#but most protags are dumb. that helps more

[muichirous]

finished azure gleam and now i’m fucking annoyed because like. honestly fe3h/few3h should have never been about the lords it should have been about the nabateans/agarthans 🙄

[insufferableprotagonistpoll]

Propaganda why Anakin Skywalker is insufferable:

It's less about his character and more about the way ppl talk about him and narrative around him in a lot of current stuff. The way everyone try to bend over backwards to prove how his reasons to turn Darth Vader were somehow noble or good when almost every single bad guy in Star Wars (expect Palpatine and that guy who taught him) have much more sympathetic history and reasons and how he's not a bad person bc he cried a few times while doing atrocities. And how everyone else gets the blame for all his shortcomings ('they did it but never taught him!!!' -he literally parrotos this same lessons to his own student, it's obvious he knows better but chooses to not apply to himself anything that is slightly uncomfortable to him). Like, I love characters being genuinely not good people as much as a next guy but let's not pretend they're good people actually

the guy has zero critical thinking skills, he whines about everything all the time. I love him, but he’s awful to listen to. THIS BITCH. I HATE HIM. NO CRITICAL THINKING. NO SELF AWARENESS. WHINY MURDEROUS ASSHOLE. LIKE SERIOUSLY. He's a JEDI. LIKE. THEY HAVE HISTORY CLASSES!!!! He should have KNOWNNNNNN that when he had prophetic dreams they're not necessarily true!!!!! Also like. In the Star Wars universe, do Jedi just not have imaginations that can create NORMAL dreams when they sleep??? Do Jedi just not usually dream??? If he hadn't gotten paranoid from the dreams of Padme dying in childbirth

BILLIONS OF LIVES WOULD HAVE BEEN SAVED. FOR THAT MATTER, if you're gonna have A SUPER ILLEGAL SUPER SECRET MARRIAGE, wouldn't you, I don't know, USE PROTECTION SO THAT YOUR WIFE WHO IS SECRETLY AND ILLEGALLY MARRIED DOESN'T GET PREGANANANT????? LIKE LOOK I LOVE LUKE AND LEIA MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF BUT THEIR PARENTS WERE SO FUCKING STUPID. ANAKIN SKYWALKER HATES CONDOMS BECAUSE THEY DONT FEEL AS GOOD I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. Man is an IDIOT. How can you have had a role model and father figure like Obi-Wan for most of your fucking life and grow up to do the shitty, STUPID things Anakin did. Ok this is way too long I'm sorry but I love Obi-Wan so much and Anakin ruined his fucking life and hes just such a little DICK. MURDERED A WHOLE VILLAGE OF SAND PEOPLE. AND DOZENS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF CHILDRENNNNNNNN. ANGSTY WHINY TEENAGER. FUCK HIMMMMMMM

Yes he was probably directed to act that way but the way his lines were written did not help

Propaganda why Tim Jackson Drake is insufferable:

oh man. i've had enough of this duckboy (as the protag, he's tolerable in yj and stuff.) like when tim is the protag every character in the story becomes Worse. lady shiva gets nerfed. steph is turned into jealous hormonal catfight girl. helena is dumbified and too womanly to function (they have a nice dynamic as long as tim isn't the protag). cassie and tim were great in yj98, but as soon as he is The Protag then she is his best friend's girlfriend and they're barely friends anymore. cass is turned into a rapist. dick is turned into a lazy mediocre robin. jason turns into fucky wucky dumb brute yaoi stalker boyfriend who is suddenly obsessed with tim's awesome skills. 10 y.o. damian somehow deserves to be put on a hitlist because he's a savage and tim is civilized. Sometimes the story is bogged own with tim's internal or external lectures about their flaws and how they need to be better (better like him), except for dick HMMMM wonder why that is. probbly wouldn't be so bothered if tim wasn't crammed into the spotlight of every crossover in the 90s and early 00s and then so much of dc and the fandom wave it around as the peak era of comicbooks. like im sorry. he is not a relatable protag. like the editors literally told newspapers that he was created for gen x white dudes who blow their money on comics and merch, the info is on wikipedia.

White twink rich boy who always has to be smartest bestest boy even when he is a part of a whole group of smartest bestest ppl (aka bat family as a whole, like he's literally THE Mary sue of a group of Mary sues) at expense of literally everyone else

His definitive writer is a conservative Republican. His series is full of moral PSAs, *dumb* *hormonal* girls getting into catfights over him, and blatant sexism and racism. He gives anti-marijuana speeches to a standing ovation, he lectures about how babies need a father and a mother, and sex is for marriage. Other characters suddenly become stupid around him so that he looks smart. The other characters talk about how he is the best, nicest, smartest Robin ever and ALL the others were dumber and meaner than he is, even the one that mentored him. He as a grown adult man is canonically still bitter about ""his"" child sidekick role being given to an actual child (fans pretend he is the victim of this on both sides—nope he's the adult fighting a child for the child sidekick role, no adult wanted to replace him). Did I mention that this character is the amazing pure white boy, and his 10-year-old successor is painted as a savage Arab terrorist who needs to be put in his place? T*m is a 5'9""+ adult grown man, not a delicate sensitive baby boy.

[garfeildfanpage]

What is your opinion on teru minamoto and how he is as a character :3 I find him and akane’s (boy) interactions very interesting tbh

Woah an ask! And as of the recent chapter(s) I think they help confirm a few things I had already thought, but I’d love to go in depth!

Overall, Teru is probably my favorite. He’s different from the rest of the cast in the sense that he’s not a “hero” nor a “villain”. To me he, Akane, and Aoi all sit right in the gray moral area rather than characters like Kou, Nene, and the members of the broadcasting club, who play the direct roles of protag and antag. But he’s always held my attention over any of the other characters because everything around him is just as morally gray, from childhood to now his values never changed as his view on the world is just as strict, though with a few exceptions (which are pretty important).

His interactions with other characters show his views in the most obvious way. He acts charming and aloof around Nene, but he’s never really paying direct attention to her (ex: the mokke of the dead arc and the current trial arc).

When with Kou his actual softer side is shown a little bit more, acting as normal as he possibly can be; save for the times when Kou goes against Teru’s moral code (Young exorcist, Bound for the far-shore) and he goes on the defensive, when Kou’s view on supernaturals rival his he immediately goes from being on his side to disregarding him and acting on his own judgment full throttle. Which shows how he ignores their differences instead of actually addressing them, since he wants Kou to not only NOT be an exorcist but also to not get in his way. And to him pretending Kou isn’t doing exactly what he doesn’t want him to do, keeps the positive dynamic alive and well in his mind.

Now, Akane specifically is where it gets a bit confusing. I’ll take it chapter by chapter (or arc by arc whatever)

Clock-Keeper (technically the chapter after but I’m not super technical about this and it’s close enough)

Where it gets silly! Their dynamic of not only Spirit v Human but also President and Vice-President is established. Teru’s bias towards Akane compared to other supernaturals is from the beginning pretty obvious (he didn’t kill him so that’s a good start) while he isn’t exactly nice to him, he does value Akane in some way or another. It also shows that Teru knows a lot more than he lets on, and that he doesn’t tell people what he does either (which foreshadows some stuff later) also the glasses stuff is kinda tease-y flirty if you ignore the getting attacked by mokke part. What can I say he’s just so charming!!!

(Finals)

Where the care is more obvious. Showing off the more playful side of their dynamic, along with Akane’s view on Teru, which as of now isn’t very positive. At the end, Teru asks Akane for a favor, showing again that he’s psychic or something. But his cruelty here can mostly be seen as him making sure he gets Akane’s help, so the immoral part of it is debatable, he just seems to go about things the wrong way most of the time. could also be seen as him giving an insensitive to Akane to help up his grades for the final, since his grades for the previous semester are comparatively not as good.

Severance

Oh great heavens. Teru’s continued disregard of other peoples values comes to a head here, where this time he’s shown how the person feels when not told important information. But I understand why he did it. If he had told Akane that Aoi wouldn’t have returned to the near-shore, he wouldn’t have returned either, and there’s no way Teru could’ve dragged him out. But would that have been an issue? If Akane was left in the boundary? He could’ve died, he was kindof already doing that anyway, but was that the reason? Or did Teru do it out of selfishness? Did he want Akane to stay? Maybe he wanted to kick some sense into him, maybe he just didn’t want him to leave? Could be a lot of things, Teru isn’t dumb, and typically he’s pretty rational, but he never said why so everything is always up for interpretation.

Day-Off

To regain lost trust. Hanging out, it isn’t obvious why exactly Teru wanted Nene and Akane to tag along, maybe he and his apparent prophetic mind decided it would be the best course of action to do so, or maybe he just wanted a girls day or something. Akane seems to have gotten over his anger at Teru (possibly due to off-screen conversations cause that’s convenient) but when Teru tells him that Aoi isn’t dead, a little bit of trust in Teru’s judgment is recovered. Maybe he had the whole thing planned out from the beginning who knows he seems to suck at being overt. Akane interrogates Teru about the severance and gets all up in his face. And then the “I like Akane-San” happens and stuff gets confusing again.

Red house

I’m starting to think he doesn’t actually like Aoi. Teru learns to complain for basically the first time! At least in front of Akane. It’s obvious Teru’s trust towards Akane didn’t falter the way it did for Akane, in fact in some way Teru put more of himself out for Akane because of the severance. He brings up the dreaded Akane & Aoi chapter, and remarks about it in a really…strange way. Not upset but more bitter, really. But it also seems that Akane’s view on Teru has improved as well, having Teru go from a nightmarish demon stealing Aoi away from him, to a seemingly doting husband to her, what does this mean? Something gay probably. But nonetheless it seems that Teru wants Aoi back as well, but for what reason specifically? Other than just the general “unjust death caused by some undead demi-god 10 year old”, he wants Aoi back for some “dream”. Or is he just bluffing to tease Akane? I don’t know, dissecting a characters motives is hard when he isn’t nearly fleshed out enough to infer things with any kind of confidence. But overall they end on better terms than the severance started with.

Bound for the far-shore

Back to normal-ish. Teru’s fight with Kou is the main catch of these chapters for him, but his back-and-forth with Akane is fun too. It’s playful, it’s sweet, and it’s also nice to see them show trust towards one another!

School festival / Omen

A subversion of the viewer’s beliefs that Teru would go back to tormenting Akane but in actuality he protects him from a threat and makes a weirdly flirty face at him?? I love literature! Anyway I love their interactions here, it’s fun yet simple! I really hope nothing bad happens right after!

