#finally putting my ability to make polls to use

[hestzhyen]

Chapter 76 Rebirth Posting

More exciting stuff, dear void! I am seated with popcorn! Rough TL of Editor's Notes First Page: (none this week) Last Page: 雀!! 飛宗三能力がもたらすのは...?! [Suzaku!! Tobimune san nouryouku ga tarasu o ha...?!] Suzaku!! What has the third of Tobimune's abilities set in motion...?!

Some meta stuff first!

Next week's issue will be a double because April 27th/28th is the start of Golden Week, a series of national holidays in Japan. In other words, prepare for lobotomybachi.

Volume 7 will be releasing on May 2nd in Japan, so look forward to info on the cover illustration, page count, and the possibility of extras soon!

The next issue of WSJ has Kagurabachi getting the Lead Colour Page alongside some kind of "happy announcement". One wonders what it will be! It could be a character popularity poll, it could even be... that.

Hiruhiko's Gambit and Samura

So much for seeing what's happening at Kamunabi HQ! We got a whole chapter of Hiruhiko's shenanigans for the most part, but the payoff was so fucking worth it.

"Run along now, Ms. Toto. I need you to be able to save my ass with a timely teleport before I get murked."

Killing Samura, the pinnacle of the Gotta Go Fast sword style while he's deeply wounded and gasping for breath? He'd need some fancy moves to pull that off. Great time to see what else Kumeyuri can do!

Oiran != prostitutes, alright? Can we put that stupid "discourse" to rest already?

The word used in Japanese was 遊 [yuu], which will probably get translated as "Play". 遊 means a variety of things from play to pleasure/recreation/diversion to flexibility/freedom.

Also, the JP line between the last two boxes is:

"遊"は周囲のモノを自在に操ることができる "yuu" wa shuui no MONO wo jizai ni ayatsuru koto ga dekiru "Play" lets the user freely manipulate nearby objects.

モノ [mono] is 物, meaning "thing/object". The extra emphasis from writing it out with katakana means that Hokazono-sensei's telling us that it's for non-living things only is my guess. It can work on things and objects but not living, breathing animals or people. Plants are probably also excluded from use but that's up for debate I suppose, have at it if you want to.

Anyway! How 'bout all them corpses Chihiro and the Masumi created, huh? Yeah... Add on a super-duper strong Banquet and not even Samura is safe. Because we got confirmation at last that John did target and manipulate Samura to be the anxious, defeatist wreck of a man we love to debate (apparently).

The schemer schemed successfully.

A broken man with so much anxiety and guilt is easily manipulated. Called it!

And indeed, Hiruhiko does a great job of getting the strongest swordsman to kill himself to save his daughter. The corpses probably don't have any killing intent that Samura can hone in on, so he'd be going off the sounds they were making and not much else when it comes to fighting them. Too bad his senses are scrambled thanks to Banquet.

So he performs one final act befitting his role as her father before he becomes the latest series casualty... oh. Oh.

What's that? Tobimune's third ability is... Suzaku?!

No malding, W for the official EN translation.

The kanji used for the ability was 雀 [suzume], which means "sparrow". But it can also be a reference to the Vermillion Bird of the South (朱雀, zhū què) from the Chinese myth of the Four Symbols. With the Ruby next to the kanji being すざく [suzaku], there's absolutely no doubt that the last ability is divine intervention incarnate. Was the True Realm bit in the beginning hinting at how Samura came to have this ability, since he hates killing...? Being able to revive the people you murder would definitely ease his conscience over those sincerely held Buddhist beliefs clashing with his duty.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

Suzaku the mythical bird is similar to a phoenix but not quite- they're both associated with rebirth through fire, but there's some really deep lore with Suzaku that makes it a distinct entity. Some short details on what exactly Suzaku is are here and here.

*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*

The move seems cool and OP as fuck, yeah. It's also the most probable answer to the question Shiba sorta kinda answered back in chapter 60:

Hey Shiba where've you been since we last saw you here?

So now I wonder if this was Samura's plan all along- kill the other bearers to sever their contracts with the blades then bring them back with Suzaku. At the very least, the chances of Uruha being alive after all just shot up dramatically. Revival sword + not seeing his body + deliberately being teased about his status + Chihiro saying this about the man's death:

YOU SHOULD HAVE RESTED LONGER DAMNIT. Chapter 60, I don't like you very much.

Let "Uruha Lives!" be the next thing we hastily scribble in public areas as our sign of rebellion against The Man.

Anyway...

Iori's probably still gonna have trauma from seeing her dad get eviscerated right in front of her.

The Crow feathers burning up raise some interesting questions- is it just a neat visual effect or is it part of some limitation for using Suzaku? As in there's a long GCD like he's playing FFXIV with only three abilities at level 2. We see him flood the hallway with feathers shortly after though so maybe it's just for the cool factor.

There has to be some kind of limitation on Suzaku though. Probably. Maybe it requires a ton of energy and/or has a long cooldown before it can be used again and/or it cancels Crow/Owl if they're in effect and/or can only be used once per revival target? Hope we find out. What a fucking amazing move though. Samura is terrifying with Tobimune- he seems downright immortal and inescapable. Look what you've done, Hakuri! (Please don't, you did nothing wrong. Ask the author when you can come back to us though.)

Oh shit his eyes are open!

Samura looming in the dark with his scars on fire, preparing to teach a "stupid brat" a lesson... I nearly forgive Hiruhiko's presence in the hotel this arc. THIS PAGE IS SO FUCKING AMAZING! But yeah, Samura called Hiruhiko a 糞餓鬼 [kusogaki], "shitty brat", "stupid brat", "son of a bitch", however you wanna phrase it ("friggin' brat" in the official EN) the page prior. He's got Mr. "I'm the only one who's free" cornered and it's a coinflip if the pink menace goes down or not, I think. Toto's presumably in a safe location but will she know to teleport Hiruhiko out of danger? She and Hiruhiko could plausibly have the twin/soulmate sense thing that Chihiro and Hakuri have going on. Kumeyuri's third ability could come in clutch too, whatever it is. We'll see.

What I want to see most, though, is the additional follow-up to this from Chapter 51:

It's going to happen in a different way than I expected but it'll still be emotional as hell.

I think Samura's sight was also restored for a bit of thematic harmony after he "woke up" from the hallucinations by dying. Blinding himself out of guilt trapped him in his own head and negative thinking, also blinding him from interpreting things in a better way. His sight being restored would symbolise that he's now on a more even keel with a better perspective on things.

Sorry for all the panel captures this entry but I wanna make a note of something here that couldn't necessarily be brought over into English:

Something something literal AND metaphorical "waking up".

The line in JP in Samura's panel was:

彼をようやく幻覚から醒ましたのは致���傷による痛み kare wo youyaku genkaku kara kimashita no wa chimeishou ni yoru itami

醒ます [kimasu] means not only "to wake up" but also "to be disillusioned" and "to sober up". Got the triple play of meanings here! It's not normally written with the 醒 kanji -覚める[kimeru] is more common- so Hokazono-sensei was very deliberate about keeping all three meanings here, I think. Or he's just very fond of associating kanji using the sake radical (酉) to the blade that's named after a shaky pour of sake (酌揺) and induces drunken hallucinations (酔った幻覚). Like Samura sobered up and got his head back on straight after becoming human shishkebab.

At any rate.

Will Samura be surprised by how Chihiro looks, especially with that massive scar? Will he also think Chihiro looks like Kunishige? I want to find out!

Wouldn't it be so evil if we cut over to the Kamunabi HQ attack next chapter instead? Ha ha... ha... not really though, because I'm eagerly awaiting seeing who gets to show up to do cool stuff over there. Whatever perspective we get, I'm here for it.

Meanwhile, On the Roof...

Thanks for reminding us of the series of events just in case we forgot since a lot has happened the past few chapters.

Kuguri had the good sense to run away so he can live and fight another day, though it's hilarious that Hiruhiko apparently forgot or didn't bother to include him in what he planned to do. I think we'll see more of him in a later arc; maybe not a lot, but he's got a better head on his shoulders than Hiruhiko (not that that's a challenge) so he could become another recurring skills check for Chihiro. He's most likely tied to whatever will happen with the Sushi Bearer.

I kinda wanna see his commentary on how Chihiro uses the Iai White Purity style but we'll have to wait on that. Glad to see you Kuguri, now get the hell out of Dodge while you can. Samura's on the warpath against your buddies and you're certainly included if he sees you. You also probably don't have much of a chance to kidnap Iori with the Masumi around her so seriously just GTFO and live.

Speaking of:

Ikura definitely got more than he bargained for getting himself involved in this.

Seems as though the Masumi are gonna be just fine. Good. Protect Ikura and Iori from the re-corpsified corpses just in case and don't make any funny moves that raise death flags. I'm fucking warning you guys and I won't do it again.

As for Iori...

There won't be enough therapy in the world to help her after this.

I think even if she and her dad don't get a chance to talk, she got an answer of sorts when he protected her at the cost of his life.

Naturally I think they have a ton of shit they need to say to each other, and Samura still deserves a verbal lashing, but at least Iori won't be thinking he abandoned her because he didn't love her or something like that. The problem is he cares too damn much if anything, really. And can't/won't get help for that fragile mental state of his.

Samura being glad that he was the only one who was hurt is the biggest answer to her question of "why" though- he doesn't want her to suffer. He'll shoulder all the pain and misery, do whatever it takes to let her live a free and happy life. He's a true father at heart even if he's not really functional in some critical aspects. Kinda like Kunishige, in a much sadder way.

At least Kuinishige's main failing -that we know of, at least- was being immature and leaving all the housekeeping to Chihiro. Bit of a crappy thing for a parent to do to their kid, but it worked for them and didn't bother Chihiro much. He actually cherished those times when he was taking care of himself and his dad. In all other respects Kunishige seemed to be a proper parent- he was teaching Chihiro some really valuable life lessons and being a good role model outside of housework. Most importantly, he was willing to walk through life with his kid and support him every step of the way.

By contrast, Samura's too mentally tortured to support Iori properly. He fears her hanging herself and doesn't talk to her but sends her away. He knows she's a target for kidnapping and worse and instead of working through it with her, he makes her forget everything so others forget her too- even himself. But he'll be her shield and protect her no matter what it costs him.

It's such a damn shame that he thinks his little girl needs to be separated from him to be safe and happy, really- she cherished those memories of their mundane days together just as much as Chihiro did with Kunishige. No doubt she has the same feelings of not wanting to trade those moments for anything, not even the safety and peace of mind her dad wants her to have so desperately.

I really, really hope they get to talk things out. There's so much unsaid between them and they deserve a quiet moment to rip the band-aid off and start the conversation.

One More Thing

A little detail that might get lost in the hype of this chapter:

Reusing screen shots like Hokazono-sensei reuses panels.

The Shinuchi is the exception to the three basic abilities rule for Enchanted Blades. We saw Kyora use Spider, Dragonfly, and Centipede during the Rakuzaichi arc, and we can surmise that the flower field was Malediction, the True Realm ability that the Sword Master unlocked. So there may be more critter abilities to witness if we see the sword in action!

Okey dokey. Give yourself a little compliment this week kind void. We'll meet again for the "exciting announcement" and whatever happens next in this wild fight!

[skele-bunny]

NOO THE POLL IS WRONG PLEASE POST THE ZEPHRIT PLEASEE :((!!!! PLEASE PLEASE

OH MY GOSH OKAY 😭 THERES LIKE.. SO MANY OF YOU IN MY INBOX RN. AND MY DMS. AND WKKWKSJ???!!! (Small tag for @sister-nyx , @everybodyshusband , @hypnoneghoul , and @artificialmoth I know y'all were also interested) is this impractical? Ye. But it's fun to me

College AU — Zephrit

Warning: It's professor/student in this but everyone is consenting adults

Cw: Internalized Homophobia, Pet Play, Master/Pet dynamic, Power Imbalance

Ifrit at college on a sports scholarship, but he's recommended to have extra credits to keep his GPA up, so he takes a German language class. Mr. Zephyr Luft, this cold, no nonsense professor who has a reputation for kicking people out even for little things. So take Ifrit who's now suddenly the bane of their existence.

