking that they were friends.

i got some extra context for this too but this being roxas's final acceptance that he's sora('s nobody) after a struggle trying to find meaning and purpose for himself just feels really... like the sad sense of finality is so heavy but it's light because he's accepted it... he can't fight the chosen one. he was always told sora was his other half anyway. i hope we get to talk to him again

さすがは俺の… (<- THE WAY HE DOESN'T GET TO FINISH THIS LINE IN JP MAKES IT HIT HARDER. FUCK)

i think the fact that donald and goofy don't remember roxas stepping through the portal thing kinda. also hits a lot but i can't put into words how it hits... augh. like they're both just "black coats = bad, he must have been trying to trick you" to sora. and even though sora probably hasn't grasped what this means to roxas you still get the feeling that he understands it was important so . i just kinda like the disconnect between the people involved and sora being caught right in the middle

I STREAMED A BIT TO MAGE EARLIER SO I WILL COME BACK TO THE PART WHERE AXEL FUCKING DIES BUT YOU

YOU WANT ME TO FIGHT? WITH THIS MUSIC PLAYING?

NAUR........