Trial of the Clock-Keepers

Ok gonna be honest this chapter is interesting but dear god is the pacing so slow I’m kindof losing interest. But nonetheless! Divorce. It’s a pretty obvious parallel to the severance; in the sense that Akane blindsights Teru, Teru tries to fuck his shit up, and is then forcibly stopped and dragged somewhere else. And though it’s played off as comical, it’s not silly to assume that this is, just like the severance, another reset of trust. I mean Teru does dick while Akane gets his shit rocked (not like he can actually do anything to be fair). but even so he still shows the smallest bit of concern, concern about why they aren’t actually fighting back in any significant way, even though they’re all well capable of doing so. But since the arc is still ongoing, that’s about where by opinions end.

Overall, I love Teru! And I love his dynamic with Akane! Sorry this is like, really long I’ve been waiting for an excuse to talk about this, so thanks for the ask!!1!1!…,ninja out

[visitorjon456]

Murder Drones Ep. 7 Rant Review

Before I get started I just want to say that I respect Liam Vickers/Glitch and co for always trying to put their all into these indie animations shows and bringing them into the light for us all to watch in either awe, amazement or entertainment. But as much as I appreciate their efforts I can't say that the Murder Drones series is flawless nor the handling of certain episode storytelling is good. I'm going to start with the few things that I liked about the episode:

The Good

Mitchell keeping Yeva out of the Cathedral due to immediately noticing the Sentinels disappearances and figuring out somethings up.

J's brief graceful flying paired with Eternal Dream+Techno music as she leaves in the ship.

Typical walking away scene as explosions set off behind them.

The Nori+N vs. Cyn/Uzi fight was kind of cool but I feel like any actual serious/tense moments were wasted due to N not giving it his all in the fight and finally accepting that he has to brutally kill Uzi now.

Khan showing up with a replica of Uzi's railgun and being not nonplused about being lifted into the air or what's happening to the planet at large.

Now that's out of the way; moving on to the bad parts...

The Bad

I hope when episode 8 comes around that Glitch will have a new Murder Drones intro that will feature V along side N and Uzi because I don't know why they couldn't just add Uzi along the previous intros, besides the crew wanting to be silly/mischievous, before episode 7 dropped. I'm not exactly hanged up on it but I do hope it does get changed though.

I'm pretty much always going to die on this hill and say that ep. 7 should have been an almost or full on flashback episode that heavily features the Cabin Fever Test Subjects, particularly Alice, Yeva and Nori, and the Humans as well. The reason for this is because I'm a firm believer that even if you have a small group of main protags of a show/novel that doesn't mean that the spotlight should be fully on them 24/7 and not have any of that be given to side characters that can be just as interesting as the protagonists.

Most importantly of all I want to see how each character was using there Solver powers and how Nori was the most practiced when using it.

I don't like the fact that Nori is just Uzi 2.0 but older and seemingly a bit more mature than Uzi. I would rather headcanon her a egoist, self-assured, aggressive, lack of empathy, talented Solver Host that was sometimes given special privileges by the Humans and the one who deliberately caused the Core Collapse on Copper-9 and almost all of it done without being Solver-possessed.

I dislike the fact that Liam Vickers finds it funny and acceptable to portray Humans as this almost technologically backwards/advanced, idiotic, and bad decision making civilization in Murder Drones. To really illustrate my irritation with this matter; the complete beginning of episode 7: You can't tell me that all those scientists are literally trying to get Nori/Solver under control but not have any 3-4 Solver Test Subjects that are either in the Cathedral with them or just outside the doors, waiting.

And seriously, the Humans have all the Test Subjects wrapped up in chains and stuffed into lockers instead of in high-security rooms. Really, Liam.

I hate how Liam has made Uzi so unbearably emotionally dumb and vulnerable just so things can happen easier within the episode instead of working towards it properly. Like, it's understandable that Uzi starts to get upset and a bit defensive towards N and "Tessa" but she should know better then to keep using the Solver in her state but also to completely go off on her own through the tunnels. It doesn't help matters that N is also forced to be an idiot at times and didn't immediately run to Uzi's side in order to not be separate from each other due to the dangers of the tunnels.

I fucking hate you Liam. You are going to force J to job really hard against three minor characters. Don't even think about it. My heart goes out to you J.

Again the Nori+N vs. Cyn/Uzi fight was okay-ish but is heavily held back with the fact that N won't do what he needs to do and brutally put Uzi down for good.

Just like how I give my condolences to J for what's going to happen to her in the next episode, I also feel sorry for both Tessa and Doll as the former is possibly being worn as a still living skinsuit and the latter got her chest cavity torn out but also got her Core eaten. Of course given the merch leaks we will probably see Doll again in ep. 8.

Liam once again making characters emotionally stupid with Uzi footballing her mother into the fleshy hell pit and N doing fuck all about.

Literally seeing Uzi and N screaming and slowly coming towards each other to hug is the single most over the top thing in this episode and I hope both of them die for it.

Overall this episode is just a 4.8/10 honestly.

[pugsbone]

Thoughts on Volume 9? I really could've done without Jaune during that whole arc, and just let the Rusted Knight be someone from the Evr After. I want to see more of the title characters, and not a secondary protag get his metaphorical dick sucked.

I want to see more of Ruby than I do Jaune.

(Also, it was a dick move of Winter to look right at Jaune, and not help him get to safety.)

Personally, I don’t think Jaune should’ve fallen in with RWBY, and this is for a few reasons.

1. The dude gets a lot of exposure during most of the volumes, definitely feels like he’s THE main side character at this point, and this isn’t getting into the common debate on if he’s Miles’ self insert or not. It would be nice to get a break from Jaune, mostly so that both sides of the fandom can calm down about him. Also, side point to the Jaune thing, it would've been nice if he actually brought up the fact that he "had" to kill Penny (had is in quotation marks because it feels like to strong a word for what happened during that volume.) Hell, have it be part of his dialogue when he's shouting at Ruby, let that be the final straw that breaks our hero, to learn how her BFF died.

2. I really think it should have been somebody else from the main group who was forced to grow up in the Ever After. In my personal opinion it should have been either Ren, Nora, Oscar, or Emerald. Ren/Nora for arguably the same reason, Nora wanted to figure out who she is without him, and this situation is a freaking monkey law of that, either she thinks he’s dead or has been given plenty of time to find the answer to her question. If she fell in, suddenly she has all this time to find herself, let her grow as a person while also figuring out just how much she does love Ren and misses him. If Ren falls in, he now has to deal with being all alone along with his brand new semblance, seeing all the different emotions of the strange creatures around him, making this whole experience even more confusing as he has to deal with this alien culture.

Emerald because this could all be her way of trying to show that she has become a better person, her guilt over the fall of Beacon, making her guarding the paper people even more poignant since she wants to make up for who she was, not wanting to be like Cinder ever again. Like just imagine her trying to keep the paper people alive, acting a little crazy as she calls them Penny, Hazel, or Pyrrha, all people that she has either helped get killed or watched die for her, she's just trying so dang hard.

And for Oscar, this would be the first time where he’d be someplace where Oz is just as clueless as he is, the two of them being on even footing as they explore this new land. With them being in the Ever After, we can finally get a conclusion to the convoluted mess that is the whole reincarnation thing, which is a rant for another day. Also, it would be cute to see Ruby's reaction to a grown up Oscar, I'm sure it would be adorable.

With Jaune, it just feels like we're getting kind of a rehash of his arc during the fourth and fifth volume, where he's trying to process his grief and trauma, only to channel it in some pretty self destructive ways instead, until he gets better through the power of friendship. We've done this song and dance before with him.

Now for my real thoughts on the season, it had some decent ideas, just poor build up to them. Like I love the whole thing with talking to a part of themselves that they don't want to face when they go into the smoke, love that trope, but all the problems that the girls face don't feel like they were actual problems. (Mostly Blake's dumb ass thing, "Am I a person or an animal?" When has that ever been a thing for this fictional race?!) Could've done a sweet callback to Volume 2 by having them face their old dreams, Weiss becoming the head of the SDC, Yang doing this for the thrill and adventure, Blake trying to help the Faunus, Ruby becoming this fairytale hero, let these be what they have to face. Weiss, Yang, and Blake can all see how far they have grown, seeing how they have become better than those old dreams, that sort of thing. All while Ruby just gets asked "What happened to you?" or something, just another part of that is cracking under the pressure.

But yeah, most of the ideas just didn't feel they were implemented all that well. I think it's just another example of something that CRWBY could have foreshadowed better overall, heck, even just having someone reading The Rusted Knight would have been a pretty easy way of doing it, like during the montage of good deeds they do in Atlas, maybe Yang is reading to a bunch of kids or something. Would've been sweet.

[childhell]

Could you please please explain your au? I’m curious about what’s happened in it

I’m gonna spare u and give the quickest summary I can , anon !! A lot is going on here + the story is VERY different from the source material D:

The Efeblum AU is basically UDG but much more magical ! ( Mainly Efeblums , fairy like creatures who hold bells that grant happiness onto humans. )

The story takes place in America , specifically a small little town called Ivory Haven^^

The obviously most important characters in the story are the two protags:

Oat Kemuri - A pretty dumb human/Efeblum child, born out of half of Jataro’s ripped out remains ! His mission is to stop all evil nightmarish creatures in the world , especially that no good teddy bear who is basically Satan . Basically a last resort job after his original purpose , making his dad happy and helping him find peace in his past childhood , quickly failed :P

Jataro Kemuri: An owner of an animation studio that’s basically the equivalent of Disney here ! ( Much more scummier too ) He’s a deadbeat dad , usually neglecting or straight up beating his son lmao . Him and Oat are polar opposites . ( You know , with him being a greedy and cranky man with quite the past ! ) Eventually he befriends literal teddy bear Satan ( Or simply known as ‘ Teddy ‘ ) and makes a deal with him !

A lot more goes on in this story , with lots of characters either from the game or just ocs ! EX: Bellholders , ( Basically the Warriors of Hope in this universe ! ) The Fagateers , ( Jataro’s friends - Consisting of a fatass named Nauchtbell - Jataro’s ‘ right hand man ‘ , who is actually the worst man alive but sadly his list of crimes will take us ALL DAY . And also Evseviy - A cult leader living in a flower commune in the middle of the woods , he’s also a white supremacist but thirsts for the only brown employee at Kemuri Studios so … )

This is the easiest rundown I can give so far ! I’m better at showing than saying^^; If you have any questions just ask ! I’m not the best at explaining lol .