Snarky comments, not doing any work always with the excuse of "This is only extra. I don't need this course." And he's gotten so many academic write ups, even to the point of Mr. Luft talking to the sports director. Nothing. So, they take it into their own hands. Requesting Ifrit to stay after class one day, and he obviously automatically assumes he'll be getting "the talk" of why it's important to do work and that he'll be getting another deduction.

Zephyr waits until the final student closes their door before beckoning Ifrit near, getting up and walking around with their cane as they do, indeed, babble about how Ifrit will be getting a deduction. But also...

"I can tell you were never properly raised, Gör. Such a nasty tongue you own."

"Whatever you say, old man."

There's a sigh before Ifrit can only gasp as a hard wack goes to his ass, turning around and seeing Zeph slowly put their cane back and stare.

"Did you just—?!"

"Well, obviously. Do you feel like speaking with manners yet?"

Ifrit just scoffs, "I'll have your job you fucking pervert."

A simple shrug. "Then I guess I need to make my worthwhile."

Now, Ifrit's strong. Works out a lot. He's taller than them! So he doesn't understand how this older, shorter person that relies on mobility aids had the ability to slam him back over the desk and keep him pinned while caning his ass more and more.

Finally had enough and letting Ifrit drop, face a dark red, fists clenched. Zephyr is just as calm as ever, not even paying attention to Ifrit anymore as they return to their desk and mumble that administration is in a different building upstairs. Ifrit sniffles a bit before quickly getting up, grabbing his bag, and high tailing it out of there.

He's so fucking humiliated! He's a grown ass man who could've overpowered them! His own damn professor!! Who do they think they are?! Slams out of the building and to his car, wincing as he sits down and stares at the admin building Zephyr mentioned. He has all reason to go there. To report what was done to him... But... That would mean they'd have to see. They'd have to know that Ifrit was too weak and too much of a pussy to defend himself from some old guy. Swallows his shame and instead, just goes home early. Looking at his bruised ass in the mirror, cane welts very obvious.

It's in the shower where he massages the pain, his dick slowly getting hard and he just chalks it up to the water. Nothing else. Nothing else is in his mind as he released down the shower drain. Don't realize the pattern as every time he has Mr. Luft's class the rest of the week how he'll massage and jerk off again. And again. The memories of being bent over and used and... And... And that cold stare that he starts imagining watching him, demanding perfect satisfaction as Ifrit masturbates in front of them. Then slowly changing to that cane dragging between his thighs and making him rut against it.

He feels sick the first time he imagines one of his one-night stands as that same old asshole.

Staring at himself in the mirror, turmoil bubbling. He's not gay. He's never been gay. He loves women and pussy and tits, and so much. This must be his nerves, is all. Some kinda trauma thing maybe? But even still, he notices how his attraction has slowly shifted. They must be the exception. Attracted to a single amab body, that's it. That's all it is. But he craves it. Wants to feel that helpless again. Wants to feel his body pinned down and where he's not the one in control...

And Mr. Luft can do that.

Packs so slowly one day after class, waits until it's just them when he approaches their desk. Zephyr humming and asking if Ifrit's reported them yet.

"No... I just, uh," There's shame and embarrassment Zephyr instantly picks up on. "Would you... Would you do that again? To me?"

"Spank you?"

"Yeah..."

They stare at each other before Zephyr just laughs a bit, worsening Ifrit's shame. But, "You poor thing. Just a stray dog looking for warmth, aren't you?"

He just nods, keeping his eyes down but can see Zephyr lean back in their chair. "No need to whine, hund. I can take you home with me if you'd like. Give you what you want."

Ifrit nods, and the rest is history.

Given directions to Zephyr's home after classes are finished, Ifrit knocking with hesitation. Brought in and led to the bathroom, listening to Zephyr make demands of how Ifrit is to shower, to attempt to finger himself for the first time, and lay on Zeph's bed nude. He does as he's told, albeit questioning himself more and more. This is some freaky shit he's getting into, isn't it?

But oh... Oh it's worth it. Explained how it's not Mr. Luft in the bedroom, only Zephyr or even Master. That he must say thank you to everything given to him, even punishments. He didn't realize how much he missed that cane against his ass now with hands as well once they start. Who gets his ass eaten for the first time and cums from it. Sucks cock and fingers Zeph for them to ride him. The degradation and that sharpness on their tongue like always. Sometimes speaking it in German, Ifrit can't understand, but he can feel the tone and just whines from it.

He stays over, tucked into Zephyr's arm as they come down from their bliss. More internalized hatred bubbling in his mind but it always seems to mute when he focuses on Zephyr's heartbeat. How he hates having to leave, but Zeph assures that all Ifrit has to do is ask and their home is open to stray dogs.

Ifrit takes that offer.

Finding himself on his knees just about every other day for them, listening to commands and being dominated. Taking on his role of a dog, desperate for that love and care in the form of heavy hands and instructions. Finally, a simple collar around his neck. So many new things he's exposed to and he loves each and every one of them. How German lessons follow into the home, Ifrit bent over and spanked with either a ruler or their cane for every thing he mispronounces.

Finds himself with no interest in the opposite gender as he's come to terms of what he's attracted to, just how much Zephyr has opened his mind and what he enjoys. Learning so much about himself in the process. Not only does his grade drastically improve, but so does his mental health. Finds more confidence, a new release as he doesn't have to think with Zephyr. Just has to be a good dog and listen to what he's told to do. What's he's trained to do.

Always lingering in their classroom, spending lunches with them and his free time. Their relationship developing so much they officially start dating privately, and to the point Ifrit moves in with them out of his dingy apartment. They keep everything quiet, out of respect for each other and also Zephyr's job. Everyone thinks they finally had a meet God moment, as they've become different people basically. Even Zeph watching some of Ifrit's games and practices, that cold stare no longer being of distain but craving.

Just a loyal dog as ever.

[utilitycaster]

How would the wizards win, they are knocked out easily and fragile as fuck???

Hi anon,

In the interest of verisimilitude I am running this combat play by play. Assumptions include:

Equipment is that of their last appearance (Echoes of the Solstice for the PCs but before Caleb gives his stone to Luc, and 2x141 for Essek) with the notable exception that no one has any potions

All magical items with charges are fully charged

The wizards have all necessary components for their spells

Caleb’s philosopher’s stone is on him and is set to constitution save proficiency, which is how Caleb usually has it set.

Caleb will not access spells that we have not seen him use previously

Essek gets the high level dunamancy spells though bc we left with him not accessing 9th levels and it seems reasonable he’d have these learned.

Characters are all level 20

The poll this is based on does not explicitly say to the death, so I am counting “at least one of the wizards survives and put Yasha somewhere she is not going to bother them” as a win condition for them.

For the purposes of this exercise I am going to make Essek a chronurgist but swap out the level 2 abilities (Chronal Shift and Temporal Awareness) for Adjust Density since we know he has the latter but “time is his speciality” as I don’t have his actual stat block.

Essek’s CON, WIS, CHA, and STR are unknown as are his HP. I have rolled for them, added his CHA bonus as a drow, and taken an ASI to one other stat. I have also just used the wizard default of 4 HP per level + con bonuses. I rolled (4d6 drop lowest): 16, 8, 14, and 11, which seems like a reasonable spread. I’m giving him 16 CHA (14+2 racial bonus), 16 CON, 8 STR, and 13 (11+2) WIS, which seems reasonable to me. His HP is therefore 6+4*19+3*20=142.

They all start at the corners of a square with sides 30 feet, as there is no 2D configuration of four equidistant points. Same teams are at diagonals from each other (ie, going clockwise, it goes Beau, Caleb, Yasha, Essek.)

In order to stave off any whining: if both wizards roll higher on the dice for initiative than both sentinel babes I will reroll. After that the dice shall tell their story.

Caleb is not allowed to cast Wish to simply win the fight even though that is the obvious answer and not prohibited per the rules of the poll because while that proves my point, actually running through the combat and demonstrating the general case of “wizards beat melee at L20 as a rule” is more fun for me.

Final and most important rule: I am a human person running through combat for four people. Will this be perfectly optimal in every way? No. If there is something egregiously wrong then mention it but if you simply had a different strategy then well, write it out yourself.

Combat below the jump:

Initiative: Caleb rolled 7 (modified to 9), Essek rolled 16 (modified to 19), Yasha rolled 15 (modified to 18), Beau rolled 3 on the d20 and 6 on the d8 from her boots of the vigilant (total of 14).

Round 1

Essek casts Hold Person on Yasha since he cannot cast it on both at once as they are 42.4 feet from each other. She fails with a natural 1. [L2 spell used - Essek]

Yasha rolls again at the end of her turn, and gets a 12, failing.

Beau runs to Essek and attacks him twice, using a ki point to stunning strike him on her first hit and attempting for all hits after until it succeeds. She rolls an 11 and a 14 to hit on the dice, which will hit. Essek rolls a natural 18 on his first con save, succeeding, but a 9 on his second, which fails, dropping his hold on Yasha. Beau just takes flurry of blows for her bonus action, with advantage, rolling a 17 and a 12 respectively at advantage. Total damage to Essek is 14+11+7+7=39 damage. (2 ki used) She can also extract aspects; he is a normal guy.

Caleb shapechanges into an ancient white dragon. He picks up Essek in a talon (object interaction) and flies 35 feet into the air.[L9 spell used - Caleb; concentration]

Round 2

Essek is stunned

Yasha summons her wings. She makes her Frightful Presence save with a natural 18 and flies almost into melee with Dragon!Caleb but that is her action. She rages as a bonus action.

Beau has no abilities nor items that extend more than 30 feet away. She may as well use Empty Body to become invisible and resistant to all damage though! (6 ki used total, 4 this round). She makes her frightful presence save with a 15 on the dice. Essek is no longer stunned.

Dragon!Caleb can get both Yasha and Beau in a cone of cold, DC 22. Yasha saves with a 17 on the dice and total of 27,  Beau rolls a 3 and uses a ki point to reroll, getting a 9+10 which fails. This is a con save, so no evasion. I rolled extremely well (thanks google dice roller thing) and Beau takes 96 cold damage, halved to 48 from Empty Body. Yasha takes 48 cold damage as well, halved due to her saving throw. Caleb rolls a 6 on the d6; this ability recharges. He then flies 80 feet away from Yasha.

Round 3

Essek casts Ravenous Void 30 feet behind Yasha such that he and Caleb are outside of the spell’s 100 foot range. Beau is however also in range, though neither she nor Yasha are within range of the sphere, merely the 100 foot event horizon. [L9 spell used, Essek; concentration].

Yasha must make a strength save, which she makes with a 14 on the die, against Essek’s DC of 20. She moves 25 feet towards Caleb and Essek as she is in difficult terrain (yes, even in the air.) She uses her battle cry ability as a bonus action, granting Beau advantage on attacks and saves.

Beau makes a strength save as well, and makes it with a natural 18. She can activate her maelstrom gloves at this point I suppose, as her action. She also runs from the sphere, along the ground, at half speed (35 feet); she will use step of the wind to dash as a bonus action (70 feet). She is still within the range of the spell this turn.

Caleb can hit Yasha with the cold damage again. She makes her save with a 15 on the dice. I rolled much more poorly this time; she takes 32 damage. His breath weapon does NOT recharge this round as I rolled a 4.

At the end of round 3: Caleb has 333 HP as a dragon and has used one 9th level spell on which he is concentrating. Essek has 103 HP as himself and has used one 2nd level spell and one 9th level spell, the latter on which he is concentrating. Beau has 144 HP and is invisible; she has used 8 of her 20 ki points. Yasha has 148 HP and is currently raging.

Round 4

Essek casts lightning bolt on Yasha at 5th level. She fails her dex save (16+3 = 19, his DC is 20), taking 10d6 lightning damage, or 26 points per my roll. (Yasha is at 122 HP).

Yasha makes a strength save at advantage against Ravenous Void, just making it with a 10, but Essek uses Convergent future to make her fail. Yasha is pulled into the Ravenous Void; Essek takes one level of exhaustion. Yasha takes 5d10 force damage (another 26 points) and is restrained. (Yasha is at 94 HP).