[morningmask27]

Hypokits ok. Either Thistleheart x Icecloud or HollyCinder hypokits

ANON YOUR MIND! ThistleIce has now been added to RDA as a testament of how much I love this ship now

meet Asterleaf (creamer one) and Ferretchase (the technically a calico)

Fetterchase (alt names are Hareskip, Blizzardrun) is a smart and daring cat. Xe is kind and funny usually, but is quickly in serious mode when bad things happen. Xe can become a bit too strict then, but xe never means any harm and will back down when told to. Xe's also incredibly fast, like The fastest cat in WindClan right now. 

Asterleaf (alt names are Lacebreeze, Swanwing) is someone that always tries to please everyone. They're withdrawn and kind and struggle with their emotions a lot. They struggle to properly express them most of the time and bottle up a lot of emotions. This can lead them to make irrational decisions as they want the bad thing to Stop Now. 

Both are deaf since by a funny coincidence I headcanon both their moms to be deaf too. 

(Assume this is a world where both survive the great battle/between-book greencough)

Icecloud and Thistleheart bonded over being deaf in Clans that at best were being clumsily supportive. They were often talking about the latest dumb stuff they had to endure and always had endlessly long conversations about everything. 

The two slowly fell in love over the years they spent together during gatherings. Then one night at the border between Wind and Thunder, Thistleheart asked Icecloud to become mates. Ice accepted and so it began. 

This happened slightly before the start of avos (when I do slow burn, it burns sloooooooow). 

These two lovely kits were born during the darktail fiasco in a WindClan that was growing more restless by the day. These kits being born definitely did not help at all and it made Onestar be very rude to Thistleheart, but like, bordering on verbally abusive rude. This was when the borders were already closed, so Thistleheart couldn't even go see Ice anymore and this was the last straw. 

Thistleheart took her kits and went to ThunderClan with them. She wasn't going to stay in that damned Clan if Onestar was like this. This was the thing that finally forced Onestar to open the borders and tell everyone about Darktail. Thistleheart would stay in Thunder until Dark was defeated, but then Harestar wanted to prove he was a strong enough leader and demanded the kits back. Things weren't going to lead to a conflict just yet, but Thistleheart and Ferretkit were sent back to WindClan while Asterkit would stay in ThunderClan with Icecloud. (the leaders didn't listen to the protests of Violet, Twig, Alder and a few others about how bad it is to split littermates like that). 

Asterleaf (name courtesy of Bramblestar's shitty naming capabilities) replaces Brissie as the protag of TBC. 

Their painfully unrequited feelings for Plumstone (who is in love with Thriftear, and inherited xenophobia from blossomfall) and the frustration they felt about being torn away from their littermate made them a prime target for the impostor. They're technically called a codebreaker, but could save themselves by renouncing Icecloud. They were being pressured and forced by the impostor and did so. Ferret was horrified by everything and confronted Harestar to stand up against the impostor And confronted Aster about their actions in regards to their own mom. 

Side note, Fetter had grown up to be a vocal warrior that would Not back down from a challenge. And was always arguing for things to get better. 

Anyways, Harestar was already somewhat unwilling to follow the impostor, but Ferret berating Hare in front of the whole clan, and even using some spoken language, made him kinda forced to actually go against the impostor fully. 

With Aster things were a bit more complicated. They felt terribly bad about Ice boing banished because of them (Ice was safe and sound in WindClan tho, dw), but the impostor had promised them it would only be for the best as they know first paw how bad things become when half clan kits are born and they need to make an example out of the cats that made them have such an unpleasant kithood. (Ice was a good mom, but ThunderClan isn't the kindest, especially to a kit like Aster, even if kind cats like Daisy or Twigbranch were there). Ferret starts to become aggravated. Bramble and Hare were the reason their kithood was bad. Sadly tho xe could not get Aster to understand that and a Thunder patrol showed up, which forced Ferret to run. Obviously the patrol were never going to catch xir, but it was still close anyway. 

TBC continues as Aster starts to feel very stressed about "Bramblestar's" actions and they think about what Ferret said about Bramble and Hare being the actual reason they struggled. 

More cats begin to be banished, things are becoming very uneasy in ThunderClan and Ferret goes to find Rootspring to know more about what is happening. Ferret had heard about the rebellion from Smokehaze, xir good friend, and xe wanted to know more in case anything could help convince Aster to side against Bramble. Ferret learns about the possession stuff and again tries to convince Aster to stop. They didn't believe it could be true, so, mission failed. 

The rebellion decides it's too much, and plans a murder attempt on Bramble. It goes as poorly as in canon and a few cats die, including Smokehaze. Ferret is devastated and furious and runs all the way to the ThunderClan camp to kill Bramble xirself and it fails, but Ferret somehow still has some time to let Aster know xe's feeling all those things. Ferret has to flee again and by some miracle they escape yet another ThunderClan patrol into the WindClan border. 

Aster is still in ThunderClan and helps treat Bramblestar's wounds as they think about what happened. That the murder attempt failed was technically their fault (for not believing Aster, for not helping the rebellion, for having led a patrol to bramble) and they are starting to feel serious remorse for their actions there. Like in canon bramble is angry, banishes Berrynose and makes Asterleaf deputy. Many cats from all sides of the argument are unhappy with this choice, but they can't complain or they'd be banished. 

Aster actually goes to find Ferret after that. Ferret is livid obviously and doesn't want to talk to Aster, but they plead and Ferret begrudgingly accepts to talk with them. Ferret doesn't forgive them, not yet, but xe agrees to get them up to speed with the rebellion. Aster is determined to help and one of their first acts was to tell the rebels about Bramblestar's plans to attack WindClan for helping the rebels. They had the task of fully planning how the fight would go themselves, so they could tell every detail to prepare the camp as well as possible. Aster also intentionally didn't make their plans perfect to give more advantage to WindClan. 

The day of the fight Aster stands right besides "Bramble", as the fight commences. They split up eventually and that's when they see Icecloud being threatened by a RiverClan warrior. Aster jumps to their mom's defense and gets a heavy blow to their face as a reward, but Icecloud is safe at least. They keep fighting and cats from all clans die. In the end the battle is ended by Ferretchase violently attacking Bramble before running out of reach and that until bramble was too tired to continue. That's when a few rebels pin him to the ground and the battle is over. 

Most cats return to their camp. Aster isn't one of them as Squirrelflight took the deputy position back over and led ThunderClan back to camp. Aster needed to talk to Icecloud and Thistleheart first. Aster apologized to their moms about everything that happened. Aster even broke down tears because of the everything of feelings that was hitting them. Harestar allowed Aster to stay in camp for a few days. They got their wound treated and helped diligently to guard Ashfur. Ash still tried to get them to his side, but Aster wouldn't budge anymore. No they won't, never again. 

Or at least that was until Ashfur began over the fact that no-one would forgive them for what they've done. How they had broken the code and hurt their loved ones and they were an unlovable monster now. This began making Aster uncomfortable again until they couldn't deal with it anymore and lashed out, accidentally letting ash escape mostly to get rid of him. This was a bad idea as Ash immediately dragged Squilf in the dark forest. 

Aster was also starting to be tired of their bad decisions and set out to stop ash. Aster arrived at the Moonpool alone and entered the dark forest. 

Ferret was caught in a mess as both Ash and Aster were missing and cats were starting to think the two were in this plan together since the beginning. Ferret had xir own doubts, but wanted to trust Aster, so we defended them and began looking for them. Rootspring was so kind as to be a useful npc and tell Ferret about ash dragging Squilf in the dark forest and Aster following them. Ferret hurried over there and with Root's help entered the dark forest too. 

The dark forest was decaying, like in canon and Ferret nearly experienced it first pawed as we nearly dropped in a puddle of the black goop. Xe looked for any of the living cats they were looking for, but couldn't find any. Dark forest spirits found them instead. Ferretchase found xirself face to face with Sparrowfeather. Xe immediately positioned themselves in a fighting pose, but Sparrow wasn't going to attack xir. Sparrow wanted to know what was going on with all those living cats in the dark forest. Ferret briefly explained and Sparrow decided to help Ferret, if not just to get rid of Ash and have the dark forest be slightly less of a mess that's destroying itself. 

Aster on the other hand was not having such a great time. They met with some slightly less kind cats there and had to flee. They did see one of the cats accidentally fall in a pit of goop and disappear forever, which did not help with their worries. Eventually they found Ash and Squilf. The two were surrounded by dark forest spirits and Aster assumed it'd be a bad idea to fight Ash then and there. (it definitely would have been. See, Aster can make good decisions sometimes). 

Back in WindClan Thistleheart and Icecloud are worried about their kits and go look for them and arrive at the moonpool. Rootspringe also helps them enter and they find Asterleaf. Ice hurries over to her kit while Thistle follows, worried too, but slightly more hesitantly. Aster explains what happened and Thistleheart assures them they aren't an unlovable monster. They did terrible things, but that can all be repaired now. Thistle wants to know how things are going exactly with Ash and proposes to quickly spy, but not too long and Discreetly. The family go back to where Ashfur is harassing Squilf. Ash was too busy, but one of the other spirits saw them and called alarm. Ash immediately began shrieking (not that they could hear it) and sent a few spirits to deal with the three cats. 

They fled, but the spirits were closing in. Aster didn't want their moms to be hurt so they stopped right in their tracks as Thistle and Ice kept running. They faced down the three spirits that rapidly approached them. One of them was already lunging at them, but they were slammed to the ground by a white shape. A tortie sprang behind it and barred the path of the other two spirits. Aster was ready to fight and both Thistle and Ice had returned as they had realized Aster wasn't with them anymore. The family recognized Ferretchase and a happy reunion happened after the three spirits were dealt with. Sparrowfeather simply politely looked away while they were busy. 

The little family was together again and they were ready to finish this. They gathered some allies from StarClan, and from the living that Rootey got in the dark forest and prepared to launch a full-on assault of Ashfur to finish this once and for all. 

The group reunited and the battle began. It's honestly not very epic, but Ferret does specifically avoid hurting Smokehaze's spirit. Then Ashfur was threatening Squilf again, but too close to the goop and Aster had enough of it. They ran towards Ash and pushed him in the dark water. Aster followed him. Ash fought back to escape, but for good measure Aster gave them a massive push to deeper in the water. 