Beau rolls a 15, succeeding with a 21. She successfully runs out of the range of ravening void and stays there. HOWEVER she is now within Dragon!Caleb’s blindsight radius.

Caleb gets directly above Beau and attacks her with his multiattack. He rolls a 9, 17, and 15 on the dice and gets +14 on all three attacks, dealing 2d10+8, 2d8, 2d8+8, and 2d6+8 damage total, all of which will be halved. That added up was a 72 total, halved to 36 for Beau who is now at 108 HP. He rolls a 5 on the d6, recharging his breath weapon. All attacks are made at minimum 10 foot reach, putting him outside the range of Sentinel; he returns to 40 feet above Beau.

Round 5

Yasha is out of range, so, upon realizing what’s going on, Essek casts See Invisibility on himself and can now see Beau, but that is his action.

Yasha takes another 34 damage from the Ravenous Void and makes a strength save at advantage; she makes it and is no longer restrained. She can get 15 feet out of the sphere. (Yasha is at 60 HP)

Beau can I guess run 70 feet away from the wizards.

Caleb uses his breath weapon again on Beau. She rolls a 5 on the dice, which is a failure on the con save. She takes 39 (79 halved) damage. Beau is now at 69 HP (nice). The breath weapon does not recharge this round.

Round 6

Essek casts Gravity Sinkhole where Beau is. She rolls a 4 on the dice and fails her Con save, taking the full 5d10 force damage (27) which isn’t halved by Empty Body. Beau is now at 42 HP.

Yasha succeeds on her saving throw and is now 40 feet out of the sphere, 50 from the center. She needs to make her next two rounds of saves to get out of the range of the spell, but takes no damage this round. She heals herself up 20 points, to 80, as her action.

Beau runs another 70 feet away.

Caleb goes after Beau, who I assume is running at a tangent to the radius of Ravenous Void, and dashes, catching up but is not able to attack.

Round 7

Essek uses momentary stasis on Beau. She rolls a 9 on her Con save, failing with a total of 19; she is incapacitated and has a speed of zero.

Yasha rolls a 3 and a 4 on her next saving throw, failing her strength save, and is pulled back into the center of the sphere, taking 5d10 (33) damage. Yasha is at 47 HP.

Beau is incapacitated.

Caleb makes his multiattack, dealing 57 total, halved to 28. Beau is now at 14 HP.  Caleb’s breath weapon does not return.

Round 8

Essek casts gravity sinkhole again at Beau. She rolls a 19, making her con save, but still takes 5d10 halved. I rolled a 28, halved to 14, precisely knocking her unconscious.

Yasha takes 25 force damage from the center of the sphere and makes her save, moving out from the center of the sphere. Yasha is at 22 HP.

Beau rolls a 2 on her first death save. This however does not matter, because...

Caleb lands and attacks Beau, taking her death saves and killing her. His breath weapon does not return.

Round 9

Essek hangs out in Caleb’s talons, chilling.

Yasha makes her strength save and moves out from the center of the sphere. She is again 50 feet from the center.

Caleb flies to the edge of the radius of Essek’s spell and lands.

Round 10

Essek gets out of Caleb’s talons and stands but is otherwise still chilling.

Yasha makes her strength save and dashes, reaching the wizards but is not able to attack them. She is no longer raging, having taken no damage nor attacked in a round, so she rages again.

Caleb drops Shapechange and casts Disintegrate. Yasha rolls an 11, for a dex save of 14, failing. She is reduced to 0 HP by Disintegrate, which turns her into dust and kills her because she is still dust even though she is raging.

Conclusion: I did to be fair roll like absolute shit for Beau but it was ultimately a game of dragon-and-monk anyway; once they're in the air and she's not and Yasha's unable to come to her aid, she's fucked. The second Beau fails to stunning strike one of the wizards, and Caleb gets a +9 assuming he has all his favorite magic rocks around him against Beau's 18 DC, so this is not out of the question, they can and will either turn into a dragon with a +14 to con saves and also who can fly, or cast "gravity hates you personally" at 9th level.

I would also note that Yasha's 101 damage in one hit in Echoes of the Solstice relies on several buffs from - you guessed it - magic users, as well as a crit. (fun fact! I rolled zero nat 20s during this, which is kind of weird although also I was mostly only rolling saves). Neither she nor Beau can one-shot one of the wizards on their own - even if they're teaming up only on one of them it's going to take 2-3 rounds, and meanwhile the other has, again, cast "fuck you" at 9th level in the meantime.

[wormboytrav]

demon weapons and gender

A while back I saw a poll on here that was meant to get a consensus of who people thought was the biggest misogynist in shounen history. The funny part, though, was that two manga authors were included with the characters. It makes sense; one of the biggest boundaries between me and watching shounen has always been the fanservice and inherent misogyny in the genre. I think Soul Eater is the weirdest example. Its fanservice is overbearing, of course, but it’s surprisingly progressive with gender norms. I’ve been thinking about its magic system and how being a weapon or a meister sort of serves as a secondary gender (thanks for the concept, omegaverse writers), so I’m finally gonna write down all of my thoughts about that here.

From what I can remember, Maka and Soul were written specifically to break out of the gender norms you usually see in shounen, specifically in their relationship with each other. I’ve always thought that was referring to the fact that they don’t get together romantically, but you can also make it about their power dynamic. Maka is the meister, she’s always calling the shots and taking control in any combat situation. Soul, being the weapon, is serving in a support role, refining Maka’s soul wavelength and being a tool for her to use to win. Now I don’t have a degree in gender studies, but I was raised female, and so a lot of these aspects are familiar to me. 

Throughout the series, demon weapons are put in support roles and dehumanized (which seems like a very strong word but I mean it literally), which really is reminiscent of how women are treated in society. There’s also the interesting fact that in weapon form, characters are always shown naked. I was actually surprised when this was never used explicitly for fanservice (as far as I know). Another thing: in the anime, at least, this rule is broken twice. The first time we see Soul and Spirit in their weapon forms respectively, their reflections in their weapons are wearing clothes. Interesting, of course, because that wasn’t the case for female weapons. Later on, though (probably to show off Soul’s cool new scar, but conceivably for consistency) Soul and Spirit are also shown as naked when in their weapon form. 

So, let’s talk about the role that a demon weapon has for their meister. They’re meant first and foremost for their body to be used as an object to complete a task, but they also serve to enhance their meister’s abilities by focusing their soul wavelength and allowing them to perform special techniques. This reminds me a lot of the phenomenon of support characters in video games often being women. They’re often set to be healers, which of course plays on the societal expectation of women being homemakers whose primary role is to care for their husband and children. There’s also, of course, the oversexualisation of these characters, which is often added to placate male fans who would otherwise complain about their inclusion in the games. This objectification really reminds me of the concept of demon weapons being an object used to complete a task (not sex, in this case, but you get the point I’m trying to make). 

But there are also societal expectations for demon weapons. They’re expected to protect their meisters at the cost of their life, something which Soul is known for showing pretty drastically. It all comes down to the duty to serve. They’re also expected to listen to whatever their meister tells them to do, although that seems to be a little outdated, given Soul’s unhappy reaction to Maka pulling that card when they’re doing the whole emotion candles exercise. What I also find interesting is Stein’s reaction to Spirit acting on his emotions during their fight with Medusa--in the manga, at least in the translation I read, he says “Too many absurd weapons…” which I understood as meaning demon weapons are stereotyped for acting based on their emotions rather than logic, which is also a misogynistic stereotype (Side note: when I was looking for that manga panel again, I saw a panel where Spirit is shown with a six-pack and immediately went “He wouldn’t have a six-pack, he’s a weapon!” which, if you replace the word weapon with woman, really is misogynistic).

On the topic of Spirit Albarn. I’ll try to keep this brief, but I have so many thoughts about him that it might be difficult to. Obviously, Maka and Soul are a sort of reflection of Maka’s parents in the fact that they’re a female meister with a scythe partner. So knowing this, let’s transfer the idea of breaking gender norms from Maka and Soul to Maka’s mother and Spirit. By all means, their relationship would be more stereotypical (at least, for shounen) if their genders were swapped. You would have an absent father figure as well as an overly emotional and overprotective mother, which is a story I’ve seen a million times before. Then there’s also just…Spirit in general. The thing that initially drew me to him as a character (besides him sharing a voice actor with Tamaki Suoh) is how deeply he exists for other people. He’s a support character through and through, at every stage in his life. As a middle schooler he was responsible for looking after his meister despite being a kid as well, then once that relationship ended he became responsible for his own child. Not to mention the fact that his family has served Lord Death for generations, and he was probably raised with his final outcome already decided for him. It’s sort of reminiscent of how daughters of a noble family are prepared for marriage; he had no control over his future. There’s also the fact that his specialty is drawing out the best qualities of the people that wield him. This reminds me of those movies with manic pixie dream girls, where the female characters don’t really get to develop besides helping their male counterparts develop. Am I saying Spirit is a manic pixie dream girl? Not necessarily. But I am saying that, to me, he is a woman. It’s just so easy to describe him in relation (or possession) to someone else. Stein’s weapon partner, Maka’s father, Death’s Scythe.

And then there’s Crona, of course. Interestingly, they’re a sort of combination of weapon and meister, and also androgynous. Reading the manga, it felt like the author sort of forgot what gender they were supposed to be and just swapped it to whatever was more convenient for the plot (something which the Death Note manga did with Rem too, kind of).

Anyways. I do think society in Soul Eater is weirdly formatted for meisters instead of weapons, even though professional weapons are more common than professional meisters. I think it’s interesting that there aren’t more classes at the DWMA with a focus for teaching weapons, especially considering Death Scythes don’t seem to always work with a meister at all, and the Academy is supposed to exist to teach weapons how to control their forms. That kind of structural unfairness makes me think there’s definitely a societal bias against demon weapons--although gender is the easiest way for me to explain it, it’s also sort of its own thing. If you use the etymology of misogyny, you could make a new word for it, like misoplogy or something. Whatever. Thanks for reading my ramblings!

[cleolinda]

Weekend links, March 23, 2025

My posts

I had a spinal procedure on Wednesday (minor; except for seeing all time at once for a couple days, it's fine) and I'm half-resting for a few days after that. But I managed to get the next set of Silent Hill 2 commentary posts up—here's the masterpost for those. I'm currently finishing up the posts for the third video, and (knock on wood) I'll be recording Blue Creek, aka "I have to fight Pyramid Head again," sometime this week. 

Meanwhile, Ian's third stream is also up: "Last night we had our first Pyramid Head encounter, talked about the Schumanns, dove into the wild world of sample manipulation, got a crash course in diatonic vs. nondiatonic chords, and discussed possible interpretations for the coin puzzle." He's already seen my third video (the same level) and tells you exactly where I got my ass kicked.

Reblogs of interest

Some interesting indie games!

Kun'tewiktuk: A Mi'kmaw Adventure: "A fantasy adventure game inspired by Mi’kmaw legend and folklore. It chronicles the adventures of siblings Wasuek ('Flower') and her brother U'n ('Fog'). They get separated one summer morning and they go on an adventure through the spirit world to reunite."

Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori: "Bond with your horse and tame the open wilds of 13th century Mongolia." ("The developers obviously put a lot of love into finally repping my people as Not Just Generic Bad Guys To Be Slaughtered in QuickTime Events, but the unabashed horse girls we truly are.")

Happy Miette Tweet Anniversary to all who celebrate

happy 10 years to wagon age oregons

Puffy is enough.

"hey gamers I’ve started watching star trek does anyone else see the romantic tension between captain kirk and mr. spock"

A Brazilian opossum being presented to Queen Isabella of Spain in the year 1500 from The Zoogoer v.15:no.1 (1986).

Poll: what font do you like to use most when writing?

"asking you about rothko . just ramble for a bit please"

"You’re just a mammal. Let yourself act like it. Your brain needs enrichment. Your body needs rest."

“you little fucker, I’m going to make a statement and then I’m going to take you out to the parking lot and beat your ass. What good does your pessimism do?”

When language transcends language

As I get back into perfume, I can't tell if I want to try Fairyland Bloop or not. I do not want to try Sécrétions Magnifiques.