They were starting to drown too. The water was slowly making them fade away, the memories of their past flooding in. The WindClan camp they barely remembered from their kithood. The ThunderClan camp with all its cats, kind and mean. Thistleheart and Icecloud curled up together around them and Ferret. The pain of losing Ferret again, the joy of seeing xir as a kit when Icecloud took them out. The painful love they felt for Plumpaw when the only thing she cared about was teasing Aster. The anger they felt when cats mistrusted them, the distress of being manipulated by the impostor and the pain of hurting their loved ones time and time again because of their dumb decisions. 

Aster straightened up, the water was making them feel very light, but a sudden burst of emotions made them aware of what was happening and what they definitely did not want to happen. They got their paws to move and pushed through the water, slowly moving up. It was terrible as the water wasn't going to let them escape so easily. It craved their emotions, but Asterleaf was not going to die a traitor. They pushed harder and harder until they neared the surface, but then everything disappeared. Their body was gone, they barely could move anymore and they couldn't form coherent thoughts. Instinctively they knew they were about to die, but that was before they felt teeth grabbing their scruff. They couldn't look up, but they felt themselves being hoisted up, out of the water and back in land. 

Asterleaf took a deep breath. They could open their eyes again and saw their family surrounding them, looking at them with worried eyes. They didn't know what was going on until they looked down. They could see through their paws. They nearly took a step back into the water from the shock, but Ferretchase stopped them. Thistleheart and Icecloud slowly pressed themselves on both of Aster's flanks as they tried to understand. 

It took them a while to fully accept it, but in the meantime they had followed the other cats to StarClan. There one cat had said they needed a guardian for the new opening that had been made. Asterleaf immediately volunteered. Many cats were surprised, but the StarClan spirits accepted. 

Asterleaf now waited by the border. It was mostly a lonely job, but sometimes a kit would wander too far away, or a cat would desperately want to see their loved one. They could never let them pass, but they gave comforting words and guided them away. 

Moons had passed. Honestly more than Aster had counted. It wasn't too bad out there alone. They could be with their thoughts and start making peace with them. 

One day though they had a special visit. They saw two white starry shapes approach. They became so happy when they saw Icecloud and Thistleheart. They couldn't go too far from the border, but they hurried to greet their moms. Asterleaf hugged them for a long time, so happy to see them again. The three cats sat there, catching up on everything. Aster learned Ice had moved to WindClan after the dust was settled. This was now allowed by the code. The two had simply spent their last few years as warriors before enjoying their retirement together. Then they died peacefully next to each other. 

From then on Aster would have visit from time to time. Usually both Thistleheart and Icecloud came to visit, but sometimes it was only Thistleheart or only Icecloud. Then one time another cat came to visit. Aster couldn't believe what they saw. A wide grin and starry fun wasn't usual on xir, but they would recognize Ferretchase everywhere. 

The two siblings hugged each other tightly. They had been separated for so long. Ferret told Aster all about their life. The fights, the fun moments in camp, the deputy position xe had been offered but refused, Rootspring, everything actually. Ferretchase told Asterleaf everything. Some parts were a bit more awkward, but things were told anyway. Aster was done with not telling things to cats. 

Both siblings avoided the topic at first, but Aster apologized for everything again to Ferret. Ferret accepted the apology and told Aster things would be fine again. 

[saemi-the-dreamer]

(Probably unpopular opinion for you but idk): I know that Prince Hans does not "deserve" a redemption arc and will probably not get one in Frozen 3 or 4. But I can't help but hope for one anyway. Sorry not sorry.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Anon, I can tell you weren't following my blog after Frozen was released XD

I see Hans as a complex character, not just a greedy villain, so yeah. I really hope to see him getting redeemed!... just hoping Elsa is not the one to redeem him, otherwise I'd flip a table ffs. We barely know anything about him, it'd be great to learn more about the Southern Isles and the Royals there. We only know Hans is the last of 13 kids, and that 2 of his brothers pretended he didn't exist. For. Two. Years. Talk about a messed-up family! While it doesn't excuse his actions, it's no wonder he was desperate to get away and became twisted himself. And Hans getting redemption doesn't mean he has to be friends with everyone or live in Arendelle, it can be Anna getting closure for what happened and then she reaches out to help him and end it on the two saying goodbye with a smile, each going to live their own life. There is a wonderful fanfiction that I recommend: Based on a True Lie which does a very good Hans redemption (in a way) and where Anna is really the main heroine <3

I honestly feel like Hans was done dirty and handled poorly, even as a villain. I wouldn't have minded him being a villain if the movie had done it well, Hans being a twisted villain could have been very good, but honestly? Every time I re-watch Frozen, I think "Nope, still not buying it."

Watch Toy Story 2 and there, you have a very good twisted villain! At first watch, there is little chance you'd suspect Stinky Pete to be a bad guy; but when you rewatch it, you can see the foreshadowings and little hints of his manipulation of both Jessie and Woody (even if I personally believe he did care about Jessie, at some point) to get what he wanted.

Why am I not convinced about Hans being "Evil", before his "reveal"?

One: after the meet-cute scene with Anna

This looks way too genuine, and he had no reason to fake it, no one was looking! And don't use the "red herring" excuse, it's not good either. They could - no SHOULD - have cut the scene the moment he fell into the water if Hans was meant to be just a greedy bad guy.

Two: there are no real signs (read "red flags") of manipulation in his speech and actions.

They're vague and a stretch at best, like the line "'Cause, like, I've been searchin' my whole life to find my own place" Many Disney protags have used similar lines and were looking for a place where they felt they belonged (Belle, Ariel, Hercules, Quasimodo, Aladdin...). Honestly, it's more that he adapts to the situation (that he has no control over btw).

He's not the one to push Elsa to reveal her powers, the two sisters were arguing and both were at the end of their own rope. No one knew Elsa had powers.

He doesn't manipulate Anna to push her to go after Elsa and give him control of Arendelle; Anna makes the decision on her own, he even tries to stop her or says that he should go with her, but she's the one to ask him to watch over Arendelle while she's on her journey.

The candlestick falling on Elsa was an accident! I don't care what everyone says, given how fast it happened, Hans couldn't have aimed so precisely. Hans glancing up is once again too vague, he might have been checking for a place where he could deviate the arrow without hurting anyone but he had no time. Plus, I don't know for you, but I saw plenty of people glancing up as they think/before they act (and do so too sometimes) for no real reason. Light argument at best.

At most, you can argue he lied to seduce Anna.

And honestly? Revealing his evil plan this way is just so dumb! I get that many villains tend to monologue too much for their own good because they're overconfident and when they believe they've already won, but here? It's stupid and too risky, a good manipulative villain wouldn't have revealed himself at that moment in my opinion. Either you make him a master manipulator, or you just make him a puny opportunist, you can't have both; and either way, he should have acted way differently before the reveal. No wonder so many fans (myself included) had a theory that the Trolls were the ones who messed him up with their magic "Get the fiancé out of the way and the whole thing will be fixed" so their champion (Kristoff) would get the girl.

[goofballproximitysurveyor]

cuz why the heck not, kuon stroheim for that ask meme (seeing more blazblue on the dash is fun :D)

favorite thing about them

In general I think most of the XBlaze cast is really well written and Kuon is no exception! It took me a while to really get her character but after time, translating a small doujin centered around her, and her being a main piece in one of my OCs story, I ended up coming around to her more. I like characters where my opinion changes on them positively overtime.

least favorite thing about them

her end in CE is probably my least favorite end in the game it's just very underwhelming imo and while I think Mei's end managed to pull on a few specific heartstrings of mine that made me tolerate the "protagonist gets the girl in every end" structure Kuon not so much.

favorite line

I'M ON THE GIRLS SIDE!!!!!

(idk I think it's a sort of silly-romantic dramatic moment of Kuon helping Es get to Touya and it's a line that particularly stands out to me with Kuon's character)

brOTP

Acht has a line in BBDW about how now that she's not Kuon's enemy she would want to be like an older sister to her and I think about that line and get sad sometimes...

ОТР

Don't make jokes about how two characters who argue constantly should kiss because then one of them will pull this and you will ship them for real

пОТР

ig the closest is that I think that because of my distaste for protag gets a girl in every end type stuff Kuon/Touya has been tainted for me a little but it's not that serious.

random headcanon

I think Kuon and Elise did date once. They are in the midst of the worlds most disastrous teenage lesbian breakup. It is not going well for anyone involved or even really witnessing it.

unpopular opinion

I just think it's funny how people seem to like Kuon a lot and understand her but it took me like being essentially forced to do a bunch of character study on her to really get it.

song i associate with them

none really but one day I will have one...

favorite picture of them

unrestrained summer fun + dumb shitpost drawing i did of her because this is literally how she poses in one of her portraits

[musicismymoirail]

Ohhh fellow dragon age player???

Tell me more about your protags 👀👀👀

Oh, yes! :D It feels like I've been playing it forever at this point. But, okay! I do have sideblog for my da bullshit here but I haven't chatted about my protags in ages, so let's go! Apologies for the length ahead of time. ^^;;;

The Wardens: Left to Right.

Suibhne Tabris, the pragmatic & polite rogue whose always up to teach folks the old alienage proverb of 'no child of Adaia Tabris makes empty threats'. Push him if you dare. He's my technically canon warden and the leader of Origins ragtag group. Mainly because he's very stoic and chill. Mhm. He was left at the Chantry as an infant before the Tabris family adopted him. He loves his family dearly, and took Adaia's death very hard. Like he didn't speak for years after and people feel like he ended up as very muted version of his chaotic child self. But grief can change you, and that's okay. He romances Zevran (utterly smitten~), Morrigan is basically his sister, is the one that does the Dark Ritual, and he'd love to meet his son but respects Morrigan's wishes to keep away. He's just a chill sweetheart who will murder a whole castle of nobles to save his loved ones~. I love him. c: <3

Nari Aeducan, the iconoclastic & favored former princess of House Aeducan. Oh, Bhelen. You can keep the throne but you will never feel safe within the walls of Orzammar again. <3 Nari is... my newest Warden, and not super fleshed yet. She lost her eye in her childhood during a training match, and asked Daddy Dearest to get her a lyrium prosthetic eye. Because it neat. In my canon, she misses out on meeting Duncan and gets to roam around the Deep Roads until the Origins group finally stumbles over her like two months later? She's a survivor~~~ She also enjoys sweetly terrorizing her baby back-stabbing brother. <3 No idea who she'd romance, honestly? Probably no one. Her mind is just set on causing chaos in Orzammar. Bless her.

Raniel Surana, the tempestuous and diligent mage that lasted like four days outside of the circle before she turned to blood magic. To be fair, she was dying at the time & Mouse is cool. Raniel was my very first Warden~~~ Sooo. Her and Tabris both met Duncan before going to Ostagar, and she's both enthralled and terrified and so bitter at Jowan, so she's just bouncing in every direction. During the first fight, the orge atop the Tower bites off her arm and Rani, not wanting to die with her new friends, asks Mouse for help. She's Super Bitter and Pissed for most of the story, as losing your home and arm will do to someone. No one really questions the weird white mouse that travels on her shoulder. But Leliana and the others sloooooooowly bring back her old romantic self. Stories and stars do the soul so much good. She ends up as the Teryna of Gwaren, is a happy little blood mage and since Leliana is my canon Divine, is basically married to the highest religious figure in Southern Thedas. Go Raniel~~~~

I never got as attached to my Hawke as my Wardens or Inquisitor (weird as DA2 is my favorite game so far), buuuuuuut this is my current one.

Revelry Hawke, the stepford-smiling put-upon third parent of the Highly Dysfunctional Hawke family. All they wanted in life was to keep their family together and safe, and they Failed! Constantly! Carver died in Lothering! Bethany died in the Deep Roads! Leandra died in Kirkwall! And Revelry blames themself fully. :'D They're technically a rouge, but personal headcanon is they have magic too but just for Entropy spells and this goes unnoticed by all until the Arishok stabs them in Act Two. Losing one's family does have a way of letting you let go of a lot of things, does it~~? Forever sides with the mages, I do imagine they got offered the Viscountship post-game (because it's dumb that's Templar-locked) but Revelry stepped down after like five days. They're known as the Five-Day Viscount now. And they, idk, probably ended up in a polycule with everyone accidently. That seems like a very Revelry thing to do. o:

Do I have a favorite protag of the lot? Yes, it's Mir. :D

Mir'uvenan Ruoho Lavellan, aka Mir, aka Miracles, my beloved and endlessly chaotic Inquisitor. Left his clan because of his toxic and deeply codependent relationship with his twin brother, Mir is basically a shattered mosaic of trauma, impulse and passion. He doesn't know why he's here, he wants to burn the Chantry to the ground and steal its foundation to boot, and people are! Praising him?!? Him? Why! Whhhhhhhy!?! He's not a leader! TToTT!! Except, that's all the gaslighting talking. Mir is stupidly clever and intelligent, endlessly caring and absolutely has no issues telling off Ancient Tevinter Gods and their Fake Archdemons. He lost all his fucks when he got the Anchor, so fuck it. He'll do his best because he's kinda stuck here anyways. TT____TT

(And Bull's like 'this is why you're the Inquisitor, Kadan~~')

Mir's an absolute little nerd who adores mixing his own alchemical concoctions because smashing highly volatile flasks against his skin is just Heaven~~~ He ends up losing his hearing Quite A Bit because of all the explosions, but whatcha gonna do~? Dagna and Rocky teached him Dwarven Sign Language to help. He likes hanging around Dagna to learn magic in the non-magic way too because It's Fascinating! o: <333

Mhm. Romances Bull but it's pretty open. Sera is his BFF, and Dorian a close second. Never gets comfortable being the Herald or the Inquisitor, doubly so after the Jaws of Hakkon, triply so after Trespasser. He disbands it, and is happier for it just being a Red Jenny with Sera and just finally enjoying life at long last with a good support system of friends and connections. I always play the game as Mir slowly working through his miserable self-worth and healing through all the trauma his brother put him through, so I like him ending the game having more neutral-positive outlook. He is actually Not The Worst, and ain't that nice? c:

(He's still gonna punch Solas in the face if they meet again tho. Because friends don't let friends destroy worlds, and he already proved people are just as worthwhile now as long ago.)

And if anyone actually read through all of that, thank you and bless you for reading about my silly little protags I've put Far Too Much Thought into over the years! ;;v;; <3

Also, enjoy a silly comic of Mir buying 57 hand puppets. <3

[flawsofdawn]

TW:// GORE/DISTURBING CONTENT. (not tagging as mature so everyone can see.)

Character Introduction time! BEFORE READING!>>> (FOD is short for Flaws Of Dawn just incase anyone is confused! writing it out every time is tiring!) SOME THINGS ARENT SET IN STONE YET BUT I WILL TRY MY BEST TO KEEP THINGS ACCURATE AND FLUENT! (keep in mind I'll refer to some areas with placeholder names such as "hybrid area" "demon area" "mortal realm" etc. since not everything is quite figured out yet :D)

Aurora-! Aurora is essentially Protag #1 in the story, shes a human that lives among the people In the world FOD is set in. As of now she can use magic to summon temporary wings to get across large gaps but they don't last very long and are only used when ABSOLUTELY NECISSARY. She used to live down in the Mortal realm until she was brought over at some point, which she then moved to the outskirts or the "hybrid area" in the woods with a smaller tight knit community. When Aurora lived in the mortal realm she was held up in her small apartment most the time except for when she either had to go to school or work at her part-time gas station job. All of this changed later on when she'd met Mizuki and she'd essentially had a friendship with with them forced upon her due to a misunderstanding. Why did I even keep talking to her anyway? Later on Mizuki would be the one to bring Aurora over into the realm (FOD) is in. Somethings not right...somethings off..

Aswell as Aurora I'd like to talk a bit about Pina and their species as a whole!. Pina is Auroras pet dragon, They are part of the "Crystallium Dragons", a species which has no gender. These creatures asexually reproduce in the form of "eggs" , these Eggs are actually Mana crystals that absorb magic and energy from the "parent" to form their offspring over the span of around 5-12 months. A dragon that was carried and fed mana by their parent for 9-12 months would grow to be much much larger and stronger than a dragon that was carried only 5-8 since they rely on the mana for their growth as a entity. These Dragons can grow to be 60ft tall (not including wings) OR larger, but, it all depends on the circumstances of how a dragon is formed and the life it leads going forward. These creatures have existed for as long as the land itself has, they aren't dangerous unless provoked and tend to be quite gentle giants if you will :) They have many abilities by "default" such as portals, flying (DUHH), healing magic, ability to "bless" others, Shapeshifting (into more "humanoid" forms), etc. Since I mentioned it!, Yes, the dragons can shift into more humanoid forms, Intelligence/"human-ness" depends on the age, strength, and how often the dragon socializes in their humanoid form with others.

TECHNICAL YAP OVER! TIME TO GET TO PINA THEMSELF!

As stated before, Pina is Auroras pet of sorts. They were gifted to her by Mizuki at some point when they were freshly hatched. Pina is still considered a baby by the dragons time it takes to age so they are quite clingy and generally pretty dumb and silly. They act similar to a dog but also kind of like a bird?? its hard to explain, BUT before Aurora was able to use any magic whatsoever (and still currently when needed) Pina would help Aurora get across the suspended landscapes via gliding to different ledges/platforms, also making portals to random places for her. (Pina don't know how to use their magic properly yet WAAH)

Autumn-? (Protag #2)

Autumn Is a Hybrid fox girl that lives and works directly in the populated areas of the "hybrid area" which is a large cityscape where any species/mix may reside no matter what they are made up of. She works at a small coffee shop/diner to sustain herself in the city. She lived alone in her parents vacation home they rarely use until she'd met Aurora and gave her a place to stay with her. Autumn comes from a larger family having a sister and 2 older brothers and a newly born baby brother. This is common for Hybrids since there isn't many threats for the people to have kids where they stay. She rarely see's her family because shes been off trying to start her life independently in the city, hoping to see the rest of what the world has to offer and explore. She enjoys gardening and studies magic phenomena and language as a hobby.

?::-What is the relationship between the three?

Aurora , Autumn, and Pina all live together trying to get by. When Autumn first met Aurora and Pina she had to teach Aurora how to speak the common tongue around (FOD) since she was only able to speak her native language from the Mortal realm. Autumn generally thinks very fondly of Aurora but is a bit hesitant towards Pina due to a dragon related trauma within her early childhood, but she tries her best to look past that and interact with Pina as normally as she can!. Everything is going to be okay.

Later on in the story they become devout lovers <33 (Aurora and Autumn!) Mizuki- ♡ (Protag #3?) Mizuki Is a Purebred succubus who was raised in nobility with her parents and brother Shoda wasnt there a third one?. She lives quite far away from the Hybrid area, rather being where most "demon" based people reside, The community around her is quite strict with its rules and expectations for whom you speak to, build bonds with, etc. This causes her to have some deep rooted prejudices and dispositions about hybrids since she was taught and shown to be "pure". (Essentially she along with most other demons don't really like hybrids like Autumn since they are made up of alot of different species genetically, unlike demons who are mostly made up of either demon/elf/succubi genes primarily. Some have external species mixed in but it isn't usually in excess.) She commonly travels to the mortal realm to socialize with others around her age, while in the mortal realm she hides her markings/horns/tail/wings/etc. since mortals don't know of the existence of the (FOD) universe. Mizuki would meet Aurora while with a group of friends and later bring her to the (FOD) realm, gifting her the ability to use magic and re-writing Auroras genetics so she could survive the strain of traveling between realms. Aswell as hanging out in the mortal realm she commonly smokes with a group of friends. Mizuki gifted Pina to Aurora to show her affections for her and make everything feel more welcoming.

Why'd I do that?

(CONTEXT: Mortals CANNOT travel between realms without the aid of an insider, even if they knew the realm existed and could make a way to travel there the strain of the transition would tear their body apart and cause the person to die. This is why someone would need to give the person a part of themselves/their magic which would then allow them to survive the transition, though they will be quite weak in their realm until tolerance is built or they learn more about how to utilize their magic to adapt.)

Shoda- ♡ (semi-Protag #3.5) Shoda is Mizukis older brother, He is also a purebred succubus. Whilst Aurora stayed with Mizuki, Shoda had built a bond with Aurora, offering some solace and comfort after they would argue. Occasionally Shoda would take Aurora into their city to learn more about where she now resides, taking her to parties and to see shops around. Shoda spent most of his childhood ignored once his sister was born due to his disobedience and ignorance of the rules his parents had set for him. In his teenage years he would meet Jackie, whom would become his best friend and later on Dedicated partner to him.