"My mom accidentally joined a grieving support group (long story, she’s not grieving tho)" [and] "she says citrus tarts aren’t 'griefy' enough"

"I approve of powerscaling discourse only in utterly senseless contexts" ("Gordon Ramsay can breathe underwater. Can he fix The Chum Bucket")

Video

Wet Beast Wednesday: "sometimes you just gotta gghghghgh. mibph. breh. [sneezes] fibsh."

"Trio for Harmonica, Rubber Duck, and Belt in D Minor." "This is how clowns do BDSM"

Words of wisdom from Lil Nas X: "Stop trying to shit on your haters! Do it for you! Do it because you deserve it! Do it for YOU!"

"disability? more like check out dis ability"

Please enjoy the adventures of Dexter, Squidward, and Chicken Elizabeth Nugget at Carcass Acres

"it is once again… binturong appreciation hour"

For those of you who dont get to see fireflies. Yes they are real and yes they are gentle

The sacred texts

I'm not sure how an argument about kettles and tea turns into iambic pentameter, but

Personal tag of the week

Let's say jewelry, because I love the chocolate box pendant AND the Greek earrings AND the moonstone ring AND the garnet owl ring AND...

[phoenix-downer]

Kintsugi

Chapter 2 - Wait for Me

Summary: Kairi asks Aqua about the Power of Waking, and in her dreams that night, she sees Sora. KH4 SoKai pining, angst, romance, and fluff.

Written for Valentine's Day 2025 as a celebration for posting my hundredth SoKai story on AO3! 🥳 Thank you all for voting in the poll and for all the support over the years ❤️

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5

The Land of Departure was a calm, peaceful place, all verdant green grass, sapphire blue pools, and starry skies. Kairi was glad for it. It was much easier being here than it would've been living back home. Everything on Destiny Islands reminded her of Sora. She couldn't go anywhere without her heart splitting in two.

But she couldn't let herself get too comfortable here, either. She had to train and train and train, fight and fight and fight, be ready to find Sora when the time came. Which was why she had just asked Master Aqua a question after another sparring session.

“The Power of Waking?” Aqua echoed, her eyebrows knitted together in concern as she put the training equipment back to normal. “That's a really difficult ability, Kairi. Even I didn't master it until recently, and it's so dangerous if you use it wrong. I know you want to find Sora, but—”

Kairi just stared at her mentor, refusing to back down. “But I've learned so much. Yesterday you even said you thought I was ready for the most advanced magic training.”

“That's different from what you're asking me to teach you.”

Kairi sighed deeply. Other than Aqua, only Sora and Riku knew how to do this, and they were both gone. She plopped down miserably onto one of the benches nearby. “I know Sora asked me to wait for him, but how can I just sit around doing nothing until he comes home?”

“You're not doing that, you've learned so much—”

“But what good is it if I'm not helping people? If I'm not helping him?”

Aqua’s expression softened, and she joined Kairi on the bench, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Kairi, I'm sure he would want you to be safe. I know you want to find him, but Riku must be with him by now, and when the time is right, you will be too.”

“Can you at least explain the theory behind the power?”

Aqua sighed, blowing back her bangs. "Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt. That way, if and when you do learn how to do it, you won't do it incorrectly.”

A thrill ran through Kairi. This was a fair compromise, and she listened intently.

Aqua continued. “You should only ever traverse hearts to reach worlds,” she said, gesturing from her heart to the training field around them. “Don't ever traverse worlds to reach hearts. That's where Sora went wrong. He raced through multiple worlds looking for us and then you. We all should have died, but he stopped that from happening. I'm deeply grateful, but using the power like that comes at a cost.”

Kairi nodded. “Right, that makes sense. So, if I applied that to Sora’s case, I shouldn't use the power to jump from world to world to find his heart.”

Aqua nodded. "Yes, that's right. I can't say you wouldn't find him. There's a chance you would. But then you would be just as stuck as he is.”

“Which I don't want. So to use the ability properly, I would need to know where his heart is first and then use that to find where he is.”

“Yes, exactly. The ability is much more precise and much less risky when you use it that way because you're only making one jump instead of countless jumps. But it's also where the difficulty comes in. His heart isn't in the realm of light anymore, so you’d have to find it first. And how can you find it if you can't access the other reality?”

“Right, which is why Riku had trouble too. He couldn't find something to go off of until we were in the Final World.” Kairi scuffed the dirt with her shoe. Unfortunately, that gate had closed after Riku had used it. She would have to find another way.

The others had searched her heart for a year for clues, but maybe there was some clue deep down only she could find. Some hint they had all somehow missed.

The fingers of her right hand twitched faintly. She'd heard of people feeling phantom sensations in missing limbs. But she only ever felt this in the hand that had held Sora’s right before he disappeared.

A sign, maybe?

When she went to sleep that night, she willed herself to dream.

————————————————————————————————

There was nothing quite like the sea. Its waves crashed steadily against the shore, the tide unrelenting, waxing and waning but never ceasing. The sand was wet against her toes, and Kairi's eyes fluttered open. Her dress was soaking wet, as if she had washed up from somewhere far away.

It was sunset on the beach, just like when she and Sora had shared the paopu fruit. Just like when he had disappeared.

She used to love sunsets on Destiny Islands. Now she hated them.

Sora was sitting on the paopu tree. A part of her wanted to run to him. The other part wanted to stay right here to keep things from ending. Her mind revisited this scene often. Reliving the happiest and saddest moments of her life, all in some misguided attempt to change the past.

She understood why Sora had done it. If she could have, she would have, too.

He never spoke in her dreams. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He did speak. But she couldn't hear his voice, no matter what she did. She'd tried to get better at lip reading, and he'd made the most of various gestures. But she missed his voice, so, so much.

Still, even though she couldn't hear him, she couldn't not go to him. Any time they had together, even if it was just in a dream, was precious. So her feet took her forward, step-by-step to the paopu tree. She hoisted herself up, and he smiled and said her name, his eyes softening. That much she could easily read on his lips.

He reached for her hand, but as usual, his hand went right through hers. They could never touch directly in her dreams. The most they could ever manage was him briefly controlling her body, and when he did that, he couldn't see her. So if they wanted to talk face-to-face, this was the best they could do.

A hint of sadness flickered through his eyes, and it broke her heart. At least she could still hug their friends and family here. In an earlier dream, she had confirmed he’d made new friends. But did he have anyone he could hug?

Hopefully Riku had found him by now. The thought of him all alone in another reality with no one to hug him made her worry. He was so naturally affectionate but had been deprived of all affection.

What she wouldn't give to hold his hand or hug him, just one more time.

“I talked to Aqua today about the Power of Waking,” she said, because at least she could use words to reassure him.

His eyebrows immediately shot up in alarm, and his eyes widened. She was pretty sure he was saying no, no, no with everything he had. He even tried to go into her body as if to prevent her from doing something reckless, but she gently stopped him.

“Relax, she wouldn't teach me how to do it. Just explained the theory behind it. We both agreed that if I could locate your heart or even just a piece of your heart, I could use the Power of Waking to reach the world where you are.” She pursed her lips. “Though it's not a world so much as it is a different reality. An unreality.”

Sora still looked concerned. She put her hand near his cheek, wishing her touch could connect with his face. “Don't worry, after the price you paid to save me and bring me home, I'm not going to do this unless I'm sure I’ll succeed. Okay, 90% sure. And right now, not only do I not know how to use the power, I don't know where your heart is.”

She looked at him sadly. He just tilted his head, like the question baffled him. He lifted a finger to point to his nose, the gesture people on Destiny Islands made to refer to themselves, and then he pointed at her heart.

"Yes, you're always with me. I have your heart, and you have mine.” This fact comforted her and helped her get through the long days of grief.

He shook his head, and her heart sank. “You don't…feel the same way about me anymore? Or are you worried I don't feel the same way about you?”

He raised his eyebrows, as if to say, really, Kairi? She was almost offended when he repeated the pointing gesture, more emphatically. First he indicated himself, then pointed towards her heart, then did it one more time as if to really drive the point home.

She gasped and clutched her chest. “Wait, are you saying…you're in my heart?”

He nodded enthusiastically.

“So it's like when I was in your heart. Only this time…you're the one inside me. Inside my heart I mean!” She clamped a hand over her mouth and avoided his eyes, her face flushing crimson. That had really come out wrong.

When she’d worked up enough courage to look at him again, his face was also bright red. That made her feel a little better.

She fiddled with her necklace. "Sorry, that came out wrong.” They hadn't even gotten to kiss yet. He had disappeared before they’d gotten the chance.

He swallowed and shook his head. Wait, did he mean it was okay, she didn't have to apologize? Or did he mean he didn't mind and wanted to talk about all this stuff more—

She buried her face in her hands. Keeping up healthy communication in their relationship was really difficult when she couldn't hear him. But that just made her more determined than ever to find him.

"Nevermind that for now,” she muttered. He looked away this time. Was that disappointment in his eyes? She wondered how lonely he was, really. Maybe he was getting hugs from friends, but that wasn't the same as hugs from her. She reached for his hand, and as usual, her hand went right through his. But the fingers of his left hand twitched.

He looked at her, surprised that that had happened. She smiled sadly. Maybe their connection was growing stronger, but it was still bittersweet that they couldn't touch.

She leaned closer and pecked the air near his cheek. “When I wake up, I'll know where to find you. Wait for me, Sora.”

His lips parted and his eyes went wide. It was what he had told her, but this time, she was flipping those words on their head and taking matters into her own hands. Just like how she had promised to protect him when he told her he was going to protect her.

He put his hand inside her hand and lifted her hand to his lips. Her heart fluttered as he gazed at her. Was she imagining things, or could she feel warmth on her hand from his kiss?

As the scene around them faded away, she was determined to see him again soon.

————————————————————————————————

A/N: Thank you all for reading! I feel like KH4 is going to have some twist where Sora’s heart or part of his heart is inside of Kairi. And then as I was thinking about that, I thought okay, how might she use that to reach him? Then I revisited the KH3 cutscene with Young Xehanort explaining the Power of Waking and how Sora went wrong to come up with the conversation between Kairi and Aqua. The part at the end of the chapter also references the KH3 manga where Sora asks Kairi to wait for him before he disappears. Also, Sora points to his nose instead of his heart because that is how he indicates himself in the games, and that's probably because people in Japan point to their noses to indicate themselves. I hope you enjoyed the chapter! The one I'll be posting next week was also a lot of fun to write, I can't wait to share that one with you all too! ❤️

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

Form Results

Hello! This is the Secretary. Tragically, it is tax season, and I must make people pay their taxes. However, I still have time to crack this one out for youuuuuuu.

Let's look at the results of the form!

First and foremost:

172 results! That's a lot more we thought we would get! Thank you so much for everybody who sent us responses!

The height is divided equally, with Very Tall being the one with the most amount of votes. Fun fact: Tall used to dominate this by 60% until I posted it on the forum ;)

As expected, Wielding my powers was the biggest section of the pie, followed by Adaptability. Hand2Hand combat is a rather straightforward option - and a rather realistic one - which makes sense a lot of people might be interested into crushing enemies with tendrils.

Again, we figured that one out before it was posted. We included nodes and carapace to make sure someone who is less comfortable with body horror is still able to enjoy (and angst) over this story. But that doesn't mean they get exclusive choices and special ways to resolve (and cause) conflicts.

A lot of you went with Reserved, which, well... makes sense.... a lot of you are nerds, after all...

Methodical nerds! I think this was to be expected, we kinda figured out you guys might be more interested in a quiet and methodical approach to conflict. Kinda makes sense with the storyline too!

A fairly even split with Brown and Blue being the biggest one with then Green, Grey and then finally Hazel.

This is why we included a variety of skin tones in the desing choices because even if the racialized skin tone options may not be the most popular, the readers who are racialized should be able to put themselves (or create a character that looks like themselves) in the game.

This one is to be expected: people loves making themselves pretty lol

This split is absolutely not even! If this is unclear: Black is the largest portion with the three browns following it, then blonde, dirty blonde, auburn and then red. I wonder if we combined the brown together in the voting if they would have beat out the black hair...

Tying back to the skin color: this validates the choice we made to make the game inclusive where racialized (and here specifically black people with the ability to pick natural and textured hair). Again someone is allowed to create themselves or someone that looks like them, and it should be a thing that is possible in every game.

For hair, it's a split between ear length and very long, with the other ones getting smaller. Cropped and Very Short are the smallest option, which I personally expected.

So, again, this is tying back to the inclusivity. We inserted the cis options (cis man and cis woman, which are expectedly the biggest choice), however every options has been picked, including [Input my own gender] which means, maybe someone made themselves in the game!

To be expected, but it gets funny in the next slide...

What's your guys' beef with Guts LOL

Funnily enough, a lot of people really love Grant and Shauna, but only one of them is able to survive the prologue. I wonder how many of them made the other one survive while their girl/boyfriend died. Prii being your best friend less than your datefriend is also quite funny to me, to be honest. Also Beth is just trying her best, but I think she's going to up in the polls!

Again, tying back to the inclusivity thingy from above. You are able to have romantic relationships when you are asexual, and sexual relationships when you are romantic in the game, and they will not be locked out because of it. Just so people can actually play the game!

Even-ish, but you guys love being bishonen.

As expected.

Finally...

Oh dear, a lot of you are holding out, uh? We didn't expect that! Then it's Wil (which we kinda figured would be on top), then Mal (understandable) then Kay, CG and Alistair are all even. Finally, Teddie. The curse of being genderlocked... And then, none. Had to include it, cuz, you know. Inclusivity and all!

Anyways, thank you everybody for reading this installment of Polls by Drink your Villain Juice. Please remember to leave the theater quickly before the next screening start!

[tamamatango]

“Keroro Gunsgo To The Polls”: The Possible Behind-the-Scenes of the Ad-nime Short Nobody Expected

A much less existentially depressing display of political campaign buffoonery.

Here’s yet another unplanned post from me. The other long-form ones I was talking about before I keep putting off because of work and also another pretty ambitious project I’m putting together taking my attention—I don’t know how or when to talk about it here juuuuust yet, but it exists in public and some of you already know what it is/have seen it, so stay tuned perhaps.

As you can see from the video link/photo, this post is a writeup about a surprise video apparently commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government that uses the Keroro characters to encourage young people to go out and vote in the upcoming elections for the Governor of Tokyo. It came out about a week ago, but I initially glossed over it because…well, I thought it wasn’t new. After all, the copyright DOES attribute the copyright to 2014 and it looks very similar to the Flash anime at first glance, so…this must be a reupload from the 2014 Tokyo gubernatorial election or something, right?

Upon looking more deeply into it, no. There’s no record of this ever existing before this week, and it was later confirmed to be new via social media channels. Which means this is technically a brand new piece of animated Keroro content, which I pledged I would report on. So here I am. Whoopee.

This post is going to be about the short from a production standpoint, primarily. I’m not going to spend time on the plot (if you want to call it that lol), as it was already pretty succinctly summarized by this post here by @unfo11owmelol , and I can say it’s more or less accurate, so thank you! I will make a comment in that the Dororo ranting about plastic thing seems to just be a running gag he has now—he was always an environmentalist of course, but his hatred of plastic specifically is kind of new; it was even a major punchline in this month’s manga chapter. In fact, this short has the manga’s quirks written all over it. It’s almost as if Yoshizaki himself was heavily involved in it. Oh wait, he was. But we’ll get to that.

The Context

As previously mentioned, this short was commissioned by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and posted exclusively to their YouTube channel. This is where I was going to have a few sentences about how it was literally exclusively on the YouTube channel because none of the official social media accounts posted about it, but as I was writing the last 40% of the post, Keroro PR and one of the Tokyo government accounts finally mentioned it. So give a pat on the back to ol’ Kirb’s amazing procrastination abilities. Anyways, for the whole week before they finally decided to acknowledge its existence, it literally just dropped on YouTube with no warning and the only reason anybody on social media knew about it is because people whose YT feeds it popped up on were like hey what the fuck is this.

“What the fuck is this” is a pretty good question. While the fact that it’s about the gubernatorial election specifically isn’t directly mentioned in the video, it was pretty obvious given the timing, as it’s set to occur on July 7. I am not the most knowledgeable about Japanese politics as a whole, but this year’s race for governor is apparently particularly competitive, with over 50 candidates running. Here’s a short article giving a rundown of the race so far. The top issue is unsurprisingly the low birthrate, which has been causing panic over the fate of Japan’s economy for a considerably long time now. That’s why the government is very concerned that the voter disparity is incredibly polarizing, with young people voting much less than the elderly.

Well, what better way to fix low youth vote turnout than with anime? After all, the Zillenials want nothing more than to obsess over fictional characters while the world crumbles around them into inevitable disrepair I’m not projecting at all. The irony here is that, when the anime was originally in its prime at least, Keroro’s target audience was elementary schoolers. Indeed, the short definitely has the aura of a PSA they’d show to children, but obviously children are not voting. There’s even a point in the video where Tamama says going to the polling place is an opportunity to visit your childhood school, which is a statement more relatable to young adults. I guess at this point the main audience for Keroro really is considered to be the people who grew up with it in their child/teen years—unless the actual new anime gets a primetime kids’ TV slot, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Considering this is the most viewed PSA about the election on their YouTube channel by far, I guess it worked to an extent? It’s currently hovering just under 20k views, which isn’t really too much in the grand scheme. But now that it’s been officially shared on social media, perhaps that’ll give it a boost. Will most of these viewers actually go out to vote is the question…

Production staff peculiarities

As with any animated Keroro content following the end of the Flash anime—which until the new show airs has basically just been this, the new project announcement trailer, and some anti-piracy ad they were doing in movie theaters that they ironically scrubbed from the internet—BN Pictures is credited as the animation studio (though the studio Sugarless Factory assisted; they pretty much exclusively do production assistance for various projects). This is interesting because it looks completely unlike anything they’ve ever done. Unless I’m missing something, none of the anime they’ve produced before have been done in a similar Flash-like style.

Now, as we Internet addicts all know, Flash has been officially dead for a few years now. However, it might still be used very rarely in lowkey web animations like this, although a friend who knows more about anime production than I do told me even those are more commonly made using Live2D now. The credits for this short are very…short, but the director and a couple of other animators worked on a particular Flash-animated series called Oshiri Kajiri Mushi (“Bottom Biting Bug”) that first aired on the TV channel NHK in 2012. I’m guessing these staff are freelance, as that show was produced by the studio Kinema Citrus (a team founded by ex-members of Production I.G and Bones), and were possibly brought on to this short because they had experience with the software. If it is animated using something like Live2D, the experience still applies, as it’s apparently more similar to Flash than something more commonly used in anime like Clip Studio Paint. The director also has 3D CG credits and there is a credit here for “motion” that includes his name, so maybe a little of that was used as well. (Wouldn’t be able to tell myself—most experience I have with 3D animation is a one semester Maya course I took in high school lol).

Curiously, despite the potentially similar animation software and very similar artstyle + color palette, none of the animation staff, as far as I can tell, worked on the 2014 Flash anime. That is, except for…Mine Yoshizaki.

On all animated Keroro media, Yoshizaki’s primary official credit is “original creator,” of course. As the series creator, he would of course participate to a degree in most things related to the 2004 series, doing stuff like sitting in on some writing and recording sessions, contributing ideas/concept art here and there, and so on. There’s actually a Newtype article from around the announcement of the first movie I dug up that was officially translated into English, in which Yoshizaki talks about the pressure of being in that role. Most mangaka interviews I’ve seen about their involvement in their works’ anime adaptations are pretty overwhelmingly positive, but he was definitely more mixed. This might be a post for another day, since I have some speculations about his relationship to the anime as a whole. Damn, I need to stop coming up with essay ideas that are probably too big for my pea brain.

Anyway, Yoshizaki was quite a bit more involved in the 2014 series. He served as one of two people responsible for series composition (scriptwriting), though that could be because the Flash anime was a much more direct adaptation of the manga than the original anime, which might as well have been an entirely different series. IIRC, some episodes of Flash were literally 1:1 with the manga’s script…so I guess that counts as writing the anime too lol. He also storyboarded a few episodes and wrote the opening theme song’s lyrics. The next Keroro animation after that was the anti-piracy theater ad in 2021, which he storyboarded for. But you’ll notice with all the credits we’ve discussed so far that he was never involved with the animation proper past the storyboarding stage…until now!

Not only was Yoshizaki credited as original creator as usual, he also did directorial supervision, storyboarding, and was a key animator—the only key animator, in fact! I know it’s just a five-minute short, but the Flash series’s episodes were even shorter than that and had multiple key animators per episode, so this is kind of a big deal. It also might explain why the character designs look just a little bit more on-model to the manga designs than Flash’s did, even though they look almost identical at a cursory glance. It’s easiest to tell by looking at the less-rounded head shapes, plus a few minor details like Tamama’s eye highlights and the bridge of Kururu’s glasses. I am very normal, how could you tell?

So yeah, this makes this short the most Yoshizaki has ever been involved with the actual animation process. I can’t say it gives him the most additional credits, as it’s tied with the Flash series for three extra, but it’s something!

Closing out the staff section, some notes about the cast. As you might expect, the usual actors reprise their roles. Most notably, Mamiko Noto is back to play Mois for what I believe (unless I’m missing a random collab or something) is her first time in the role in ten years, and she pretty much didn’t miss a beat! In addition to Fuyuki and Natsumi’s VAs playing them recently at the Keroro expo, that’s three additional voices besides the Keroro Platoon’s that presumably are still going to be able to return for the new anime.

Otherwise, the platoon sounds pretty much like they did in the anniversary trailer and various other small projects like the anti-piracy ad and Tales of the Rays collab from last year (they each had multiple spoken lines there). Keroro sounds a tad deeper; Tamama has some of the Jibanyan nasal now; Giroro didn’t really talk much but sounds mostly the same; Dororo is also a bit deeper and sounds kinda awkward but I think that’s less the voice direction and more Yoshizaki possibly wrote the dialogue and he speaks more assertively in the manga lol; Kururu sounds literally the exact same because Koyasu is a magic man.

Made in [Insert Year]?? (Ft. A lesson in trademarking)

I mentioned this at the beginning of this post, but for a solid few days, I really thought this video was just an ancient (2014 feels ancient now anyway) reupload. After all, the copyright string says 2014, and only media produced during the Flash series era has that copyright year, so I brushed it off. Here, let me show you all the anime copyright strings per the current anime portal:

There’s no 2004 date on the TV series’s copyright, probably because it covers the entire series from 2004–2011, plus now 2024 onward (and possibly the anti-piracy ad from 2021 as well), and also most anime-branded merch and things. But when the show was airing proper, it was attributed to 2004 (you can see this in the opening credits of any season). The 2006–2010 dates are for each individual movie. And there’s the 2014 copyright that’s the exact same as the video’s, though here it is for the Flash anime, as there’s pictures of it on the anime portal site. As an aside, before 2015, Sunrise was listed instead of BNP. At some point all anime rights got retroactively transferred from Sunrise Inc. to BNP—not sure how or when exactly that occurred. For the movies, there were slight shakeups in the production committee as well (you can see my new project trailer analysis for more on that kind of stuff).

As you can see, copyright strings for the series are attributed to the year each individual “product” came out in, for the most part. But now we know that this ad is brand new. So…does this mean this political ad is counted as part of the Flash anime? They obviously didn’t plan to include this specific video ten years ago (unless Kadokawa bought out an oracle or something, wouldn’t surprise me). Maybe they left the door open to more episodes of the Flash anime proper, but that isn’t what this was advertised as.

Well, I have a theory. A theory that might be totally wrong, but a theory nonetheless. Let’s go on a massive tangent about the Japanese trademark system! (Disclaimer: I have no formal training in the legal field. I just have really weird research hobbies.)

I’m going to focus on two basic principles here. First, once trademarks in Japan are officially registered, they are active for ten years before the copyright applicant must reapply to renew ownership of the trademark for another ten years. Second, trademarks have to be filed under certain classifications that basically tell the JPO (Japan Patent Office) what goods and/or services the applicant plans to use the trademark for. This means that sometimes the same trademark will be filed multiple times for different use classes. The classifications are each given a two digit class number, which is further subdivided into five-character group code(s).