(NOTE. Jackie's introduction is confusing on purpose. C'mon why would I spill everything immediately!)

Jackie-🥩♡♡♡♡♡♡!!!!!! Jackie Is a Shark/Panther/Succubus hybrid who resides in the countryside area south of where Shoda and Mizuki are (The nobilities city) Her hobbies include... [redacted] ...?, Hanging out with Him!, talking to Him!, Loving Him!, what else would I do? Jackie grew up an only child with her two parents. She made friends with a girl named Koma in Pre-school!, they would become best buddies and spend all their time together in and out of school, having many playdates and sleepovers!. After an accident Jackie never was able to see her again and left to explore the world on her own. That doesn't sound right, that's not how it went. Jackie would become independent at a young age after her parents kicked her out, she would have to [REDACTED] herself out for others to survive from a young age causing [REDACTED]. Later on once she had the funds to, she would pay to attend a public school away from where she had lived before, this is where she would meet Shoda and quickly become obsessed attached to him. She would spend most of her time from then on with him, besides when she would [REDACTED] in the mortal realm, which she kept a secret from him. You could say she has a preference for fresh meat.

That's all for now.

If you have any questions about anyone mentioned at all, the world, or even characters not mentioned at all (or mentioned briefly) then go ahead and ask away (PLEASE.)

ToyHouse with other characters and info.

[radio-crow]

Pine trees

(A horror story I wrote for school)

Tags: First person POV, AFAB!protag, Forest, Rural area, Late night, Horror, Possible cryptid horror

Warnings: descriptions of blood, body horror, Descriptions of gore

"Hey, Gracie, How far away are you from my house?" My best friend Chloe spoke into her phone as I peacefully drove through the moonlit streets of this rural town. "I'm about an hour out of my apartment; I should be there soon but it's raining pretty hard," I replied using my car's speaker system. It was a peaceful night which was pitch black with the only source of light being the pale yellow glow of my headlights. My task for this evening was simple; get to Chloe's birthday party without getting lost in these winding roads. Although the directions on my GPS were usually rather confusing, This time it went quite smoothly.

Along with the occasional cabins and run down gas stations alongside the charcoal colored concrete, there were several mighty pine trees that reached towards the stars. Since the Oregon countryside was usually very peaceful with the sound of crickets chirping in the twilight or the occasional rustle in the bushes from wildlife, my mood was calm and serene.

Suddenly while I was in an ocean of thoughts, my car's engine sputtered like an elderly man with a cough which caused me to pull over at a nearby state park. "Damn it Why does this hunk of junk break down now it never does that," I grumbled to myself before opening the door to see what went wrong. As soon as I stepped out though, I was immediately hit with the pitter-patter of rain which caused my mood to further sour since I didn't have anything to shelter my head with.

This state park was rumored to be cursed however I never believed in dumb superstitions teenagers told their friends around the campfire. I lifted the hood of my car which bellowed smoke like a chain-smoker only for my eyes to stumble upon the problem; the engine had decided to just explode and scatter the other parts of my car's system.

"Just my luck why can't anything go right for once?" I grumbled angrily under my freezing breath which came out as steam in the chilly weather. Although my car was by no means new, it certainly wouldn't break down in the middle of nowhere which further fueled my rage. Gloved hands fumbled my phone out of my pocket to text Chloe and tell her that I'm going to be late when suddenly, there was rustling nearby and a tall bulky man came out of the forest.

He had a beard that was as prickly as the pine needles that surrounded him and the musk of a tire shop. "Ya got a problem with your car, little lady?" The man spoke, his voice gruff; he looked and sounded to be a trucker that was taking a rest before moving on to deliver more packages.

"Yes uhm, I do. My engine died and I need to get to a friend's place, can you help?" *I replied in the most polite tone I could muster in my annoyance. He nodded in response and started to check under the hood of my vehicle, starting the procedure to get me back on track.

Eventually however, I felt something was off about this stranger. His hair had twigs and leaves in it and he looked dirty like he lived in the forest however, I tried to keep a level head to not interrupt his work before my eyes widened when I noticed something that made me want to run out into the street like a lunatic.

There was blood on his shirt, lots of it and the crimson liquid started around his throat. "Oh my God sir! Are you alright and do I need to call an ambulance?!" I yelped in panic as my hands quivered a bit. However, the man didn't respond and slowly lifted his head towards my direction. When I saw his face I was suddenly frozen in sheer terror. His eyes were two empty sockets like bottomless voids and his jaw was slack. I started to steadily back away towards any direction of safety, but his face suddenly split open exposing a wretched metallic odor that could only resemble blood and rotting flesh. I tried to scream for help but there wasn't anyone around for miles as I choked on my own blood due to the fact I was stabbed by this abomination's sharp tongue.

THANKS FOR READING!

[divineerdrick]

One Piece Live Blog: Get Cruising!

Oh boy! Here we go!

The Netflix One Piece adaptation convinced me to take another stab at the genuine article. My previous attempt had stalled out on Kuro's arc. But with Matt Owens, Steven Maeda, and the gang highlighting what I'd enjoyed my first try, I'm back for more.

Since Netflix One Piece is filled with spoilers for the manga and anime, this first part is going to be #not so live blog. I'm basically going to cover all of East Blue in this one massive blog, having paused after Luffy got his first wanted poster. From here, I'll be trying to go one episode and chapter at a time, using episode previews to let me know if I should watch an episode before reading a chapter. For example, I know that the next episode of the anime is Buggy's journey after getting Gum Gum Bazooka'd off the island. But that episode was covered in Oda's famous chapter pages in the manga.

I might look to see if anyone has a good watching/reading order out there. If anyone knows of one, please let me know!

I should also note that I'm not going to be policing spoilers very hard here. I'm going to try to watch each episode and read each chapter as fresh as I can, but let's face facts. One Piece is an integral part of modern anime's DNA, and it's honestly all over the parts of the internet I call home. I'm going to have some preliminary impressions going in for a lot of the characters and arcs that people have raved about throughout the literal decades. Again, if I find an intrepid assistant who feels like intercepting asks and the like, I might accept their help. But I just think it's pretty hard to do this one as a truly blind read/watch.

Without further ado, here are my #not so live blog thoughts on what I've gotten through so far! I'll also go over my thoughts on the differences between manga/anime and Netflix, and occasionally manga and anime . . .

First Thoughts

Right off the bat, I feel like I need to mention that I still struggled through East Blue. It was definitely an easier read than watch, and I found myself enjoying the manga a bit more than the anime. There felt like there was a bit too much generic Shonen bullshit in this first part of the story. Now granted, as one of the OG Shonen works, this is more that other Shonen anime have made some of this boring and generic, but it's honestly still kinda dumb, boring bullshit here.

But that all changed when I got to Arlong Park. That arc felt incredibly tight and well paced, with each character being well utilized. The jokes all landed, the fights were all awesome, and the villain was enjoyable. This is definitely where One Piece started to sing for me, and showed the promise of why this work has had so much staying power.

Please keep that in mind when I get to my coverage of the various arcs.

Characters

Monkey D. Luffy

Our primary protagonist and the Captain of the Straw Hats took me a little warming up to in the manga and anime. Part of this is that Netflix Luffy is a couple notches higher in terms of good nature and IQ, and a couple notches lower on the pirate scale and silliness. In short, Netflix Luffy is a little closer to generic Protag-kun than his animated counterpart. He's really not a pirate, not even a "different kind of pirate." He's an adventurer using the term pirate as his title.

OG Luffy is definitely a pirate. He's a little mean, a little underhanded, and, most importantly, he won't let anything get between him and his goals. There are plenty of times when he just flat out slaps someone down because he thinks they're stupid or they're in his way. The only reason he becomes Zeff's choreboy is that the old pirate kicks the crap out of him. While Netflix Luffy opines that everyone has a story about Nami, except for Nami herself, OG Luffy just doesn't care. Nami is his navigator, and the thought of leaving Conomi Island without her never crosses his mind.

And honestly, while he took a bit to grow on me, this makes OG Luffy such a more fun and interesting character to follow. Yeah, as even Oda jokes, he's thick as brick. But even this has its charm. He sits at a nice middle ground between Goku and Jack Sparrow. He's just mean enough, and just crazy enough that you can't predict what he's going to do, while still being likeable enough to be a hero you want to follow for a thousand plus chapters.

Roronoa Zoro

The first of the Strong Trio, as I've heard them called, Zoro (or Zolo in the version I'm reading) is probably the character who varies the most from his Netflix adaptation to his OG self. OG Zoro isn't as thick or silly as Luffy is, but he's still a lot of fun. He's nowhere near as tightly strung or straight laced as Netflix Zoro is. He also jumps on Luffy's side a lot faster, accepting his role as Luffy's swordsman in exchange for his swords and sticking to his oath from that point forward. When Mihawk destroys him at Baratie, he's genuinely distraught that he not only lost, but he failed Luffy.

He also gets more time to shine during Arlong Park too, with his own opponent to face down and defeat. Granted, I understand why Owens and Maeda probably did this. At that point in the show, we know Zoro is a badass, especially with Mackenyu's amazing displays of swordsmanship, and Sanji needed to be established as the second member of the Strong Trio. Plus I'm betting Hachi would have been trying on their budget.

But again, this version of Zoro is just more fun to follow. We've seen the straight faced, snarky action hero done to death. I like the fact that the OG is much more laid back and willing to have some fun.

Nami

Tied with Usopp for how faithfully she was adapted, Nami is so far the most serious and intelligent member of the Straw Hats. She's a fan favorite for a reason. Besides sporting a cute design to appeal to the core Shonen audience, Nami is honestly one of the most capable characters in the story. And she's shown repeatedly to be pretty badass when she needs to be. All three versions of her are likeably and laudible.

That doesn't mean there aren't differences though. Netflix Nami feels a bit more victimized. And, I mean, fair! She refuses to get close to the Straw Hats because she believes she's doomed to hurt those around her. It feels more like an internalized failing, rather than the result of the overwhelming external force that is Arlong. OG Nami is a loner because she believes she has to do everything herself. It's not that people around her get hurt because of her, it's because if she involves anyone then Arlong might remove them from the picture. She plays a villain to Cocoyashi village not to distance herself, but because she doesn't want anyone else to get hurt saving her.