You can actually search through all public patents yourself on J-PlatPat, and the site is machine translated into English (though you still have to type the copyright you’re looking for in Japanese). Let’s take a look at the three different filings for ケロロ軍曹 (just the name of the series itself, not the logo).

I’m on my phone so I couldn’t fit the entire window, but the important information is here. Kadokawa Corporation is the filer for all of these, though Yoshizaki’s name is probably also on whatever application documents they sent, which aren’t viewable. The three versions of the trademark were filed on different dates about a year apart. You’ll see that class 16 is there twice. For the first filing, it was class 16 and multiple group codes designating different kinds of goods (class 28 also contains goods-related things); the second filing covers a single group code protecting “printed matter” (presumably this was to cover any physical distributions of the manga).

I’m going to take a closer look at the third filing, which was officially registered in 2004. Class 09 covers a shitload of different goods and services, like way too many to list. What I’m thinking is that the first set of goods trademarks filed in 2001 was just to cover the kind of stuff they’d attach to issues of Shonen Ace and volume releases as giveaways—paper goods, board game-type items, and toys/dolls are all covered under it. Then in 2003, in preparation for the inevitable merchandise and collaboration dump the anime would lead to, they opened the floodgates to literally any Material Thing they could think to cover. Like, I’m pretty sure we never got any Keroro-branded egg candlers, fire alarms, or “cigar lighters for automobiles”, but might as well cover all your bases. Wouldn’t want the local fire department handing out emergency gear with your cartoon frog on it without permission, you know.

Included among these materials are some items that might be a bit more relevant to our case here. There’s a number of clauses related to physical and digital film, photography, and other media: “CD-ROM and DVD and other recording media, electronic publications, downloadable music, downloadable image[s]”. Now, while this doesn’t cover “animation” specifically, it can possibly be stretched to fit that definition. This is especially because, in Japanese, the term the MTL output as “images” is actually eizou, which can refer to both images and video.

So, the version of the trademark registered for the brand in 2004 likely covers certain media-related things. There are other classes that include the word “animation” specifically, but it’s possible that those classes weren’t classified the same way back then as they are now, and maybe anything film-related could’ve been interpreted by the law to include animation. Nowadays, though there are specific classifications for animation, specifically “animation available for download.” This subgroup actually happens to fall under class 09, though other classes contain similar items as well, such as class 41. You can search classes by number or keyword if you’re curious about this.

As I pointed out before I presented this data, all of these particular filings are for specifically ケロロ軍曹, not ケロロ. If ケロロ is to be used in isolation, it would have to be specified as such in the registration data, because what’s actually stopping someone else from coming along and trademarking just ケロロ? Now, remember the name of the Flash anime? That’s right—ケロロ. Just “Keroro”, not “Keroro Gunso.” Incidentally, this video is actually not formally titled under ケロロ軍曹 (despite what the thumbnail says). The only name in the title of the actual video is ケロロ.

So here is my theory. Maybe it’s a hypothetical, but I’m going to treat it like it’s concrete for argument’s sake. In 2014, to prepare for the Flash anime and related branding, Kadokawa filed for the trademark ケロロ—individually, without 軍曹. Because it was the 2010s at that point, it’s possible that downloadable animation was more specifically defined in the group codes filed for, even though the Flash anime did air on TV (again, the strategy to this is about covering as many potential use cases as possible for maximum copyright protection). Maybe it was under class 09, maybe it was another class, or even more than one. For whatever reason, the trademark is not publicly available. But because of what kind of animation/video/whatever that specific trademark covers, this little election video is covered under that 2014 trademark.

You might recall how I said trademarks have to be renewed every ten years. Incidentally, it just so happens that 2014 was ten years ago. Most likely, the (secret?) trademark was recently renewed so that stuff like this would be allowed to be made and can continue to be made in the future, independently from “Keroro Gunso” as defined by the 2004-verse and the manga proper. And because 2014 is the original filing year of that trademark, that is the year that is displayed with this project, even if the trademark was renewed in 2024, or some other recent year. By the way, all the ケロロ軍曹 trademarks I covered were also renewed this decade, so Kadokawa can keep on doing whatever exactly they were doing with those. There’s probably even more hidden-from-public-view trademarks, who knows, there’s a thousand potential asterisks here but you get the picture.

Fascinating, isn’t it? As I said, it’s possible that I’m just talking out of my ass and all of this is either way more simple or way more complicated than I’m making it out to be, in which case I just wasted multiple paragraphs of your time. But hey, at least it was a fun lesson, right? I’m not the only one interested in this, right? RIGHT?!?!?!

Okay, I’m just about done here, but I’m going to tell you something plot twisty. Do you know what actually first clued me in to the fact that this was not made in 2014 before it was confirmed to be the case? Not the upload date. Not the fact that nobody ever talked about it prior to a week ago. Not even all the probably useless copyright shit I just spent a whole other post’s worth of words on.

It was this part of the video:

See, in this screenshot, if you look really closely, you’ll notice that Kururu is using an iPhone parody with three cameras. The first iPhones with three cameras were released in 2019. Therefore, this could not have been made in 2014. This stupid detail is what it took to get me to think about this video for more than thirty seconds.

Thank you, Kururu’s crippling iPhone addiction.

So yeah, go out and vote or whatever, wherever you guys are. Otherwise you’ll have to look Mois in the eyes and tell her no, and that will make her very sad, and she might blow up the planet as consequence. Not that the planet isn’t already being destroyed. Any of my fellow Americans want to join me for a screaming session following the last few days of federal fuckery? I’ll bring chocolate-covered pretzels to snack on and we’ll write the names of corporate lobbyists on them, it’ll be fun.

[oc-poll-tournament]

OC Poll Tournament Round 1 Poll 6

Propaganda below the cut:

Eddie Alfaro (she/her) @calicohyde: Eddie Alfaro, she/her. Eddie is the third person narrator of my horror WIP Curse The Messenger, about her and her sibling Fred using their clairvoyant abilities to solve a paranormal murder. Eddie has premonitions in her sleep, where she dreams from the point of view of someone else as they die. She has severe PTSD and Survivor's Guilt from this! Because of that, and because of her grief for her missing parents, she struggles with alcohol dependence.

Normally, Eddie and Fred only solve the typical kinds of Private Investigator cases - theft, infidelity, etc. They are mistrusted in their community because of their gifts, as other witches tend to think clairvoyants are mentally unstable and dangerous. In the novel, they get their first - and only - murder case when Jessica Hase, a secular (non-magical) femme fatale, brings them the very weird case of her girlfriend's death. Throughout the novel, Eddie falls in love with Jessica, starts attending an alcoholics' support group, learns to use her gift to see the positive aspects of death, and tentatively starts to repair her strained relationship with Fred. And solves the murder, of course.

Eddie is Latina, 24 years old, and a butch lesbian. She likes sporty punk fashion, cuts her own hair, and doesn't shave or wear makeup. Her favorite color is red and her favorite flavor is cinnamon.

Chess (she/her) @concealeddarkness13 (the picture for her is made by the wonderful @drabbleitout, and she is the person on the left with the prosthetics in the picture): Chess is a special character, and I hope to show how special and awesome she is! She’s extremely distrustful, but she’ll trust people who even treat her with an ounce of decency, and she’ll protect the people she cares about with her life. She’s flirty and confident, but underneath, she has an abysmal amount of self esteem and thinks she’s a monster that will never have love or friendships. She is my blorbo who has been rotating in my mind for the past two years, and I hope you can love her as well! Someone described her in one of the AUs I’ve done as oscillating “between being a poor, wet little meow meow and a fierce feral protective lioness being held back by the scruff of her neck because she is still little”. (credits to @ratracechronicler)

She did start out with a loving family, but like all good protagonists, her parents were murdered when she was 10, and she was left alone. Especially because the society she lives in ignores violent crimes and the victims of those crimes, erasing them all from society as if they never existed. So, she technically didn’t exist in society’s eyes, so she couldn’t get a job or own property or anything. The people around her helped her for a few years until she was old enough to take care of herself, and then she learned to steal.

At twenty years old, she was kidnapped and forced into prosthetics experiments that gave her fire magic that hurts her, from her prosthetic right arm and left leg now. She has a magic fire in her lungs that flares up during physical or mental stress and burns her throat and makes her cough up smoke. Aeflin, the person running the experiments, believed her to be very strong (because she snarked at Aeflin so much and didn’t let her see her pain as much as possible), so she decided to make Chess into her weapon.

She changed her name (since Chess’s original name was Ezra) to Chess, and she put her through even worse torture. Finally, Naivi, the other person running the experiments, got Chess her own team and sent her out into the world to do what the experiments were for and to get her away from Aeflin.

Chess tried to escape that, but a random person found her and took away her memories and brought her back into the enclosure, where most humans are trapped. And she realized right away that the humans inside the enclosure found she was from the experiments and hated her and hurt her and called her a monster because God forbid women do anything (just trying to survive). She learned that the only way that she could get a warm place to sleep (not an alley) was to make herself attractive to people and flirt. She liked sleeping with people, but she mostly did it to have a warm and somewhat safer place to sleep. And even then, she’d have to stay alert because her partner could wake up and try to hurt her.

That’s where she is at the start of her story! She will get a found family and someone or someones to love! She’s pansexual and polyamorous and flirty, and she loves physical touch! She just wants people to treat her decently, and if she has to, she’ll fight to protect her boundaries. And she loves punching jerks in the face with her prosthetic! And we love a woman who loves to fight, right? Thanks for reading!

[bitesizedgummie]

ok since i’m doing better (kinda) the urge to write is getting to me now. i’m gonna run a poll rq on what fic i should write first

brief fic explanations under the read more

pls interact if u vote it rlly helps

rhys & zayn romance fic: rhys & zayn are two ocs i created—rhys is a prince with elemental powers and zayn is a notorious troublemaker with teleportation powers. this fic would lean a lot more cliche romance, as rhys has a tsundere/angry personality and zayn has a teasing/aloof (am i using that word right..?) personality.

takagi & uchiyama forbidden romance fic: takagi and uchiyama are two bsd (bungo stray dogs) ocs i created—takagi is a famous actor and model with the ability to shapeshift, and uchiyama is a detective working with the ada with the ability to slow time down to dodge objects/danger. this fic would lean a bit more forbidden romance/doomed yaoi, as they both have quite a bit of pent up trauma that (hopefully) will make their dynamic unique and heart-wrenching.

footnote: i have only read the first vol of the manga so ppl might alr have these abilities! if so i’m so so sorry idk what i’m doing

wildcard kunigami x chigiri au angst fic: kunigami and chigiri are characters from blue lock!! but this is an au where blue lock has to shut down for some unknown (more like undetermined lol) reason just post wildcard kunigami. it’ll lean more angst/comfort as chigiri tries to find and help put kunigami back together.

footnote 2 lol: i made it to like s1 ep13 of the anime and dropped out cuz it was horrifically effecting my mental health lmao. um so i will also get facts wrong about this one too

update: just figured out kunigiri reunion post wildcard kunigami is…relatively normal for bllk. whatever i’m including it anyway i like the idea too much

rainbow eye oc fic(s): the rainbow eye ocs are 8 ocs i created with neon eyes each corresponding to a color of the rainbow(+pink lol). this fic would either be super long or a giant series of fics, as i could either write one giant one about each every character at once or one individual one for each character+a finale of some sort. it would probably be mixed genres with action, violence, romance, etc.

prince oc fic(s): the prince ocs are 3 pairs of ocs (6 total) all consisting of one prince, each varying in personality, trauma, status, etc. this would be the same as rainbow eyes but they’d all be kinda angst/comfort/romance as the other character in the pairs are supposed to be their like ship/counterpart. yes i lean a lot towards gay stuff i can’t help it i’m soryyyy

that uh…klapollo fic: i announced that i was working on a klapollo fic that consisted of apollo being kidnapped and then just kinda uh…completely abandoned it lol…um so if ur interested in seeing that which would kinda be a mystery romance thing i could start working on it again if anyone’s interested

[deconstructthesoup]

All right, okay, poll's done, I've given myself permission to ramble about my ideas for a next-gen season of the Unsleeping City and there is no going back!