Either way, the emotional aspect of her arc throughout East Blue is one of the things that made Arlong Park so compelling. Now that she's free, I can't wait to see how her character develops. If her exit from Cocoyashi is any indication, it will be a lot of fun!

Usopp

Usopp is also pretty faithfully adapted in Netflix, with one small exception. Both versions of the character have dreams of being a hero, the same hero they portray themselves as in the stories they tell. However, for now at least, OG Usopp is a little close than Netflix Usopp. While Usopps cowardly antics seem a lot more over the top in manga/anime action, his acts of bravery are also more numerous.

Usopp won't stand by and let someone else get hurt. He may not be able to jump into the fray when things get started, but the moment an innocent person is in danger he doesn't hesitate. Part of this might be the changes made to the arcs for Netflix's adaptation. In the Netflix version, only Kaya is any real danger from Kuro and his Black Cat Pirates. So when Usopp refuses to leave Kaya's side, it comes off more as him refusing to abandon a friend then sticking up for someone that can't defend themselves. But in the original version, Usopp is defending the whole island from the Black Cats, an island that thinks he's a liar and a menace. He's also the one who jumps to Zoro's rescue when Mihawk strikes him down. And at Cocoyashi he repeatedly intercedes when fishmen are menacing the village.

Even his fight against Chew is because he knows he needs to even the odds or the three lieutenants will easily overpower Zoro and Sanji. While Netfix Usopp flees the moment Chew sets his eyes on him, then manages to setup a knockout punch, OG Usopp lures Chew away and then renews his attack the moment Chew tries to give up on the chase.

In short, Oda does an amazing job at showing that Usopp genuinely does have the ability to become a hero. I know he's still mostly comic relief and is part of what is occasionally called the Cowardly Trio, but I do hope we get to see Usopp get some development towards his dream.

Sanji

The last member of the Straw Hat's I've met so far, I have the least to say about Sanji. His dream and ambitions are perfect as the ship's cook, but they aren't particularly compelling for me yet. His fighting style is a lot of fun to watch though. And, as opposed to Zoro, it's so far more fun in animation and sequential art than live action. His swooning over Nami isn't really entertaining for me, though it's also not annoying. It's again, a little more entertaining in the manga/anime where the cool confidence that would probably serve him well in courting her is completely upended by drooling idiocy.

I will use this space to note another difference for the character, though this time it's in their back story and not their character traits. And it's strangely one where Netflix went with the manga, while the anime changed it. I just find it interesting that in both the manga and Netflix, Zeff sacrifices his leg on the rock to stave off his hunger so that he can give all the food to Sanji. But in the anime, they had him sacrifice his leg ahead of time to save Sanji, thus meaning he already had the leg as potential food source before making the decision. I'm curious why they made that change.

Johnny and Yosaku

While not part of the crew, I still felt I should give the two fanboys a mention. They provide something that Netflix missed out on, and maybe even spoiled a little in where they chose to cut and change things for the adaptation. They help setup some of the power scale for the adventure. Put simply, Johnny and Yosaku help give us a notion of what a normal, human adventurer is capable of compared to the pirates of the East Blue.

While the East Blue is the small pond of One Piece's world, that doesn't mean that Buggy, Kuro, and Krieg aren't real and genuine threats. Johnny and Yosaku traveled with Zoro as bounty hunters, and they presumably fought pirates and other outlaws. But they're completely outclassed when Krieg shows up. And when they go to Arlong park, they're dispatched so easily Arlong doesn't even bother to have them killed.

This helps establish that it's not just that Luffy is starting his adventure in a level appropriate zone, Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and even Nami are genuinely in their own class by East Blue standards. They are destined for greatness by right of their ambitions and everything they've learned and done to get to this point. They're not Lvl 1 Heroes killing slimes to get their first copper sword, they're already at or near vanilla level cap and just need the unifying force that is Luffy to get them moving.

I don't know if the two fanboys will play any further part in the adventure, save for maybe montages of characters past like with the wanted poster. For now they're staying in East Blue, where they've done what I think the story needed them to do.

Arcs

Alvida and Axe-Hand Morgan

One Piece starts out strong. Alvida makes for an entertaining first goon for Luffy to show off on (though am I spying a reinvigorated "most beautiful pirate" on these chapter pages?) Koby makes a nice lore character to get us started off, and Morgan makes a credible threat to defeat as our first baddy.

Obviously the first thing to point out here in differences is that Netflix, with fewer episodes to work with, assembles our first three Straw Hats here. In the original story, this is just where Luffy meets Zoro. I already discussed the changes there. Though I think this is another one where Netflix went back to the manga for one change? In the anime they have Zoro being punished for a month, but I seem to remember the manga had it as like a week or something.

Either way, the first adventure is a lot of fun and sets up some side plots for later. Where I am in the manga, I've just started getting chapter pages for Morgan and Garp. Netflix, of course, made a whole B plot for Koby, Helmeppo, and Garp as they pursue the bread crumbs Luffy is leaving behind.

Buggy the Clown

This was also a really enjoyable arc. I'm not going to discuss the difference here, as there are just too many. Buggy is given a full side character role for all of East Blue in Netflix, where in the manga we just get the chapter pages. The one difference I do want to highlight is that in the manga and anime, it's Nami that thinks to tie down all of Buggy's parts and not Luffy. Though Luffy definitely shows some of that underhanded nature in this fight as he tickles and nut shots his vulnerable opponent whenever he tries to go after Nami with the Chop Chop ability.

Buggy is just so much fun! I don't know how much he actually shows up in the story, though it's obvious even without the Netflix teaser that he's itching for a rematch. His power is so cool and creative, and though he's so far not very competent with it, Netflix showed the potential it has. I hope I get to see a lot more of him.

This arc also nicely sets up Nami and her story for East Blue, though you only realize it in retrospect. Again, I remember just always having a lot of fun with this one.

Captain Kuro and the Black Cat Pirates

This was my original stumbling block and man did I feel it the second time around too. They try to make Kuro out to be this clever and menacing pirate, but I just never buy it. Part of the problem is he just doesn't do anything!

This is one of those arcs where I was getting tired of the Shonen bullshit. The arc starts with the introduction of Usopp as a comic relief character. Since I hadn't had a chance to see the bravery he'll show later yet, and Netflix didn't deliver on it, that's all I get for him as things start. Then we get a rather cliché murder plot. The butler did it! Kuro is revealed, and his plan is . . .

Well, the hypnosis part is creative I guess? It's more fun and interesting than just, "I'll trick the family accountant to signing everything over to me!" Jango fails to be anything but more comic relief though, and that's with Usopp already looking to fill the role.

Then we get to the fight. Usopp starts to show his bravery, but it's buried under all the attempts at comedically stalling things out. Oh no! They're at the wrong beach! Oh no! Zoro's caught in the grease trap! Oh no! Luffy got lost! Oh no! Zoro got his swords stolen! Oh no! Luffy got put to sleep by Jango!

And all the while, Kuro just stands there. Nami doesn't really do much here either, even though I honestly think she could probably take Kuro on her own. Then Kuro just announces he's going to kill everyone and the pirates stop doing anything too. And when Luffy and Kuro finally do fight, it feels drawn out. Like it really just feel like Luffy could have just walloped him if he'd been taking things a bit more seriously or been a bit more creative with his powers.

I will say, Usopp's bravery does start to shine through here. He keeps getting knocked down but refuses to give up. Usopp honestly is the best thing about this arc and it does set his character up well.

Baratie

And finally we come to it: the wall.

Baratie almost ended my second attempt at this. It starts out so strong too! Sanji's introduction is awesome, Zeff is really cool, and the idea of a bunch of "fighting cooks" that can beat pirates is really fun. Then you get the introduction of Mihawk. This is one of the points where I wish I'd stuck with my first attempt at One Piece. To be fair, Netflix's introduction of Mihawk is fantastic. But this was even better in many ways. I feel I would have enjoyed this more anime/manga first, then been impressed by the adaptation. It comes out of almost nowhere with just the barest hints of what's about to happen before Mihawk splashes down in the East Blue like a giant in a puddle. Netflix felt the need to tie Mihawk into the ongoing story. As other commentators have pointed out, this undermines the sense of scale and danger that is The Grand Line.

OG Mihawk isn't on any kind of mission. He's just bored!

But Krieg and his pirates. Oh man . . .

The point of Krieg is that he is the proof that the East Blue is the leveling zone. Here is a man with a ton of resources and know how. He has a massive armada, state of the art weapons, and a vicious and dedicated crew. The chefs of Baratie might have fought off pirates before, but they're no match for Krieg's crew.

But Mihawk, one man with one sword, destroyed it all.

Yet Mihawk gets bored again and doesn't finish the job. So now Luffy has to prove that he does have what it takes by beating them by himself (with some help from Sanji of course.)

It's a pretty functional device as plot devices go. The implementation just sucked.

Krieg is not interesting. "I win because I have the strongest weapon," is such an old trope and one that, especially in anime and manga, almost always means you're a loser. Gin isn't interesting. He's got just enough character that I would actually like to see if Oda does something more with him. But in this arc he starts out feeling like a weak lackey. Then, surprise! he's second in command! Then he's just a weak lackey again. Then, he's a lackey, but he's strong enough to walk away.

And the less said about Pearl the better.

But the biggest problem is, again, no one does anything! For most of the arc, Sanji is the only one that does any fighting. Other than launching their "secret weapon", the fighting chefs don't fight. And Luffy and Krieg just spend the entire arc staring each other down. It starts even before Mihawk shows up, and doesn't stop until Gin beats Sanji. Luffy makes a couple of extremely half hearted attempts to run . . . run . . . over to fight Krieg. But because, and I can't stress this enough, he only ever tries to run over to fight Krieg, Krieg easily repels him with his guns.

Once the fight actually starts, it's clear that Luffy can just pound Krieg into the dust. He just doesn't. And so the fight drags on longer than it feels it should, as Zeff opines about how Luffy will win because he has the will to do so. Even though, we literally just saw Zoro, who has almost, if not as indomitable a spirit, get owned by someone that's just plain better than he is, it's all actually about will and heart.

Well, maybe not just saw. As I said, this drags on a bit. We're quite a few episodes/chapters away from that before Luffy and Krieg actually start fighting.

Now I will say, I know there's more to this. Luffy is still very young and inexperienced. We start the adventure with him leaving his island, having not been show doing any actual fighting. We're literally seeing all of Luffy's actual combat experience in this anime and manga. He's constantly inventing new moves as he learns his abilities, and he also needs to learn how to use those moves at the right time. So this fight is supposed to be part of Luffy's learning process.