So, the story would theoretically take place about fourteen years after the end of UC2 (which would, yes, make it slightly harder to write as it'd be set in the actual future of our world, but I've never once made anything easy on myself), making our cast a combination of teens inspired to take on the world and young adults desperately attempting to keep them under control. I'm not sure who the antagonist would be (though, finding out that there's literally a warlock subclass called "Ghost in the Machine" where your patron is a full-blown rogue AI has definitely given me some ideas), but I do know about the characters:

Langston Brown is now sixteen years old---though, with the combined factors of his parents being in their early seventies and him quite literally being a spirit that's meant to safeguard the past, he's very much an "old soul" kinda guy who doesn't keep up with the trends and marches to the beat of his own drum (I'm imagining Riz meets Gunnie in terms of aesthetics and personality). He is aware of the magic of the Unsleeping City, but he's kind of just accepted it as something that's normal and that he doesn't really need to be that involved in... that is, until his draconic powers start manifesting, and Kingston and Liz finally give him the talk. Langston is, of course, very thrown for a loop about being an incredibly important part of the Unsleeping City, especially since he's fairly introverted and humble, but it soon becomes clear that he's going to have to accept his abilities to save New York. Obviously, Langston's a Draconic Bloodline sorcerer, and though he'd look human most of the time, it'd make sense for him to at least mechanically be a dragonborn.

Alejandra "Al" Matsui has been raised in the Gramercy Occult Society her whole life, but rather than become a wizard like her mom---or a paladin like her dad---she's learned more from J.J. and is incredibly interested in mixing science with magic, becoming an Alchemist artificer. She's inherited her dad's love of helping people, and her primary motivation is to use her knowledge of alchemy to become a magical doctor---kind of in the same vein as Kingston, except she's very much of the mindset that everything can be solved with science, magic, or a combo of the two. Al tends to put herself under a lot of pressure, and the fact that she has big ideas and fully intends to execute them all means that she's more than a little overwhelmed at all times... not that she'd show it.

Catherine "Cat" Lee, on the other hand, is completely carefree, energetic, and an absolute ray of sunshine. Being an indestructible aasimar and the daughter of not one but two First Fists, she knows how to handle herself in a fight, and having La Grande Gata basically be her guardian angel since birth means that she walks around NYC with almost no fear at all. Cat's a cheerleader and a total social butterfly, but her boundless enthusiasm and badassery makes her think that she can automatically handle anything entirely on her own, and she's still learning that being physically indestructible doesn't mean that she doesn't have limits. But she's got her best buds Langston and Al, and she's absolutely positive that together, they can not only take on New York, but the entire world. As for class, I initially had her down as a Sun Soul Monk, but after watching the final UC2 Adventuring Party and hearing Emily say that Cat would probably do something different than her parents, I think she'd absolutely be an Oath of Glory paladin---with a couple levels of Divine Soul sorcerer thrown in there for good measure, of course.

Coming from the exact opposite vibes of Cat, Jessica Lisowski is now twenty-eight, working part-time at the Met and part-time at Gramercy, and is the most tired, burnt-out, and cynical she's ever been. Against Iga's advice, she's been keeping her mundane and magical lives as separate from each other as possible, and the stress of maintaining a strict double life has caused her to lose a lot of the childlike wonder she used to have for magic, now just seeing it as something that helps her get through the day at best and an actual danger at worst. It definitely doesn't help the fact that both her mother and her brother have their whole magic-and-reality thing balanced out pretty well, and the only thing keeping Jessica from cutting herself off from the magic entirely is the lasting friendships she's made at Gramercy---including her friendship with Al, who she's been helping out and mentoring since Al was old enough to cast her first cantrip. And to stay in line with the "closed off from everyone around her" vibes, Jessica is a School of Abjuration wizard. Debated School of Illusion, but I think it fits.

Adding another experienced-adult-type to the party, we've got Matt Kugrich---grandson of Rat Jesus, nephew of Wally Claus, and freelancing vampire hunter. Inspired by his dad's own efforts in taking down the more corrupt vampires running amok in New York, Matt's been giving him a hand... though, he's mostly been working through the Dream Team, and David may or may not exactly know what his son is up to. Since we don't really know a lot about him in canon, I like to think that he's got a little bit of a smartass vibe to him, but he's also very down-to-earth, relaxed, and a go-with-the-energy kinda dude. For class, the idea of Matt being a Swarmkeeper ranger with Urban being his favored terrain, vampires being his favored enemy, and his swarm being entirely composed out of rats in honor of Kugrash came almost immediately---and if we're going with the whole "vampire slayer" thing, I think it'd make sense for him to also be a Soulknife rogue. (As funny as the idea of Murph just playing an older version of Cody for this hypothetical next-gen season is, Kugrash has grandkids, and I think they deserve the spotlight. I'd say that Delia probably has some UC ties, too.)

And rounding out the roster with the only OC in the bunch, we have Riley Conlan-Park---a young faerie who was found wandering around the Fairyland amusement park as a little kid with zero memory of who they were or where they came from, and after several months of trying to figure out who the hell this kid was, they were subsequently adopted by Pete and Maddie. When the story starts, they're fifteen years old---though they've been out of high school for a few years due to skipping several grades---and have decided that their life passion is a solid mixture of DJing for underground parties and digging up dirt on companies like Gladiator through the power of hacking. Riley has a lot of confidence, both earned and unearned, and they prefer to just let loose and be the crazy, irresponsible one rather than stop and actually let themselves think deeper about their past and all their underlying issues that they've worked very hard to keep shoved down---and they're pretty sure they can live like that forever. Of course, all that poking around in the dark web will awaken something in the Unsleeping City, and it doesn't take long before Riley makes a connection with something... other in their trips through the backrooms. Mechanically, they're an Eladrin who relies on the Umbral Arcana to make themselves look human, and class-wise, they're a College of Creation bard and a Ghost in the Machine warlock.

And, uh... that's what I got, now I gotta go to sleep.

[itmeblog]

POLITICS INTO THE VOID TIME

In the event that you've not been pretty obsessed with how American politics have been going since Kamala became the Democratic nominee (there's been good and bad, that I'm aware of) the tone of the campaign has completely changed.

Because Kamala's team has decided that Trump isn't threatening, all powerful, and scary, (though the ads I've seen have sort of been using old language) they have decided that he's weird and he's a creep.

These were made 11 days apart:

As a kid who grew up being called weird (and occasionally a creep) this is hilarious. It's just playground bullying.

Dems really said, we tried being the bigger person, it wasn't working out.

And Trump's policies and desires are actually weird. A proposed porn ban is weird. Trying to put librarians in jail is weird, policing people's bodies is creep behavior.

As a former weird kid, the way to overcome this sort of bullying is not to assert that you aren't weird or god forbid shout "I'm cool" (the more you say it, the less true it is), it's to embrace that you're weird and accept that not everyone is going to like you, and that you'll probably never have a seat at the cool table.

But and I cannot express this enough Trump wants to be cool. His whole thing is, being edgy, and dangerous, and "being brave enough to say what people are afraid to say". And when you get someone who is "being brave enough to say what normal people are afraid to say" and shoot back with "they don't say that because it's fucking weird"... where does he go from there?

It's a depowering move. They are depowering Trump.

When you were a kid talking passionately about something that interested you and someone said "that's weird (derogatory)" it probably made you feel really small. That kid stole the power you were wielding in said conversation.

So the question is, can Trump proudly and convincingly assert "I'm weird. I’m a weirdo. I don't fit in. And I don't want to fit in. Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on? That's weird." (GOD HIS CHATGPT AND PLAGIARIZED SPEECHES HAVE THE ABILITY TO DO THE FUNNIEST THING IN THE WORLD)

Is he ready to go full edgelord in the public eye?? I'm sure he'll still have followers, edgelords have a weird sort of power in this era of internet, but they are also indisputably cringe.

Like I'm not sure this will achieve anything other than being ridiculously entertaining (and thus catching the eye in headlines and reports). But,my family read one of the new releases and went oh right this whole thing is weird as fuck and it felt nice to get some kind of public acknowledgment that this is not normal.

So far the right has been struggling against couch fucking allegations, them saying that adults without kids should have less of a voice in voting (weird thing to say, but if you're polling badly with youngsters and need to maintain power~~), that Kamala is a crazy childless cat lady (Whoops accidentally alienated some of their base there, some people simply cannot have children, really shouldn't insinuate they are less than because of it. Not to mention that their own policies are making more everyday in mostly red states as complications with getting abortions for non-viable fetuses are leaving many people sterile. I'm not even going to go on with the fact that many people, like myself, simply don't want kids and that's reason enough. Also she does have step children), and the rumor that Trump wasn't really shot (as they finally removed the bandage to reveal... nothing, head wounds heal really fast but going from that giant plaster to nothing is doing a bit of a number in the rumor mill).

Basically they had Joe! THEY SPENT THE WHOLE RNC INSULTING HIM. THAT WAS THEIR WHOLE PLAN!! He was old, he was white. The inherit ableism/ageism of sleepy Joe and old Joe, and infirm Joe, were within "acceptable parameters". It was easy and safe to rib him.

They are struggling to find something on Kamala that doesn't come across as racist or sexist. Because they're polling poorly with Black Americans and they are down in the polls for women. Can't call her sleepy or lazy. Can't call her old (she's younger) can't call her stupid, can't call her infirm. Can't insinuate she's too emotional (have you met Trump??)

They probably could get her on a few policies but the 2025 project is looming large behind them.

I am foaming at the mouth trying to get to the next debate. But Trump is doing his best to weasel out of it. I am heartbroken! I miss the anytime, anywhere promise of yore.

[victorianightlight]

Opinion about Ahsoka and another poll

Now there will be my personal opinion about Ahsoka in her series. It will be very extensive, so be prepared (I just wanted to speak out for a long time).

I also warn you right away that this is just my personal opinion and of course it may differ from yours!

In my personal opinion, Filoni ruined Ahsoka in her series by making her another character who, although she looks similar, has clearly changed her character for the worse.

Firstly, it became clear to us from the series that Ahsoka trained Sabine as her Padawan, but then their paths diverged. At first, I thought that it could be due to the fact that Ahsoka was simply not confident in her abilities as a teacher, but in the finale Huang explained to us that after the death of the Sabine family (R.I.P Wrens😢), Ahsoka thought that the girl herself, having reached her potential, would become dangerous (well apparently, she will go for revenge, which Jedi shouldn't do). So it turns out that Ahsoka, frightened by Sabine’s fall on the vehicle, simply abandoned her when her family died and, naturally, she was in grief. This is also confirmed by the conversation between Ahsoka and Sabine in the first episode:

"I go where I'm needed."

"Not always."

Note that if Ahsoka had supported Sabine at that moment, and it was Sabine who wanted to stop her training, then there wouldn't have been such a gap between them. And so we are clearly given hints that Ahsoka behaved like a coward and simply abandoned the grieving girl on Lothal. Great decision Ahsoka, what can I say 🙄

Plus, it’s worth noting that Ahsoka came to Sabine only for the map, and essentially used Ezra as an excuse to attract the Mandolorian. And I highly doubt that if Ahsoka had unlocked the map by herself, she would have returned to Sabine to become her Master again.

Secondly, Ahsoka in her series has forgotten how to show an important thing that a Jedi and even an ordinary person should show, namely empathy. What Ahsoka does is act cold towards Sabine (even though she should be trying to improve her relationship with her), and when she says that they will have to destroy the map, which means Ezra will never return home, she doesn't show an ounce of sympathy, simply asking Sabine if she can trust her on this. Let's remember, in the same Rebels, when in the World Between Worlds Ezra had to let Kanan go, what did Ahsoka do? She supported him physically, putting her hand on his shoulder, and morally, saying comforting words, thereby, it seems to me, Ezra felt a little better, and Ezra wasn't even her student. What does Ahsoka do with her Padawan? She's just saying that she knows that how much Ezra meens to Sabine, and that we have to do what's right regardless of our feelings (so it's basically like, "I know how important your brother (Yes I love the brother/sister relationship between Ezra and Sabine more) is to you, but the whole galaxy is more important). That's it. No support, just words that were in no way comforting for Sabine.

Moreover, in her conversation with her student, Ahsoka didn’t even say the normal "I’m sorry." Why? Question for Filoni :/

And the last moment that infuriated me the most. When Ahsoka and Huang were in the mouth of Purrgil, Ahsoka began to say that Sabine willingly gave up the map and went with the enemies, and that "she made this choice for herself." Honestly, at that moment my fists clenched with anger. That is, Ahsoka didn’t even think that Sabine HAD to do this. That if she had not done this, she would have been calmly killed. Since the map, apparently, can only be destroyed with a lightsaber, and Sabine only had a blaster in her hand, in this situation, she would not have had time to get the lightsaber. Even if Sabine had let Ezra go and tried to destroy the map, Baylan would have killed her immediately. So in this situation, The Dark Jedi won and everything depended on Sabine, whether she would die or decide to stay alive. But Ahsoka apparently doesn’t care about her Padawan so much that she shifts all responsibility onto the girl and exposes Sabine as a selfish person who thinks only of herself (although she doesn’t act any better), and who would have been better off heroically, but pointlessly, dying. At this point, only Huang showed himself as a human being, and instead of making Sabine look like a bad decision, he sympathized with her, something Ahsoka didn’t do for half the series. This is the very case when a droid has more soul than a living person would seem to have.

Although the reunion of Master and Padawan was more or less normal, Filoni could have done it better, where for example both women admitted their mistakes (Sabine would apologize for the map, and Ahsoka would apologize for abandoning her long ago and for being cold towards her). But we have what we have.

I also want to touch on Ahsoka's logic that one life can be sacrificed for the sake of others. I understand that Ahsoka survived two wars, saw many deaths and faced the terrible truth in the face of Darth Vader, and it’s clear that she doesn’t want everything to happen again, but it seems to me that her thought is that one life can be sacrificed for the sake of millions of others, it also sounds selfish. According to this logic, any life is devalued and can be safely sacrificed. And it’s sad that Filoni and his Ahsoka series are trying to make it seem like Sabine is to blame for everything, that "she’s such a fool that she decided to do this." (And which, by the way, worked, since I saw how some people on the network actually said that Sabine is selfish).

Yes, I won’t say that Sabine is an innocent dandelion, but the blame lies not only with her. In my opinion, Thrawn would have returned anyway, he just would have been given a few more years of delay and to say that Sabine decided to sacrifice the galaxy for Ezra was a terrible act, I just want to ask: if you were in Sabine’s place, and in Ezra's place were your children, brothers or sisters, or just someone important to you and you were given the choice to abandon him/her thereby, save the galaxy or try to save him/her? Personally, if I were Sabine, I would do exactly the same.

As a result, I can say that Filoni spoiled his own well-written character, making the wise and brave non-Jedi Ahsoka in a cold and at the same time cowardly woman who had forgotten how to show sympathy for the one who needed it most, namely her apprentice. I don’t know if it was Filoni’s original idea to show Ahsoka in a more negative way (and show that the old ways of the Jedi, which Ahsoka is trying to follow again, will not lead to anything good) or if he thought that this was the same Ahsoka that we fell in love with, and if so, then it’s just a sad spectacle that the man who gave us Clone Wars and Rebels ended up changing his own character for the worse.

(As for the idea that Sabine became a Jedi, I’ll probably tell you my opinion later).

Phew, finally after express all my accumulated thoughts, I created another poll:

[windupaidoneus]

tell me about the bloodsport wlws

the bloodsport wlws. (clasps hands together) let me use my brain oh i need crub to shut the fuck up rq ok there we go

so. philly. carina. the moon & stars. the winnars!!!! 🎉 of that one niche poll tournament thing. carina is a 20something college student who's a prodigy in all things magic but specifically has an affinity for space magic, & her fursona is a purple gryphon also.

^ her fursona (drew this before i saw a post on how to draw beaks. youll have to forgive me)

prone to overworking starself & does it regularly... from a regular human's perspective at least. star is physically disabled but also thanks to stars extremely potent magic star can just do a lot more than the average person, & is in a constant state of levitation to avoid putting strain on stars body. star is always going around helping as much as star can provided star can do it with magic.

this ^ is both a good & bad thing, as she is also, as you may have heard, a bloodsport tournament participant! she kind of. needs her magic for that. & well she keeps jobbing really badly despite being as powerful as she is. because of how much she uses her magic on the regular. the reason it's a good thing is that her magic can overflow & while there hasn't yet been a point where it did it's not fully clear what will happen if it does.

see her hair? it's kind of like a gauge. you can tell how she's doing on magic reserves depending on how "filled up" it is. the more purple, the more powerful! & what happens if her hair is completely purple? philly really wants to know

design note that was Just added too but her eyes change colour depending on her magic reserves as well. this is partly bc i keep fucking up which eye is purple & which eye is yellow so now both can be & they can be both at once even. because i have knowledge of heterochromia <- the central heterochromia haver

all in all she should probably not be doing bloodsport at least at the current moment when the stakes are so facking high in AA. in combat situations she kind of shuts down her ability to emote & speak properly because of how stressed it makes her so she's a bit of a bitch. um. she did cause an existential crisis once & felt really bad about it. sorry lucian. (he got better they're friends now)

all this. is necessary to introduce philly. bc philly is carina's childhood friend & philly was created because @greenshi loved carina so much that he had to give her a gf. you may thank him forever for cosmic yuri

ophelia "philly" delphia (why does she get a full name & carina doesnt have one? um. i didnt actually create carina i just voiced her & then elaborated a fuckton on her character ask @royaltyfreeramblings not me *sexily relinquishes responsibility*) is an epic & awesome werewolf who's constantly in an inbetween state of human & wolf. so a wolf furry yeah. moon goes on road trips with other lesbians* & a wet sack of meat who's having cringefail yaoi with some guy over there. moon is very confident but also happens to be carina's biggest hypeperson, which i find very sweet considering she was conceptualised as a rival & they completely skipped that stage LMAO

green would be a lot better placed to talk about philly. & they unfortunately have not interacted on screen in canon as much as i'd like due to the nature of bloodsport tournaments & also carina's jobbing adventures. but i love them a lot & i hope philly can be the one person to finally convince carina to get a damn wheelchair girl stop using magic for everything constantly you get so fucked up when it's depleted!

oh yeah there's also stuff that i don't know if i can share bc it hasnt been revealed to The Audience yet but they are very dear to each other & like. among other things. both of them have kept pictures of them as kids together even throughout all the time they spent apart. bc they did lose sight of each other for many years before reuniting. & idk i just think they're so cute & sweet. i love it when characters love each other did you know that

[freshie44]

Finale Celebration

@fictional-actors-bracket

A little final write-up for my precious Juza since I wrote that bit of fic at the beginning of the final poll, I might as well write something at the end of it as some kind of epilogue.

Juza fell to the stage, breathing hard. Their body felt sore it felt like they had just gone through an intense workout. They put everything into that performance, ignoring the scoreboard until they heard the buzzer.

"Damn, those Shadow Girls were no joke. They set such a high bar I'm not sure if I was able to clear it," Juza said through pants of exhaustion. They had one eye open as they checked the scoreboard. What, that can't be … The scoreboard showed that they won. They, they actually did it. They actually won …..

They heard footsteps rushing the stage, they knew it would be the Mankai Company rushing to congratulate them. However, they heard the voice of the shadow girls.

"Have you heard the news? Of a thespian unsure of even who they were that enter a struggling company in the hopes of following their dreams," said one.

"Yes, I have heard of them. Their skill grew but their self-doubt never went away. Now what will they do when presented with evidence that they are truly skilled in their art," asked the other.

"I would celebrate, I would screech to the heavens, maybe gorge myself on sweets. But we are not them now are we?"

"No, No, we will wish them well and continue our observing and see whether they continue to refuse what in front of them."

"Either way, congrats Juza," they both said before fading into the shadows again.

As they faded the Mankai boys made their way to them. Juza was in a stupor still as they felt people hug him from behind and by their sides. If they had to take a guess it was probably Kumon, Muku, Taichi, Sakuya, and Citron. They felt two strong arms pull them up. No doubt Tasuku and Omi with how easy they did it. They then came eye to eye with Sakyo his arm crossed with a smug but proud smile on his face. Banri was slightly behind him to his right giving a big smile not even pretending that he wasn't happy for his rival. Behind them stood Tenma, Azami, Yuki, Tsugumi, Itaru, Guy, and Azuma the more reserved member that wouldn't want to be part of the dogpile of the more excitable members. The others probably stood just behind them making sure those excitable members let Juza get their footing again.

"Hyodo, I want you to tell us and everyone who you are. Don't mince words we all want to hear it," said Sakyo.

Juza gulped, they knew the words but did they truly …. no, they promised Sakyo before the finals. They had to do this, no matter what the voice in their head said. They had literal undeniable proof. "I ….. a true thespian …. I'M A TRUE THESPIAN! I deserve to stand on this stage and say that I'm a talent to the craft!!!!"

There were smiles all around and they felt tears rolling down their face. They realized they had a huge smile on their face as well. They couldn't remember the last time that they smiled this hard. Not even after their first performance with Mankai. They had always controlled their emotion to the best of their ability. They knew they didn't have to with the others but some habits were harder to break than others. But today their true emotions wouldn't be hidden as they were brought into a group hug.

To say the others were a bit shocked to see for a second time today to see one of their most reserved and tough members crying at first would be an understatement but that smile. It was worth it, they knew that Juza wasn't one to show much emotion. But that pure unbridled smile. It was something they would protect and do their best to coax out again. As much as Juza was self-conscious of their look their smile was truly beautiful.

[omamervt]

The thing that sucks about livestreaming, especially on Twitch, is that they have you chasing metrics that don't really represent how well you're doing during your stream in order to get monetized.

In order to get monetized on Twitch, which also is how you gain access to some of the basic user experience tools like channel points, polls, ability to accept bits/subs, custom emotes, and, oh yeah, LIVE ENCODING, which allows your audience to set the video resolution to match what their home internet can handle, you need to achieve 3 goals. And seriously, they're all pretty meaningless metrics for success.

First and foremost, they want you to reach 50 followers. At the time I reached 50 followers, I was still only getting like 1.5 average views/stream. It was really just a hurdle to clear as I worked toward Twitch's arbitrary standard for success. Just because someone follows you doesn't mean you'll ever see them in your stream again. It's not like a follow on YouTube, where they can watch at their leisure, or a (good) social media site, where they'll see posts from the people they're following in sequential order. If they miss you live, that's it, they missed it. Even if they watch you stream a couple hours later, Twitch doesn't reward you for that.

Second, they want you to stream for a certain number of hours over 30 days, and for a certain number of days. It's a fairly low number for basic affiliate status, just 8 hours/month, to be spread out over a minimum of 7 days. But one of the fastest-growing Vtubers I'm following is a cooking streamer who only goes live for about 2 hours/day, maybe 4 days/week. Granted, that's 32 hours/month, and more than enough to reach Partner status, plus this guy is collaborating with people from Vshojo to Hololive nearly every month, but still, when people talk about streaming being a full-time job there's an expectation that putting more time in is better, but from making published content like my podcast, I can tell you that having structure and quality typically wins out over quantity. Someone could go live once a month and still be super popular because of their YouTube videos, for instance.

And finally, the most difficult goal to achieve, the average of 3 viewers per stream. This is... again, a pointless model that says very little about how well you're doing as a small streamer, because it requires you to ignore that Twitch places basically no value on a Live View, which is the thing that's actually most comparable to a view on YouTube or another publishing platform. A live view is basically the view that gets counted when someone watches your stream for a set period of time. On YouTube, this is the number you're supposed to care about. It holds the most value. On Twitch, however, a view is only valuable if the person sticks around for the whole stream, which is rarely realistic. I could stream for 5 hours and have 10 people stop by for half an hour each, then leave as the next person joins, and Twitch would still say my average view count was 1 viewer. Do you understand why that's not useful when 10 people stuck around for 30 minutes, watching you do your live show? YouTube would call that an engaged audience. Most podcast analytics standards I've seen would have said those people listened to the episode.

All that to say idk, maybe it's not as bad as you think and if you fail to see any noticeable progress toward reaching partner after getting affiliate, it could just be you're learning the wrong lessons from the reward incentives.