But it's just not fun and not funny and not interesting. He used the Gum Gum Rocket in the first arc, yet he keeps trying to, again, run over to fight Krieg. He's shown he can deflect projectiles, yet he just let's Krieg's poison shell hit Baratie. He punches right through Krieg's steel defenses, then takes his time breaking Krieg's spear.

It's just not a good fight!

But we can leave all that behind us now. Because once Krieg is defeated and Sanji says his suitably over the top farewells to Baratie, we can finally get to . . .

Arlong Park

Like I said, this basically saved One Piece for me and brought me back to the promise of the first two arcs. It also proved that this story can deliver on more than just Shonen action and slapstick comedy. Take everything I said about Baratie, change it to the opposite, and you have Arlong Park.

A lot of people have already talked about the difference between adaptations here, so I'm not going to mention it much. This is already getting long here. I do wish Nami had actually gotten to take some part in the action, but she still gets a heroic moment as she faces down the monster that murdered her mother and has controlled her entire life.

Also the way she reacts as Luffy destroys her prison hits hard.

But yeah, everything about this arc is fantastic. The pacing is great! The characters, and their designs, are all fantastic. The jokes all land. The way they divided up each fight is nearly perfect. And there is real, and intense, emotional pay off.

Even the Shonen trope of taking Luffy out of the fight to come back later is done well. Luffy being dumb and trying to do the cool new move he thought of getting him stuck is hilarious. And Arlong's reaction to it is a peak villain moment. It does make me wonder a bit about the way Devil Fruit powers work, because I thought that the ocean takes you power away. But Nojiko is able to stretch Luffy's head above water. Still, it might be that the Devil Fruit permanently made Luffy out of rubber, and it makes for a creative solution with some genuine suspense.

Even our comic relief villain, Hachi, is both funny and menacing. I really liked the fishmen designs in general, though I'm not as much a fan of Chew's design. Kuroobi is probably my favorite of the fishmen, possibly even more than Arlong. He's got a great design, his fighting style is awesome and a great test for Sanji, and he's shown to be more cool and level headed than his boss.

But Arlong is still a great villain. His planning and cunning and evil are demonstrated throughout the arc. And when the fight actually gets going, it's clear that he's a proper match for Luffy. Not only is Arlong strong, but his moves are just the right level of over the top. I'm particularly fond of the Shark Darts. I am a little sad he pulled out that massive sword to not really get to use it much, though. They also do a great job using him to demonstrate Luffy's strength by showing the force Arlong's nose can take before Luffy breaks it.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, I'm on a cruise now. From this point on it's going to be one episode/chapter one post. I'm going to try to do three to four episodes a week. At that pace, it's possible I might get caught up by years end. Either way, I'm hoping to have a lot of fun!

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

You know, I still think about how like... Katsuki has never actually had a proper 1v1 vs a villain character ever. Like, it's always been with another person. All of his fights where he could shine... are against other heroes. And most of the fights where villains are involved, he loses pretty badly. But it's more than just that. Izuku's original design was going to basically be Japanese Anime Batman, being quirkless and using equipment and an adult. Katsuki's original design was going to be a nice person who just had no tact and was brutally honest. Apparently, that original design for Izuku was believed that it would cause him to fade into the background according to Horikoshi's editors, and Katsuki's original design was considered too freaking boring according to Horikoshi himself. And yet fast forward to the current events of the manga where... I genuinely don't even know what Izuku's personality is any more because all his idea of strategy is basically gone, it's just basically 'unleash overwhelming power', and he really has no character outside of being a vessel for the Protag Powers. And then you have Katsuki, who jobs constantly, the entire story basically feels like he was intended to be the original protagonist with how often he's shoved into everything and is just sucked off despite his jobbing as if he's more important to the plot than anyone else. Like fuck, Katsuki is literally listed as being an abusive egotist in the guidebook, and Kirishima has an entire thing in his backstory about being the victim of bullying yet he's completely okay with Katsuki, a character who is actively hostile to everyone and is abrasive AT BEST. Like I get they're high schoolers (which I genuinely don't understand with how they act considering high schoolers were more intelligent than this for me growing up) but fuck Horikoshi's writing makes fucking everyone so god damn stupid the moment Katsuki is involved. Anyway, I needed to vent after I was catching up on World Trigger and realising 'yeah I actually enjoy this arc because we have character personality conflicts and the individuals have to work them out because they're stuck together for a week. Oh and they actually talk to each other and you know, HAVE FUCKING BRAINS, and actively try and work on these flaws that are coming up', and getting incredibly mad that the entire character writing into MHA at this point is basically SMASH THIS NO STRATEGY and personally I blame the story constantly sucking off Bakugou who's supposed intelligence just feels informed and contrived because of his behaviour. Intelligent strategist but incredibly socially dumb my god. And he's so socially dumb he subtracts from everyone else's intelligence to get him to suck him off. I genuinely do not understand why the Bakusquad exists considering the personality conflicts there, especially with Kaminari outright stating his personality was raw sewage at one point early on and yet we're supposed to believe that Bakugou has grown and atoned as a person whilst still being a rabid dumbass who gets his ass kicked.

That’s an interesting point. A majority of Katsuki’s fights, the ones where he wins, are against fellow heroes in training. In terms of villains, he’s only ever fought Tomura, Nine, the canon fodder in the USJ, and the minions in the movies (with help).

I agree with what you said about Proto Katsuki in that he would’ve been far more interesting, or at least far more tolerable. I’d rather have a boring character than an outright terrible one. Like you mentioned before, everyone who interacts with Katsuki is made 100% dumber and is forced to neglect key components of their character just so that Hori can wank off his fave and push this “he has potential and is strong” narrative. I also agree that unfortunately it does feel like Izuku’s been reduced to “punch everything with a lot of force” rather than the creative fighter he was before. There was a really great analysis I just read that explains this. I blame it on Hori trying to wrap up his story as quickly as he can.

This is the analysis in question btw:

[ifellinlovewithpersona]

Damn, the post I just reblogged (confidants with their associated Personas/demons) made me think intensively about an AU I made with my good friend from the fandom long time ago and now I feel like I need to brag about it to get it out of my brain XD

Okay so first, a controversial opinion: I think Atlus is actually trying too hard with separating Persona series (especially neosona) from mainline SMT. Like I totally see WHY they might want to separate it as much as possible since despite I only played (tbh still playing) one mainline SMT game and I already started to ask myself some questions about how actually Persona universe worked that any big apocalypse that would wipe out that universe never happened yet, despite Persona is a parallel universe to mainline games (I mean P2:IS was close but still it was "inside work" by Nyarly a.k.a evil side of human nature instead of a result of main SMT deities' intervention) and that questions might lead to finding major plot holes so I kinda get what Atlus is doing that but it still feels kinda wrong, you know?

Anyways, the thing I actually miss in neosona games is the coexistence and duality between Persona users and Demon Summoners like in P1 and P2 where Tamaki was using her Summoner abilities and experience to help the protags and that was super cool imo

Anyways, back to AU concept - Philemon's reset didn't seemed to wipe out the SMT elements in Persona universe completely as in P2:EP Kuzunoha Agency still works and there is still mentioned that Tamaki and Chef Todoroki are summoners. And that means that most likely Demon Summoner Program made its way to neosona universe as well despite Philemon's reset

Okay so AU would be about Detective Agency still working in neosona times and Tamaki probably still operating as well and that there are still coexistence between Persona users and Summoners even in P5 times

And actually Mishima and Hifumi didn't had their Personas for a reason

They already didn't need them. They were young summoners trained by Tamaki and operating in secret so much, that they didn't even told Akiren about it despite they knew he is Persona User- at least at first

Like think about it - Mishima is canonically very skilled and interested in IT (he made a complex site by himself from scratch) so it would make sense for him to quickly learn how Demon Summoner Program works, same with Hifumi since she is one of the best shogi players and we saw in canon that's she's very good in logical thinking. I think she would learn how that program works immediately as well

I imagine that maybe the Kuzunoha Agency wanted to investigate the mental shutdown cases by themselves and they ended up recruiting the two high schoolers with summoning potential to do so or something (like Chef Todoroki was most likely dead at that point since he was already elderly in P2 so maybe Tamaki was alone and needed some help and new faces). Tbh that would be hilarious to see how much these two tries to keep a secret from Akiren and Persona Users (maybe either Tamaki didn't allow them to speak about that or they just didn't wanted to worry Akiren even more), like Mishima trying to act dumb and clueless but he would actually knew about what is going on but from a different perspective 😆

And here's how they would find out - they would ran on each other in some Palace - Phantom Thieves in their outfits and Mishima and Hifumi with their pack of demons 😆 The conversation would be hilarious though: "Akiren? Why are you dressed like that?" "It's a long story, but what are you two doing here and why are you working with Shadows, are you crazy? And how did you got there, do you have a Persona as well?" "What are you saying dude? That's not some Shadows, they are demons! Besides we don't need Personas, the Program is all we need" "They are...what??? Who are you again???" 😆😆

Anyways after that there would be Persona Users- Demon Summoners solidarity once again like in good P1-2 times and I imagine Mishima and Hifumi actually helping out and working with the Phantom Thieves despite they were never Persona Users and maybe help them out during a final battle as well

So yeah, that's the only AU I can actually forgive Mishima and Hifumi not being a Persona Users 😅

[kuzuhina1brainrot]

Omg yes I hate komahina. In most of the fanart Hajime looks scared anyway 😭😰

I've also been berated for killing kuzuhina and not komahina

exactly! I 100 percent respect peoples opinions, but i personally dont get it. Also, in lots of scenes fanart or not, hajime’s mad/scared.. :’)

(in non fanart, hajime is mad/scared especially in the game, so i especially dont like them there.)

i dont hate nagito, i like him (yet id love to throw him into a trashbag) but im too dumb to understand him lol. same with gundham.

For the most, im just not a fan of antag x protag, i dont really get it. I just like ships where they’d both get along or have some strong connection. I tried watching a few of Nagitos FTES for some sort of extra information on komahina and to look into it more, but that just helped me know more about nagito. Theres…a surprising amount of komahina shippers that would come at you for anything like that, sadly, ive never met a good one. Probably because for the toxic ones, i see them all on either tiktok/reddit or discord, though.😭